SW cut scenes and concept writing
Feb. 26th, 2014 05:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardSo I tried to write a post about how realizing that the QK 'verse might be a mirrorverse, but it is, specifically, Padme's mirrorverse made something in my brain go click, but I couldn't actually figure out how to phrase it.
When I was first coming up with this 'verse, I did a little bit of concept writing to work on characterization while I was extrapolating from canon. I don't always do concept writing -- I didn't do any for Wake, since the first thing I wrote for Wake was the first chapter -- but I do it when I'm playing with an idea or trying to build on characterization or just want to get a scene out of my head. I don't generally post a lot of it because I like working with plot when I can, but I like reading this sort of thing when other writers post it, so here is some of the concept writing + cut scenes I've written in the past few months.
*
QK 'verse backstory, Padme and Obi-Wan during the Occupation of Naboo
She found Obi-Wan sitting on one of the palace balconies, staring distractedly at the sunset over the lake. He had Qui-Gon’s lightsaber in his lap, but he wasn’t looking at it.
In the distance, the impact of the Trade Federation bombardment against the city shields was clearly visible, like fireworks at the Festival of Light.
“Have we been able to get through to Coruscant yet?” Obi-Wan asked without looking at her.
Padmé settled down beside him, folding her bare feet beneath her skirts. The stone was still warm from the sun, though that heat was fading fast. “No. Comms are still jammed.”
He nodded, apparently unsurprised. “Are the shields still holding?”
“For now. A group of Gungan refugees came in through the East Gate a few hours ago; we’ve put them with the others.” She paused, wondering how much he already knew, and added, “The Trade Federation hasn’t tried to make contact again. Captain Panaka thinks that they won’t try again until morning.”
“That would fit the pattern.” After a moment, he turned towards her. “I’ve been trying to reach Master Yoda at the Jedi Temple through the Force, but I’m not strong enough. By now they must have realized that something went wrong…”
Padmé looked at him, at the tight, worried expression on his face, and realized for the first time how very scared he was. “Will the Jedi come even if Senator Palpatine can’t convince the Senate to intervene?”
He thought about it, and finally said, “I don’t know. Qui-Gon and I were already assigned to mediate, so it was all right for us to come, but technically we’re not supposed to interfere in disputes between two sovereign states without Senate permission. Even military disputes. Especially military disputes. The Trade Federation is powerful enough that the Senate could even forbid the Jedi to interfere. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
It should have been a blow, but somehow Padmé had already known what he was going to say. If the Jedi were going to come, then they would have done so by now.
Obi-Wan picked at the fabric of his trousers and said, “If I could contact the Temple, let them know about the creature that killed Qui-Gon, then they would have to come. He killed a Jedi, which means he comes under our jurisdiction.”
“The Trade Federation will say you’re lying.”
“Probably.” He rested his hands loosely in his lap and looked off into the distance, at the shields on the other side of the lake and the blasts spattering harmlessly against them.
On impulse, Padmé said, “You could get out. There are still some fighters left. Once you got past the shields, you could claim diplomatic immunity and go back to Coruscant to bring the rest of the Jedi –”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Don’t you know how to fly?”
Obi-Wan turned on her indignantly. “Of course I know how to fly! I’m probably the best pilot here – oh, you’re joking.”
Padmé smiled. It felt strange on her face, as though she hadn’t done so for a long time. After a moment, she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she had. Before the invasion, probably. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
He was silent for a worryingly long period of time. Just as Padmé was starting to wonder if the answer to that question actually was “no”, he said, “This. What you do.”
“What’s that?”
“Rule,” Obi-Wan said.
Padmé pulled her knees up to her chest. “I’m not exactly queen over much right now.” Just Theed, and that could easily change tomorrow if the shields failed.
Obi-Wan smiled at her, his expression tired. “That’s not what I meant. Most people would have given up a long time ago. You haven’t.”
“Would you have?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “That’s not the kind of question Jedi ever really have to consider. We never have to make that call.” He paused. “But that’s not what I meant, either. You just – you believe so strongly. I’ve never seem that in someone who wasn’t a Jedi before.”
“Don’t worry,” Padmé said dryly, but she was oddly flattered by his sincere tone. “There’s still enough time for it to get all of us killed.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Obi-Wan said. “That would be too easy.”
*
Oxygen & Rust 'verse, Anakin and Obi-Wan at some undetermined point during the war
Obi-Wan, at seventeen, had been devastatingly beautiful, or at least that was Anakin’s first impression. She was bare-armed and pale-skinned, with her red hair caught in a net at the back of her neck except for the padawan braid lying against her right shoulder. Instead of her familiar off-white robes, she was wearing a light blue tunic with a long split skirt over brown pants and thigh-high leather boots. Her lightsaber hung from her belt. Even in the hologram, her eyes were very blue, her smile bright and untarnished.
“Why did you lose the outfit?” Anakin asked.
“It was impractical,” Obi-Wan said, glancing over from the couch where she was sprawled, moving the arm that she had thrown over her eyes.
“Isn’t that basically what Master Unduli wears, except with colors?”
“Qui-Gon didn’t approve.” Obi-Wan covered her eyes again. Anakin could feel the faint pulse of her headache as a dull throb behind his own temple; he rubbed at his forehead, flicking his hair out of his face with his thumb. “He believed that Jedi should always be instantly recognizable. That’s why most of us wear variations on the same uniform.”
“Is this one of those stories where Master Qui-Gon is unexpectedly conventional?”
“Qui-Gon was more conventional than he liked to think,” Obi-Wan said. Her voice went soft for a second. “This war would have scandalized him.”
Anakin could remember overhearing Qui-Gon tell Padmé, his voice very serious, “I can only protect you, I can’t fight a war for you.” And now the Jedi were fighting a war, spread out over a thousand fronts across the galaxy.
He glanced down at the holoprojector, flicking it to the next image – Obi-Wan at thirteen or fourteen, in conventional robes, with her arms slung around the necks of two other Jedi younglings. One of them was Quinlan Vos; Anakin didn’t recognize the other, a Mon Calamari girl with a string of beads instead of a braid.
“Who’s this?” he asked. “The Mon Cal girl,” he added, forming the image in his mind so that Obi-Wan didn’t have to look over.
“Teisa Nahal,” Obi-Wan said. “She died about six months after that was taken. Denovian brain fever.”
Anakin winced. Her brain had liquefied in her skull. It was a bad way to die – not that there were any good ways, but Anakin had a list of his top five ways to go and Denovian brain fever wasn’t on it.
“That’s very upsetting to hear, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, glancing over as she caught the thought. She started to sit up, radiating concern.
“What, like you don’t?” Anakin said. “Hundreds of Jedi have already died in this war. The odds are not in our favor. And don’t look at me like that, you’ll make your headache worse.”
Obi-Wan gave him a doubtful look. “You’re my apprentice, not my nursemaid,” she said, but lay back down anyway, passing her hand over her eyes again.
Anakin flicked to the next hologram – Obi-Wan, sixteen or seventeen, in the same split skirt as before but wearing a cloak and standing next to Qui-Gon Jinn, who looked about the same as Anakin remembered him. “So do you?” he asked. “Have a list?”
Obi-Wan looked at him, her gaze softening, and Anakin remembered – he didn’t know why he had forgotten, how he could have forgotten – why that might have been a bad question to ask. “I don’t, actually,” she said. She was silent, but Anakin felt the pause in her voice, and waited instead of changing the subject to something less painful.
“I wouldn’t want to linger,” she said at last. Anakin stared down at the hologram – which he must have switched to the next one, a serious-looking Obi-Wan in her early twenties holding her lightsaber ignited before her – and tried not to think of New Holstice, of Sora Mobari trying to cut herself free of the Living Force so that she could die at last.
“I wouldn’t want to be alone,” he admitted, which was a little more honesty than he had been expecting to give.
“No,” Obi-Wan said, her voice soft. “I wouldn’t want to be either.”
Anakin looked at her, then flicked the holoprojector off and went over to sit down with his back against the couch, leaning his head into the curve of Obi-Wan’s hand as she reached out for him.
“Don’t worry,” she said, and this time Anakin felt the Force stir a little, Obi-Wan’s words weighty with precognition. “Neither of us is dying anytime soon.”
AN: Seventeen-year-old Obi-Wan's outfit is loosely based off one of Dany's outfits from Game of Thrones.
*
Oxygen & Rust 'verse, how Obi-Wan Kenobi got turned into the public face of the Jedi, near the beginning of the war
“You want me to what?” Obi-Wan demanded. She didn’t wait for an answer. “No. No. I’m a Jedi Knight, not a – a pin-up model. Your Excellency, I really don’t think that this is necessary.”
The Supreme Chancellor looked gently amused. “Now, Master Kenobi, no one’s suggesting anything like that –”
“Although that’s not a bad idea,” said Elis-Daneel, the PR expert that Palpatine had brought in to, quote, “improve the image of the Jedi Order in the eyes of the civilian populace of the Republic,” end quote, which apparently translated to “make Obi-Wan Kenobi the pin-up girl of the Jedi Order, and if she could take her clothes off for the entire HoloNet, that would be really helpful.”
Elis-Daneel, who had pale blue skin, white hair, and inch-long claws on her six-fingered hands, gave Obi-Wan a critical look, her gaze sweeping up from Obi-Wan’s knee-high cognac leather boots to her elaborately braided red-blonde hair. “Lovely bone structure, good skin, great hair, nice tits –”
“I beg your pardon!” Obi-Wan said, though she couldn’t stop from taking a glance down at her own chest.
Elis-Daneel raised her eyebrows. “It’d be easier to tell without all that cloth in the way. I’ve got a friend in the fashion industry –”
“This is the Jedi uniform,” Obi-Wan pointed out coldly.
“I’ve seen Jedi wearing other clothes,” Elis-Daneel said. “I wanted a Twi’lek, but the Supreme Chancellor insisted on you.”
Obi-Wan looked at Palpatine in disbelief. “Your Excellency, my Padawan and I are deploying again in two days. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this.”
Elis-Daneel raised one hand, fingers splayed. “Six hours, Master Jedi. Tomorrow. This address. Bring your Padawan.” She held up a business card, leaning forward so that Obi-Wan could take it.
Obi-Wan looked back at the Supreme Chancellor, who had been watching the interplay with apparent amusement. “I’m afraid that this isn’t a suggestion, my dear girl,” he said. “Grand Master Yoda agreed that you and young Anakin were the best choices. You are rather notorious in certain circles due to your acquaintance with Senator Amidala and Senator Organa.”
Obi-Wan had to remind herself that strangling him would do the Jedi Order no good, no matter how tempting a notion it was. Besides, Anakin actually liked the Supreme Chancellor; he wouldn’t appreciate it either. That, and serenity was the Jedi byword. “Is Anakin’s presence really necessary?”
“A handsome young man like him? Of course it is,” said Elis-Daneel.
The only sign of irritation that Obi-Wan allowed herself was to clench her jaw, her back teeth grinding together. “Very well, Your Excellency,” she said to the Supreme Chancellor. “Is there anything else I can do for you while I’m still onplanet?”
“Oh, I think this will be quite enough, my dear,” Palpatine said, smiling gently.
“Then I need to get back to the Temple, since I have actual work to do since I apparently have to clear my schedule for six hours tomorrow,” Obi-Wan said. She twitched the fingers of her right hand, watching Elis-Daneel’s face crease in apparent surprise as the business card slipped out of her grip and floated to Obi-Wan. She caught it from mid-air and ducked it into one of her belt-pouches.
“Can you do that with something bigger?” Elis-Daneel asked, her expression contemplative.
Obi-Wan didn’t bother trying to read her surface thoughts in the Force. “The largest I’ve ever managed was a star cruiser,” she said. “A small one.”
“Wonderful,” Elis-Daneel said.
Obi-Wan rolled her eyes. “Your Excellency,” she said to the Chancellor, and at his nod strode off, clenching her fists beneath the long sleeves of her cloak.
*
Cut scene from Wake the Storm 6, Anakin and Obi-Wan's fight -- Wake 6 originally included a scene where Palpatine tried to convince Anakin that Obi-Wan had killed Padme. I really liked this scene -- I referred to it on Twitter a couple of times as the scene where Obi-Wan literally tried to kick the Sith out of Anakin -- but it ended up getting cut when I completely rewrote the opening scene to make Obi-Wan less aggressive initially.
“I have heard of your kind,” [Palpatine] said. “When Lord Vader described your death to me, I suspected what you had become. But you are weak, Master Kenobi. You have always been weak.”
Anakin mounted the pair of steps leading up from the security bay, his lightsaber held out cautiously. “You don’t talk to him like that.”
“My boy, you have no idea the things that he has done,” Palpatine said. “Shall I show you?”
“You were not there,” Obi-Wan said. “You do not know of what you speak.”
“Perhaps not,” said Palpatine. His smile grew, mocking, and unease trickled like sweat down Anakin’s spine. “But you do.”
“What are you talking about?” Anakin asked.
Obi-Wan’s mouth caught in a frown. “He’s lying.”
“Am I?” said Palpatine. “Perhaps you should ask your so-called friend who was responsible for the murder of Padmé Amidala.”
Anakin froze. “Darth Vader –” No. “You said she was murdered by the Sith.”
“But she would not be dead if it wasn’t for Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Palpatine said.
Only his training kept Anakin from dropping his lightsaber. “That’s a lie!” He turned to Obi-Wan, who was staring at him from behind Palpatine’s left shoulder. “Isn’t it? Obi-Wan!”
“I never thought that he would harm her.” Obi-Wan’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I thought that he would listen to her.”
“No!” Anakin shouted. “You’re lying!”
He swung his lightsaber up, the edges of his vision tinted red. Palpatine stepped out of the way, smiling beneficently.
Obi-Wan’s eyes widened. “Anakin, no!”
And then Anakin was on him.
Or he should have been. His lightsaber swung through the empty space where Obi-Wan had been an instant before; behind him Obi-Wan shouted, “Anakin, use your brain! This is what he wants –”
With a scream of frustration Anakin threw himself into a backflip, his lightsaber angling down before Obi-Wan blinked out of sight and reappeared on the opposite side of the chamber. “Anakin, you’re better than this! Stop, you have to stop and think –”
He vanished again as Anakin flung himself towards him; from the space by the security console he said sharply, “Look at what you’re doing, Anakin! Is this the act of a Jedi Knight?”
Anakin’s lightsaber glanced off the control panel on the holoprojector, triggering it on. Images began to flash across the projection screen – clones massacring younglings, Anakin himself cutting down Knights.
Obi-Wan’s fists closed on the back of his neck, one foot snapping up to kick Anakin’s lightsaber out of his hand. He forced Anakin’s face down close to the projection pad. “Look at him!” he demanded, his mouth close enough to Anakin’s ear that Anakin felt his breath coming in short, sharp pants. “Look what he did. You are not him, Anakin. You are a Jedi Knight. Act like one!”
“You killed her!” Anakin screamed. In front of him, the other Anakin – Darth Vader – beheaded a Chadra-Fan padawan that Anakin remembered from one of Ahsoka’s endurance training courses.
“No, he did!” Obi-Wan spat. “I was there, Anakin. Not Palpatine. Not you. She died because Darth Vader Force-choked her when he found that I had followed her to Mustafar. She died because the man she loved murdered her!”
“Liar!”
“Do you think I would lie about that within these walls, upon the graveyard of our people? Listen to the Force if you will not listen to me!” He shoved Anakin’s cheek down against the projection pad, so that Anakin flinched as a holographic lightsaber swung through his cheek before cutting down a Miraluka Jedi. It was the Knight whose death had felt in the memory field Obi-Wan had pulled him out of.
He could feel tears on his cheeks. “Padmé –”
“Is dead,” Obi-Wan said brutally. He bent close, his voice a harsh whisper, and added, “Here. Your Padmé, the woman you love, is still alive. Don’t you want to go back to her? Don’t you want to stop all this? She wouldn’t want you to destroy yourself in her name.”
Anakin sobbed out a ragged breath. Obi-Wan’s grip loosened slightly, but he didn’t let go, cautious.
On the projection pad before him, the doors to the High Council Chamber slid open, revealing a hooded figure. A group of younglings emerged from behind the chairs, the one in the lead saying, “Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?”
Anakin tried to turn his face away, tears leaking out as he shut his eyes against the images of slaughter. He could still hear it.
Obi-Wan released him, staggering back as Anakin slumped down on the floor against the console, burying his face in his hands.
“How touching,” Palpatine observed. “You see, young Anakin, but you don’t understand. Shall I show you?”
He strode forward before Anakin could retrieve his lightsaber and caught Obi-Wan by the throat, thrusting out his other hand to pin Anakin to the floor with the Force.
When I was first coming up with this 'verse, I did a little bit of concept writing to work on characterization while I was extrapolating from canon. I don't always do concept writing -- I didn't do any for Wake, since the first thing I wrote for Wake was the first chapter -- but I do it when I'm playing with an idea or trying to build on characterization or just want to get a scene out of my head. I don't generally post a lot of it because I like working with plot when I can, but I like reading this sort of thing when other writers post it, so here is some of the concept writing + cut scenes I've written in the past few months.
*
QK 'verse backstory, Padme and Obi-Wan during the Occupation of Naboo
She found Obi-Wan sitting on one of the palace balconies, staring distractedly at the sunset over the lake. He had Qui-Gon’s lightsaber in his lap, but he wasn’t looking at it.
In the distance, the impact of the Trade Federation bombardment against the city shields was clearly visible, like fireworks at the Festival of Light.
“Have we been able to get through to Coruscant yet?” Obi-Wan asked without looking at her.
Padmé settled down beside him, folding her bare feet beneath her skirts. The stone was still warm from the sun, though that heat was fading fast. “No. Comms are still jammed.”
He nodded, apparently unsurprised. “Are the shields still holding?”
“For now. A group of Gungan refugees came in through the East Gate a few hours ago; we’ve put them with the others.” She paused, wondering how much he already knew, and added, “The Trade Federation hasn’t tried to make contact again. Captain Panaka thinks that they won’t try again until morning.”
“That would fit the pattern.” After a moment, he turned towards her. “I’ve been trying to reach Master Yoda at the Jedi Temple through the Force, but I’m not strong enough. By now they must have realized that something went wrong…”
Padmé looked at him, at the tight, worried expression on his face, and realized for the first time how very scared he was. “Will the Jedi come even if Senator Palpatine can’t convince the Senate to intervene?”
He thought about it, and finally said, “I don’t know. Qui-Gon and I were already assigned to mediate, so it was all right for us to come, but technically we’re not supposed to interfere in disputes between two sovereign states without Senate permission. Even military disputes. Especially military disputes. The Trade Federation is powerful enough that the Senate could even forbid the Jedi to interfere. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
It should have been a blow, but somehow Padmé had already known what he was going to say. If the Jedi were going to come, then they would have done so by now.
Obi-Wan picked at the fabric of his trousers and said, “If I could contact the Temple, let them know about the creature that killed Qui-Gon, then they would have to come. He killed a Jedi, which means he comes under our jurisdiction.”
“The Trade Federation will say you’re lying.”
“Probably.” He rested his hands loosely in his lap and looked off into the distance, at the shields on the other side of the lake and the blasts spattering harmlessly against them.
On impulse, Padmé said, “You could get out. There are still some fighters left. Once you got past the shields, you could claim diplomatic immunity and go back to Coruscant to bring the rest of the Jedi –”
He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Don’t you know how to fly?”
Obi-Wan turned on her indignantly. “Of course I know how to fly! I’m probably the best pilot here – oh, you’re joking.”
Padmé smiled. It felt strange on her face, as though she hadn’t done so for a long time. After a moment, she realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she had. Before the invasion, probably. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
He was silent for a worryingly long period of time. Just as Padmé was starting to wonder if the answer to that question actually was “no”, he said, “This. What you do.”
“What’s that?”
“Rule,” Obi-Wan said.
Padmé pulled her knees up to her chest. “I’m not exactly queen over much right now.” Just Theed, and that could easily change tomorrow if the shields failed.
Obi-Wan smiled at her, his expression tired. “That’s not what I meant. Most people would have given up a long time ago. You haven’t.”
“Would you have?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “That’s not the kind of question Jedi ever really have to consider. We never have to make that call.” He paused. “But that’s not what I meant, either. You just – you believe so strongly. I’ve never seem that in someone who wasn’t a Jedi before.”
“Don’t worry,” Padmé said dryly, but she was oddly flattered by his sincere tone. “There’s still enough time for it to get all of us killed.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Obi-Wan said. “That would be too easy.”
*
Oxygen & Rust 'verse, Anakin and Obi-Wan at some undetermined point during the war
Obi-Wan, at seventeen, had been devastatingly beautiful, or at least that was Anakin’s first impression. She was bare-armed and pale-skinned, with her red hair caught in a net at the back of her neck except for the padawan braid lying against her right shoulder. Instead of her familiar off-white robes, she was wearing a light blue tunic with a long split skirt over brown pants and thigh-high leather boots. Her lightsaber hung from her belt. Even in the hologram, her eyes were very blue, her smile bright and untarnished.
“Why did you lose the outfit?” Anakin asked.
“It was impractical,” Obi-Wan said, glancing over from the couch where she was sprawled, moving the arm that she had thrown over her eyes.
“Isn’t that basically what Master Unduli wears, except with colors?”
“Qui-Gon didn’t approve.” Obi-Wan covered her eyes again. Anakin could feel the faint pulse of her headache as a dull throb behind his own temple; he rubbed at his forehead, flicking his hair out of his face with his thumb. “He believed that Jedi should always be instantly recognizable. That’s why most of us wear variations on the same uniform.”
“Is this one of those stories where Master Qui-Gon is unexpectedly conventional?”
“Qui-Gon was more conventional than he liked to think,” Obi-Wan said. Her voice went soft for a second. “This war would have scandalized him.”
Anakin could remember overhearing Qui-Gon tell Padmé, his voice very serious, “I can only protect you, I can’t fight a war for you.” And now the Jedi were fighting a war, spread out over a thousand fronts across the galaxy.
He glanced down at the holoprojector, flicking it to the next image – Obi-Wan at thirteen or fourteen, in conventional robes, with her arms slung around the necks of two other Jedi younglings. One of them was Quinlan Vos; Anakin didn’t recognize the other, a Mon Calamari girl with a string of beads instead of a braid.
“Who’s this?” he asked. “The Mon Cal girl,” he added, forming the image in his mind so that Obi-Wan didn’t have to look over.
“Teisa Nahal,” Obi-Wan said. “She died about six months after that was taken. Denovian brain fever.”
Anakin winced. Her brain had liquefied in her skull. It was a bad way to die – not that there were any good ways, but Anakin had a list of his top five ways to go and Denovian brain fever wasn’t on it.
“That’s very upsetting to hear, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said, glancing over as she caught the thought. She started to sit up, radiating concern.
“What, like you don’t?” Anakin said. “Hundreds of Jedi have already died in this war. The odds are not in our favor. And don’t look at me like that, you’ll make your headache worse.”
Obi-Wan gave him a doubtful look. “You’re my apprentice, not my nursemaid,” she said, but lay back down anyway, passing her hand over her eyes again.
Anakin flicked to the next hologram – Obi-Wan, sixteen or seventeen, in the same split skirt as before but wearing a cloak and standing next to Qui-Gon Jinn, who looked about the same as Anakin remembered him. “So do you?” he asked. “Have a list?”
Obi-Wan looked at him, her gaze softening, and Anakin remembered – he didn’t know why he had forgotten, how he could have forgotten – why that might have been a bad question to ask. “I don’t, actually,” she said. She was silent, but Anakin felt the pause in her voice, and waited instead of changing the subject to something less painful.
“I wouldn’t want to linger,” she said at last. Anakin stared down at the hologram – which he must have switched to the next one, a serious-looking Obi-Wan in her early twenties holding her lightsaber ignited before her – and tried not to think of New Holstice, of Sora Mobari trying to cut herself free of the Living Force so that she could die at last.
“I wouldn’t want to be alone,” he admitted, which was a little more honesty than he had been expecting to give.
“No,” Obi-Wan said, her voice soft. “I wouldn’t want to be either.”
Anakin looked at her, then flicked the holoprojector off and went over to sit down with his back against the couch, leaning his head into the curve of Obi-Wan’s hand as she reached out for him.
“Don’t worry,” she said, and this time Anakin felt the Force stir a little, Obi-Wan’s words weighty with precognition. “Neither of us is dying anytime soon.”
AN: Seventeen-year-old Obi-Wan's outfit is loosely based off one of Dany's outfits from Game of Thrones.
*
Oxygen & Rust 'verse, how Obi-Wan Kenobi got turned into the public face of the Jedi, near the beginning of the war
“You want me to what?” Obi-Wan demanded. She didn’t wait for an answer. “No. No. I’m a Jedi Knight, not a – a pin-up model. Your Excellency, I really don’t think that this is necessary.”
The Supreme Chancellor looked gently amused. “Now, Master Kenobi, no one’s suggesting anything like that –”
“Although that’s not a bad idea,” said Elis-Daneel, the PR expert that Palpatine had brought in to, quote, “improve the image of the Jedi Order in the eyes of the civilian populace of the Republic,” end quote, which apparently translated to “make Obi-Wan Kenobi the pin-up girl of the Jedi Order, and if she could take her clothes off for the entire HoloNet, that would be really helpful.”
Elis-Daneel, who had pale blue skin, white hair, and inch-long claws on her six-fingered hands, gave Obi-Wan a critical look, her gaze sweeping up from Obi-Wan’s knee-high cognac leather boots to her elaborately braided red-blonde hair. “Lovely bone structure, good skin, great hair, nice tits –”
“I beg your pardon!” Obi-Wan said, though she couldn’t stop from taking a glance down at her own chest.
Elis-Daneel raised her eyebrows. “It’d be easier to tell without all that cloth in the way. I’ve got a friend in the fashion industry –”
“This is the Jedi uniform,” Obi-Wan pointed out coldly.
“I’ve seen Jedi wearing other clothes,” Elis-Daneel said. “I wanted a Twi’lek, but the Supreme Chancellor insisted on you.”
Obi-Wan looked at Palpatine in disbelief. “Your Excellency, my Padawan and I are deploying again in two days. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this.”
Elis-Daneel raised one hand, fingers splayed. “Six hours, Master Jedi. Tomorrow. This address. Bring your Padawan.” She held up a business card, leaning forward so that Obi-Wan could take it.
Obi-Wan looked back at the Supreme Chancellor, who had been watching the interplay with apparent amusement. “I’m afraid that this isn’t a suggestion, my dear girl,” he said. “Grand Master Yoda agreed that you and young Anakin were the best choices. You are rather notorious in certain circles due to your acquaintance with Senator Amidala and Senator Organa.”
Obi-Wan had to remind herself that strangling him would do the Jedi Order no good, no matter how tempting a notion it was. Besides, Anakin actually liked the Supreme Chancellor; he wouldn’t appreciate it either. That, and serenity was the Jedi byword. “Is Anakin’s presence really necessary?”
“A handsome young man like him? Of course it is,” said Elis-Daneel.
The only sign of irritation that Obi-Wan allowed herself was to clench her jaw, her back teeth grinding together. “Very well, Your Excellency,” she said to the Supreme Chancellor. “Is there anything else I can do for you while I’m still onplanet?”
“Oh, I think this will be quite enough, my dear,” Palpatine said, smiling gently.
“Then I need to get back to the Temple, since I have actual work to do since I apparently have to clear my schedule for six hours tomorrow,” Obi-Wan said. She twitched the fingers of her right hand, watching Elis-Daneel’s face crease in apparent surprise as the business card slipped out of her grip and floated to Obi-Wan. She caught it from mid-air and ducked it into one of her belt-pouches.
“Can you do that with something bigger?” Elis-Daneel asked, her expression contemplative.
Obi-Wan didn’t bother trying to read her surface thoughts in the Force. “The largest I’ve ever managed was a star cruiser,” she said. “A small one.”
“Wonderful,” Elis-Daneel said.
Obi-Wan rolled her eyes. “Your Excellency,” she said to the Chancellor, and at his nod strode off, clenching her fists beneath the long sleeves of her cloak.
*
Cut scene from Wake the Storm 6, Anakin and Obi-Wan's fight -- Wake 6 originally included a scene where Palpatine tried to convince Anakin that Obi-Wan had killed Padme. I really liked this scene -- I referred to it on Twitter a couple of times as the scene where Obi-Wan literally tried to kick the Sith out of Anakin -- but it ended up getting cut when I completely rewrote the opening scene to make Obi-Wan less aggressive initially.
“I have heard of your kind,” [Palpatine] said. “When Lord Vader described your death to me, I suspected what you had become. But you are weak, Master Kenobi. You have always been weak.”
Anakin mounted the pair of steps leading up from the security bay, his lightsaber held out cautiously. “You don’t talk to him like that.”
“My boy, you have no idea the things that he has done,” Palpatine said. “Shall I show you?”
“You were not there,” Obi-Wan said. “You do not know of what you speak.”
“Perhaps not,” said Palpatine. His smile grew, mocking, and unease trickled like sweat down Anakin’s spine. “But you do.”
“What are you talking about?” Anakin asked.
Obi-Wan’s mouth caught in a frown. “He’s lying.”
“Am I?” said Palpatine. “Perhaps you should ask your so-called friend who was responsible for the murder of Padmé Amidala.”
Anakin froze. “Darth Vader –” No. “You said she was murdered by the Sith.”
“But she would not be dead if it wasn’t for Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Palpatine said.
Only his training kept Anakin from dropping his lightsaber. “That’s a lie!” He turned to Obi-Wan, who was staring at him from behind Palpatine’s left shoulder. “Isn’t it? Obi-Wan!”
“I never thought that he would harm her.” Obi-Wan’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “I thought that he would listen to her.”
“No!” Anakin shouted. “You’re lying!”
He swung his lightsaber up, the edges of his vision tinted red. Palpatine stepped out of the way, smiling beneficently.
Obi-Wan’s eyes widened. “Anakin, no!”
And then Anakin was on him.
Or he should have been. His lightsaber swung through the empty space where Obi-Wan had been an instant before; behind him Obi-Wan shouted, “Anakin, use your brain! This is what he wants –”
With a scream of frustration Anakin threw himself into a backflip, his lightsaber angling down before Obi-Wan blinked out of sight and reappeared on the opposite side of the chamber. “Anakin, you’re better than this! Stop, you have to stop and think –”
He vanished again as Anakin flung himself towards him; from the space by the security console he said sharply, “Look at what you’re doing, Anakin! Is this the act of a Jedi Knight?”
Anakin’s lightsaber glanced off the control panel on the holoprojector, triggering it on. Images began to flash across the projection screen – clones massacring younglings, Anakin himself cutting down Knights.
Obi-Wan’s fists closed on the back of his neck, one foot snapping up to kick Anakin’s lightsaber out of his hand. He forced Anakin’s face down close to the projection pad. “Look at him!” he demanded, his mouth close enough to Anakin’s ear that Anakin felt his breath coming in short, sharp pants. “Look what he did. You are not him, Anakin. You are a Jedi Knight. Act like one!”
“You killed her!” Anakin screamed. In front of him, the other Anakin – Darth Vader – beheaded a Chadra-Fan padawan that Anakin remembered from one of Ahsoka’s endurance training courses.
“No, he did!” Obi-Wan spat. “I was there, Anakin. Not Palpatine. Not you. She died because Darth Vader Force-choked her when he found that I had followed her to Mustafar. She died because the man she loved murdered her!”
“Liar!”
“Do you think I would lie about that within these walls, upon the graveyard of our people? Listen to the Force if you will not listen to me!” He shoved Anakin’s cheek down against the projection pad, so that Anakin flinched as a holographic lightsaber swung through his cheek before cutting down a Miraluka Jedi. It was the Knight whose death had felt in the memory field Obi-Wan had pulled him out of.
He could feel tears on his cheeks. “Padmé –”
“Is dead,” Obi-Wan said brutally. He bent close, his voice a harsh whisper, and added, “Here. Your Padmé, the woman you love, is still alive. Don’t you want to go back to her? Don’t you want to stop all this? She wouldn’t want you to destroy yourself in her name.”
Anakin sobbed out a ragged breath. Obi-Wan’s grip loosened slightly, but he didn’t let go, cautious.
On the projection pad before him, the doors to the High Council Chamber slid open, revealing a hooded figure. A group of younglings emerged from behind the chairs, the one in the lead saying, “Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?”
Anakin tried to turn his face away, tears leaking out as he shut his eyes against the images of slaughter. He could still hear it.
Obi-Wan released him, staggering back as Anakin slumped down on the floor against the console, burying his face in his hands.
“How touching,” Palpatine observed. “You see, young Anakin, but you don’t understand. Shall I show you?”
He strode forward before Anakin could retrieve his lightsaber and caught Obi-Wan by the throat, thrusting out his other hand to pin Anakin to the floor with the Force.