Dyslexia: Look it up.
Summary: Tarre Vizsla had a son and an apprentice. When Tarre dies, his son, his Padawan, falls into a coma and the Jedi put him into stasis. A thousand years later, a boy wakes up with no memory of who he was. A boy who happens to share his name with the Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Lost Son of Mandalore.
WARNING: Major AU, timeline? What timeline? Meaning specifically, events are out of order and don't match canon or legends.
AN: Yeah, another story! Life is chaotic and so is my head, enjoy the products of my suffering :D
P.S. Thank you, Muffin!
Prologue
Tarre named his son, Obi-Wan Kenobi, No One From Nowhere, not to be cruel, but to give him a choice. He hadn't wanted his son to be forced to inherit his legacy.
His son whom he had sired toward the end of his life with a woman who hadn't survived giving birth.
His beautiful son who was as Force sensitive, or more so, than Tarre himself.
And with his empire fraying at the seams and the likelihood that he would be orphaned before he reached his thirteenth birthday.
It seemed a sign, it seemed fated. So he brought the babe home, to where Tarre had been raised and nurtured. Not on the soil of Mandalore but in the halls of the Jetii Temple on Coruscant.
Still, Tarre had longed for so long to have a child of his own blood…
He had raised so many ade, so many foundlings, but this was his son. He had stayed away from the Temple those first few years but he found himself returning, again and again, with any time he could spare from the frontlines.
His old Jedi Master finally insisted Tarre return to the Order, in some capacity when Obi-Wan turned eight and was top of his class in nearly every class he took. His Master wanted Obi-Wan to be another Mandalorian Jetii, since the first one, in his Master's words, "Had worked out well."
His Master was not one for abundant praise, but Tarre abided his request.
And Obi-Wan flourished as a Padawan. Small and adorable, earning with every bead another piece of training armour.
Those two years with his little Obi-Wan at his side were the best of his life.
Regrettably, they were his last.
Not because Tarre regretted his life or even his death.
But he did regret leaving his son behind, as well as the effect his death had on him.
But the Force was with them.
In the centuries that passed, as his people fell back into his ruin, and his son remained safe yet unchanged in a medical stasis, the shadow that remained of Tarre worried endlessly in the confines of the Dark Saber's kyber.
When his son woke, he knew that the legacy he had feared would befall his son.
Chapter 1 - Apprehension
Obi-Wan Kenobi was introduced to his agemates as a Padawan whose Master had been killed in the line of duty.
The Masters kindly asked that no one bring up the tragedy to Obi-Wan, which was a polite way of allowing him to hide the fact that he had not only lost his Master but his memories as well.
Sure, he had flashes, but those flashes were more disorienting than grounding. This had remained true for the last two years.
It made fitting in… difficult, to say the least.
Obi-Wan's oddities were numerous. From the way he spoke, which he was told was stuffy and formal, to the way he took things too seriously and never relaxed.
But the latter, Obi-Wan felt, wasn't his fault, when the Masters all watched him with ill-concealed apprehension, if not fear.
He was too aggressive.
He had no control over his Force gifts.
He was too emotional.
Too passionate.
Too quick to assume the worst in any scenario.
Or so they said.
Obi-Wan thought his behaviour was completely reasonable considering his Master had died in a war where he had been unable to help him.
Sure, he had been ten years old at the time, extremely young for a humanoid Padawan, but still, he felt his paranoia was justified when no one dared explain the details of his Master's death.
Not where they had been or what war it had been.
Obi-Wan was a Padawan for goodness' sake, he wasn't some initiate who needed to be shielded from the darkness of the galaxy. He wasn't waiting for the Council to decide whether he would be a Corpsmen or remain on the track of becoming a Jedi Knight.
No, that choice had been made.
Obi-Wan would be a knight and eventually, the other Masters would see that.
In the meantime, Obi-Wan poured himself into his studies, if he didn't have any friends then so be it, that just gave him more time to study.
In a year, he was top of his age group, in two years, there wasn't a Junior Padawan, much less an initiate who could best him in the core classes, including saber practice.
Again, not something that seemed to please the Masters, no, it seemed to only further agitate them.
It was frustrating.
Obi-Wan decided on Soresu for his main form, as it was defensive and the most useful against blaster bolts.
He worked at it until his hands were raw from the metal of the hilt, until his feet bled from the repetitive motions. Until, it all calloused over and his hands were rough enough to bring a scowl to Healer Che's face.
It bought him nothing with even the Battle Masters who remained as quietly apprehensive since the moment he woke in the healing halls.
"Don't you ever take a break?"
Obi-Wan paused, his saber halting in mid-motion as he glanced over his shoulder.
"Senior Padawan Billaba, to what do I owe the honour?"
She huffed, walking into the training room as if he had invited her.
He hadn't.
"Depa," she corrected. "And honestly, Obi-Wan, Padawan is a fine enough rank, Senior and Junior Padawans are for the Council to distinguish the types of missions they assign Master-Padawan pairs."
"You would know," he remarked.
She quirked her brow at him. "Someone's cranky today."
He glared at her, "Haven't you heard? You are the Padawan of Master Windu, doubtless, he's regaled you with tales of my numerous aggressions."
"He's worried about you," she said, ignoring his tone. "And the Masters don't think you're aggressive, or at least, not in the way you mean."
"Then what do they think?" he demanded, so sick of everyone walking on porg shells around him.
Depa sighed, "Put down the lightsaber, let's go for a walk."
He tried to subdue the flush creeping up his cheeks, having completely forgotten about his saber. He disengaged it and replaced it on his belt, following the older and much taller girl out of the training halls. At first, he didn't know where they were going.
Often, he thought he remembered the Temple, but every time he thought he knew where he was, he would inevitably end up lost.
Depa led him toward one of the inner gardens, this one was spacious but filled with more trees than flowers, a hall of forests lit by the skylights so the space felt cavernous. Beams of sunlight cut through shadows to illuminate the trees reaching for the light.
There was probably a metaphor in that.
There weren't many people here, few enough that it would give at least the illusion of privacy.
"They aren't worried about you, Obi-Wan, they are worried for you."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Because, Obi-Wan, you lost your Master, an event so traumatic you not only have amnesia but you nearly died."
"I'm fine," he gritted out.
"You were in a coma for years, and no one expected you to wake. I don't count that as fine."
Obi-Wan spun and asked, far too loudly, "What!?"
Years!? He thought, mind spinning.
She shushed him, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the tree line.
"Master Windu put you up to this," he accused.
He had been working hard on learning Basic turn of phrases.
Depa shook her head, her braids following the motion, "No, quite the opposite, I snooped."
"You what?" Obi-wan asked in an appalled hiss.
"Don't act so outraged, like you said, Mace is my Master."
"But they were my files."
"I didn't read your files, not exactly. Haven't you wondered why none of the Masters speaks your Master's name?"
Of course, he had, but his answer was politic, "Out of respect."
"No, not respect," she argued. "Because enough years have passed that they aren't sure. Haven't you wondered why no one at the Temple recognizes you?"
"Because my Master was a Shadow who, like the Temple Guards, sometimes conceal their names. Because of his position, we were rarely on Coruscant."
"Didn't you hear me?" she asked in turn. "I said you were in a status coma for years."
"I was hoping I misheard you, actually," he replied dryly.
"Years," she repeated.
"How many years?" he asked, a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"I don't know, but long enough that I don't know whose death in the archives coincides with your Master. And for the record, you're not in the archives at all. Everything about you is a mystery."
Obi-Wan exhaled, letting his frustration go to the Force. "It's been two years, no one thought to tell me this before?"
"I think the Masters are waiting for you to remember naturally."
"Then why are you telling me?"
"Because you have a right to know and the Masters aren't being as subtle as they think they are."
Obi-Wan leaned against the tree, "That is true."
She gave him a half smile, "You are not alone. A Master is going to choose you by the time you turn thirteen to restart your training. And their worry… well, Shadows are notorious for irritating the Council."
Obi-Wan gave himself a moment to process that. If no one remembered his Master, if he had been in stasis for many years, maybe even decades, that meant no one knew him either. The thought hurt, but it made his peers' behaviour toward him more understandable.
He was a stranger to them as much as they were to him.
Finally, he asked, "Do they really not know who my Master was? Did so many years pass that no one remembers him?"
She placed a hand on his shoulder, and he felt her concern and compassion in the Force.
She might not know him, but she honestly seemed to care about his well-being.
"I'm certain someone does, if nobody else, Master Yoda does. He's eight hundred years old after all."
He nodded. Even with this new and disturbing information, he was glad not to be walking down to late-meal alone.
Depa was alright, and Obi-Wan just had to trust the Masters knew what they were doing.
oOo
Master Mace Windu was aware that there were unsolvable mysteries in the galaxy. That didn't make it any easier, knowing next to nothing about one of the Padawans under their temple's care.
"Too young I was," Master Yoda said. "Before my time Master Vizsla was."
Padawan Kenobi was an above average Junior Padawan who had tragically lost his Master after only two years of his apprenticeship. A Padawan, who was a small twelve year old of near human origin, who just happened to be a thousand years old.
In other words, he thought sardonically. a normal problem, one easily solved, with no further complications than finding the boy a new Master.
But of course, nothing was normal about Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He was a walking spark that could ignite a war. Wars, in fact, between the turbulent relations of the clans on Mandalore and the tensions between the order and the Mandalorians, things could go very wrong, very fast
Because, of course, he wasn't just a Padawan, he was a legend. In fact, a legend in Yoda's time, though a millennia had forgotten the boy and remembered his Master, the Temple's famed Mand'alor Jedi.
The Mandalorians remembered both fiercely, a tale of tragedy turned into something far darker. It shouldn't matter, it was a thousand years ago, it shouldn't matter what legends had been spun from the demise of a single Master and their Padawan who didn't survive his Master's passing into the Force.
Except it was an event that changed both societies and their relationship with each other.
Obi-Wan was his Master's son, and the bond between father and son had been beskar. Force bonds made everything more intense, and their bond had been used as one of the primary examples in the Ruusan Reformation in favour of separating Jedi from their potential children to dissolving any marriage vows between Jedi, because it was dangerous.
Sure, it could lead someone to the dark side, but as Mace was learning, strong Force bonds could double the Order's losses, for every Knight or Master they had lost in the Old Republic, the Order had lost another. They had even lost some of their younglings. The Force was a beautiful thing, but the fact was that for those who were connected to the Force as strongly as the Jedi were, it meant that they perhaps belonged more to the Force than they did to their material forms.
There were legends of Jedi who found true enlightenment, had let go of their bodily life and passed on into the Forces. As Mace was learning from his recent research, the Ruusan Reformation had been as much about demilitarization as it had been a move to protect their children, to shield them from the consequence of being innately tied to the Force.
The Mandalorians had taken it in the opposite direction. Yes, they remembered Tarre Vizsla, but their major takeaway was that the Jedi were child stealers and would sooner allow Obi-Wan Kenobi—the Lost Son of Mandalore—to die than allow him to stay with his people.
A premise that completely disregarded the fact that Master Vizsla had been murdered by one of his own brothers and that another Mandalorian had taken Obi-Wan back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant for his own safety. The Order, at the time, had better medical supplies.
Oh, and the small detail that there were those among the Mandalorians that would have much to gain by killing the fallen Mand'alor's heir.
In the same vein, the Mandalorians of today, as fractured as they were between their clans and nobility, teetering on the edge of ruin would certainly use Obi-Wan in the same ways if they learned of his existence.
"We could change his name," Yeddle suggested.
"Why are we assuming they will know who he is?" Poli Dapatian asked. "We only know because of the data stored on his stasis pod. It has been a thousand years. There aren't many beings in the galaxy that could remember him, much less knew him or of him. He is a child."
Dooku sighed, "Because, Master Dapatian, the Force is fated around that boy. He is extraordinary and was raised in an Order drastically different from our own. If he was just a Jedi Padawan, I can see only the benefits he would bring to our culture, but he is not just anything. He's a Mandalorian Jedi who was raised by a militaristic Jedi Order that was in constant conflict with the Sith. From our records, Master Vizsla didn't take his son as a Padawan until he was eight—which was considered by many at the time to be too young—but he was in contact with his son since he moved out of the nursery.
"He was raised to be both a Mandalorian and a Jedi during some of the greatest wars this galaxy has ever seen. Obi-Wan Kenobi was forged in fires few will ever endure. The Force itself is telling anyone willing to listen that he will be an element of great change in the years to come." Dooku finished by saying, "Changing his name will not hinder that destiny."
Mace agreed, but he looked toward Sifo-Dyas who had been profoundly quiet these last few weeks.
Sifo-Dyas met his gaze, "Dooku is correct, and if we try to hold him back, it is more likely that Mandalorian clans will declare war on us."
"Is that truly what you see?" Ki-Adi Mundi asked.
Sifo-Dyas glared at him, "I've been telling you there is a war approaching for decades. The Sith will return and the Jedi Order will fall if we do nothing. The Jedi will be eradicated if the Mandalorians are also turned against us."
Ki-Adi Mundi opened his mouth to protest, but Mace was done with that debate.
Interrupting, Mace asked Sifo-Dyas, "What do you suggest?"
"Train him to fight, train him to protect himself and others. In time, he will remember his father, until then, it is important we endear ourselves to him."
"He's twelve," Yarael Poof stated.
Master Che who had found Obi-Wan when he woke from stasis in a panic in an abandoned chamber in the lower Temple, snapped at the Council member, "Obi-Wan is a traumatized youngling who has already experienced and fought in war. These years will pass swiftly, and as of yet, he has not assimilated into Temple life. He has no connections with anyone still alive in the Order."
"He doesn't like you?" Jocasta asked, sounding surprised.
"He's not fond of all the tests I've put him through," Che said. "Which, had I spent a thousand years in a stasis tube, I might not like the Healing Halls either."
"Has anyone put forth to teach him yet?" Jocasta asked.
Jocasta herself actually had, but she was deemed too old, Obi-Wan needed a Master who could keep up with him.
Which excluded anyone on the Council because no one had the time the boy would need.
Mace sighed, "No. Some of the Shadows and Guard have expressed interest, but when we tell them of Obi-Wan's background, they all bowed out."
"Why?" Che asked.
"Master Feemor," Jocasta answered, voice terse. "The Seeker."
Che's expression fell and she looked away.
The Shadows, Seekers, and Guards were all closely intertwined, and Feemor had been beloved.
He and three of his charges, three younglings, had been slaughtered by Mandalorians.
Those wounds were too fresh for any of those Knights to be completely comfortable taking on a Mandalorian Padawan, which would have been unfair to the Padawan.
It was one reason Master Qui-Gon Jinn was out of the running despite Yoda's ambitions that his grandpadawan try again with an apprentice.
Which gave Mace an idea.
"What about Master Tahl?" Mace asked.
Everyone stared at him.
Che wrinkled her nose, "She hasn't left the healing halls yet. The New Apolson mission nearly killed her, if it wasn't for Master Tholme she would have died in that accursed sensory deprivation containment device."
"Has her sight recovered at all?" Yaddle asked.
"No, her eyesight will never be recovered," Che said.
"But she is otherwise alright?" Mace pressed.
Che glared at him, "No. She is otherwise physically recovered. But she is far from alright. Her lack of independence has scarred her own image of self-worth."
"As has Obi-Wan recovered physically. They could help each other," Mace said. "And despite Tahl's presence in Master Feemor's life, I don't believe she will shy away from Obi-Wan's lineage."
There was silence in the Council chamber.
Jocasta settled the issue by saying, "All we can do is ask. I think it has been settled among us that Padawan Kenobi needs a new Master sooner rather than later. Preferably, before he chooses to leave the Order behind him."
There was something ominous about that statement, but no one argued.
For once.
Mace was not counting on it to last.
oOo
AN: Thoughts, Mexican mole lizards, or feedback, pretty please?