Chapter Text
- Swords
Obi-Wan Kenobi is six when he starts remembering.
The memories start coming back when he touches a lightsaber for the first time and thinks, this doesn't feel right.
Lightsaber doesn't fit his hand right – the grip is all wrong. Because of all the technology that goes into making them, the Lightsaber handles are rarely smooth and even more rarely can you fit them in proper two handed grip nicely – there's always something digging into your palm weirdly. Activator, blade controller, power switch, stabiliser – every blade is different, even the training sabres are all different, and they just…
They just don't seem to be created for a comfortable grip, which makes no sense to him at first – not until later, when he's seen more of them, seen knights handling their own blades, made by themselves to fit their own hands specifically. Lightsabers as whole aren't supposed to fit into just anyone's hands. They're made to fit just one person's hand.
But that's just the start, the awkward grip he searches along the cylinder is just the start. The blade, the weight, the heft – all of it's off. And it only gets worse when you activate the thing.
Lightsaber blades don't have a weight, none at all. They have an angle of preferred motion – the way the plasma core spins guides the blade subtly that certain way – and they have a sense of resistance, if a very minute one. A lightsaber blade doesn't split the air, doesn't part it in its way, no – it burns it. That creates a sort of drag against the blade as it pushes against air, scoring its way through it. It's barely strong enough to be felt, but it's there.
But the blade has no weight. It's weightless. And because of that, it doesn't… move like a sword should. You can't spin a lightsaber by the momentum of its blade, you can't use its weight to enforce your swings, nothing. The only weight in the thing is in the handle – and it's usually not much.
So, to use a lightsaber is less like using a saber and more like… more like fighting with a deadly torch with short beam of light that burns through everything. It's wrong, wrong, wrong, and not at all like how sword should be.
The first memories Obi-Wan regains are about swords, holding then, swinging them, being guided by their weight and using their heft to his advantage. Most of the time, it was the very weight that was the most useful part of a sword to him. He barely needed to even sharpen them, they were so big and so heavy that it didn't matter if they had a cutting edge – they were going through whatever they hit by the force of their heft alone.
Those swords couldn't melt their way through solid meter of reinforced steel and concrete though, or reflect laser bolts and yeah, they didn't emit their own handy light, so… Lightsabers definitely have their benefits.
- Force
He's been told about the Force all his life, he knows what it is. It is the ethereal, all encompassing, all unifying Force of the Universe, that binds all things together. They're supposed to feel it and trust it and let the Will of the Force guide them. One day, once they were older and better trained and had meditated enough, they would be able to control it.
"But remember, younglings, that the Force is your ally, not your servant," the Crèche Masters tell them. "Believe in the Force and trust the Force and use the Force – but do not for one moment think that you are its Master. For the Force is Eternal. It has been here since before us, and it will remain long after all of are gone."
So yeah, he knows what the Force is. But it doesn't click until one of the elder Masters of the Jedi High Council dies and they're told, "Mourn not, children. She's one with the Force now."
Ah, Obi-Wan thinks. She's joined the Lifestream, then.
And that makes more sense to him than that the Force just… is, and always has been. Everything comes from somewhere – the universe came from something, so the Force had do too, right? Lifestream is what makes life and what enables life – but it was also made by life, and that works better in Obi-Wan's head than just… eternal field of energy that appeared from nowhere.
No, to him the Force came from life. The Crèche masters tell them about the Creation of Life from simple beginnings – the right chemical conditions that bonded molecules together to amino acids which formed eventually into single cell organisms, and so on and so on. Those, Obi-Wan thinks, started the Force. Living things, gaining life – and dying, letting their life forces roam loose.
It even sounds like. Their currently universal field of Force came from the life forces of living things. It fits perfectly, he thinks. And it makes sense that it's everywhere now and not just circling around one little planet, because life is everywhere now, so, the Force would be too. Where ever people die, Lifestream flows and gives life – and makes Force. It just makes sense.
The first time he says "Force is the energy field created by all living things," in answer to a Crèche Master's question, he gets such a talking to, which on other doesn't make any sense at all.
- Hair
There aren't many mirrors in the Jedi Temple, especially not in the Crèches. They're just not that necessary for the Jedi, Obi-Wan thinks, since they can feel things with the Force they don't really need to see their own reflections to know… stuff about themselves. Most can probably shave without ever needing to look at themselves. It makes sense.
What doesn't make sense is his own reflection, the first time he sees it. He thinks it's the first time he sees it anyway – at least, he can't remember having seen himself. And he would remember, because he looks – wrong.
His hair is shorter than it should be, cut close to his head – it stands on its end, upright and uniform, the same as every other human's hair does in the Crèche. The initiate cut, he thinks, but somehow he had never thought about what it would look on him, this close cropped hair. And the colour is wrong.
He's… kind of ginger, which he really hadn't been expecting. Somehow he'd always imagined himself as blond. Bright blond, with his hair longer in the front, slanting slightly to the right, framing his face in longer bangs. That was somehow the mental image he had of himself, even though he'd never actually seen it.
"Strange," he mutters and scrubs his hands through his hair, confused. It feels the same as it always has, and yet now it feels wrong.
"What is it?" Bant asks, from where she's adjusting her tunics – her new tunics. The reason they've gotten the chance to see themselves is because they're being fitted for tabards, finally – something they'd all been looking forward to.
"I don't know. I guess. I don't know," Obi-Wan says. "I thought my hair was lighter, I guess."
"Like Bruck's?" she asks with a laugh.
Obi-Wan makes a face. Bruck has white hair. In certain light, it looks a bit like silver. "No," he says slowly. "Not at all like Bruck's."
Bant laughs and turns back to her mirror, to adjust her tabards while Obi-Wan does the same, uneasily. Another thing that's a bit off, he thinks.
He's all in sandy colours. Light brown and beige and dirty white. All he's ever worn has been in those colours, and he's always known it, he can see his own clothes after all even if he can't see his own face. Yet he'd never really thought about that either. Like he'd assumed that his hair was longer and blond, he'd somehow assumed his clothes were darker and not so… sandy coloured.
It's all a little wrong somehow, he thinks, tugging at the wide sleeves of his under tunic, missing the feeling of air on his shoulders and the light tug of a ribbon around his bicep – even though he doesn't think he's ever actually felt it.
Well, at least his eyes are still blue.
- Comrades
He dreams of them sometimes.
A woman with long brown hair, who stands surrounded by a field of flowers, glowing in the endless, full void of the Lifestream. She holds out her arms and hugs him and welcomes him in – and then pushes him away, smiling mischievously as he falls down and down and
There's another woman, shorter haired with red brown eyes who smiles and it looks a little pained. She stands beside him and sometimes holds his hand, and she's taller than Obi-Wan is at that age, but he's about her height and they stand as equals until finally he turns away and
A man like a mountain, dark and grinning with lunatic mirth, with metal arm and ferocity to take on the world. He pats him on the back almost hard enough to send him falling over and curses and cusses him out and then holds out his hand to pull him up and
A girl who grows into a woman who grows into a princess and queen and empress and is still a little girl at heart, sneaking fingers into his pockets, running away with his Materia. She laughs and jokes and bends over double with motion sickness that makes him nostalgically sympathetic and then she looks up and winks and
There's a toy cat, bouncing excitedly from one foot to another and then jumping into the arms of a man, neatly trimmed and smiling as he steps forward, and takes over. He's well meaning and thinks he can make a difference and he probably knows his chances of failure but he's still going to try because he's done bad things in service of bad men and wants to do better now and
There's a blond man, cursing around a half burned cigarette he doesn't light anymore, pointing fingers and making grand gestures and refusing, refusing to care – and caring regardless. He takes them to the sky and throws an arm around his shoulders and tells him to be better, he's their leader, he gotta be strong now and
A man, dark haired and half hidden in shadows, peering at him from beneath curtain of hair and the rise of a high collar, expression hidden. He says nothing but his eyes see everything and he judges without making an comment and something about it all makes Obi-Wan want to hunch and stand straighter all at once but he never accuses him of everything and
There's the woman again, long brown hair and green eyes and all, and beside her a man with spiky dark hair and glowing purple eyes and they're both holding their hands out to him, pulling him in – pushing him away.
Obi-Wan thinks he could probably put names to all of these people. Names and histories and meanings and lifetimes spent knowing them, and regretting them. They're all dead now, he thinks. Part of the Lifestream.
The Jedi temple teaches them to take their emotions and release them into the Force – but these ones Obi-Wan holds close to his chest, and keeps.
- Children
They are so young.
It strikes him occasionally while they're standing around in the training salle, swinging about their training sabers. Little kids, younger than he'd been when he left home. Six, seven, eight, nine, they're all so very young – and their Crèche masters are teaching them how to fight with laser swords that can cut through damn near everything.
Lightsabers are still weird weapons to him – but they're also one of the most dangerous type of weapons he's ever used. And he's been taught in using them since he was six – as has everyone else in his Crèche, in the whole temple. And it just… it just dawns on him, time and time again, how young they are, being taught all this.
And it's not just the lightsabers, though that's the thing he wakes up to first. It's also the lessons, the training sessions, the group meditations, the mantras. Sometimes Obi-Wan just… stops in middle of it all and he looks around himself to the faces of all these kids, how they hum through their meditation, their little faces blank as they try to achieve state of emotionlessness and it just…
He thinks to a boy, and a little girl, crowding around his knees and looking up to him pleadingly, Cloud please won't you stay a little longer and then the open joy and relief when he promised, yes, alright, just for a little while. That honest, carefree emotion that only children are capable, the type he'd lost somewhere in that green poison he'd been drowned in so many times and he'd been jealous, sometimes, how easy it was for them to smile and laugh and just enjoy being.
Now he sits among these children as they are taught to be wary of emotion and release their joy into the Force before it would become too much, before it became too overwhelming. They should be calm, they should be balanced – they should not let their emotions run rampant. Peace and harmony.
They are all dressed the same, Obi-Wan noticed, the same dirty white tunics and sandy brown tabards and soft soled boots and trousers. They're expected to act the same, to be attentive and polite and to bow their heads to their Masters and learn and trust the Force. And then they're taught to fight the same, with the same weapons, all with lightsabers.
One day, some of them – hopefully most of them would become Knights in the Jedi Order and they would be the Protectors of Peace in the galaxy.
They're kids, no older than nine, ten, eleven, and they've been on this track since any one of them could remember.
Slowly, Obi-Wan starts to wonder about it.
- Rebellion
"Much in your mind you have, Obi-Wan," Grandmaster Yoda says, walking around the child sitting on his knees on the floor. "Many thoughts, straying in your head they are. Uneasy they feel and uneasy they make you. Share them with me you will."
Obi-Wan chews at his lip and looks down to his hands. "I don't really know," he says, opening his palms and closing them, opening and closing. They look small. "I feel weird, Master Yoda."
"Anxious," Yoda says slowly with a nod. "Confused and uncertain. Listen in your lessons you do, but question the material you do. Strange katas you use during training."
The boy says nothing for a moment, thinking of swords and blond hair and friends he's never met but knows he's lost long time ago – he thinks of Lifestream and becoming part of it and then being separated from it by gentle smiles and softly pushing hands, Go, Cloudy, go and find happiness.
"Master Yoda, do you think reincarnation is possible?" Obi-Wan asks, looking up.
The Grandmaster's ears lift a little, perking up as his expressions goes from surprised to interested and then contemplative. "Proof of it there is little of – but many stories there are. Visions of past Jedi sometimes see," he says and gives Obi-Wan a perceptive look. "Visions of a past not your own you have seen?"
"Not really seen, it's just…" just that his body feels too small and he feels too young and Force isn't much like Magic, but it's lot like it at the same time – it feels like whisper of Mako in his veins, but nothing like it. Except Magic isn't real and Mako isn't a thing he's ever been able to find anywhere in the Temple records, and they're supposed to be the oldest in the galaxy.
"Sometimes it feels like I'm somebody else," Obi-Wan says and looks at his hands. "Like this body is – off. And the katas – those are sword forms," he says. "For actual blades. I remember using them, sometimes." He remembers developing them because there had been no one around to teach him, and then perfecting them in thousand trials by fire, scraping his way to the title of the Most Renown Swordsman of the Planet by bloody fingers and aching feet.
"Hmm," Yoda says and strokes his chin. "When die we do, our sentience we do not retain," he says then. "Oh, stories there are of people who have remained – but no proof there is. Join the Force we do, and our knowledge part of the Force becomes. Our individuality and memories, our spirits… combine with the Force of the Universe."
Obi-Wan frowns a little at that, lowering his eyes. Yes, he thinks. But also no. Some remain. Aerith remained. He remained.
The Grandmaster gives him a look. "But think you do that someone else you are."
"That I – was," Obi-Wan says and looks up. "Before I was reborn as Obi-Wan, I was –"
Yoda lifts his hand to stall him and sighs. "Meditate on this you must," he says. "And search your visions you must. But detach from their intimacy you must. Visions of the past you might be seeing, yes, unheard of it is not. Strong in the Unifying Force you are, and far to the past the Unifying Force may reach. But lead you astray these visions may, if too strong a faith you put on them, and let them confuse you mustn't. Obi-Wan Kenobi you are. Jedi initiate you are. Here you are, now you are. To here and now you should concentrate."
Obi-Wan opens his mouth with a strange sense of betrayal and then looks down again, frowning.
"Peace, young initiate," Yoda says and reaches over to pat his shoulder. "Visions come, visions go, and from them wisdom we may learn. Strong your gift may be, but in the present you live – not in whatever past you see."
"But," Obi-Wan says and then sighs, lowering his eyes. But he wanted to remember more, he wants to say, but can't.
Yoda is probably right. He should concentrate on the now. On being Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi initiate, hopefully one day a Padawan, hopefully one day a Knight. That is his present, leading to his future, that he should pursue.
And yet, somewhere within the ancient spirit of Cloud Strife rebels against it.
"I will meditate more," Obi-Wan says, dissatisfied, and bows his head. "Thank you, Master."
"Bah," the Grandmaster says and pats his knee gently with his stick. "Now come," he says. "Those sword forms you speak of, see them I wish."
"Master?" Obi-Wan asks, surprised and confused. "But you just said –"
"Learn from visions we should, and curious I am," the Grandmaster says. "Come, come, show me you will your sword forms. Perhaps wisdom from them we can glean."
- Force Ghost
Qui-Gon is in deep meditation, a first change he's had to unwind after a long mission, when the youngling initiate wanders into his field of view. Perhaps ten or so years of age, he has short ginger hair and the simple initiate's clothes, and all around he looks no different most other initiates Qui-Gon has seen over the years.
As he watches, paying only half attention to the child, the boy wanders around the grassy paths of Room of Thousand Fountains until he makes his way to one of the fountains and kneels down by the edge, where a ring of stones separates the water from the grass. Amusedly Qui-Gon wonders if intending to go for a sneaky swim, but the boy simply sits by the edge on his knees, reaching out to touch the water.
"It's not right," the boy mutters and looks at his wet hand like it's disappointed him. "It's not the right one."
Perhaps he'd run into a particularly pleasing fountain, most likely one of the heated ones, but now can't find it. Qui-Gon's meditation teeters on the edge of collapse as he wonders if he should help the boy on his way, to the section of the Room where the heated fountains were. It was technically not allowed to swim in the fountains of the grand meditation room – but technically it wasn't forbidden.
Some of his fondest memories from his own initiate years were from these rooms, from sneaking in with Tahl for a swim. He'd hate to deprive the child of such memories.
The boy is settling down to sit cross-legged by the water now though, it looks like he might be trying for a spot of meditation so… Qui-Gon lets it go and sinks back into his own meditation. No doubt the boy would find his pool later. There's nothing quite as resilient and stubborn as a little initiate Jedi on a quest, after all.
Qui-Gon's mind sinks deeper into the flow of the Living Force all around him, and slowly the boy fades from his mind and thoughts and he evens out into peaceful harmony with his surroundings
There's a giggle. Not the boy's giggle – this is the voice of a woman, and it echoes strangely.
"I'm sorry, little Cloud," she says. "That pool is long gone now."
Qui-Gon tilts his head a little. The words seem to echo in his head, resonating in the Force itself, more vibrations in the currents than actual audible words. It trembles his concentration and he opens his eyes.
The boy is there sitting straight packed by the water and he's alone – except he isn't.
Qui-Gon can't see anything – but he can almost feel.
"Why?" the boy sighs.
"Time," the woman's voice answers with an agreeing sigh. "Quite a bit of time, now. It changes everything. That pond dried, that world died, and universe was set ablaze with her life. I miss it too, but it's not so bad, now."
The words are coming nowhere and everywhere all at once, and the boy is looking up at nothing in front of him – the air above the pond's still surface. The boy says nothing for a long while.
The woman's voice chuckles. "Oh, look at you – you're adorable," she laughs and it feels as though she – shifts. "Are you happy yet?"
"I don't know," the boy says quietly. "Just confused mostly."
"You'll get there," the woman says gently. "And I'll be right here, watching you every step of the way… my dear little rain Cloud…"
Her voice fades and what little presence she had slips away and the boy bows his head, falling silent. Qui-Gon blinks at the boy's back, his head echoing with the strange female voice which seems to resonate endlessly and then fades, leaving behind a strange void.
The boy stands after a moment and turns away, looking thoughtful and dissatisfied and content all at once – and then Qui-Gon is alone, staring at the pond, wondering if he perhaps imagined the whole thing. Certainly he hadn't just heard an ethereal voice resonating in the very Force itself… had he? No, that's impossible.
He really must be more tired after his mission than he thought.
Later in the grounds around that pond, iridescent white lilies begin to grow.
- Kyber Crystals
Obi-Wan is eleven when he's taken with his Crèche mates for a Gathering, the greatest test and honour of a Jedi initiate according to the elder Padawan who takes them. To visit one of the sacred world where Jedi's Kyber Crystals are found… and to build their own lightsabers.
He both has and hasn't been looking forward to it. After four years of lightsaber practice, after many trials with many training sabres, he's still not found one that fits his hand. Always they are too thick or too thin, too short or too long, their activators dig to the side of his hand or their choke points are too open or…
Nothing fit. There'd been a time he could pick up any weapon – any sword – and it would fit his hand like they'd been made for it – or rather… that had had been made for any sword. Not anymore, though. It's not just the handles either. It's the lightsabers itself.
They don't fit him. He misses a weight that's not there; he misses a momentum you can't get out of a weightless blade. Even now, after years of Yoda and other masters trying to train it out of him, he searches for a ballast in his blade – and it's not there.
Maybe now… he can make one that fits.
It's the first time he's left Coruscant. The way to Ilum is short and long – it seems to take forever but it's over before any of them is really ready. And then they land on Ilum. There, the winds of the icy world blow them side ways while Padawan Du Crion leads them within the sacred caverns of Ilum and there, to Master Yoda.
"Heart of the lightsaber the crystal is," the old troll tells them. "Focuses the Force from the Jedi it does. Find your crystal you now must, and around it your lightsaber you shall build. Enter the crystal caves, you now will."
It all reminds Obi-Wan of – of home and last stands, of ice on great crater and Mako coursing through the Planet as it slowly freezes. The entire crystal cave is made of ice and there's no kyber crystals in sight, just ice and ice and more ice, carved into great pillars and long smooth corridors and –
Yo, Spiky, a voice in the back of his head whispers, rough and warm and familiar. This way. I got a nice one for you, it'll make a damn fine blade.
No, no, no, come this way, I found the right one, another voice, younger, female. It's the prettiest of the lot!
No, fuck that noise, I got the right one, another male voice, rougher, spoken as if around something in his teeth. I got the best one, prime quality crystal.
Nah, ye come this way, laddie, we got yer crystal for ye right here, a high, somewhat genderless voice, followed by a man's, chuckling. Yes, we did indeed find you a crystal too.
This way, A male voice, deep baritone, calm. Come.
A laugh. I got one too, Cloud, a female, amused, fond. Seems like we all did.
One by one, Cloud picks all of them up. The first crystal is deep, deep blue, almost black, and feels heavy in his hand – the core, he thinks, strong and sturdy. Then there is a much lighter, smaller crystal, lighter blue – sidewinder, slim and quick. The next one is sidewinder too, it'll fit well to the other one. Then the first back blade, to fit along the core, the backbone of his blade – and another beside it. And finally the cleaver to fit on front, right where she belongs. Each one different. Each one part of the whole.
Six crystals. Cloud doesn't need to even check the records to know it's unheard of. But he knows they're right – he knows he can't leave any single one of them behind.
"Show me you must, Obi-Wan," Yoda says, after peering at the crystals presented by the other initiates. It takes Cloud a moment to realise he's talking to him – he's Obi-Wan. That's his name.
"Master," Obi-Wan says and kneels down. "I uh…"
He holds out his hands, shows the six crystals sitting in his palms.
"Hrhmm," the Grandmaster says while the other initiates stare and Padawan Du Crion takes a sharp breath. Yoda waves a hand over the crystals and hums even deeper. "Unusual this is. Most unusual," he says. "But resonate the crystals do with you."
"That's impossible," Padawan Du Crion says. "He's human – he's only got two hands. What would he do with six lightsabers?"
"I make one whole," Obi-Wan says, and smiles.