SUNRISE
by ardavenport
- Part 4 -
Qui-Gon sighed after the door slid closed behind her. Outside the room's large bay windows, a plane of city light glittered below in the darkness. They were blocked in places by the dark shapes of the leafy plants that grew under the windows. The room was warm, but not uncomfortably so. He closed his eyes.
"Master?" Qui-Gon opened his eyes again and looked at his apprentice. Obi-Wan had finished with his foot and was now wrapping it and his lower leg in a wide yellow strip of gauze. "Should we have interfered?" he asked when he had Qui-Gon's attention.
Qui-Gon Jinn smiled, that Obi-Wan's "we" had included himself in some of the guilt of his Master's somewhat rash actions. "How do you feel about it, Obi-Wan?" he asked. "Not what you think we should have done; how do you feel?" he added.
Obi-Wan pressed his lips together, and Qui-Gon knew that Obi-Wan had only been trying to think his way through the Noi'i's problem. He was a very thoughtful pupil, sometimes too much so when he ignored his intuitive reactions to situations.
He laid Qui-Gon's wrapped foot on the sleep couch and pulled the sheet down to cover both feet. Then he moved forward to sit on the side of the sleep couch. He took Qui-Gon's hand and squirted bacta gel on the back of it. The droid's pale, glowing eye sensors followed his movements and the machine directed his technique. Obi-Wan rubbed the gel into the damaged and blistered skin with ends of his gloved fingers with gentle, circular motions.
"I don't think I would have liked what would have happened if you hadn't acted," he finally admitted.
"Aah." Qui-Gon acknowledged wordlessly, momentarily distracted by the cool relief and the touch of the Force he felt through Obi-Wan's hands.
"But," Obi-Wan continued. "Was it our place to act? Should the Noi'i have been left to their own affairs?"
"If they wish to be left alone, then they should not request outside mediators for their negotiations."
"We were supposed to be neutral," Obi-Wan replied.
"We were not observers, Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon reminded. "Our parameters for action were clearly defined by their laws. Those laws allowed for a third party to intervene. We were to be neutral to the individual sides, but we were mandated to promote the common good for all sides. The common good would not have been served by Molty Kohm, or any of his followers, becoming a martyr. They could successfully pressure the Traditions Committee into revoking all the remaining sanctions against the Nightborn without that kind of drama," Qui-Gon finished with a tone of scorn for Kohm's tactics.
Obi-Wan concentrated on this so strongly that he forgot his ministrations to Qui-Gon's burns. Qui-Gon's glance down to the hand that Obi-Wan held in his smaller, younger ones prompted him to continue rubbing the bacta gel into Qui-Gon's wounds. He carefully worked the healing gel into the damaged skin on Qui-Gon's forearm. There was little visible change in the pink, burn spots, but Qui-Gon felt as if they were now bathed in cool water. The injuries would burn and itch a little later, but those would be the mild sensations of healing, not injury.
The medical droid finished putting fluids into him; it retracted its needles and tubes and the plasti-foam wrap on his arm. Obi-Wan finished with Qui-Gon's left limb, wrapping it halfway up his forearm in yellow gauze; he changed places with the droid so he could work on Qui-Gon's other side.
"Master," Obi-Wan finally spoke again, as he rubbed the gel into Qui-Gon's wrist. Cool relief spread outward from his touch. "Don't we become part of their problem if we act? Won't we make their situation worse?"
"Of course we become part of their problem," he answered. "If we make their problem worse, then we fail our mission. But failure is always a risk, Obi-Wan, for any mission. If we take any action, we cannot stand apart from them; we become as connected to their problem as the Force connects us all. And if we take no action, can we accomplish our mission? Would we not fail as well, if their problem becomes worse because we did not act?"
Obi-Wan paused for a moment, his eyes concerned. Then he bent his head over his task; he applied more bacta gel from the tube and applied it to a blister on Qui-Gon's palm. The scent of the healing gel had grew stronger.
"Molty Kohm is very unhappy about your actions," he stated without looking up. "He accused you of exploiting a technically, so the Jedi could undermine him and gain control of the negotiations."
Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows. "Do you agree with his assessment of my motives?"
"No!" Obi-Wan looked up quickly. "But...there is quite a lot of local holonet chatter about it. You seem to be the only thing the provincial factions want to talk about. Senator Kohm seemed...impatient about that."
"I am sure that will be able to regain their attention to his advantage," Qui-Gon predicted. Obi-Wan returned a small smile at this statement. They had already discussed Kohm's substantial ego after the first day of the negotiations. "Kohm's goals are honorable; I would say his actions have even been courageous, but he does not act selflessly, either. You must separate the personalities of the leaders from the issues, Obi-Wan, especially if they are incapable of doing so themselves."
"Yes, Master." To Qui-Gon, the Force felt as thick with Obi-Wan's thoughts as the air was with humidity, but he also sensed a dawning understanding and initiative as well.
Satisfied that he had given his Padawan enough to think about, Qui-Gon settled back down onto the pillows. Obi-Wan finished with his hand and wrapped it as well. The droid that had been silently waiting for Obi-Wan to finish; it scanned Qui-Gon's face and directed where Obi-Wan should apply more bacta.
Qui-Gon closed his eyes when Obi-Wan applied an index finger-ful of gel to the bridge of his nose and began working downward. Qui-Gon sank into the simplicity of the moment, with his Padawan tending his minor injuries. The roomful of touchy delegates, roiling between tradition and change, had moved on past them. He felt a peaceful connection to the Force, through the room around him and through Obi-Wan.
There were only minor sunburns on Qui-Gon's face and neck and Obi-Wan quickly finished. The droid announced that it had delivered all the medical care necessary. Obi-Wan removed the long gloves and tossed them into a wall disposal. He accepted a data chip from the droid before it excused itself. Qui-Gon sighed. The moment had passed.
"Would you like some more water?" Obi-Wan asked. Qui-Gon nodded. Obi-Wan retrieved a new sponge from a container on a small table next to the sleep couch. Obi-Wan waited for Qui-Gon to open his mouth before giving it to him, and he waited for Qui-Gon to release it before taking it away.
"You wish to return to the negotiations," Qui-Gon stated, his eyes closed; he sensed Obi-Wan's rising eagerness.
"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan answered respectfully.
"Then you should go." Qui-Gon looked up into his apprentice's earnest gray-blue eyes. He remembered glimpsing Obi-Wan's calm amidst the arguing delegates in the main gallery of the arena.
"I think I can...counter some of Kohm's arguments against your actions. I know I can," he finished with more confidence.
Qui-Gon smiled. He laid one, gauze-wrapped hand over Obi-Wan's.
"Padawan, you do not need to defend me. I do what I must. But I see you have questions, and I see that to answer them, you must act. In your own way. You should go." Obi-Wan looked baffled.
"If...you're not concerned then?"
"Obi-Wan I would be far more concerned if it were I who was going, rather than you." Obi-Wan returned his smile. That part he understood. And the rest, Qui-Gon thought, would come with experience.
Obi-Wan stood and bowed; at Qui-Gon's request, he readjusted the sleep couch and extinguished all the lights, before taking his robe from a hook on the wall and leaving.
Alone, in the dark, Qui-Gon's eyes adjusted to it. He breathed in.
Inhale.
Exhale.
A whisper of breeze touched his skin. He smiled to himself, at the city below, the lights casting their glow upward into the black sky. He lay back on the soft pillows, enjoying and admiring the night.
[][][][][][][]
Qui-Gon opened his eyes. It was early morning, the sky outside was the deep blue of returning night. Some of the light had gone out from the city, but there was still plenty of glow from it. His saw the outline of Obi-Wan's form on his own sleep couch, under the large, middle bay window.
He sat up, flexing his shoulders and stretching in place. His bruised shoulder was stiff and sore, but it didn't limit his motion. He pushed the sheet back and pulled his legs up to sit comfortably cross-legged on the sleep couch. The Noi'i early morning flowed through him. The humid air was now pleasantly warm, relaxing and faintly scented by the plants and gardens outside. The city below was much quieter than Coruscant; the Noi'i used sound bafflers everywhere.
Feeling rested and refreshed, Qui-Gon tested the gauze covering his hands and feet. The pain was gone, though the wounds were only partially healed. He unwrapped the gauze. If he was careful, he would not do himself any harm. He put the bandages aside and rose carefully, wrapping the sheet around his waist. The droid had replenished his bodily fluids and now some of it had to come out again. He quietly left the room and went down the hall to the fresher to take care of it.
When he returned, he turned on the glow light next to his sleep couch to its lowest setting and went to the window.
Obi-Wan lay on top of the sheet on his sleep couch. He was fully clothed, including his robe and boots, and he was also quite soundly asleep, head thrown back, his mouth open. He lay sprawled on the sleep couch, his thin, Padawan's braid laying out across the white pillows. Qui-Gon supposed that the talks had gone very late indeed. He did not want to wake him, but the Noi'i were early risers no matter how late they retired and he did need to ask how the talks had gone.
He leaned forward and nudged Obi-Wan's cheek with his fingers.
"Obi-Wan."
His apprentice's eyes blinked open before focusing upwards at him.
"Master!" he gasped, jumping into a sitting position. Amused Qui-Gon sat down next to him.
"I see the talks must have gone late."
"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan acknowledged, nodding and settling himself before continuing.
"We have been recalled by the Jedi Council, Master," he began, his tone solemn and serious. "They said that we could wait until you were recovered, but that we should leave immediately and you should report to the Temple from orbit," Obi-Wan said quickly before he lowered his eyes and bowed his head.
"Ah." Qui-Gon now understood why Obi-Wan was sleeping with his clothes on. He nodded. The extremely specific nature of the Council's instruction made it absolutely clear that they expected him to return immediately, without any more drama. "We will leave then."
Obi-Wan lowered his head, guiltily. "I'm sorry, I tried–"
Qui-Gon held his hand up for silence.
"I am quite certain that this has far more to do with my actions than yours, Padawan." Qui-Gon appreciated Obi-Wan's earnestness, but he would not tolerate any attempt to assume blame.
"The Jedi Council offered to send replacements for us, Master Billaba and Master Udas. Molty Kohm told them he would consider it," Obi-Wan finished.
"Did the Traditions Committee make any decisions about recalling the Nightborn sanctions?" Qui-Gon asked.
"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan reported. "They voted for recall, by one vote. There was a victory party. All over the city," he stated, his voice sad, as if it had been a defeat. "And then Molty Kohm personally commed to Coruscant and demanded that you be removed. He apparently interrupted a Council meeting."
Qui-Gon nodded. Molty Kohm did not want to share his victory stage with anyone. He laid a consoling hand on Obi-Wan's shoulder before rising.
He activated a second glow light before turning to look down at his Padawan. Puzzled, Obi-Wan stared back up at him.
"My clothes?" he prompted, still only wearing the sheet from his sleep couch. Everything had been taken away from him when his petition to assume Molty Kohm's death sentence had been accepted.
"Oh!" Obi-Wan jumped up. He went to a recessed cabinet on the wall and touched the control next to it. The door slid open to reveal a neat pile of clothes, his belt and boots next to them and his lightsaber on top.
"Thank you."
Qui-Gon quickly dressed while Obi-Wan visited the fresher and then put the few other things that they had brought into their travel packs. Seated on the sleep couch while his Padawan gathered their things, Qui-Gon took some extra time to carefully put his boots on his partially healed feet. He stood and clipped his lightsaber on his belt last and then put on his robe.
Qui-Gon's stomach grumbled. He was hungry after the previous days' deprivations, but he would wait until they reached the ship. The supplies there were adequate.
They both silently put on the hoods of their robes. Obi-Wan took both packs and they left together. Outside the sky had noticeably brightened to a dark blue.
They walked down the hallway outside their room to the lifts to descend to the ground floor. When they reached the entrance of the building the secretary at the door informed them that Molty Kohm had arranged for a transport to the spaceport for them.
They left, the large, ornate double doors sliding open for them. Outside, a wall of morning humidity met them. They walked down a long pathway, under spaced glow-lights and past the lush gardens on either side. Their transport waited for them at the end of pathway.
Obi-Wan tensed at the same time as Qui-Gon. They both sensed the presence behind the tall decorative plants that they passed on the walkway toward the transport.
Qui-Gon's lightsaber hissed on, bright green in the morning gloom. It cut through the weapon that hurled through the air where Qui-Gon's head had been a second before.
Obi-Wan dropped the packs, his blue lightsaber blade on and ready.
Swinging his lightsaber in wide circles, Qui-Gon leapt forward and in one bound, faced the person who had attacked him. She did not retreat or even flinch from the green bar of energy before her.
Surprised, Qui-Gon stared down at the Executioner.
She looked up at him from under the brim of a white, cloth hat, the green light from the lightsaber unnaturally coloring her dark gray skin. She wore a large, tent-like, flowered dress with a sun pattern along the hem and collar. Her broad, stocky figure, unconfined by her garb of office, bulged in some places and sagged in others under the loose dress; it's hem hung unevenly between her knees and her shins. On her feet, she wore wide, comfortable sandals, her bare toes exposed.
Obi-Wan jogged up to them, blue lightsaber in one hand, charred metal pieces in the other. Qui-Gon's eyes flicked toward them; he saw a knife blade and a handle very much like the ones that he had removed from the Executioner the day before.
"Will you condemn me then, to die at night? Have my soul wander the darkness, severed from the sun?" he asked her, quoting Noi'i traditions.
She smiled enigmatically, and moved a tiny bit forward, closer to the deadly energy blade. "Would you condemn me?" Qui-Gon sensed none of the anger from the day before; it had been replaced by her fanaticism again. His finger touched the activation switch on the hilt of his saber and the blade vanished with a whisking snap. Obi-Wan's vanished as well.
"Not today, I think."
Her eyes followed the lightsaber as Qui-Gon placed it back on his belt.
"Kohm has his way with the Traditions Committee. They have declared a new sunrise," she said, her eyes, shadowed under her hat brim. her pale, blue eyes looked up at him again. Her voice sounded resigned and disappointed, like a grandmother bemoaning the fate of a wayward grandchild. "Our lives will change even more."
'Change is the way of all life,' Qui-Gon thought to himself, mentally quoting a Jedi tradition. He didn't speak it. The Executioner only recognized death as a way of change. And Molty Kohm, with his thwarted fixation on martyrdom, did as well, in his own way.
"You can embrace the change, welcome it." Surprised, Qui-Gon looked at Obi-Wan as he spoke, his young voice encouraging to the older woman. "This could be your day as well, if you join it."
"He speaks like our young ones," she said to Qui-Gon. "The ones who forget the glory of the Daybirth. They forget their traditions and lose their way." Despite her calm, a touch of bitterness crept into her voice. Qui-Gon looked down at her pale, sad eyes.
"Only the Nightborn are used as Executioners," he noted, his voice gentle. "It has traditionally been one of the few occupations of any status available to them."
"I worked for my place in the sun. I earned it. I earned my strength." She held up a hand, bandaged in yellow gauze from picking up a hot, sharp piece of metal to free herself from Qui-Gon the day before. "Now, the young will be handed pleasures and privileges with no responsibility, unchallenged?" she asked; the bitterness in her tone increased. She clearly had not celebrated the recall of the Nightborn sanctions the night before. "The Traditions Committee might as well have burned all the laws. That is what will follow."
"But they didn't burn the laws," Obi-Wan interjected. He took a step closer. The Executioner turned her head to glare at him. "The simply created a new tradition," he finished.
"You are too young to understand tradition," she replied with scorn.
"I am old enough to have seen, that in time, even change eventually becomes tradition. And even the most ancient traditions were once new," Obi-Wan countered, his young voice the only sound in the morning twilight. She visibly cringed back from his suggestion, but she didn't turn away. Qui-Gon looked from her to his apprentice, who had spoken up so well for himself after being rebuked.
An awkward silence developed and Qui-Gon ended it by stepping back.
Qui-Gon, with Obi-Wan following his lead, folded his arms before him and bowed deeply to her.
Obi-Wan picked up their travel packs and they parted. Qui-Gon felt the Executioner's eyes following them all the way down the walkway to the transport.
There was a driver and two guards who did not get in the transport with them. Qui-Gon assumed that they would report back to Kohm that the unwanted Jedi had left.
If there had been a party the night before, Qui-Gon felt that he had completely missed it as he gazed out at the city. The streets and skylanes were quiet. There may have been more street cleaner droids than usual below, but otherwise there was no sign of revelry. The traffic did increase with what appeared to be the usual morning activity with the approaching dawn. The sky was clear and empty overhead.
They arrived at the spaceport; the transport alighted next to their landing area. Like the government complex, the spaceport was located on higher ground, overlooking the plain of the city. More people than were necessary awaited them, to see them off. Their small ship had been fueled and sat ready on the flat duracrete field. They walked toward it together, but Qui-Gon stopped and turned to look toward the horizon. Obi-Wan went a few paces before noticing. He turned back and came up beside Qui-Gon.
"Qui-Gon?" he asked, curious.
Qui-Gon Jinn glanced down at his Padawan and smiled. Obi-Wan looked younger, his eyes wide, his face unlined, his brown hair dark in the gray, early light, but Qui-Gon had glimpsed a bit of the ascending maturity that was there. The Jedi Master nodded toward the horizon; the haze of the city only slightly obscured the dawn.
"It's sunrise." Over the city buildings, they saw a bright sliver of fiery orange.
In the distance, a deep reverberating gong sounded.
– END –
(This story was first posted on tf.n: 23-Jul-2006)
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.