Two Halfs of One Warrior • Obikin/Vaderwan One-Shots

Compulsion, Beyond Our Knowledge

• Summary: Ever since the rise of the new Empire, Obi-Wan's gotten bored. There's nothing left to do. So when he's sent to Tatooine to negotiate a treaty with Jabba the Hutt, he doesn't expect anything or anyone to pique his interest. He's never been so glad to be so wrong.

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Tardiness is one of the galaxy's worst offences, Obi-Wan thinks as he trudges through Tatooine's seemingly endless desert. The suns beat down on him, being currently at the highest point in the sky, making his body soak and stench in sweat. He'd arrived hours earlier, and planned to immediately set out to Jabba's palace, but an especially vicious sand storm had scotched that. Instead he'd waited in his ship for hours for it to pass, meditating until it was almost noon.

If someone would make him wait unnecessarily, Obi-Wan would have no qualms to relieve them of their heads. He knows, of course, that this was out of his control, but it irks him still. All the meticulous planning to arrive in the cool morning air gone, to be replaced with walking at the hottest time, all the while enduring the uncomfortably hot wind and sand blowing against his face and under his robes. He already feels like a disgusting hive rat.

He can't wait to leave this place again.

The Outer Rim has been the only place he'd been stationed recently, continuously traveling from one backwater planet to the next, negotiating alliance after alliance, always kept neatly away from the more substantial negotiations. Trusting another Sith is stupid, and Obi-Wan knows that. It is probably the one fault he sees with the Sith. Once a highly regarded race, an Empire full of knowledge and training gone by the sheer greed and deceit among their own people. At the same time he can somewhat relate. He can't wait to push his lightsaber into Sidious' back. Then again, he is to be admired, Obi-Wan thinks, being the one to train and maintain a small army of Sith right under the eyes of the Republic.

But now that the Empire has risen, it's only a question of time of how long Obi-Wan will be of use. Granted, his work and help had been invaluable during and after the Republic's fall, Obi-Wan knows that, but he also knows that his master has become weary, wary and watchful. Paranoid in his greed, he's punishing Obi-Wan. For what, he doesn't quite yet know.

Dooku has warned him in a twisted sense of duty, but it's not as if it were hard to pick up. Not if you know how to listen and know where to look.

Where Maul revels in the killing and subjugation of whole planets and systems, Obi-Wan prefers subtler methods that wind his victims up until they have nowhere else to turn. He loves watching them realise that they have been outmatched in the game of wits Obi-Wan plays. It's the only thing he looks forward to. After everything he's seen and experienced, he has grown oh so bored.

Sometimes he feels like he's waiting for something or someone to give him a reason to exist further from the thirst of knowledge.

He's become unpredictable in his boredom, he knows, following the orders of where to go and what to accomplish, but his methods usually aren't what is expected of him. It's not like he cares. Much. Well, he kind of does, because his behaviour has had him staying on Nur for longer than he'd anticipated and liked before he'd been called out again. The only reason why he's having somewhat free rein now is that Sidious wants a treaty with the Hutts and he's still the person with the silver tongue, ensnaring people with smooth words, using the Dark Side to put weight in them, to change and twist and turn.

And, well, he enjoys it, truly delights in how people follow his instructions, follow his suggestions. But it's become monotone, like life is slowly losing its colour. There's no excitement, nothing to spice up the boring ins and outs of days.