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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Comments

[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.

[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.

[snipsnspecks]

"But what are we becoming," Ahsoka said, thinking out loud more than anything else. "We can't be open about we are for fear of what would happen, but fear is of the Dark Side."

[saddeserthermit]

Obi-Wan thought of Dum-- Kanan, earlier. "It depends," he said, "On whether we let fear own us. There are things we must do now that are necessary, both for our survival and for the good of the galaxy. But that is only dangerous when it is the only force that guides our actions."

[snipsnspecks]

"How do we tell the difference?"

You'd figure it out eventually, Miss Sasses-Sith-In-A-Sith-Temple-On-Kriffing-Malachor.

[saddeserthermit]

Well, at least one day she'd have something in common with Atton.

"If I had a simple answer for that, our lives would be easier," Obi-Wan said. "I try to serve a higher purpose still."