Sun Kissed

Chapter 11

By early the next morning, the sun had finally started to break through the grey, cloud-covered sky. Obi-Wan watched the bright rays from the kitchen window, as they streaked through the lightening cloud cover to form small, sunny patches over the calming ocean. It had always been beautiful to watch the sun come back after a long rain. It was one of Obi-Wan’s favourite things.



The sky, once dark-filled with gloom and thunder, and harsh winds that seemed to expand over the whole planet would quiet again; the sky becoming light once more. Bright, unparalleled radiance that had been hidden and consumed by the dark brought out once again after the cloud cover was no longer holding it back. The light pierced through the darkness, like it was raging a battle. The clouds blocked out the sun for a time, but eventually the sun would overcome and shine brightly through.



The storm seasons were Bandomeer’s renewal. Without much snow, the crops grew year round. The rains were typical of the environment that produced mass agricultural exports. The seasons had slowly shifted back to the way they had once been, natural seasons - balance. There was a time, decades ago now, that Bandomeer had almost become a strip mining wasteland.



The day Offworld Mining Corp. was ground into the dust was a day celebrated by every sentient being on every planet the company had ever set foot on and destroyed. Offworld’s greed and corruption had cost many planets their viability. The destroyed ecosystems threw the seasons and rains off of their normal schedules, as plants and animals died, the world unable to sustain planet-wide life.



With Offworld’s ore mining operations gone from Bandomeer, the Jedi began setting it up as a protected planet; for the ease at which Bandomer was able to produce an abundance of crops, and as the locale for many former Jedi hopefuls now placed with the AgriCorps, it had to be kept safe.



Took them long enough…



Obi-Wan scowled at himself and tried to shake that thought. It wasn’t the fault of the Jedi. Force, he knew how spread thin they were. The galaxy was vast, and there were trillions of people who needed help, and there were so few Jedi, only thousands if that. It wouldn’t take much to over-extend themselves.



Bandomeer hadn’t been the only world where people had started dying at the hands of an insidious corporation. Hadn’t been the only ones who tried to fight back. When the Jedi had finally come it had been a relief. But had the Jedi been watching where they were sending new AgriCorps members, former youngling hopefuls, more closely… Offworld might not have gained such a foothold in the first place. It was the Jedi’s ignorance to what had been happening on Bandomeer that further cemented Obi-Wan’s feelings of betrayal and isolation from the Order.

But he knew, rationally, that it wasn’t their fault. There was so much going on in the galaxy, other worlds that were in worse positions, that needed help before Bandomeer did. The Jedi were forced to put the galaxy’s planets into triage.



He knew it. He understood it. And he tried to let his emotions go, to let it all go. He wasn’t supposed to feel things personally. He understood the Jedi philosophy, he understood casualties, and he should have been able to rise above it, rise over and conquer his emotions. Civil wars happened all over the galaxy, he wasn’t the only being to have been caught in the middle of one.



He wouldn’t have made a good Jedi. Maybe mediocre at best if someone had pitied him enough to take him on. Because that was what it would have been: pity.



Even though he had found his inner calm, peace had always been elusive. He ignored his conflicts, tried to bury them, hide from his failures. He couldn’t move forward.



Obi-Wan was stuck.



And he’d been stuck for a long time. So long that he had accepted it. He knew nothing would change. Watching the shadowed cloud cover slowly dissipate and give way to the rising, brilliant sun, Obi-Wan could only hope that one day, he would be free of his shadows as well.



>>>



The light clink of plates echoed throughout the kitchen as Obi-Wan set about on breakfast. Sunlight streamed through the opened windows and reflected brightly off of the plastisteel counters. Blue sky spread for kilometres.



Obi-Wan added another helping of the Barabel fruit Anakin was so fond of onto the plates, and stirred the pot of porridge he had boiling on the hot plate. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day; it readied the body for a long day of work and helped to maintain the energy of the morning. It was one of his rituals, a peaceful morning breakfast. And it had been something he did alone, until the Force had handed him Anakin.



Peace had, more or less, gone out the window in the last week. Obi-Wan had been…so off balance. Glancing towards the hallway to Anakin’s room, Obi-Wan sighed. The boy had been so lost the night before, and Obi-Wan doubted his clumsy attempts at comfort did anything to ease his misery.



Lost in thought, the light rapping at the door made him jump. Had the wind blow something into his door?



Obi-Wan turned his head and listened. When the rapping came again, he wiped his hands on a cloth and went to answer. No one ever came up to his house. He never had visitors.

At the third rapping, Obi-Wan finally managed to open the door. His brow furrowed in confusion, until something rapped against his knee, and forced him to look down. His eyes widened.



“M-Master Yoda?”



Obi-Wan blinked down in surprise. Beyond surprise actually, he was in shock. It had been over two decades since he had seen the small, green Master. The last time had been before his deployment to Bandomeer. Obi-Wan had thought that Yoda had seemed sad at the time.



Yoda chuckled and inclined his head. “Good to see you it is, Obi-Wan. Tall, you have grown.”



Obi-Wan couldn’t help the smile that tugged his lips. Out of all the Temple Masters, he had always felt closest to Yoda. He was strong and wise, powerful and just, everything Obi-Wan had aspired to be one day. And Obi-Wan had grown, he didn’t remember Yoda being quite so small as he had been when Obi-Wan had been thirteen.



Force, he had been short for his age.



“Master, it is good to see you again, but…what are you doing here?”



“Hmmm. Straight to the point, you always were. All is well with you, hmmm?”



“Um, yes I…I suppose.” Obi-Wan was still in shock. Not only to see the small Master again, but to once more, re-familiarize himself with Yoda’s unique way of speaking.



“Suppose? Suppose? Hm. Well or not well, how is it you suppose?”



“Master-“



Yoda held up a clawed hand. “Mysterious is the Force, for all things a place for them. For meditation, the key it is. Well you shall find, when content you gain.”



“Yes, Master.” Obi-Wan squinted his eyes. As much as he had missed Yoda, his sometimes cryptic babbling had not been missed. It had certainly never been understood, anyway.



“Master, why-“



“A Force user in your care I believe you have?”



“I…” Obi-Wan glanced behind him into the house. “A-Anakin?”



Yoda sighed. “Here to meet him I am, the will of the Council it is.”



Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed. “I’m again confused. He’s in his twenties, what use is he to the Jedi?”



Batting Obi-Wan’s leg with his gimer stick, Yoda manoeuvered past him into the living room; following silently behind him, Obi-Wan shut the door and trailed the small Master to the couches. Using the Force to help him jump up onto the cushions, Yoda waited for Obi-Wan to sit opposite him.



“Stay here, the boy will. Decided it was. Too old he is for training.”



“Yes.” Obi-Wan realized that, of course the boy was too old. But still, why the Sith would the Council send someone to see Anakin? Why would Yoda come himself?



“Noticed have you, anything about this boy?”



“Um.” Flashes sprang unbidden to Obi-Wan’s mind. Anakin’s eyes, his lips, the way he looked when he…Obi-Wan pushed the thoughts away, locking them tight against guarded shields. There was no place for that, there would never be a place for that. Even with Anakin’s beauty, there was something else that Obi-Wan had noticed above all other physical things:



Anakin’s light. The one that surrounded him the day Ob-Wan first placed his bid. The headaches on the transport home…



“He’s very strong in the Force. Very strong. I mean I…I’ve met untrained Force sensitives before, but never anyone like Anakin. He’s so…loud.”



Yoda nodded all the way through Obi-Wan’s description, like it meant more than it should have. It only served to confuse him further. Why all the interest in a slave boy?



“Pardon my asking Master, but how did the Council even know about Anakin?”



“His midichlorian count, we received from Healer Leueka.”



“I still don’t understand.” Why would Mi’aka do that? “The count’s irrelevant is it not? He’s too old for training, and with the shielding I’ve been teaching him he’s getting better at controlling his projected thoughts.”



For some reason that Obi-Wan couldn’t discern, that seemed to make Yoda smile.



“Master Yoda, why would Mi’aka contact the Council over Anakin?”



“A midichlorian count of over 23,000, he has.”



Obi-Wan was floored. It felt like the bottom of his stomach had dropped out all at once.



“There has to be a mistake.” His voice seemed to crack on the last word.



“Healer Leueka, three times she checked. More times did our Healers check. Correct, the count is.”



“But. But, that’s higher than yours Master.” Obi-Wan was out of breath. “It’s higher than…the entire Council don’t have counts that high!”



“Loud, you say he is.”



“He’s completely untrained, of course-“



“No other, like him, you have felt. Said this, you did.”



Obi-Wan needed tea.



Something like this could only happen to him.



>>>



He had been preparing tea, or trying to prepare it anyway. The pot tipped over, he burnt himself, and the hotplate chipped when he dropped the nearly tipped pot. After all these years, the first acknowledgement from the Jedi had not only been Yoda, but he was here for Anakin. A boy with an unprecedented midichlorian level.



It was…he didn’t know. He should stop thinking about it though.



Force, had Anakin been found earlier…what kind of Jedi would he have become? There would have been a long line of Masters assembling to train him. A child with such Force potential would never have been rejected…never be…



Sith. Anakin was an even greater victim of circumstance than Obi-Wan had thought. It wasn’t his fault the Jedi hadn’t found him in time. The universe…it wasn’t fair. He knew that better than anybody.



A vibration in the Force had him turning to the hallway.



Anakin was standing huddled against the wall, looking suspiciously into the living room.



What would he have been?



Shuttering his thoughts, Obi-Wan made his way over to Anakin. Anakin glanced at him and then back into the living room.



“There’s a green troll on the couch.”



Obi-Wan’s heart nearly gave out at Anakin’s deadpan.



“That’s not a troll!” he hissed quietly. “That’s Grandmaster Yoda.”



At Anakin’s blank look, Obi-Wan continued. “He is over 800 years old, and has a permanent place on the Jedi High Council. Most consider him the unofficial Head of the Jedi Order. Master Yoda is the oldest living Jedi, incredibly wise, and is one of the strongest Force wielders in the galaxy.”



“Doesn’t look it,” whispered Anakin.



“Hear you, I can. Not for decoration, these ears are.”



They both jumped and looked over at Yoda, who stared on at them in amusement.



“Master, I-“



Yoda chuckled, and waved a hand. “Apologize, not. The boy, this is?”



“Yes, he is.”



Anakin looked between them warily, but followed Obi-Wan over to one of the couches. He found himself seated in front of the tiny, green creature. Now that he was fully in his presence Anakin felt a strange feeling settle cold in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like how Yoda looked at him. Like he was seeing straight through Anakin. It left him…exposed, vulnerable.



He hated that. Anakin’s jaw clenched as Yoda’s ears twitched and his eyes melted into an unfamiliar expression.



Yoda’s hands rested on his gimer stick, as he drew in a breath and released out a sigh. His initial feeling from Anakin could be summed up in only six words.



“Much fear, I sense in you.”