last_kallig | Au: Kid Ibani-Tatooine Era Obi-Wan Kenobi

Au: Kid Ibani-Tatooine Era Obi-Wan Kenobi

(OOC: Content warning for mention of torture, harm done by and to children, suicidal ideation and quite possibly suicide attempt.)

Ibani is a fourteen year old Sith Acolyte and her life of pain is written in her body for those who can read it. The scars of a slave collar on her neck, the letters and numbers carved under one eye like a bantha brand, those were only the beginning. She's been shocked regularly with force lightning for years as well as being subjected to more primitive methods of torture, and all have left their mark. Scars from teeth, claws and blades mark her skin, the echoes of broken bones still visible if you look the right way in the Force.

She should be dead, and she might be shortly, despite her struggles. She doesn't know how she got HERE, wherever this hot desert is, instead of the cold desert of Korriban. The gravity is wrong, the temperature is wrong, and while the Force shouted just before she landed here it is strangely silent now. (She might be insane, in which case she should put herself down before she harms anyone, but she's waiting for more evidence on that one way or the other.) She's dying by inches of heat and thirst and she can't push her body any further, even with all the Force tricks she knows.

She crawls on her belly under an overhang of rock, collapses. She can enter a trance, reduce her need for water, but that means that without help she will simply fail to ever wake, will slip away into the Force in death. It's a long shot, but she's worth more alive than dead even to the most nefarious of persons. (She knows better than to expect mercy or kindness from strangers.)

Ibani sinks into the Force, awaiting aid or death.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yes, that sounds like a good place to start."

She eyes the sun. "I'm sure I'll get used to it."

She takes the offered hand after stowing her sword, and climbs up onto the dragon.

"Time to go home," and Ibani has never said those words before. Nowhere has ever been HOME, just places where she's lived or slept.

"You never do," Ben says, although now he sounds almost fond of the nasty planet he currently calls home.

He leans forward to pet the dragon on the head, and it breaks out into an elegant gallop, heading back towards Ben's homestead.

Ibani laughs, an actual happy laugh, as his comment.

"Who should we say I am to you, if anyone asks? I could pass for your daughter, wouldn't even be a lie if you adopted me in the old ways, well, my culture's old ways."

That is a really good question and Ben doesn't know how to answer it. He can't call her apprentice.

"We'd need to explain why you showed up so late in life," he remarks thoughtfully. "Living with your mother off world?"

"That would work. And you didn't know I existed until I showed up here after my mother died?" she offers. Because Ben doesn't seem like he WOULDN'T have been involved in raising his biological progeny.

Ben is grateful that he's looking forward and it's impossible to see in his face just how plausible this scenario is.

"How does one perform this ritual?"

...Is he really considering this? He must be going senile.

"It's fairly simple. Both people make a small cut, enough to draw blood, and press their cuts together and state whatever relationship or promise they want to make out loud."

"The Ancient Sith used to swear oaths that way, and I've seen rumors suggesting that it actually had some binding power, but nothing concrete. If it MADE people obey, presumably it would have still been in use, and it wasn't."

"There is a lot of power in blood rites," Ben remarks. "Especially between the Force sensitive."

He's aware that he's already part way to making this oath in his heart, given how responsible he feels for her.

Ibani nods. "That was one of the things we learned, about the power in blood, in sacrifice. It's old, very, very old."

"I've never had a father before," she says. "Well, I mean, biologically I must have, but I have no recollection of my birth parents at all."

"Nor do I," Ben admits. "Though I had someone who filled a role."

Not for long enough, though. Just as he filled a role for other people, not long enough or well enough.

He's remind quite how bad a job he made of it last time, but with no alternative in sight, he'll have to just it better this time. At least he won't have the Jedi Council in his way.

"We'll have to work out what it means together."

"Ma'Vena raised me, I thought of her as my mother. She's why they didn't succeed in making me entirely what they wanted to, on Korriban. I had something else to hold on to."

Ben did the best he could, under the circumstances!

"We'll figure it out," Ibani promises.

She grins. "Good thing we're in the middle of nowhere or our arrival might cause quite a stir."

"Not quite," in the middle of nowhere, he means. Ben stops the Krayt some distance away still and offers a hand for her to get down. "Even if the sand people already think I'm strange I don't want to scare Dolo's family."

And if any of the kids from Tashi or the surrounding area saw him he'll never live it down.

"We can walk the rest. I'm getting hungry."

They haven't had lunch yet - thanks for that, Ibani.

Ibani flushes in chagrin at Ben's remark that he's getting hungry.

She takes the offered hand to get down and sends a feeling of thanks to the Krayt.

"Sand people?"

Ben watches the Krayt gallop back towards his lair just long enough to be assured that he's not in distress before turning back.

"Tuskens," he explains. "Native to this planet, not particularly fond of colonists. They raid moisture farms if they think they can get away with it, but they usually leave me alone."

Ibani nods in understanding as they start the walk back. "I'm glad they usually leave you alone," she replies.

She reaches for Ben's hand, tentatively.

What might happen if they get Ben's moisture farm up and running is a different matter. He could defend himself against raids without any issues, but he enjoys an uneasy truce with the local sand people that not many off-worlders would understand.

His hand takes a moment to respond, not knowing what to do with this, before it turns away from hers and wraps around her shoulders instead.

As they near his hut, they can see the bantha herd, inlcuding Dolo, who bellows at them and starts shuffling over. Ben grins.

"Left you with a lot to carry, didn't I?" he says.

The arm around the shoulder works, and Ibani leans into it.

"Hello, Dolo, I'm sorry I ran off in such a hurry," she says to the bantha.

She starts to unload all the stuff they left with the bantha.

Dolo has a lot of complaint to Ben, who rests his head against hers for a few seconds to apologise.

"Stop complaining," he says after a while. "You're just trying to make me feel bad."

She does get the rest of the manak leaves, though, before shuffling off to her family. Ben watches her fondly as the herd move off, and then he turns back to Ibani.

"There's womp-rat pies in there somewhere."

Ibani fishes in the packs for the pies. "Found them," she announces, handing a pie to Ben.

She's feeling rather hungry herself now, and her stomach chooses this moment to rumble, loudly.

"Stop that!" she mutters at it, as if this will accomplish anything.

Ben gives her a gently teasing smile as he heads back into the hut, carrying one of the packs in one hand, already btiing into the pie with the other.

"You'd better eat that up, then."

Ibani bites into her pie as she follows him, carrying a pack in her other hand.

She makes an appreciative noise. This is good!

She eyes the bed speculatively as she enters. She's pretty sure Ben didn't sleep at all last night, and he needs his rest!

Ben entirely misinterprets that look as he settles down on a seat in order to finish his pie. He nods at her.

"Have a lie down. It's been a long day already."

He's got some things to do after food anyway, not least of which is figuring out their sleeping arrangements for the longer term.

Ibani frowns. "I'm pretty sure you didn't sleep at all last night. I slept on the ground for years, a night on it won't hurt me any."

Ben holds her gaze steadily. "I might have had some sleep if I wasn't waiting for you to draw your sword all night."

So it's her fault!

"And unless you know how to weave poonton grass into bedding, one of use isn't getting much sleep unless I make a start."

Ibani grimaces in acknowledgment of that fact.

"I don't know how to do that yet, no. I could learn?"

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