driftfleet | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Ahsoka + Obi-wan and YOU
Broadcast: No
Action: Planet-side
When: 10th of Jan

[ As promised, in a few days time, Ahsoka and Obi-Wan make their way to the markets. They dress warmly, Obi-Wan procuring a thick cloak for himself. It's hard to feel like a Jedi Master without one.

He watches as Ahsoka flits from stall to stall as he lingers behind her, to correct her on her "bargaining" technique. In a way, they resemble a teenager, saddled with a wiser all-knowing uncle. He strokes his beard in light amusement. This is probably what he needed right now, a reassessment of his priorities, the here and now. ]

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[Kanan isn't so sure either. He's torn between wanting to impress one of the most notable members of the Jedi Council and trying to remained completely off the radar. He's succeeding at neither.]

Well, you know, just fighting the good fight. [He scratches the back of his neck and looks away.] Is there anything interesting in those temples?

I have no idea. The point is to find out. Who knows? We learn much from the past as we do from the present.

[ Honestly, though, he's looking for some peace and quiet. ]

So it's a history lesson, then. [From the great Obi-Wan Kenobi...] Alright, I'll borrow some credits from you. And I will make good on them.

[ He chuckles lightly, taking some from his pouch and dropping it into Kanan's palm. ]

History is history, unless it's personal. Remember where you began but always keep your eyes towards the path ahead.

That's what I've been trying. [But it's hard ignoring history when he's surrounded by it now.] But I'll meet up with you there later.

[ That's surprising, but he doesn't show it. Again, that sense of familiarity niggles at him. ]

I look forward to it then.

[Sometime later, a now coated Kanan stands outside one of the smaller temples outside the main village. Although still uncomfortably cold, he's managing to stay patient. Without knowing Obi Wan is coming, he seems to have a very calm centering about him - rather unusually for a person of his character. Although he's not tapping into the Force, he is using his old training and practice to ignore the cold - as well as just to keep himself calm and alert. He'd just as soon not slip up and say anything he shouldn't.]

[ He approaches him quietly. The temple lies before them, cold stone and sharp edges, like it's been carved straight out of a mountain or cliff face. Sometimes, Obi-Wan finds that people can still impress him. ]

Ready to step inside?

[Although it has a different origin, the temple reminds him of the old Jedi Temples he saw as a child. More than that, he thinks of the one on Lothal and that conversation he had with an ancient Jedi Master he had long assumed dead and buried. He wondered if ghosts would inhabit this ancient old place as well.]

Ready as I'll ever be. Not a lot of traffic has been this way - we might have the place to ourselves.

That's the idea.

[ He heads in deeper, until the snow thins out on the ground. Everything seems to be made of stone, chipped and carved with a great attention to detail. It's been some time since he's seen a place like this. Running a war leaves little time for sight-seeing. ]

I've been meaning to ask - have we met?

[ It's not a normal question for a Jedi to ask, but he wants to see how Kanan might respond. ]

[Even if it's from a religion that Kanan knows nothing about, a place is sacred to others and he does not need his Jedi senses to feel that in the air. If ever he was to lie, it would certainly not be in a place like this. Cynically he wonders if Obi-Wan knew that. He keeps his eyes on one of the grander statues rather than face the other Jedi directly.]

It was a long time ago. I didn't think you would remember me.

[ He looks at him long and hard, trying to sift through the memories. The Force guides him, helping his recollection. ]

Caleb Dume . . .

[ He inhales sharply. ] You survived.

[... damn. He'd forgotten what it was like to be around a real Jedi Master. He'd been naive to think that someone who had known him before wouldn't be able to recognize him. Even after all those years.

But. No.]

Caleb Dume is gone. [... from a certain point of view.] Like I've said before, my name is Kanan.

[ He would protest, but the look on Kanan's face urges him not to. His face crumples a little before reaching a sense of calm he does not feel inside. A Jedi, alive, but hiding. There was no way for him to practice his faith, his pride without getting himself and others killed.

But alive. It's hope, in a small desperate form. He swallows tightly. ]

I would ask how but . . . there is no reason for you to repeat it. I am simply . . . relieved. You've done well.

[Done well. Would that Kanan could believe that much. Of late, he's started doing something worthwhile. But he was a thief and a smuggler and often a killer in those early years. he was always just surviving, playing at a razor's edge of getting himself killed over something pointless and stupid. Well did not cover it remotely.

The only good things he'd done was enlist with Ghost and try to muddle through what it meant to pass on the teachings of the Force to Ezra. Seeing what a real Jedi looked like, he wasn't so certain he was doing all that well.

Still. For Obi-Wan's sake... he let out a breath he'd been holding longer than he realized, though he still did not meet his eye.]

There was a message for the Jedi to avoid Coruscant. It came from you. You reversed the signal.

[If Obi-Wan had any reason to remember Caleb Dume, it was because of a young boy asking if such a thing was even possible. Finding out the answer had done a lot to make him less inquisitive.]

[ Then perhaps other Jedi have . . . It was small, but it was hope. ]

I am glad that I was able to implement. I thought -- from what Hera had said -- that everyone had perished.

[ Everyone died . . . and I survived. ]

[Hope... There's not a whole lot of that these days.]

There's only one other survivor I know of. You were in the market with her earlier.

Ahsoka?

[ Ah, but he can guess why. She left . . . and she never came back. He sighs, watching the air mist around his breath. ]

I see . . . that's good news. Especially that you managed to find each other.

[ Even though he doesn't quite feel the "good" in it, it was heartening. ]

[He doesn't say anything. Instead he heads further into the temple with his eyes glued upon the carved faces of the statues peering down at them. He pays no attention to them, though. All he can think about is what he felt when Order 66 was being carried out. Never in his life, even now, had he felt that kind of specific and wretched pain within the Force. It echoed in him now a kind of hollow imitation, but no less painful as it was all those years ago.

Good news indeed.]

[ What's left unsaid, he thinks to himself as he follows Kanan deeper inside. ]

You could release it into the Force. We're alone here.

I've tried every way I can. I haven't done very well at detaching myself.

[He can't let go of his anger and his grief anymore than he can let go of his friends or his home on the Ghost. He's no model Jedi and he knows that. There's a reason he was trying to keep a low profile.]

[ And what could he say to that, really? All he has are words to that unimaginable grief, the kind he's still grappling with. What could he say that would help? Still, he tries. He has to try.

Or at least, overcome the obstacle of grief to reach out to others. Only in doing, will things change. ]

Would you like to discuss it? Or is it still too close to the heart?

I appreciate what you're trying to do, Master Kenobi. But I've had fifteen years to deal with what's happened. It doesn't go away, but I know where to keep it.

[It's by no means easy for Kanan, but he has found support and love from people that when it came right down to it, they held a far stronger bond with him than what he had in the Jedi temple. He still grieved for lost friends and fallen mentors, but he still had something to go back to.

Obi-Wan though... this man he did pity.]

But it can't be easy for you. I wish I could tell you things get better, but I haven't seen it yet. I don't know if I ever will.

[ His gaze drifts to the temple, a testament of time and strength of people they will never know, but the feelings remain.

There is no death, only the Force. ]

You do not need to tell me. I have . . . hope that it will. If even a few Jedi have survived, then I believe the Force will guide them in the right direction.

I hope we figure out what that direction is. [... and soon. He doesn't like his chances after encountering a real Sith lord.] I don't want the next generation of Jedi to live like I did.

[He still recalls well those two force sensitive infants they had managed to save from the grips of those two inquisitors. He has no idea what kind of future awaits them.]