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yourneighborhoodporg · 3 months

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The Guardian

Chapter 10: Troubled Water

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Reader

Warnings: Banter, fluff, ANGST, references to war/drowning/migraines, descriptions of pain/violence/slight injury, near-death experiences, super worried/concerned Obi, Reader really going through it 👀

Summary: A week following your and Obi-Wan's dalliance with The Muntuur, you decide to spend the day meditating on the famed Temple contemplation balcony. But after an unexpected visitor disrupts your concentration, you find yourself trapped within a new, wildly dangerous situation. Good thing Obi-Wan is nearby to share in the risk.

Song Inspo: Bridge Over Troubled Water — Simon & Garfunkel

Words: 13.4k (please take breaks I beg you)

A/n: Soooo splitting up this chapter wouldn't have made sense so y'all getting a two-for-one deal for the Part I finale, which hopefully makes up for the big delay lol. This will be the longest chapter I ever post I promise you. I’ve been so excited to write this one. It's a bit intense. Song inspo for this chapter is supes important. Like, it’s literally Obi singing to the reader, I CANNOT (there’s a line talking about his “silver girl” 😭)— ALSO updates will be slightly less frequent for the following chapters because we ‘bout to be officially entering tcw plot lines and imma need more time to review them lol. Also, will be using the next week or so to respond to requests 😋 As always, please let me know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to tell me if you'd like to be added to the taglist. Anyways, enjoy 😈

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Oh, when darkness comes

And pain is all around

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down

— Paul Simon

The glittering, golden rays of Coruscant’s sun submerged your resting eyelids in its warmth, only to be abated by the partial shade of plump bushes whose orange-red gradients reigned proudly around the meditative stance you now held. That, and the occasional gust of cooling breeze, which brushed across your cheeks in its periodic hold on swaying shrubbery, trembling at its mercy. Still, despite this wind tunnel encircling the Temple’s primary spire, it was not enough to limit the sporadic vegetation’s effectiveness in secluding your crisscrossed posture from the rest of the rather exposed contemplation balcony that skirted the tower’s median.

You had discovered this bronze-floored platform of rest and meditation during that first week at the Temple, surmising its intended purpose from the few Jedi you’d spied engaging in those familiar, solitary explorations against a backdrop of the wider District. It was one of the primary reasons you’d decided to return to this spot when you had the chance— to engage in such like-minded behavior with fellow Jedi for the first time in many years.

For the first time since Qui-Gon wished the Force to be with you for the very last time.

However, despite earmarking the serene terrace’s smooth architecture and scattered plant life as a sensible spot for meditation, you’d only really had a chance to visit it this afternoon— three weeks since your arrival on Coruscant.

It was hard to forget that, in the days following your first Temple appearance, perplexing headaches had severely limited any propensity for introspective freedom. Initially, by coercing you to find the next best thing in terms of a quiet place to meditate by the suddenness with which they arrived. Frustrating the immersion necessary to delve deeply into your inner being.

But that was nothing compared to the searing pain which radiated throughout your body in each cognitive session following a certain, fateful hour—

In which you bestowed a name upon the affliction’s sensation in hopes of understanding it better.

Black Water.

You shook your head haphazardly, eyes still sealed shut while your subconscious attempted to dispel that particular thought without disrupting your current, and long sought after, communion with the Force.

With a lift of each wrist to protruding knees, you relaxed your palms open, as if to better catch the swirling energies like falling snowflakes that absorbed into chilled fingers. A gliding stream that energized your veins and stood unparalleled when weighed against the prior weeks you were desperately trying to put behind you.

In a way, finally tasting the Force’s unfathomably profound vibrancy with such renewed vigor was enough to comfortably remind yourself that you could dive as cavernously as you pleased, since the listlessness of penetrating headaches was now a time of the past.

And you really did have Obi-Wan to thank for that.

In an afternoon with The Muntuur, you’d unexpectedly uncovered that mindless sprints down seedy tunnels, hours with your nose stuck in a holobook’s blue glow, and playing copilot with Anakin were not your only options to dampen those sharp stabs into dull throbs. With a suddenness akin to explosive laughter, those moments that followed ignited an inner epiphany—

That the power you siphoned from the Force by focusing your mind on others acted as some sort of natural medicine, as a booster that couldn’t be equated.

Whether that was training beings in the intricacies of a long-lost Jedi device or finding the humor in the attempts that followed, your mind gradually discovered the strength that wafted from these seemingly trivial interactions like sparks off a campfire.

In hindsight, you kicked yourself for not recognizing the presence of this strange ability earlier. Though, having previously held the revered title of ‘Sole Planetary Being,’ it hadn’t given you much in terms of options for discovering it on your own. But even then, when finally faced with an endless sea of individuals following your daring escape from Hoth, it still all took much longer than you would have liked.

Mostly because, during those few heart-to-hearts with Anakin, you had appreciated that the baring of souls— for an instant even so fleeting it could be compared to the flick of a lightsaber— was enough to reconnect you to the Force’s lifeline like a falling anchor. It was something that helped you read the young Jedi just as well as it saved you from being launched into space by a certain garbage pit acceleration shield. Yet still, you hadn’t read it as anything more besides some possible understanding that a long-foretold prophecy drew between The Guardian and The Chosen.

You just never really put two and two together.

Until it stared you right in the migraine-dulled face with blue eyes, curled auburn hair, and a well-kept beard.

And, obviously, once this particular realization clicked, you were sure to lean into these revitalizing energies with every repeat opportunity that presented itself.

In the week that followed, you and Obi-Wan excitedly wrung out a few more collective hours with The Muntuur. In which he steadily absorbed the programming basics while you conditioned yourself to hold any semblance of composure during the Jedi’s subsequent twirls around invisible foes.

A skill you had yet to fully master.

And then, in the next few, rousing days, as the communications system was re-secured, and ramping up Council meetings dragged Kenobi away to organize and assign new deployments, you soon faced the inescapable reality of extending this perspective to other day-to-day moments that excluded the Jedi Master.

And you certainly did your best.

You’d draw on the vigor of swapping taunts with Anakin’s passionate personality in afternoon spars. And focus your senses on welcoming Master Windu’s signature into your thoughts— though still with little success. Even those periodic study sessions with Ahsoka became just as much a chance to learn more about the confident Padawan’s perspectives and person as a way to strengthen your mind against the piercing throbs that weakened like a dying candle following each of these interactions.

Consequently, it was during these same last four or five days that you’d finally found yourself beginning to open up to the beings who’d rescued you from Hoth. Because it wasn’t until you were forced to gather up fortitude from the rejuvenating effect of drawing on your connection’s ability to swirl in others— like plucking flower petals from a field of solidarity— did you realize your mistake since arriving on Hoth.

That, in an effort to come to terms with Qui-Gon’s death, you’d closed yourself off to the impact of other’s around you. Giving all of yourself to every prophetic instant with an emphasis on Anakin’s well-being without truly finding a moment for yourself to allow this new connection with the Order to take hold. Without permitting yourself the chance to absorb all the strengths such unity imbued.

Nonetheless, the more you unlocked your rigid chest to the beings surrounding you, the less frequent and tender those shooting pangs became, as they slunk away like the migration of a long winter season. All the way up until the last few days, in which, for a lovely change, the familiar, hammering pressure at your sinuses never came.

Still, no matter how well this unique manipulation of the Force aided you in your affliction, it still left you quite unsettled, weighing down your sternum like a misaligned rib.

You’d never heard of a Force Ability that drew upon a Jedi’s connection to other beings. Nor a power so unique that its strength was determined by the wielder’s level of familiarity with the associations they extracted from. A concept that immeasurably wise Jedi like Master Yoda and Master Windu would be quite uncertain of, you confidently ascertained. Because, in a way, this talent seemed to teeter on the edge of what was accepted by the Jedi Code by their strict standards.

It was moments like these that you’d wished Qui-Gon was here.

He always understood exactly what to say, and precisely what to do.

But your late Master was gone, and you could only make the best decision you could at this moment.

So, deciding to take a page out of his book, you determined it necessary to hold off on sharing this new tidbit with anyone, especially the Council, until you knew more.

Another chilly gust of wind whipped at your hair, snapping off a few clusters of brittle leaves that quivered past closed eyes, sparkling in the Force like bustling dots for your senses to discern. It deepened your concentration, imploring you to consider the sweeping impact of such an odd development. How it rippled into your past of isolation and everlasting hardship, and how it newly affected your approach of the Order. Mostly, you chewed over the possibility that finding strength in connecting with the Order and the beings it housed was all a wider symptom of your purpose.

You were The Guardian, after all. An individual whose entire existence premised on the notion of putting others before themselves. It was only rational that a creature of prophecy such as that would gather strength from those they were tasked with protecting.

Anakin, the Order, and, in a way, the Galaxy itself.

And, now that you’d finally reoriented your bearings, you were finally planning to put that new solidity to use.

Once more, you stretched your lungs with a rapturous inhale, taking in the contemplation balcony’s encompassing, earthy scents that barely cut the surrounding district’s gaseous fumes as they crawled over the fringe of your senses.

It was easy to see why Ahsoka complained about the lingering smells of speeder exhausts or freshly welded metal any time she considered meditating outdoors. Citing it as the primary example for her difficulty concentrating in such a space.

Yet, you found the opposite to be true.

After years of traversing anosmic ice sheets atop Meetra’s pungent fur coat, you relished in the cold’s ability to naturally numb your olfactory. And it turned out to be another one of the many factors on Hoth that disconnected you from other worlds. So, when finally given the chance to absorb the kaleidoscope of essences Coruscant had to offer, you couldn’t help but feel as if it tied you with a sturdier knot to the wider Galaxy’s intertwinement with the Force.

Maybe that’s why you’d finally found a yawing peace in this little alcove. Guarded by a half-circle of vermillion bushes that stood in staunch defiance against the acrid aromas climbing over and onto the platform’s edge. A nook so ethereally stilled that it nearly cleared your mind of the bustling city below. In an afternoon which snugged exposed arms and a poised neck in toasty rays that capered in equilibrium with the occasional gusts encircling the Temple’s main spire. A quiet locale that released clasped breaths, with each exhale further lightening your mind into the Force’s eternal flow.

“Hi.”

Creasing one eye open, you peeked out in search of the youthful voice, following its eager jump at your senses once drenched in tranquil quietude.

A young, human boy, maybe six or seven years, was leaning into the alcove’s overgrown doorway, small hand clutching a nearby bush as he idled. Jet black hair accented against the warm tints encircling you both, making room for strikingly green orbs to splash another vivid shade into your line of sight while his head curiosity tilted to observe you.

“Hi there,” you responded cordially, shutting your peering eye without a second thought.

“Who are you?” He asked, with a rapidity that implied you’d never dignified him with a response in the first place.

Quite blunt, you noted behind the soothing shadows of resting eyelids. But it was hard not to appreciate that quality. You’d be lying if you didn’t admit that you were certainly like that at his age.

Stifling an endeared smile, you answered.

“My name is Silvey.”

“Nice to meet you, Master Silvey,” the youngling greeted brightly.

“Just Silvey is fine,” you gently countered. “And it’s a pleasure to meet you as well—“

“Petro,” he announced quickly, while you sensed his feet meandering toward your form. “Jedi Initiate.”

Returning to centering breaths in the cursory stillness, you could already feel how your words finally registered with the youngling, his meek boot passing by your attuned senses as he nudged a nearby, pattering pebble.

“Are you not a Jedi?” He bemused, pausing a meter away.

You confirmed. “I am.”

“Well, you seem too old to be a Padawan.”

You chuckled lightly at that, wrenching your eyes open to stare at the unfazed youngling with a feigned dare in your gradual stray from the interconnectivity of a previously solidified, meditative state.

“You’re right, Petro. I’m a knight. I just prefer the name. Without the title.”

Forehead furrowing in uncertainty, he squatted down, joining you with his own meditative stance that sacrificed elements of tranquility in its desperate attempt to mirror yours.

But you, instead, followed by resting your hands on either side. Using them as pillars to support your weight that leaned back in an attempt to encourage relaxation in the young boy.

And also, because, it looked like your session was reaching beyond the point of no return.

“Why?”

A good question, you admitted. You didn’t really have an answer for Ahsoka either when you asked her to avoid that particular designation. Though when she did pose a similar inquiry, you somewhat knew in the back of your mind that the personal values that’d emerged from your unusual upbringing were certainly a factor.

The reasoning you presented then should do, you presumed

“I suppose having a rank divides me from those who do not share it. And, as a Jedi, connecting with the Force through all living beings is a part of who I am. It’s harder to do that if I’m placed on a pedestal above them.”

The boy’s nose crinkled, almost as if he’d just registered the District’s sickly fumes that billowed into a drifting fog from below.

“I always thought you were supposed to call Masters that to be respectful. Because they know so much, and they can do those big flips in the air with their lightsabers. And I’m still stuck on Form One.”

Well, he certainly wasn’t wrong, you mused. In fact, his astute analysis was detailed enough to bring you back to threading memories of that rainy afternoon. When Obi-Wan found you at the outer edge of the Senate District, and the burden of piercing stabs dissipated in the hours that followed. Attributable to what was aptly described as invariably sound advice, or, ‘knowing so much.’

You hummed contentedly at the memory.

“They are quite wise, aren’t they?”

But it was clear that such a jettisoned comment did not swing the pendulum of Petro’s mind in any particular direction regarding your previous statement.

Time to take a new approach, you decided.

“Do you believe in the value of all living beings?”

“I guess,” he mumbled indecisively.

Your brows skeptically raised as you probed his response.

“You guess?”

Petro’s voice gave way to an embittered tone. “I don’t like those Separatists we’re fighting. Especially General Grievous. When I get my lightsaber, I’m gonna challenge him to a duel and destroy him for the Republic.”

You took pause at the vexation which plumed into the Force and prodded at your senses. Swelling into cascading clouds throughout the proximate ambiance from a being who, if stood on the tips of their toes, would barely reach four feet.

“It was not long ago that those worlds were once part of the Republic. Would it surprise you to know that even the beings on the side of the Separatists are just as important to the Jedi?”

Scratching his knee, Petro unshackled his gaze to wander upwards, green eyes unfixed as he spoke simply.

“I don’t understand. The Separatists aren’t our friends anymore because the Jedi are fighting them in a war. How can we hurt them and care about them at the same time?”

Your eyes crinkled in serenity.

“Because all life is sacred, young Petro. No matter what side any being is on. No matter what rank they hold.”

You exhaled, gaze standing firm as candor seeped from your pores.

“Though I must admit, I’m also quite confused about our place as peacekeepers in this war. But as long as you preserve that belief in your heart, I’m sure it will take you far in your journey as a Jedi.”

He nodded, that ever so slightly ripening mind absorbing your words. But, like with most maturing Jedi, it didn’t take long for a satisfied grin to peak through the abating wonder that had once lined his features.

“Thanks, Mas—“

Petro cut himself off, inhaling as his teeth caught up with his brain.

“Thanks, Silvey.”

You offered a soft smile.

“Is it easier to mediate here?” He continued, topic shifting just as abruptly as he spoke. “This is my first time visiting the contemplation balcony. I know it’s usually meant for Padawans and Knights, but I’ve been having trouble meditating on my own.”

You considered the youngling’s words, panning your gaze by the swaying orange-red bushes and toward the distant cityscape infested by disparate skylanes.

“Yes, it’s quite nice here.”

You faced the black-haired Initiate.

“And usually very quiet.”

But Petro simply stared at you blankly as that thinly veiled joke vaulted over his head.

“You can meditate here with me if you’d like,” you offered, hoping to bide some silence without discouraging the young fellow.

But the boy was way ahead of you, shutting his eyes with a beaming expression before you even had a chance to finish your sentence.

And, for a moment, it was calm.

The sway of rustling shrubbery and distant whirs of dashing speeders reentered your senses. You found yourself relaxing your shoulders back into the swirling stream, resting your wrists on each knee once more to deepen your connection. Quicker than the weeks before, you could feel its tingling energies crawl up your forearms and widen your perception of the swarming, broad region. The many Jedi circulating through local walkways, training, or even meditating nearby as well as the thousands of beings going about their daily lives only within a few blocks of the Temple.

Their distant mutterings. Their footsteps. The way with which their signatures contributed to Coruscant’s hive. Even young Petro, his squirming facial muscles and bouncing knee tugging at your senses as he attempted his own communion with the Force.

But, of course, it never did last for long.

“How old are you?”

You kept your vision obscured, hoping not to lose your progress in intensifying your concentration as you swiftly responded.

“That’s a secret.”

“Why are your eyes silver?”

“Family trait.”

“What color is your lightsaber? I bet it’s green.”

“Gray.”

“Gray!? That’s so cool! I’ve never heard of a gray Kyber crystal! Did you find it like that or—“

A sharp spasm speared through your mind, stunning your eyes wide open as your posture collapsed forward. Arms flinging out toward the ground to catch yourself.

With every extractable effort, you tried to absorb the debilitating sensation, hoping that if you just let it flow through you, it would pass as quickly as it came. A pain that, for an instant, felt as if it dwarfed all the headaches of the last several weeks.

“Are you ok, Silvey? I’m sorry if I said something wrong—“

“No,” you heaved, catching your breath as the feeling slowly dulled into the background.

Glancing up at the nervous boy, you offered a tired smile, reaching out into the Force’s eternal connectivity to focus on the beings around you.

“You did nothing wrong, Petro. I’m just—“

Another flash of white-hot agony, searing into your mind a sustained hammering that yanked from feebly quivering lips a distressed groan. Your fingernails dug into the squeaking bronzed platform, almost as if to distract your head from its steadily swelling excruciation with the torment of scraping skin against metal.

Yet, it only produced a mere fraction of the pain.

You couldn’t help it. It was the only way to avoid screaming out at the blinding sensation. That, and the anesthetic of grinding your teeth— an operation which made it equally impossible to speak.

“Get….”

Another penetrating stab ripped open your jaw, unshackling a jarring yell as your heartbeat began to quicken against a heaving chest.

“Get what?!” Petro implored, panicked, as he sprung to his feet.

“Is there something I should get?! What do I get?!”

“…help” you croaked.

“Help?” He sounded, tasting the consonants in his mouth.

Then, his alarmed gaze exploded in recognition.

“Oh, help!” The black-haired boy exclaimed, waving his arms while the cogs of his mind zipped into overdrive.

“Get help! I can do that! I can do that.”

Petro froze, dropping into a lower hush as he calmly addressed himself.

“I can do that.”

Bright green eyes snapped back up at your writhing, keeled-over form.

“I’ll be right back, Silvey! Don’t move!”

And with that, the energized youngling hopped into a sprint, barreling through the doorway out of your meditation alcove. Skidding to the left in an attempt to avoid one of the larger vermillion shrubs before disappearing around its lush corner.

But that still left you, reaching up to rigidly clutch your head out of instinct. Fingernails furrowing into disheveled hair and scrapping against the irritated scalp below just as ravenously as the floor.

Because, to you, superficial discomfort stood as the sole avenue to divert your attention from your paling face and shaking hands. As a means to grasp onto escaping tendrils of concentration amidst spiraling torment. You knew that intense focus was your best chance at ejecting these perforating splashes of acid from your mind. That intertwining with the Force’s undying strength would be the only pillar maintaining your teetering consciousness.

So, you plunged into it. Enveloping yourself deeper into the circulating stream’s linking medium with the aim of drawing stability from the beings who resided within and beyond the Temple.

From the Order itself.

Hoping that your brief theater to their energies would prove potent enough to pave you a path out of this torture.

Until it wasn’t.

Black spots began to cloud your vision, bobbing in from your peripheral, swelling to obscure the still swinging bushes and greater District’s landscape. Smothering you into a sea of darkness as if the Maker themself reached up into the sky and darkened the Coruscanti sun with a flick.

It was then when you prepared yourself for what you assumed was coming.

Snapping your eyes shut, you braced for the sudden dizziness that you were sure would take hold. A weightlessness in your stomach destined to shoot up your esophagus. A heated copper platform soon to meet your pained skull with an unceremonious slam.

But none of that ever happened.

Instead, the darkness began to dissipate. Clearing like a temporary fog that was simply passing through.

But this was no ordinary haze, it seemed.

Because in its place, with the continued volatile pangs slowing your eyes in their attempt to refocus, emerged a realm you had no words to fully describe.

And no idea for how you got there.

Your neck was angled downwards when your orbs first began to blink away the daze as the headache of before dissipated into a faraway hum. A position that encouraged you to confoundedly rub those same, silver eyes the instant you realized you were suddenly standing.

And on a ground quite unfamiliar to you, no less.

Beneath your feet ran an overlayed pile of black rocks, smooth yet jagged as they hugged your brown boots with slippery bodies.

You lurched back, disorientation from the drastically altered sight driving your feet as unknown, overcast skies darkened your movements. A freezing ache from the shock attacking your hands while you moved.

Until you quickly realized that each brisk heel rapidly digging away brought your legs deeper into the pile’s mass like a quicksand.

You went rigid, taking swift note of the sharp stones that now slithered around your ankles with a consistency akin to having been dipped in oil.

Quickening heartbeats shot up your gaze as you tried to reorient yourself within these new surroundings. Secretly hoping that perhaps you’d accidentally stumbled into some strange rock exhibit on the contemplation balcony.

But it didn’t take long to surmise that belief’s impossibility. Because to your left and right and as far as the human eye could see, was an endless accumulation of overlapping rock mounds. Rolling like black sand dunes on a lifeless island on which you now stood.

And solidifying your credence that, wherever you were, you definitely weren’t in the Temple anymore.

Still, that wasn’t the only new terrain that infiltrated your senses. By a flickering gleam a few meters ahead, you abruptly spotted a body of water that skirted the rock formations. A strange moat that seemed to stand still atop a bottomless pit of murky shadows with an eery calmness that made it nearly invisible to the naked eye, despite it being located just under your nose.

Then, still raising your head, you spied another structure just beyond the channel. A jagged rock face of stacked boulders that bore a towering plateau reaching twenty meters into the gray sky, measuring at least the same distance from which its foundation stood beyond the trench. You assumed from the few, fluttering wisps of green grass oscillating over its edge, that the sky-scraping crag’s inviolability clearly rivaled the unstable land on which you now stood. One that collectively squirmed from the same occasional gusts of cold, damp breeze, which left the calm waters unaffected.

Decidedly, you needed to find a way over there.

With considerably more caution, you stepped toward the standing water, trusting in your ability to inch close enough in order to gauge its depth without sinking too dangerously below the slick rocks as they continued to wriggle up your legs. Still, each lumbered stride became increasingly difficult while the hill’s pressurized grip tightened around each calf before squeezing at your knees.

But, in spite of that noticeable roadblock, and following several strained, jerking steps, you were finally able to near the bank. Drawing close enough to gaze into the river’s spine-chilling, shadowy underbelly.

Angling downward, you reached out a hand with the hope of splashing some dulled skylight into its depths for a better view. Perhaps it was more shallow than you initially surmised, which would certainly make your journey across its waters much easier.

But as your fingers graced its surface, you were completely unprepared for the jolting fiery shock that surged up your arm, triggering you to yank it away as if you’d just been splashed by pure, volcanic ash.

You hissed from the sting, cradling your arm while staring deeper into the river’s shadowy depths that rippled from the sudden distortion.

Within seconds of the minute cascading wavelet stretching and dissipating into the river’s outer rims, a handful of bubbles trickled toward the surface from inside its murkiest blotches. The first set effervescing skyward only to, one after another, snap and crackle like watery fireworks whose speckled flakes stung your arms stuck in the crossfire at the river’s bank.

Soon, though, the last gurgle fizzed into a silent pause. A deafening calmness purveying the unknown land to which you’d somehow been transported. Providing an opportunity to formulate some new strategy of escape.

An instant immediately stolen.

In a snap, the waters became overwhelmed by a swarming array of roiling bubbles. A rapidly expanding feat that began to overtake the stream. Transforming the once-still liquid into a gurgling mess as if a thousand lightsabers ignited its expanse from below to tip the already blistering lake over into a chain reaction of pure, uncontrollable entropy.

Your lips formed a thin line as you hummed to yourself.

“This is gonna be a problem.”

—

Obi-Wan Kenobi continued his steady jog down the main Spire’s winding staircase. Nut brown robe fluttering by each pearly step while the bearded Jedi considered just how long he’d been waiting for this pertinent moment.

Or, at least, for the assignments finally allocated at the Council meeting this morning. One that he was just now departing.

It had been six, prolonged days brimming with Jedi deployments following the communications system’s final clearance for secure use during sensitive operations. One after another, fellow Masters and Knights, accompanied by the occasional Padawan, circled through the Council’s chambers like an endless revolving door of diverse faces. Accepting each new mission with complete decorum before bowing to the seated assembly to make their exit. Ensuring space for the next General to enter the yellow rotunda of decorative inscriptions and curtain walls before encircling chairs and the distant panorama of Coruscant’s tallest structures.

All to receive critical orders.

That included Anakin and Ahsoka, who, by request of Master Windu, had departed from the Temple just the other day for the Bith System.

All and all, it had been nearly a week of Kenobi’s colleagues rejoining their clone forces to tackle the Separatist threat. After almost a month of virtually twiddling his thumbs while the men in his battalion laid down their lives without him. A scenario that weighed on the Master Jedi.

Thank the Maker that was no longer the case.

The first set of Council members— Obi-Wan Kenobi, Plo Koon, and Shaak Ti— had finally received their first returning assignments since the full communications lockdown. But while those other Masters were expected to lead their respective battalions alone or be the sole Jedi representative on other worlds, for the first time since Anakin was his Padawan, Kenobi would have a companion.

A being, by Master Yoda, he was tasked with integrating into the Order. And, as a high-ranking Council member, one whose true identity Kenobi needed to protect. An individual who had mentioned to him earlier their plans of meditating on the contemplation balcony before his morning meeting. And because of that, a Jedi he knew exactly where to find to inform them about their mutual deployment scheduled for tomorrow morning.

You.

The auburn-haired man paused mid-step, brown boot hovering over the next, grayed stair for an instant before gently touching down as his senses attuned to their surroundings. His ears perked while a subtle distortion washed by stilled feet, like the elusive splash of a puddle that just happened to knick the edge of his shoe.

With a hand on the thick, wooden guardrail, The General’s curious head smoothly tilted over the staircase, as if to spy the source of the atmosphere’s twitch that he found so strangely difficult to describe by simply peering at the level below.

His brows twisted in slight confusion. Mostly because, after conducting a quick analysis of his environment, the Master Jedi found the subtle sensation’s presence to be quite foreign to him. It wasn’t anything he believed to be particularly concerning. Though he couldn’t admit to having encountered it before. No matter his countless meditation sessions or travels to other worlds.

Perhaps that too was why, despite its innocuous nature, the sudden shift in the encompassing hum of the Force still gave him pause.

Resting his eyelids, Obi-Wan focused his mind on the strange discrepancy, reaching out with the tendrils of his senses to ascertain its truth.

It was as if, within the Force’s steadily taught string, a subtle dip pried down one insignificant section of its intrinsic flow. As if in its everlasting stream that moved throughout every being and world, a fly became caught, with wings too soaked to free itself.

Overall, it was a feeling that wasn’t quite… right. Something that shouldn’t necessarily be there, he gleaned.

An otherwise benign inconsistency Kenobi was confident you wouldn’t mind him investigating. Even if it meant a delay in hearing the details of your upcoming, joint mission.

The blue-eyed Jedi resumed his trek down the spiraling staircase, spry footsteps leading his loosened form. This time with his aim shifted toward the curious ridge that etched into the Force and canopied his senses.

With ample time to reach the variability and a wandering mind, Obi-Wan took the empty moment to consider the Grand Master’s decisions regarding his delayed assignment.

Of course, The General understood the logic behind Master Yoda’s insistence that non-Council members be deployed first while those left behind delegated such commissions. If the Republic expected to recoup its battlefield losses, it was wisest to finalize those strategies with the senior decision-makers still in one place. All while those uninvolved in the planning process took those first, few important strides toward implementing the Grand Army’s ever-evolving designs.

Still, the wait became arduous. The bearded Jedi was usually more patient when it came to such matters as these. And, to be sure, he wasn’t particularly enthused about the encroaching sleepless nights or measureless tasks that were destined to cut into his meditation time.

But now that most of the overarching battalion strategies tailored for the Jedi’s return had been finalized, General Kenobi could not wait any longer to dig his heels back into every effort the Republic put forward to preserve peace in a Galaxy threatened by shadowy forces. Agents of the Dark Side like Count Dooku who, week-by-week, further convinced Master Yoda of his Sith identity.

One of two beings Obi-Wan could never risk permitting either of which to entertain the idea of your existence.

“Master Kenobi!”

Traversing the last few stairs onto the Spire’s median platform, Obi-Wan promptly raised his head toward the adolescent voice. Taking note of its high-strung manner as a dash of jet-black locks jounced into the lower creases of his vision, followed by a flash of green orbs ablaze with panic.

He tilted his head inquisitively.

“Yes, youngling? Is there something wrong?”

But the winded, wide-eyed boy couldn’t answer, mouth agape like a Bluefish thrust from the ocean. Instead, he flung out one distressed arm, grasping Kenobi’s own to tug it frantically toward the platforms behind while breathless words tumbled from trembling teeth.

“We… we need help! Silvey needs someone… someone to help them!”

A raw chill surged up Obi-Wan’s spine, spreading across his cheeks like icy roots that temporarily sucked the color from his lips. Providing enough of a momentary shock at the boy’s words to nudge Kenobi’s heels forward as the youngling dragged him along.

The Guardian, in need of help…

Considering how stubbornly independent you’d always been, this notion certainly worried the Jed Master. It would’ve taken a great deal for you to request any sort of assistance. And from a youngling, no less…

Something must’ve been seriously wrong.

And, as the Jedi whose only indefinite assignment to himself was to ensure your protection, the idea of you being seriously injured or worse fleetingly triggered Obi-Wan’s anxieties about the future in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Not since his experiences as Qui-Gon’s Padawan, at least.

“Slow down. Tell me what happened to Silvey. Are they alright?”

Both Kenobi and the youngling fell in step, the former walking briskly with the semi-jogging boy across the rotunda’s cobalt blue carpet while he continued to tug at the Jedi Master’s sleeve.

“I don’t know!” He huffed, slightly sniffling as he gazed up at the elder Jedi with teary eyes. “We were just talking and they fell and they looked like they were in a lot of pain! They told me to get help, so I did.”

Obi-Wan inhaled deeply, attempting to calm his mind from the initial surprise.

He had an idea of what could have caused this, yet it didn’t make any sense. The bearded man thought that these stress-induced headaches had resolved. At least, that’s what you had told him. He’d become convinced that your efforts to focus that bright mind on differing matters had finally compelled them to fade into the background.

But, if that was the case, what could have possibly changed all that in the matter of a day? Of an hour, since last he saw you?

“Where are they right now?” Kenobi coolly spoke as agile Jedi and youngling stepped onto the contemplation balcony, the gleaming rays of Coruscant’s blazing, yellow sun beating down on the pensive man’s searching face.

“I told them to wait in the Redweeds Circle where they were meditating.”

Obi-Wan halted, forcing the glassy-eyed yet somewhat more sedated boy to skid to a stop, fingers still tightly clasped to his brown sleeve as he frighteningly gazed up at the bearded man.

“I will go and check on Silvey, youngling. But I have one very important task for you while I do that.”

The boy emphatically nodded, lifting up a pair of knuckles to swipe away a dribble of snot leaking down his lips. Still, he listened, green eyes glistening.

Kenobi exhaled, kneeling down to address the boy at his level. “What is your name?”

“Petro,” the youngling sniffled.

“Young Petro, I want you to run up to the High Council Chambers and find Master Windu. Tell him what you told me and where to find us.”

A slight twinkle flickered in the boy’s eye. “I can do that.”

“I know you can,” Obi-Wan graciously smiled while resting a hand on his knee to stand once more. “Now go. I will see to it that Silvey is alright. Have no fear. You did well.”

The black hair boy nodded.

“Thank you, Master Kenobi,” Petro vocalized, a modest upturn gracing the corners of his mouth.

With a pivot of his foot, the youngling trotted back toward the inner spire, beginning his lengthy journey to the tower’s highest point where the Council chambers lay. Still, despite his frazzled signature and hurried pace, Petro still found a moment to call back to Master Jedi who’d just resumed his trek toward your being.

“I hope Silvey will be ok!”

And Obi-Wan certainly agreed with him.

Trailing the copper-tinted curvature of the Spire’s outdoor platform, Kenobi quickly sped toward the Redweeds Circle, passing the occasional Jedi and botanical display in his tempered jog to reach you. He paid no mind to the blue lekku that hung smoothly from either side of Master Aayla Secura’s head as he glided by her deep, meditative trance at the terrace’s outer border without a second thought. He brushed off the District streets’ eddying fumes, accompanied by an unbroken chain of droning speeders and stirring winds that echoed down the path toward the secluded divisions of the balcony.

But the instant his bounding steps brought him within reach of those familiar fiery shrubs, Obi-Wan suddenly found, with his legs uneasily immobilized just before the alcove’s parted entrance, that a familiar distortion had weaved its way back into his senses. And in a fashion that couldn’t simply be ignored.

Because it was the same bend in the Force that he’d sensed on the main Spire’s stairway just moments ago.

A discrepancy, Master Kenobi realized, as he was once again driven to spin through the verdant corner and onto the meditative alcove, was coming from you.

Drinking in your slumped-over spine and cradled head in a blink, Obi-Wan’s unexpectedly spurring heartbeat bolted him toward your figure, stirred to quicken his pace as another pained groan escaped your lips.

“Silvey,” Obi-Wan called out, concern tugging at his sternum while he slowed to kneel beside you.

Eyeing your obscured countenance, Obi-Wan tried to slightly lean in, hoping to catch a glimpse of your face to help gauge the severity of your condition.

But that wouldn’t change the fact that Kenobi had never seen such a strong, physical reaction like this from you before. Especially with regard to the migraines of the last week.

“What is happening? Is it the headaches? Have they come back?”

“Obi-Wan?” You croaked, flicking your head out of cupped palms in startled search of him.

But what Obi-Wan saw nearly made him stumble out of your line of vision altogether.

In place of your brilliant, silver eyes had emerged a thin, gray film, wrapped around the delicate orbs like a taught bedsheet. Seemingly acting as a buffer in your vision during your aimless search for Obi-Wan, despite him being knelt directly in front of your wandering gaze.

“Where are you?” You intensely inquired, vision oscillating from side to side.

Obi-Wan swallowed thickly. “I’m right next to you.”

Puzzlement jerked at your brows. “I- uh. I don’t see you.”

“You’re sitting on the contemplation balcony with me.”

Lifting a hand, he reached out for you, placing his palm on your sun-kissed shoulder to give it a gentle squeeze as a freezing tinge enveloped his fingertips.

“Do you feel my hand?”

“No, I can only feel this damned headache!” You groaned. “And I’m gonna have to disagree with you, Obi-Wan. Wherever I am, it’s definitely not the balcony, and it’s pretty hard to move.” The Master Jedi spied as your hand shot back up to massage your temple. “It doesn’t help that this ache is weighing me down.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth devolved into a thin line, worry etched across his features as he absorbed your troubling words.

“I’m not sure I quite understand. Are you saying you’re seeing some other… place?”

“If you can call it that, yeah.”

The bearded Jedi’s blue eyes narrowed, unsettlement bubbling like a steeping tea at the uncertainty of your condition.

“Tell me what you see.”

“I’m…”

Kenobi dropped his hand while your head swiveled, scanning the encircling vermillion bushes and bronzed terrace below as if you could truly see those landmarks through swathed orbs.

“I’m on some sort of… island. But it’s made up of these strange rocks. They’re oily, covered in soot, and… seem to act like quicksand around my feet. Uh, there’s a lake? It’s surrounding the island. But, Obi-Wan?”

Your neck swiveled like a droid urgently conducting a scan as you again searched for him, uncertainty contorting your features.

“I’m here, Silvey,” Kenobi reassured, scooting his knees against the smoothed floor to resettle directly in front of you as your cloudy eyes stilled straight ahead.

“What is it?” He implored, attentive stare unmoving. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“The water… it’s… black. It’s so black it’s like a shadow in my hand.”

The Jedi Master did not like the sound of that at all.

Kenobi steadily exhaled, a swirling array of thoughts fighting for dominance while he attempted to ascertain what could cause such a condition. And, more importantly, what he could do to stave off its symptoms to ensure your stability, even if temporary.

“What worries me is…,” his eyes refocused on your shifting gaze as words trickled past his ears. “…Is that’s what I called my headaches. The name Master Windu told me to assign to it. Black Water. And now that’s what I see. But when I touched it, it started to boil.”

Your brows contorted in realization, jaw tightening while you spoke.

“I think it’s gonna flood the island…”

Instantly, Kenobi felt his forehead will toward yours. Slowing just inches before your nose as if proximity would make his voice clearer to you. As if it would bring your mind back from being trapped inside this bizarre realm.

“Can you get out?” He implored, a serious quickness charging his tone. “Is there somewhere you can go?”

“There’s another tall island on the opposite side, but I can’t reach—“

An audible gasp ladened with visceral pain tumbled from your tongue, followed by a stiff exhale from flaring nostrils. It was enough to draw Obi-Wan to launch his hands out to clutch your upper arms, holding them so staunchly like it was the only thing keeping you talking. Like it was the only way to keep your body from disappearing too.

He was supposed to be protecting The Guardian, and, by the unnerving sight before him, it looked like he was already failing at that task. A notion that only drove him to accelerate his spoken tempo in an attempt to seek the answers he needed to help you.

“What was that?” He worried, eyes softening at pain transparently emanating from your features. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s happening.”

“The waves,” you swallowed with stitched brows, rubbing the back of your hand while you spoke. “It splashed my hand. They’re moving closer. And every time I step back to get away, I sink deeper into the island. I don’t think I can walk any further. And I can’t use the Force here to pull myself out.”

Obi-Wan’s gaze sunk, allowing his arms to fall to his side as he settled into folded legs in an effort to parse out this rapidly developing situation.

Master Windu still hadn’t arrived, and there was no way Kenobi was leaving you by yourself to deal with this unpredictable vision only to fetch a distant Healer. If he could call it a vision. The General had certainly never heard of a Jedi becoming fully imprisoned within their own mind by one.

Though, despite being trapped by his own expeditious attempts to decipher the imminent disturbance, the uneasy man still noticed out of the crest of his vision a splash of reddened skin with peeling flakes as your soothing fingers uncovered the striking development.

And it was a sight perplexing enough to compel Kenobi to grab your wrist, just when you began to pull it away.

“Silvey…” he spoke lowly. “You hand.”

“What?”

“It’s red.”

“What? You can see the burn?” You asked, confusion dripping from your cheeks. “How? You’re not in my mind.”

“It’s here. It’s on your hand here. On the balcony.”

“Oh,” you vocalized, scrunching your nose as you continued.

“That’s really not good.”

Kenobi’s already galvanized chest hammered deeper, threatening to fracture a rib.

If, much like The Muntuur, this strange affliction within your mind had a devastating effect in the real world, it was quite possible that were this dubious river to flood your mind’s island before you had the chance to escape, your body would likely go down with it.

And, given your tightening jaw and sucking, painful breaths in your continued purveyance of invisible surroundings, Obi-Wan at least knew this:

That he had to do something.

It was his duty, after all. Even if that meant putting his mind, or life, on the line for The Guardian.

Not just for you. Or Anakin. Or the Order.

But for the Galaxy itself.

For Qui-Gon.

Positioning his hands on each knee, Kenobi rested his posture into a taught line, hoping to focus his racing thoughts on reaching out to the swirling energies that glided throughout him. Paying careful attention to narrowly avoid that dip in the stream that characterized your being and infected the flow.

“Hold on,” he murmured, releasing his mind into the Force. “I’m coming to get you.”

“Obi-Wan, no,” you rejected, vehemently shaking your head. “We still don’t know what this is. This is my mind we’re talking about. You know, the one Master Yoda had trouble analyzing? The one Master Windu hasn’t broken through? It’s too dangerous for you to even try exploring it in this state.”

“You forget,” he jested, pressing against the severely weakened barriers to your signature while his eyelids swung shut. “Facing danger in service of others is a Jedi specialty.”

But despite the confidence leaking from the bearded Jedi’s whimsical words, it was still not enough to prepare him for the astonishing sight that beclouded his bright blue orbs as Master Kenobi shouldered through the thin, protective layer that gave way to your inner mind.

—

You knew the uphill battle of hiking away from steadily rising waters lapping at a disappearing shore would inevitably sink you far enough into the mound’s squirming pebbles to trap you indefinitely. Thwarting away any hope of putting another inch between you and the frothing black liquid whose gurgling waves rolled over each other as thickly as a bubbling oil field.

You just didn’t realize that waist-deep would be the cutoff.

The deadly river roiled just a few meters away, unleashing its intensifying rage with sporadic splashes scattering far enough to swipe searing lines across the sides of your neck and forearms.

Yet, even then, the distance still appeared skewed, mostly by steaming rocks transferring the stream’s burning heat against the protective layer your robe provided. Its slender fabric barely cut their progressing fever while they buzzed with an intensity akin to the campfire rocks you remember scavenging during those late-night cave explorations on Hoth. And, with memories of prematurely dispersing those pebbles with the help of a sleeve, it didn’t take long for you to realize, eyes fixed on the unfortunate sight, that your ash cloak’s thickness wouldn’t be enough to stave off the shards’ uniformly climbing heat for long.

“It appears you could use a hand!”

Your gaze flung upwards, eyes narrowing pryingly at the rough skirt of the grassy precipice from which a carrying voice resounded down the crag and bounced across the humming buzz of scalding waters, all the way to you. Vision sharpening through rising smoke plumes, a hazy emergence snagged your focus while a brown robe flapping around similarly tinted boots crystallized in the fog.

You crossed your arms, elbows gracing the wriggling, sizzling pebbles as an incredulous smirk charmed your expression.

“Last time I checked, that was my line.”

Your brows furrowed in bewilderment.

“Wait—“ you exclaimed, having fully registered Kenobi’s presence within the inner facets of your troubled mind while your arms released to gesticulate your point.

“—How are you here?! Master Windu and I have been working for weeks to even access my thoughts!”

“Whatever this is, it has severely weakened your barriers!” He called out, a swelling wind swishing auburn curls and a shadow of unease clouding his countenance.

Soon, Obi-Wan’s lost stare raised to absorb your mutual surroundings in his scan of the endless, inky mounds whose rolling bodies far surpassed your being into the outstanding, elusive expanse. And, inside those few, short seconds, it became clear that whatever he saw germinated an element of disfavor that stitched like a spasm deep into his blue orbs.

“I sense a great darkness there!”

“Fantastic,” you huffed lowly, sarcasm nurturing its steady drip while you returned toward the preoccupied Jedi with a pointed stare and wry chuckle.

“Still think it’s just stress, Master Kenobi?” You poked, raising a brow.

And you could tell from the Jedi’s mixed expression that he realized he definitely deserved that.

A searing slap at your cheek drew out an uncontrollable hiss, snapping your gaze back toward the sizzling rapids. During the progression of your exchange, the raging waters had crept close enough to now densely crackle less than a meter away from your confined frame.

“Uh, any ideas?” You vocalized, nervously eyeing the encroaching, greasy waters.

“You’re going to be alright!” Obi-Wan shouted, arms extending over the cliff side with fingers pointed toward your figure below about thirty meters away. “I believe I can access the Force here! Don’t move!”

“Thanks for the advice!” You deadpanned, feeling a slight pressure begin to tighten under your armpits, and bow your elbows. “I was originally planning to practice Form Four while stuck in these quicksand rocks, but now I know not to do that.”

With the rise of his palms, your torso harshly tugged upwards, bringing the borderline of writhing pebbles roughly below your rear while the belligerent waters licked at the unstable land mere feet from your anchored form.

“You know what I meant!” He objected tensely, forearms straining in his continual heave skywards.

Another squeezed yank, and most of your heated legs were finally freed. Loose, burning shales tumbled back into the cavity hatched by limbs kicking out to freedom during your hasty retreat to elbow onto flatter land.

And just in the nick of time too.

Boiling liquid instantly engulfed the mound that once had you ensnared. Only seconds after you’d finally, gratingly freed a boot momentary wedged among interlocked shales.

Still, despite your newfound freedom, you couldn’t help but refocus your mind back on the black river’s looming essence as you were promptly reminded by the mounting deluge that your temporary haven would be just that.

Temporary.

“Obi-Wan…” you uneasily droned, sights locked on the molasses-like liquid traveling intelligently across the last few inches that divided its scorching heat from your fidgeting, sweaty feet.

“I don’t understand!” He nervously exclaimed, drawing your stare while he viciously grappled with thin air before his arms fell with a grunt. “I can’t move the rocks! Can you see anything that could be used to block the overflow?! Or to help you move away?!”

“No!” you shouted, fruitlessly surveying the endless mounds of black shards to your rear before facing the quite visually unsettled Jedi. “And if I move back any more I’ll get stuck again!”

Tensely biting your lip, you stretched your neck, hoping to catch a glimpse of any way across the crashing waterway— a loose path of stepping stones perhaps— when your vision once again spied the rocky cliff towering fiercely in support of Obi-Wan’s faraway figure. And while you scrutinized the plateau’s craggy outer foundation that fabricated a makeshift shoreline, you did happen to spot amidst its rugged construction two round, graphite boulders of particular interest balancing against each other toward the divide.

They stood at about half your size and appeared sturdy to move, you assessed. Making them maybe, just maybe, durable enough to get you off this death trap of an island.

So, extending your mind through elongated fingers, you attempted to clasp onto one of the shapes.

That was before learning the hard way that on that faraway shore too, you could still not manipulate the Force.

“What is it?!” Obi-Wan called out, having seemingly noticed your distant focus and budding frustration.

“Those boulders below you!” You replied, motioning for his probing peer to traverse back over the river’s murky depths. “Can you move them?!”

“I can certainly try!” He exclaimed.

An echoing grunt reverberated down the cliffside while Kenobi struggled to negotiate the boulders’ dense builds. Even from your remote spot through clouds of smoky fog and under overcast, gray skies, you could almost glimpse the blossoming of thick veins that tirelessly pulsed throughout both of the Jedi’s tautened arms.

But it wasn’t before the obvious strain brought Obi-Wan’s two, forcibly planted feet teetering just at the cliff’s edge that you felt compelled to somehow strategize a new plan. Because no matter how dangerously close those bubbling waves came, you were far more driven by the heightened danger Kenobi inched toward with each onerous yank at the structures below, effectively stiffening every muscle in your body.

Until the tiniest twitch in the right boulder stifled your breath.

Within the span of a blink of an eye, Kenobi had, by all accounts, unearthed the brawn demanded to barely lift the grayed boulder, prying it from the delicately balanced pile that slumped noisily from its removal.

He hovered it through the splintering waters, securing the object against crashing waves that threatened its journey. Holding it steady enough to shakily maneuver its shape before finally allowing it to clatter inches before your feet.

“I’d like to know why you can access the Force in my mind when I can’t!” You complained, grappling onto the giant stone with grayed sleeves clutched between your fingers as you rose atop its structure, two rapid heartbeats before the dark waters encircled the drifting, black rocks below.

“Never mind that now!” He remarked. “I’m going to build you a bridge!”

“You can’t!” You called out, boulder quivering up your legs from the rushing stream. “It took nearly all your energy to move just one of them!”

His eyes dilated with apprehension at the truth behind your words. Until that was all washed away by an element of reluctant resolve.

“When you have another suggestion I’d be happy to take it under advisement! But, for now, this is the plan!”

With rounded lips, you sighed, whispering lowly to yourself as you considered this rapidly developing predicament that you somehow now roped Obi-Wan into.

“This is not gonna end well…”

So, for those next several, tense minutes, once you acquiesced to Kenobi’s plan, it became a desperate race between you and the troubled waters persistently frothing its deadly torrent always just below. Obi-Wan constructed you a path to deliverance brick by brick, with a cacophony of strained grunts and shouts to watch the slippery corners that, following one misstep, were sure to lead to a scalding demise. It certainly didn’t help that the river had once again proved its near sentience, with the blubbering, hot liquid countering your bid for freedom by striving to surge and crack against the ascending bridge, passion like an Alessian Terror Moth to a Glowlamp.

Though, despite the restless undercurrents of anxiety breaking against your own subconscious from the absolute instantly that was this situation, a small part of you eased at the ongoing effectiveness of this thrown-together strategy Kenobi had arranged. With every available effort, the auburn-haired Jedi briskly lugged each shiftable boulder ahead of the flooding river and rising steam. And, you had to admit, his perseverance had certainly helped alleviate any general unease surrounding the plan’s ill-advised nature, calming nerves that you didn’t even realize had heightened before the adrenaline began to shake out of your system.

That was, until his complete exhaustion started to manifest through heavy perspires, drenching his face and tunic and stiffening his increasingly stuttering movements. Especially once you passed the waterway’s halfway point, those sluggish maneuverings of trembling boulders barely lifting off the ground soon became a new cause for concern.

“You need to take a break,” you advised with a comforting gaze and more standard projection, now able to make out the bearded Jedi’s entirely drained complexion from just twelve meters away. “The water will still be safely low enough for a few minutes at least.”

All Master Kenobi could do was nod while labored breaths struggled in and out of his lungs, hands reaching for rigid knees as he subsumed the brief instant greedily, fatigue dripping down every inch of his hunched body.

It was really difficult to see him like this, you absorbed, eyes glued to the troubling sight. Obi-Wan was by far one of the most intelligent and capable Jedi you’d met during your time at the Temple. So much so, that had Qui-Gon seen this day, you knew he would’ve been immeasurably proud.

Then, to watch him crumble within the confines of your strangely infected mind? Putting every piece of himself as he was known to do in service of others? Toward some crisis you could’ve escaped on your own had you held out for just a little bit longer?

You felt awfully guilty.

You sighed, attention so strongly levied on the recovering man just above and beyond that you almost missed the nearly imperceptible, detached rattlings that ostensibly reflected from the torrent below.

Ears perked, you glanced around the set of stacked boulders that precariously buttressed your balancing, skyward frame. Allowing your severely debilitated senses to lead you into a turn as you tracked the clatter toward the flooded land from which you just barely escaped. Still, despite being initially met with the broad flood of shadows, you encouraged your vision to center.

It was a decision that empowered you to quickly spy a thread of black specks emerge from the dark waters, swelling quickly in their rapid, squirming approach up the bridge with movements so coordinated you assumed they had to have been connected by some invisible thread.

“What in the Wampa…” you whispered to yourself while trying to discern this strange sight with squinting eyes.

Neck craning to take a closer look, you soon recognized the flecks’ familiar snaggy shape and greasy complexion as they melted into a pebbled form.

With nowhere else to go, and a healthy bought of curiosity driving your gaze, you observed as the black rocks slithered up the last few boulders, wondering if some strange wind trap created by the manmade bridge had somehow twisted these shards up and out of their sodden cradle.

But you were swiftly proven wrong when, madly wrapping around your leg like an unshakable boa constrictor, the reactive pebbles seized you into a downward tumble, preventing you a chance to even react. Still, your eyes grew wide at the twist while a startled Kenobi called out after your disappearing figure.

Your back slammed roughly against the bridge with each jolt, forcing you to twist and wrestle for an imperfection to grip. All the while blistering rocks jabbed into your leg with a wildness that made you gasp.

With fingernails continuing their descending scratches against a flux of smooth surfaces, you finally felt your arm give as it locked onto an indent in one of the jutting boulders. Eliciting another groan while the gravely serpent continued to tug at your commandeered limb just before the simmering heat that now suddenly reigned a centimeter below.

With a heartbeat exploding so hotly it felt as if the organ itself would stop altogether, you floundered to face the earthy creature. Spine twisting and arms tightly hugging the boulder beneath while you attempted to somehow come face-to-face with its pants-shredding clutch, hopefully without plummeting off either edge of the narrowed bridge.

Soon, however, by the swing of your other limb flipping your body, you were finally able to secure a newfound position of dominance. With the resulting urgency that rushed through your veins playing a pivotal role in raising your uncaged leg to rally a string of unfettered stomps across the organism’s linked skeleton.

One by one, you snapped off each wedge of the unwelcome parasite, feeling each incisive, prodding sting until you watched the last pebble fall with a hiss and whine back into the deluge. One that, any second, threatened to nip at your ankles.

“Nevermind!” You yelled, leaping to your feet in a desperate race back up those few, squeaky boulders you’d collapsed down.

“No time!” You continued, finally reaching the bridge’s incomplete brink and nearly stumbling over it altogether before halting just in time to spot an aura of relief wash over Obi-Wan’s features the instant you emerged.

“The rocks are alive and they’re trying to kill me!”

Kenobi’s head retracted in befuddlement from registering your words.

“What?”

Another clamor of pattering clicks rang out from the rear, soon overwhelmed by a racket of grating cracks and splashing plunges that whipped your head so quick it took a full second for your hair to catch up.

Alert eyes stilling on the alarming sight, you quickly registered that, in place of the bridge segment once fastened to the tumultuous waters below, now stood a fractured crater. In fact, the structure’s first disappeared steps into ascendancy had overflowed with squirming oily shards and rushing black liquid. The same conscious elements that began twirling like waterspouts with the intention of shimmying up to the next set of boulders, only to girdle the masses with a tight squeeze that sent another section of the bridge bursting into useless fragments.

Staunchly pointing at the rear development, you addressed the perplexed Jedi once again.

“Now they’re eating the bridge!”

“What?!”

But it didn’t take long for Master Kenobi to understand what you meant, as the last few levels of the hazardously erected configuration began to buckle under readily collapsing supports, drawing you into a falter while you tried to steady yourself atop the highest-reaching boulder.

Clearly, this situation was becoming far more dangerous than you could have ever predicted. And with that came a very real realization—

That the longer Obi-Wan remained here in his futile attempts to save you, the more jeopardy he’d be entrenching himself in.

You’d had your fair share of tight circumstances before. And, no matter how dire this one seemed, you knew by your track record that you could probably figure some way out. But, each time you faced down another bloodthirsty Wampa with a broken arm and fractured clavicle, or defended against greedy pirates who’d temporarily stolen your lightsaber, or even traversed icy plains after becoming lost in the dead of night, you still felt comfortable taking such risks.

Because you had faced them alone.

There was no one else you really had to look out for that prevented you from subjecting yourself to the perils necessary to survive.

Until now.

With this danger unlike any other.

One that you could barely predict. And one that had tangible consequences transferable to the physical realm.

One that siphoned the security you usually experienced in attempting such perilous schemes into unruly disquietude. At least since an unpredictable element by the name Obi-Wan Kenobi illuminated the fact that you’d now be endangering a life other than your own.

The land he stood upon was much safer than the vanishing oily mounds below. You understood that. But such a belief would only hold true for so long. It was just a matter of time before the troubled waters threatened to swell and engulf the bearded Jedi whose features contorted in uncertainty as he stared down at you.

Even if he waited until the absolute last second to escape— at the instant when your dreadful doom was sealed— you didn’t believe that the Master Jedi could pry himself from your mind fast enough. At least, not before it was wholly consumed by slippery shadows.

And, most importantly, if you knew one thing, you knew this, and with the confidence of a simple math equation no less:

That if Kenobi got hurt because of you, you would never forgive yourself.

In the short time he’d known you, he had already done so much. Acted as an incendiary to healing discoveries about yourself that you had no previous notion of exploring. Stayed at your side during those inner battles of painful migraines despite your initial attempts to push him away for his own protection. Truly, you couldn’t allow a man as kind and affecting as that to put his life on the line for you. Not when the Galaxy needed Jedi like him.

Not when his death would feel like losing a piece of Qui-Gon all over again.

Besides, being The Guardian of The Chosen One didn’t just mean protecting Anakin, but anyone who you believed to be a part of his destiny.

And you were quite confident that his former Master certainly qualified.

With the prospect of an untimely and horribly painful end slapping you in the face, your sheet-white face finally gravitated toward the unsettled blue-eyed man above you. For the first time since you were both thrown into this bizarre mess, the two of you exchanged a lingering gaze, silently arguing about the best next step as you gradually came to terms with the prospect that your insatiable luck may have finally run its course.

But while your features drowned in realism and pursed lips, Obi-Wan’s seemed to harden with sharpened brows and a newly robust determination, one that threatened to cut down your soberness with a mighty slash.

Because, if you remembered correctly, Obi-Wan Kenobi never believed in any such thing as luck.

“You need to jump—“

“—You need to go.”

His jaw tightened.

“I’m not leaving you.”

“The water is rising too quickly, Obi-Wan. You took so many rocks from the cliff side that it will probably collapse once it nears my position—“

Another quake in the tottering bridge jumbled your feet onto a slippery edge, nearly toppling you off the bridge altogether before a strong yank tugged you back by the hood of your robe.

Quickly, you replanted your boots, releasing a shuddery exhale as you spotted Obi-Wan’s outstretched fist lunged toward your figure, an agitated sigh falling past his evenly firm lips.

“There is no choice, Silvey!” He sternly repeated, heavily lowering his outstretched arm. “You must jump!”

“It’s a death sentence either way!” You yelled before dropping into a pragmatic tone.

“It’s too far for me without my abilities. I’ll fall.”

“Then we’ll work together,” he suggested, closing his eyes and releasing his spine as he spoke.

“Focus on my connection to the Force—“

With literally not a second to lose, you did as the wise Jedi advised, pressingly reflecting his posture amid roaring waves and collapsing boulders that you did your best to drown out with eyelids that fluttered closed.

“—And repel the shadows.”

But it was hard to sense his meaning.

The instant you tried to reach out to Kenobi’s figure with every branching fiber of your being, all that you were met with was a brick wall. As if the rising steam had congealed into some sort of smoky barrier that reigned all around you and deepened the blur of your senses. Suffocating your connection to these strange surroundings in a way you didn’t think was possible. And in a way that you couldn’t control.

“It will feel like a bright flicker in the darkness.”

Darkness? Could that be what this was? A pure, unadulterated aura of the Dark Side? And encompassing a portion of your grievously debilitated mind, no less.

You’d never had the occasion to sense the Dark Side of the Force, having only known one light side Jedi during your isolation on Hoth. You didn’t even know what it felt like. Master Kenobi had mentioned he could sense it here. Perhaps that was why your connection to the Force felt indefinitely cut off.

And, if that was the case, then maybe you were going about this all wrong.

Rather than force the shadows away in their immovable form, rather than controlling forces quite unknown to you, perhaps you could glide through them.

And the instant you endeavored through this tactic, you soon realized that Kenobi was right.

As you reached out again, this time wading past the confusing blockades that bloated into mist as you tapped them away like drifting bubbles in search of anything familiar, you finally tasted it.

A gentle orb of glaring light that, despite its size, radiated with the strength of a thousand suns.

An energy so sweet, tangible, and linking within these ubiquitous, observational shadows, that you felt lured with shaky fingers to touch it.

“Find your connection, Silvey. Whatever you must do, find your way back to the light.”

An aura so intoxicating, that you took a bite.

An unparalleled sensation of light surged through your veins. Radiating up your arms and throughout your body with an intensity that wrenched your eyes open with a sharp inhale as you felt the tingling buzz of the Force reactivate through standing hairs across your frame.

After a moment to settle into this stream’s bright yet anomalously quivering touch, with prickling cheeks gradually subsiding, you finally felt able to breathe into the remarkable feeling. First encouraging your nerves to cool while electrified eyes refocused on the auburn-haired man above, who appeared similarly disoriented and breathless.

You couldn’t blame him, though. With a quick glance at the deluge below and the rapidly ascending shards bouncing behind, you both registered that you had mere seconds to make a decision. Still, despite perceiving a reconnection to at least some piece of the Force through Obi-Wan’s dependable guidance— no matter how strong that initial connection felt— you couldn’t help but sense it to be much weaker than you’d ever experienced in the real world.

If you were being completely honest, as you readied yourself with heels digging into the slate boulder, you didn’t think this was going to work.

But waiting any longer meant giving more time for the troubled waters to reach Obi-Wan.

And that was unacceptable.

You needed to move.

With a hand boldly cast down, he yelled for a final time, imperious, blue stare burrowing into yours.

“Jump!”

And, so, you did.

With this newfound connection to the Force, the faith it partially imbued, and the man you needed to protect in dire need of saving—

You jumped.

Your feet soared above the lapping waves of piping liquid as the bridge’s final pillar shattered, toppling the structure’s remains into gurgling oblivion. You felt the blistering swipes of the ensuing, loose droplets at your ankles, catapulted by the boulders’ untimely descent while you neared the overhanging, verdant ridge from which Kenobi’s hand remained firmly extended with eyes locked tensely on your gliding frame.

However, what you had judiciously feared, and what the Master Jedi hadn’t seemingly predicted, was that, despite the helpful boost in mending a fraction of your Light Side connection, the degree to which you became entwined with the distant Force appeared to fall short of your immediate needs.

With ash-like steam thrusting against your face, you began to lose propulsion too soon, leading to the drastic turn that sent you hurdling toward a lower portion of the cliff face with no discernible crevices to grab ahold of.

Subconsciously, your legs began to kick, arms outstretched to brace yourself as if that would cushion the inevitable crash that was sure to bounce you back into the boiling, black river rumbling just below.

But that darkness never came.

In an instant, Obi-Wan had vaulted over the precipice, using one hand to grab the crag’s lip while he swung in between your collision course. Tirelessly flexing arm outstretched, he slid a loose, sweaty palm into yours, clutching it tightly before ripping you out of your momentum and into a brief twirl, leaving you both to dangerously dangle feet above the boiling stream that steamed your swaying boots.

“Maker…Are you insane?!” You screamed, a crimson outrage blooming on your face at the sheer recklessness with which he acted. “Why did you do that?!”

“I seem to have learned…a thing or two…from our mutual friend,” he grunted, attention focused on your upward escape while his knuckles whitened on either end.

You didn’t want to believe it, but you were confident in its truth.

If you stayed like this, you both were going to fall.

“Obi-Wan,” you gulped, a chill running up your spine against the smoldering background as you tried to calm your voice.

“You need to let me go.”

His bewildered gaze snapped toward yours.

“Absolutely not!”

“You’re just going to get yourself killed…” you explained, ogling him sensitively.

His eyes softened.

“Then save us both,” he hushed. “The Galaxy needs you just as much as Anakin.”

Kenobi’s eyes warily flickered past your figure as his voice intensified.

“Now, whatever you may have done earlier, I suggest you try it again before we both become another ingredient in this ghastly stew!”

You followed his stare, catching sight of the same encroaching waves that churned inches from your toes, thickly crashing and gurgling up black spouts over the array of sporadic boulders.

Wait.

“I have an idea!” You exclaimed, digits extending toward the smoky, gray body of a nearby boulder. “Cover any exposed skin!”

Tapping into that tiny spark of light blooming in your chest, and in cahoots with any and all available facets of energy remaining in your wearied body, you heaved the giant rock, clenching every possible muscle in an effort to nudge it upwards.

With a guttural cry you had no idea was your own bouncing off the cliff side and across the rumbling river, the rounded mass finally broke free, following a sedated, wobbly climb up the crag toward both of your hanging bodies.

Only a third of the way up, you became numb, extremities tingling while you focused your entire consciousness on ensuring this last-ditch plan’s success. So much so, that as your eyelids drooped in and out of blurred vision, you didn’t even realize that your clasped palm had begun to slip.

Until Kenobi let out a pained gasp, taking on the brunt of the collective weight by clamping onto the remaining loose fingers so tightly that you would’ve been surprised if he hadn’t broken one or two.

But that extra two or three seconds was all you needed. Within that frame, you’d raised the dense boulder to hover just beside Obi-Wan’s swaying form, providing a stepping stone of sorts to the ledge just above.

“Climb,” you arduously breathed, skin itching as your muscles threatened to give out.

And you certainly didn’t need to tell him twice.

Using his robe to protect himself from the rock’s blistering heat, Master Kenobi swung one leg and then the other onto its rounded body, heaving himself up with every procurable limb that wasn’t attached to you. All the while you desperately held the boulder in place as black dots began to dance at the creases of your vision.

Swiftly, he found his bearings, using the newfound surface to lunge onto the grassy knoll that characterized the plateau’s surface before immediately swiveling to drag you up with him.

“Let go of the boulder!” He exclaimed while his other arm reached down in urgent search of your Force-wielding fingers.

But the moment he told you to release it, those digits fell limp, collapsing just as quickly against your side as the giant rock plummeted back down to the dark, troubled waters below.

Yet, crouched over the cliffside, Obi-Wan refused to give up.

Tracing the outline of your slumped limb with the back of his hand, you felt the warm thread eventually reach your frozen palm, grasping it eagerly before the Jedi Master tugged you upwards by both arms.

Slowly, but surely, you felt your body lift while rising steam dissipated into a cold sweat, eventually permitting weak feet to mindlessly carry you over the partition and onto solid, green ground that pushed up against your soles.

You blinked.

“Silvey?”

The familiar sway of red-orange bushes and distant commotion of cityscape bustlings suffused your senses. In time, you spotted Obi-Wan, crouched directly in front of you with a particularly troubled tint lining his features and a warm palm resting gently atop a shoulder that you barely distinguished as your own.

You were back.

But something felt…

Off.

You shot up, legs buckling slightly as if you were trying to walk for the very first time in years. Brushing off Obi-Wan’s touch with the back of your hand in an attempt to continue your driving stumble forward.

“Wait a moment,” Obi-Wan insisted while bolting upwards, propelling opened palms to hover by your sides as you momentarily stilled in between them. “Take it slow—“

“What is going on here?”

Squinting, you spied the familiar figure of Master Windu, brows crossed in stoic reprimand as he whisked toward you both, brown cloak whipping behind him. With a wandering gaze, you narrowly spotted out of the far corner of your eye a familiar set of black locks. Peaking out from an inconspicuous hiding place behind one of the far vermillion shrubs that betrayed their location in its periodic swerves against the breeze.

“Master Windu,” Kenobi called out, waving him over. “We require your assistance.”

But with a body that, for some reason, felt uncannily like your own, it became hard to focus.

Master Windu eyed you critically. “What happened?”

A dizziness overtook the distant migraine of before, black splotches from your mind returning with a vengefully accelerating frequency. It blurred your vision into a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors that soon mutated the eyes, and noses, and lips of the men before you into an unnatural, dripping putty.

Your mouth opened disjointedly, yet no words came out.

“Master Kenobi, what’s going on?”

You reached for your head.

“I’m… unsure. Silvey? Is it still the headache?”

Weightlessness.

“Woah woah.”

Warmth.

“Youngling, fetch us a Healer—“

“Silvey, can you hear me?”

“—And then see if Master Yoda is available.”

“Silvey?”

End Part I: Rescue of the Fates