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The water lapping against the small familiar cove and Bant’s presence at his side made Obi-Wan feel the most peaceful he had in months, maybe since he left the temple.
Bant shifted at his side and he turned to take her in, he had missed her so much and now that he was back here at the temple, even as on edge as it felt with the recent attacks and disturbances, the knot of homesickness that had been steady in his gut since the shuttle taking him to Bandomeer had left was finally starting to unwind.
“So,” Bants voice broke him from his thoughts, “Tell me what happened on Melida/Dann, no one knows what happened there. What made you commit to their cause and leave us?”
Obi-Wan froze staring at Bant for a long moment, the slight smile on her face and her trusting eyes shining silver in the light reflecting from the lake into the cove, and he knew he couldn’t tell her.
She looked so light, her wind-across-reeds-and-sea-air presence glimmering with curiosity and trust, how could he tarnish that? How could he speak to her about death and suffering and eight months of hell he hoped she would never have to experience anything close too? What could he say, I had to lead children that should have never known anything like it in a war against their parents who were clinging so hard to hate they couldn’t even recognize that they were killing their own children. I spent the nights whispering every single story I could think of to try and drown out the bombs that rained down above us every night and they didn’t even know any of their own to ask me to tell only the hate of ancestors and family long dead. They offered us peace talks at the beginning of the war and killed three ten year olds sent to negotiate, only the nine year old that followed them made it out and apparently Master Qui-Gon gave them the idea for the ploy. Thank you for dragging me to the archives to look at force healing techniques that one time, the fact that I remembered them saved so many when amputation was necessary. I don’t think I’ll ever get the feeling of blood and ash out from under my fingernails and maybe I deserve the reminder. The force on that planet was so thick with suffering and misery and hate that it was hard to use and it constantly felt like I was drowning, but I pushed through and worked around it because I had too. I never wanted to know how good I was with strategy in warfare but I know I’m not going to be able to stop myself from researching it now because I’m never going to let myself be unprepared like that again. Every firefight made me homesick, I’m sure you don’t know that blaster bolts smell almost the same as lightsaber blades. I know better than to let go of skills that save my life but that doesn’t mean I don’t hate how good I am with a blaster rifle. I think my shields haven’t come down at all since they tried to wipe my mind and it might have been the only thing keeping me from going insane from the sheer amount of death there was. I had to rock toddlers to sleep with bombs as their lullabies as I discussed with my friends how many young we were willing to sacrifice in a battle, how many risks we were willing to take. I know better than to ask people to do something I wouldn’t do myself now, I hope you don’t get that lesson the same way I did. I killed a man who was raping the body of an eight year old I had held the night before while telling all the littles about the gardens we currently sit in and his death feels more significant than others and I don’t know why. I never thought I would be thankful for getting captured into slavery but I know how to take out a man’s eye with my bare hands and it saved my life. I starved myself of as many rations as I could without shutting down from malnutrition because I couldn’t stand to see the littles more hungry than me. I set so many childrens bones with them screaming into gags while desperately trying to keep quiet because there was a patrol and none of the entrances to the sewers were near enough to escape to. I’m not sure if it’s a blessing or a curse that my hands are so steady, I can see every gash and cut I had to stitch up. I learned first aid through trial by fire. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep soundly again without someone else on watch. I think the only thing that kept me from getting frostbite in my fingers during sniping missions was how hot the gun would get underneath my hands. My experience with Jono betraying me wasn’t enough to prepare for holding Cerasi’s cooling corpse and facing Neild down in that room, choking on his grief and anger and fear as he screamed about how I was just an emotionless Jedi and not a young. About how I should have saved Cerasi. I watched so many young eyes dull under the weight of war and I’m sure mine match, I couldn’t bear to make yours the same. I can’t make myself regret leaving my family because I know how many more would have died if I hadn’t been there. I just hope you all understand that enough to take me back.
He knows she wouldn’t be able to understand all the reasons he had and things that happened. And, even worse, if she did he had burdened her with something that no one was meant to go through and she wouldn’t even fully understand because she, thankfully, wasn’t there.
So he swallowed down the admissions he almost wanted to spill out, ignored the twinging the many scars he’d gotten since his departure from the temple, the ache of the still healing bruises, the phantom shock of electroprods and a buzzing collar that weren’t there and the weight at his temples that didn’t exist and wouldn’t take his memory, and put on a fake smile that he had gotten much practice in using and said, “But I want to hear about you. You look different. Have you grown since I saw you?”
Bant thankfully took the subject change in stride and took off into how she was eleven and how Master Yoda thought that she was ready to be a padawan even though she was young and Obi-Wan teased her and chatted back falling into old habits he thanked the force he hadn’t forgotten after everything.
He tucked the anguish and grief of those he could not save, the new calluses on his hands from wielding every kind of blaster they had had available, the scars that spread like lightning across his torso and neck and the knowledge of how fight with nothing but his hands and his wits, the cuts and scars from both blaster and knife as well as the vibroknife tucked into the billowing sleeve of his robes and pulled them behind his shields that he knew had grown strong and durable since the attempted memory wipe and had only grown stronger with him having to reach around and cleanse the darkness to use the force, especially for healing, and resolved to tell someone who could help about all of this later, after all the chaos had calmed down and the attacker had been caught.
He nodded to himself subtly, securing his shields so none of his feelings leak out into the bond between himself and Bant, and listened to the greatly missed song of his kyber for just a moment before turning his attention back to Bant, after everything had calmed down he’d tell someone.