Playground

by

Boots

I'm a high school luver

And you're my favorite flavour

Love is all

All my song You're my playground, love

I Names

I've loked up their names in the temple library. I _know_ what they mean now. Let me tell you what I found, Qui Gon. Xanatos is 'thanatos' a demonic shadow counterpart. Who must bare a burden of darkness so that the archetype (that's you) that projects this shadow could stand pure and upright. Anikin is Ananke, a word in ancient BASIC, which means 'strangle', 'necessity', 'family ties' and of course 'a balance achieved with time'. You were right about one thing, master, he is the chosen one. These are the two names you could not forget, that you took with you into your death. A death which I have foreseen every night of my life, ever since I fell in love with you. And that was even before we had met. Before I knew who I was.

Before I knew you existed, I felt pity and love for the man who died a thousand times in my dreams. Now, I ache and I die with you in those dreams. But we are getting off track. I want to talk about my name and how I want to imprint it onto your soul. My name comes from the Eastern Rims just as yours did, it means sword. And despite how much I love you, I wonder if you would ever care to know that.

"Obi-Wan," you walked to me swifly, robes flapping, smile eclipsing the suns. "What are you doing Padawan, day dreaming again?"

"Yes master," I stand up, a secretive grin. "And some gardening."

"It's looking rather well," you observe my foot long garden. "Stunning, but it takes an odd form. Is it for mediation?"

"You could say that," I let my face break into a smile at you again, you looked shocked by it. I'm sure hideousness is always shocking to someone as beautiful as you.

The 'garden' was a perfect moon shaped patch of jade coloured grass, surrounded by a circlet of river-stone. Overgrown with wild flowers I had carefully transplanted. It is at the very edge of the temple roof, offering me an odd view that looked past this little fragrant hub and onto the city abyss.

As my eyes and my mind drift away into the sky beneath our feet, you shudder ever so slightly. You reached a hand to me without thinking, and also without thinking I took a step closer to the edge in response. You have your index finger slackly raised, oh force it is reprimanding me! But no, you take your palm and envelope it over my cheek and bring me back into the warm sunlight.

"It is time for dusk-meal, Padawan," you say. "And I've slaved away before a food synth' for you"

We eat, succulent meat and pulpy vegetables. Warm bread, cold soup and icy dessert. I drink the tea you brewed and swore to myself if I could I would never drink anything else but this all my life. Juices and gravy on my fingers, the bit of bread still mopping away at my plate, I look up at you and let it flow across our bond how insatiable I felt.

Taken aback, you tried to look bemused.

"Padawan, he will not starve you," a deep chuckle that made my knuckles ache to strangle you.

"No," I agree amiably. "He will be beautiful, powerful, charming and he is desired by all the women of Coruscant."

The smug look stuck on your face like paste; your eyes grew dull, although you blink at the rising moisture.

"And a much wittier man than I am." You fold your arms to guard your heart.

"Yes master," I looked away and scrutinized the dying afternoon.

Yep, my hands are shaking

I feel my body reeling

Time's no matter

I'm on fire

On the play ground, love

II Ritual

I was not allowed to eat for three days; I could drink only force-purified water from a Jedi Master's hand. I must touch nothing that is not organic. On Curoscant it meant I was confined to walk bare foot on the wooden floor of our quarters, be without my Lightsaber and have someone be my hands.

I watch as the smoke drift form the incense. You blew it gently into my nostrils and I breathe that life affirming breath in, the smoke hurts my lungs and scorches them anew. This is the cleansing part of the ritual. A wooden tub had been brought into our cramped fresher for this particular occasion. You lift me up like a light thing so that my pristine feet don't touch the force-dead tiles. I laugh even though I am miserable, because you have had to do that many times in the past three days to administer my need to pass waste. And even that had decreased to a minimum, clear fluids now, as if I've already begun dying.

You're naked, as I am also. There is no taboo between a Master and an Apprentice. That is precisely the problem. Causing lilting movements of water by your manipulation of the force, your aura laps about me, caressing me under the steaming surface. I close my eyes and think about kissing your hands hovering above the surface, manipulating the water molecules that massage me, hands that are afraid to touch me.

"Master," I pretend these are my last words to you, well, to betroth anyone besides you is murder anyway. "Do you know when I began to love you?"

"Since you were thirteen, the day of your Padawan Initiation?" Your mouth looked so supple and soft, your tongue pink behind your teeth; but I see your incisors beneath, proffered under the mild and rather lopsided smile.

I laugh causing bile to rise in my empty stomach.

"No Master, before that, a long long time before I was born," I speak into your lips. "But if I must put a time to it..."

"Yes.." Your emotions feel so slow and calm, like the slowly undulating bath water.

"Master, don't you want to feel this water?" I sigh. "It's so warm! Here, dip your hand in."

"I shouldn't," you wink at me, friendly teasing again. "This is a vestal bathing, you're not to be soiled by my hands, when this is your cleansing for your husband."

I roll my eyes a little and look like a young padawan berated. Then I pulled a languid arm out of the wallow, much to your surprise, and catch your hand. You gasp and the water splashes. But I held your hand steadfast.

"All right," you shrugged and gave up, washing my back with a sponge. "Now tell me, when did you decide you loved your old master?"

"When I was three and you came to the Crech for me. I had been abandoned on the doorsteps of the temple, some at the council thought I was a Sith half-breed." I let the childhood terror float across my closed eyelids like past storm clouds, lilac with age and far away.

"Not Sith," you corrected me sternly. "Midichlorians. I.am.sure."

I open half an eyelid to peer at you. You shoosh up.

"You came in, like a hulking bear. Your back slumped over your chest, your eyes so very tired and your hair wildly scattered to your waist, untrimmed for a year - naturally some children began to cry. But I was not afraid. Because unlike everyone else, including the Crech master and youngest toddler, your shields were wide open to me. You were not afraid of me, so why should I be of you?"

"Ah, you were a young pup then," you say as your hand unconsciously passes over the skin of my shoulder. "How fat and tender you were, it was hard to pick you up by the slippery chubbiness of your waist. It is a shame training has made you all muscles and sinew. Alas, but I do think your husband will appreciate that."

"What about you, master?" I asked, quietly to myself. Is this to your preference?

"All the same to me, Padawan," your voice sounded sublime.

I was tempted then, I wanted to rise from the tub and kneel before you and bed you to cleanse me, utterly. I did not understand why everyone in the temple had been so complacent about my betrothal to a man I've never met. And what truly hurt me was that you, my master, did not object. Far from it, you coazed me into it! You told me the wonders of a fate-bond; you said it would send me on great journeys. Trials, quests and adventures, I am terrified of them all, for I have forseen that you will die, on a world called Naboo.

Yes, I know every detail, as if I've lived them a million times. I guess that makes me a real freak, I will never be in touch with the Living Force, Sith, I cannot even touch you, who emboides the concept. But no, I would not give you up, not for all the fate-bonds in the world! I will clutch onto you like this, and never ever let you go. I want to tell you and now, at last, I found the words.

"I was conceived by this love I owe you," and in response to that proclaimation, your hand leaves me, as you pick up the towel to hastily dry me.

You're the piece of gold

Shining from my soul

Love is all.

All my song.

Oh my playground lover

III Dancing Orpheus

It was an innocent afternoon and an innocent saber dance. We were sparring on the temple roof, in a part of the garden near where I now constructed my tiny patch. We were laughing and flying through the air, you looked so handsom and happy. We crossed each other's paths, our auras mingling and I was bedazzled by how pretty they looked, like fire birds. I began to tell you about them and I almost got to the part where I explain why they reminded me of the flame that would eventually engulf you and thus reveal my worst Jedi talent, that of forseeing the future. But the drone of Chancellor Palpatine's ship drowned me out and then he descended to watch us. His eyes emitted such lust that we stopped. You walked up to have a few words with him and I snuck away with a very bad feeling. The next day you came to me.

"Obi-Wan, you have been offered a fate-bond," you told me in a rather matter-of-fact manner.

"By whom?" I asked. Is it you, master? I meant to say.

"I can not tell you. It is a vestal bond," you blushed. "I believe you are a virgin."

Only because you never asked, Master, only because of that.

"Obi-wan, I want to ask something of you," you suddenly say.

My mind tumbles back into the present. We were sleeping on your bed, me on top of your body as a mattress, because I suggested part of the sheet might be synthetic.

"What is it Qui Gon?" I felt so weak, it was our last hours together, come dawn I will be betrothed to Palpatine.

"Those Eternity Katas we practiced that sealed our fate was exquisite, will you do it again for me before I finish the cleansing?" You were pleading!

I nodded.

The final cleansing, oh force how will I bare that! I am to be presented whole to my new mate, sans training bond. And my bond with you ran so deep, you would probably have to take out a large portion of my memory of you as well. A flood of reassurance came over the bond as I showed stress. It sounded like your voice saying "you can only lose what you never had." Oh, low blow master!

"But I must have my saber."

You knew it was forbidden, but then you are Qui Gon Jinn and you were desperate to see me dance. How easily you succumbed.

I take you to my sacrificial ground, the garden I had made; obediently you sat a few feet away. I ignite the Lightsaber and swirl it around, and do all the gorgeous moves and look into your eyes the while. The sky inky before dawn. How earnest you look, how solid and still you sat, even as the morning dew ate into your aching joints. I would die for you! I will not let Palpatine take me, I must warn you of his nature, I must tell you everything, I must change history. And to change history, you take out a vital player in it. I look into your eyes and step back, stab the saber into my chest and roll off the temple roof.