Darth Revan AU part 2
Anakin had never known his master as well as he would like to think.
Part of it had been typical childhood self-absorption. How could anyone have an inner life as rich as his, when everything he felt was so sharp and immediate and overwhelming? The Council was so critical of him, the other padawans jealous of his strength in the Force, his subjects either too easy (astronavigation, piloting, engineering, physics, saberplay) or too dull and complicated (diplomacy, languages, meditation....)
No one else could understand how hard it was to be Anakin Skywalker, least of all Obi-Wan Kenobi, the consummate Jedi. Obi-Wan was the perfect master, skilled and wise, and Anakin couldn't help but resent him for it. Sometimes, when he was too angry to release his emotions like his master always nagged him to, he wondered if Obi-Wan was worried about Anakin overtaking him, and that was why he was so critical, so insistent that Anakin bend to his will instead of the other way around. After all, wasn't the master supposed to learn from the student?
And Anakin was no ordinary student. Before his death, Qui-Gon Jinn had told him he was the Chosen One. Only Qui-Gon believed in Anakin's inherent worth. Only Qui-Gon knew that Anakin was better. That he was going to be the most powerful Jedi that ever lived. That he would defeat the Sith and bring balance to the Force.
Obi-Wan was jealous, because Qui-Gon had known that Anakin was the superior student, and that was why Qui-Gon had tried to cast Obi-Wan, the perfect padawan, aside for a slave child. No matter how kriffing perfect people said his master was, no matter how obviously the entire Temple admired him and the Council hinted that they wanted him to join them, Qui-Gon had still known that Anakin--too old, too angry, too everything--was stronger. And Obi-Wan had known it, too.
Anakin didn't really think he was the Chosen One... but sometimes, after Obi-Wan treated him like a child or scolded him for stupid, meaningless little mistakes... Anakin comforted himself with the fact that he could be something that Obi-Wan had no chance of being, no matter how much better he thought he was.
Marrying Padme had only cemented that for him. Obi-Wan was too frigid, too bound to the code, to understand love. How could passion be wrong? He and Padme belonged together. The way she made him feel meant everything to him. He'd liked having something that Obi-Wan didn't. He had a wife and he was a Jedi, already incredibly skilled despite not being knighted yet. (No doubt because Obi-Wan didn't want his student to surpass him.) He'd liked knowing that Obi-Wan would never be loved so deeply. Who cared that he was admired far and wide? Who cared that he was on track to be the youngest council member in a century? Who cared that he was the perfect Jedi? All that was meaningless when Anakin was more powerful and more deeply adored than Obi-Wan could ever be.
Instead, Anakin pitied him. He loved his master, of course he did, but in matters of the heart and the flesh Anakin was far more experienced, far more wise, than Obi-Wan could ever be.
Then it all came crashing down after his long-awaited knighthood, when the Council offered Obi-Wan, only thirty years old, the seat on the council they had all but written his name on.
And Obi-Wan said no.
-
Ahsoka didn't get Master Skywalker at all.
Being Master Skywalker's padawan had been rough, at first. She'd been excited to be the student of the rumored Chosen One, of course she had, but he'd been anything but excited to be a master. When she mentioned that she'd been recommended by someone named Master Kenobi, his expression had turned ugly, and he'd stormed away from her without saying a word. She spent her first month on the battlefield with only an initiate's training. He only started teaching her when she'd complained to Master Plo, who'd felt angrier than she'd ever sensed from him before.
He'd gotten better, after that. Nicer, now that he'd accepted that she was there to stay. He even started bringing her along when he visited the Senate, presumably so that she could make political allies like he had with Senator Amidala. Ahsoka embraced his better attitude, but she was more reserved with him than she would have been otherwise. She did not give him a nickname like he gave her, and she talked back only rarely.
Ahsoka still didn't understand why her master had gotten so... so angry with her until she'd come back to Coruscant for leave and Master Nu pulled her aside.
"Padawan Tano," she began, looking older and more tired than Ahsoka had known she could, "has anyone told you about the Lost Twenty-One?"
"You mean the Lost Nineteen?" Ahsoka asked. "They're the only masters to ever leave the Order. I read about them in history class. Why?"
"In the past decade, their number rose by two," the librarian said. "Did you ever wonder why you've never met the other members of your lineage, besides Master Yoda?"
A ball of duracrete was forming in her stomach. "There's... there's a war. The Sith and the Mandalorians have both been more aggressive than normal for the past few years. I figured they were busy."
"Ahsoka," Master Nu said gently, "you and Knight Skywalker are the only surviving members of your lineage who are still Jedi. Count Dooku and Obi-Wan Kenobi both left the Order within a few years of each other."
-
Ahsoka went to Master Plo for more details. She knew that going to her own master would be a very bad idea, and she didn't want to jeopardize the fragile peace she'd built with him.
Master Plo sighed when she hesitantly brought it up over tea, face drawn in a way that she was beginning to associate with conversations about her mysterious former grandmaster. "It is unfortunate that no one has told you of this, little 'Soka, but I can understand why Knight Skywalker might be... reticent about this subject. He took Obi-Wan's departure very poorly. We had hoped that a padawan might ground him, and I am sorry for any difficulties you have faced during your apprenticeship."
"Things got better after you talked to him," Ahsoka hedged, then quickly switched the subject. "Were you close? You used his first name."
"Master Kenobi had a way with people," Master Plo said, warmth suffusing his voice. "He was a skilled diplomat and a talented warrior. He knew most of us on the Council well; we had meant for him to join us on it. He refused a position and surrendered his lightsaber, instead."
"Why?" Ahsoka gasped. She couldn't imagine leaving the Order. It was all she had ever known, all any Jedi had ever known.
"Obi-Wan had... doubts, about the course of the war with the Mandalorians. We were considering a strategy that was divisive, and he was one of its loudest detractors. Many of us agreed with him, but the Senate was... insistent. I and many others believed that, were he to become a sitting Council member, he might have been able to sway opposing factions both in the Senate and the Order itself to his more moderate way of thinking. Apparently, he had no such faith in his abilities, or perhaps he believed that the system itself was beyond salvaging. He openly declared his intentions to aid the Mandalorians if we went through with it."
"With what? How bad could it be?" Ahsoka asked indignantly. "The Sith are a scourge on the galaxy, and the Mandalorians help them more often than not. They hunt Jedi for sport! Nothing we do to them could be as bad as what they've done to us."
Plo's broad shoulders seemed to hunch beneath his robe. "We called our plan an excision. Obi-Wan called it an annihilation. I'm inclined to agree with him. So he left, and we attacked, and the Mandalorian empire repelled us with his help. To them he's considered a hero. To the Republic he's considered a traitor."
"Well... well, isn't he?" Ahsoka asked, lekku twitching in confusion. She had been trained to be loyal to the Republic from childhood. She didn't know how to feel.
"Some might argue he is. Obi-Wan himself said he would be betraying the will of the Force if he did not stop us." Plo's dark claws clicked against the pot of tea he'd made for Ahsoka, even though he himself couldn't take off his mask to drink it outside his quarters. "We had hoped that he would be able to stop it as a member of the Council, but if the Senate would not listen to us, they might not have listened to him, either."
"But isn't working against the Senate breaking the Jedi code?" Ahsoka blurted, unsettled. It sounded like Master Plo agreed with Kenobi's actions, even though Mandalorians killed about as many Jedi as Jedi killed Mandalorians. Was attacking them really so wrong? What was an "excision" supposed to be, anyway?
"It's not breaking the code if he states that he cannot and will not uphold his vow to follow it any longer," Master Plo said. "The Order does not hold its knights hostage. Perhaps Knight Skywalker still has something to learn from his old master."
-
The archives had busts of every single member of the Lost Twenty-One. The Order remembered and respected all its masters, even those who challenged and left the Order. They were reminders that there was no one way to follow the will of the Force, and that the Jedi were as imperfect as any other sentient. All they could do was listen, and hope the Force made its will clear. It often did not.
It took longer for Dooku and Obi-Wan's busts to be completed. Dooku's departure had marked an uptick in Sith aggression, and Obi-Wan had departed shortly before the disastrous failed bombardment of every planet in the Mandalorian sector. A few minor planets had been less successful in their defense, and it was said that vast swathes of them, once fertile agricultural worlds, were covered in deserts where nothing survived. Obi-Wan was a hero to many, even Jedi, who'd had reservations and doubts about such gratuitous violence. In Mandalorian space he was practically a second Tarre Vizsla.
Even so, there was growing discontent in the Republic. Kenobi, being so skilled a diplomat and a general, knew much of the strategies and long-term plans of the Senate. He had friends in high places and was trusted by all of them. Many of them, like many of the Jedi, felt betrayed. They felt afraid. They could not afford to let the Mandalorians make further use of his brilliance.
Heroes fell hardest from a pedestal. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a hero to many, Skywalker most of all, despite their tumultuous partnership. Skywalker had envied him almost as much as he revered him. He'd been the loudest when urging the Council to take action.
When she found the new bust of Obi-Wan Kenobi cracked and warped beyond recognition while intending to show it to his curious grand padawan, Jocasta Nu was not surprised.