Saga - OT Sand Dance

Author: CaraJinn
Era: ANH
Genre: General
Characters: Ben Kenobi
Summary: Short vignette (ficlet?) aiming to describe the mood the night before Luke ends up in old Ben Kenobi's backyard.
Author's notes: The story was first posted on fan fiction . net

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Sand Dance

The sand was dancing again. He had stopped counting the times he'd been laying awake, listening to the hushed tunes of the sand dancing over the Tatooinian desert. At first he had found the sound disturbing, like the shuffling of a thousand feet, but as the years had gone by he had gotten used to it and now it was soothing. It made him feel less alone and some nights he could wake up and almost, just almost, imagine that he was a young padawan again, safely home in the Temple listening to the soft footsteps of Jedi moving through the halls and corridors.

So many days, so many nights…

And yet, there was another tune in the sand's dance tonight. It was not only patient and calming, it was more eager, as if something was going to happen soon. Something he had been waiting for all his life, or at least all his time in his present incarnation - Old Ben, the hermit of Jundland Wastes. Crazy Old Ben who had turned up there ages ago, stars only knew from where, and whom nobody really knew. He just…was there. A part of the desert itself, it seemed.

The dance intensified and he knew that within not so many more minutes, the twin suns would again rise over the horizon and a new day would begin. He might as well watch it. At least there were two good things about this star forsaken dustball he'd been forced to live on: the sunrises and the sunsets.

He threw the blanket aside and with croaking knees he stood up, Feeling every one of his fifty seven standard years in his body he left his hut.

When he reached the small plateau where he knew from experience that the sunrise would be the most spectacular, he could see the dancing dervishes of sand over the desert intensify their effort, and in the moment the suns rose the entire desert was bathing in a blood red color before the wind stilled and the dervishes died.

And in that single moment he knew that the time had come. It would happen soon, whatever 'it' was.

His long waiting time was over.

 

While reading this I had a certain Sting song in my mind.

Once more you weave us a story full of atmosphere and deep insight. One can almost feel the desert heat and see the dance of the sand.

 

Great imagery and sense of anticipation!