Tranquility
Scene 7
A pure flame burns about its own wick, self-immolating without beginning or end, standing straight and true, yearning ever upward to limitless heaven. Center within center, heart within heart: gold, white, bluest Ilum ice at the inmost cataclysmic point, where furled potential blossoms perpetually into melting heat, into a light for all the world.
Torch. Lantern. Beacon. Winged flame. The light shines in the darkness, this light kindled from that which came before, and that from another, in lineage unbroken, one to one down through the ages – a choir of silent stars, witnesses to their own legacy, consumed by that same undying luminance.
Radiant, impossibly still, the eager young flame waxes with strength, fueled by the plenitude of nothing, of everything, of that which flows through, penetrates and binds all things together….
It does flicker just a bit, gusting in some infinitesimal breeze, but it swiftly straightens again, the pool of limpid wax about its knees glimmering with reflected fire, the glossy gaudery of eager joy, of gross matter rendered into fit garment for luminous spirit. The wax dribbles and overflows its soft turrets, solidifying, tracing delicate webs of Fate, of destiny – each gnarled like an aged scar, sinuous and opaque, bleeding into cold and hardened regret.
The flame looks on in horror and then gutters, spins in a hot wind, blazes high with defiance, with the scrabbling desperate fury of one escaping nightmare, struggling to surface, to find the way out , to break, break away –
"Obi-Wan."
And just like that, the flame is snuffed. Inward collapses back into the sensory, the real – the less real – and a young padawan is left staring at the ghosting smoke above an expired meditation candle, a long band of silver-grey coiling forlornly in the cool recycled air.
He swallows down the scream that is poised, full-voiced, at the very summit of his throat and unclenches his fists.
Qui-GOn is watching him patiently, just across the twisting column of smoke.
"I'm sorry, Master. I .. I don't like the candle. " It has been days since his last nightmare. Why must such vision persecute him now, when he has something important to learn? Not that his preferences, his likes and dislikes, should weight as anything in the scales of necessity. "It doesn't matter," he hastily amends, wishing his voice would not quaver so audibly. Blast it.
The Jedi master merely clamps two fingers over the smoldering wick, effectively smothering even the rising wisps of fragrant smoke. "DO not center on your anxieties," he advises his youthful charge. A sage nod. "Including your anxiety concerning my opinion of your performance."
Doubly humiliated, Obi-Wan dips his head. "Yes, Master."
The tall man leans back, hands resting upon folded knees. "It is possible for the mind to be still, even while the body is on motin," he observes. "You are a restless spirit, Obi-Wan. Perhaps we should try something different entirely. Come with me – I know just the thing."