Five - The Weary

Down among the dead men. That's where he lived now, among those on the edge of life, bounty hunters, smugglers and mercenaries whose next job could be their last and whose clients were every bit as dangerous as they themselves were. They lived for today, knowing they were already dead; it was just a matter of time. He dwelt among them, one of their number, not quite living because all that he had lived for had been purged from the galaxy and in its wake was a howling vacuum of despair and darkness. He did not even have it in himself to hate or fear, none of them did; it was too much to carry upon everything else, too much to endure and that is all they did, really; endure this life.

He was drinking, nothing new there, when the whispers came. But they did not stir him, why would they? As all they ever heard were whispers. But these whispers did not go away, these whispers of rebellion and victory grew louder until they all turned their eyes in its direction. From out of the darkness of the Empire came hope. People were fighting and their success was spreading. There were Jedi once again in the galaxy, leading the powerless and protecting the weak as though figments of a forgotten past.

He remembered those times, remembered when he, too, carried a lightsaber as a sign of his status and devotion to peace. But he did not leave his dark sanctuary, he remain among the dead, sitting with them as the worlds beyond them began to live again. He did not leave, so instead they came for him.

Once more he was sat in a cantina, drinking and gambling, waiting for the day to end as much as anything else. But there was a disturbance in the Force, powerful, powerful enough that even the most Force blind patrons turned to the door when a figure strode through it, decked in Jedi regalia, a vision of the past made into life. He strode into the darkest hole of the galaxy with no fear and the Darkness did not touch him. In fact it seemed to cower away from him. The man came on and without a word sat at his table.

Neither man spoke, each studying the other quietly but intently. He wanted to know why he had come, why he was here in the place where the living did not come, but he did not ask, already knowing the answer.

'It is time to rise up, Quinlan Vos,' the other man finally said.

'I know what it is you have done,' Jedi Master Vos answered. 'But I cannot help you. There will be no rebel faction here.'

'You are wrong, Master Vos. Look around you. You sit among your soldiers even now, men and women who have already died in their hearts, who would fight for you if you asked it of them. These dead men long to live again; as you do, my old friend.'

The old Jedi master did look about him then and saw what his companion had known from the moment he had arrived. They all looked to his table, with hope restored to their eyes; if they were to die, as they knew they would, better to die with meaning. He wondered what they saw when they looked at his companion. Wondered what about this man had stirred them to life when nothing else had.

'We need you,' the other man continued. 'Those fallen to the twilight have a place in the galaxy, but it is not here, scrabbling around in the dirt. It is up there in the stars. There is no black and white in the galaxy, only grey. Leave your hovel, Quinlan Vos, and lead the shadowed ones into life.'

He stood, bowed his head to the Jedi master and left, leaving utter destruction of the lives he had just touched in his wake. But it was a cleansing destruction. Vos watched him leave, knowing he would do as he had been asked and knowing he would have an army at his back in the form of those the Empire and the old Republic has forgot. Desperate souls who would fight all the more doggedly for the cause because of the purpose it gave them.

He looked after the man and remembered his youth, wondering when the boy, not much younger than him, had become the only Light left to those in the galaxy. He wondered again what others saw when they looked upon the Jedi that had left them this impossible task. He wondered because all he could see was an incandescent light armed with a lightsaber. The man who he had known was gone and in his place was a Jedi of the old ways and a name only known by those who remembered a bright haired boy with sunshine in his smile and laughter always dancing in his eyes. Quinlan Vos remembered that name. He held in to him, precious for simply knowing it, wondering if the name, Obi-Wan Kenobi, would ever be spoken again in more than a whispered prayer.