Au: Kid Ibani-Tatooine Era Obi-Wan Kenobi

[last_kallig]

(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.

Comments

[last_kallig]

Ibani would find being mentally compared to a Jedi bitterly ironic.

"No, I suppose I couldn't," Ibani replies. Water is precious in a desert and it will be wasted on her, but she can't come up with an excuse for refusing it.

"How far away was I from here when you found me, Ben?"

[acertainpov]

He hands her a cup - the water is clear and pure, the best the Lars Farm can produce, and what he gives her is a significant part of his store, but he has fruit and food for himself and there's no sacrifice.

"About a league, give or take. There's going to be a sandstorm passing over tonight, but we can head out in the daylight and find the spot again, if you wish. And if you're strong enough by morning."

It's a long way to travel, but it was a long way to go just to find a distressed young Force user. But if she doesn't eat anything, his glance to the plate implies, she's not going to be going anywhere.

[last_kallig]

"That's quite a distance from here," Ibani remarks. "What drew you out so far into the desert?"

She sees his glance and decides that it will be much easier to disappear outside, in the daylight, than to try and sneak out of here at night. Out of deeply ingrained habit, she pokes the water and the food with the Force to see if they are poisoned or drugged.

Ibani will drink the water slowly, then ponder broaching the subject of food again.

[acertainpov]

He settles down, making a mental note of all the things she does that give away exactly what it was she left behind on Kalliban. That she'd suspect him of poisoning really isn't that hard to believe.

Externally he just rubs his chin.

"Oh, you need to cross that area from here to get to the nearest trading town. If I don't make the journey regularly my diet would be considerably more retricted than I can off you now."

[last_kallig]

"I apologize for interrupting your trip to town, then," Ibani replies. "Many people would not have stopped for a stranger and then brought them back to their home, especially a stranger that might be dangerous."

She eyes the plate of food. "I suppose I ought to try and eat something, even though I don't especially want to."

[acertainpov]

"I think you ought," he agrees, with just the slightest inclination of his head to acknowledge the thanks. Many people would not have stopped, but he could not have stayed in after her arrival.

"Take it slowly, your body won't be used to it."

[last_kallig]

Ibani takes a piece of the bread and chews slowly and carefully. "Would it be rude to ask why you've decided to live all the way out here?" Alone, in the middle of nowhere.

[acertainpov]

"Yes," Ben replies, one eyebrow quirked up and a faint smirk on his face. "I think it rather would."

[last_kallig]

"Fair enough," Ibani replies. "We all have our secrets and our scars."

She chews the jerky slowly. "You can ask me questions, if you want," she offers. "I won't lie, but I might refuse to answer, depending on what you ask."

[acertainpov]

He 'hmms' slightly, amsused that she'd give him permission, and that she'd need to promise not to lie.

"I think the obvious one, is what would happen to move you so suddenly through thousands of light years in space and time," he says. "Was this intended?"

[last_kallig]

Well, as far as she knows he's force blind, so he doesn't have her advantage with spotting lies, it's only fair!

"I don't know," she replies, frowning. "Certainly not intentional on my part. I'd been sent out to investigate one of the tombs on Korriban again. because Overseer Tremel is nothing if not persistent in hoping one of these times I don't make it back." Nothing in her tone indicates anything about Tremel's behavior is noteworthy.

"But moving someone like that, that would take a LOT of power. I don't think any of the Overseers could have done it. I might have triggered something in the tomb, a trap or a ritual, but I don't know what."

[acertainpov]

He's quiet for a second, his eyes flicking down as he thinks. It could have been a trap of some sort. Could a Force trap throw someone through space time like that?

"I don't know if anyone of this time would be powerful enough to create something like that," he says. "And I don't know what purpose it would serve if it was deliberate."

Palpatine probably not, but even then - why?

[last_kallig]

"Me neither. Could have been an unintended interaction between artifacts, or an artifact and a ritual, that I just happened to get caught in. You can get some really odd stuff with that. That's how Darth Ikorid's apprentice got turned inside out."

Ibani makes a face at that recollection, because WOW, that was gross. Just, UGHHH.

"At least the Force was quiet here when I landed. I suspect most of the 'noise' in the Force is elsewhere in spacetime, so we're not likely to attract tourists."

[acertainpov]

Ben's reaction to the horrific death of a young person isn't exactly one of being grossed out, but it's also entirely internal so outside he just continues to look thoughtful.

"Maybe. But there still might have been enough to catch the attention of people if we're really unlucky. I'd like to go to the spaceport tomorrow while we're out, see if there are rumours of anyone in the area."

If Vader or any of his inquisitors - or Force forbid, Sidious - caught wind of the same thing that brought Ben into the desert, it could bring their attention uncomfortably close to Luke. Ibani herself - a Sith Acolyte from the days of the Empire - could be of just as much interest, and Ben doesn't want them getting their hands on her either.

[last_kallig]

"Probably a good idea," Ibani agrees. "Worried about Jedi showing up?" she guesses. After all, if no one has lived on Korriban, the sacred home-world of the Sith, for centuries surely there aren't any Sith to worry about!

"It's not like you had any way of knowing what I was when you picked me up, so I can't imagine they'd blame you for that."

[acertainpov]

"Oh there haven't been Jedi around in the Galaxy for..." he pauses just long enough to count the years in his head, "over a decade, now.

"No, it's the Imperial forces I'd be worried about, the ones now calling themselves Sith would be very interested, though whether you'd be a recruit or a threat it's hard to say."

One thing is clear - he can't let her fall into Imperial hands if she knows he's here, even if she doesn't know his last name or that he's even a Jedi.

[last_kallig]

"No Jedi?!" That's enough of a shock to cause her emotional control to break, to flood the Force with guilt and horror and make her go pale and nauseous.

"I don't think I could endure being recruited again by the Sith," she replies. "And I would be a threat, with what I know."

Her smile turns bitter. "I'm a threat to everyone, honestly, with what Korriban made of me."

[acertainpov]

Ben smiles warmly, apparently completely oblivious to the flood of horror in the Force. And why would he be otherwise, after all?

"Then you're lucky you ended up on a backwater planet on the Outer Rim. The chances of anyone chancing upon you here is very slim indeed. Still, better safe than sorry."

If he can keep Luke safe though, he can probably do the same for her.

[last_kallig]

"Better safe than sorry, yes." Her eyes flicker to her blade on the table for a moment.

"But my being here is dangerous for you, isn't it?"

[acertainpov]

His eyes follow hers, and he gives the smallest sigh. This means he's going to have to keep an even closer eye on her, doesn't it? A shame, he was hoping he'd be able to get some sleep.

"Oh don't worry about me," he says cheerfully, his eyes twinkling. "Your coming here is the most interesting thing that's happened to me in years."

[last_kallig]

She catches his sigh and misinterprets the reason for it. "I wouldn't hurt you," she promises. "I'm not THAT much of a monster."

Ibani snorts. "I expect that's not a high bar to jump, considering where we are," she replies, tone dry.

[acertainpov]

He just said not to worry about himself, he isn't going to repeat it.

Instead he shrugs helplessly. "You're right, it really isn't."

[last_kallig]

"See what you miss, being out in the middle of nowhere? You could have interesting things happening all the time, Ben."

And she shouldn't be getting attached, shouldn't be enjoying just talking to another person. Having another person care about her well being feels..good.

And he wouldn't, if he knew what she was, what she'd DONE. She's a monster, and this isn't something she deserves. Guilt and shame and self-hatred in the Force, and why are her karking hands shaking?

[acertainpov]

He stands then, leaning over to take the now empty plate from her, and in doing so covers her hands with his - desert-worn and well used, but soft between the callouses - for a second.

"Better get some more sleep," he advises. "We want to leave before the suns get too high."

He still has no presence in the Force, so it must just be his tone that is so calming.

[last_kallig]

Ibani has calluses of her own, from sword-work, though they're not nearly as worn as Ben's.

"I, yes, that's probably a good idea," she admits. His voice is strangely calming, and her hands stop shaking.

Her dreams are full of blood, of suffering, of torment, and some of that may leak out where Ben can sense it. If he's especially unfortunate, he might even catch glimpses of what she sees behind closed eyes.