revivalproject | To Temba or Not to Temba

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To Temba or Not to Temba

WHO: Obi-Wan Kenobi and YOU
WHERE: Temba and Not-Temba
WHAT: Exploring and such!
WHEN: During the event
WARNINGS: None atm

[Train and Arrival]

While several piled onto the first train out of Temba, Obi-Wan hung back for a bit. He had a lot to consider after all before he took off. That included making sure animals were taken care of. That things were worked out with Padme and the twins. As well as checking in with all of his padawans. There had to be at least a little bit of a plan and some organization before he left.

Eventually though, he did board a train with some supplies to take with him. The train is largely empty, and if he's alone he'll sit by himself and stare out a window until the train goes into the tunnel. But if there's someone there, he will meander over and gesture at a nearby seat. "May I?" Because one might as well pass the time with some conversation.

When they finally arrive though he will step off the train and either look for any familiar faces or go about exploring on his own.

[The Forest for the Trees]

Upon coming into the city, Obi-Wan can't help but be fascinated by all of the life that is thriving here. It may not be sentient life, but it is life nonetheless. The wild reclaiming much of the city with huge trees that one can't help but marvel at. The Jedi found admiring the tall plant life as he circled around one of the massive trunks. Then with seemingly little effort, the man makes a spectacular jump, one that should be impossible for an average human.

Jumping from limb to limb, the Jedi makes his way higher and higher into one of the tallest of the massive trees. Eventually going as high up as he could safely, taking a moment to look out at the view before settling onto a thick branch and admiring the animals that lived there. Doing his best not to bother them. It there that he takes the time to meditate, finding peace in the Force while surrounded by all of this life. A few curious animals approaching the serene Jedi with a few sitting near him or even perching on him as he stayed completely still. The wildlife seemingly unbothered by his presence with the calm aura be put out.

[Hangar]

After his meditations, Obi-Wan comes down from the tree and seeks out other explorers. At some point he manages to come across both Poe and the Mandalorian. The trio deciding to check out a building that he had seen from his vantage point in the tree, which suspiciously looked like a hangar.

"We shouldn't get our hopes up, but if there are ships in there, it could solve the problem of our currently over crowded vessels," Obi-Wan muses as they approach the building. That is if they would even be in good working order.

[Temba]

As fun as it was to have some place new to explore, eventually Obi-Wan had to go back, at least for a time. He had promised Padme that he would help take care of the twins, which meant taking a babysitting shift for a few days. At least until she came back or another babysitter came in to take his place.

During that time though he spent most of his time around the temple. But on occasion he did take the babies with him to the diner or out on walks in the city.

[Wildcard]

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His obvious astonishment, as if Malicos' behavior is absolutely inconceivable to him, is... heartening, in a way. Growing up, the Jedi were faraway figures, self-righteous villains according the Nightsister belief. When Malicos came, they became cold-blooded killers in her mind, and he, in the end, did nothing to disabuse her of her prejudice. But all the Jedi she's met since—Cal, Cere, Ezra, and now this Master Kenobi—have started to... change her mind.

Maybe Malicos was the exception, not the rule. That's the heartening part.

"I do not know," she admits, her gaze straying slightly as she thinks back to... everything. "Perhaps he thought it was the only way I would teach him our magick." He might have even been right. Nightsisters don't share their magick with outsiders, especially men. But he'd given her an impossible choice between two betrayals: teach him magick, or let her sisters go unavenged. Young and grieving, she'd picked the former.

"I do know that he wanted power," she explains, her mouth twisting with disgust. "More than anything else. Whatever kind of general or tactician he was before, Dathomir drove him mad. When Cal arrived, he became... truly unhinged."

“I don’t understand,” Obi-Wan murmured, still completely baffled by it all. “That’s not the Jedi way.” To Obi-Wan it was distressing. To know that a Jedi Master, one thought of so favorably, would do and say such things. But then, he had seen this before hadn't he.

“Unless… he turned to the dark side.” That was the only explanation. Only those who had turned would crave power, forbidden arts, and would tell lies about the Jedi. It broke his heart even further.

The mention of Dathomir driving him mad though, that drew a slow nod from the Jedi. “Yes. Yes I suppose it would.” Such exposure of dark side energy could indeed drive a Jedi to insanity. Especially over a long period of time. Obi-Wan knew that all too well as he had experienced it himself. On a different planet, but similar nonetheless.

The dark side. Merrin has no insight there—the Jedi seem to think that's where her magick comes from, this "dark side of the Force," but to her it's only her magick. How a Jedi could turn or fall to the dark side is a mystery to her—she only knows that Malicos was a bastard when he arrived, and a mad one when he died.

But if it makes some amount of sense to Obi-wan, then she won't gainsay him. "Yes. Cal said much the same thing. That it is not the Jedi way." That's what ultimately made her trust him. A part of it, anyway.

Then she cants her head to the side, eyes narrowing slightly—not with suspicion, but rather with thoughtfulness, consideration. "This upsets you?" Her tone is partway between statement and question, but undoubtedly curious.

"Yes, it does," Obi-Wan says with a sigh. It broke his heart actually. That another Jedi would fall so easily after everything that had happened with the purge. It seemed rather sudden for him to just turn like that too, the effects of Dathomir aside. But then, he may have already had some resentment towards the order to begin with. Some did, as they didn't approve of the war. But to go so far was a terrible thing.

"It was one of our own that turned on us you know. He had been deceived and manipulated by an evil man, and then slaughtered the Jedi."

Obi-Wan's feelings on such things obviously ran deep.

Merrin is quiet for a moment, weighing his reply. She wasn't expecting him to be so affected by Taron Malicos' fall—Cal and Ezra were both quick to condemn Malicos, but Obi-wan seems to have a... sadness in him. Like it's personal.

She's less surprised to hear that it was a Jedi who betrayed his own and carried out the Purge of their people, even if it's just her gut reaction, a deep-seated bias that says Jedi are liars and thieves. But... that doesn't feel right anymore. Not after the kindness that Cal and Cere and Ezra have shown her. Even the kindness that Obi-wan has shown her.

"Why? Why destroy his own kind?" she asks, as if such an act is almost inconceivable to her. In a way, it is, because Nightsisters would rather die than turn on their own sisters. Oh, they rarely had trouble betraying others, but their family? No, never.

That question draws a moments pause and Obi-Wan’s gaze turns downward. That sadness only permeating his expression even more. A tiredness settling in his eyes.

“It’s in part my fault,” he admitted. “He was my Padawan once, my apprentice. I didn’t see, or didn’t want to see, the danger that was there. I failed to protect him from the influence of that man I mentioned.”

The Jedi sighed softly, deeply troubled and guilt ridden. “I don’t know exactly what it was that pushed him over the edge. We were separated for a time. When I left him he was my friend. Then the next time I saw him I was his hated enemy.”

Edited 2021-08-08 20:02 (UTC)

She frowns, unsure of what to make of his story. It doesn't answer the question of why, but life is so rarely neat like that. Even after all this time, she still doesn't know why her sisters had to die, why she had to be left alone as the last of her kind.

"He destroyed you too," she says knowingly. Whether it was his fault or not, she cannot say—she doesn't have the full story. She doesn't know their relationship—though she can start to guess—and she doesn't know what broke that relationship down. But it's obvious to her that, whatever happened, the man before her is in bits and pieces.

It's a feeling she knows well. "I am... sorry," she adds somewhat haltingly, but sincerely. She isn't good with words of comfort or consolation, even if she understands. Loss, betrayal, regret. It feels like none of them have been left untouched, her or the Jedi.

Obi-Wan didn’t really have a good answer for her. He was still coming to terms with it himself. He knew the how more than the why. Why did anyone hate so much to destroy an entire people? What had they truly done to deserve such a terrible fate? Why did the man he loved like a brother think that an evil man could offer him more than the people who truly loved him? It was just unfathomable.

What Merrin says next though makes him look up. The Jedi staring at her for a few moments in open pain and vulnerability. “Yes,” he said at last and looked away again. Anakin had been a part of him, and without him, he didn’t feel whole. His entire world had been shattered in a day. Everything he had known was gone. It was here that he was trying to put those pieces back together again.

Her words of sorrow on his behalf touched him though. Obi-Wan never having known a nightsister to be so compassionate. “So am I,” he replied, finally able to look at her again.

“You thought the Jedi killed your sisters,” he mused. “Has anyone ever told you who it really was?”

Edited 2021-08-10 23:55 (UTC)

If the Merrin of half a year ago, cloaked in her anger and grief, could see the Merrin of now, finding common ground with a Jedi Master... well. She wouldn't have ever thought it possible. But as it turns out, a lot can change in just a short amount of time. She can change. She supposes she has Cal to thank for this too.

His question catches her by surprise, her head tilting inquisitively. "No. I only remember an armored warrior, wielding many of your lightsabers, who led an army of droids. But I never knew who the warrior was." She was just a child, after all, and the war was a distant thing. It was never supposed to come to Dathomir.

"You know who it was." There's a strange edge to her voice that she can't quite control, and she clenches her hands in her lap. After all this time, all the lies, all the misplaced anger—is she really about to find out the truth?

That description made his blood run cold. Even if he hadn’t heard of the massacre he would have known who that was right away. There was no other that could fit such a description. A warrior that Obi-Wan had crossed blades with many times during the war.

“I do,” he says, able to see and feel the emotions rolling off her. After the lies and deception, Merrin deserved to know the truth. Of who was truly responsible for their deaths, and for the Jedi to be fully cleared.

“Grievous. That was his name.” A name that has struck fear into many. “A Jedi killer who collected the lightsabers and Padawan braids of his victims. That’s why he carried many of our weapons.” They were his trophies. Something that had always sickened him but Obi-Wan could never act on as revenge was not becoming of a Jedi.

“He was the general and attack dog of Count Dooku, a Sith Lord and leader of the Separatists. No doubt Grievous had been following his orders.”

Grievous. Count Dooku. The names aren't familiar to her, and so she commits them to her memory. Unlike the Jedi, Nightsisters have no qualms about revenge—in fact, it's practically the opposite. When one of them has been wronged, revenge is a duty.

She can feel that familiar vengeful anger welling up inside her, though it only shows in the white-knuckled grip of her hands in her lap, the hard line of her mouth and shoulders. It was her constant companion for years on Dathomir, in Malicos' company, and she knows how to temper it well.

"Why would he do this? Murder my sisters?" Her voice is cold.

Merrin was not a Jedi, and as such he couldn’t and wouldn’t tell her how she should feel. There was nothing to be done about it here either. She deserved to know the truth though. What she did with that truth was up to her.

“I believe it had to do with Asajj Ventress,” Obi-Wan told her solemnly. He didn’t know if Merrin knew her or not. Ventress had been one of them though, a nightsister.

“She had been Dooku’s apprentice until he turned on her.”

Asajj Ventress. Yes, she'd been one of them. Merrin doesn't remember her well—only that she returned to Dathomir shortly before... everything. Now that she knows her long-lost sister was involved with Dooku, the timing makes sense. The reason why she returned, and the reason why Dooku would wipe out her people... it all makes sense.

Because revenge is a duty to them. "If he betrayed her, we would have avenged her." She states it like an irrefutable fact, her gaze turning away from his, unfocusing. Yes, she remembers the commotion around Asajj Ventress' return, her taking a mate among the Nightbrothers, some mission off-world. At the time, she was too young to be involved, and so anything she learned was secondhand.

But it all adds up. They sought revenge against Dooku, and he struck back. The knowledge feels like... like a punch to the gut. More than just anger, she feels... shocked, upset. Sad. Profoundly sad, that this is what cost her sisters their lives. It all ends up settling in her with a numbness, a calmness she doesn't actually feel.

"Where are they now?" she asks, her gaze back on him, intent.

Obi-Wan nods in understanding, because yes, he absolutely believes that the nightsisters would help Ventress in getting revenge on Dooku. But it never actually happened. Ventress was killed during the war and Dooku went on. That is until…

“Dead,” he responded to her question. “Dooku was killed during the battle over Coruscant.” Obi-Wan hadn't actually witnessed that as he had been unconscious at the time. But he knew that Anakin had slain him.

“And I killed General Grievous myself on Utapau.” Just before everything that happened. Just before the purge that would change his life forever.

Dead. Both of them. Which means... she would never have her revenge on them. For her sisters. And all of that vengeful fury she kept inside herself for years and years, hinged on Malicos' false promises... it was all for nothing, in the end. Years of her life, wasted. The last thing she ever did for her sisters was bury them, one by one, and then after that...

She turns her head away, almost as if she's looking out over the skyline, some emotion lodged in her throat that makes it difficult to speak. So she's silent for a moment, breathing in and out, before turning back. "That is good. Then the galaxy is rid of them," she says finally, categorically, and she really means it. If she couldn't kill them herself, then at least they're dead all the same.

After a moment, she adds, "Thank you, Obi-wan Kenobi. On behalf of my sisters." Maybe he didn't intend it, but he ended up doing them a service by killing the armored warrior, Grievous. Their spirits will rest a little easier, with the balance righted. "And... for telling me what you know."

“Of course,” Obi-Wan says to her words of gratitude. It was the least he could do and it was the right thing to do. The Nightsisters and the Jedi were not friends, but neither were they enemies. Now both of them are nearly extinct, both at the hands of the Sith. And well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that could certainly apply here.

“Merrin, if someone hasn’t given you the invitation already, you are welcome at our temple any time.”

She might not be a Jedi, but she was a Force sensitive and she had a good heart. He didn’t think she would be likely to start any trouble. And everyone was welcome at the temple so long as they were peaceful. And who knows, though they were not her sisters, maybe she could find some camaraderie with them as fellow Force users.

The invitation surprises her—the Temple felt like a sacred place to her, the Jedi's home. Given how the Jedi considered her magick to be a part of the dark side, and how her only real connection to them was through Cal, she never really felt comfortable there. Like she was an intruder, even though...

"Yes, Cal invited me to stay there, though I did not accept." Surprise! She was the "friend" that Cal was asking about. She pauses, considering his invitation again and the kindness it was delivered with. This one, she thinks, she'll take to heart.

Then she uses magick to teleport, disappearing in a cloud of green ichor and immediately reappearing on the same branch as Obi-wan, sitting opposite him with her legs crossed in front of her. "Cal does not remember this, because I arrived after him, but I told him that... Jedi and Nightsisters do not often travel together. But survivors..." She pauses, her gaze steady. "We adapt."

She reaches out her hand for him to shake, her expression softening. An offering, if there was one. For peace, friendship, or... whatever this happens to be down the line.

As Merrin disappears and then reappears right next to him, Obi-Wan blinks in old mild surprise. He then turns to face her, listening quietly to what she has to say. Touched at what she has apparently told Cal in his future.

“We adapt,” Obi-Wan agrees. Even as much as this Jedi wanted to hang on to the old ways, to what he was used to, he knew he couldn’t do that entirely. In order for them to survive, they had to change some things. Such as him taking on three students.

“I can’t say that I like or approve of your use of the dark side,” he tells her honestly. As a Jedi, he couldn’t. That was one thing he couldn’t bend on. “But I am willing to live together in peace. To accept you as you are, and coexist as friends.”

A smile coming to his own face as he reached out his hand to take hers and shake to their agreement.

She shoots him a curious look when he mentions the dark side, though she doesn't comment. Luckily, liking or approving of her use of the dark side is not conditional to her friendship. She doesn't even really think of it that way—her magick is just magick, a connection she has with Dathomir and her sisters, a tool. She's spent nearly her entire life honing her power, learning how to control it, and she's proud of what she's accomplished.

But it's alright. She doesn't expect the Jedi to understand, just as there are many things she doesn't understand about them. To accept you as you are is a much better way to go. That she can shake on.

"Then that is what we will do," she says, giving his hand a firm shake before letting go. His smile earns one in return from her, a small one that pulls at the corners of her mouth.

And that perhaps is why he was willing to overlook it. Her magick, while dark in nature, is all she’s ever known. She didn’t use it with any lust for power, or malicious intent. She hadn’t sought it out for selfish purposes. It simply just was. It existed on her planet and her people made use of it. Far different than the intentions of any Sith.

So it’s with genuine gladness that he shook her hand. “Then I hope you might come to the temple for tea once we are both back in Temba. I would be happy to show you around as well.”

And maybe he can track down Cal too. Because they definitely have something to talk about now.

No malicious intent... might be a little too far, but who's counting? Malicos is dead, and Cal is very forgiving. For what it's worth, she does regret her malicious intent. That she used on Cal, anyway.

But that's a conversation for a different day, and so she nods her head to accept his offer, that small smile sticking to her face. "Yes, I would like that," she says sincerely, unfolding her legs and moving to stand up on the branch. The leaves sway slightly with the motion as she regards him with the guise of someone who has been surprised, and pleasantly so, her head quirked to the side.

"I am glad to have met you, Obi-wan Kenobi," she says thoughtfully, before disappearing in another cloud of wispy green ichor.

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To Temba or Not to Temba

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just wrapping this up!