saddeserthermit | Office Hours, Wednesday

Kanan caught that momentary hesitation. It was difficult to miss for somebody who had been as paranoid as he had been for so long. He frowned faintly, though didn't prod at it. Especially not once Obi-Wan agreed to it.

And then he asked about his training, and Kanan exhaled in a soft huff of something that was almost a laugh. A very wry, tired sort of laugh.

"Not far," he admitted, his voice dropping to a near whisper as he spoke. "She took me as her Padawan, I got my crystal and built my lightsaber, and then we went to war. We had good talks, and she kept my training up enough to get us through, but it was always minimal. There wasn't much time to train properly on Kardoa," because he'd been shot and spent a good chunk of the downtime afterwards in a bacta tank, "or Mygeeto, or Kaller. The first night we set aside for any real amount of actual training after we became involved in the war, that was the night they turned on us."

"I'm sorry."

The full extent of just how unprepared Dume had been, Obi-Wan... had not been aware of. "Have you, by any chance, spoken to Ahsoka?" he asked quietly.

Because he did not particularly want to give away who or what Ahsoka was if Kanan didn't know, but...

"No," Kanan sighed. "I haven't. I don't know if she suspects who I was, considering how much older I am compared to what I should be by her standards. But I recognize her well enough."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I should. I know. But opening up isn't something I'm very good at, and coming up with a reason to take her aside after class without being obvious about why hasn't happened yet."

Then again, she'd pretty blatantly used the Force while fighting that rancor sim he'd cooked up. He was still trying to figure out if she wasn't actually hiding it, or if she was banking on people thinking that all Togruta could move like that.

"Perhaps you should," Obi-Wan said.

He sighed, nudging the thick upper robe off his shoulders. "She grew up as you did," he said. "The Clone Wars began when she was made Anakin's Padawan. And much like you, she learned to harness the Force in combat above all other applications."

Kanan nodded, pursing his lips a little in thought.

"I suppose I could take her aside after class one of these days. It isn't as though this semester I'm teaching anything so blatant as a course on keeping out of notice."

Kind of the opposite, actually.

"A wise decision," Obi-Wan said wryly.

He may not have been talking about the 'speaking to Ahsoka' part, no.

"I feared this once," he added. "A generation of Jedi raised on war... history has taught us that is rarely a good thing."

"Well, for what it's worth, I have no interest in going back to war." Kanan's brow was furrowed as he spoke, but his eyes were down, turned toward the tea sitting between them. "The last one left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth."

Total mystery as to why. Really.

"I've no doubt," Obi-Wan said mildly. (He had doubt.) "But I fear your generation was raised on the notion that the Force is a thing of action, first and foremost."

He reached for his cup again. "And this lies at the root of your fear, because with such beliefs, to touch the Force again is to act." He looked up. "Would you like some tea? I've forgotten to ask."

Kanan hesitated, biting his lip and then nodding a little. Tea would give him another reason to stay if he lost his nerve again and tried to come up with excuses to leave.

He needed to be here. Needed to be having this talk.

"Please," he replied. "Thank you."

Hey, at least he had manners, somehow.

"And now that you mention it... maybe that is part of it. It's never really been framed as this passive, welcoming thing. Not since I became a Padawan. I mean, hell, we call it the Force. Even our name for it doesn't conjure images of peace." He smiled, wryly. "Master Billaba would meditate together, when we could. That's about as peaceful as it got."

Obi-Wan slid out of his seat, leaving the thick brown robe behind him. He walked across the office, picking up the water cooker and filling it from a small bottle.

"And yet it is these passive abilities that would help you most," he said. "Comfort. Guidance. Awareness. An unfailing ability to sense when the water is approaching a decent boil."

You had your sense of humor. Obi-Wan had his.

"I believe it is wise if we pick up where we left off several weeks ago," he said. "You have had more than enough experience using the Force. Now you should nourish a relationship with it, instead."

Kanan wasn't going to mention that he was more of a caf person anyway. Though he predicted a lot of tea in his future.

"A relationship that isn't tainted by war," he noted, thoughtful. "More meditating, then?"

It seemed like a safe bet. Master Kenobi seemed to do more than a little of it, himself.

Obi-Wan had not been as fastidious about his meditating until fairly recently - having one's dead Master return to advise you to do so had a strange way of motivating you. Nowadays, though-- yes, he did, as he attempted to realign himself with the ways of the Living Force.

"More meditating," he agreed. "If you can find the patience for it."

"I think I can dredge up the patience," Kanan replied, smiling wryly. "It's been a while, but I'm no stranger to sitting alone with my thoughts, either."

For a very long time, that was the only company he'd kept, after all.

"Meditating is a bit like that, but with fewer thoughts and more Force, anyway."

"That is one way of looking at it," Obi-Wan said wryly. "If one that makes it sound as if I spend most of my time contemplating my navel."

Which he... might have done. A bit. He had a lot to feel guilty about.

"You did not stray further than the eopies last time. Perhaps we can see if you can handle sensing the students currently in the school building."

Hey, the eopies had been a safe place. Kanan liked animals. If they turned on you seemingly out of nowhere, you probably had it coming.

"Without being overwhelmed by them, you mean?" He shrugged his shoulders a little. "I think I can handle that. It's still not far, anyway."

And he was less likely to try to strike up a conversation with them, per se.

Obi-Wan poured a cup of tea while Kanan spoke, and then bustled back to the desk to put it down in front of him. "Small steps seems wise," he said. "You do not need to interact with them at all - simply let it wash over you."

"I don't imagine most of them would take well to being interacted with by some unseen presence while they're trying to learn about- what classes are there today? Sex ed and romance novels? There are a few uncomfortable topics to interrupt, right there."

Great. He was quipping. Good sign that he was nervous, right there. Maybe he'd just reach for that tea, hold it in his hands and let the warmth of the cup soak in.

"I mean. I can do this."

"You can," Obi-Wan agreed. Quietly.

He did not join in with the quipping, this time; it felt like it would only be enabling some of Dume's anxieties.

"Drink your tea, and then come join me."

With that, he sat down on a mat on the ground.

"Yes, Master Kenobi," Kanan replied, and for once he sounded more like Caleb than the man he'd tried to become. He took a deep breath, tried to wind down, and let himself settle in to drink his tea.

A few minutes later, feeling a little less anxious than before, he moved to join Obi-Wan on the mat.

And with another deep breath, he closed his eyes.

"Good," said Obi-Wan, whose consciousness had already drifted off into the ether. "Now expand your mind. Begin with the offices. I'm sure we are not the only teachers present today."

"If nothing else, there's always Bob," Kanan agreed, and with another slow inhale and deliberate exhale, he was letting his own consciousness drift out, guided by the Force in search of... if not a connection, at least awareness. With the exception of the eopies, it was the farthest Kanan had let himself reach in a long while.

Over there, as he'd figured, there was Bob. Kanan lingered for a moment, curious to see what exactly a dead man looked like, when seen this way. He didn't let his consciousness linger there for long, reeling in and venturing elsewhere when it occurred to him that Bob might notice him there, too.

Don't poke the ghost. Go poke someone who exists in a slightly less ethereal state. Yes.

"Let's not bring Bob over to mock us just yet," Obi-Wan said quietly.

Not that he was exactly scared of it, but it might ruin the moment.

"Go further," he added, his Force presence reaching out to Dume's with a guiding touch. "Extend your senses. Listen to the bustle of it all, the life."

Kanan - Caleb, really - gave a little hum of acknowledgment, slipping readily into the student role at Obi-Wan's gesture. There was more life out there beyond Bob's strange half-existence, at least a dozen young minds engaged in learning in some class or another. He lingered there next, observing with a soft, bittersweet sense of nostalgia. This was something that felt... not wrong, no, but different without Master Billaba's presence there doing the guiding.

"Those are the students?"

There was so much to them. He'd forgotten how distinct, how vibrant people could be this way, all in some superficial sense the same but each vastly different from the next. He found himself a little bit in awe of it. It had been a while since he'd looked at anyone this way, after all.

"Those are the students," Obi-Wan confirmed. "They're lively, aren't they? It's rather easy to get carried away."

There was a reason he lived in the middle of the woods. Multiple reasons. Not wanting to slip back into the pattern of expecting this kind of... bustle was one of them.

"I'd almost forgotten," Caleb admitted, watching for a moment more before easing back from them a little. It was a bit overwhelming, even though he wanted to stay and watch them a while longer. "I'd closed myself off so far..."

Like cutting off a leg. He was starting to realize what Obi-Wan had meant by that.

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