Leia Organa Solo (worshipfullness) wrote in thegalaxy, @ 2016-02-04 19:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: naboo, leia organa solo (legends), qui-gon jinn |
Who: Leia Organa Solo and Qui-Gon Jinn
When: Morning
Where: Where Qui-Gon is recovering
What: A meeting & a request & some more.
Warnings: None
Leia may have had an ulterior motive in asking to visit Qui-Gon Jinn and speaking with him in person. Every since the relative peace she made about her father on Tatooine, she had also opened up and become more receptive to learning and understanding the Force. Yes, she could ask her brother, of course she could. But here, to her delight, she had other options too. Qui-Gon was one of those options. She smoothed her shirt down and over her thighs for a moment then knocked on the door. She found herself standing to her full height, though short that she was, falling into the easy habit of diplomat and leader. The last few weeks had been difficult for Qui-Gon: his padawan disappeared into the depths of time, his entire world rearranged, and the Jedi Order he had known as his home and family for his entire life … gone. Destroyed by the boy he had hoped might save them all. Qui-Gon’s own body betrayed him, weakened by illness and injury. Infection had presented a greater danger to Qui-Gon than his wounds, once the healers had repaired as much damage as they could in those first perilous days. Though the Order as he knew it was gone, Qui-Gon bore his trials with the famed stoicism of a Jedi Master. The universe had presented him with an opportunity. He had lived. Qui-Gon would not waste that gift. Qui-Gon set aside his holoreader when he sensed someone in the hallway. Leia, he surmised, having expected her. He waved the door open in response to her knock. When Obi-Wan had been young, Qui-Gon had excused many a frivolous use of the Force when illness or injury made everyday tasks difficult. At least, he reflected in the moment before he greeted his visitor, he did not appear as close to death’s door as he had when Padme had come to see him. He still spent much of his day in bed, but at least he was well enough now to start that day by getting dressed and spend it sitting up. “Come in,” he invited his guest. “Please … make yourself comfortable.” Leia smiled as she stepped into the room, taking in the Jedi Master's appearance as he recovered from whatever it was that was keeping him down. "It's an honor to meet you, Master Qui-Gon," she said gently, moving toward his bed then sitting primly on the chair that had been pulled up near by. "There aren't many Jedi left where I'm from, and I only hear Luke talk of Master Yoda and of course General Kenobi, so I'm rather pleased about this part of these turn of events." She wasn't sure why she felt as self-conscious as she did. Perhaps it was the knowing that she was sitting beside one of the Jedi that had instructed her father, had brought him into the ways of the Force in the first place. That was still something she was struggling with, though not as heavily as before her time on Tatooine. "I understand that you knew my father," Leia said carefully, "before…" “General Kenobi?” Qui-Gon found himself asking, eyebrows raised. Granted, there was more than one Kenobi in the galaxy, but Qui-Gon doubted that coincidence was involved in this instance. Did Leia have news of his padawan? Qui-Gon had so far avoided searching for him in historical records, reluctant to learn of Obi-Wan’s fate from a holoreader, or to see the lies that the Empire might have spread. “Forgive me,” he said, a moment later. “It’s only that I knew a Kenobi.” Qui-Gon took a breath and centered himself. “Yes. I knew your father. And your mother. They were children when we met, though Padme had already been chosen as queen of Naboo.” She nodded. "General Kenobi fought with my father - with Bail Organa - during the Clone Wars. I just recently learned about my - about Anakin Skywalker as a child on Tatooine. It was a lot to take in. It's not easy for me to think of him as anything but how I knew him." Leia was hesitant to say too much, because she didn't know what the Jedi Master knew and what he didn't, if he had come from her own past. Or - however that worked. Her mother was easier to reconcile, though it was hard to imagine sometimes that Darth Vader had once been capable of any kind of love or affection. She had wondered about her mother in ways she hadn't with her father. "When did you arrive here?" Qui-Gon could understand Leia’s hesitance. He was, after all, a stranger, one out of his own time, and the boy he had known had become a man responsible for terrible crimes. That man would have been the Anakin Leia had known, rather than the generous boy who had risked everything to help a stranger. “It’s been almost a month,” he told her. “Convenient, I suppose, that the rift is in Naboo space. My padawan and I had been charged with the protection of Queen Amidala during a dispute with the Trade Federation. We found ourselves engaged in battle with a Sith during the conflict. I understand that it was Anakin who struck the deciding blow against the Trade Federation. Evidently, I should have been more specific when I told him to stay put.” There wasn't much that Qui-Gon just spoke about that Leia understood. Certainly, she was aware of some of the history between the Naboo and the Trade Federation, was aware as the princess of Alderaan and a diplomat, of much of the tense history across the galaxy. "How old was he?" she asked before she could stop herself. “Nine standard years,” Qui-Gon replied. “We met on Tatooine. Some might say it was by chance. I believe it was the will of the Force. Had Anakin been born nearer to the Core, he would have been identified early. It is likely that he would have been raised in the Temple from infancy. I had hoped that the Jedi Council would accept him as an acolyte once we reached Coruscant, but they had doubts. Anakin remained in my care, and so followed my padawan and I when we returned to Naboo with the queen.” They were right to have their doubts, Leia thought, but was wise enough not to say. Instead, she leaned forward slightly and considered how best to ask her next question. "Would it have made a difference, do you think?" she asked. "Either if he had been identified early or if there had been no doubts?" Once it was out, she shook her head slightly. "I'm sorry. I mean, do you think that the way things were playing out for you might have had any kind of impact on where he might have ended up? I don't know if you're aware, but - my father - Anakin Skywalker - he wasn't a Jedi when I knew him." “I am.” Qui-Gon bowed his head. “I know much of what happened in the years before you and your brother were born. I wish that I could offer you some assurance that Anakin would have made different choices had his life unfolded along another path. It is possible. Jedi are rarely brought to the order a an age when it is difficult for children to leave their families. Anakin was afraid of leaving everything he knew behind. Of leaving his mother. And he would have stood out from the other learners, not only because of his unusual strength in the Force, but because he was brought to the Temple late. “I fear that I failed your father, Leia. I promised that I would train him. Instead, I left him behind.” Leia was silent for a moment, and she looked away from the Jedi, off at the opposite wall. She rubbed her fingers over the back of her hand and breathed in deeply. "You know, I'm sure it wouldn't have made a difference. Luke is so adamant that there was good in him, and maybe there was, but I have a lot of trouble imagining him as anything other than Darth Vader." Tatooine had helped. This was helping. The peace she had begun to feel as she learned about her grandmother and her father's life as a young slave boy was growing. "He took so much from so many people," she said quietly, thinking about how mercilessly he gave the order to destroy her entire planet. "I've been working, this past year, a little more, to come to terms with it. I didn't have the time with him that Luke did, in the end." Qui-Gon fell silent. He still saw the boy he had met so clearly. It was strange, to think that it had been both a handful of weeks, and seventy years, since he had last seen Anakin Skywalker. He had no doubt that the darkness had overwhelmed the boy he had believed to be the Chosen One. Padme’s pain had been evident when she had told Qui-Gon of Anakin’s fate. Leia’s was evident now. “I will not make excuses for the man that Anakin became. I doubt that I will ever be able to fully comprehend what you see when you look back on his life. I can only share with you what I remember of the boy he was.” "And I appreciate that," Leia said softly. "I'm sorry that I can't see him the way you knew him." Not yet, at least.” She cleared her throat lightly and thought a subject change might be in order. She allowed the silence to stretch for a moment before looking at the Jedi again. "I'm hoping, once you're healed, that you might be willing to help me with -- I know it's a lot to ask," she tried, changing her tactic, "but I'm still working to understand the Force. I'm not interested in being a Jedi, not like Luke is, but I do want to know more about what I'm feeling, what I can do." She paused a moment. "It's fine if you're not willing, of course, I will completely understand." The change in topic, and Leia’s own uncertainty, brought a smile to Qui-Gon’s face. The way that she asked for his help reminded him of a day long ago, when an anxious learner had made an earnest plea for Qui-Gon to help him. Back then, Qui-Gon had said no. He was not so foolish a man, now. “If you will be patient with a teacher who is a little worse for wear,” he began, “it would be my honor to teach you what I can.” The Council would have had a fit, Qui-Gon mused, at the idea of a Jedi Master training an adult Force-sensitive, let alone one who professed having no intention to become a Jedi. He was sorry that they weren’t present to reprimand him one more time. Her smile brightened her cheeks. "Thank you," Leia said earnestly. "I really do appreciate it." She folded her hands in her lap. "And if I can answer any questions you might have, if you even want to ask them, about the time period between yours and mine, I'd be happy to." “You are more than welcome,” Qui-Gon assured her. “It’s the least I can do.” Though he knew, rationally, that Anakin’s fall had been beyond his control, he couldn’t help but feel partially responsible for the suffering it had wrought. For that reason alone, he would have helped Leia, but his decision also came from the potential he saw in her. She had been bequeathed a power she did not fully understand, and she deserved the opportunity to know that part of her. “Earlier, you mentioned a General Kenobi,” the Jedi Master hazarded after a pause. “Would you tell me about him?” Leia sat back. "I didn't know him," she admitted. "He served in the Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars with my father, with Bail Organa. My father asked me to seek him out when we were under threat from the Empire and Darth Vader. Actually, he's the reason I met Luke." She paused for a moment, her mind thinking back on any conversation she had with Luke about it. "I believe he was a Jedi Knight, but he died before I could meet him." Before I could meet him … Qui-Gon breathed past the fear, and, though he knew with utter certainty that he would not like the answer, he asked, “Did you know his full name? The general’s?” Leia nodded. "Obi-Wan," she said. "His name was Obi-Wan Kenobi." The fear threatened once more. Qui-Gon called on the Force for calm. It had been seventy years. He had known, objectively, that Obi-Wan might have passed far beyond his reach. Still, he felt compelled to ask. “What happened?” Leia hesitated. "I have to admit that Luke would be better to answer this than I would, but I can share what I know." She reached back into her memory, thinking through everything that had happened over the years. "Darth Vader killed him while we were escaping the first Death Star." Qui-Gon closed his eyes. The grief struck harder than he had anticipated. In finding Anakin, he had discovered the being who would be the death of his own padawan. For the moment, it was difficult to recall Yoda’s lessons, that the future was never fixed, that even those who saw visions of what could be should not take them as truth. “Obi-Wan,” he tried, but, finding his voice hoarse he paused, and endeavored to release his feelings, with only marginal success. “Obi-Wan was my apprentice.” Her breath caught tight in her chest and her heart went out to Qui-Gon at that confession. "I'm sorry," she said. "I truly am. From what I know of him, Obi-Wan Kenobi was a good man. A great man. I know Luke only has praise for him." “He was a fine Jedi. The finest I have ever met.” How strange, to speak of Obi-Wan in the past tense this way, to have somehow outlived him. It was a pain far different from what Qui-Gon had felt when Xanatos had died, or Tahl … a slow, aching grief that felt as though it had been lurking just outside the door until invited in. How many times had Qui-Gon thought he had lost Obi-Wan, only to find him later, safe, if not unharmed? “Thank you, Leia. For telling me.” "I wish it had been better news than that," she said after a moment. "But I suppose there's a lot to concern us here, to get used to." Leia considered for a moment the fact that she had children, and it struck her then, as it had other times as well, and she looked earnestly at Qui-Gon. "Do you think, that is - how does it work? The darkness. If it was in my father, is it in me? In any children I might have?" Qui-Gon found his focus in the Force, and set aside his feelings for another time. Jedi were not without emotion, but there would be time later for Qui-Gon to come to terms with his sorrow in private. Leia’s question held greater importance. “Anakin was unique. He was the only Jedi in the history of the Order to possess a midichlorian count that could not be measured. His mother, your grandmother, believed that Anakin had no father. I saw no reason to doubt her. Shmi was a kind woman. Selfless. She raised Anakin was best she could. “Darkness, if it is passed through families, is something that I believe is bequeathed through shared experience, not genetics. If the danger to you and your brother, and to your children, is greater than to an average Force-sensitive being, it is because of your great potential.” Leia wasn't certain how that response made her feel. It echoed some of her conversations with Luke and with Han, and yet she still could never shake that feeling in the back of her mind that worried her about the possibility. "Thank you," she said with a hint of a smile, though it was tight. "Han - my husband - tells me all the time not to worry about it, but it's hard to put that out of mind." “Your husband gives sound advice.” Qui-Gon offered Leia a warm smile. “Worry without action accomplishes little. But it is natural for any parent to worry for a child.” He stopped shy of telling Leia of his own fears for Obi-Wan as his padawan had grown up, seemingly in the blink of an eye. “Anyone capable of using the Force is capable of falling to the Dark Side. Even the most devoted Jedi Masters. In the Order, we did our utmost to prepare learners to resist the temptation, but, in the end, the ability to remain in the light is a matter of personal strength. Those of us who stand outside of that struggle can only offer support.” That made sense, and Leia felt herself calming a little at the thought. Not that she and Han were going to have children straight away … excepting the fact that their children are here. Children she didn't know even existed. "Well, I hope that I'm strong enough to prepare any children I might have then." Children she does have. She spread her hands out against her thighs and breathed out lightly. Qui-Gon raised an eyebrow, both at the statement, and at what he sensed from Leia. “Do I understand correctly that you learned of your children by chance? Thanks, perhaps, to the rift?” She nodded. "Yes. Han has wanted children but I don't, didn't. I don't know. But we have two. They're here, all grown. I don't know what to think." “Don’t think,” Qui-Gon counseled. “Feel. The children you will have one day are here. You cannot change that. Would it not be better to take advantage of the opportunity presented to you?” Feel. That's what Luke said. That's what she heard sometimes, to feel things. And she did feel things. It was just difficult for her to trust her own feelings. Were they feelings or were they the Force? She didn't know. "Of course it would be. It's just a lot to take in." “I know,” he assured her. “I wonder sometimes if it’s more difficult to be native to this galaxy, or to be a complete stranger to it.” Qui-Gon shook his head. “It was strange enough to wake up seventy years later, let alone to learn how.” She nodded. "And yet, it's a divergent from the galaxy I knew. At least, from what I've learned it seems to be. There seems to be a moment in my past, where paths took different courses. It's completely possible that I exist here, older, but I haven't asked around about that yet. I don't know if I want to." “There may come a time when you will have no choice.” Though Qui-Gon’s primary focus at the moment was on his recovery, he intended to use the time to learn what he could of the galaxy. “As more and more beings arrive through the rift, the chances increase of all eyes turning to Naboo. The First Order, if it is what it is said to be, will not ignore the potential power the right represents. Where the First Order goes, the Resistance follows.” Leia knew this well enough as well. She had spent her entire life fighting the Empire, and if the First Order was simply a reincarnation, headed by whomever it was headed by, she wouldn't disappear and let other people fight that battle. She knew Han was the same way. "It will certainly make for some interesting times." Qui-Gon shrugged, the cream-colored tunic he wore shifting with the movement. “The galaxy is a busy place. Peace is much more rare than one might think. Though, in all honesty, I could do with a little boredom, lately.” Qui-Gon was actually terrible at boredom, as Obi-Wan would attest were he present, but the Jedi Master had had an exceptionally eventful last few weeks. "And it would be good for you to recover fully before anything else too exciting happens," Leia offered. At that, she stood up and inclined her head. "I'll leave you to rest, and hopefully will see you again soon, Master Qui-Gon." “Of course.” Qui-Gon inclined his head in acceptance and thanks. “I appreciate that you came to visit. We will speak more later about your concerns, and about training, I’m sure.” |