AU: Not Milliways continuity - Manaan (Obi-Wan Kenobi)

[last_kallig]

"Manaan is neutral in the war, and very adamant about it," Ibani explains as they exit. "They're the only ones who know how to make kolto, the predecessor of bacta, and so it's in their best interest to sell to both sides."

"This is the only settlement on the surface, and the only place where visitors are allowed. The tourist industry isn't much, but there is some."

After a certain amount of nagging, I mean encouragement, from her Milliways friends, Ibani has actually added clothes to her wardrobe that aren't some combination of black, gray, or red. It's a green one-piece swimsuit, but that counts as clothing, right?

She offers Obi-wan, or Ben, depending on their location and his preference, an aquata breather. Despite the difference in time, it doesn't look or function that much differently than what he's likely used to other than being a metallic grey in color.

Comments

[acertainpov]

"They remain neutral in our time as well," Ben says. He stands at the hatch of the ship, rather pleased to have landed safely, and takes a second to breathe in the fresh ocean air. He's comfortable in a tan wetsuit, and gives her a genuine smile as he closes his hand over the breather, letting his fingers graze her hand as he does so.

Physical contact isn't the same as that made through the Force, but it's something.

"For the most part we respected that, as they didn't have quite the strategic significance, to their benefit."

[last_kallig]

Physical contact is definitely a start, and something humans NEED, generally speaking. Ibani knows what it's like to be hungry for touch, and she doubts Ben is getting as much as he probably should.

"I'm glad that they were largely spared that, at least," She hopes they can be spared HER war as well.

"I'm just Ibani here, as usual. The Sith tendency toward armor and titles is useful for some things, no one's likely to connect me with Darth Imperious."

Iban is wearing her lightsabers, though they aren't as obvious as they really should be. She's adjusted the hilts to sit front and back on the belt, as if they were slightly unusual decorations. She can't draw them the usual way when they're like this, but the Force will serve as shield and weapon long enough for her to do it in an unusual way.

Ibani stretches physically and in the Force, though she takes care to move 'around' Ben rather than run 'over' him. Manners and all that. As hoped for, nothing 'feels' threatening.

[acertainpov]

He's done a bit of exploring himself - just because he's not broadcasting doesn't mean he's not able to feel the planet around him.

For a second he worries that he can't feel Luke, and then he almost laughs at himself.

"Ibani," he repeats, as if he was likely to call her anything else, but it's all good information.

He debated on his lightsaber for a long time, and decided he'd feel more comfortable if he had it, tucked into a pouched belt and even harder to access than hers. But he hasn't used it in years, he doesn't plan on using it today.

He closes his eyes again, enjoying the air and the Force, then catches her eye.

"Shall we?"

[last_kallig]

Ibani would fret about him not having used his lightsaber in years, what if he needed to? But that can wait.

"Let's," Ibani replies, smiling. She pulls out her own aquata breather, though she doesn't put it on yet.

They pass one Selkath who is likely some sort of guard on their way to a place where the 'dock' runs out. Corals have grown on the transparasteel and durasteel that make up the city, and fish and other sea creatures have moved in and set up housekeeping.

Ibani inhales the sea breeze. "Still takes my breath away every time I see so much water."

[acertainpov]

Don't worry, Ibani, he's not likely to forget.

He tucks his hands behind his back as he walks down with her, nodding a greeting at the Selkath with a slight smile. But as they get close, he raised his chin and intakes - not the breeze this time, but the sense of so much life, teeming in the coral and the water around them.

Tatooine, like all deserts has more life than most people assume, but this is already like a feast for a starving man.

No outward reaction, of course, just the same smile.

"And a much more pleasant ocean than the one on Kamino."

[last_kallig]

The Selkath nods back at him, but pays him no real mind. Why should he, after all, the Selkath sees lots of visitors, and that's all that Ben is.

He's not the only one drinking in the feeling of life. After Nathema, after Ziost, it's an important reminder of what she's fighting for.

"Never heard of Kamino, so I'll have to take your word on that." She sits on the end of the 'dock' for a moment, then slips into the water.

"The water's fine!" she calls out to him. Ibani is soon swarmed by a bunch of tiny fish curious about the new arrival.

[acertainpov]

Ben is distracted for a moment by thinking of Kamino - it wouldn't be purged from the records in this time, it's just probably not important on the scheme of things.

He'll probably have to tell the Empress about the planet at some point, especially the war crimes the Jedi committed there, Ben among them. But now?

Now he takes another deep breath of the surface air, and steps directly off into the water, splashing down and just letting the water completely cover him until he surfaces.

He puts a hand out to the fish around them, and is soon surrounded by them.

[last_kallig]

She's not Empress yet, at least officially. That will take wheeling, dealing, and some degree of bloodshed. (Oh, Darth Acina, Ibani thought you had more sense, she really did.)

Some of the fish that surround him 'nibble' on his dead skin, cleaning him as they do other fish for their nutrition. Sadly, in the opinion of those fish, the wetsuit does not taste good. Other fish, in a multitude of colors and patterns, are attracted to him for other reasons.

Ibani has quite the crowd of the cleaner fish around her now, as she has a lot more skin available than Ben does. The tickling sensation actually makes her giggle, quite possibly for the first time in her life.

[acertainpov]

Ben shoots her an amused look, floating as he is with his bare hands flat in front of him for the cleaner fish to do their work.

"Now that's a sound I've not heard from you before."

He releases his call on the others - he just wanted to see them - and they shoal off quickly. It's already a trifle overwhelming, to reach out liek this.

[last_kallig]

"I don't think anyone has," Ibani replies. "I didn't know I could be ticklish." She meets his amused look with an amused smile of her own.

"I suppose most people find out earlier. I was never allowed to be a child, even before Korriban." Which rather put paid to whatever innocence Ibani still had left at that point. She can allow herself to be openly wistful about the childhood she never had, here with Ben.

[acertainpov]

"How old were you?"

It's a simple question, and might be taken as, light hearted, conversational by its tone. But they both know what training does to childhoods, and they both know what the Galaxy can rustle up to ruin them even without that.

[last_kallig]

"Eleven, well, probably eleven. I don't know when I was actually born."

Ibani tilts her head back into the water. "That was the medic's best guess as to my age, I presume they knew what they were doing."

"About the same age as most of my peers, the ones that lived through the first year, at least." There's no horror, no fear in her tone or the Force. "Normal" rather depends on what you're used to, after all.

[acertainpov]

He reacts with an equal absence of horror, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel it in himself. The same horror that hit him when Anakin (Vader) murdered the children - made worse now by the knowledge now that this is about Luke's current age.

And of course he glosses over it, ignores and pretends it isn't there.

"That's old, for a Jedi to start training," he says, as if they were comparing notes. "I couldn't have been half that age."

[last_kallig]

"I've heard that the Jedi in my time start younger, it would make sense that the trend continued."

"Those born into Sith families get training nearly from birth, but my initial group were all former slaves who had been discovered as force sensitives."

"Korriban was the place for advanced training, originally, never meant to teach beginners. We were killing beasts by the third month, people by the sixth."

Ibani shuts her eyes a moment, memory painted indelibly on their lids. "Which is when I learned I wasn't as clever as I thought I was."

[acertainpov]

He's silent, treading water, hands playing almost absently in the water around the cleaner fish.

He sure as heck isn't going to ask her to elaborate, but he's ready to listen if she wants to talk about it.

[last_kallig]

She's never told anyone this story, has always kept this particular vulnerability, this particular wound to herself. But she doesn't have to carry the weight of it alone, does she? Not anymore.

"A'Tama was a fellow former slave, another member of my group. We thought that we had been very careful about hiding our growing friendship. The Sith Order considers love to be a weakness after all, and there is no mercy for the weak on Korriban."

Her eyes are still shut, still seeing then and not now. "One of the overseers told me there had been questions about my suitability, that I was weak. She offered me an opportunity to prove myself."

Ibani exhales. "I took it. I was not expecting them to take me to A'Tama, tied up and begging me not to hurt her."

"I told her I was going to set her free. From a certain point of view, it wasn't even a lie." There is nothing at all from Ibani in the Force, an emptiness as damning as a flood of emotion.

[acertainpov]

(I will not kill Anakin)

It's not swimming. He just moves through the water like flying with air, no effort except that exerted through the Force to move closer to her, one hand touching her bare shoulder.

He even considers opening himself up showing her that he maybe understands a little of that, or even just to show her that it's okay to let him feel some of it from her. To open any channel at all.

But he then immediately finds that he can't.

(He is like my brother. I cannot do it.)

[last_kallig]

When his hand touches her shoulder, Ibani startles, and the Force decides to speak to Ben, to Obi-Wan Kenobi.

A flicker of the child she was then, terrified, angry, and hurt and there is so much blood on her hands, so much. Sith Warblades don't cauterize as they cut and the last word of A'Tama echoes in her head 'monster'. And she is, isn't she, because Korriban makes monsters or corpses.

A flicker of the present, when Ibani startled, the knowing that she wasn't certain that he didn't mean her harm, because she's never forgiven herself for killing, for murdering A'Tema.

A flicker of something yet to be . The faces of the twins, and of Darth Vader. (No, Anakin Skywalker. There is a peace in that face, older and damaged as it may be, that Darth Vader could never have.

[acertainpov]

He keeps his hand there, even so. Especially now: Tired and desert-worn, and warm in the sea and with life. He doesn't even squeeze reassuringly, because that would be too much aggression at this exact moment.

But despite himself he tenses momentarily, taking in everything with his ees shut for a moment.

So Anakin will find peace. And Luke (or Leia? And Leia?) will bring it to him. This at least means he's on the right course now.

He opens his eyes and looks for hers. To tell her he will not harm her.

[last_kallig]

Her eyes are looking for his. She doesn't know why he tensed, is not even a hundred percent certain why he crossed to her so quickly, although she has her suspicions.

(If he wanted to hurt her surely he would have done it, he's no fool to let an enemy recover, and they don't teach Jedi to enjoy causing pain.)

"Ben?"

[acertainpov]

His smile twitches up again, slight concern covering any show of reassurance.

But just like that, he pushes the moment away, and brandishes his breather.

"Shall we dive?"

[last_kallig]

She could ask, but not now. One day maybe he'll tell her.

"Sure," she replies, smiling again. The moment passes, whatever it was.

She puts on her own breather, and dives. The water holds her, embraces her. and the fish brush by in great shoals, curious.

She hears a clicking sound in the water, one of the planet's sea mammals, a creature much like an earthly dolphin, has decided to come over and investigate.

[acertainpov]

Maybe one day, when he's been away from his Galaxy for long enough to know he can stop hiding. But even now, he's just getting used to opening himself to the Force.

Like - now. There are certain things the human body needs when it goes underwater to any depth for any length of time. Things that every Padawan learns at some point or other and makes second nature. Why human Jedi can dive at all with only aquata breathers.

He's been adjusting in the water, listening to his body, remembering how to control the poisonous gases in his system and how to control his own buoyancy, and now it takes a second just to check in on himself before he folds and dives after her.

He's soon with the cetacean, hands on its snout and head, gently stroking it as a greeting, but checking over his shoulder for Ibani.

[last_kallig]

Ibani learned those lessons much later, in Milliways. (Korriban is a desert, and the Sith were not inclined to set up something artificial for the purpose.)

Ibani rolls sideways, sending a tight emotional wave of curiosity and wonder to Ben. Even if there were another Force sensitive in the water with them, they would likely miss 'hearing' it. (This is, incidentally, how Sith flirt with one another. When both you and the other person are Force sensitive, why risk the indiscretion of words when you have better first options?)

The cetacean greets Ben with another series of clicks and whistles, nudging their snout against his chest. Another member of the cetacean's pod is spiraling down after Ibani, mimicking her movement in a much more graceful manner.

[acertainpov]

In return, he smiles warmly at her, but with no return sensation through the Force.

(Jedi aren't supposed to flirt at all. Obi-Wan never ever got that memo, but he also never restricted himself to the Force-senstive.)

His new friend and him are really making friends now, nudging and pushing at each other. Ben slips under the animal's belly, tickling it between the fins and then they're rolling over each other.

He glances up again, catches her eye and shoots a look at the animal coming towards her, second before he pulls himself up and onto the back of his.