atardisofourown | For fadedfool

For fadedfool

Ezra hadn't known what to expect, when he's stepped through the portal, but landing face first in a desert would not have been even close to his first guess. On the other hand, this is a desert he knows - or at least as much as one could, having stumbled around nearly blindly and nearly died. But he'd bet his helmet collection that this is Tatooine.

He had even thought he'd heard Master Kenobi's voice, as he'd fallen through whatever that in between place had been. Many other voices, familiar and not, had reverberated, but Master Kenobi is the voice he'd placed first.

Now he's plodding through the desert, possibly even less equipped for it than he'd been the first time around, sweltering in storm trooper armor; he's pretty sure he remembers from his brief undercover stints Imps talking up how versatile stormtrooper equipment is supposed to be, but that is clearly exaggerated propaganda.

And a lone stormtrooper, on this planet, is much more likely to be a target than not, come to think of it. He loathes leaving anything behind, now that he's on his own without many resources, but not overheating takes higher priority. Keep the boots, and under layer, leave the rest, he decides.

Then see how far he can get. Surely the Force didn't bring him this far, just to die.

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He knows. In his heart, he knows it's all true. But his heart is also heavy with grief.

"I was on Lothal - I'm from Lothal, but we'd been...away, working with others. But I asked people to come back with me, to try to break the Imperial blockade. Maybe even kick the entire garrison offworld, so people that it could be done."

Obi-Wan feels the kid's grief and regret almost physically, like pinpricks against his skin, his heart. There's some reason that Ezra is here -- and that Obi-Wan is the one who found him here. (Can he say that he found him, when he was following a directive from something far bigger than himself?)

"One person may be a shatterpoint," he says. "Oftentimes, there's one person who seems larger than life itself. They're charismatic, they're inspiring." That may even include his young friend here -- he thinks that maybe it does. "But they do not exist alone. Do not think that because you are not there, it will not be done."

It's a gentle rebuke, but a rebuke nonetheless. "Have a little hope, my young friend."

Ezra, on the other hand, is thinking of Kanan fitting that description.

"No - I know, and the people who came with me are all amazing, they'll carry one. I just-" He pauses, and says in a more hushed tones. "Can the dead send visions? If their spirit still feels...close?"

Can the dead send visions? Out of the corner of his eye, on the horizon where the suns blazing down blurs the line between sand and sky, he might have caught sight of his Master, mouth quirked in a knowing half-smile. Qui-Gon Jinn's spirit certainly feels close right now.

Or maybe he's imagining things. (He hears Master Jinn laugh in his mind.)

"Many things are possible through the Force. I do not believe that it is so far-fetched as to think that those who have joined with the Force can still be near us."

"Then-" Ezra lets out a shuddering breath.

"I know it can be dangerous to leap to conclusions about visions. I know that. But - if I right about...that part. Then it could be-" He voice drops even softer and lower. "That my master sent me here."

There's a lesson there, about living in the moment. It's something he's heard -- and said -- a million times, drilled into him by older and wiser Masters than he.

But then... why would the Force offer them visions if they weren't meant to learn from them? "It's not dangerous," he says quietly, "if you find some peace in it."

Ezra goes quiet for nearly a full minute, turning that declaration over in his mind.

"I've had...small prophetic dreams, um, always, I think," he says, still haltingly "Waking visions since I started my training. One of my strongest - there was nothing to change, no one to save, nothing for me to do, really, at all. It just led me to one of the few people who could tell how my parents died."

Obi-Wan has learned to listen in his years on Tattooine. He doesn't hesitate to say that, perhaps, that had been his greatest failing in the past: hubris that led him to thinking he knew best, and an inability to really listen to anything else.

So he takes a moment to answer, mulling over Ezra's words. An orphaned boy provided closure by a force greater than himself -- it's not unheard of, not at all.

"We tell ourselves that the Force is mysterious. I don't find it so," he says. "It gives us exactly what we need."

Ezra huffs a weak laugh. "I think it can be both those things, Master Kenobi."

"So it is." After all, sometimes what one needs is a great mystery. "I should have asked earlier -- are you well? We can make a detour for medical attention if you need it."

He doesn't expect that Ezra will ask for it. Water and rest should cure his current physical ills, but Obi-Wan would feel remiss if he didn't ask.

He shakes his head. "Not injured. Just hot and tired."

Obi-Wan nods and doesn't pursue it any further. It's as he thought. "We have another hour of riding before we arrive at shelter. You are free to doze, if you feel like you can."

"If you're sure," he murmurs. But truthfully, there's only so much further he can push his endurance, without more urgent danger to spur adrenaline, or more deliberately drawing on the Force.

So doze he does, until they reach....whatever shelter this is. Dazedly, once they dismount, he slowly downs more water once it's handed to him. Which seems like a lot to him, but surely Master Kenobi knows what he can spare?

And then he doesn't really remember much, until he's opening his eyes to dim light.

In a...cave? Yeah, look like a cave.

Ah, good. He's asleep. It seems that Ezra goes into a sort of auto-pilot once Obi-Wan tells him to get some rest. He had worried that it might be difficult to get him to drink more water before sleeping again, but Ezra managed it, even if it was slow.

Obi-Wan had been stuck wandering the Dune Sea here and again; he understands the slowness. He had wanted to try to get Ezra to eat something before laying down, but it became apparently very soon that that wasn't going to happen.

The cave isn't much, but it is home, for what it's worth. There's a pallet of blankets -- some good ones in there because the desert can get cold at night -- that Obi-Wan readily gives up for his new houseguest. Once Ezra is asleep, there's very little that will wake him and so Obi-Wan takes to his daily chores. By the time he's checked the vaporizers, tended to his most loyal mount (which included a few treats he'd gotten his hands on,) and cleaned up the dwelling a bit, Ezra is... still very much asleep.

Ezra sleeps through Obi-Wan's meditation, and through him cooking dinner. He sleeps through Obi-Wan eating dinner. Obi-Wan honestly thinks he likely going to sleep through the night -- which would not have been surprising -- when Ezra stirs.

"Welcome back," he says quietly as Ezra opens his eyes.

He jolts to half sitting up, propped up on his elbows, staring in Master Kenobi's direction.

"Ok. Not a dream. Or..vision..." he trails off awkwardly.

"I am very much real," Obi-Wan assures him, "and I have stew made." He gestures to the table -- or what passes for a table, at any rate. It's a rock outcropping in the cave with a threadbare cloth thrown over it.

"Do you feel better?"

Which totally makes sense for a makeshift table! So he doesn't immediately question it.

"Uh. Yeah. A bit. More than a bit. Thanks. And actually kinda hungry," which he suddenly realizes is not a sensation he has really registered in a few days.

He's sure he must have eaten, sometime in there. He's been able to make himself eat, when there's food, even when he didn't feel hungry, since he was seven. But he can't really remember.

Obi-Wan's mouth quirks in a quick smile as he turns to the stew. "Come and eat, then." He spoons a fairly generous helping into a bowl and sets it down on the edge of the table. It's not much and nothing fancy -- as if anything in this cave is fancy. "I've already eaten, so you're welcome to as much as you'd like."

There's food that Ezra isn't wild about - so much of Lothal is farmland that spacer rations had been a bit of an adjustment. But he's not one to complain, short of it making him sick, if then.

"Thank you," he says, yet again, as he hauls himself to his feet to come to the table. "I -uh." Saying he can't pay Master Kenobi back is both obvious and probably insulting. "Let me know how I can pitch in and be useful. Um, while I'm here?" he offers awkwardly.

Obi-Wan waves a hand as he turns to put a cover on the stewpot. "Please do not worry. It was my honor."

He turns back to Ezra and the kid might see the corner of his mouth quirking upward. "You could sweep the floor, perhaps."

It's a dirt floor, Ezra. Don't take him too seriously.

His gaze does dart around, mid raising a spoonful of soup, taking in details. He works through another couple of spoonful before he actually twists around, visibly disconcerted, before swinging back and squinting at Master Kenobi.

"I sort of assumed this was, um. A rest stop?"

But it isn't, is it? Please tell him he's wrong, Obi-Wan.

"Well," he says, somewhere between amused and annoyed -- and both all at once, "we are here to rest."

He looks around, arms crossed and frown evident. "Is there something wrong with my cave?"

He hums, somewhere between thoughtful and doubtful.

"Ah. Well. It's a little bigger inside than my comms tower," he allows. "Although - that did have an actual door. And I think I, uh, scavenged more furniture by the time I was nine," he adds, more judgmentally.

Then he shrugs. "But then, this planet's so different, what do I know?"

There's a moment when Obi-Wan simply stares in Ezra's direction, expression blank. (Though, if Ezra is observant, he may take note of an undercurrent of something like amusement playing at the edges.)

"Perhaps I haven't found anything in my taste." Or perhaps he's been wallowing in despair for a decade and is just now slowly coming out of it.

It's likely the latter.

Ezra's expression wavers in uncertainty for a second, as he wonders if he's actually managed to offend his host. But that doesn't match what he's dimly feeling through the Force.

"If this were more my usual stomping grounds, I'd offer to see what I could rustle up," he replies lightly. "But it might get me more heat exhaustion or shot at, around here."

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