you were always stronger than i was

[only_hope]

Obi-Wan is not particularly pleased about the assignment to Ord Mantell to train some princess how to use the Force. Force-sensitives are meant to be pulled by the Temple early on so the child doesn't form familial attachments and since this young woman was meant to be married to some politician from Cerea, there wasn't a chance of her being fully trained and inducted into the Order. This was a goodwill mission, nothing more and nothing less, and Obi-Wan chafed at the assignment when there were more important things to be handled.

"Surely another Jedi - " he'd started, before being silenced by Yoda. "Important to the Republic, Ord Mantell is. Train the princess, you will, and then return to the Temple with a new ally."

It was diplomatic then, more or less. There's plenty of villainy on Ord Mantell outside of army protection to concern him, though, and much of Jedi training is conducted in the wilderness. How would a princess hold up in that? Obi-Wan decides there's no point in arguing it any longer and agrees, intending to perform his duty with grace.

He flies his own ship to Ord Mantell rather than waiting for a transport and lands somewhat away from the palace. When he announces himself, he's brought inside and he expects the usual pomp and circumstance Jedi get on diplomatic visits; he receives it and then some. He feels a presence in the Force, a white hot flame, and realizes it's coming from the slim woman alongside the King and Queen.

"Am I to understand you are Princess Anne, then? My pleasure to meet you," he says, bowing at the waist. "I'm Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and I've been sent to train you on behalf of the Jedi Order. Even if you have no intention of being a Jedi, you should be capable of using the Force to your full potential." He turns back to her parents and strokes his beard a bit, thinking.

"Most padawan training is done away from the temple. I don't think it'll do Anne much good if we keep her here in the palace and treat her with kid gloves. Do I have your permission to train her properly? She'll be in my hands and there is no way anything will happen to her. We'll stay within the sector." Her parents look skeptical for a moment before nodding their assent.

"All right, then. I suppose there's not much point in me settling in. Pack lightly. I have robes and tunics for you on board but I would suggest a sturdy pair of boots, if you have them."

Comments

[only_hope]

"It's not common that a Jedi comes here for a long stretch with a partner. If they do, one sleeps on the floor. We have a unique situation. I chose Ahch-To because there are ancient texts and holocrons we never remove from this planet due to their value. I wanted to research our connection."

He touches his beard lightly and looks at her carefully. "I only take advantage of the willing. If you're willing, I'll press my advantage as much as you care for me to."

It's entirely too forward but Obi-Wan cannot help himself.

[ajediqueen]

"If they're willing, is it taking advantage?"

It's not a no, it's a question of whether or not they should and Anne knows for a fact that she shouldn't. It would throw everything she's meant to do into chaos, even if what they do never leaves the island with them. She's connected to this man for reasons she doesn't understand. For reasons he doesn't understand and he's the master Jedi.

She watches him as she says it simply because it's not a no and he's standing close.

[only_hope]

"It's not but you didn't seem the sort of woman to get bogged down in semantics," Obi-Wan says, laughing softly. "I must say, you make much better company than a contingent of clone troopers. You are...you intrigue me, Anne. I've never really been in the habit of calling a new apprentice by their own name so much but it just seems right to do that with you. We should be Master and Apprentice but I don't know what we are."

He hopes to find that out in study and meditation here in this place. He just hopes six weeks is long enough.

"I think we ought to rest for now. This is a place forsaken by any gods I know of but I think we can manage."

[ajediqueen]

"I'm sure we can." There's a moment when she catches his eye again, charmed by his laugh, and then she moves her small bags to the edge of the bed. "You don't mind if I...?"

Back turned to him, she answers him.

"I don't know what we are, either, but as soon as I thought about the Force, you were there. I couldn't help but think of you there, with me, again. Then you kissed me, and I. I couldn't concentrate on anything else except the way it felt to be there, with you. Having you hold me."

[only_hope]

"It's all I think about. I censured my first padawan for this, for his obsession with a woman. Now it seems I'm doing the very thing I warned him against."

Obi-Wan has been with a woman before and loved her, yes, but he did not abandon the Order for her or abandon the mission he'd been charged with in favor of love. Now, though, he feels reckless and feels as if he could make those choices easily with Anne. He thinks he could keep her here on this uncharted island and not let her go back to her marriage and leave Ord Mantell to a fate unknown.

It's a dangerous proposition and one he must get out of his mind.

[ajediqueen]

That he uses the word obsessed when speaking about his first padawan and a woman gets Anne's attention and she turns to look at him with confusion in her eyes. Does he mean that he's obsessed with her? It's only been hours and she has no idea what to make of everything that's happened between them.

"What happened between your padawan and the woman?" She has to know. "Please tell me that it wasn't a disaster."

She can't bear to think that she's going to cause him harm.

"Why did you warn him against her?"

[only_hope]

"It's a currently-brewing disaster. My padawan is young and reckless and he loves a woman who is passionate about him. He thinks with his feelings too much for a Jedi," Obi-Wan admits.

"He came to the Order late, though, and that is to be expected of him. I was raised by the Order and I should know better except...this bond. It's too much to ignore."

[ajediqueen]

Anne watches as he explains, her heart aching for what he feels is an act of rebellion that he can't control for an Order that he must follow. She steps forward to take his hand, her fingers curling around his as she looks to catch his eye, her voice gentle.

"I'm sorry that I wasn't more resistant to what brings us together and I wish I could think less with my feelings." Squeezing gently, her fingers thread through his. "I've spent time around a lot of people; diplomats, royalty, peasants, and commoners... none of them make me feel what you did the moment you spoke to me in the receiving room. There's something... more." A breath. "Should we ignore it?"

Even though he says its too much, she wants to know if they should try anyway. He's the master, she the padawan. She'll let him lead.

[only_hope]

"I should have more control because you're under my care and you're promised to someone else," Obi-Wan says, squeezing her hand back. "But it isn't for you to have that control, to know how to think less with your feelings. You're not trained and I have the advantage."

Obi-Wan brings her hand to his lips and kisses it. "You don't feel coerced, do you? I couldn't stand it if I unintentionally influenced your mind. I suspect we're something called a Force dyad, a single mind in two bodies. It's very rare, which is why I wanted to check the old texts and holocrons."

[ajediqueen]

The look she gives him would shame any one. As if he's stupid for even asking such a question — does she feel coerced? really? — and then her gaze softens again at the kiss before she shakes her head slightly.

"I am promised to someone else. Someone I've never met. I've only known you for hours, but it feels as if... you're part of me. How am I supposed to go home and pretend like you don't exist after this?"

[only_hope]

"Sometimes our duty has to override the passions of our heart. We have to sacrifice our own happiness for the good of others. It's something that Jedi learn at a young age," Obi-Wan says softly.

"It doesn't mean it hurts any less, though, to lose the connection or to let a bond weaken. The problem is, I don't think we can break this. I think we'll always be in one another's head. I don't even think it's wise to break it. Think how formidable two Jedi with a singular mind would be? We'd know one another so intimately that we'd fight as one. I am going to strongly suggest to the Council that we offer alternative terms to Ord Mantell and Cerea and begin to train you as a Jedi. It would have to be accelerated, yes, but you'd be with me."

[ajediqueen]

"Cerea wants this more than anything," she says as a warning, her hold on his hand loosening. "Perhaps it'd be best if we learn to let our bond go. Let each other go. You can train me to avoid being in your mind and anything else I need over the next six weeks and when I go back, I can do as I'm meant to do."

She drops his hand and visibly strengthens herself. "You said yourself a Jedi cannot give in to feelings or emotions. Your Council will never let me 'be with you', especially if they learn of this and how we've used it thus far."

Of that much she was certain.

[only_hope]

In the time they've been speaking, it's begun to rain. Obi-Wan thinks about tossing his hood up but instead he pulls Anne inside the small house here on Ahch-To and presses her up against the wall once he's indoors, crowding her with his body. He doesn't want to dissolve the bond and, frankly, he doesn't know if he can with this one.

"This isn't just a normal bond," he says lowly, face close to hers. "I can't form it and dissolve it at will. You're in my mind, in my heart, in the very marrow of me. I'm a master Jedi. No girl who has never trained before could get into my mind and you can. This is a dyad and I know it."

[ajediqueen]

Hours. She's known him hours and knows in her soul that he's telling her the truth. That there's no feasible way she can simply turn her back on him and what they share and still be a whole person by herself. That whatever this dyad is that he's speaking of? He's part of her forever. She doesn't know why or how or what the Force is, but it's here and it's them and she doesn't want to fight.

Fingertips come up to his face, not to object to how close he is, but to stroke the side of his face in encouragement. A small tip of her head and her lips brush against his before she whispers back, "I feel you everywhere and I don't want that to stop. I don't want to let that go." Her other hand comes up so she's cupping his face and she feels the ache in her chest. "I can't, as much as it goes against everything you've said the Jedi are allowed, I can't."

[only_hope]

"They're just going to have to understand. That's why I need to do the research," Obi-Wan says, pushing back into her mind. He's learned her garden well enough to be able to conjure it in their shared mindscape and he leads her to a low bench beneath a tree that glows phosphorescent in the dark evening.

"Be with me here," he murmurs, cupping her face in his hands before kissing her. It's happening simultaneously in the real world and in their minds and it's beyond overwhelming for him.

[ajediqueen]

Anne wants to ask him what happens if they don't. If they refuse to understand. What happens when she's sent back to Ord Mantell for a wedding she now has a vested interest in making sure doesn't happen and he's sent somewhere else for another purpose. She wants to ask him what happens when this all ends?

Then she's there with him, in her gardens, and the sensation of being kissed on top of being kissed is a study in immersion and she swears she can feel it from the inside out.

Anywhere, she tells him without telling him, knowing that he'll just know her answer without her saying it, her mouth occupied by his. Every nerve ending in her body is reacting to his and he'll be able to feel the arousal she's feeling but magnified and she wonders if she's feeling his emotions now, too.

[only_hope]

"You're going to have to make a bed for me. I can only bring forth the image of this place as I know it from your mind," he murmurs, hands sliding into her hair to pull her closer still. "I'm going to need a bed for what I want, Anne, and I can move us in the real world if you can move us in here."

It's so wrong to do this, to take advantage, but Obi-Wan cannot help himself. Not when he's never felt like this before and never felt a presence as white-hot as alluring as Anne's.

[ajediqueen]

The moment he says it, she does it, but she feels it necessary to point out what is likely glaringly obvious; this is her first time being incredibly intimate with a man, much less doing anything near a bed. Still, the image she pulls is the one from her suite at the palace and she tells him so.

"Mine is yours," she responds just as quietly, her fingers curling in the front of his robes before she pulls back slightly to ensure he's aware. "I've never been with a man. You're taking something precious from the most powerful family in Cerea if we do this." And then, because she wants him to have no regrets, she kisses him again. "I regret nothing."

[only_hope]

"You've given me something precious, then," Obi-Wan says. "I know we shouldn't put such an emphasis on these things as they're natural but I have never been able to do this with anyone I don't care about."

That is the precise reason that he's been with very few people over the course of his life. Every woman he's been with feels a little closer to breaking the Code because he cares too much.

He wraps his arms around her and kisses her then, gentle as he can. "I regret none of this either. I can't."