━━━━━━ ༻ 🌄 ༺ ━━━━━━
" scared of judgement "
...
━━━ ༻ CHAPTER FIFTEEN ༺ ━━━
THEY SAY THE WORK OF A TEACHER is never really over. That a mentor's labor does not stop regardless of age, of success or failure, but rather perseveres with time, expanding and shrinking, morphing and molding itself with each student's mind that the tutor's influence has a privilege to touch. Obi-Wan Kenobi was not frightened to remain a teacher for the rest of his life, he was frightened of the plague of lack of progress instead.
That fear had been paused, if not even momentarily vanquished, first by Anakin's fruitful trip to Anope which undid some of his most destructive habits that Obi-Wan could not subdue in order to leave room for a stronger connection with the Force. A second submersion was caused by the coming of the war, turning lessons into battlefield tactics, a dangerous game which revealed warfare to be embedded not only in Anakin's veins, but in Obi-Wan's too.
It was a barbarity hidden in this crude discovery of talent in the art of war.
Very few Jedi were actually good generals and commanders when the war started. Because their training made them seekers of peace, rather than defenders relying on violence against machines, very few in the Senate trusted Jedi could raise above their rules and loosen up the collars of their moral stones. The scales of expectations have been changing since and, one year into the struggles of battles, Obi-Wan was uncertain of whether the necessary actions excused the nature of those changes to their lessons and ways.
Padawans knighted on the field, trained directly onto battlefields, living amongst soldiers and violence, instead of temples of tranquility. It was almost inevitable for Obi-Wan's fear of stagnation to be revived... Gradually, through Ahsoka and all the padawans he saw baptized in the fires of battle, he felt they have strayed too far. The second Anakin's fiery nature shone through the other day, Obi-Wan had been suffocated with that fear stronger than ever.
He's been harboring a suspicion that there was more to the cordial care Anakin displayed for Eden since all the way back before Geonosis. The war has given him too little time to actually trace that hunch further, follow it to its root and help his apprentice build a line of distinction between his affections and his duty to justice and the Order. Now Obi-Wan sensed there was little left for him to do in order to spare them both the heartache and the stinging consequences.
He wished not see his student whom he loved like a brother fall in a storm of emotions and he could not bear the thought of Eden being ripped apart in that carnage either.
A heavy sigh was Obi-Wan's faded companion whilst walking at a slow pace down the interminable corridors of the Jedi Temple. Carried between its pillars and over its polished floors, his mind was pounding on these thoughts, sustaining a crease on his forehead. It was so early in the day that the pure light of the sunrise came from somewhere way behind him, on the floor below, where the main hallway opened up to the staircase and the Processional Way. Ahead was a golden hued obscurity, reflected off of clean surfaces in a radiance that filled the silence with a distant hum.
The halls were quiet. More quiet than they would have usually been, even so early in the morning, and far more silent than Obi-Wan remembered them to be years ago, when he was but a youngling too. His light steps were the only taps for miles and miles of walking and though the Force still murmured in the walls, it seemed even that energy was holding a eulogy to the losses of war.
Eventually, he came to an even slower pace, taking a turn onto a side hallway and coming up to Anakin's room. It was there that Obi-Wan pushed his morning contemplation aside for a much more significant and urgent inner debate: How should he approach Anakin about this?
The matter at hand was that Obi-Wan had managed to bargain for Eden to be trusted with walking around the temple only, under supervision, however, that was only possible through exploiting what he already knew: the trial would not happen for at least another three days, if not more.
By acknowledging the instance out loud, he had been left with no reason to deny a short errand in a different system, where a political ally requested aid while setting up their ground shields on a military outpost for the Republic. Anakin had been allocated to the mission, but Obi-Wan had a growing suspicion helping Eden out has not yet re-earned his forgiveness; something told him his apprentice would not wish to leave Coruscant until the trial is past, until he knows her safe.
All inquiries and debates were silenced at once when Obi-Wan raised his hand to knock on Anakin's door. He sensed a strong rhythm to the Force pausing his action. Something made the air feel strangely palpable... A tickling sensation on his palm lingered so bizarre that it gave him a deja vu of a myriad of instances, all washing over him like the streams of a waterfall, refreshing and blissfully drowning, all at once.
In a groaned flash before his eyes was elicited a spectacle of memories: he saw Satine and the sight toppled him over, palm grasping the door and his head bowing forward with eyes wide in shock at what the Force present there truly reminded him off. This was no mere vibrancy of meditation, and it was not the frequency of the temple itself either, for even amplified, it could not even dream of mimicking to such extent the kneeling effect walking into the Echo Forest of Anope for the first time had on Obi-Wan.
He knew, at once, there and then, Eden was on the other side of that door, with Anakin, and that they were...
Obi-Wan blinked away that whisper of the Force. He stepped away from the door, taking his hand back, but letting it suspended in the air, trembling with a shard of hesitation. "Oh, Anakin...," he couldn't help his mutter falling off his lips, while his outstretched hand closed into a fist and finally lowered.
Everything that had happened was finally unfolding before his eyes... everything but the nuance of context, that single brush of paint that changed it from day to night and from blasphemy to reasonableness.
Last night had culminated for Eden in the worst way possible; her already pained mind and tired body passed the tension into her subconscious, so that, when she had finally laid down in a bed, despite falling into a deep sleep faster than ever, she had plunged right in the open arms of a nightmare too. It was the strangest dream she's ever had and it started with a world on fire.
The flames dancing on the sky reflected darkness and crimson over the atmosphere itself. Its density gripped at her very skin at once. Such malignant non-light undulated on the ground beneath her feet that as she watched, taking slow, careful steps, it dazed her to a nauseating confusion. Eden could recognize the floors of the Omni Sanctuary anywhere though. Seeing that she recognized being on a balcony, an urge came to her to look up and witness the scorch of the heavens for herself.
A ring of fire has been made of Endia as Nerermese covered its daylight into darkness.
Eden felt her eyes sting, but at the very same time an unexpected and inexplicable ache in her abdomen bowed her over, hands grasping at her stomach. Her eyes closed to a fade of the scenery, conjoint with her echoed yelp of pain. Plunged into darkness, that very pain became deceiving and moved until she felt the burning of the eclipse right into her chest.
Her eyes opened again. Sick to her stomach, blurs of sight now painted the picture of the blue stream of an all too familiar lightsaber piercing her heart.
She was dying.
She could feel the dreadful claw of death, the chill of perdition that coated even the molten energy of the saber into a freeze. But despite the heaviness of terror, she still struggled to trace down the blade to its wielder with a squint. Something broke in her when she saw the mechanical build of the hand gripping the lightsaber and pushing it further into her.
Such a nightmare had made Eden gasp herself awake, so terribly frightened that it was almost thoughtlessly she left her bed entirely. Without any sort of hesitation she had compelled the clone at her door to let her walk the halls and tell no one of her absence. Pale as a ghost, she had moved silently and instinctively towards Anakin's room and it was not until he let her inside that her numbness unclogged, releasing her from the stagnation of a fearful shell. She had stepped forward for a tight embrace, a desperate one, where her rapid heartbeat drummed against his bare skin soundly.
"You're shaking...," Anakin had noticed immediately, his whisper lost by nature and his hands climbing up her back to hold her as tightly as she required and he too desired, fresh off a restless, short slumber. "What's wrong? What happened?"
"I...," Eden had hummed then for a moment, rather puzzled with her own approach after he had just momentarily helped her heart decelerate its rapid beats. Upon entrance in his room, she had not noticed the return of his shirtless sleeping habit, but now that the door was closed and Anakin took a step back to get a better look at her, if her gaze slipped -and it did plenty-, it would descent on his partial nakedness. She may have traced her stares on his bare skin before, but she did so with the tact of an acquaintance, while now, a knot in her throat formed.
They haven't been mere acquaintances for a really long time.
The sight warmed her cheeks to even think of it, then threatened that glimpses would speed up her heartbeat once more, so Eden look away, towards a small window in the room covered with blinds. Beyond it she could sense the shriveled presence of the city's lights.
"Coruscant is louder than I thought it would be," she murmured to him, a sigh softening a breath out of her. The feeling of Anakin's hands lingered in a slow massage from her shoulders to her elbows and back up her arms again. "The city feels so empty though. Full of metal, it almost seems dead, nothing but a giant tomb in which to walk..." Words heightened a certain grimness on her features, until eventually, Anakin had to pick up her chin and remind Eden wordlessly to look at him.
If she ever felt lost, she could look at him, because he knew, stranded without a compass he would be trusting her too.
The climb of her gaze, the seeking of it up his mechanic arm... She was almost reminded of the chill of the nightmare, but once their eyes met, she breathed out her question nonetheless. "Do you think I can sleep with you tonight?"
"Of course," Anakin didn't miss a single beat answering her. He stepped aside in quite a fret to check whether or not his bed was in a decent state despite his previous restlessness in attempts to sleep deeply. He was glad he didn't, because had his sleep been as deep as he wanted it to be, he surely would not have heard Eden's knock. "Get comfortable. I'll be with you in a second," then his fret was passed onto looking for his shirt, to wherever he has discarded it in his exhaustion.
Out of nowhere, Eden took his hands right when he had located his shirt and was about to leave her side to get dressed. "I'm the one invading your room. You don't have to change your sleeping habits for me," she mastered a faint smile, the best she could give him whilst tired, "I don't mind."
Had the hour found them a little less fatigued, Anakin knew his heart wouldn't have just skipped a beat, but it would have gone properly wild instead. The way she looked at him for a mere second, a glint in her eyes he couldn't be entirely sure of between his own delirious sleeplessness and the darkness of the room, had been sufficient to bring an ache of weakness to his knees. But he was aware all he could do then was merely chuckle faintly.
Especially since he had a feeling this was not nearly all that brought her to seek his room so late at night.
He did not inquire again until they've settled in bed, facing each other. After their shifting had ceased and with it the bed's creaking too, Anakin watched for Eden's eyes to close. His right hand's mechanic thumbs brushed in a controlled soft caress the hair off of her face, guiding it behind her ear. "What troubles you?" he kept his tone quiet, close to a dream.
Anakin's voice was a beautiful dream to Eden; that warm embrace that hugs the soul through the night, keeps it safely tucked away in a corner the mind wishes to remain into forever.
Eden opened her eyes, lifting them to meet Anakin's only slowly enough that she could actually think through her words. "You would never hurt me..."
Something in his chest ached, stopping his hand to indulge with the feeling of her temple's skin instead. "Is that a question?"
"It's the truth I almost forgot," Eden softened her gaze and relaxed beneath his touch. "You are the only one who would never hurt me."
She left room for no contradictions, no further inquiries into how she had forgotten such a blatant fact and frankly, no space between them either. Shifting herself closer, Eden embraced Anakin tightly under the cover of his blanket. Coming right beneath his lips, he couldn't help but leave a sweet peck on her forehead, before compliance kicked in and he wrapped her warmly in his own embrace. Still, his mind lingered on concern as to how she could ever have forgotten. Did she not know yet what he was willing to do for her? What emotions she stirred in him...?
"Of course I would never hurt you, I-" Anakin stopped himself from following his wit's instinct. With her ear so close to his chest, Eden heard his heart stumble in trepidations. "I care about you too much to ever be able to live with having hurt you in any way..." That reassurance was enough for her to cast aside the shadows of her nightmare, but it hurt Anakin, it struck him with a sting; he knew the truth to be more raw and intense than a mere 'care' and though he was confident his actions could speak for themselves, some humane pride wished for him to frame his passion into words as well. Into every plane of existence, in fact. He would write down, in blood or in coal, he would puzzle it into the force if needed too.
They remained in that closeness through the morning, finally in a deep and satisfying sleep, shifting the very frequency of the Force surrounding them through a spiritual merge that was what startled Obi-Wan into stepping away from the door before he woke them up. He's had too much experience with the temptation of attachments in love not to recognize the effect of it in the very air before his eyes, in that unseen plane veiling everything through the Force. His left hand could not resist climbing up to his face, brushing over his mouth and beard, debating the morality of ignorance while already taking another step away and deciding on which's scale he would sit his heart.
Master Kenobi closed his eyes so that Obi-Wan found it a lot less harder to turn away and pretend he didn't already know exactly what sort of emotion bridged between Eden and Anakin such that his apprentice would lash out again, wild as an animal. Of course he had been furious: the woman he loved had been imprisoned before his eyes and he had always found it difficult to separate emotion from action.
"Where is Anakin?" Clone Captain Cody inquired once he saw Obi-Wan approach him and his own squadron in the docking area. In his eyes, the General looked paler than before and as soon as he lifted his gaze, he seemed even scarred; like he's witnessed the opposite of a miracle, that crude thing for which they had never even devised a word in an attempt to avoid it happening time and time again.
"He won't be joining us on this mission anymore," Obi-Wan informed, finally finding strength to release the tension from his shoulders. His jaw however clung to it, bringing roughness to his tone. "I feel he needs a longer rest after Mion still."
"Understood," Cody nodded.
The mission was not unachievable to the combat troops under General Kenobi's command alone. A single downside to this adapted plan was that they would have to push against the deadline of being back in time for Eden's trial such that indeed, she would not be missing any friend in the Council when it happens.
Days passed them by as fast as they did Anakin and Eden on Coruscant. One day was bliss, a second was a confirmation that they should have never parted ways in the first place. By the third day, Anakin whispered to her between his short Jedi Knight duties that perhaps it would be possible for them to push during the trial that she remain there, on Coruscant, since it was so obviously clear that Eden did not wish to go back to her imprisonment on Anope.
She missed her planet more than she thought she would, but Anakin was right. Despite the Force's palpable weakness in this supposed Jedi Temple, leaving her with a spiritual unease, she felt safer there, above a metal city glistening in warm lights, than in the solitude of any part of Anope's. A battle between what she glorified through a sentiment of missing and what she knew was the pain of loneliness awaiting her in that place ensued and ended on countless accounts.
The third day passed and the fourth came along, the sunrise finding Eden walking through the hallways by the guidelines Anakin had given to her in a hurry, while trying to make it on time to his training with his own apprentice. Apparently, both of them were prone to sleeping in as long as they were sleeping together, some sort of addictive little habit built on Anope and only temporarily interrupted. Perhaps they've simply missed each other too much for their bodies and minds not to find gratification in being close to one another when at their most vulnerable, when even their breathing could fall in sync.
Eden was certain their little nightly secrets were partially to blame for her growing confidence that remaining there was something she desired, should the trial go so much in her favor that she could make demands. During the past days spent there, she was made aware the council was struggling with reading through what little their archives still held about the ideas behind High Emissaries. Domes of rules as old as civilization in the Galaxy, reminded them that what has been well hidden was done so at the expense of tradition; they had to recall the old ways, from the High Republic and even beyond that too, all so they could eventually make sense of the situation Eden was in and what they were expected to be judging her for in the first place.
Though she could not blame them for forgetting such a rarely used piece of tradition, she was shocked nonetheless that remembrance was only glorified by High Emissaries, and not the Jedi too. It felt at last that the High Emissaries had to remember what the Jedi were not willing to, while the latter had to stain themselves in battle so that the Emissaries did not have to. It was a balance to that idea, Eden had to admit, though its equality was fragile and perhaps susceptible to persuasion.
Sleeping and resting have helped her recover from the chaos and madness of her escape. With the strain on her mind loosened away, reason has been nurtured back to the front of her judgment and Eden could even see hope in what Anakin proposed be their goal out of the trial. She was almost entirely certain that if she was given the opportunity to speak, she could paint the Council the precise picture which would allow her to stay and help.
To build her case, so to say, she had asked Anakin for directions towards the place within the Jedi Temple that he personally considered to be its energetical center. He sent her to the Garden of Meditation, one of the many at the very least. With his guiding points being voiced in a haste from the perspective of someone who knew the temple inside out, as well as due to Eden's own hurry to find the garden convincing her she could trust in the Force to lead her to their energy, she retained very little of the information she was given regarding their location, thus, she soon found herself completely lost.
She's walked for what felt like hours before finally deciding to stop and look back at the clone unfortunately tasked to tail her everywhere, albeit not without their consent. The first guard had been changed to a volunteer, namely Crusher of the 27th Squadron, whom Eden has made sure to clear of any charges of being compromised. She reassured the Council that the 27th Squadron were doing their job until she interfered with them, going as far as claiming the lie that she manipulated them into compliance, rather than earning their trust in the long run. "Do you know where these gardens are supposed to be?"
Crusher seemed startled by being so directly addressed all of a sudden, "My lady, I am as lost as you."
"Great," Eden sighed. "Then back to walking around it is. How come there are so few people around? It feels like being back home, where hardly anyone wants to cross paths with everyone else, because oh, solidarity brings clarity or whatever..."
"The war has engaged a great deal of the Jedi on field action," Crusher explained. "I heard most battalions are lead by a Jedi or even two." Hope was in his voice and what it hinted towards made Eden smile, dream-bound. Her attention had been diverted towards that silly dream such that the second her hands joined behind her back, she bumped right into someone coming from a corridor intersecting theirs, someone she didn't sense nor see in time to avoid the rather hurtful impact.
That, she thought, would leave a bruise.
Crusher flinched forward, but the stranger was much quicker to react, steadying the girl and himself by placing his hands on her arms, close to her shoulders. "There, child. Apologies, morning meetings have clouded my most polite instincts of minding my step. And," the stranger, proven to be an old man, straightened his posture as much as he could, stepping away, "to be quite honest with you, there are usually far lest Jedi walking around in the middle of the week."
Though he's spent much time away from the Republic, Crusher was not yet as estranged from the governing power not to recognize who Eden has bumped into. The clone soldier straightened up and saluted.
"At ease, soldier," the old man lifted his hand towards Crusher, a crooked smile playing across his fair and wrinkled features. Though, having notice the clone, his eyes returned with a different hue in them to Eden, "You have an escort. If you are a Jedi, I haven't seen you around before."
"I'm not a Jedi," Eden shook her head, more than a little confused about who she actually bumped into.
"Oh," the man raised his eyebrows. "Then what is your business here, might I ask?"
"I do not think I am allowed to discuss it, sir."
"Not even with the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic?" he seemed bemused, only as the realization settled in on Eden's features driving her to a near shock, his amusement turned more obvious with a relaxed laugh. "Don't worry your mind any longer upon it, child," Sheev Palpatine was adamant in dismissing any tension at once. "The Jedi hold many secrets from the Senate, as it is expected of them. That is in fact the only secret they cannot keep about themselves. And as much as I did love making your acquaintance this morning, I must take my leave now," he took Eden's right hand into his and though his touch was as frail as that of an old man's, a wince in her arm made her have to resist a flinch and a grimace. "I hope your business with the Jedi goes well," the Chancellor smiled, then let go, "whatever the business is. The Temple could use some of your radiant youth these days, when one could hardly tell this is a temple at all."
"Thank you," Eden murmured, partially too stunned to spare any more words. She didn't expect to meet the Chancellor; though her understanding of politics was brief, even after Anakin had spent hours on end on Anope trying to make her understand its structure, she knew this much: he was a man of importance to the governance of the galaxy.
"Huh," Crusher hummed, his stance relaxing once Chancellor Palpatine distanced himself from them enough to be out of hearing range.
"What?" Eden questioned his puzzled sound, though personally still rather fragmented in presence too.
"The Chancellor's personal guards are not with him," he noted.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Eden's nightmare? 👀 should we talk about it?
&& because this chapter was pretty packed and the next one will be Eden's trial, here's a 🌟special🌟 author's note in which I share some of the moodboards I have made for this book & what are my thoughts behind them.. Feel free to share your interpretation of the pictures too if you want (I encourage this).
Anakin & Eden
featuring the eclipse which is so important to them and basically the visual hints that have inspired the nightmare plot point beginning in this very chapter (the mechanic hand, the torching sky..)
Eden & Ahsoka
whose friendship I will hopefully have time to develop throughout this act, after the trial arc .. lots of philosophical talks with them have already been planned but ya know, plans change depending on how stuff develops naturally in the story
Crusher & Eden
Though I have made this moodboard at first with Rex in mind (and he still does fit it a lot because he will have plenty of scenes with Eden too), I feel this is very much fitted for this chapter and the idea that Crusher 1) saw Eden on their Destroyer and thought she was a ghost manifested by a star (like how cute is that) & 2) he volunteered to be the one looking out for her in the temple.
Anakin & Eden
Yes, again them because they are the 🌟main characters🌟 obviously. "From Eden" by Hozier is truly such a them song and let us all pretend that the two pictures with them in the moodboard are from their wedding 💖
Alright, that is all for now. Stay tuned for the next chapter and may the Force be with you all !!