“What does the Force feel like?”
It’s dark out, and the vast sea of stars above them glitters faintly, casting pinpricks of light into Obi-Wan’s eyes. The forest rustles with the sounds of late evening, and farther away, a muted, human hum. The company is making camp, settling down for the next night on this unnamed planet. It’s peaceful here, and when things are so beautifully uncomplicated the quiet whispers guilt into Cody’s mind. One way or another, they’ve brought war to rest beneath its branches.
“Cody, you can ask anything of me you wish,” Obi-Wan had said. “I hope you know that.”
And there was a beat of silence, waiting for Cody to say something like thank you or I understand or that means a lot. But he didn’t. The words had tumbled from his mouth unbidden, and now his tongue throbbed where he wished he’d bitten them back.
Obi-Wan leans back, slightly, fixing his gaze on something beyond the stars, and Cody opens his mouth to apologize. But the Jedi beats him to it, as Jedi often do. “What an interesting question.” His beard curves softly along the lines of his smile.
Cody ducks his head down, sheepish, but he cannot take it back now. Obi-Wan is unfazed.
“I suppose it is hard to describe, because I have never been without it,” he muses. “We teach that it flows through us - we are its instruments, in a sense.” He shifts again, turning back to Cody. There is something compelling in the depths of his eyes, lit softly with kindness and care. Cody always wondered if that was it - that constant, undefined existence - or if that was simply the way Kenobi was. Maybe it was both.
So Obi-Wan sat back, pointing towards the spaces between the stars, telling snatches of stories Cody didn’t fully understand - moments stolen from when they were younglings, learning to meditate in the crèche, ancient fables of light and dark from thousands of years ago.
But Cody got it when Obi-Wan looked into his eyes, and smiled, and gestured towards the faraway sounds of the men, in their newly-built camp among the trees. Light glowed from their tents. A fire crackled subtly, and threads of woodsmoke wisped past Cody’s nose. Someone was singing - probably Wooley - and someone else laughed and added their voice to the song. Waxer, who would be clinging to Boil’s arm trying to get him to join in.
Cody could feel the warmth from here.
And it practically made Obi-Wan glow. He drank it in like it was mixed with the air, re-emitted it and tangled the air with something indescribable. His eyes glowed with that something, his body relaxed until he just was. He reached for Cody’s hand, and his fingers tingled with life and energy and meaning.
There was something my Master used to say, Obi-Wan tells him.
It surrounds us. It penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.
Cody looks back for the distant lights of his brothers. They’re singing, now, all together, and someone laughs when someone else is purposely off-key and the fire snaps merrily like an arrhythmic kind of percussion.
There’s something warm in his chest, a careful, kindly glow. His breaths come easier, and he can’t feel the bite of the breeze on the back of his throat anymore. Obi-Wan rubs his thumb over the back of Cody's hand, and the same warmth seems to live in all of the places their skin meets. It drifts in the air with the smoke and the sounds of the forest and the nameless melody around the fire.
Nowhere, and everywhere, and all of the places in between.
One final Obi-Wan and Cody for @clonetober - I can't believe it's almost over. I thought it was fitting to do them again. I wasn't expecting to get to know Cody this month as well as I have, but I'm so glad I have. He's such a beautiful character.
I do feel bad that the rest of the 212th hasn't really gotten the love they deserve (from me, anyway). It's been easier to psychoanalyze one person at a time, admittedly; but the rest of the guys in gold are quite high on my list of priorities.
taglist: @justasigh37 @sexy-rex @handsignals
