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]

"Both, though I was referring mostly to the former."

Though with the ghost of Depa Billaba hovering over this conversation, the latter was also apt.

"You may grow to fear more and more that what you do not attempt to understand," Obi-Wan said. "Perhaps you should question why you cling so tightly to this particular fear."

[uncertain_dume]

"Perhaps I should," Kanan said, after a pause, looking down into what was left of his tea. He couldn't argue that logic. After all, his first instinct when faced with a statement like that was to change the subject and come up with an excuse to leave. "I have a feeling that getting the answers to those questions is going to involve facing down a lot of things that I was more than happy to leave behind."

Like, apparently, his own name.

[saddeserthermit]

"There is very little good that comes of hiding from ourselves," Obi-Wan said quietly.

He would know. He'd avoided just how invested he had been in Anakin, emotionally, until it was too late. And it had brought the entire Republic on their heads.

"Regardless of how much comfort it gives us to do so."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan was quiet again, drawing a slow breath in and closing his eyes.

He wasn't sure what he'd figured he'd get out of a conversation with Master Kenobi. Maybe exactly this. Maybe he had come here to be told these things by somebody who at least had more experience with those things that he'd gone running from when he was still a stupid kid who was going to save the whole damn galaxy.

"I don't suppose you have any suggestions as to where to start?"

[saddeserthermit]

"You could always join me for the meditation you interrupted," Obi-Wan said. Half-wry, half-sincere. "It is quite peaceful out here. Especially now that the island itself is so isolated from anything else. It is no great step."

It just meant that Kanan would have to open himself up to the Force, just a little.

[uncertain_dume]

Just a little. Which was just a touch terrifying, in its own way. Kanan pretended to be very interested in the remaining tea in his cup for a moment, and then finished it off. And then sighed.

"Sit with you in the twigs and grass? Commune with the Force?" His smile was a bit sideways, and so help him he could hear his heart beating in his ears when he went out on a limb and answered, "Sure. It can't hurt anything, I suppose."

[saddeserthermit]

Obi-Wan, too, finished his tea, a small smile on his face. "Unless Rooh chooses to slobber all over you, of course."

That was a joke. Rooh was a desert creature. Slobbering would be a waste.

He rose from his seat and walked back out the door.

[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.

[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.

[uncertain_dume]

It was a good ten, fifteen minutes of silence before Kanan slowly started to gather his feet underneath himself so that he could stand, and another two minutes of idly brushing twigs off of his clothing, clearly distracted, before he really let himself look up toward Master Kenobi and the eopies.

He licked his lips, stalling for another moment still while he groped around for words. Habit, more than anything, had brought up a lot of his barriers between himself and the Force, but there was still that little glimmer around the edges of his senses, and he was loathe to shut it out just yet.

"Just like that, huh?"

Like riding a hoverbike.

[saddeserthermit]

"You are Force sensitive," Obi-Wan said. He'd moved on to brushing dirt off of Rooh's son's skin. The child wasn't as good at hygiene yet. "It is not something one so easily lets go of."

Only one person had ever managed, in all of Jedi history.