The Hermit Shack in the Woods, Saturday Morning

[saddeserthermit]

Yesterday had been... unpleasant. Or at least troublesome. And yes, eventually Obi-Wan would have to have that conversation with Ahsoka he'd been putting off for some time.

But that would come whenever it came - whenever Ahsoka chose to have it.

Today, Obi-Wan was meditating, the eopies wandering around him, undisturbed. His efforts to refamiliarize himself with the Living Force this past year and a half had been steady, if slow-- but it was easier now, to simply throw his consciousness into the winds and feel the life around himself.

Obi-Wan sat outside his shack, but in truth, on this island, he was everywhere, all at once, and everyone, all at once.

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[saddeserthermit]

Master Plo had been speaking for all of them.

And once again, Obi-Wan's position on the Council had kept him from doing what he needed to do.

"I would say you did earn it," Obi-Wan said quietly. "Perhaps even well before that point. The war made adults of our younglings far too quickly."

[snipsnspecks]

Then they really should have just let him do the talking, because as ways to undercut apologies went 'it was actually the Force making you a better Jedi' was spectacularly bad.

"Maybe, but can you tell me it wasn't offered out of guilt?" Ahsoka asked, again without accusation.

"A Sith was more willing to believe in me then the Council." Ventress may only have helped because of that promise to speak on her behalf, but she had to have known that the only way Ahsoka could actually have followed through on it if she was telling the truth about being innocent. "How long do you think it would have been before knowing that left me eaten up inside the way Barriss was?"

[saddeserthermit]

"You are not Barriss Offee," Obi-Wan said. "Not then, and not now."

He took another sip of his tea.

"We failed you, that is without question," he said quietly. "Don't think there are not a million things I wish I would have done differently."

He wasn't sure what, exactly. Yoda had seemed determined not to listen to him. But everything was his fault surely he could have done something.

[snipsnspecks]

"Barriss wasn't always like that either."

Ahsoka focused on her cup again. "In the Chamber of Judgement Master Yoda said the Council wasn't in full agreement..." It was the kind of non-question where the asker didn't actually know if they wanted the answer.

[saddeserthermit]

Obi-Wan was quiet for a while. He'd more or less trained himself not to let slip anything he did in defiance of the Council, but that had also done enormous damage with Anakin.

"I dissented," he said. "I did not believe we should simply hand you over to the Republic - your case deserved to be explored fully by the Jedi Council, instead of seeing you sacrificed on the altar of politics. Not that it matters now."

[snipsnspecks]

"It matters," Ahsoka said softly.

[saddeserthermit]

"Perhaps," Obi-Wan said quietly. "I have always had faith in you, Ahsoka. And I believe you would have made a wonderful Jedi Knight."

Of course, she might have easily become a dead one, shortly after.

[uncertain_dume]

"And then I'll have to shower and clean my laundry," Kanan quipped, standing and, with a little bit of false bravado, making his way to the door after Obi-Wan.

The Force itself wouldn't hurt him. He got that. It had never actively caused him harm before, and even when it insinuated itself in his life these days, it was always to give him warnings, or little boosts that would help him along in desperate situations. It was like an old friend, occasionally nudging at him to remind him that it was still there, whenever he wanted to come back to it.

It was too damn patient with him. And he was too afraid that he wouldn't want to let go again if he let it back into his life without a fight.

"I'm pretty sure a little eopie drool hasn't ever hurt anybody before."

[saddeserthermit]

"True," Obi-Wan said. "Though occasionally they supplement it by kicking."

He found his old spot, brushing idly at the twigs and whatnot near it. It was largely a futile exercise, of course: somehow nature always found a way to decorate his robe. Still.

He sat down.

"I take it you still remember how."

Not being kicked in the head by an eopie. The other thing.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan didn't bother trying to brush at the twigs before taking a seat near Obi-Wan. Sitting in the dirt was sitting in the dirt no matter what you did, and he'd learned a long time ago that there wasn't much to be done about it until after the fact.

"It's not the sort of thing that's easy to forget," he replied, though being kicked in the head by an eopie would, subjectively speaking, be an easier task. Kanan pulled in a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes. "Even if it has been a while."

[saddeserthermit]

"Start small," Obi-Wan said.

His own eyes slid shut. "The eopies, perhaps."

[uncertain_dume]

"The eopies," Kanan echoed, and that was all he said before clearing his mind and letting the Force guide him. It was there, right there, as it always had been, demanding no explanation or apology for the way he'd shunted it aside for so long. Kanan's mind wanted to wander, wanted to worry about what this moment would mean for his future, but he swallowed, inhaled again, and let the Force pull him away from those thoughts.

There was life around them, everywhere. Trees and insects, birds, and people, farther away. Master Kenobi. And, of course, the eopies.

Starting small, Kanan let himself just feel the eopies, familiarize himself with the connections between them. The rest of the world continued on as an afterthought, huge and vibrant and overwhelming in its own right. But it was welcome to continue doing whatever it was doing. Kanan was just going to be over here with the eopies.

[saddeserthermit]

Obi-Wan let his presence waft out, disperse; he touched upon the eopies for but a moment before he spread out a wider net, feeling the buzz of the people in town, the gremlins and their wicked plans, the teal deer spooking through the preserve.

And Caleb Dume, of course.

He stretched out a wave of quiet, comforting calm as he passed.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan was hanging out with the eopies, because that was where he had been directed to go, and because it seemed like an easy starting point after so long.

Caleb was breathing in that comforting calm as Master Kenobi offered it, letting it soothe away the rest of his doubts and helping him pass more fully into the moment. There were eopies, two beings out of millions of living things on the island alone, as vibrant as any of the rest of the lives that were stretched out around them, and he'd never connected with eopies, before. They were captivating in their own right, each full and complete lives unto themselves, minds and personalities that were intertwined together within the Force.

Caleb Dume smiled, and much like Master Kenobi's wave of calm, he offered the eopies a greeting, gentle and inquisitive and with a sense of peace about it that he hadn't known in years.

[saddeserthermit]

Rooh responded as she always did: with a stubborn curiosity of her own. She had fostered a deep bond with the other one, and this one felt the same, but different. She brought her head up and tilted it, too much animal to truly broadcast back.

But still.

Obi-Wan brought his consciousness back to his immediate surroundings. Watching, in a sense, without interference. Pushing Dume too far would be of no use to any of them. He could scarcely remember a time he hadn't been connected to the Force in all its hugeness-- the absence of it seemed like a vast and frightening thing.

[snipsnspecks]

Especially given her affinity for younglings.

"I don't feel like a Jedi anymore," said the girl who'd given herself over to the Force to find him as easily as breathing.

[saddeserthermit]

"None of us are what we once were," Obi-Wan said.

He certainly didn't feel like a Jedi Master, a great deal of the time.

[uncertain_dume]

It had been, at first. Vast and frightening and silent. But in the face of the rest of it, of being fourteen years old and fresh out of a war, being hunted by his friends while the closest to a family that he'd ever known was cut down in vast swathes clear across the galaxy, vast and silent had been a strange comfort. He could still remember all too well the way it had felt when Master Billaba had been killed as he ran, Sammo and Tai and the rest of the younglings, the whole order being snuffed out while all he could do was hide, and stay awake, and try to survive.

The quiet had been terrifying. But if everything was quiet, nothing in particular was. Especially not the things that hurt the most.

But those were thoughts for another time. In this particular moment, Caleb was still smiling, still offering his greetings and his curiosity to the eopies, to Rooh in particular. There was something about that stubbornness that appealed to him, that was familiar to him, and he sent her a faint wave of amusement and approval, a bit of a glimpse of his own stubbornness and curiosity, which had exasperated the Masters so much - and caught Depa's attention - back home.

[saddeserthermit]

Rooh let out a soft snort, a noise of recognition. Cold wet strange green, that was her experience here, most of all, and she shared it readily. She had no understanding of history as he might have had, but there were glimpses there of sand, and terrifying krayt dragons, old caves and a family with a small, blond child that reached out to her, just like this.

[uncertain_dume]

Caleb acknowledged that experience, those glimpses, with a sort of quiet understanding. This place was strange for him too, if for different reasons. He'd seen plenty of worlds that were wet, plenty that were green, but there were so many things about this place that were utterly alien to him, it was difficult sometimes to understand how he fit in here at all.

What baffled him the most about this place, though, was how badly he wanted to stay, if he was being at all honest with himself. It wasn't home. Nothing would really be that. But there was a sense of belonging that he hadn't felt in years. It was intoxicating in its own right, and it made it difficult to want to run, even though old fears kept telling him that he had to.

He'd been told to run. And so he ran, and he left as much of himself behind as he possibly could, every time.

He paused for a moment, and then offered her a sort of comparison, that this place was strange, but there were things here that rung familiar, the same way the sand and the caves and the family might have, to her. Did she have anything like that, here? Master Kenobi, he supposed. But anything else?

[saddeserthermit]

Her son.

The food she found in her small stable every morning.

And the return, every once in an immeasurable ocean of something called time she didn't understand, where she could walk on sand again and feel the sun on her skin. She didn't miss it that much. It was nice, sometimes, to run. But to be unmoored - that was terrifying. Unsafe.

[uncertain_dume]

Unsafe. The whole galaxy spreading out in front and behind with no clear direction to take into it? There was a sort of wryness before Caleb agreed, it was a dangerous place. It could be a whole galaxy full of krayt dragons, for all anybody knew, and the familiar was safer, especially for those who weren't alone. For those who had a herd, however small, who protected one another.

He'd been alone. He wasn't quite certain what to do with a herd, these days.

[saddeserthermit]

He knew what her herd was, of course, but Rooh was a simple creature; she thought immediately again of her son, and of Obi-Wan. Protected. Safe. Protecting-- that was all you needed to do.

Obi-Wan reached out for her, offered her a gentle burst of affection in the Force.

Then he brought his consciousness further back into himself, and opened his eyes.

[uncertain_dume]

Was it really as simple as that? Caleb contemplated that in silence for a moment before, with a quiet sort of consideration, he thanked Rooh for her insight on the matter. It seemed to be working for her, and he remembered a time, once, where it had worked for him. Maybe that was something that he'd lost sight of, when everything else had fallen apart.

When he'd become a scared kid separated from the herd, with nothing left to do but run.

He thanked her again, and then he started to lean back, until the line between Caleb and Kanan came back to him, and there was little left for him to do but open his eyes, furrow his brow, and process.

[saddeserthermit]

The look Obi-Wan gave him was curious, but not overtly so; thoughtful, perhaps, and considering the state of Dume-- no, Kanan-- before him.

Eventually, he got back onto his feet, and crossed the small clearing to find Rooh herself, nibbling on some fodder. He patted her gently on the neck.