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1
Obi-Wan loved swimming in the Room of a Thousand Foundations with Bant. She always made the best waves and when they teamed up they could stop Garen from being able to dunk him. He loved swimming with Bant.
But when Master Cyd walked into their snuggle room, wax and swim cap in hand, Obi-Wan let out an unholy shriek and dove beneath the pillows.
Bant groaned, “Obi, no hiding! You know we have to if we’re gonna go.”
Master Cyd didn’t even wait that long, they just hooked Obi-Wan’s ankle with the Force and hoisted him out from underneath with a sigh. Obi-Wan screamed and threw pillows with his own Force-use, but none landed anywhere near the Master or any of the other children, everyone well-used to deflecting. It was to no avail.
Firmly caught, the beleaguered Master set Obi-Wan down on a pillow and opened the container of wax, and tried to soothe him “It’s okay, Obi-Wan, I know, I promise I’ll try to be as gentle as I can.”
“Promise you won’t pull?” he asked with a wet sniffle.
“I’ll do my best,” they offered, bringing him a little closer and taking out a scoop of the gel.
Garen whined at Bant as they tugged on their own swim clothes, “Obi-Wan’s such a crybaby on his hair. I wish we could skip it.”
Bant tackled him in defense of her best friend’s honor. Master Cyd didn’t look up, just pulled them apart and sternly said, “Apologize.” They gave timid but practiced, “I’m sorry”s.
But silently, Obi-Wan agreed with Garen. He wanted to skip the wax too, but last time they did it took so long before they’d fixed the damage. Hours and hours and it felt like weeks of scrubbing.
That didn’t stop it from hurting now, though.
Obi-Wan wailed as his pretty hair, long enough to be past his waist that he liked to keep in pigtails and that was as copper as the pans the mess hall used, was tugged at relentlessly. It always made his scalp feel like it was on fire, like he could feel the twinge of every hair that got pulled out when the careful hands swept through each tress with the sticky coating. He hated his hair, he decided with a scowl. He knew that he was making it harder, but he couldn’t stop the big tears rolling down his cheeks as it all was tightly braided in a crown around his head and the cap snapped into place.
“There now,” Master Cyd wiped his eyes, “we’re all done and you were very brave. I think that was the fastest we’ve ever gotten ready to swim!”
Remembering about how Bant promised to help lift him so he could stand on one of her waves, Obi-Wan’s tears quickly disappeared as he started chattering about their plans to their caretaker, who nodded along indulgently despite being present for when they’d made the plans the first time. And the third. And the seventh.
Behind patient smiles, Master Cyd was relieved the tears were short lived, but still dreaded the inevitable reprise when they took the hair down later in the evening. They’d have to discuss with their charge whether or not a haircut might be necessary soon.
2
Obi-Wan sat at the foot of his bunk, bent over a datapad he’d checked out from Master Nu earlier that day. They had their heritage module this month, and their big project was presenting on how they blended their birth culture with the Jedi. Bant was getting help with cooking a meal to talk about how being a Jedi changed her food choices. Garen was talking about different human greetings and social customs.
He was talking about the differences between Stewjoni and Jedi Padawan braids. Or, that was what his plan was.
He scowled in frustration as he brushed out his hair again. Obi-Wan was strong and capable. He’d been able to build a lightsaber! A four-strand braid should not be difficult for him. It was supposed to represent knowledge or wealth on Stewjon, and he was going to talk about how the braid-stories could be repurposed for Jedi ideals. It was one of his major talking-points for the project, and it was the only one he couldn’t make yet.
He couldn’t even remember a time he didn’t know the three-strand. He’d gotten pretty good at the aurora braid last month. He knew that he could do this!
The datapad stared back up at him, mockingly, the clip of Stewjoni woman demonstrating the plait looping again and again. Her hair wasn’t copper, like Obi-Wans, it was dark grey-silver sort of color. The description said that it had a lead composition, one of the more complex metabolisms possible for Stewjoni hair, resulting in thicker, coarser, and denser hair. Obi-Wan’s definitely had thicker than human average strands, but it didn’t look all that different from anyone else’s. Except when you counted all the trouble it was to deal with.
Garen had teased him relentlessly when they learned that the average Stewjoni height was markedly shorter than Coruscant's average for human males, even when Obi-Wan explained through gritted teeth that it was because of all the extra energy it took to break down the heavy metals in their bodies. When Bruck had chimed in with less good-natured jabs about other disadvantages his species might encounter that made him unsuitable for Knighthood, Obi-Wan had hotly retorted that ‘at least he was made to process things, rather than just going crazy at the first exposure to anything less than perfect conditions.’
Both of them had been assigned extra guided meditations on ‘the perpetuation of stereotypes across sentient races.’ Obi-Wan thought that it was entirely unfair that he got in trouble at all.
He fought off tears when the ends of his hair knotted instead of brushing out smoothly. In the end, he called in Bant to help him practice in exchange for helping her serve the class her project.
3
The thing about spending so much time in the sewars was that they were wet.
The first week on Melida/Daan, there were just a couple splotches and streaks of green that Cerasi had wryly said made his eyes look bluer. Even Neil had cracked a smile when Obi-Wan had grumbled about how ‘patina green wasn’t much of a fashion statement.’
By the fifth week his hair had finally been brittle enough to cut without heat. His hair had been shoulder length when he’d landed on the planet and now it was the shortest it had ever been in his whole life. His padawan braid had held the longest, the style and the wax he’d usually coated it in affording it far more protection than the rest of his hair. Holding it now was more bitter than sweet, but he couldn’t bear to let it go, yet. Perhaps that’s why he wouldn’t have made a very good Jedi. With every passing week it felt like that future was crumbling with the remains of his hair.
4
Satine had suggested that they lay low and disguise themselves as, “something more… civilian.”
It had led to a rather heated discussion about their hairstyles, both of which were more elaborate than was common, with Satine’s gilded pins and Obi-Wan’s waterfall braids.
It was better for it to be safely secured in a braided bun that sat at the base of his skull, his padawan braid tucked away instead of hanging free in its usual spot behind his ear. This kept it all from getting in the way in a fight, something that had become a bit of a reoccurring issue in the Mandalorian sector.
After several long days on the run, stealing speeders and slipping from town to planet to station as stowaways, Obi-Wan could feel the deep sense of grit and oil that only a sonic could free him from. None were forthcoming.
Instead, they’d been caught in the rain yesterday on Draboon. That morning, Satine had wrinkled her nose a little and took out the one small brush they’d managed to hang onto for such occasions.
As they worked together to carefully scrub away any lingering spots of corrosion she fiddled with the piece in her hand. She sighed, “Ben, maybe we should… maybe you should cut it. It’s very recognizable, and we lose a lot of valuable time to this process every time it gets wet.”
Obi-Wan felt something like a lance through his heart despite understanding the logic of her suggestion. Yes, he hadn’t cut it since Cerasi, but a good Jedi knew when to prioritize the mission. He could let go, this time.
His hands only shook a little as he brought his lightsaber to the top of the plait.
It smelt like a forge, but it sliced cleaner than he thought it would.
5
“For the last time, Anakin,” he said, exasperated, “No. You cannot substitute the necessary wiring in your project with a portion of my hair. You must make due with the allotment the quartermaster designated for the class’s use.”
The teen opened his mouth to argue, but Obi-Wan cut him off, “Not only would it burn under the current like any other human’s hair, it would likely take all the hair I have to provide a sufficient concentration of copper to be comparable to traditional wire. Now, do you have any other new, reasonable questions regarding your upcoming mechanical engineering class project that I can assist you with?”
His padawan openly sulked, and Obi-Wan momentarily regretted every choice that had led him to this.
+1
The hands in his hair were soothing as they worked the muck and grime out under the sonic. Obi-Wan sighed, “I appreciate the assistance, my dear, but is it terribly necessary? It is my ribs that are tender, not my arms.”
His commander scoffed, “If I trusted you to not strain them in the process, cyare, then we’d be having a different conversation.”
“A more pleasant one, I should hope,” he grumbled.
“I’m not the one making it unpleasant. In fact, I’m always pleasant.” Cody said, dryly.
“I fear it’s not in my best interest to dispute that.”
“Probably not,” he agreed magnanimously.
The hands finally stilled, and Obi-Wan shook out any remaining dirt. For a moment, he mourned how short he’d been forced to keep his hair over the course of the war, but needs must and all that.
Strong arms guided him to the couch as he slumped into his lover’s side, tired from the battle of the day. With a kiss to the forehead, Cody turned him and started tucking his hair into twin braids, short and his hair falling out of it, but still beautiful to behold. It felt a bit symbolic for the rest of his life, if he were to let himself be poetic.
He cast his mind back over what his hair might be saying in his traditional culture.
Before he could say anything, Cody whispered, “The short hair is independence. The braids are reliability, I think.”
He turned so that his lips could find Cody’s in a small and silent ‘thank you.’
He smiled, “I’m so glad to have met you. Whatever tomorrow brings, I’m glad we have each other.”
Cody laughed, “And they say you’re an optimist.” Another quick kiss then, “But, me too, Obi-Wan. Me too.”