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Author	Topic: De-Cease -- one-post, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan Angst, continuation of 'Cease'
ardavenport Registered: Dec '04	Date Posted: 1/7/07 6:15pm Subject: De-Cease -- one-post, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan Angst, continuation of 'Cease' - Date Edited: 3/25/07 1:40pm (5 edits total) Edited By: ardavenport
	Title: De-Cease Author: ardavenport Timeframe: pre-Episode I, pre-TPM, JA, AU Genre: Drama, Angst Characters: Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi Keywords Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi, madness Summary: There's always a way out. Notes: This story is a continuation, with the author's permission, of LuvEwan's poetically angst-filled Cease. I thought of the title and I had to try it. A follow-up Saga story, Erase, has been written by LuvEwan. Disclaimer: All characters belong to George and Lucasfilm; I’m just playing in their sandbox Jedi patience is legendary. Qui-Gon is legendary among Jedi. He has pushed back the despair of uncertainty to wait and watch, his eyes and hands still searching for, still needing the sustenance of recognition. His daily routine is that of his Padawan, of bathing and feeding, trimming of hair and nails, massaging limbs out of their clinch only to have them curl up again against the pale torso. Even after the last flurry of tests, Qui-Gon imagines a twitch of hand, a fluttering eyelid, some little peephole out of Obi-Wan's waking nightmare, so that his Master can see inside. Even after so many months, he still probes for any response, a tiny crack in the rigid walls of catatonia that imprison his Padawan's mind. He never finds it. He would trade whatever status he has as a Jedi Master for only that. He will. The patience of the Jedi Council is not legendary. They want him to move on. Go. They gently suggest that he leave his Padawan in the care of doctors and impersonal care-givers and a barren hospital room. Those carefully-worded, formal 'suggestions' tighten in his throat. But his revulsion is not for sensible advice of the distant Council, but for himself because for some fraction of a second he pictures himself accepting it. He knows that distance will only initiate his own slow deterioration, a drought of even the trickle of hope that he lives on now. But if he stays, Qui-Gon wonders how long he can hold off that inevitable decay, before the work of the unseen horrors that consumed his apprentice drag him into his own form of depression and madness. The door to their hospital cell opens. Footsteps and rustling layers of fabric enter. Qui-Gon looks up. Dr. Jraye stood before him, a strange look on his wrinkled face. Hope? Was that what it was supposed to look like? Qui-Gon's hand, his fingers, extend toward his Padawan without touching him. A tall being stood next to Jraye; he/she/it is mostly humanoid wearing layers of blue veils hanging down from the head and the shoulders of a sexless body. The tattooed face is harsh and grave with fleshy jowls. And the eyes. . . . the eyes are perfect and featureless and white. OOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOO The eyes have expanded, become the whole void that he curled up in. It has lost all its edges to press in and smother him with infinite, white distance. The meaning of Master and braids and sleep and one. . . . one. . . .one have faded into wisps of memory that he still grasps for. It was creeping into him. The white slowly invaded, replacing him cell by cell. When it was done, there would be no sleep, no shelter, no sweet darkness where the eyes couldn't see. He tried to cover himself with those few remaining rags of words with their fading meaning, but they crumbled into dust, into nothing but more white. He stared down at the marks on his hands; they were scabbing over, frosted with white. What were the cuts for? It was so important, but he couldn't. . . . one one one A spot. One little black spot marred the terrible, merciless void. He gasps with relief. He can't remember how he knows what it is, but some primordial reflex of his body drinks it in, the sensation of knowing that the predator has moved on to a different meal. The eyes were looking at something else. Not at him. The white now buzzes with annoyance. The imperfection could not be tolerated by the eyes. Obi-Wan hides in the distraction, his attention fixed on the growing dark, now expanding into a hole that his little finger might fit into. He hears his heartbeat. He still has a heartbeat, getting louder and louder, almost drowning out the angry white. But it wasn't real, at best only temporary. When the eyes expunged this new blemish they would stare back into him this time. They would strip the last hanging strands of color and flesh from him and he would be white bone, skin and white eyes, stretched out on whiteness. Perfect. It was a storm, this expanding black, now with flashes of deep crimson inside. He hears thunder rumble, rolling to him. He wants to stretch toward it, anticipating cool rain. But he dares not attract the attention of the white fury. He also instinctively fears the black. It grows larger as if it is rushing at him, to smash him. His skull with crack, his bones will break, his blood and insides will ooze out and smear in the void. But the white would turn him into something so much worse than the comfortably known terror of velvety black that he wants to leap out to meet that inky, starless pit of blackness, veined with deep, deep red. It has grown to the size of his head, an uneven blotch and the humming void screams into discordant chords; the thunder recedes. The white now slowly began erasing the edges of the imperfection. No! Not wide enough! The edges of the black break up into smudges of smoke that vanish in the white. His heart beats faster. It would get smaller and smaller and then be gone, the white wiped clean. He would be left behind. Obi-Wan tenses and dives into the breach before it can be scrubbed away. The white screams. The eyes, seeing him again, burn, freezing body and thought. But the black has caught his hands, then wrists, arms, head, shoulders. It sucks him in and he plunges downward, deeper and deeper. He opens his mouth wide to shout with joy. The eyes were gone! They would not have him. Muddy black fills his mouth and nose, choking him. His body thrashes as the pressure increases on his chest and head from lack of air. His animal instinct struggles to breathe and blood throbs in his temple, one one One ONE. But still his exhilaration howls louder into ecstacy. Free. His heartbeat stops. He could die. OOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOO "UUUUUUuuuunnnnnnnnaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" Sound? Sound? SOUND???!! The white above him was not white at all. It was full of lines and cracks and patterns criss-crossing its flat, dull surface. Dark hands and heads and bright, blazing lights further crowd that imperfect white plain. His body convulses. He still choked, but now on a tough, smooth tube, forced between his teeth, snaked down his throat. Cool, hard pain lances his neck, his arm. The convulsions stop, his body falling back onto a firm padded covering that hisses and squeaks with the trembling motions that still remaim in his limbs. The sounds, the heads made words and he desperately reached for their meaning, denied to him for so long. "Life support", "Breathing", "Blood pressure" the concepts tumbled into his brain, no longer frozen in white. The light refocused, brightened on him and he turned his head away. They were staring at him. A new head hovered closer to him. Eyes like blue water under a blue sky ignited his memory, almost bled to nothing in a white void. A keening sound of pure emotion forced its way out of this throat, around the tube. He reached for the face, the beard, the hair. The other heads grabbed him, making "No, no" noises, but their hands fell away from him and that was followed by thumping sounds. He wondered if the two things were connected. Strands of brown chestnut now twined his fingers while Master touched his arms, gently touching the thin tubes coming out of them. Winding another loop of hair around one finger, he touched its silky smoothness to his lips and breathed in. It smelled washed and fresh, not a greasy, abused braid, a thin lifeline in an infinite white prison. His face was wet and that clean hair brushed his cheek. Drops fell on his forehead and he closed his eyes, blissfully welcoming that salty rain. OOOOOOOOOIOOOOOOOOO White, unblinking eyes stared at him. Qui-Gon ignored them. The nurses and doctors had taken away their tubes and machines. Jraye kept fearfully looking toward him, wary of another invisible blow from the Jedi that would hurl them all away against the wall again. His spectacles were cracked. After they had all retreated, the Quazhruz Holy remained where he/she/it was, the guardian, the savior who had freed Obi-Wan. The Quazhruz and all his/her/its kind were also insane. They were one of several minor cults of Force-users on a few outer rim worlds, sects of individuals whose talents were too unremarkable to serve the Jedi, but still drove them to seek something. Every few centuries, Jedi assemblies muttered words about doing something about these remnants, but nothing was ever done. Qui-Gon doubted that even the unnaturally prolonged ravaging of one Jedi Padawan would inspire any action. And one deadly, intangible bubble of their workings had clung to his Padawan as they had blindly traversed some unmarked sacred ground on a mission whose purpose he could not recall. Perhaps the doctors tests had been right. Obi-Wan had some defect, a hidden potential for madness that the Quazhruz energies clung to until they hatched into the monster that had swallowed him whole. Chance had brought them together. Except that Qui-Gon knew that there was no chance in the Force. But whatever twisted meaning lay in the nightmare, he cared not to look for. Stuporous with drugs from the doctors, Obi-Wan lay dozing, though his grip, of both hands, on his Master's arm still retained the strength of madness. Qui-Gon's free hand stroked his hair and shoulder, his fingers sensing that faint, long-awaited response, even through the haze of sedation. Those strange featureless eyes watched every motion. Qui-Gon had sensed nothing from this being when he/she/it arrived and spoke of imperfection in the Quazh, he/she/its word for the Force. He had not realized how terrible that 'nothing' was until the Holy sank into his/her/itself, chanting, blue-draped arms outstretched over his insensate apprentice. He sensed 'nothing' but impenetrable walls around an innocent mind, a monstrous 'nothing' that he realized too late that the Quazhruz prized and cultivated. He had never imagined any being turning, and turning and turning the Force inward into a tight unbreachable 'nothing' on the outside, madness on the inside. And unable to penetrate the Holy's barrier with either mind or body or Force, he witnessed one scarred and tattooed hand slamming down on Obi-Wan's chest. His body, so carefully tended for so long by his Master, writhed and convulsed before falling back down on the bedding. Apparently whatever perfect little shell of the Force that had trapped Obi-Wan, that the Quazhruz called heaven, could only be pierced by ritual sacrifice. The walls collapsed where there was nothing living left behind to hold them up. Seizing the Holy, he had thrust the being aside, but the doctors rushed in, displacing him with their machines and needles and clipped jargon. Even drowning in desperation, gasping for hope, Qui-Gon had known to stay back. It had only been a minute, less than a minute, when Obi-Wan's heart had been still, and Qui-Gon's hung over an abyss. Now the Quazhruz Holy stared down at them, contemptuous of the lesser beings who had marred it's perverted purity. But he/she/it also stayed safely out of Qui-Gon's reach as well. And now that he comprehended the nature of 'nothing', he would not touch this creature with the Force. "It is undone," the Holy spoke, voice flat, one last affirmation to it's chants of hellish perfection. Truly undone, Qui-Gon thought. Obi-Wan lay emotionally stripped and raw, his broken mind free now to relive and regurgitate whatever torment he had endured for so many months. Qui-Gon knew he would salve the wounds as best he could, but the scars, if they ever healed, would always remain. Qui-Gon sensed no darkness from the Quirdz Holy, only immaculate insanity. The crude binary division of the Force into easily defined light and dark meant nothing to this creature. He supposed that he looked equally abominable to he/she/it. His fingertips touched the base of that long, thin braid and slid down along its whole length. "No," he said sadly. "It was done too well." The End -----signature----- Links to all fics -- http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=25405090&brd=10304&start=26223917 The Heart of the Jedi -- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26013327 ---- Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, JA and everything you wanted to know about lightsabers
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Valairy_Scot Title: PT Rewrite Winner Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 1/7/07 6:30pm Subject: RE: De-Cease -- one-post, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan Angst, continuation of 'Cease'
	Congratulations on taking a truly horrific, creepy story that was perfect as it stood, and writing a sequel that was just as creepy and so satisfying to see that it brought (is bringing?) Obi-Wan back from that white void. The way you ended it is also ambiguous in a way... or I'm not just not quite getting it. Wonderful job! -----signature----- http://boards.theforce.net/fan_fiction_resource/b10304/25405090/p3/?52 Prolific Author thread: list & links there. Muse fueled by coffee. Often AWOL despite frequent sipping. Writes on inspiration, not a schedule. Proud master of several padawans
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dianethx Registered: Mar '02	Date Posted: 1/8/07 5:07am Subject: RE: De-Cease -- one-post, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan Angst, continuation of 'Cease'
	Wow, Anne. I thought you did an excellent job of writing the sequel. You kept the odd, horrifying madness that LE had started and gave it an explanation that made sense. I'm sure that Obi-Wan will be all right... well, as all right as he can be - being almost driven mad by it. Great job. -----signature----- Betrayal - http://boards.theforce.net/s/b1/10935143 updated 9/22/08 Fragments of Illusion- http://boards.theforce.net/bts/b10475/28456473 updated 8/16/08 Freeze frame - http://boards.theforce.net/s/b10476/27820434 Master to jedidas3 Impeach Bush!
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VaderLVR64 Title: Fan Fic Manager in Combat Boots Registered: Feb '04	Date Posted: 1/8/07 8:04am Subject: RE: De-Cease -- one-post, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan Angst, continuation of 'Cease'
	I agree, you certainly did Cease justice with this! Incredibly well done! Jedi patience is legendary. Qui-Gon is legendary among Jedi. He has pushed back the despair of uncertainty to wait and watch, his eyes and hands still searching for, still needing the sustenance of recognition. His daily routine is that of his Padawan, of bathing and feeding, trimming of hair and nails, massaging limbs out of their clinch only to have them curl up again against the pale torso. Even after the last flurry of tests, Qui-Gon imagines a twitch of hand, a fluttering eyelid, some little peephole out of Obi-Wan's waking nightmare, so that his Master can see inside. Even after so many months, he still probes for any response, a tiny crack in the rigid walls of catatonia that imprison his Padawan's mind. He never finds it. He would trade whatever status he has as a Jedi Master for only that. He will. The patience of the Jedi Council is not legendary. They want him to move on. Go. They gently suggest that he leave his Padawan in the care of doctors and impersonal care-givers and a barren hospital room. Those carefully-worded, formal 'suggestions' tighten in his throat. But his revulsion is not for sensible advice of the distant Council, but for himself because for some fraction of a second he pictures himself accepting it. Stunning. -----signature----- If you have to choose between tears and laughter, remember that laughter burns more calories. Proud New Army Mom - off to bootcamp!
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LuvEwan Registered: Mar '02	Date Posted: 1/9/07 9:42pm Subject: RE: De-Cease -- one-post, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan Angst, continuation of 'Cease'
	Wow, anne. You just totally blew me away with that. You found a way to weave everything together. I've read this several times now, and I'm still finding things that tie into the original story. A tall being stood next to Jraye; he/she/it is mostly humanoid wearing layers of blue veils hanging down from the head and the shoulders of a sexless body. The tattooed face is harsh and grave with fleshy jowls. And the eyes. . . . the eyes are perfect and featureless and white. Oh man that creeped me out. That last line was just the perfect line, the thing that connects it all, that connects Qui-Gon and reality to Obi-Wan, finally, in some way. It was creeping into him. The white slowly invaded, replacing him cell by cell. When it was done, there would be no sleep, no shelter, no sweet darkness where the eyes couldn't see. He tried to cover himself with those few remaining rags of words with their fading meaning, but they crumbled into dust, into nothing but more white. He stared down at the marks on his hands; they were scabbing over, frosted with white. What were the cuts for? It was so important, but he couldn't. . . . one one one A spot. One little black spot marred the terrible, merciless void. He gasps with relief. He can't remember how he knows what it is, but some primordial reflex of his body drinks it in, the sensation of knowing that the predator has moved on to a different meal. I absolutely loved the descriptions. 'Rags of words' was one that jumped out as being so creative, the right way to explain what those words meant for Obi-Wan. And I loved that he considered himself a kind of prey. Obi-Wan tenses and dives into the breach before it can be scrubbed away. The white screams. The white screaming...fantastic. Muddy black fills his mouth and nose, choking him. His body thrashes as the pressure increases on his chest and head from lack of air. His animal instinct struggles to breathe and blood throbs in his temple, one one One ONE. But still his exhilaration howls louder into ecstacy. Free. His heartbeat stops. He could die. Exhilaration howling into ecstasy. It's just so creative, keeping it eerie but also realistic. A new head hovered closer to him. Eyes like blue water under a blue sky ignited his memory, almost bled to nothing in a white void. A keening sound of pure emotion forced its way out of this throat, around the tube. He reached for the face, the beard, the hair. The other heads grabbed him, making "No, no" noises, but their hands fell away from him and that was followed by thumping sounds. He wondered if the two things were connected. Strands of brown chestnut now twined his fingers while Master touched his arms, gently touching the thin tubes coming out of them. Winding another loop of hair around one finger, he touched its silky smoothness to his lips and breathed in. It smelled washed and fresh, not a greasy, abused braid, a thin lifeline in an infinite white prison. His face was wet and that clean hair brushed his cheek. Drops fell on his forehead and he closed his eyes, blissfully welcoming that salty rain. This part broke my heart. Under everything else, Obi-Wan is a human being, who posesses love, who seems to have lost everything but that bare drive. And Qui-Gon isn't much different, in this moment. Really beautiful. Stuporous with drugs from the doctors, Obi-Wan lay dozing, though his grip, of both hands, on his Master's arm still retained the strength of madness. Qui-Gon's free hand stroked his hair and shoulder, his fingers sensing that faint, long-awaited response, even through the haze of sedation. Those strange featureless eyes watched every motion. Even with Obi-Wan beside him, alive and somewhat there, Qui-Gon cannot escape the ramifications of the imprisonment of Obi-Wan's mind. The white is still there. Obi-Wan gripping with both hands is a very telling detail. It had only been a minute, less than a minute, when Obi-Wan's heart had been still, and Qui-Gon's hung over an abyss. Haunting, it's so beautiful. Their existences are so deeply woven together, one cannot hurt without the other hurting as much. Qui-Gon sensed no darkness from the Quirdz Holy, only immaculate insanity. Immaculate insanity. That description really stayed with me. You should write a whole story and title it 'Immaculate Insanity', I just love that description so much. Fantastic ending. I really liked that you can't quite figure out what Obi-Wan's fate is here. Open endings can be frustrating, but interesting, too, because it's up to the reader to decide. But I can't, really. From the way you've expertly crafted it, it could really go either way. And yet it's obvious Obi-Wan will never escape this experience unscathed, and neither will Qui-Gon. Gorgeous. Thank you so much for writing this. -----signature----- So it was Anakin's butt after all. He supposed he might take a modicum of comfort from that. -Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover
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ardavenport Registered: Dec '04	Date Posted: 3/25/07 12:06pm Subject: RE: De-Cease -- one-post, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan Angst, continuation of 'Cease'
	Valairy_Scot: Thanks! I liked bringing Obi-Wan back from the white void. I guess I had trouble leaving him there. So, his situation is automatically improved, but the question about how well he would do couldn't be answered in the short time of the story, so it's left for the readers to decide. dianethx: Thanks! At the moment, Obi-Wan is much more 'all right' than he was before. It's not a 'happy' ending, but hopeful. VaderLVR64: Thank you! I'm glad that this follow-up seems to work well with the original story. LuvEwan: Thanks much! Your review is extra special, since you wrote the original story. Any descriptive phrases are just my attempt to copy what I read in 'Cease' and in your writing in general. 'Cease' in general had a 'Twilight Zone' feel to it. So, it really could have stayed as is, but I couldn't help pondering what the follow-up could be, if the Force itself was part of the problem for Obi-Wan. Mysterious, magickal forces like the Force have lots of 'Twilight Zone' potential. From there, it had to be some bad intersection of Obi-Wan as a Force-user with some other Force-use or user. I had trouble with it being a Jedi or Sith, light or dark, because Qui-Gon could have figured it out, so it became some exotic variety of Force. I can't believe that the Jedi and Sith are the only Force users in the GFFA and I have all sorts of theories about why they're hidden or whatever, but this is one of them; they're too crazy and creepy for either Jedi or Sith to ever want to have anything to do with them. About the descriptions. . . . well, I suppose it might sound a bit pedestrian to say that I use a formula, but I do to a degree. Starting with the eight parts of speech (in English) - nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and exclamations - I note that nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs have the best potential for emotional impact and description, while pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions have the least. Exclamations are almost always purely emotional, but they're so rare, they're generally not much help. With a thesaurus, I can pick out the most emotional terms for what I want people to do; 'walk', 'stroll', 'prance' and 'drag' will all get the character across the room, but they mean different things. The same for nouns. And adjectives and adverbs are often loaded with the most feeling. Then you can mash the parts into phrases to get more feeling into them. 'Sensation of knowing' is three words, but it counts as a single noun in the sentence as a phrase. Plus, 'sensation' and 'knowing' are nouns forms of verbs and that gives you action and description in the same words, and that's generally more emotional in the narrative. And mixing the uses, verbs as nouns, adjectives as nouns, verbs as adjectives, etc. makes the description better without piling in to many words. I think Shakespeare is the first English writer credited with being really proficient with that trick. For example, 'white' is one of the most boring, mundane adjectives around, but as a noun it really means something else. About the end. . . . well, it really had to be uncertain about how well Obi-Wan would recover. So, much had been done to him, it just didn't seem possible to predict how he would come out. The only realistic factor that would tell that would be time, and the timeframe I set for the story was too short for that. Thanks much for the long review! I got a lot out of writing this. -----signature----- Links to all fics -- http://boards.theforce.net/Message.aspx?topic=25405090&brd=10304&start=26223917 The Heart of the Jedi -- http://boards.theforce.net/b/b1/26013327 ---- Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, JA and everything you wanted to know about lightsabers
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