When Obi Wan first opens his eyes, it looks for moment as if the polished stone floor beneath him is rippling like water. The high-shine, deep-green malachite is banded with concentric circles, like the surface of a pond in a gentle rain. Blinking away the blear, he slowly becomes aware of his own horizontal orientation. He is lying, it seems, on a sofa, though he can't for the life of him think why. He feels strange all over, if pleasantly so. He waits for this sensory oddness to pass, and when it doesn't, he wonders if he is dreaming. Upon reflection, he suspects he is not. Everything seems real; but it feels so abidingly, viscerally different.

He reaches out with his Force-sense and is instantly swamped by a singular locus of blinding light. His first impulse is to recoil from it as if burned, but he finds he can't. The brilliant presence draws him in like a lodestar, demanding his attention. He heaves himself into a sitting position, and turns to see his former-padawan doing much the same thing on the opposite sofa.

"Anakin?"

"Master, what was-?"

Their eyes meet, and Obi Wan is momentarily transfixed. Anakin is the light. His familiar presence burns through the Force more intensely than ever. He still feels of himself, and yet he is somehow elementally changed.

Obi Wan rubs at his eyes, unable to stop himself from swaying drunkenly. He notices the dodecahedron, still sitting on the table with dull metallic inertness, its golden hum silenced, its power apparently gone. Or no, not gone. Not gone at all. For perhaps it is the very same thing he now feels rushing underneath his own skin, resonating from deep within his body, and from within Anakin's body, and between their bodies...

Anakin is looking at him strangely. He stands unsteadily and walks around the tea-table without breaking his gaze. His clothes are rumpled, his hair even messier than before, but this does nothing to detract from his wild beauty. He appears unreal, dæmon-like, lit from within. His eyes are a hot mineral-blue.

He reaches out with his flesh hand and begins haltingly to pet Obi Wan's hair and face.

"Anakin, what are you... doing?"

"I don't know..." His voice is thick with confusion and fear. "Master, I- I can't stop."

Obi Wan moves to withdraw from the touch, but finds he can't. Finds himself leaning into it instead. The golden light has already seized possession of him, and now it is working its way into the meshes of his body, weaving its filigree strands into his muscles, gilding his bones. He reaches for his serenity, but there is no refuge to be had in the Force anymore, only this unbearable bright warm honey pleasure-

The fine, translucent thread of their psychic link is pulling and raveling. And then somehow it is being dipped in hot gold, and the gold is braiding itself around the fishing-wire thread, and solidifying around it, enclosing it completely within a kind of metaphysical rope, and binding it there. Turning and raveling, until this heavy golden cord is rooted deep in both of their hearts. And there is an urgent tugging, and the cord is rapidly shortening, and suddenly their bodies are being drawn irresistibly together.

With a plaintive sigh, Anakin sinks down until he and his master are flush against each other, chest to chest. And then he is pressing his face into the join of Obi Wan's neck and shoulder, and nuzzling him, and keening helplessly. This is just so sudden, so total. The loss of control is terrifying, but this soul-deep comfort, this sense of completeness, is unlike anything he's ever felt before. As they wrap their arms around each other, he is reminded of embracing Obi Wan earlier in a fit of tears. This is almost exactly the same, and yet almost completely different.

"M-master, what is this?" he mutters. "What's... happening to us?"

"I don't-" Obi Wan struggles, "I don't know, Anakin, I can't-" He rubs his face against Anakin's hair, and he can tell the boy hasn't washed it recently. Stars are pounding behind his eyes. This simple contact feels so good he can't breathe.

There is a sense of drawing the light from each others' bodies, but neither of them is being drained, and both are being filled. The golden light is a parhelion between them, a throbbing rainbow, and both of them are drawing from it. There is a sense of charging like a battery, until their bodies are humming with power, and finally the process seems to complete itself, and the irresistible magnetism gradually ebbs, until at last they find they are free to pull away from each other.

Anakin rights himself and sits down on the sofa beside Obi Wan. The latter has his head back, eyes closed, features scrunched in pain. A long moment passes as they catch their breath. The golden chain still links them. It has loosened, for the moment at least, but it shows no indication of letting go.

"That was... weird. But no harm done, huh?" Anakin's attempt at levity is somewhat undermined by the fact that his voice is shaking with fear. "Are you alright, Master?" he frowns.

"Fine," Obi Wan rasps, without opening his eyes.

"You certainly don't sound fine."

"I shall... return to myself, in a moment." He sits up straight, running both hands through his hair, and finally turns to look at his companion. "Anakin, that was-" he falters. "I don't know what that was. But I don't think it's over."

"No, you're right," Anakin breathes. "Something has happened to us. Everything feels-"

"Yes? How would you characterize it?"

"That's just it. Everything... feels."

He kneels on the floor before the low tea-table and carefully takes the dodecahedron in both of his hands, and turns it over and over, diagnostically. Its weight surprises him; before, it had somehow struck him as buoyant. But now the glowing glyphs on its pentagonal faces have gone dark, and it's just a brassy lump in his lap about the size of a Varykino pear.

"Well, one thing is for sure," he says, with a nervous smile in his voice.

"Oh? And what's that?" Obi Wan sighs.

"It definitely wasn't a holocron."

"I think that hypothesis can be safely eliminated, yes."

It occurs to Anakin that they are both being decidedly, perhaps unreasonably, calm about all this. He hugs himself, counting off a few deliberate breaths. His very nature has apparently been altered in some way which he does not yet understand, by some arcane power the providence of which he does not know. And yet, his master's presence is so warm and soothing that he can't quite bring himself to be properly upset. He considers that the ability to psychologically accept the change may in fact be part of the change, and for some reason this in particular gives him pause...

Obi Wan pulls his comlink out of his pocket to check the time. He is about to suggest that they discuss this further over some breakfast, but he stops short. "That's... strange," he frowns.

"What?"

"It's the middle of the afternoon. We must have slept for over nine standard hours."

"Really? Well that's-" But Anakin freezes, mid-sentence. "Master!" Still kneeling, he twists himself around to look up at Obi Wan in wonder. "Master, I didn't have the dream this time!"

"The dream?"

In an instant, he is on his feet, pacing the room excitedly. "The dream where Padmé- For months, I haven't been able to sleep without seeing-" He stops, turning on his heel. "Do you know what this means?"

Obi Wan stands up from the sofa, concerned. "Anakin, are you-?"

"This means it worked! Whatever we just did, worked. It gave us the power to save her. It's almost as if we've already saved her. We've changed the future."

"Anakin," Obi Wan takes a step forward. "We don't even know what this- power is yet."

"But we'll figure it out! You said it yourself, Master: we are on the right path." Anakin is glowing again, even more radiantly than before, thanks to that strange light which now resides within him. The young man's emotions are pitched crazily upwards, and Obi Wan, to his dismay, finds he is now unable to withdraw from them as he normally would. The golden braid holds him fast, actually forcing his own heart to quicken with Anakin's wild elation.

"We've got to go find her," the boy is raving. "I've got to see her! I've got to tell her that... that everything is going to be alright!"