Chapter Text
It was a Tynnan who had taught Obi-Wan ecology.
He still remembered the day, now seventeen years prior, sitting in the sunbaked classroom in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The instructor, Master Razemin, had swept into the room with a dignity that belied his diminutive height, brown tail peeking from beneath his robes as it trailed behind him. He strode to the teaching platform, elevated it so they could see him, and faced the class, his whiskers twitching.
“Today,” he said. “We are going to learn about energy, and how it flows through systems.”
The world was inverted, and blood pooled in Obi-Wan’s head. He cracked open his eyes, felt something liquid drip into them, and closed them.
The burning bands across his body told him he was hanging, upside down in his flight harness. Air movement indicated the cockpit on his miniature starship had been ripped free by the impact. His leg was broken, and while he was no healer, he suspected in more than one place.
The computer readout chimed to him that he’d struck the surface of the planet at a velocity most commonly used to escape a gravity well, then sputtered into silence.
Any other planet, he would have been paste. But the surface of Lotho Minor was a shifting pile of inconstant refuse, and a sinkhole had opened, cut by the path of his ship, and swallowed it into the depths of the earth.
Unmoving, Obi-Wan stretched out around him with the Force. He probed the shape of the cavity in which his starship was lodged, trying to determine its stability, anything about it that might aid his escape.
The question of whether the pirates who’d pursued him here were still scouring the surface looking for him slithered across his mind, and he compartmentalized it as non-useful. When he had his legs under him, then he would consider it.
After approximately ten minutes, during which Obi-Wan had to employ a number of controlled meditation techniques to keep from passing out, he made his move.
Unfastening the flight harness, he allowed his weight to descend, groping for the edges of the cockpit. It was full dark, and a cool waft of breeze welling up below him spoke of an ominously long distance. Gritting his teeth, he swung out to the side, attempting to climb round and mount the inverted belly of the ship.
Then one of the wings twisted with the sound of shearing metal, and he fell.
He managed to somewhat control his descent, though the sudden and extreme use of the Force sent pain screaming through his battered body and nearly caused him to black out. He clung on, coasting on the rough walls and managed to guide himself into a side tunnel which yawned near him just as the full weight of his ship tore past in a cacophony of falling garbage. He rolled to a stop, gasping as his leg was jostled.
He wondered, madly, if he’d have fared better with Anakin here, and dismissed the thought. Anakin had been anything but pleased to learn that Obi-Wan had been assigned this mission solo, and it was increasingly clear that danger as well as secrecy made this an inappropriate place for a boy of thirteen.
Shivering, he checked the two objects sewn into the lining of his unassuming flight jacket, his lightsaber, and the holocron he had been sent to retrieve, and at which the pirates had taken umbrage when it was pilfered from their stores. It seemed inactive, it certainly hadn’t done anything when Obi-Wan manhandled it, but one never knew with Sith artifacts.
This task complete, he rolled himself slowly into a sitting position and felt down in the direction of his leg. Definitely broken, from the way his head swam if he moved it, but he couldn’t find any protrusions through the skin. The sharp pain in his side spoke of a cracked rib, but his breathing was clear. He should try and find a safe nook and see if he could slip into a brief healing trance, but that would have to come later.
Casting out with the Force in the darkness, he determined the tunnel in which he lay was only half his height, so rather than debate over whether he could brace his leg well enough to stand and limp, he crawled. On his belly, through endless darkness and over rough packed refuse, searching for an end, or at least something different.
He tried not to think about the fact the tunnel’s only direction was down .
Sweat dripped down his face, and twice he had to stop for breath, fighting back the ache in his brain which threatened to crush him. At last the tunnel opened up into a larger cavity. Casting out with his senses, he was able to determine that he was in something resembling a dense warren, a network of tunnels which looped over and around him, running off in all directions.
As he sought to probe deeper into the Force, hoping for a clue towards a way out, he heard something in the darkness. A skitter, a sprinkle of scattered garbage.
Obi-Wan froze, heart pounding as he listened. Nothing. He cast about with the Force, but whatever it was seemed to have moved on.
He waited a few minutes, then pulled himself forward on his elbows.
From the blackness, something struck.
Unimaginable weight slammed into him, metallic and solid, as if he’d been hit by a speeder. The thing crushed him beneath it, shoving him face down. His arms were pinned, the part of his jacket encasing his lightsaber wedged under his body.
On instinct, he struck back in the Force, wrenching the creature off him with a great blow of energy, and nearly passing out from the pain for his trouble. The thing screamed, and Obi-Wan’s addled brain heard words in it.
“ Jedi! ” it howled.
In the space of less than a second, Obi-Wan made several decisions at once.
“Wait!” he shouted. “I’m not a Jedi!”
Silence fell. Obi-Wan squirmed, seeking his lightsaber. He could rip the seams in a moment to get it free. He could hear something moving in the darkness. Something big.
“Not a Jedi?” hissed the creature, half as if it were speaking to itself.
“No,” said Obi-Wan, curling his grip around the saber through the fabric.
“ Liar .” An unnerving growl rose and fell. “You used the Force.”
“I’m…” Obi-Wan swallowed hard. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I was going to be one. Long ago. I learned at the Temple. But I left. I failed. I went to the AgriCorps.”
“A failed Jedi?” said the voice. It sounded more like a life form now and less like a beast. In fact its voice sounded rather pleasant, like something Obi-Wan had heard from a diplomat or HoloNet media star. “Why are you here?”
“I was on a biological survey mission,” said Obi-Wan, wondering if he was bleeding in his brain. He was only grateful this mission had been undercover, and so he wasn’t wearing his very-obviously-a-Jedi robes. “Looking for novel fungi. I was attacked by pirates.” He weighed the possibility of revealing perceived vulnerability against forming a connection that might help him avoid being murdered. “My name is Ben, who are you?”
There was a very long silence. If he used the Force to enhance his own senses, Obi-Wan could just discern the distorted shape of something in the space with him, hanging from the ceiling. “Do you have a name?”
“I…” the voice trailed off, sounding uncertain. “I went by Jagannath.”
“Nice to meet you, Jagannath.” Obi-Wan lifted himself cautiously up on his elbows and heard something metallic shift above him. “I’m injured and I could use some help. Would you be willing to help me?”
“Help you?” The voice sounded a bit dumbfounded. “No, no, no that’s not right.”
“I’m sorry?”
The voice rose, cracked. It didn’t sound as if it was talking to him. “I am fear! I am hunter! I am filth and monster and the screams when you crack their ribcage and feast on their innards! Not right, not right !”
Obi-Wan clutched at his saber, but fought to keep his breathing even. “I’ve upset you. Forgive me.”
“Forgiveness? There is no forgiveness! Mercy is not something given, no matter how hard you beg, child!” Jagannath’s voice stuttered and broke into scattered fragments. “No, no, no please I will do better, I swear it. I was yours! Your tool, forged by your hand! Let me redeem myself!”
“Jagannath!”
The voice cut off instantly. “Eogan?” said Jagannath. “We need to get to the medbay. The numbers are counting down.”
Obi-Wan swallowed. “No, Jagannath. My name is Ben.”
“Right, right,” muttered Jagannath. “Ben the failed Jedi. Jedi filth, Jedi scum. Jedi failure. Failure like me.”
“Well not not so much as all that,” muttered Obi-Wan under his breath. He cleared his throat and spoke louder. “My leg is broken and I’m having difficulty walking. Do you think you could help me to a place where I can rest and find some materials to brace it?”
“Why would you ask that?” demanded Jagannath. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“A bit, yes,” said Obi-Wan, more than half-truthfully. “But I’m out of options. I don’t have any water, or resources. And if you didn’t notice, you’re the only one here to ask.”
“Yes of course,” said Jagannath, his voice wandering. “No one here. All alone. No one to speak to. Not that it matters. Nothing but the dreams and the noises in your head.”
“I’ll speak with you,” said Obi-Wan firmly. “I’ll talk to you, if you want, as much as you want. Just help me.”
“You will?” Jagannath sounded doubtful. “No one spoke. They only screamed. And then they stopped.”
Oh Force, I’m trapped in here with a murderer, thought Obi-Wan. “I will. Can you help me move? Or at least direct me where to move? I can’t say I’ll be very fast, but I can try and operate independently.”
More silence, then metallic noise in the darkness. That huge something lurched closer, and Obi-Wan held his breath, heart pounding.
Several objects struck the floor of the cavern in succession, and Obi-Wan realized with a chill they had to be Jagannath’s limbs. How many did he have? He felt the peculiar sensation of being loomed over in the darkness.
Something moved closer, then wavered. “What do you want?” said Jagannath. There was an edge to his voice. “How am I supposed to help you?”
Obi-Wan sucked in a breath and set his jaw. Releasing his hand from around his saber, he tentatively extended it in the direction of the voice. “Can you help me off the ground?”
He hung there, in the silence, his hand awkwardly outstretched.
He didn’t know what he imagined, but it was a hand that took his own, so suddenly he nearly jumped. Five fingers and a calloused palm, warm and dry, like the hand of another Jedi.
Obi-Wan did his best to keep his grip loose and nonthreatening as Jagannath hesitantly slid his hand down his wrist to grip his forearm. Jagannath’s own arm and wrist felt shockingly thin, but he could feel the wire tension strength of the musculature.
Jagannath pulled, and Obi-Wan couldn’t stop the hiss of his breath as his leg jostled and spots of color bloomed in the dark of his vision. He struggled to maneuver his good leg under him, and sagged heavily against Jagannath.
Jagannath stiffened, and Obi-Wan realized he was leaning into the man’s?—chest, a jutting collarbone jammed against his face. Mumbling apologies, he tried to get his balance, leaning on his good leg, and as he tried to brace himself, he grasped something near where his brain told him Jagannath’s hip should be.
Something huge, serpentine, and metallic.
It jerked itself from his grasp. “Don’t do that!” hissed Jagannath.
“I’m sorry,” said Obi-Wan, dazed, his brain struggling to compile information without context or visual input. “I don’t wish to touch you without permission, but I can barely stand.”
Jagannath drew a hesitant breath. “Don’t move,” he bit out finally. “No matter what I do.”
Faintly alarmed, Obi-Wan protested, “Well, I—”
“ Don’t move.”
Obi-Wan nodded, fairly confident that Jagannath could feel the movement. A moment later, something enormous began to coil around him, looping his waist and lifting him from the ground. Jagannath stabilized him with his arms, and they began to move.
The trip through the tunnels was surreal. The faint, clanking noises of Jagannath’s who knew how many limbs, the jerky, multipedal motion, the utterly queer juxtaposition of humanoid—or he presumed humanoid—skin and metallic components pressed into Obi-Wan’s hands and against various portions of his anatomy. At last they emerged into a larger space, and Jagannath moved to set him down.
He’d expected a hard surface, but the pile upon which he was placed had a surprising amount of give, as if it were comprised of fabric or the remains of furniture. Obi-Wan leaned back into it gratefully, and tried to catch his breath.
“Thank you,” he said.
Jagannath didn’t reply. Obi-Wan could hear him moving about the space they occupied, muttering to himself under his breath. “Is this your home?”
“No place is home,” said Jagannath. “Only places to sleep and places to eat.”
“Well, thank you for sharing it with me regardless.” Obi-Wan cautiously. “Speaking of, do you have anything to eat?”
“Excluding you? No.”
“Right.” Obi-Wan considered whether he could realistically engage in a serious fight with his lightsaber while on his back. “What about to drink?”
“Yes.” Jagannath moved in the darkness and Obi-Wan heard the slosh of liquid in a container. “There’s an aquifer lower down, formed from the remnants of a plasma tanker. Rain collects in it from topside. The rocks neutralize the acid and filter out the sediment.”
Obi-Wan took the jug pressed into his hand with a quiet word of thanks. The water inside was metallic in taste, but felt incredible in his desperately dry mouth. He felt the pounding dehydration headache ease slightly.
He closed the cap by feel, then set aside the jug and slowly sat up, reaching to feel cautiously along his broken leg. He could feel where the bone had come slightly out of alignment at the break, and hissed in pain as he palpated to see if he could manipulate the bone. If he could set it properly he could accelerate the healing via trance, but doing that as it was would simply force the lay down of new bone and leave the limb crooked. He cautiously attempted to shift the bone internally, and his head swam with pain. “Curse it all.”
“What are you doing?” said Jagannath.
“Trying to set my leg with the Force.” Obi-Wan could practically hear himself shift into instructor mode. “You first have to—”
“I know how to set bones with the Force.”
“You do?” said Obi-Wan, shocked enough that it bypassed his annoyance at the interruption.
“Yes. I used to have to do it on myself. Any compromise of function meant death.”
A dozen questions crowded in Obi-Wan’s brain, at least half of which he suspected might provoke hostility. “Do you...do you think you could help me do it?”
“I’ve never tried on someone else.”
Obi-Wan laughed slightly. “Well the good news is it’s actually much easier on another person. If you’ve some experience, I’d be grateful.”
There was a pregnant pause, but then Jagannath moved towards him. Obi-Wan felt hands on his leg from above, feeling along his shin through his pant leg above his boot.
And then he couldn’t breathe, because there was another’s Force sense pressing into him, like a jagged, hot bit of shrapnel. It roiled and pulsed with sublimated rage and fear, and Obi-Wan thought he might choke on it.
How can he function like that? So much terror and pain? Is he hurt?
“The break is here,” said Jagannath, sounding very far away. “The larger of the two bones of the lower leg. Just below your knee.”
He withdrew, and Obi-Wan gasped in relief. Jagannath paused. “Are you alright?”
“Are you?” said Obi-Wan weakly.
“I don’t understand the question.”
“You…” Obi-Wan tried to get a grip. “I felt you, when you did that. You feel like you’re in pain.”
Jagannath stiffened and pulled away.
“Wait!” Obi-Wan drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I was...when I was at the Temple I mean. I was good at feeling what others feel. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Slowly, Jagannath returned his hands to Obi-Wan’s leg and began to palpate. His palm curved around Obi-Wan’s knee and Obi-Wan felt a strange, sickening lurch as something, several somethings, shifted under his skin.
“There,” said Jagannath, though he didn’t remove his hand. “That’s where it’s supposed to go.”
Obi-Wan slid his hands around his knee and squeezed gently. “Do you have something I can brace it with?”
“I may. Wait here.”
Jagannath moved across the space, and Obi-Wan heard the noise of rummaging among metal objects. He returned and pushed a handful of materials at Obi-Wan, two thin, rigid pieces of metal, which Obi-Wan pressed to either side of his knee, hitching them in place with flexible straps which felt like they might have come from food packaging.
Obi-Wan let out a breath. “Much improved, thank you.”
“Let’s see how long your cheer lasts after a month in this place.”
A month? Oh Force, could I really be here that long? “Well,” said Obi-Wan. “Nothing but to take it day by day, moment by moment. That’s what my—teachers used to say.”
“Jedi scum,” said Jagannath under his breath. It sounded like a reflex.
Obi-Wan laughed nervously. “Well, I admit I carried a certain amount of bitterness, but the AgriCorps aren’t that bad. And, you can use the Force, can’t you? You helped with my leg. Isn’t that...somewhat like a Jedi?”
“No!” Obi-Wan found himself shoved backwards into the pile of bedding. He could sense Jagannath above him, smell and feel his breath as he snarled in Obi-Wan’s face. “The Jedi took everything from me! I am nothing like them!”
“Alright, alright!” Obi-Wan held up his hands, both in surrender and to try and ease Jagannath off of him. “Nothing like a Jedi. Duly noted.”
Jagannath withdrew with a growl that sounded positively sulky.
“Do you want some water?” said Obi-Wan weakly.
“It’s my water. I’ll drink it if I want to.”
“Alright.” Congratulations, Obi-Wan, placating the angry, probably dangerous life form is going swimmingly. “Do you want to?”
“Yes, hand it over.”
Obi-Wan extended the jug in the general direction in which he could sense Jagannath, and had it promptly snatched from his hand. “Do you want to...talk? I promised I would.”
“Yes,” said Jagannath, sounding strangely distracted. “Yes I...I want to talk.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“How I hate the Jedi.”
“Well,” said Obi-Wan delicately. “I don’t really have much information on them, they’re not really one of my best talking points.”
“You spent what, twelve, thirteen years in the Temple and you didn’t learn anything about the Jedi? No wonder they flunked you.”
“Thanks,” said Obi-Wan. “And what? Do you want me to talk about staring out the window on Corusant while trying to pretend I was learning calculus?”
“No. Calculus has no meaning down here. Nothing does. Except food, and staying alive.”
“What do you usually eat?”
“I told you. You.”
“Presuming I’m off the table.”
Jagannath sighed in irritation. “Vermin. They live in the tunnels. It takes a lot of them to fill you and they’re hard to catch.”
“Why don’t you lure them to you?”
“What?”
“You can use the Force,” said Obi-Wan. “One of our lessons in, uh, I think it was fifth year was how to make animals do our bidding if needed.”
It had actually been Qui-Gon who’d taught him, a year after Obi-Wan had become his apprentice, but he wasn’t about to mention that .
“I’ve done that. Subdued a creature to let me ride it.”
Must have been an enormous creature. And...peculiarly shaped. “Well, it’s just a smaller version of that. But you don’t start with laying hands on them. You call them to you.”
“I’ve never tried it.”
“How about I try it?” said Obi-Wan, swallowing down gorge at the thought. “As an apology, for ruining your dinner. You can watch me and try to replicate it.”
“I suppose.”
Carefully, Obi-Wan settled back amid the cushioning. He—rather meaninglessly—closed his eyes, and stretched out with his feelings.
He found the first creature not too far from them, a brilliant spark in the Force, as long as his arm, gnawing away at something that he couldn’t identify. With great care, he slipped around its mind, tugging at mental strings to call it in their direction.
He heard it burrow upwards through a tunnel much too small for either of them, popping out into the space with them.
Jagannath reacted immediately. A cacophony of shifting metal and pouncing...whatever he was, deafened Obi-Wan and broke his concentration. The rodent shrieked, only for the sound to be cut off with a sickening crunch. Blood scent flared, strong enough that even Obi-Wan could detect it.
Energy, and how it flows through systems.
Obi-Wan lay utterly still, listening as Jagannath tore into the creature. Bones crunched, innards squelched, and Obi-Wan hoped beyond hope that Qui-Gon wasn’t disappointed in him.
At last the carnage seemed to cease, and he could hear Jagannath panting in the dark, then the sound of shifting metal.
Obi-Wan didn’t move as Jagannath approached him, moving with strange caution.
“You did that,” said Jagannath. There was an edge of disbelief to his tone. “Brought it here, so I wouldn’t be hungry.”
Obi-Wan swallowed. “No one should have to go hungry. They teach you that in the AgriCorps.”
He jumped as he felt a hand ghost lightly over his arm, stopping just short of really touching him.
“Are you still hungry?” said Obi-Wan, trying to keep his voice steady.
Jagannath paused. “Yes,” he said, sounding quiet and shamefaced. “I am supposed to rise above it but...all the time.”
Obi-Wan steeled himself and reached out, both physically, and in the Force, to that seething nexus of dark energy and pain that felt eerily familiar, and yet totally alien. “Here, let me show you how I did it.”
Jagannath took his hand, and Obi-Wan tried not to think of his master as he led them on the hunt.