Circle of healing

IX.

You're not running away.
You're not running.
Are you?
-- Lisa Loeb --

***

"Healer?"
It should have sounded strong, interested. Instead the words had sunk down to a horrified whisper.
How could the ritual possibly not be finished? Obi-Wan’s thoughts raced with a speed he had believed to be lost, and the fog in his mind slowly lifted.
Not finished? What could follow now? A new cremation? A new funeral. New pain, new embarrassment. An indictment? Would they hold him reliable for not saving the queen?
Of course. Reaja’s tongue had slipped. What followed now wasn’t a ritual, it was an inquisition by Captain Panaka’s security and a trial at a Naboo court. Instinctively he asked himself what the punishment was on Naboo for killing the head that wore the crown. Could there be a worse crime?
He saw that Reaja’s lips moved while she talked, but his swirling thoughts occupied too much of his attention for him to be able to understand what she was saying.
‘What a great Jedi you are, Obi-Wan Kenobi,’ his inner voice taunted sarcastically. ‘First Qui-Gon, now the queen. And now you’re not even strong enough to face the indictments. Good Jedi.’
He clenched his fists and pressed them against his temples. No, no. That was all wrong. He would face the indictments. He would accept his punishment. He wouldn’t betray the code by hiding from his responsibility.
"Obi-Wan?"
His name was spoken hesitantly, as if it were hard to voice the syllables. For a moment his thoughts were stopped by the soft question.
Reaja had stopped speaking and looked at him worriedly. She knew that he probably hadn’t heard a single words she had said. She just didn't know why.
His expression was calm and smooth, his posture only a little tense - but that could be due to the wounds not yet completely healed. So what had made her look in his eyes again? And why did she see such a complete giving up? Why such hopelessness?
It wasn’t her place to ask this question, the healers of the soul were trained much better at this than she - a healer of the body - was. Furthermore it would be another minus on her already long list of missteps.
But this couldn’t be delayed.
"What’s weighing you down, Jedi Kenobi?" Automatically she returned to the formal name.
The absurdity of this question in his situation wasn’t lost on Obi-Wan. Reaja probably didn’t even know that this question beat everything.
Weighing him down? He laughed bitterly. Much more squishing him. He tried the word on the tip of his tongue and decided that he liked the way it sounded in his head.
Yeah. Squishing.
The load had piled up so high that only a small stone was missing to make his thin protective walls crumble under the weight of his guilt and squish him like a sand flea.
Or rather . . . but no.
He wouldn’t give into temptation. It would have been easy to reach out for the dark side to lessen all those feelings of guilt, to find reassuring explanations and excuses for himself. It would have been easy to give into the anger, to stand against all this with rage and hate, rage against the priestesses who had wanted him for this ritual, rage against the council for making him do it, rage against the kindness of the priestess who sat opposite him him, asking him to share another part of himself. What would be left if he gave more of himself again?
Before those thoughts could reach the rational part of his mind, he stopped them.
What kind of thoughts was he playing with here? Had he really become that weak?
Reaja still waited for an answer. But what kind of an answer did she expect?
He was silent for a few more moments. He didn’t know what he was supposed to answer. No one except for Qui-Gon had ever asked him about his feelings. And even with Qui-Gon it had been seldom. How was he supposed to articulate them?
Space. The very first thing he needed was space to think. And that was impossible under the imploring look of the healer.
With a movement that was mostly fluid, yet still a bit jerky he rose and walked a few steps into the hall. His steps echoed dully in the high vault.
Again he wondered why Reaja wanted to talk to him about his feelings. She shouldn’t care for the feelings of a man who had killed the queen. Naboo hadn’t regained its usual routine in daily life, and the queen’s sudden demise could bring another crisis over the planet. A new weight sank to his shoulders. The crucial weight. A cycle of indictments and self-loathing got going, one he would most probably never find a way out of.
‘Too slow.'
If only he had been a little faster . . .

***

Reaja rose as well and walked quietly towards one of the high windows from where the light of the early morning caressed her features with a soft hue. Here she heard the Jedi’s quietly murmured words.
"Too slow."
Confused, Reaja tried to make some sense out of those words.
"Who was too slow, young master?"
She couldn’t really tell whether Kenobi actually hadn’t heard or if he was ignoring her as he started pacing the hall like a trapped animal. Lengthy, powerful steps carried him swiftly through the room.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
Reaja shivered at the thoughts that raced through her mind. Was that it? Were these the consequences the old recordings had warned them about? Uneasily she stepped forward and blocked his way.
"What was too slow, Jedi Kenobi?"
She had to bring an end to this. He mustn’t manoeuvre himself into such a state without her doing something about it. She was a healer after all.
For a moment it seemed that he would collide with her, as if he didn't even recognise her standing there. Then he stopped, barely half a meter away from her. His features were serious. It wasn’t the dreaded madness that shimmered in his eyes. Rather it was guilt that weighed much more and was much harder to accept than any madness would ever have been.
She nearly wished he wouldn’t answer. Nevertheless she asked again: "Who or what was too slow, Jedi Kenobi?"
Again he didn’t react to her question directly. He looked through her and repeated the softly murmured words she hadn’t understood earlier.
"I could have saved the queen. If I had been just a little faster. . ."
A sigh of relief escaped Reaja’s control and she smiled broadly. If that was it . . . That was something she could work with, she could take this guilt away from him. Carefully she laid both of her hands on his upper arms.
"The queen is fine, young master. Didn’t anybody tell you?"
The priestess's words only slowly processed in his mind. The queen was fine. He searched his heart and knew that it wasn’t true. The healer priestess tried to calm him, tried to take the guilt away from him.
But she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen how the aurora had enveloped and burned the queen.
'It is all right, healer. I don’t need protection. What I need is reassurance.'
With an indignant gesture he eased himself out of the priestess’s soft touch. "That is not possible. I was too slow."
Reaja laughed - a rather helpless sound that echoed far too loudly. "Trust me, Obi-Wan. The queen really is fine."
"Too slow." Kenobi had retreated in his mantra, not listening to her words. What she said was irrelevant. He knew better. The only thing her words triggered was the feeling of being made fun of. A feeling he had never been known to take very well.
The healer priestess tried to reach him again and put her hand on his arm once more. "You need to listen to me, Jedi Kenobi. The first part of the ritual was successful!"
He stared at her, suddenly brought out of his lethargy by her words.
"Successful?"
Reaja retreated a few steps when she saw the cold look in the young Jedi’s eyes.
"You are saying that it was successful, healer? Sucessful?" His voice could only be fractions away from being heard in the very last corner of the temple.
The healer’s eyes flickered in unspoken worry. What she saw on the Jedi’s face scared her. She felt the overwhelming urge to calm him and to prove him that he was mistaken. But was he ready for this truth? Reaja knew that it would have been better to end this conversation now. But she had gone too far already. Too far to stop now. She owed it to the Jedi to make this situation alright again, to bring a good ending to this.
A tiny voice in the back of her head asked if she was really doing this for the Jedi. Angrily she shut the voice up.
"Yes, young master. You have been successful. The queen has come back."
Obi-Wan could feel the anger pulsing under his scalp. How dare she make fun of him after all he had been through? How dare she treat him like a fool, like a child who could not understand? He knew what had happened. He knew what he had done. Or much rather what he hadn’t done. He had to live with it. And no one had the right to taunt him. No one.
His hands balled to fists, he realised clearly how the force started to ripple around him. Tiny waves spread out fast and faster, wave upon wave hit the next, became bigger, stronger. His body became wide awake and strong under this new experience, which washed away his rational thoughts and left behind nothing but anger.
He hated being made fun of. Had always hated it. Very early, still at the temple this had been one of the strongest feelings he had had to fight.
He was standing at one of those points again.
Obi-Wan’s breath came fast as he tried to control the anger. Eyes squeezed shut in deep concentration, he didn’t see the high priestess leaving the hall for a short while. He fought the seductive ease of an outburst of rage.
Oh yes, it would be easy. Let himself go, and for a short while just let all those piled up emotions run freely, finding a venting mechanism for the burning anger he felt
The pictures mixed up. It was Reaja’s helplessly-trying-to-help face, it was the cool features of the other priestesses, it was the queen’s face, the dark warrior’s taunting visage, and Qui-Gon’s familiar face as well. Left behind, betrayed, pushed away and robbed of the most important thing in his life, Obi-Wan was having more and more difficulties in trying to keep his temper.
Reaja found the worst possible moment to disturb his concentration.
"Do you believe me now, young master?"
‘Leave me alone,’ Obi-Wan pleaded silently.
He couldn’t deal with the priestess now. Not without completely losing control.
He needed to center himself, needed to push back the dark temptations, needed to cleanse himself and analyse his misstep patiently. He couldn’t deal with the well-meaning priestess now. Not now!
"Jedi!" Reaja was definitely giving orders now, albeit in a very motherly tone.
"Leave at once, healer," Obi-Wan ground out out from between clenched teeth.
"No, young master. You will turn around now and see for yourself that you are wrong. You cannot punish yourself for something you haven’t done."
"Healer, I am going to say this one last time." His voice was sharp and cold as ice. "Go. Now."
"You are forgetting yourself, Jedi Kenobi." The voice of the high priestess Aethra echoed through the high vaults like the crack of a whip. "I don’t always agree with Reaja’s methods but in this case I am standing behind her decision. You will comply, Jedi."
Despite of the authority in her voice Aethra didn’t expect him to react right away. The more it surprised her when Kenobi whirled around and dared her eyes to take up the silent battle.
His movement had gained more certainty during the last few minutes. Soundlessly, eerily secure and fluid he stepped out of the recess where he had been standing by the window.
The legendary reputation of the Jedi seemed to be personified in this young man and gained an entirely new meaning.
"Now what, healer?"
His tone lay somewhere between a taunt and a harsh insult.
This was not at all the polite and softly overprotective Jedi she had come to know. Reaja heard Aethra gasping for breath at his words and she knew she had to come up with something, anything to lighten the tension. With small quick steps she walked towards the Jedi. In her hands one of the glowing spheres the Gungan ruler had given the queen at the day of the big parade was shining softly.
Kenobi watched her coming closer with growing agitation. Aethra had already put him in a defensive position. If Reaja came any closer now, his last protective wall would be taken away from him. He didn’t know what was going to happen if she came too close. He didn’t know how much longer he could control it. The priestess’s ignorance triggered new anger. Didn’t they understand that he had to be alone?
Just a few steps separated the healer priestess from the young man who now looked much less like the incarnation of a powerful Jedi and much more like a cornered predator. His breathing became faster and his eyes never left Reaja.
The priestess swallowed against the upcoming dryness in her throat and cleared it hastily. The sphere pulsed in a blue light as she pushed it towards him and laid it into his hands. "A gift from her majesty the queen. She is looking forward to seeing you again, Jedi Kenobi."
Obi-Wan's eyes were glued to the object he held in his hands.
‘Seeing you again.’
The blue pulsing consumed all of his mind, brought back all the pictures he had fought so hard against during the last days. The force flared up wildly around him and he screamed inwardly. The sphere’s light pulsed brighter, friendlier, in a more radiant blue. In a burning blue. He could feel the force flooding every single cell of his body, making him strong, stronger than he had ever been before.
The light still pulsed.
Eternally.
Burning blue.
His mind was left behind in a hot wave of rage and agony that rolled over him faster than he could grasp with his thoughts. No sound emerged from his lips. He simply stared into the sphere in his hands, fear and rage in perfect unison.
The sphere’s pulsing became faster, faster until there were no more interruptions between in intervals. Obi-Wan wanted nothing more but to let go of this cursed object, but found it to be an impossible task. His hands had seemingly merged with the silky surface.
"I trust you like my present, Jedi Kenobi?
Even though the new voice that entered his thoughts was soft and melodious, in his frenzy, Obi-Wan felt as though he was hearing the discordant shriek of a breaking harp-string. He raised his eyes which saw nothing but the sphere’s blue gleaming and tried in vain to find the person to whom this voice belonged.
‘My present.'
The incredibly fast pulsing had taken over the force in his body. The control slipped away from him faster and faster from one second to the next. Where his fingertips touched the sphere the gleaming became even more intensive, so intensive that he had to close his eyes. But even there the intense blue haunted him.
The anger welled up again. Rage, desperation, fear.
Something broke inside of him.
One last time the sphere in his hands flashed like lightning - then it shattered into a thousand little pieces that dug into his fingers and drew blood immediately.
The rushing of the blood in his ears was omnipotent and made him deaf to all the other sounds in the room. Deaf to the high priestess’s horrified groan, to the fine clink of the falling splinters, to the quick steps of the young woman who came close to him and then stood rooted to the spot gazing into his eyes which were slowly opening again like those of a wild animal caught in the headlight of a speeder. Deep down, hidden in the young man’s eyes something was lurking, something that was better off never reaching the surface. She saw him fighting it down.
Kenobi locked his gaze with that of the young woman in front of him. Only slowly realisation started to dawn.
He still felt the remnants of the incredible power he had experienced. The feeling of touching an open power coupling, yet not being killed, but being accepted by it. He had been one with this force.
Realisation hit him harder than any blow with a sword could have. The dark side. He had touched the dark side, had taken it inside him, had fed it . . .
Obi-Wan Kenobi started to shake all over his body and hid his face in his hands, not caring that the splinters cut his face as well.
What in the name of the force had he done?

***

Padmé was glad this confrontation hadn’t lasted a second longer than it did. She wasn’t afraid of many people. But this glimpse at the Jedi’s wild soul, into the unpredictability, rattled her thoroughly.
Had she known how close this menacingly lurking something had come to the surface, how little had separated it from breaking free, her worries would have turned into icy fear.

***

 

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