Only the Thorns

A Vignette by LuvEwan

A conversation between lovers. Response to the Obi-Wan Character Workshop romance challenge.

PG

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. Title taken from the Billy Joel song 'And So It Goes'. And I know, I shouldn't have included the entire song, but I love it so much. It was the total inspiration for this. Well, that and a Ewan wallpaper.

In every heart there is a room

A sanctuary safe and strong

To heal the wounds of lovers past

Until a new one comes along.

I spoke to you in cautious tones

You answered me with no pretense

And still I feel I said too much

My silence is my self defense

And every time I've held a rose

It seems I only felt the thorns

And so it goes and so it goes

And so will you soon I suppose

But if my silence made you leave

Then that would be my worst mistake

So I will share this room with you

And you can have this heart to break

And this is why my eyes are closed

It's just as well for all I've seen

And so it goes and so it goes

And you're the only one who knows

So I would choose to be with you

That's if the choice were mine to make

But you can make decisions too

And you can have this heart to break

And so it goes and so it goes

And you're the only one who knows. --Billy Joel

The alley is a spindly little connector, linking slum to slum, in an ever-loosening path of cobblestone. Every step uproots dust, so to walk through is to breathe the ghost of yellowed yesterdays, to watch ash fog around your feet.

And, for some, it begs to wonder. Who else has traipsed this dismal slit of space? Did they travel when it was new, and the ground was polished, catching the reflection of the sun? Or did they have to dash through, hoping to outrun the threats lurking in layers of shadow, in their haste pressing the grit further into the cracks?

I'm here now, and it is neither pristine nor frightening. I'm strolling through the portal that will bring me from one neighborhood to the next, to the panorama of ramshackle houses and primitive, faded transports with shattered windows.

I pause, pulling the cowl from around my face, to listen to the soft cadence of children's laughter, pulsing bright in the star-littered darkness. No matter what world, what culture, what caste, a child's laughter is the same mixture of abandon and glee, perfect in its innocence.

I hear it often, as I pass groups of toddling crechelings, or initiates. It resounds in my memory, rumbling from the throat of the boy who forever sits at my core. Sometimes it's Anakin. And other times, I think it's a phantom of my own childhood, come to remind me of what we all are, underneath the wear of years and cruelty of circumstance.

I stare up at the nothing of the sky, the void bleeding into life, imbedded by the occasional white spark. The moon is somewhere. It must be, acting as the cyclops of midnight, one wide, lusterless blue eye.

But for now, there is merely mine, blinking against a cloud of grit. No one else is here. If I had imbued the local refreshments, I might have made the observation that this corridor is comparable to the life of a Jedi. Always moving, assignment to assignment, bearing terrain made rough by those before us. Strangers. And only the echoes of laughter, from distant others. Borrowed mirth.

Thankfully, I'm quite sober, and loathe to entertain those figurative notions that the Order is so enamored of. A hard life, yes. Thankless, indeed. Lonely? Definitely. But there is hardly time to script those mournful, inspiring, desolate verses.

There is always work to do.

So it's confounding that I'm caught in this musty speck. My limbs are weighed, and the task that awaits me once I've made it to the mouth of the alley has lost its urgency.

The peeling, sun-blasted paint on the wall smells of mildew, but I lower myself anyway, and prop my back against the crumbly brick. My knees settle at my chest, and I loop my arms around them, hands clasped together.

A wasteland. That's what this place is called, by the well-to-do sect. Rumored to contain former criminals and families with bellies left half-full by food sparsely provided by the government. When I was dispatched to the area, I was warned to keep one hand on a weapon, and both eyes keenly focused.

Interesting, that I've yet to be disturbed.

I sit in silence for awhile, watching random scraps of memory play behind my eyelids. For the first time in…a long time, I am without attachment or responsibility for another life. I'm not a teacher, and certainly not a student, anymore.

My lessons have been learned, and transferred to another mind. The ceremonies are over. My footsteps echo solitarily.

And so I know it is now that she will come to me, as she always has.

"Doesn't sitting that way hurt your back?"

I smile, tipping my head, trying to see more than silhouette. "Now that I think of it, yes."

"But you don't move."

I shrug. "Not worth the effort. Besides, it's my personal rebellion."

"Against what?"

"Against my age." I watch her move toward me, the curvatures of her body wavering out and in, never stable, never distinct. A morphing shadow, forever teasing.

A warm chord of laughter is stroked in the dark. "It won't make you younger, Love."

I find myself reaching, stretching out my fingers toward the insubstantial mass. "Sometimes, illusion can be as satisfying as the real thing. Wouldn't you say?"

Her touch grazes along my shoulders. "Who says this is illusion?"

My lip curls at the vein of indignation in her endlessly evolving tone. "I walked in here alone tonight."

"But there's tomorrow. And another place. Another situation, from which anything can arise. Maybe I'll be there."

"Maybe." I admit, in a hush, watching the darkness shift and flex. "But maybe that would be worse."

"How?"

I crane my neck, and see the diluted mask that conceals her face, tinged by moon glow. It pierces my chest and strangles my breath. "Tomorrow doesn't change what I am."

The conviction is damnably sweet in her voice. "And it doesn't change who I am. You hear the happiness of children, Obi-Wan, and wish it were your own. That they were your own."

"Dreams pass in time." I dictate, from one of my Master's favorite lectures. For a fleeting moment, I accuse myself of hypocrisy, for citing a mantra I claimed to be weary of.

Ethereal fingers caress my face, and I lean into them. "But fresh nights bring new dreams." She says. "Time goes on and so do they.

"Unless…you don't want me anymore."

I sigh. She knows what I feel, the yearning rooted in the soil of my soul, independent of change or death. She knows everything of me.

And yet, we have never met, never touched, never spoken, outside of the conjured fantasies of my mind. As years turn me young to old, gold to gray, I suspect we never will.

"I'll always want you." I murmur, quivering inside. A shriek of laughter shines, somewhere off in the neighborhood, and I turn slightly toward it. "I'll always want them." I look down at my hands, and for an instance, wish they weren't so deeply lined and weathered. That I had used them for other things. To love, instead of protect the love of others.

It frightens me, even when I know my heart, with the Jedi, is not in peril. It frightens me, because it tells me, in the glances at her indescribable features, the prolonged pauses at the creche, that my capability to endure the pain will extend into eternity.

I will always hold that anguish. It won't disappear, it won't send me into explosive hysterics.

It will simply be.

"Where will you go, when you leave here?"

I rest my chin on my knees and nearly smile. "I don't know."

"I'll go with you."

"I know."