Darth Plagueis, part six : How one could understandably mistake Han Solo for a Sith Lord and another Sith Lord reminiscence on his own apprenticeship
"My master never cared much for the divide between Light and Dark" Obi-Wan confessed when Magistrate Damask queried about his master beliefs. In the last weeks of meetings, it was a scheme Obi-Wan had become familiar with. Obi-Wan would speak of his understanding of the Force, the banker would hint of his own, but never said something damning enough, then try to see whether Obi-Wan beliefs were his own or came from a more reputable source. Strangely, the banker seemed to have deemed Han as such, for all they never met and Obi-Wan efforts to obfuscate. Not that much could be said with certainty about Obi-Wan master, but still the padawan did not like airing his privacy. Obi-Wan attributed the Magistrate trust on Muun culture, as Han had been an elder and arguably the clan head. Obi-Wan was dreadfully young and underprepared to claim this status.
"I believe he was highly aware of its existence" added Obi-Wan, remembering the teas. Leia blend, which he gave his padawan before he started Force-related exercises or needed to deepen his connection. Luke blend which he gave after the training was over, or when Obi-Wan emotions were running high. The first eased reaching for the Force, the second soothed, numbed, earned the time to think dispassionately. "but that it ultimately lost sense for him. He was comfortable in places drenched in the Dark Side, but only remembered I was not when it concerned Sith space planets and others he marked down as not going to until I learned more." Obi-Wan lips thinned, lost in thoughts. It was not he had ever wanted to go to these planets, but that opportunity had been lost before a choice could be made. It would have been soon, Obi-Wan thought, and maybe choice would not have been given. Dathomir had been at the bottom of that list and while Han had asked, warned, Obi-Wan had not understood how different it would be from Ryloth or Nal Hutta before that stay.
"He would have brought you there if he had the time" the Muun said softly, echoing his thoughts, with the same pensive expression he sometimes had in their discussions. It was a kinder expression than most of his, and it lead Obi-Wan to ask himself which memories crossed his mind when it appeared. The padawan checked his shields, constated they were once again loosening, strengthened them and mock glared toward the banker. The Muun raised an amused eyebrow. If Obi-Wan ever had a doubt he was not a Force-sensitive, those had been dispelled by the cross-referencing on when such occurrences happened, which were nearly always linked to the banker presence. It was not a technic Obi-Wan was familiar with, but he doubted he had much in common with Magistrate Damask's. Their conception of the Force were different after all.
"He died two months after we left the first" Obi-Wan whispered, because those were doubly painful memories. Han either had not fully understood the danger of the Dark Side, or had been soaked in it so long he couldn't grasp anymore the risk it was for a young padawan. He brought Obi-Wan to places reeking it and did not signal where the divide stood, so Obi-Wan had sometimes come close enough to take a look. Enough to be aware the Dark Side stared back and was a willy cunning entity set to entice the unwary. Feeling the Dark Side was eminently sensitive: you could feel it ghosting on your skin, taste his sweet acidic tang rolling on your tongue, hear his soft crooning in your ears but you would never see it shaping reality around you so that what you perceive is not what is. The Dark Side is a liar and a seducer you could never forget once you caught a sliver of its interest.
Obi-Wan had felt its electric tangle sparking adrenaline in the maze of Nar Shadda, the urgency with which it sped the heart when emotions were spiking. Unvoiced stories he could never tell a soul but he knew other shared. Shadows, Han who always knew which tea he should dish out, and probably Magistrate Damask himself. The Muun may have never spelled it, but guesswork had been easy. The banker had no frame of reference on which practices were considered acceptable by Jedi, and he had probably been mild in his comments, but they had been damning all the same. It mattered little to Obi-Wan: the Muun was evidently not a raging maniac after his life, for all the life cost of his business took a new meaning. One Obi-Wan could hopefully address in this conversation. The Dark Side asked for offerings, and exacted them whether one was willing or not.
Obi-Wan knew all too well the tempting proposal the Dark Side brought forth. Grasping the Dark Side in a moment of surprise was easy and it readily answered, which was the most frightening thing about it. Obi-Wan had so much tales in his teaching line from the Dark Side hollowing out Jedi, of the price it exacted afterward. He had his own tale to add to them, the most cruel lesson Han ever gave but was most probably a mercy. After all, Obi-Wan was still alive and a Light Sider at its end. He put down his tea cup on the table and his hands on his laps "I was in no hurry for the next, and the lesson it would bring". Wordlessly, the Muun poured tea in his empty teacup, a silent invitation to continue. Obi-Wan intended to.
They had gone to Dathomir to stock up tea, and that had been the first inkling Obi-Wan had that tea was not just tea with Han. Obi-Wan had never heard of the planet beforehand, but Han had visited with Leia, many years ago, and the tea she had favored could only be made with plants native of this planet. In soft tones, he had told him of the member of their line that came from this planet, of the Night Brothers, the Night Sisters and the Light Sisters, of the matriarchal structure of their culture and of the attempts to kill them they should watch out for. He had not told Obi-Wan customs of the planet. Maybe he did not have time before the Night Sister came out, maybe he did not intend to. Han had known, at least, what the Zabrak was and enough name of places that she elected to bring them to their leader.
Han had also known Mother Talzin name for all he did not know her face beforehand "How could I not know the name of the last Mother? The first came with promises and the second will come with death. When three children will have been taken and came back, death will come to your tribe, that I know, like I know I came after the first, but it will be yours to decide whether I shall be the second or another will be" he had said calmly, a threat and a warning Obi-Wan had at the time believed him unable to follow through. The strangest bluff Obi-Wan had heard him try to date, and if he had not been busy keeping in his line of sight the Night Sisters surrounding them he may have been alarmed. Because at the time Han was only a freighter captain and no seer nor Force-sensitive enough to get them out in the home turf of so many opponents. Obi-Wan knew so little of his master at the time.
Whatever Han had hinted in those words, they had a meaning for Talzin, and Obi-Wan had glimpsed fear in her eyes before she asked what they wanted. She did not take advantage of home ground or fifteen to one odds, she wanted them gone and Obi-Wan only learnt why days later. "A human came a few years back. He called himself Darth Sidious and for a few months he and Mother Talzin compared views on the Force. When he left, he took with him one of Talzin children and she was unable to take him back. She is quite glad you are my student" Han said casually, answering the question Obi-Wan had not dared to ask with witnesses. Obi-Wan did not reply, his thoughts racing until Han hand settled on his shoulder "Nothing changed" he said, squeezing his shoulder like he often did when calling him padawan.
Obi-Wan nodded. Han tales included Sith with sufficient frequency that adding another one was not breath-taking news. But until them, tales had just been tales in Obi-Wan mind, and Palpy an effusive but ultimately fictional threat. Excepted Palpy was most probably still around, and there was now another Sith with Darth Sidious. It even explained Talzin fear and the unease with which she followed Han movements around her cave, for all he was relatively polite. Trust Han to impersonate a Sith Lord after a Jedi Master. The "apprentice" he had been addressed as a few times took another meaning altogether. But in the home of Dark Siders, Obi-Wan held his tongue and made sure to twist his own speech in accordance with the masquerade they played.
It asked very little misdirection, for most of the Night Sisters gave them a wide berth. Talzin sometimes exchanged in soft tones with Master Han, discussions whose contents Obi-Wan wasn't privy too. Bashir was his main interlocutor, a young Night Sister a few years his elder who had been tasked to guide him through the process of being acknowledged by the source. Obi-Wan had been strangely nonplussed to learn that the tea he sipped each morning before training was made with sacred herbs used to commune with the Force. After the past three and half years, he even managed to keep a straight face and not fall over in surprise when Talzin allowed a male to partake in a female only trial. A Sith Lord was scary enough to bend a few local customs, and Han was ostensibly here to teach his student, therefore Obi-Wan was learning about Dathomiri views of the Force after those of Ach-To.
They were Dark Siders and it was here he learnt of the sliding pent the Dark Side was, and means to regulate his fall, to wrench control and walk side paths rather than a sharp dive. He had been on the path, and unaware, and while Dathomir brought him further down, it also cleared the situation in which he was, and reminded him of the price. He did not think he had loved Bashir, and very much doubted she had loved him. It wasn't in Dathomiri culture like it was not in Jedi culture. But the Dark Side coursing their veins and victory clouding Obi-Wan mind they had shared moments of savage drunkenness more than gentle care. It had mattered for Obi-Wan. But in the end not for Bashir who tried to kill him one morning and whom Obi-Wan had killed in defense. Talzin lips had thinned in a snarl, but she had walked away from the cooling body of his once lover without exacting vengeance. Han had hastened their departure and it was late into the night, as the Millenium Falcon left Dathomir system that his master had explained this particular custom of Dathomir.
Gently, with Luke soothing tea swirling in his cup, but no word could ever soften the blow. It had not been only Bashir he had killed, because he could have lived with killing Bashir. She tried to kill him first, and Obi-Wan lashed out in defense, taking strength in the Dark Side. He had felt no sorrow at her death, only vindicated rage she betrayed him. The Dark Side had clouded his mind until Han popped it up like a bubble with the terrible truth. Bashir had probably seen nothing wrong when she decided to kill him, merely conformed herself to the expectations of her tribe. It was like the Sith custom where apprentices became masters through the slaying of their teacher. Night Sisters became mothers through the slaying of their children sire. What sort of society instituted such customs? But as soon as this thought crossed his mind, Obi-Wan knew. Dark Side inclined cultures.
Obi-Wan had not been ready to be a father, never even thought of becoming one beforehand. But he could have, and as soon as the idea had been presented to him, before he could even comprehend what he felt about it, it had been wrenched back by his own action. He could have drowned in this thought, dipped in the Dark to never surface again, because it would have muted what he felt. But Luke soothing, soothing tea swirled with tiredness more than rage, serenity more than anger, and Han had only kindness in his eyes. No guilt and looking back Obi-Wan still did not know whether he had planned it all along or only tried to help him. Both could be true. Han had spoken of Ben and Vader, of losing oneself in the Dark Side only to be eaten apart by it, and Obi-Wan did not want that. So he steered away from the Dark Side ever since.
It was a good lesson, one Obi-Wan was grateful for, so when the Muun asked "What lesson?" in the same falsely disinterested tone he used when he deemed the question important but too risky to voice an open interest, Obi-Wan answered, a sardonic smile twisting his lips. "That strength is not control, that the Dark Side has means his practitioner is unaware of, that death is an end even with the universe at his fingertips and that cruelty is a good teacher". An oddly understanding expression crossed the banker face, another clue of his affiliation. Some species were naturally attuned to one side of the Force more than the other and Obi-Wan did not know enough about Muuns to judge whether Damask was an exception or the norm. "Did someone teach you that lesson, or did you learn it alone?" he asked, prompting a short hesitation for the Muun before he answered "I surmised most of it by myself", aware he left a glaring hole.
The twig was canny and he would know Plagueis had at least a mentor, even if it did not reveal he had had a master. It did not bother the Sith. The padawan queries were just pointed enough to hint he had his doubts, vague enough for denegation to be plausible. None of them was outright asking but the Muun did not doubt both of their reasoning was strong for all it was not a certitude. The twig wariness showed he knew the danger, suspected what he was, and his compliance that he was used enough to play this rules that he knew how far he could stretch them. It was an amusing game and one Plagueis had not enjoyed since Sidious had been young. One he never played with his own master.
Tenebrous had been a poor teacher. It was simply not in his temper, and Hego Damask himself had been an adult soon to be a grandfather when he started learning. Their bond had echoed more frustration and derision than kinship, and it had been wholly unexpected for the Muun. A mentor and a fosterling could not get along, but both attempted to unless they would ruin the bonds between their clans. Plagueis had abided by Tenebrous rules, but ultimately the gap of killing a mentor stayed. It was simply not done in Muun culture. Killing a mentor was equal to killing a father, and no Muun would trust a kinslayer. Weakness, Tenebrous had snarled, but Plagueis had been strong enough then that his master could not kill him. A Jedi Master may have matched Tenebrous, whose midichlorian count was underwhelming, highlighting a flaw of the rule of Two. The aging Darth Liara had dealt with two eager apprentices before she had felt the need to take an apprentice now, before death closed on her. Tenebrous had not been a match to either of her former apprentices and resented the fact, or so Plagueis had discovered in the holo-records he appropriated after Tenebrous death. Darth Liara herself had been frail, her strength wan and barely able to lift her lightsaber when Tenebrous had become a master, and Plagueis did not doubt she still could have killed her apprentice had she wished to live.
Plagueis had triumphed then of Tenebrous, but left him alive and it was the last he heard of the Sith for a decade. Then, when Dooku unknowingly gave him the news of his daughter death and the identity of her killer, he had dealt with Tenebrous then the apprentice he had started forming in that time. He refused the label of kinslayer, because Tenebrous had been no kin, not after he gone out of his way to kill Jashleen because he could not kill Plagueis. The Dark Side had beckoned him to Sheev, but he had not took Sheev as his apprentice to continue Tenebrous line. He had done so for the potential of the Naboo, for the fractured visions he had of his future, and the waste it would have been to let him die by his own hand in less than a year. He stole the child on which the Dark Side had whispered promises, in payment of the child that had been stolen from him. It was symbolical, in a way, a substitute and a revenge and a bargain. To bled the Jedi, and safeguard his grandchildren and greatgrandchildren to come from the Dark Side wishes.
The twig was a child too, but not his, Han Solo's. That unknown Sith who had claimed a Jedi foundling in brazen recklessness, then kept all unaware of the fact with misdirection. Even his apprentice did not know he should be called as such, for all his knowledge and his instinct were just familiar enough for Plagueis to recognize their origin. Another line kept hidden until the last of them was not able to maintain the secret, unaware he should have. An apprentice of four years who could not yet be called a Sith, but whom the Force had guided to him. Plagueis wondered if he should stall the dangerous secret he knew by ending his life or achieve his formation. Solo had seen something in this one, despite his Jedi roots, despite his low midichlorian count – still higher than Tenebrous had been. Plagueis still did not see what.