Epilogue – Shadows of Attack and Revenge
Anakin Skywalker sat quietly on the floor of his darkened cabin. He was very still, or at least he was trying to be. It took all his concentration to just stop from fidgeting as much as usual. He simply did not or could not understand it; no matter how hard he tried, he just could not meditate as his master had instructed.
"Maybe that is the problem," Qui-Gon had said when he had asked his master why he failed at what the apprentice considered the easiest of tasks and skills the Jedi used. "You're trying too hard."
Anakin had gone away and tried again, but he did not understand how he could try without trying too hard. As he sat pondering Qui-Gon's words, so another's words also came to him.
"There is no try,' he remembered Master Yoda telling him, but to the young boy this made even less sense than Qui-Gon's advice. So, he continued to sit in the dark aboard a ship headed towards a planet in dire need of the Jedi's aid. Anakin was excited, although he knew he should not be, but finally, a real mission. He had had dreams of being a Jedi, of walking into danger, into war zones and becoming a hero to desperate people. At last, it seemed that the life of a Jedi, what he imagined it to be, was becoming reality. It was this excitement as much as anything that prevented him from reaching a meditative state at that moment, but it did not explain his failure to meditate every time beforehand.
Anakin was so distracted by his excitement that at first he did not feel the change within the Force; the disturbance went unnoticed until it seemed to reach out and touch him. Anakin paused in mid-thought, his mind finally silent, his body utterly still as he listened and waited. Within himself, the Chosen One felt it again, a disturbance so deep within the Force that only the most powerful of Force users could have sensed it and even then only if they had been looking for it. Anakin did not know what it was, but he reached out to touch it nonetheless. It danced before him, tantalisingly close and beautiful in its mystery.
Hours later Anakin opened his eyes. He was surprised at how much time had passed. Finally, he realised, he had reached a meditative trance and it had been the presence within the Force that had led him down within himself into it. He closed his eyes again, briefly, making sure he could still sense whatever it was that lurked. He could, faintly, so subtle and deeply buried he doubted anyone else could find it. The feeling made him feel special and powerful. He had found a path into meditation and it was with a focus no one else could have.
Anakin was not the only one trying to meditate. In a ship, in pursuit of the master-apprentice team, was another Jedi. Obi-Wan sat in the cockpit of the fighter, bitterly regretting that he had been unable to obtain a larger ship. The journey would not be a long one, but Obi-Wan would have appreciated the space to meditate properly in and maybe perform some open handed forms to calm his overactive mind, because despite his resolve, the young knight's thoughts were still in disarray.
Troubles lingered in his mind still, troubles that were not cured by his decision to be with his bondmate come what may. He still worried that he would lose himself in Qui-Gon's powerful personality; that he would gradually slide away until all that was left was the great Jedi master, Qui-Gon Jinn.
But this was not his only concern, nor in truth his greatest. The distrust that lay between himself and the Council disturbed him deeply. Both sides had tried to bridge the seemingly ever-growing gap, but still he felt isolated from them, more so than when he had been alone in the Darkness. And he knew this feeling would only grow with time, not diminish.
The Chosen One, Anakin, weighed heavily on his mind also. The boy was in danger, constantly so, as he was a tantalising target for the Sith lord who remained free. A dark and desperate future lay before them all and Obi-Wan knew that he must protect the Chosen One in order to protect them all. His worry for Anakin only increased when he thought on the fluctuations within the Force and his abrupt loss of senses. Protecting Anakin and preventing the Sith from reaching his goal would be nigh on impossible without the Jedi's advantage of the Force Warrior.
On reflection it seemed that his troubles had magnified with his return, the only hurdle he felt had been conquered were his feelings of being torn in two, or having to chose between love and duty; he had chosen and in doing so realised there had really been no choice at all.
Obi-Wan tried to quieten all his worries in the cramped cockpit, trying to meditate and find at least some semblance of calm. It was while he drifted on the soothing currents of the Force that he felt it, and just as Anakin was fascinated by it, Obi-Wan was horrified. The change was so small, so seemingly insignificant, but so important and so imbued with the Dark that the Shadow could not escape from it.
The Warrior remembered his words to the Council after Naboo, 'A Jedi will fall to his will first.' That time had come, it seemed. Deep within Obi-Wan's mind, hidden from all, even his beloved, Obi-Wan saw and felt the Darkness spread to another. He saw a hooded and clocked figure reach out to a kneeling man.
Obi-Wan strained to see the face of either man, but his vision died and bled away back into the Force.
"If only I'd seen their faces," he told the Force angrily. "Following the right path would be easier."
The Shadow believed this completely, but the young boy in Obi-Wan Kenobi who's only dream had been to become a Jedi knight, who had been raised in the Jedi Temple, shuddered at the thought.
'The right path?' he quietly asked the man he had become, 'If you saw them you'd hunt them and destroy them. Killing is not the way of the Jedi, it is not they way of the Light.'
Obi-Wan did think on the voice's words, but another, stronger part of him spoke up.
'I act for the Jedi,' it said. 'I sacrifice my Light so that they need not. Yes, the right path for me, the path that would prevent my vision from becoming true.'
The boy, which was all that was left of Obi-Wan's old Jedi training, was silenced in the face is such conviction.
"I am Shadow," said Obi-Wan Kenobi, unrepentant for what he did, and what he was willing to do, for those of the Light.
"Count Dooku?" a gravelly voice asked, dark and threatening, charming and commanding.
Dooku looked up into the eyes of his tormenter and said,
"Yes, Master?"
The End.
AN: And so the end. I Hope you enjoyed Love of the Jedi. Look out for the sequel, Warrior of the Jedi, and also the final part of Jedi League.
Thanks for reading the story and I'd also like to thank Mady, my beta, for putting up with me and repeatedly reading through the fic for me every time I made a change. T.