Dear Qui-Gon,
Thank you for your counsel this morning. I admit that I only heard your voice very faintly, but I have been working on the exercises you suggested and hope that in time I will be able to converse with you properly. Dare I hope that I will be able to see you in corporeal form, as I did on Mortis? But that planet was teeming with the Force, it was no effort to perceive you. I have been cautious, using my powers only as necessary so not to project – I dare not try and reach out to Master Yoda in case Vader somehow senses me. Perhaps Yoda is being equally cautious, for I have not yet heard from him on Dagobah.
I imagine he –
Qui-Gon, some hours have elapsed since writing the above words. I had an unexpected visitor: Owen Lars. He appeared at my front door with a sour look on his face, and yet despite his countenance I welcomed him inside. He declined, but cast a cursory look around my small hut and did not seem impressed. He should have seen my quarters at the Jedi Temple - compared to that my new home is spacious! But I chose not to make this comment, and instead asked what I had done to deserve the pleasure of his company.
"Beru says your vaporator's busted," Owen said, and even with all of my Jedi insight that was the last thing I expected.
I wondered whether Beru forced him to come and assist me, or if hearing her speak of it he had simply taken it upon himself. Owen strikes me as the kind of man who would not let another suffer if it was within his power to assist – however he may feel about the person in question. In any event I was grateful, since the mechanics in Anchorhead had refused to journey across the Dune Sea to inspect the life-giving machinery.
Owen spoke little, but diligently worked on the vaporator located outside of my hut. I nonetheless tried to engage him in conversation – asking technical questions about moisture farming, requesting advice about the area and enquiring after Beru and Luke.
"I must thank you – again – for taking the boy in," I told him, after several attempts at conversations were answered monosyllabically. "After all, he is not your blood kin."
"No. But he's still family," Owen said gruffly into the vaporator. I didn't have a response for this, and it was a while before Owen spoke again.
"Do you have a family, Kenobi?" he asked eventually. "People out there missing you – wondering where you are?" From Beru, such questions may have been rippled with concern, but from Owen they were nothing but accusations.
My family are all gone, I wanted to tell him. He thinks me so detached, so unfeeling. I wanted to tell him about those I've loved that I've lost – you, Qui-Gon - Siri and Satine and Ventress, Ahsoka and Mace and Rex. Luminara, Aayla, Kit, Shaak Ti. Padmé. I could fill these pages with their names and there would still not be enough room. I wanted to tell him that the Jedi were my brothers and sisters, and that rather than searching for those who have survived this terrible purge so I can can be with them, I remain here to watch over the son of the man who was closer than my brother, and more than my friend. The very man who is at this moment committing this genocide against his own people – who is probably hunting me, intent on my death more than any other.
I wanted to tell Owen that every time another one of my comrades dies I can feel it, in my heart and my mind and my soul. It is a death by a thousand cuts, but even worse than that pain is the fear that one day I will no longer be able to feel my brothers and sisters join the Force. On that day I will truly be alone.
But I told Owen none of this, because it cannot possibly assist either of us.
"Anakin was my family," I told him instead. "And therefore so is the boy."
Owen gave me a look of utter contempt, and I realised that I had erred in my choice of words.
"His name is Luke," Owen told me as he turned back to the vaporator, twisting his hydrospanner into the machinery forcefully.
"I know that." I admit, my patience in that moment wore thin – who was this farmer to condescend to me like that? Anakin had been more my brother than his.
But I know you always used to say, Qui-Gon, that pride is not a weakness if tempered with humility – that one should acknowledge their own worth, just not in comparison or competition with others. It was these words I thought of, reminding myself of the advantages and experiences I have had, and those I have not. I do not know what it is to be a husband or father, to have the responsibility of keeping a family alive in a tough and inhospitable landscape. I would have raised Anakin's son myself if I thought I was capable of it, and despite our differences I do believe Owen and Beru better qualified.
As such, if I am ever to be allowed to visit Luke, and not relegated to watching over him from afar, I must keep Owen onside. Or at the very least not completely alienate him. I must hold my tongue, and save my complaining for you, Qui-Gon!
When Owen finished his work he deigned to explain to me to problem so that I could fix it myself should it happen again. I thanked him cordially, and held out my hand. Owen hesitated, but took it, and that felt like a victory.
"I only want to protect Luke," I told him, grasping his hand.
"I know," Owen said, and his gruff voice was a trifle softer. "But I don't want to see you at my home, Kenobi." His eyes met mine for the first time, and I saw nothing but steely resolve, felt nothing but determination as he dropped out of our brief handshake. And yet there was no malice in his words – simply a statement of fact.
What could do I do but tell him that I understood? He seemed satisfied by that, and left so he could make it home before darkness fell and the Tuskens started their hunts. He was probably mollified with the encounter, and I was happy to provide him with that satisfaction.
Ah, but you see, Qui-Gon, I am looking at Owen's words from a different point of view than he perhaps intended. He did not say that I was not to visit the homestead – rather, that he did not wish to see me there. So there is nothing to prevent me from visiting Luke if Owen is not at home, correct?
I hope you can see me Qui-Gon – I am smiling.
Obi-Wan
