Saga - Legends Above A Sea Of Clouds (Obi-Wan, Siri, OC - drama, vignette)

Title: Above A Sea Of Clouds
Author: Valiowk
Timeframe: 22 BBY, immediately after Attack of the Clones
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Siri Tachi, Original Character
Genre: drama, friendship
Keywords: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Siri Tachi, Fyodor Tyutchev, ‘Ya vstretil vas’, ‘I came across you’
Summary: An intermediate scene between It Could Not Have Been Otherwise and the second half of Secrets of the Jedi. Can also be read prior to It Could Not Have Been Otherwise or independently of it.
It Could Not Have Been Otherwise provides the explanation for the choice of poem translated by Obi-Wan, both in- and out-of-universe.
With a companion vignette A Moment Of Peace, featuring the same professional holographer.

If wished, time will filter love to be purer than attachment.

Hard is the fate of a Jedi, that great may be their feat.

The song of the Force is heard and echoes ceaselessly in the ears, even of a non–Force-sensitive.

Author’s notes:

1) The cover image is Photoshopped from Michael Bay’s film The Island; please excuse Obi-Wan’s incorrect hair in the image. The photograph of the waterfall was taken by my friend Ding.

2) The quotation attributed to Qui-Gon is from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand and Stars. The poem ‘Ya vstretil vas’ (‘I came across you’) was written by the Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev in 1870; the translation here is my own. The biographical facts are true, up to transportation onto a different planet. The ‘song of Pyc’ is adapted from Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls and the Soviet miniseries of the same name.

​

The billowing cloud seas and waterfalls plunging kilometres on the planet Iemeastiz form a wondrous expanse, inducing even those who have beheld up-close the giant plants of Felucia and the wroshyr trees of Kashyyyk—such as I, a budding professional holographer—to submit to the marvel of the Maker.

That is, until cloud buses fetching passengers with a long layover at Iemeastiz Spaceport arrive as the spaceport becomes busy during daytime. How ironic that Iemeastiz is visited primarily not for its natural beauty, but because of its prime location as an important hyperlane junction.

Seeking respite from the hordes of transfer passengers turned tourists rummaging for their holocameras while jostling for a forefront position, I scouted a more intimate spot. Here the clouds did not form shapes that riveted one’s eyes and imagination, while the waterfall cascaded barely a few tens of metres, but—I exchanged a grin with the human male with shoulder-length ginger hair who had independently come to the same nook—one could simultaneously see both types of landscapes!

While I set up my tripod and adjusted the filters of the holocamera, the man pulled his brown cloak tightly over his beige tunic and seated himself cross-legged by the cliff, as though in meditation. Is he a local who has been here countless times? I conjectured.

Soft footsteps caught our attention while I waited for sunbeams to fall upon the waterfall. ‘Obi-Wan!’ the approaching human female exclaimed delightedly, espying the man.

‘Siri! What are you doing here?’ He rose to meet her.

‘I’m on my way back to Coruscant after a mission on Daiyu. Would you believe that this is my first time on Iemeastiz after all that was covered about it in Physical Geography?’ Siri, dressed in a white unisuit with a belt pouch, her bright blond hair tied neatly in a ponytail, replied. I stifled a chuckle—had she been subjected to a curriculum similar in rigour to that on my homeworld, the pride of all its citizens? ‘And you?’

‘On my way from Ilum to Mapuzo. This is also my first time on Iemeastiz,’ Obi-Wan responded with a winning smile that faded slightly as he added, ‘Anakin is escorting Senator Amidala back to Naboo.’

Siri indicated for the pair to seat themselves on the overhang, Obi-Wan doing so more relaxedly than before, their feet dangling over the edge as they admired the panorama.

‘I heard that Anakin lost his right forearm to Count Dooku. How is he adjusting to his cybernetic arm?’ she enquired.

‘It’s too early to say. He and I didn’t have time to spar before being assigned missions again.’ Obi-Wan let out a sigh. ‘I heard that you and Master Gallia defended the assault ship above Geonosis. Thank you.’

‘It was nothing for friends,’ Siri demurred.

‘What was it that Qui-Gon used to say? “People travel side by side for years, each locked up in his own silence or exchanging those words which carry no freight—till danger comes. Then they stand shoulder to shoulder. They discover that they belong to the same family.” ’ Obi-Wan reflected. ‘Who would have thought that now—with Anakin losing a forearm, the galaxy going to war—I would be able to speak of Qui-Gon with it no longer hurting.’

Siri nodded in understanding. ‘Recently—before the war—I came to terms with Ferus’ resignation from the Order, and am ready to take a new apprentice.’

Obi-Wan gazed at her approvingly. ‘Ferus would be gladdened to know that.’

I eavesdropped on the pair of security personnel as they conversed intermittently, sometimes about work, at intervals about galactic politics, occasionally about the geography of Iemeastiz, somewhat put to shame that they, who carried no holocamera by their side, saw nature more truly than I, who sought to capture its beauty. Whether or not sunrays struck the waterfall no longer mattered.

​

This is a good place to die, I thought for the sole time in my life, before being amused that, influenced by the pair, my contemplation had taken a philosophical turn.

‘My soul hasn’t felt so light for long, especially given the Separatist Crisis,’ Siri ruminated. ‘How wonderful that once you existed in the galaxy, Obi-Wan.’

Obi-Wan’s eyebrows rose at the compliment before he grinned lopsidedly and murmured, ‘I hope I remember the stanzas.’ Observing Siri’s curiosity at the reference, he sang [audio, video] in a warm tenor, the words coming to his tongue with difficulty,

‘Ya vstretil vas — i vsyo byloye
V otzhivshem serdtse ozhilo;
Ya vspomnil vremya zolotoye —…’

My native Pyccian…

Pyc! Pyc! What inscrutable, mysterious force draws the troubles of the galaxy to you, poor homeworld, which a menacing war cloud, heavy with coming rains, overshadows?

What unfathomable connection lurks between us: I, an economic migrant with a beautiful home on a distant planet; you, without picturesque trees, without the noise and eternal dust of waterfalls, without rock masses clambering up endlessly into the heights?

What do you want from me, Pyc? Why does everything in you turn upon me eyes full of expectation? Why is there heard and echoed ceaselessly in the ears your melancholy song, hovering along your entire circumference, from sea to sea? What is in it, in this song? What calls and sobs and tugs at the heart? What sounds painfully kiss, and strive for the soul, and curl around my heart?

You sparkling, wondrous, unwonted planet, Pyc!

‘…I to zhe v vas ocharovan’ye,
I ta zh v dushe moey…’ At the penultimate word, Obi-Wan’s voice trailed off uncertainly.

‘…lyubov’!...’ Siri completed tenderly. After a protracted pause, she named the poet: ‘Tyutchev. How do you know this poem, Obi-Wan?’

‘I translated it to better appreciate it,’ Obi-Wan answered. ‘After that I swore never again to attempt to translate a language I don’t know.’ Perceiving Siri’s tacit prodding, he recited,

‘I came across you—and all bygone
Rekindled in my moribund core;
I called to mind a golden aeon—
And my chilled heart turned so warm once more…

Just as, from time to time, transpire, gleam
Some days, an hour of late autumn,
When suddenly some breaths of spring stream
And something in us doth awaken,—

So, all surrounded by the zephyr
Of those years of internal fullness,
With long-forgotten relish, rapture
I gaze upon your precious features…

As after centuries-long parting
As though in slumber, you I study,—
And lo—more audibly those sounds sing,
That had not fallen silent in me…

Therein was not just recollection,
Therein life stirred anew, aroused, hove,—
And in you that same fascination,
And in my soul that very same love!…’ Obi-Wan spoke the concluding word confidently now.

Were they once potential lovers who later discontinued that relationship? I pondered.

In the distance, a cloud bus arrived, displaying the current and its departure time.

‘When must you leave, Siri?’ Obi-Wan enquired.

‘Soon. What about you?’ She returned the question.

‘The same.’

Siri beamed at the fluke. As the couple rose, Obi-Wan reached for the left side of his utility belt, revealing a black and silver hilt hanging at his waist.

A lightsabre! They are Jedi!

Having retrieved his comlink from his belt, Obi-Wan addressed me. ‘A keepsake?’

Heartily nodding assent to the fragmentary question, I plugged the comlink to the holocamera.

‘To K. B.’ Siri read my late father’s initials on the strap of the holocamera in Pyccian, then grinned at the coincidence: that was also the dedication on Tyutchev’s poem.

‘Sit as you did,’ I directed the Jedi.

To my satisfaction, Obi-Wan had a topic of conversation prepared as the Jedi retook their seats.

‘Klothilde von Bothmer. Tyutchev’s sister-in-law by his first wife,’ he glossed.

It was not what I had learnt in my schoolbooks, but I had not kept up with recent scholarship; moreover, this reading, unlike the traditional interpretation, did not involve a contrived reversal of initials: simply a beloved friend from Tyutchev’s youth.

Siri’s laughter was dulcet, and I captured on hologram the lightness of her soul.

They have forsworn attachment, to serve the inhabitants of the galaxy selflessly.

‘Krüdener, Baroness,’ Obi-Wan alluded to after the laughter subsided: Amalie von Lerchenfeld, the love of Tyutchev’s youth, to whom Tyutchev had written a poem ‘Ya pomnyu vremya zolotoye [I call to mind a golden aeon]’, later married to Baron von Krüdener.

‘Tyutchev’s oldest affection after Pyc, in whose person the best of his past years appeared to give him a farewell kiss on his deathbed,’ Siri quoted the poet’s letters serenely.

Time had filtered their love to be purer than attachment.

I caught the filtrate of time on hologram. Unplugging the comlink, I sat beside Obi-Wan at the scarp, asking as I returned the comlink, ‘Would you mind were I to keep a copy of the holograms?’

‘Of course not,’ the pair replied in unison. ‘Thank you,’ Obi-Wan said in Basic, Siri in Pyccian, before she added in Basic, ‘May the Force be with you.’

My eyes trailed the Jedi as they departed for the cloud buses after our hour together, work with the holocamera done for the day: and that was my loss. Who, having come across the messengers of the Maker, can ever return into ignorance? I returned my gaze—no longer through the filters of a holocamera—to the waterfall, flush with water during the monsoon season in autumn on Iemeastiz, in the light while there was daylight, and the zephyr of spring on Pyc streamed into my ear:

Difficult is your life’s work. Hard is your fate, and great is your feat. For the time has come to save people. Be patient, fearless and compassionate. Tell people the whole truth of life. From the first cry to the grave. Let there be living, and not dead souls in the world.

Just as, from time to time, transpire, gleam
Some days, an hour of late autumn,
When suddenly some breaths of spring stream
And something in us doth awaken,—

Above a sea of clouds.

Fin​

 

What a gorgeous poem and a wonderful setting for a coincidental encounter between Obi-Wan and Siri captured forever by a very sympathetic, insightful holojournalist.

 

I love the poems and the setting where the holojournalist has an encounter with Obi-Wan and Siri