when you don't know me anymore.

[quigonejinn]

I SHOULD BE WRITING OTHER THINGS OMG.



The Order did not elevate Jedi posthumously.

Those who died as Knights were not made Masters if their Padawans later passed the Trials. Padawans who had not yet passed their Trials were not made into Knights even if their masters were of the firm opinion that they had passed their trial in the field before death. In fact, in the case of Hall Dotek, who had received a nomination to the Council but had not yet accepted when he fell to blaster fire from assasins on Armann, a Master was not written in the Archives as being a member of the Council if he had not sat with the Council on some matter before death.

After Obi-Wan's death, Qui-Gon had argued with the Council, via hologram, until he lost his voice. The Council had not shut him off mid-transmission, and he knew that they had allowed him rather more speaking time than they normally would have, but they nevertheless insisted that Obi-Wan had not passed his Trial before death. Obi-Wan would be cremated as a Padawan on Naboo.

The body of the Sith would be placed in a cryo-storage container and brought back to the Temple for examination.

***

"Hand me the basin, Anakin."

Before Obi-Wan could be cremated, he would have to be washed and redressed. The Sith's lightsaber had punched through Obi-Wan, leaving a significant chest wound, and there was also a substantial charring on his robes.

It was cold in the morgue, and once Anakin brought him the water and a sponge, Qui-Gon worked quickly, dipping only the edge of the sponge into the water and motioning for Anakin to bring the relevant piece of clothing to the side of the table. It would have been helpful to have had another person help him turn Obi-Wan over, as it was hard to dress a corpse, but Anakin was not tall enough to reach over the morgue table, and he most likely lacked the strength anyways.

Under the hand. Up the forearm. Across the collarbone. Back to the hands and under the wrist because Sith lightsaber crystals did not contain energy as well as Jedi ones, and the fabric of Obi-Wan's robes was disintegrating around the place where the lightsaber had gone through him. A substantial portion of the skin on Obi-Wan's chest was also covered in fine black charcoal; some of it was lodged under the skin, created by subdermal charring and energy leakage. Earlier, Qui-Gon had discussed with Anakin the Jedi theology on death, explained that there was no death, only the Force, and that they should not be grieving for Obi-Wan.

After a while, Anakin slipped off to fetch another basin of water. By the time he returned, Qui-Gon had begun to wash Obi-Wan's face.

***

"Discovered the secret to immortality, you had? Before Naboo?"

"Yes."

"Share it with your Padawan, you did not?"

"No."

***

There were no Council Masters at Obi-Wan's cremation, but Queen Amidala and the major members of her court were there. She was dressed in deepest black for the occaision, and with the heat of the cremation flame, and it must have been enormously uncomfortable, but she took a seat, folded her hands, and, as appropriate for a Naboo ruler, gave no sign of any emotion or feeling. Anakin had stared at her for a moment and made a move to go and sit with her, but after a look from Qui-Gon, he settled back onto his seat next to Qui-Gon.

As the cremation continued, a light began to shine in the middle of the flame: Obi-Wan was in the habit of carrying the river stone that he had received from Qui-Gon; it was small, barely larger than a pebble. It was not an encumbrance in any way, and when Qui-Gon was washing and dressing Obi-Wan to prepare for the cremation, he had found it tucked in one of the compartments of Obi-Wan's belt.

Obi-Wan had been arranged with his arms on his chest, and Qui-Gon had, before the lighting of the flames, folded the river rock under Obi-Wan's hands. The initial glow had been from Qui-Gon channeling the Force tightly and in the most focused way that he knew; after a while, as the heat began to decay the structure of the stone, which was really only compressed living matter that had been particularly high in midichlorians, the energetic contribution of the cremation fire began to be enough.

It glowed more and more as the cremation continued. Some of the dignitaries eventually began to cover their eyes, but Qui-Gon fixed his eyes on the pebble. In fact, he made himself watch until it, too, turned to ash.

Comments

[mozart.livejournal.com]

): the last bit, i can't stand it. *runs out of the room in an emotional mess*

I love the idea of the riverstone.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Was racking my BRAIN, man, for ways to explain the canon properties of what Jude Watson has Qui-Gon handing over to Obi-Wan, so I'm glad it worked for you. I was like *_* EVERYBODY IS GOING TO THINK IT'S THE SW VERSION OF GETTING A LUMP OF COAL IN THEIR STOCKING *_*

<3

[bell]

You are mean and awful and I don't like you.

In other words, wow.

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

But sad dead Obi-Wan likes you! :( :(

No, in all seriousness, I was talking to stella_belli about it this afternoon, and she was quiet for a second and then was, like, AND YOU CALL ME THE ANGST QUEEN????????????????

I'm glad you liked it, man, as I spent most of the evening reading your 31 Days ficlets and just gawping in sheer, stunned awe.

[bell]

Sad dead Obi-Wan is DEAD, and therefore incapable of any feelings or opinions!!

I'm glad you liked it, man, as I spent most of the evening reading your 31 Days ficlets and just gawping in sheer, stunned awe.

That, like, made me the happiest queen bee ever. Then I saw that you're secretly rhoddlet, and, man, I've been a fan of your writing for a couple of years now. So, extra happy. :D

sad dead Obi-Wan is a sad dead Force Ghost. :(

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons why I'm doing most of my daily SW stuff on this LJ is because the f-list is so much smaller and ACTUALLY MANAGEABLE. The f-list on that is mammoth, and I still have far, far, far fewer people friended than have me friended. :/ And I miss out on the crazy-good fic like yours.

This one got me particularly hard. Holy God. I'm not much of Anakin fan at all, but man. *_*

Also. I picked up the Long Road torrent from your LJ and am now tantalizing close to footage of Ewan on Motorcycle. *_________* Thank you, thank you, thank you.

but Obi-Wan never learned the after-life trick, so there is no Force Ghost!

[bell]

I'm not a big fan of Anakin either. In fact, I rebel at the thought! He's a pundit, a brat. >D But Obi-Wan likes him, so I paid him more attention, and before I knew it, I was writing fic from point his point of view and about him. He's a chatterbox, very insistent that EVERYONE knows what he's feeling and thinking.

Don't get too excited with the torrent-- apparentely they're releasing a new dvd version with TEN episodes instead of seven! I'd have waited to download if I knew that before. XD Still. They're fabulous, a great watch, for the Ewan (he is sooo... so.... so Ewan here! It's an absolute treat) and the Charley and the countries and it's even inspiring. Heee.

[randomalia.livejournal.com]

Ow. Really ow. :(

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

Your video, as I am spamtastically telling you, is the real ow. :/

[randomalia.livejournal.com]

This may be wanky, but I'd really like to read your own commentary on this ficlet. I just, augh, the river stone, and he didn't tell Obi-Wan about immortality. I really like how you write in a way that the story is so present, right there in front of you, but at the same time not easily accessible. The characters aren't an open book, and I love that.
Give me your brain plskthx.

wanky rambling is one of my spec-ial-ities. *THROWS OFF ROBE*

[quigonejinn.livejournal.com]

You know, there really isn't much to tell. The river stone is just the one that Qui-Gon gives Obi-Wan in the JA books; all I did was have Obi-Wan carry it around all the time like the lovesick puppy he is and come up with a backstory for it. Like, why it glows?

Because I loved the idea of Qui-Gon staring into the fire and seeing a light beyond. So I decided that it was compressed plant/living matter that had been particularly high in midichlorians. The plants died, had lots of midichlorian skeletons in their tissue, got compressed into something like really hard coal. Except when you call the Force near these, the skeletons of the midichlorians get excited and try to act like conduits for translating the Force into the physical world, much like I've decided that midichlorians in living things do.

Except these midichlorians are just skeletons, so they translate into light and heat, rather than cool Jedi psychokinesis. They're kind of like Force prisms; you send pure energetic Force through them, and it comes out as energy in another form.

Since the Force is really just energy, after a while, the molecular structure of the midichlorians degrades enough so that they'll suck up any kind of energy and rebroadcast as light/energy. And they'll burn, too, since they've got all that compressed organic matter in them.

Hence, them burning as Obi-Wan burns and sending off that intense light. In the story, that light is supposed to be a bunch of things -- a symbol of Obi-Wan's purity and also, as a sign of Qui-Gon's aching desire to put light where there had been dark. As both an apology to Obi-Wan and this Jedi-atavistic notion that the Force will make everything better.

Except it won't. Because Obi-Wan is DEAD. Because you FUCKED UP QUI-GON.

:> The river rock also got into the story because some really mean part of me got a HUGE KICK out of the fact that Obi-Wan's best-beloved thing in the entire universe was basically a LUMP OF COAL from Qui-Gon's home world.



akjdflk and Qui-Gon not telling Obi-Wan about immortality is just straight movie canon, IMO. Like, when Yoda is like, AN OLD FRIEND HAS COME BACK FROM THE DEAD! And Obi-Wan gets O.O. Sure, he kinda looks like he suspects or whatever, but his surprise suggests Qui-Gon never formally told him in the canonverse.

So I decided that in my horrid little AU, Qui-Gon had found the basics of the technique and told Yoda about it because, well, it's Yoda. Yoda is the Jedi who is 8 billion years old. If any living Jedi might know about ANCIENT TECHNIQUES OF IMMORTALITY, Yoda would. So Qui-Gon asked him about it after he found it. Plus, it's speculative/crazy/dangerous, so he only tells Yoda about it because Yoda is the only Council member who he trusts.

And Yoda recognizes the danger of this, too. So that's why he talks to Qui-Gon about it on the side, not in front of the whole Council. And Qui-Gon is just absolutely eaten up with guilt over not telling Obi-Wan about it -- why didn't he realize the danger to Obi-Wan? Why didn't he do enough research enough to make it a usable technique? Did he actually not tell Obi-Wan about it because he secretly doubted Obi-Wan's ability to achieve compassion for all things, etc?

And yet, Qui-Gon is in complete denial about his overwhelming guilt and grief because they're not Jedi emotions. He forces himself to do some pretty hard and difficult things only by treating them very clinically and trying to turn them into learning experiences for Anakin.

Man, when I finished writing this, I was like :/ Everybody is going to think that Qui-Gon hated Obi-Wan when he just LOVED HIM TOO MUCH and WANTED TO PROTECT HIM and JUST DIDN'T WANT TO THINK THAT OBI-WAN WOULD EVER NEED IT.

Some terrible, awful part of me wanted, in the end, for Obi-Wan to have somehow figured the technique out. And for the stone to be glowing because he was becoming a Force Ghost during the cremation, but I decided that was too improbable/sappy/let Qui-Gon off the hook too much.



Annnd I'm spent.

Re: wanky rambling is one of my favourite things.

[randomalia.livejournal.com]

I love the way you used the river stone. Especially as it was from the river of light, wasn't it? It just feels like such a Qui-Gon thing to do - say something really profound through a *rock* and if you don't know him, you won't understand what it means. And even if Obi-Wan didn't know what it meant, it was still important to him, because it came from Qui-Gon.

The fact that Qui-Gon didn't tell Obi-Wan is heart-wrenching, but rings true, regardless of canon events. Qui-Gon would have angsted over the idea of people surviving intact in the force. And, you know, even if Qui-Gon had told him, would Obi-Wan have been able to do it at that point? Or did he have to come to a place where he had everything stripped away and could see things differently?

Man, when I finished writing this, I was like :/ Everybody is going to think that Qui-Gon hated Obi-Wan when he just LOVED HIM TOO MUCH and WANTED TO PROTECT HIM and JUST DIDN'T WANT TO THINK THAT OBI-WAN WOULD EVER NEED IT.

See, that's the beauty of this. You read it and see how he teaches Anakin and is so detached and you think, argh, Qui-Gon, don't you realise what you're doing? Can't you throw him (us) a crumb of emotion even now? And then the ceremony, and he shuts me up with his actions and the stone. And it's far more eloquent and powerful because of that silence and distance. Because it's SO MUCH feeling that he has, and it's such a restrained outlet of it. Augh, painful.

♥

Thanks so much for this.

[a-blue-moon-cat.livejournal.com]

The Order did not elevate Jedi posthumously. This wouldn't surprise me at all.

The imagery of the river stone is rather effective. Qui-Gon making himself watch the pebble is a good touch. Again, a powerful ficsnip.