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

[acertainpov]

Ben nods in concession to that. "The suns are too high right now to go gathering, so we'll have to see what we've got."

He waves a hand to indicate that Ibani should sit, and opens one of the chest he has around the place. Lots of tanned bantha hide, some wool he hasn't really worked on yet, and eventually a few sheets of bedding he'd alrwady worked on, and then a sack of the dried grass.

"Can you sew, at least? We can stuff some of these sheets to start."

[last_kallig]

"Nothing fancy, but I can blanket stitch," Ibani replies.

She's seated herself, curious as to what the process will be.

[acertainpov]

Further rummaging produces a bone needle and a length of tough thread, which he hands over to her.

And so Ibani's first lesson on desert living starts: how to throw a passable mattress together in an afternoon while sheltering from the burning suns.

[last_kallig]

Ibani absently threads the needle with the Force while she reaches for the fabric. That level of control with the Force is both rare and hard earned, most force sensitives never manage that level of precision!

Ibani likes learning new things, and this is useful besides!

[acertainpov]

He doesn't comment. But he smiles, and that's like a comment, right? This isn't about learning the Force anyway, but about the other skills he uses from day to day, and Ben starts giving her a run down of what they're doing and why - where the thread comes from, why pontoon grass if the best option for this, and the best time of day to collect it.

"We'll have to collect more anyway, I never expected I'd have to make a whole new bed so suddenly."

Though he always hoped that some day Luke would want to stay over, he's put that hope aside for now.

[last_kallig]

Ibani catches his smile and is happy to see it. It's been, well, it's been a long time since anyone has been happy about anything she's done.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," she says, chuckling. "Who would expect a foundling to just show up out of thin air."

Really, the situation is just so bizarre!

"Did you want to do the adoption now?"

[acertainpov]

"Do you?"

It's a gentle question, probing just to make sure. "Do you really want to tie yourself to an old man on a desert planet on the outer rim? It's a big galaxy."

[last_kallig]

"A big galaxy that is utterly alien to me," Ibani replies softly. "Everyone and everything I've ever known was lost centuries ago, and I am facing dangers now that I am only beginning to understand. You may be the only other force-sensitive person I ever meet who won't want me dead on sight."

But then her smile broadens. "But it's not only that. The breadth and specificity of my translocation seems too specific to be an accident."

Across the galaxy and centuries in time and she just HAPPENS to land near one of the few Jedi left that might take her in? Yeah, that would be a hell of a coincidence.

"And I like you, and I trust you. That's sounds like a decent foundation for family to me."

[acertainpov]

That's the problem, isn't it? Ben is not the most important person on this planet, but he does have responsibility for that person. If Ibani was destined to help Luke, he can't turn her away. But he'll have to do a lot of meditation, and if he could talk to Yoda it would help.

He nods.

"Well," he says, "I've never had a family. But I know some people once who valued family above all, and I think they'd agree trust was the most important thing.

"Okay, we'll do it now, if you're sure."

[last_kallig]

Ibani draws her sword and nicks her forearm with the blade, enough to draw blood.

There is a feeling in the Force of a held breath, of anticipation, and the electric tingle of Ibani's force presence.

She sets the blade down near Ben, in case he would like to use it himself, then offers her forearm.

[acertainpov]

Ben, of course, gives off no Force presence at all. He pushes up his sleeve, picks up the sword himself and holds the edge of the blade against his own arm, giving a long but shallow line of red along his skin.

Then he holds that arm out, to hold Ibani's by the elbow.

[last_kallig]

Ibani grasps his arm by the elbow also, a similar gesture to the Mandalorian greeting. Perhaps not entirely coincidental.

Their blood mingles and Ibani speaks, looking into his eyes. "By my blood freely given, I am your daughter."

[acertainpov]

Ben holds her gaze, his beard twitching with the smile underneath it.

"By my blood freely given, I am your father."

It should feel momentous, one sentence breaking so many of the rules and traditions he has spent his life holding sacred. Abandoning of the the basic precepts - that of non attachment - for a girl he hasn't known 24 hours.

But instead it feels quiet and truthful. And he never thought much of that particular precept anyway.

[last_kallig]

Ibani would think that precept is foolish too. Not as foolish as the whole Rule of Two thing, which will make Ibani mad enough to spit when she finds out about it, but pretty foolish!

There is a feeling of warmth where their blood meets as the Force swirls around them, a feeling of the bond between them strengthening, being NAMED. When the Force exhales, there is no blood on Ibani's sword or on either of their arms and the wounds they made have healed as if they never were.

Ibani's smile turns joyful, and she can't put it into words so she lets the Force speak for her instead.

[acertainpov]

Ben closes his eyes for a second, and the swirling Force stays within the hut, exhales no farther than the two of them.

He opens them, and while he gives no indication of his feelings in the Force, he gives her a warm smile and puts his other hand on her shoulder.

"But you'd better carry on calling me Ben," he says. "I'm too old for a new title."

[last_kallig]

Ibani chuckles at that. "Ben it is, then," she replies. "Ibani will work for me, although you can call me daughter if you want to."

"We should probably work out the details of my backstory, just in case." She frowns thoughtfully. "I may need to alter the scarring under my eye, it's too obviously a slave brand as a string of letters and numbers."

[acertainpov]

Ben lifts his hand up to her face, running a thumb along the scarring in question, ==.

"You may be right," he says, "Craya noticed it, at least."

Whether Craya buys the story or not is of course not a concern, but if she can tell, others will.

"I know some people who can help cover it. And facial tattoos aren't uncommon in this part of the Galaxy."

[last_kallig]

"Covering it would be good," Ibani replies. "I'd considered adding to it, adding lines to change the shapes, but I wanted something thinner and sharper than what I had access to on Korriban to do the job."

"You said few people had ever even heard of Dromund Kaas, so you must be from somewhere else. Where would my accent be from, now?"

[acertainpov]

"Any of the core planets," Ben says. "There's a lot of variation it would be hard to pin down. I expect you hear Coruscanti in my accent, but you could just as likely be from Alderaan or Corellia."

He could add to it himself, it wouldn't be hard, but a professional coverup would make it look less like it was a cover-up, less like she had something to hide.

[last_kallig]

"That's useful, gives a lot of places for my mother to be from." She chuckles. "Ma'Vena was the Twilek who raised me. Not too hard to alter that to a human sounding name, Mavena. What do you think?"

They do need to build this backstory together, for practicality's sake. Since Ben is rather involved in it!

[acertainpov]

"That sounds right," Ben says. "More likely Corellia than Alderaan, I expect."

There's no need to tie him to Alderaan in a way that will draw attention. "Coruscant is still the capital of the Empire I wouldn't want to tie you to there."

[last_kallig]

"Corellia works." She shakes her head, bemused. "So strange to be talking about Galactic Republic planets. Well, what were Galactic Republic planets in my time."

She exhales in frustration. "Will have to work on that too, getting my tenses straight."

And figuring out what she 'should' know as someone from this when!

[acertainpov]

"I'm afraid the planets you know as Sith Empire are all mostly unknown or uninhabited now," Ben says softly, letting the weight of it settle with her. "The current Galactic Empiure rose directly out of the Republic."

[last_kallig]

The weight of that settles uncomfortably in her get.

"That's bitterly ironic, considering history," she says softly. "How long, how long has it been the Galactic Empire?" She senses this might be a difficult topic of conversation.

[acertainpov]

It's not an easy topic, but it can only be seen in the way he stares into the middle distance and scratches his beard as he counts the years.

"Ten years, if I've been counting right. Empire Day isn't really a big celebration out here."