Lineage IV

18

"We're leaving in less than an hour… Master Gallia is making final adjustments to the flight log. We've been assigned to another mission already – something diplomatic, not as dangerous as the Agri-Corps." Siri Tachi stopped rambling and paused, biting her lower lip.

Obi Wan found that he was sorry to see her go; almost as sorry as he had been to see her come. It was an odd feeling, certainly unexpected. But it was a feeling nonetheless, the first to manifest itself in his benumbed psyche since the death of Soll Carthag. And that merited celebration, he supposed. "Well, then. Come and see the mandrangea beans one last time before you go," he offered, hospitably.

Her brows rose. "The mandrangea beans?"

There was nobody else in the Agri-bubble, most the staff being occupied with cleaning up the evacuation area or working at the reforestation preserve. On impulse, he seized Siri's hand and led her swiftly along the central aisle between Alepo's orchards and the neat rows of freshly tilled vegetable beds, past the composter and the potting shed, to the wide arbor of bean shoots, draped along their high trellises. "They're in flower. Look."

Siri brushed the very short strands of her hair behind one ear, but they fell forward again. She sighed. "They are beautiful," she admitted, bemused.

"Even better from the inside," he told her, pulling her along beneath two of the adjacent rows, until they were enclosed in a long, narrow fortress, a cathedral of twining green vines and delicately ridged leaves, a sanctuary in which the loamy earth was kissed by soft green light, and white petals dropped, floating slowly in the still air, a rainfall of silent perfumed snow. The Force chimed gently, as full and still as the hush beneath the green roof. He rolled onto his back upon the rich soil bed, and Siri flopped down beside him. They gazed at the fretted ceiling, the gold-green kaleidoscope of light, and laughed when the bean-blossoms rained down upon their faces, one at a time, in slow procession.

"It's marvelous."

"Much better than flying."

"I like flying," Siri protested.

"I don't."

They tucked their hands behind their heads and floated in the Living Force, adrift with the soft petals, the dust motes coiling on the warm air.

"Part of me doesn't want to leave," Obi Wan said after a while. "Even though I hated it here when we first arrived."

"You have to leave," Siri replied, solemnly. "You're going to be a great Jedi. I … I'm sorry for all the horrible things I said to you. Earlier. Before."

Before. Yes, existence did seem bifurcated into before and after. Before Carthag. After his death. After killing him. Obi Wan swallowed. He had no choice but to embrace the after. There was no going back. He was a killer now… and a Jedi.

"It's all right" he answered, hoarsely. "Some of it was true. And the rest I dismissed as the ravings of quite justifiable envy."

She snorted. "You barve." But there was no real sting in the words.

"By the way…. not that it matters of course… but I think the short hair suits you very well."

Siri smiled a little then, and turned her face toward him. Her shorn tresses spilled around it, a soft platinum halo. "Thanks. Not that I care."

"No, of course not."

A beat. "And bantha poodoo suits you very well, too," Siri added.

His mouth twitched at the corners, and he tried to suppress the tugging smile, but she likely saw it in his eyes anyway. They looked at each other, and in the simple shelter of that green place, it was possible to call each other friend. Something loosened and shifted almost imperceptibly within the unifying Force, a subtle tectonic sliding. Obi Wan felt it; Siri did not seem to notice. He shrugged the moment away, for the quiet and the scent of mandrangea blossoms were a far more enticing subject of attention. And the company was – surprisingly – good.

They stayed a while longer, wrapped in their own thoughts, but glad to share the fleeting moment of peace with one another, until both comlinks simultaneously shattered their fragile repose.

Siri sighed, and sat up. "We're needed. And I have to go."

So they left, bidding the drifting flowers and each other a swift farewell.

The next morning, Qui Gon borrowed Alepo's battered landspeeder, with the intention of making one final trip up to the reforestation site.

"You said that I would love it up here," he remarked to his unusually subdued apprentice, "And yet now you are in a dour frame of mind. Why so out of sorts, my Padawan?"

Obi Wan pretended absorbing interest in the flashing scenery as they ascended the hill at an economical pace. His fingers drummed along the passenger side panel. "Ah… there's something I need to tell you," he began. "Regarding the plant. The one you left in my care."

The tall Jedi master raised his brows. "I was wondering where our friend had got to. I assumed you transplanted it into one of Alepo's domes; in which case you are to be commended for your powers of persuasion. He was dead set against the notion when I suggested it."

"Not exactly, master. That is, I did transplant it. It was getting to be a nuisance at night."

"And where exactly did you find it a happy home?" Qui Gon spared a suspicious sidelong glance at his apprentice.

"On the boundary of the ecopreserve," Obi Wan muttered. "Just up ahead. Where we ... where I fought Carthag." He pointed vaguely along the swell of rocky land rising at the foothill's edge, where the more established forest grew near the tumbling cliffs of a river valley. "It was a pretty site – I thought you would approve."

The Jedi master permitted himself a bemused smile. "I see. Why do I sense a tragic ending to this tale?"

Obi Wan winced a little. "During the battle with Carthag…just before you arrived... Well. The plant was destroyed. I don't htink you noticed at the time."

"Ah. My attention was otherwise occupied. Distracted, you might even say." They sped onward in silence for a while, Qui Gon ruminating on this sad revelation and Obi Wan maintaining a shamed silence in the passenger seat. Eventually, with a few wordless directions from his Padawan, the Jedi master located the site of the disaster. They clambered over the sides of their vehicle and stood surveying the gruesome remains of the tentacled creature, now curling into blackened and rotting piles in a ten meter radius about the small crater where the stalk had once been.

Qui Gon cocked a severe eyebrow, indicating the mess with the sweep of one hand. "So this is what happens when I leave you in charge of a pathetic life form? You have much to learn of the Living Force, indeed."

If possible, ObI Wan looked more miserable than he had in the Council chambers when he had been officially censured and sent to the Agri-Corps in the first place.

"I'm truly sorry, master," he mumbled after a heavy pause. "It died as a Jedi, though."

Qui Gon passed a hand over his face, concealing the smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Indeed?"

"Yes," his apprentice informed him mournfully. "It actually saved my life. It swallowed a disruptor grenade." A glint of black humor surfaced in the ocean of remorse. "I suppose we could give it a proper funeral, if it would make you feel any better."

The tall man could no longer suppress his chuckle. The soft expression of mirth both startled and confused his apprentice, who watched in dismay as Qui Gon knelt on the edge of the crater and thrust both hands deep into the blackened soil of its pit. After a few minutes digging and searching, the Jedi master grunted happily and pulled up a small, round bulb, straggling roots and clinging bits of dirt pendant from its thick base. "Here we are."

Obi Wan merely blinked, frowning deeply, as though contemplating one of Chakora Seva's philosophical paradoxes.

"You have much to learn," Qui Gon smiled. "This creature is a perennial. Its life energy is contained in this bulb – I'm sure it can be coaxed into blooming again next season… so long as we keep it safely away from you."

The Padawan's mouth opened and then shut, and then opened again. "So it's not dead," he concluded, helplessly.

Qui Gon's satisfied grin was as smug as a mynock inside a power converter. "There is no death, my young apprentice." He tucked the root bulb into an inside pocket of his cloak and patted it.

"You're not taking that back to the Temple with us!" the young Jedi objected.

"Why not?' Qui Gon turned a slow circle, savoring the majestic sweep of treeline and rock, tumbling waterfall and cloud-strewn skies. He breathed deeply. "Master Pertha will be exceedingly pleased to add it to his collection in the outdoor gardens, and Master Yoda can threaten the more obstreperous younglings with it."

"No, master… not again."

"Admit it, Obi Wan. You would have been far better behaved in the crèche had you known this oddity was lurking just outside the Temple walls, ready to consume any malefactors."

"I was perfectly well behaved in the crèche," his protégé snorted indignantly.

"That is not the accurate historical account I have heard, nor is it relevant to my point. Come." He grasped his student by one shoulder and shepherded him back toward the speeder. "This spot was well chosen, but let us see the rest of the preserve."

Obi Wan sighed, and then surrendered to the inevitable and allowed Qui Gon to lead the way back to their rickety conveyance. Some battles could, after all, be left to those with more wisdom and experience. And if Master Qui Gon lacked sufficient foresight to anticipate what Master Windu might say about the newest import, then it merely demonstrated that the revered and roguish master still had much to learn about the unifying Force.

"Shall we?" Qui Gon asked politely when they had climbed back in.

"Yes, master," he responded with what he considered a very fair approximation of meek acceptance.

"That's it, eh?' Alepo Sator chuffed, his grimy hands splayed upon his hips, his dirty work apron dusty and stained from the morning's endeavors. "You just get the hang of things 'round here and now you're gallivanting off on your own errands again?"

Obi Wan bowed to the curmudgeonly director. "I am indebted to you for the last six weeks," he assured the hunch-backed botanist. "They were most instructive. And…I have gained a new appreciation of the mandrangea bean's versatility."

Sator squinted at him. "Good honest work hasn't blunted yer wit, I see. Pity. Still," he shrugged, turning to Qui Gon, "Better you than me. He tries hard but he isn't cut out for a farmer. Too fidgety."

The Jedi master inclined his head. "Fidgety?" He studied his apprentice carefully. "We shall have to work on that defect, Obi Wan."

The Padawan stifled a groan. "Maybe I'll stay another six weeks after all," he muttered, sotto voce.

"I think not," Qui Gon corrected him. "Ben To is anxious to see you in person. He will not believe my assertion that you are hale and hearty until he has an opportunity to make his own empirical confirmation."

"Lovely."

"I think we can work on restlessness and habitual sarcasm at the same time," Qui Gon mused quietly, still contemplating his student. "Perhaps we can even uproot both vices entirely by the time we arrive on Coruscant."

Obi Wan swallowed down his vociferous objection and settled for silent and mutinous disdain. "We can try, master," he grumbled.

Qui Gon lifted a brow. "There is no try…. And I am a monster and a lunatic, am I not?"

Alepo Sator chuckled throatily at this assertion. He slapped a soil-crusted hand against the young Jedi's shoulder. "Glad to know I'm leaving you in good hands, lad. It's been a pleasure."

Obi Wan regretfully set aside his irritation with Qui Gon and offered the horticulturalist a brilliant smile. "Indeed. I am honored to have met you, Alepo Sator, and to have worked beside you." He bowed deeply, hands folded into opposite sleeves.

Qui Gon mirrored the gesture. "May the Force be with you," he added, and turned to ascend the ramp of the waiting Republic ship.

Alepo waved them off with a short and dismissive gesture and turned his misshapen back toward his dilapidated speeder, and the distant gleaming domes of his private domain. The Jedi watched him depart in a cloud of dust, his transport dwindling to a speck as he raced away. Qui Gon looked down at his Padawan, and Obi Wan looked up at his master.

And with a gentle shush of pressure pistons, the boarding ramp slowly closed behind them.