Saga Nowhere to Remain - AU Sabe/Obi-wan beginning TPM

Title: Nowhere to Remain
Author: Zephyraria
Timeframe: TPM
Characters: Sabe, Obi-wan, Padme, Handmaidens
Genre: Drama, Romance
Summary: Sabe was a dutiful citizen of Naboo, orphan of the Pandemic, handmaiden and decoy to Her Royal Highness Queen Amidala. Obi-wan was the perfect Jedi Knight: restrained, detached, possessing an almost courtly sense of dignity. But you would be wrong, if you thought they never loved - in secret, in their hearts, they loved a love to move the stars. Sabe/Obi-wan.

A/N: I posted a version of the first 4 chapters some two years ago, but have now updated the story and added on from chapter 3. Hope it's a good read, and please let me know about any particularities I have failed to comply with (out of sheer ignorance, I swear!), specific to this forum. Cheers. Z


Prologue

Everything conspires to silence us,

partly with shame,

partly with unspeakable hope.

- Rilke, Second Elegy


If the words of her first and most memorable teacher were to be believed, then there exists in the world an Order, a natural hierarchy that contains within it every living thing, that cascades down over all the articles of creation and weaves them together in a grand, cosmic narrative of purpose and destiny.

It was a long time ago, in the days of the old republic. On the core planet of Naboo, on a lovely summer's day the children of the state orphanage were led out from behind the high grey-brick walls to go to the capital. The bus ride there was a spectacle of chattering and shrieking, with windows open and the new air pouring over like the wind weaves over the sea.

But, being orphans and by necessity better behaved than most children, they grew quiet as they proceeded down the white-marble streets, and in the cool shadow of Theed's tall marble colonnades all was silent. The children formed a ring around the sharp, tall shadow of their professor. Standard-issue maroon unifs ? a few too short in the cuff or in the leg ? stirred in the wind, while the long hair of the girls blew back in the high breeze of a medallion-gold day.

It was to be a first lesson in politics, in citizenship, and in obedience to a Law that was at once external to the individual and internal to the social organism. But at that time they only Professor Suo-Lan Kon, who here, at the age of twenty-seven had been banished from the higher circles of Coruscanti academia into the drudgery of the Nubian state school system as the result of a few controversial papers. And indeed there was something in the tilt of his head that recalled the lean, hungry cats that patrolled the outlying mountains of the Nubian wilderness. But despair and intellectual frustration only made him more eloquent, and when he spoke to his miniature audience it was with the intensity of a man about to be struck dumb for all eternity.

To understand the truth of the state, Professor Kon continued, one simply observed the working of the fountain. He waved his hand, as if he himself had, at that very moment, crafted the whole of it through his understanding, as if alone of the world, he flung the light of the sun to illuminate that white-marbled, thousand-tiered fountain. The children squinted, and shifted their gaze under the glare of it; some had already lost interest, and were making faces at one another. Many of the children had been here before, had stood at this very spot some years ago, had heard the same story told in a different tongue, by a different face. But it was another era, in a time when they still had parents, a time before the Pandemic.

The source of the fountain ? he continued ? where the water springs up, so very high up that it disappeared into the ether ? that is like the source of the state's power. That is monarch, the water-spout, top-glimmering burst of spray. And see how the water then drifts, flows, steps gracefully down the many shell-like troughs like a lady descending in a grand ball gown. Each of those thousand tiers is capable of receiving a different cup of that life-water, each able to augment its flow in a singular, unique way, until t

 

Chapter 1: Setting To Order


And we: always and everywhere spectators,

turned not toward the Open

but to the stuff of our lives.

It drowns us. We set it in order.

It falls apart. We order it again

and fall apart ourselves

- Rilke, Eighth Elegy



In the days when she was novice to the Order of Ailla (or served the gods, as Captain Panaka might say ), long before the sun made its ascent into the wide sky over Ranneth the Sister Kalare would have gone around the quarters with the wooden bell, chanting the Prayer of Great Compassion for morning wake-up. Then from the blue shadows of their cells the sisters and novitiates of the abbey would emerge, quiet steps padding down the wood planks of the hallway to their ablutions. Then into the hall, where the Abbess had already began the Sitting; and so the day proceeded with meditation, prostrations, and prayers until the sun filtered through the upper east window. Breakfast followed, a brief affair of oats and honey, and fresh fruit if the season was right.

The rest of the morning was spent in study of scripture or in further meditation. Sabe and the two other novices had begun their term with a year's long observance of silence to cultivate patience and insight into the true use of speech. Mornings for them were a time of great mental activity, for committing the teachings to memory and for recording her reflections in the year's journal. Midday meal was served at half past noon, and the afternoon was spent in the upkeep of the monastery, during which Sabe was apprenticed to Sister Thessa, who at eighty-seven standard years old, was still in charge of fixing the Abbey's ever-growing number of malfunctioning machines. Around 6 pm, a light evening fare for those who wished it (Sisters who observed stricter vows did not partake of dinner), then evening prayers, and bedtime promptly at 10 pm, if not before. And this was so since all the days that preceded the first.

Handmaiden training proved a vastly different experience. After a day long journey via the hovercraft Sabe was woken from her nap and escorted into an unremarkable building in the outskirts of the Theed. After a few excited words to the matron at the door the Captain motioned for her to follow him through the gate ? she tried to rub the sleep from her eyes ? and past the small courtyard, then it was down a maze of bluish hallways and solid metal doors until they came to a small gymnasium. Shouts and the slap of bodies against mats echoed through the room, and Sabe saw that three pairs of girls were training in hand-to-hand combat at the far end.

The wooden floor shone a waxed yellow, and the mats were brilliant blue. Sabe, too long used to the Abbey, couldn't help but wonder who it was in charge of buffing the gym floor until it shone, and how long it must take. The overhead lights were very bright.

The first girl who noticed their appearance ? all Sabe could see that she was short, and had brown hair ? let her guard down for a minute and allowed her larger, blond opponent to take the opportunity and land a kick directly at her solar plexus. The shorter one emitted what could only be termed a squeak, and fell hard on the floor.

Sabe winced, and the thought occurred to her ? rather dimly but growing in apprehension ? that she would also have to train in hand-to-hand combat.

"Handmaiden Sache," the Captain called, advancing on the group, "you'll have to learn to focus on you closest opponent at all times, or any change in the environment is going to throw you, as Handmaiden Eirtae has so kindly demonstrated for us. But as this is a training module, Eirtae, let us save the more damaging maneuvers for someone who is not on our side, hm?"

"Sorry Captain," said Eirtae, but Sabe saw the little smirk playing at the corner of her mouth as she held out her hand to the brown, curly-haired Sache.

"I was just that happy to see you back, Captain," quipped Sache, getting up on her own and throwing her blond companion a look of utter disgust, "it's been far too long since we've felt your gentle guidance."

T

 

Chapter 2: Dissolve in Air


O smile, where are you going? O upturned glance:

new warm receding wave on the sea of the heart...

alas, but that is what we are. Does the infinite space

we dissolve into, taste of us then?

- Rilke, Second Elegy



"Sabe, You're not going out?"

Handmaiden Sabe looked up from her book. It was their first sunny day in weeks and she was sitting on the windowsill, turning the pages of an old treatise she had brought from the Abbey, more for the comfort of the yellowing pages than for any devotional feelings. The Captain had given them the day off, their first in three weeks, and told them to go and get what silliness out their system as necessary for being ready to serve the queen in the ensuing days. For the situation with the Trade Federation had come to a head, and everyone who knew of the matter was on tenterhooks awaiting some outbreak. Intergalactic ambassadors had apparently been deployed to mediate the situation, and it seemed that the endurance of Naboo's Long Peace rested on whether they could persuade the Federation into some semblance of sanity. But the weather, of course, had no qualms of adhering to the tense political situation, and out of the window the high-stacked clouds sailed through blue sky like ships in the tales, billowing and carefree.

"I said, you're not going anywhere, even on this, our last day of freedom?" It was Sache, speaking from the dark of the doorway. She had changed from the yellow-striped maroon unif to a green dress; her eyes drifted from the half-open book, to the lengthening stubble on Sabe's head.

Sabe tried not to look too surprised. Of the handmaidens she mostly spoke with Rabe, though she knew Sache a little, peripherally through sparring sessions and the weapons training. She had no energy for the eight hours left in their day to do much more than shower and sleep. The eldest of the handmaidens was dead-on with a gun but rubbish after five minutes at hand-to-hand combat. Anything that came out of her mouth was utter truth to herself; it was a personality that Sabe at times admired, and at times found completely exasperating.

"Out? Like into the yard?," Sabe looked out her window, which gave an utterly uninspiring view of a dilapidated practice field where the engineers engaged in basketball for the under-skilled, "I wasn't pining for that, certainly. But where are you going?"

"Rabe and I thought we'd go wander about in Theed, since it's the Harvest Festival," Sache replied, stepping gingerly into the room, Sabe's quarters for the duration of their stay at the compound. The other handmaidens had the same eight by eleven cell with its standard bed, closet, chair, and desk. Sabe had done a little rearranging, putting the chair nearer the door and the rug and pillow (which served her for meditation) underneath the windowsill.

"Wow, it's really clean in here," Sache said, wrinkling her nose, "another one of those nun habits, I guess."

Sabe raised an eyebrow.

"Well," Sache continued, "Rabe and I were thinking that you might want to come with us to Theed, and maybe show us your favorite hangout, if you want, that is. We'll be going in about ten minutes."

Sache had never met a nun before, and didn't really know what to make of it. The whole idea of cloistering oneself off, confined to one little part of the earth when there was a whole galaxy waiting just beyond the limits of the sky ? it was almost inconceivable to Sache. In fact it had taken the better part of a week just to get used to the shorn head on their new decoy; because she looked so like their new queen, but then didn't look much like either a boy or a girl. In Naboo a woman's hair was a foremost asset to her beauty; Sache, for one, would never do something so ridiculous with her own copper-brown locks. She was, by her own admission, very vain about the stuff.

But as their decoy hadn't tried to convert her in their three weeks together ? hadn't handed her any literature or tried to pray over the dinner table, Sache thought she might not be so bad. Besides, Sache had kn

 

Chapter 3: To Turn in Need



Oh, to what, then can we turn in our need?

Not to an angel. Not to a person.

- Rilke, First Elegy


Mos Espa, Tatooine

As it was her first ride in a spaceship, Sabe thought she didn't fare too badly, though by the time they touched ground she did have to be excused in order to lose the day's breakfast, lunch, and even a part of last night's dinner in the fresher. But while the thing went on, even when the cockpit swung crazily to the right and left, she had been in the highest of spirits. Sabe had never even seen a J-type 327 Nubian Royal Starship (the NuRos for short), let alone ride in it. If Sache had told her this beautiful machine was to figure largely in her escape, she might have slept better last night.

They boarded amid blaster fire and shouted commands, and there was a flurry of activity as the Queen and her handmaidens fumbled with a series of belts that would strap them safely to their seats. The young Jedi with his funny crop of reddish hair had checked the belts on each of them before following his master to the cockpit. Sabe noted with a bit of detached interest that everyone's knuckles were as white as her own.

But when the pilot began the initiation and launch sequence it, the pandemonium of the day and the tensile silence of the throne room all became a distant memory, leaving nothing but the pure, ringing tones of this glorious machine. Even the stinging, whining tones of the blaster fire seemed subdued, assimilated into the music of the Nuros; no longer whistles of destruction, but the high-flying accompaniment to the symphony that was this starship.

The ground fell away below them with the warm roar of thrusters, and the air itself grew solid as the ship aimed its nose toward the stars and began its bounding rise. Outside the small windows of the throne room Sabe saw the horizon of earth and sky tilt and become vertical; the sun shone hard and her head fell back onto the te chair, and with a strange feeling in her stomach they were shooting out of the bright glorious day into the speckled vacuum of night. The space between everything grew infinitely wide and there was such freedom in the sailing that Sabe closed her eyes and sank into a light meditation to the harmony of silence. It was then that she heard the discordant notes of the Federation's Blockade, and then the cabin started swaying and spinning with an acrobatic verve that was at once exhilarating and also completely sickening. They were dodging enemy fire, Sabe thought, as red and purple streaks hurtled past the small windows, and willed her ears to adjust to the almost supersonic whine of the ship's blasters.

She heard the sharp blue noise of the blast that pierced the hull of their ship. And while the cabin then shook with almost an unbearable frequency she heard, below the din of voices and the roar of thrusters, the white note of the hyperdrive go suddenly silent, while something else near it began stuttering ? the shield generator, she thought ? and then also fall quiet.

Her heart, already shook loose by the evasive maneuvers, leapt into her throat. Without the shield generator they were as good as dead, and Sabe had never fancied a death by fire ? but just then she felt the bright flare of something, the electrical equivalent of a shock to the fibrillating heart to make it beat once more, and felt the shield generator clicking rhythmically once more. A droid, she thought, sensing the distinctive rickety feeling that denoted the presence of an AI.

Now that the danger was gond, anger flashed up, sudden and unexpected. Sabe realized with black amusement that it hadn't arisen with fear for her life, or the life of Padme, but from indignation at damage to the NuRos.

In the end they passed through the Trade Federation blockade unscathed. Safety belts were unbuckled and relieved sighs filled the air. By the Jedi arrived to make their report, the other girls had regrouped and gathered calmly behind Sabe, in order of height. Padme made the hand gesture for "Opportunity", and so Sabe

 

I can't believe I'm the first who reviews your wonderful story! I've actually read it already on the ff.net (I guess I'm the one who mentioned this page to you and wrote some awfull long review some hours ago.. you might remember me )I really like the atmosphere. IMO it has such a nice melancholic touch to it. Can't wait to read more!
poa

 

This is amazing.
It's really sad, forgiving and innocent too.
I uh almost cried.
Yeah, I'm melodramatic.
This was GREAT!

tapping fish
mistakes and that why

 

Wonderful story! I especially liked Sabe's thoughts during her conversation with Obi-Wan. He's pretending to believe she's the queen, and she really thinks she has him fooled. At least, I'm assuming that's what's going on. That would be canon, anyway. Can't wait for more.

 

Chapter 4: Between River and Rock


If only we too could discover a pure, contained

human place, our own strip of fruit-bearing soil

between river and rock.

-Rilke, Second Elegy

"Your Royal Highness," Kenobi recovered swiftly from his surprise, and sketched a very proper bow. He was only a little hampered in the endeavor by the large mug that he carried in one hand. She recognized its contents as the Corustanti Stim tea by its dark purple color and the general consistency of mud. A small cup was usually more than enough to keep a grown man awake a whole morning and afternoon; besides the which it stained the tongue a deep purple. Of course the Jedi would drink it in a mug.

"Jedi Kenobi," Sabe wiped the scowl off her face with a great effort of will, and forced herself to say more pleasantly, "I did not expect to see you here"

"I could say likewise, Your Highness," he replied, with a lazy blink.

A beat, as they looked at each other.

Sabe had the distinct impression that Kenobi was sizing her up, but not in a normal way. His eyes were focused on her, but at the same time they passed a little beyond her. And then he seemed to become aware of her scrutinizing his scrutiny, and a gave a grin ? as if to say, you caught me.

She supposed he could be called handsome ? very handsome, even. His features were regular, well-formed, and there was a leanness, an athleticism that made itself evident even in the way he stood, with a cup of tea in his hand. Smiling lent him a boyish air and highlighted the difference between the youth of his face and the decided maturity of his vocation, his uniform, his duty. Braid and spiked hair aside, Sabe remembered that this was the man who jumped off the balcony and cut through blaster droids with barely a flicker of any emotion to show on his face.

"Are you satisfied with the engine room, Your Royal Highness?" He asked.

"Quite," Sabe replied, ducking her head to smooth out her expression, "The ship is a marvel. Although we are missing a rather key component at present"

"Certainly; the hyperdrive," he agreed absentmindedly, and his eyes fell over her again with a neuturally curious look, noting the formal sitting posture, the lay of the engine room about her, and then passed over her face, once, then again.

They were wide eyes, a bright, summery blue. A child's eyes, she thought as they scanned over her, curious, open, receptive. He was still dressed in that uniform that the Jedi seemed to favor. The tunic was a heavy weave of beige fabric, framing a loose V about the neck and hanging to the tops of the knees. The same beige trousers (though made of heavier material than the shirt), and tall synth-leather boots, ochre in hue and polished to a shine. The ubiquitous brown cloak flowed off his shoulders, and from his belt glinted the handle of the lightsaber. The Padawan's braid hung over the left ear.

Now the half-smile on his face told her that he had noticed her inspection, and was quite willing to hold still and let her come to her own conclusions. Indeed, such conclusions would be easily reached were it not for that underlying sense of something not quite coherent about him. Sabe could only say, if asked, that he looked too young ? his shoulders were too thin and his eyes too wide when they opened on the world ? to be capable of all that he could do, all that she had seen him do. And that being a Jedi, he nonetheless smiled to freely for one, that though he stood still to be examined the secrets that were important could not be seen. Only the strangeness could be seen.

But that was neither here nor there, and all that came from her observation was an unvoiced recognition: that she knew him, always and already knew him, but what it was of him she did not know. Perhaps it was only his strangeness. The rest of it could not be voiced.

There was silence between them, and under that, the sounds of the ship.

Sabe recalled Padme's rule number one in awkward situations ? if you can't make interesting, make nice. She tried, belatedly, to slip back into the Queen's persona.

"

 

Chapter 5: Out of Trouble, In the Storm

As resistant as the human organism was to change and openness, Sabe reflected, it was still very capable of getting over excitement in a heartbeat. Anything stimulating could turn easily into boredom in the space of a few hours. And while the day before, the last thing on her mind was getting out of the ship, this morning nothing seemed quite as urgent.

There was a brief message from Padme on the receiving dock ? they were safe, in the city, and going to visit the scrap trader today. It ended, Keep out of trouble ? Padme.

Not that there was, or would be, any trouble to keep clear of. After a quick breakfast Sabe put on the Queen's battle dress again. While Eirtae pulled the stays tight, Rabe was picking through the feathers of the twelve-pound head dress, ruffled in yesterday's hurried flight. Sabe was adept at putting the make-up on herself now, though the whole operation had a sense of the absurd to it. It took forty minutes at their fastest to put on the whole Queen's get-up, and all of it for the two other members of the crew, and one Jedi Padawan.

"Your hair is growing out," Rabe said, laying down the pieces of adhesive across Sabe's scalp for the wig. A sable stubble had sprung up all across the bare expanse of her scalp, and in the night when she slept Sabe felt the air stirring on her hair. In color it was a darker brown, and almost straight where Padme's curled ferociously.

"My father would have strangled me if I shaved it all off," Eirtae said from somewhere behind Sabe, "not my mother, mind you, my father."

"He's a politician?" Sabe asked, trying not to wince as Eirtae tightened on another stay.

"No, he's Count Narmle," Eirtae said, "He doesn't have to be elected. Seriously. Don't you know anything?"

Sabe remembered vaguely that one of the past kings of Naboo ? back before the days of elected monarchs ? was a man named Narmle. In fact, there was probably a whole dynasty of Narmles.

"So you're royalty. Why are you working as handmaiden, then? I thought Panaka had to bully everyone into taking the job."

A sigh of exasperation from Eirtae. Rabe's mouth kicked up in a corner as she bent to fix a stray lock of hair on the wig.

"Honestly, Decoy. Nobody cares about the old names anymore, not in the way they used to. Otherwise how could a fourteen year old girl from the middle of nowhere be elected Queen instead of a Narmle?" Eirtae's voice had taken on the tone of careful disinterest.

"Don't look at me like that, Rabe," Eirtae continued, "I was at the Academy with Padme, if you'll remember. I know exactly what she can do; and I don't envy her taking over at a moment like this. That's why I'm here, because she will need my help. Hell, it's certainly not for the pay."

The morning drew on slowly in the throne room. Captain Panaka, stiff and formal as ever, commanded the crew to make report twice a day to the Queen on the status of their ship, and the Jedi Padawan to relay what information he had from his itinerant master. This way he could also keep an eye over everyone's progress, including Sabe's ? and also because, Sabe suspected, that the captain really enjoyed seeing his decoy act carried off successfully on the unsuspecting crew and Jedi.

Ric Olie, the pilot, gave a brief account of how he evaded the Federation Blockade and summarized the damage done to the ship. He had a competent, if slightly disheveled air about him, as if taking him out of the pilot's seat had somehow dislodged him from his natural environment. In the cockpit he was a hero; but in the middle of the Throne room he was a stooped, balding man with beady blue-green eyes.

"Pilot Olie was head of the Bravo Squadron before coming to us," Panaka said, "he's the best fighter Naboo has to offer."

Sabe thanked him gravely for his service, at which Olie made an impatient noise through his nose and said, with less courtly decorum than what was perfectly polite, "Thanks aren't needed, Highness. The evasive manuvuering is all fun and games. Hell, I don't mind trying to dodge the Federation basta

 

Chapter 6: The Nights of Tatooine

Nightfall. Sabe opened her eyes and realized she had slept through the afternoon. Rabe and Eirtae had already eaten, and were reading by the yellow cabin lights. Rabe's eyes were a little red, and Eirtae had changed her book for a word puzzle. Each mumbled a greeting, but Sabe felt that the crisis had past. They were both worn out, drained, though Rabe deigned to fetch her something from the kitchen for dinner, since it was deemed undignified for the queen to scout for her own food.

The storm was letting up outside, the buffeting sands had lost much of their force, but the whole of the storm would not be dispelled until after sunset. Sabe went to the computer terminals to do some research on the things that occupied her mind. There no news on the galactic holonet on Naboo, except that the talks with the Trade Federation were expected to be resolved peacefully in the near future.

A few hours after sunset, Rabe and Eirtae went to sleep, and Sabe decided that enough was enough.

It was the easiest thing to mute the alarm system near the engine room, though a little more difficult to climb out of the ship via the droid's deployment chamber. Fortunately, R2's bay was open, the little droid being still in the main hold with Ric Olie, and after some careful maneuvering from Sabe's part (and some applications of necessary force) she was outside.

The desert night opened before her: the sand a silver ocean, and above her the strange stars of another world. The ship was half buried by the storm, the sand had accumulated under the wings, and then swallowed the wings until only the raised hull of the NuRos was left, an oblong sliver of mercury, like the shining underbelly of a fish in the immense desert. The air surprised her with its sweetness.

A shadow, a ripple in the sand unfurled, moved itself out of the cover of the wing and turned toward her. But before she could be afraid, it raised a hand in salute.

It was Obi-wan Kenobi.

After a rather ungainly descent down the smooth side-panels of the Nuros, Sabe picked herself up. She brushed the sand from her clothes, patted her wig to make sure the fall hadn't dislodged it. She was dressed less formally, black top and leggings under a flame-colored gown, but at least her make up was in tact. The Queen, not in state.

He walked up to her and sketched another proper bow. She tamped down on her own reflex to curtsey.

"Surely this is not a situation that demands such formality, Jedi Kenobi?"

He nodded, and showed her that he was expecting her by the second mug in his hand, still steaming. They sat between smooth metal and cool sand. Lights from the distant town ? was it Mos Espa ? ? winked whimsically across the air. She turned the mug between her fingers, watched as the steam unfurled in an upward draft.

He said, "I am sorry for the hologram, Your Royal Highness."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sabe sidestepped his unvoiced question, "it's not your fault. And besides, it would have helped nothing to respond."

"A return transmission would have alerted them to our location," he said, "that was why I thought we should not reply. But I am surprised that the Nemodians at the Federation expected you to fall for such an easy ruse."

"It wasn't a ruse," she said, and felt him look at her sharply, "at least not where our location is concerned. I'm reasonably certain that it was a tracer ? a return signal piggybacked on the signal itself, overriding the ship's mainframe through an emergency code. They will have known by now where we are."

"Damn, I didn't think of that," he said quietly, running a hand through his hair in frustration, "how do you know this ? about the tracer? Do the Nemodians even have that sort of technology?"

"I don't know how I know," Sabe shook her head, "I just do ? I have a knack for machines, as I told you. And as for the Nemodians ? I can only conjecture. They might even be working for someone besides themselves, who supplies them with this sort of technology."

"Elusive," he said, half to himself, and expelled a great sigh, "if

 

Chapter 7: Dangerous Wagers

Save for a handful of foreboding prophecies, one particularly nasty recurring nightmare involving fire and lava (likely a remnant of the incident with Xanatos all those years ago), Obi-wan Kenobi was rarely troubled by dreams.

For all his connection to the Unifying force, for all the shades and whirlwinds that at times descended upon him in meditation in the dark voice of the earth and the crashing of waves, his sleep has largely been uneventful and undisturbed by any pressing, earthly worries. Not even the occasional night of captivity, and the lack of amenities involved therein, had the power to rob him of that limp-limbed, deathlike repose of youth. In later years, when it seemed in the pits of night that the desert was displayed out for no eyes but his alone ? in those long years as he grew old and felt the touch of years in his heart, in the long nights when sleep eluded him, in those days he would remember back to the carefree slumber of his youth with something like wonder and envy.

As it was, a young Obi-wan woke on the morning after the sandstorm with a start, and the falling feeling of something very important having eluded him. The coming day was showing faintly in the rim of brightening blue on the horizon. He pushed his reluctant body off of the bed and staggered to the fresher. The chamber that Obi-wan shared with his master was not large, as the Nubian Starship was used for the speedy meeting of heads of state, not for sleepovers. Obi-wan expected soon to be sleeping on a pallet on the floor, with his master's return. The chamber was not very tall, either, befitting the stature of the people of Naboo. Qui-gon had been forever hitting his head on various parts of their quarters on the first day that they were here.

Obi-wan rubbed at the prickly skin on his face, and set about with the razor. The stubble on his chin and cheek, which in his youth had been so recalcitrant in growing, had by now established a speed of growth that could only be described as ferocious. Shaving twice a day was rarely enough.

There were no regulations concerning personal appearances at the temple other than to be clean and respectable, since knights came from all parts of the galaxy, spouting all sorts of hair from all sorts of places. There were those like Mace Windu, who disdained hair of any sort altogether, then there was his master, who sported beard as well as a long mane. Obi-wan suspected it was not so much a matter of personal preference, as convenience.

In the next room, the commlink beeped, causing Obi-wan to flinch and nearly cut him self with the blade. He moved with some alacrity for the hand unit.

It was Qui-gon, who looked mildly amused at his Padawan's half-shaven state, then quite offhandedly, as was his wont, outlined the whole of the fantastic plot whereby the slave boy (Anakin) whom he and the handmaiden had met yesterday would, in a lucky podrace, win the hyperdrive parts necessary for their passage out of this godforsaken planet.

This is why I had terrible dreams, Obi-wan thought. He was still sleepy and stunned when Qui-gon finished, and though his rational mind drew up one question after another, his barely-awakened mouth managed to trip over his own words.

"Master ? what-I mean, how do you know ? that is, how can you be sure the scrap trader could be trusted to uphold his end of the bargain if the boy is successful?"

Across the small screen of the commlink, Qui-gon listened to Obi-wan's speech with his head tilted in such a way that signified he was listening to the unspoken parts of Obi-wan's question.

"Watto has his reputation to mind," Qui-gon said, the half-smile coming back, "his face, dignity, shifgrethor as they say on the cold planet. And Anakin is very special ? his force sensitivity is unlike anything I have ever seen. Obi-wan, I need you to trust me on this."

And then there were no other words to be said.

"Yes, master," he inclined his head, hoping it should hide the skepticism in his eyes, "I do, master. Master ? you would not object, then, to my

 

OK, I'm interested. This is really well written, and I never thought of Obi-Wan being an insect collector...quite a different image of him.

I'm a Siriwan fan usually, and haven't quite understood the attraction of pairing Obi-Wan with Sabe, but you are writing a very different kind of story and I'm interested in seeing where it goes. Their friendship so far is quite charming and hints of something more is intriguing me.

Good Job

 

@ Obimom:
Thank you for your kind review! I am doubly appreciative because you *are* a Siriwan fan and I know how there's always that niggling feeling in your gut when you feel like some fic writer is trying to take Obi-wan away (don't even get me started on this whole Obi-wan x Satine business!)

As for why Sabe-Obiwan, you're right, there is absolutely no evidence it happened. However, there always seemed to be a nice symmetry if Obi-wan fell in love with Sabe, and Anakin with Padme, so that Obi-wan and Anakin would have a parallel dilemma, of sorts, throughout the first 3 movies. Follow the Code, or follow the heart? Through it you can see how passion can destroy (Anakin) alongside how it can be a source of strength (Obi-wan, presumably). Besides which I really wanted an outsider's view to the Jedi, and a girl who liked machines: I found Sabe.

 

This is amazing. I love stories that include the handmaidens regularly, and this story feeds into all of my favorite things about the PT. I'm addicted. Please pm me when you update if you're doing pm's--I don't want to miss an update.

 

You have done a magnificent job of fleshing out sharacters & giving them dimensionality.