For fadedfool

[ezra_of_lothal]

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.

Comments

[ezra_of_lothal]

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

[fadedfool]

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."

[ezra_of_lothal]

"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.

[fadedfool]

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.

[ezra_of_lothal]

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.

[fadedfool]

"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?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

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.

[fadedfool]

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."

[ezra_of_lothal]

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.

[fadedfool]

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.

[ezra_of_lothal]

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.

[fadedfool]

"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?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

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?"

[fadedfool]

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_of_lothal]

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."

[fadedfool]

Obi-Wan allows a bit of a smile through, mouth quirking at the corners for the briefest of moments. Not offended, Ezra -- but okay, he gets the hint. (Bail had told him much the same.)

"All too easy here on Tattooine," he says. Both heat exhaustion and shooting, in point of fact. "Where are your usual stomping grounds, my young friend?"

[ezra_of_lothal]

"Other side of the Outer Rim. Lothal, like I mentioned until-" He breath hitches, but he presses on. "Until my new family took me in. And then a lot of traveling to stay under the Imperial radar. We were based out of Garel for a while."

But that base of operations was blown years ago, so it's safe to mention.

[fadedfool]

Obi-Wan takes a seat. Ezra's right; there's not much in the place, but he does have the occasional chair and cushion hanging about. His voice is gentle when he speaks. "Tell me about them. Your new family."

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra goes still for a moment, watching Obi-Wan out of the corner of his eye. He lays his spoon across the edge of his bowl, and shifts to more facing towards the older man.

"Um." He clears his throats and swallows. "Kanan was my master." He eyes dart to looking directly at Obi-Wan and then drop down a little. "Kanan Jarrus. That was the name he took, after-" He presses his lips together.

"Before he...found me, he'd already been part of Hera's crew for, uh. Years. A couple of other people they'd taken in. Zeb - he's one of the surviving Lasat. Sabine's a little older than me. There's some others that- well I think of them that way, but-" He doesn't know what some of the other Rebels think. But the Spectres had used the word family for each for more than a few times.

"Anyway. Those are the people I've been living with for the past four years."

[fadedfool]

A name taken after; Obi-Wan could certainly make a guess as to why and when that would be. Old grief that never seemed to lighten flooded through him. Here and now he told himself, echoes of Qui-Gon's voice ringing in his mind.

"Perhaps someday I'll meet them."

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra's gaze jolts back up, a little startled.

"I know Hera would like - well, she's never forgotten when you and your troops did for Ryloth." He laughs weakly, "Rex will understand why I never let slip that you're out here, I think."

[fadedfool]

The nostalgic smile is unbidden and unexpected. The war itself had, of course, been awful -- and all the things that went with it, and all the machinations behind it. But then there had been the people he'd met, the wonderful and courageous souls who had reminded him over and over again that there was still some things that were very good in the galaxy. An image of Boil and Waxer, a tiny Twi'lek girl clinging to plastoid armor calling them "brother" sprang to mind.

He certainly did live in the past sometimes, didn't he?

And, of course, the clones themselves are a complicated subject. Ezra had come here for some reason, which likely means that Rex he mentioned is the Rex that Obi-Want knew once upon a time. "All of our lives changed. He will understand, and I thank you for it."

[ezra_of_lothal]

"...of course. I didn't even tell Kanan," he tries to reassure Obi-Wan. "I don't know why you're here. But. I could - do - feel that this where you're supposed to be and it's important. So...I didn't need to."

[fadedfool]

"Peace, Ezra," Obi-Wan says, raising a hand and laughing a little. "I believe you... and honestly, if you had chosen to tell someone, I think it would have been all right. I trust in your judgement."

[ezra_of_lothal]

Ezra goes very still again, as Obi-Wan bids him to be calm. But it's the part about trust that makes his expression - composure in the Force - crack.

Part of him wants to demand why anyone should trust his judgement - he couldn't save his master. Or Ahsoka, for that matter. He swallows those words back. They'd be rude and ungrateful and he knows his teachers wouldn't want him to cling to guilt.

Beyond those fleeting thoughts, the realization slams into him that he's safe. Oh Tatooine is a generally terrible place. But here, in this alcove, a little sheltered from the elements, he's farther from the reach of the Empire than he's been in a long time.

He promptly bursts into hiccuping sobs. He has enough presence of mind to squeeze his eyes shut; he should at least try not to waste water. But he's never been ashamed to cry, when there's not a pressing reason to hold it together, so he doesn't really try to force himself to stop immediately, either.