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

Feathers and Wax

• Summary: Obi-Wan finds someone in the desert that looks exactly like his long lost padawan.

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Sand blows into his eyes. He cups his hand on his brow, squinting in the torrent of sunlight. The heat, the blaze of it is a piercing ache behind his eyeballs—eyes open, or eyes shut. It settled in like a bruise. Years on and he still can’t get used to the unforgiving heat of it, here.

He staggers forward, boots shuffling through the sand. Sweat beads at his brows then into his eyes, making him squint. It’s far out enough that not even the raiders crawl out when the sun is this high. He shouldn’t be here. Nor should anybody else. Obi-Wan used to think, with a wry smile, his coming back to this blasted place is his atonement. Of living here, in his skin and bones, he thinks he finally understands a boy who always was afraid.

He’s seen the mirage of it among the heat waves so many times that Obi-Wan almost bypasses it. Anything goes. Smiling, or brooding like most of his teenage years, scowling, even eyes in deep amber—Obi-Wan took anything, anything at all.

The desert churns like an endless, primordial sea. He can hear the grains of sand tittering across the heated, dark leather. The long blonde tail of a thin braid slithers along the sand, as it rolls on to its front, leaving a small trail. It’s crawling for the helm of Obi-Wan ratty, worn cloak.

“Master,” it moans, and he startles, because it never has spoken before. Obi-Wan’s hand goes to his hip, only to hover at where his saber should be. He’s immediately blinded by the light of the Force, like a birth of a sun.

Obi-Wan staggers back. He blinks, and there are only two blazing eyes glaring down on him from a barren sky. It reaches forward, and Obi-Wan shuffles back again, even before its fingertips can touch his long, tilted shadow.

His voice is first a whisper. Obi-Wan wets his lips and tries again. “Who are you?”

“Master,” It crawls forth. Looks up at him with blue, blue eyes. “Master, I need you.”

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It doesn’t disappear. Like it used to, beyond the heat shimmer. The husk of a boy trails after Obi-Wan into his corner of a dusty cave. Obi-Wan can’t tear his eyes away from it, he doesn’t dare. Corners of his sight pulses like they are cracked, and in the shade he stares at it.

It groans and lurches forward again and Obi-Wan grabs its left arm, startling himself. Flesh. Breakable. It’s him, it’s his Anakin, his summery golden features with a winding long Padawan braid. His too wet, expressive eyes and lips. Before his Knighting, before Geonosis, before Naboo, scarless and arm intact. He is before he was soiled. He tightens his grip and pulse jumps under his fingers.

Obi-Wan coughs, as he opens his mouth. It’s been a long while since he has spoken to someone, his voice shriveled down like a dried up seed in his throat. It’s fitting, for exiling one like him. There is nothing to negotiate down here, the harsh sun, its hostile residents, the heat, the blasted curse of it all.

“Who are you?” Obi-Wan demands again, shaking it by the arm. Its golden head rolls, delirious. Unfocused eyes. Mouth sack.

“Master, please,” it only says with a flush down to its lips. At that single title Obi-Wan lets him go, like his palm has been burned. It’s been a long time since he was called so. Turning his back Obi-Wan leaves the cave like he’s fleeing.

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He visits the grave of his own making. It doesn’t have a tombstone but he remembers exactly where it is.