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Standing on the desert mesa at the doorway of his hovel, Obi-Wan Kenobi hunkered into his old robe to ward off the night air's chill. Lean, strong fingers calloused from years of battle pushed back his greying hair. In his very bones - his spirit - he felt so old...aged well before his time, no doubt, by the horrors that he had seen. The more sane and civilized age he once had known seemed unreal now...as though it may well have never existed.
Behind him, far-distant, lay Mos Eisley - a dull, pale shimmer in the dark, with its light and warmth very far removed. In front of him lay the vast, unforgiving desert: rippled dunes blending into twisted, jagged spires of rock, all faded to grey and black as night descended.
In the distance, banthas stamped their feet and made their mournful, haunting calls. The Sand People must be roaming again and making forays nearer and nearer the settlements...but he knew they would not venture here. No one did anymore. They'd not trouble him but he hardly felt safe; for all he knew he never would be safe again. Nowhere in the galaxy was safe for him. No solace, no peace.
Twilight had fallen upon his life and he was left alone, a hermit in the Dune Sea, to suffer in silence.
Sorrow pierced his heart. He turned his gaze to the cold stars above and searched for the ones that he knew - the many star systems that he'd seen, but probably never would again. For somewhere in that vast, velvet blackness studded with a billion diamond points of light, was the dark army that, even now, stalked the Jedi and destroyed all in their path.
Coming for everyone...coming for him.
Staring into the pitiless sky, Obi-Wan knew that somewhere out there lurked his former Padawan. His brother...his friend.
No.
No longer his onetime apprentice and friend...nor the boy that he'd loved and sought to guide down the right path. No more. Anakin was dead now, consumed by fire; the lava had birthed something much, much worse. Obi-Wan must believe that he was irrevocably gone, forever lost, lest guilt drive him mad.
The last that he'd seen of Anakin: screaming, raging, suffering, and irrevocably fallen to darkness. It was a nightmare vision to haunt the Jedi Master all the rest of his days. Anakin's eyes...his voice...his fury, and his pain...
Obi-Wan dropped his head into his hands and dug his fingers into his temples; he seemed doomed, damned even, to keep reliving those moments. Anakin's awful shrieking as he was devoured by fire...the smell of charred flesh and bone...the betrayal and hatred in his eyes..."I hate you!" he'd screamed at the last, and Obi-Wan's world had shattered to ruin.
Tears stung his eyes and dropped into his scraggly beard and Obi-Wan choked on an anguished sob. It was as though his still-beating heart was torn bleeding from his chest when the Anakin he knew and loved like a son and brother was gone. With every breath, in every moment, he keenly felt the loss of their bond.
The boy with his sharp wit, bright eyes, and passionate heart - the brave, fierce, loyal Jedi knight, the Hero With No Fear - the man who loved, and was so very loved in turn - now, forever entombed by black armour. Worse than dead. One by one, he hunted and slaughtered the Jedi. All of Obi-Wan's comrades and friends, now dead at Vader's hands...and still the Dark Lord kept coming.
As he had a thousand times past, Obi-Wan silently asked the limitless cosmos the most hurtful of questions. His lips barely shaped them as his heart twisted with recrimination and loss. Why? Anakin, why? Why did this have to happen? How could you do this? Why couldn't I save you?
Still, even after all, he grieved. He dared not voice it too loudly, though, for fear that somehow An - Vader might sense it and come for him. He'd all but gutted the Temple and decimated the Order from crèche to Council. He was relentless, stalking the galaxy. Obi-Wan well knew he too was a target of the hunt, and so couldn't let down his guard until Vader would not trouble him...but that would never happen.
There were no other Jedi on Tatooine; if anyone truly sought him, Obi-Wan knew he would be easy to find. So he did his best to hide himself through the Force...and he hoped.
A chill desert wind swept around him and he shivered and drew the frayed, woolen robe tight around his shoulders. Utterly inconsolable, he stared into the empty night; deep within it he saw only an endless array of mistakes made to bring him to this point. And as the galaxy plunged further into the abyss, he couldn't avoid feeling like every single one of those mistakes was his fault. He could count a million points along the way when one choice made or not, something done or not done - even a single word uttered - might have changed the galaxy's fate and the fate of that boy he'd loved. One tiny, fleeting moment might have saved them all. Had only Fate's wheel spun a little differently, then perhaps...just perhaps...
If only he could believe it not his fault that Anakin succumbed to darkness. For years, he told himself that it was his former apprentice who'd failed and not the master.
Lies, all lies.
He knew better now.
Worse still: had only Qui-Gon lived to train Anakin, perhaps he could have succeeded where Obi-Wan had so dismally failed. Surely he'd betrayed that deathbed vow - promise me you will train the boy - and his master's faith...a realization to break what remained of Obi-Wan's spirit.
If only Qui-Gon had lived to train the boy...
He would have bestowed on Anakin enough compassion and patience to properly teach him. Only then, perhaps, Anakin might have been the true Chosen One of the Jedi...instead of being manipulated, seduced to fall, with all of his potential and power twisted to evil. All of his light...corrupted to darkness.
If only Anakin had Qui-Gon's guidance and trust, he might not have turned, and they all might have been spared. Oh, if only...
Master! Obi-Wan thought mournfully into the empty universe. His lips quivered, his expression crumpled in heartbreak. How could you leave me? I wasn't good enough! Not strong enough! I couldn't do this! I wasn't ready!
It took all he had to resist screaming into the heavens, howling his frustration and bitterness into the galaxy which cared naught at all. Voicelessly he cried his despair into the empty place in the Force where Qui-Gon Jinn had once existed. Silence was his only answer, now and eternally.
Obi-Wan clenched his teeth to keep at bay the burgeoning sob in his throat. Drawing up his robe, he swiped at his eyes and he barely stifled a soft, wrenching sound in the palm of his hand...a tiny moan, it was, that would have broken anyone's heart to hear it. But then, he had no one.
His soul ached with all of the emotion that a Jedi wasn't supposed to feel: anger, frustration, self-loathing...and an anguish too great to be borne.
He could find no peace nor tranquility in the Force, to be sure. He had given up everything to it, trusted its will, and look where that got him. Was it the will of the Force that the Jedi be destroyed - countless billions of lives lost? The will of the Force, that its Chosen One was forever lost to darkness? All this suffering and misery...was this what the Force had always intended for them? For him?
It was enough to make him lose all faith.
So much lost, and so many dead.
Friends, colleagues, the bravest of the Jedi...his only family...masters, knights and younglings, all dead, and their bodies left to rot in the hallowed halls of the Temple. Millions of innocents tortured by the Emperor and slaughtered by faceless stormtroopers in a dreadful pogrom. Everyone that he'd tried so hard to save, gone...
And Padmé.
It was too awful to think on her fate. The worst tragedy, it was, in an endless litany of them.
He remembered her unwavering courage and her strength. How she had loved Anakin more and better than anyone else ever could...how she had such enduring faith in him...and indeed, still loved him, to the very end.
Too late had Obi-Wan understood that Padme was the only thing saving Anakin from darkness.
He vividly recalled her despair and anguish over losing Anakin. The look in her eyes when he told her the dreadful truth...it would haunt him to his dying day. He could not return to her the husband she loved. He wasn't good enough...he never had been. For failing Anakin, failing her, he could never forgive himself.
He remembered watching her slip away; in an instant she was gone, and with her all hope and light in the galaxy seemed to fade...possibly forever. He recalled what the med droids claimed had killed her, but he always knew: she'd really died of a broken heart.
At the last, she whispered that she didn't blame him for what happened.
She must be the only one.
In the chill, pitiless black of night, Obi-Wan shuddered and huddled into his robes. All that haunted him seemed more awful now; everything was, in the dark. As it pressed upon him his doubts and fears became magnified a thousandfold, and his sorrows proved unbearable. His crushing guilt, a torture that he must suffer in silence and solitude.
Heaving a soft, forlorn sigh, he heavily fell to his knees. A hunched, dispirited figure was he, silhouetted by the wan light of Tatooine's tripled moons. Sand trailed through his outstretched fngers and with it all hope for the galaxy's future seemed to fade away. The promise of a better tomorrow was all but gone...impossible.
Closing his eyes and bowing his head, he felt the ache of his wounded heart and soul. Inhaled the darkness, and exhaled his nightmares and his grief. In a mere moment's weakness he wished he could simply rest and know some measure of peace...but wishing never made anything better.
Haunted eyes gazed into the darkness to befall the entire galaxy. The suffocating shroud of the Dark Side was it, bringing death and suffering on an unimagined scale. Too clearly now he saw the Dark Side, only after it stole everything from him.
As he had a thousand times past, he raised his head and mournfully stared into the endless, cruel night. He begged for forgiveness though none remained to be had. "I'm so sorry," he whispered to the memory of the beloved former Padawan, knight, and friend whom he had failed and so lost. "I'm sorry," he begged the memory of Qui-Gon Jinn and to the countless others he couldn't save. "I'm sorry," he murmured into the dark galaxy, vainly seeking forgiveness or peace from the Force. Yet, always, he found none.
There could be no absolution for him, he knew...no forgiveness...not when the galaxy lay in ruins and Anakin was forever lost...and the horror seemed unlikely ever to end.
Obi-Wan finally broke down and wept, hunching over and burying his face in his hands. Desolate, he grieved, and his heart split open along its oldest and most painful wound. He knew no surcease, of course, for there was no one left to hear or care. No one left at all.
A lonely figure, stark and trembling, he mourned into the yawning, black emptiness. Alone with the ghosts of his past...his memories and endless sorrows, his regrets and misunderstandings. Always, ultimately, alone.
He would know no peace this night...nor any other. He would never deserve it.