The two suns set for good behind the sandy horizon of one of the most desert and arid planets in the Outer Rim, Tatooine, finally allowing temperatures to drop considerably from the dry, draining heat that characterised all daylight hours, particularly from midday onwards.
In the immense vastness of the desert, marked by dunes and sand as far as the eye could see, without the slightest trace of moisture in the air or soil, a lone figure, riding a quadruped that, closer, looked like (and was) an eopie, was slowly but surely making his way towards the Jundland Wasteland, controlled by one of the most brutal and mafia-like Hutt clans on the planet.
The individual riding the eopie, a man in his mid-30s with a few premature wrinkles on his face, had an imposing, muscular figure concealed by clothes whose sandy colour suited his surroundings very well, brownish-blond hair and beard framing his face, and two deep blue eyes filled with a pain that was difficult to describe and quantify. In addition to the numerous saddlebags that decorated the back of his mount, the man wore a belt around his waist, from which were suspended several smaller saddlebags, clearly military in nature and recalling, to the discerning eye, the just-concluded Clone War and the weaponry normally worn by members of the Jedi Order. Equalising its weight, at its left side, a tubular object, with a few simple raised elements decorating its Spartan features: it was a lightsaber, a powerful weapon in the hands of those who knew how to use it, which the man who sported it had created with his own hands after his last weapon had been lost, if not destroyed, on Geonosis almost four years before.
Four years earlier… it seemed an eternity ago, not just four years. The Galactic Republic could still delude itself into believing it boasted a certain stability, unaware of the forces that would be unleashed once and for all, especially following the clashes surrounding the Battle of Geonosis, with the ensuing Clone Wars, in which man himself would take part as a senior officer in the Grand Army of the Republic, composed mostly of Clones.
A catastrophic war in countless ways, but for Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master and General, particularly disastrous had been the whole affair concerning his former Padawan, who had ascended to the rank of Knight a few weeks after the events on Geonosis, Anakin Skywalker, corrupted by the Dark Side of the Force.
Proceeding on his journey – from what he remembered of his last visit, the planet was less than hospitable on all fronts – the Jedi continued to wonder where he had failed in his training with Anakin, whom he considered a son, a brother, a friend, and why he had failed to notice his increasingly marked drift towards darkness.
The young man had always been passionate, a trait that had become more and more pronounced as he grew up and had never really left, not even when he had definitively donned the robes of the Jedi Knight, discarding those of Padawan once and for all.
Probably in a selfish desire to respect the last wishes of the dying Qui-Gon Jinn, who had fallen at the hands of Darth Maul on Naboo some fifteen years earlier before the eyes of the then Padawan Kenobi, the Jedi had not been able to see as much as Yoda, Grand Master of the Jedi Order and also in exile after the amendment of Order 66 (corresponding to what, in later years, would be remembered as the Great Jedi Purge), had faintly warned in the young man Qui-Gon had brought before the Jedi Council so long ago.
Looking at the horizon, where the last glimmers of the twin suns were increasingly fading into a rather deep red-orange, Obi-Wan Kenobi found himself wondering if he had really done the right thing in taking young Skywalker under his protective wing, fresh from his initiation into knighthood, completely ignoring the advice and words of his more experienced and older brethren.
Yes, the choice was the right one, Obi-Wan. The voice, booming in the echoing silence of the desert, brought the Jedi back to the present, causing him to pay more attention to his surroundings: had he imagined the voice, so familiar and yet so alien at the same time? The eopie continued undaunted in its slow advance, as if no one had said anything, but despite this Kenobi still felt himself being watched.
The boy had to be trained, no matter what. And I would have done it personally if I had had the chance. Kenobi, who at that point had brought his eopi to a halt, couldn’t help but ask, although the suspicion that he knew the answer was growing stronger and stronger within him: «Who are you?»
You know very well who I am, Obi-Wan. Before you parted, Master Yoda foretold you that your training was not yet finished… Kenobi’s eyes widened slightly, the certainty finally settling: «Master Qui-Gon…?»
All in good time, my young Padawan. Now the voice of Qui-Gon Jinn, the maverick Jedi Master who had trained Obi-Wan Kenobi for a dozen years and who have vouched for the 10-year old Anakin Skywalker before the Jedi Council, was amused. Everything in its own time…
And the momentarily palpable presence of the Jedi Force Wraith Qui-Gon Jinn vanished, leaving behind Kenobi and the thousand questions the man would have liked to ask his late Master.
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