Chapter Text
AN: Depression is kicking my ass, so you guys get another fic :D
Dyslexia: Ahead of you lies misspellings and missing words.
KEYnote: Obi-Wan will have been born a few years earlier than in Canon/Legends.
Prologue
The child was born a month early. He was a small thing, barely able to draw breath. Unlike Tor's firstborn child, Pre who had come into the world bellowing his life to the galaxy.
His mother feared the child wouldn't last the week, so they named him Obi-Wan Kenobi, Child of No One with No Name.
But against all odds, the child survived that week, the month, and the months to follow. Even as years began to pass, Tor Vizsla never named him, and neither did his mother, for the boy remained small and quiet, a constant source of shame and disappointment.
Pre, on the other hand, was a son to be proud of, and as their movement gained numbers, Tor found it easy to forget about the runt.
They kept that child alive, for as useless a warrior as he was, he might yet serve a purpose for Death Watch.
Or maybe he wouldn't.
In the end, it mattered, the boy was a child of the Watch, and he would either learn to survive by their ways; or die by them.
This was the Way of the Mandalore.
Chapter 1 - Too Old to Compromise
Obi-Wan Kenobi was perfectly fluent in Mando'a and Basic, thank you very much.
Not that anyone knew that, not that Obi-Wan was fool enough to remind anyone he was a thinking being. No, Obi-Wan was nine years old and wise enough to never draw attention to himself, to never hope for his father's approval or his mother's sympathy.
The only person who didn't forget him was his older brother Pre. Pre was arrogant and enjoyed bossing Obi-Wan around.
Obi-Wan didn't mind too much, for it was Pre who taught him to fight, taught him how to defend himself, how to be a Mandalorian, and Pre even shared the things his tutors taught him with Obi-Wan.
He loved his older brother, though he did not trust him completely. Pre couldn't see their father for what he was. He didn't understand the darkness that spawned in Tor Vizsla, nor did Pre understand the extent of his blood lust.
Obi-Wan knew himself to be young, knew there were things he did not understand about the galaxy, but he knew enough to know there were things he could not share with his clan.
Tor called him weak, but Obi-Wan knew better, knew there was a light inside of him, a light that connected him to all living things, a light that seemed to be born from living things and bound the very galaxy together.
When Pre was away with their father, and Obi-Wan was left to his own devices he read about the ancient wars of their ancestor, Tarre Vizsla.
A Mandalorian and a Jedi Knight.
That was how Obi-Wan discovered what the Light was and what he could do with it.
Sometimes he dreamed that Jetii would save him, take him away from these wars and teach him how to help people rather than take from them.
"Come on, Obi!"
Obi-Wan hated being called that. But as Pre was both aliit and his only friend, he couldn't really complain about it. He used the Force to help him keep up with Pre who was older, taller, and stronger.
They had been running along the cliffsides of this moon for hours, and if it wasn't for the Force, Obi-Wan wouldn't have been able to keep up.
But he did and he could keep up.
Still, Pre had to show off by running backwards, "Come on, Obi! I know you're faster than that!"
"Show off!" Obi-Wan called, pushing himself harder, Light singing around them.
Pre had left his helmet at the camp, so Obi-Wan could see his brother's face as he threw back his head and laughed.
Happy and carefree.
He also saw his brother's shock when his boots slipped on the damp grass, as his centre of gravity tipped backwards.
They had been running too close to the cliffsides.
"Pre!" Obi-Wan shouted, stretching out his hand and senses.
He asked the Light with everything he was to catch his brother, to save his brother.
Exhaustion hit Obi-Wan with the precision and intensity of a missile, but he didn't stop. Pre disappeared over the edge, but Obi-Wan refused to let go, refused to let his ori'vod leave him behind.
He closed his eyes, imagining his brother being blown by the sea breeze back onto the emerald bluffs.
When he opened his eyes, he found his brother back on solid ground, looking at Obi-Wan not with gratefulness but with horror and shock.
"Obi?"
Vertigo made the world spin and even with Pre's warning, Obi-Wan didn't have the strength to escape.
"Mom! No!"
Strong fingers caught in Obi-Wan's hair, wrenching his head back.
The pain made his eyes tear up as he gazed up at his mother's inhuman helmeted expression. He could feel her hatred for him as she snarled, "I always knew there was something wrong with you."
"Please, ner buir," Pre continued to plead. "Obi saved me. Don't hurt him—"
"He isn't your brother, he isn't my son, he's cursed and I should have smothered him when he was a babe."
"I'll get father, Obi! Wait for me!" Pre said, running back toward the campsite.
It was all Obi-Wan could do holding onto his mother's hand to keep his feet beneath him.
She was one of their clan's fiercest warriors, there was nothing Obi-Wan could do to protect himself, especially not with the world spinning around him and the Light burning through his veins.
But at least Pre wouldn't have to watch.
Pre didn't deserve to see that.
Obi-Wan fixed his jaw, he couldn't stop the tears, but he could keep himself from screaming when his mother threw him to his end.
Through his blurred vision, he saw the blue clouds and soft clouds as he tried not to imagine what it would feel like to land on ragged stones, swallowed by the churning sea.
It was a fate he feared and had no hope of escaping.
He hoped his next life would be kinder.
When the hand gripping his hair released him, he found his next life might not be kinder, but perhaps more adventurous.
Master Dooku was rarely moved by the natural landscapes of moons, but Suuset was exceptional. Mostly water, the oceans here were dark blue with grey stoned cliffs topped with the greenest grass he had ever seen.
His mission here had already been completed, a simple diplomatic issue that needed a representative of the Republic who couldn't be bought.
Dooku could admit he enjoyed bribes, said bribes he accepted only to navigator his bribers into a corner so they became the architects of their own doom.
Being vindictive was not a trait admired in the Jedi Order, but it was nevertheless the reason he was admired among politicians.
It was Dooku's opinion that the easiest way to find corruption was to encourage it so one could reveal it. The treaty signed on Suuset had been rather straightforward, the two parties' fears of underhanded dealings proved to be over-cautious.
None of that mattered now, Dooku had simply followed a niggling sense in the Force that there was something on this moon he needed to find.
Only it turned out to be a person, not a thing.
Dooku watched from a distance two boys running too close to the cliffs' ridge.
One boy wore an incomplete set of Mandalorian armour.
The other was much smaller and wore plain clothes. That boy was young and fast.
He was like a beacon within the Force.
But he was, even at a distance, too old to be accepted into the Order. Dooku wanted to turn away, to move on and not linger on his regrets about the Order's restrictive traditions.
That was until the older boy fell off a cliff, and the younger one, threw out his hand and caught him with Force, pulling him back onto solid ground.
Dooku stood, frozen, very few initiates could have succeeded in doing that. Reaching out in the Force, Dooku could feel the child's Force burn from overextension. In sensing that, he felt another.
Someone who burned with rage and reeked of darkness.
A killer.
Dooku started running, and the Mandalorian woman didn't notice him in her rage as she grabbed the smaller child by the hair.
The older boy pleaded for the woman, his mother to stop, before running back toward the town.
Dooku drew his saber, the sound of it igniting finally alerting the Mandalorian to his presence.
The child seemed to blackout as Dooku scooped him into his arm. He was glad Makeshi was meant to be a one-handed fighting style.
"Jetii," the woman hissed.
"If you don't want him, I would be happy to take him off your hands."
"He's cursed," she spat.
"He just saved your son's life," Dooku said, deflecting the blaster shots.
Seeing that blasters were useless against Jedi, the Mandalorian swiftly switched tactics.
If he had been nearly any other Jedi, what she did next likely would have killed him at such a close range.
But Dooku had been anticipating the flame thrower and used the Force to push the fuel back toward her.
There was a small explosion around her forearm and while the Beskar armour remained the black of her gloves was charred into the burns licking up her hand and wrist.
To her credit, the only sound she made was a rough grunt before, charging forward at him.
The woman was a demon.
The throwing knives she threw with incredible speed and accuracy he had to physical dodge or catch with the Force. He could block them with his saber because, unlike an energy bolt, the shrapnel from the knives would have become superheated bits of metal which had its own dangers.
This was all made more difficult by the fact she was aiming for the child Dooku was attempting to protect.
He knew Mandalorians had a reputation for their insanity, but this woman was certifiable with her single-minded focus to rend and kill.
Dooku caught one of those knives in the shoulder, had he been a fraction slower in spinning away from her, she would have slit the child's throat.
Dooku prayed to the Force as the boy surfaced to consciousness, clinging to Dooku's robe collar, that this creature was not his mother.
Because they had just passed the threshold of getting out of this alive without lethal action.
Dooku extinguished his lightsaber at the moment a zip cord caught around his forearm and wrist.
He let his hand go visible loose, he even let his feet stumble over the uneven grass, letting himself be pulled forward.
Had one of her hands not been severely injured, she might have had time to wield another weapon, but he let their combined memento carry him forward.
When she was in range, she seemed to rethink her strategy, but it was too late as his hand regripped the hilt and he ignited the saber.
The blade lit easily through her neck where there was no Beskar to protect her, and with a flick of his wrist, he decapitated her. It wasn't an ideal method of execution as anyone who examined the body would be able identity what had killed her.
The child in his arm went rigid but made no effort to get away from Dooku, in fact, his hands balled tighter on his collar.
Dooku sensed no fear in the child, only deep exhaustion and profound sadness.
Using the Force to lift the woman's body and head, Dooku tossed her over the ridge where her body would hopefully be eaten by some type of sea creature.
It would at least give Dooku a head start to get off this moon and out of this system, before her body was retrieved.
Dooku ripped the knife out of his shoulder and pocketed it before taking off in a sprint back the way he had come.
He didn't release the child, he clearly wouldn't be safe if Dooku left him here. If the child did have a loving family, Dooku was sure an effort could be made to return him to that family.
The boy continued to cling to him without protest as Dooku sped toward the town his ship was docked in.
The hanger man looked up at Dooku in astonishment, no doubt at his dishevelled and bloodied appearance. "Master Jedi, I was not expecting—"
"Did you refuel the ship?" He demanded.
"Yes— but, is that your child?" The man asked.
"Yes," Dooku said without thinking. "He is my Padawan."
The words rang true in the Force
"Oh, I thought you had come alone," the insufferable man continued to blabber.
"You were mistaken," Dooku said without a backward glance as he climbed the ramp. He used the Force to hit the button to c.
Dooku didn't put the child down as he started the ship up. The boy remained perfectly still in his arms through his blue-grey eyes tracked every number he plugged into the navigation and the sequence he used to start up the ship.
When they were airborne, the child nearly fell out of his lap, his arms shooting up to hang on around Dooku's neck.
Dooku didn't fault him, Force exhaustion was worse than having a fever. He pulled one hand from the controls to steady the child as he got them out of the atmosphere and into hyperspace.
Once that was done, and the blue-white light of the hyperlane shimmered outside the viewing panels, Dooku sat back in his seat, rubbing the child's back as he tried to process what all had happened in less than an hour's time.
He had kidnapped a child too old to be initiated into the Order and murdered a Mandalorian warrior.
Mace was going to kill him. The younger Master was Dooku's friend. He knew Mace looked up to him, they shared a Master after all in Yoda —the grandmaster was not a particularly easy teacher— but most of Mace's goodwill toward him had been eroded away over Qui-Gon's Padawanship that just so happened to correlate to Mace's ascension to the High Council.
"What is your name, child?" Dooku asked as softly as he was able.
The boy who had been relaxing beneath his touch tensed and said with tangible shame, "Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sir."
Dooku was confused by his tone but introduced himself without prying, "I am Master Dooku, a Knight of the Jedi Order."
The boy's eyes were large, "You decapitated my mother."
Dooku winced, "I'm sorry."
So much for making a good impression.
Obi-Wan shook his head, "You saved me, thank you."
Dooku laid a hand on the child's soft blonde hair, "I am sorry you needed to be saved."
What he said next was quite unexpected, "I always dreamed a Jedi would save me."
That was surprising, if the woman had been his mother then Obi-Wan would be a Mandalorian. Dooku doubted very much that Mandalorian children often dreamed of being rescued by Jedi.
"I saw you save the other boy," Dooku said. "It was well done."
"Pre," Obi-Wan said. "He's my brother. I've never used the Force in front of my family before."
Wise of him, given even after sparing her elder son from death, his mother had still tied to kill her own child for being a Force sensitive.
His clan was from one of the more extreme groups of Mandalorians who hated the Jedi from the time of the Sith wars thousands of years ago.
The Order wasn't the only orthodox religion in the galaxy.
"And what is it, young Obi-Wan, you dreamed of becoming?"
The child dropped his gaze, pulling back; the actions of someone who expected their dreams to be crushed by someone who might have fulfilled them.
"I want to be a Jedi Knight, but I know that I am too old."
Dooku decided that he liked this child who spoke Basic as if he learned solely from books and Coruscanti holomovies. A child who shone like a fallen star and had saved his brother at the cost of being disowned or killed.
The Force hummed around them and Dooku concluded then and there that what he said next he would stand by, even if he was disowned from the Order.
In fact, that thought didn't trouble him as much as it likely should have.
"How old are you?"
"Nine standard, sir."
Four years older than the oldest youngling. But most junior Padawans couldn't have caught another being falling off a cliff.
Dooku spoke the words that would seal their fate, "If that is your wish, then I would be honoured to train you."
Obi-Wan's gaze flew up to meet his, searching his face and asked in a small voice, "You really mean it?"
"I do indeed, Padawan Kenobi. While you are too old by traditional standards, I have no problems bending the rules for a light as bright as you."
The child's smile was transformative, "That's how I've always seen it, the Force, I mean, it's light that connects everything."
Dooku smiled back, despite himself, Master Yoda would like this youngling.
Dooku rose to his feet, Obi-Wan still in his arms. He was too small for a nine-year-old. However, though Dooku was a large man and had certainly benefited from that in many a spar, his Master had been Yoda; size was negligible when one had the Force.
"I can walk," Obi-Wan said.
"I'm aware, however, I can sense your exhaustion. You overextended yourself."
The ship had a single cabin with a small kitchenette. He set Obi-Wan down on the bunk and went about making tea.
Obi-Wan remained quiet, whether that was because of his nature or the events of the day, Dooku was unsure, but, he enjoyed the peace that seemed to fill the space between them.
Rarely was the Force so clear on its desires. He was quite content in finding a Padawan who was both independently strong and yet unlike to fight him on everything like Qui-Gon and Rael had.
Dooku was also quite determined to have a Padawan with a respectable haircut.
He continued his musings as he went through the ritual of making tea. He poured himself and Obi-Wan a cup. He came back to sit by the child who was slightly swaying from side to side as he fought sleep.
Still, the boy thanked him for the tea and retained his posture.
Dooku was very pleased indeed.
"We are going to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant," Dooku said.
Obi-Wan nodded.
"I will take you to the healers and we are likely to stay there for a week or more."
"Then where will we go?" Obi-Wan asked.
"If my proposal is not accepted by the Jedi High Council, we will journey to Serreno, where my own people are from."
"Because I'm too old?" he asked.
"No," Dooku said. "Because I'm too old to compromise with the Council. The Force is with us, my young Padawan, and the Force is far wiser than any Jedi."
Obi-Wan looked back down at his tea and said, "Thank you, Master Dooku."
"You are most welcome, Padawan Kenobi."
That reply earned him another smile, something far more rewarding than the Council's approval.
AN: Thoughts, whooping cranes, or feedback, pretty, pretty please?