Dar'solus [Captain Rex x reader]

Chapter 32 - Tal'galar

I'm sorry.

Obi-Wan's shock at what I had told him was filling the room as if a nebula had imploded on itself, sending rippling waves all around. His face controlled still, yet if I had tried to reach out, I am certain my fingers would have grazed his emotions climbing up around him. Hesitating as I was uncertain which way his surprise was tipping, I simply stayed observing his eyes. They told me everything he could, and would not tell me. Everything that he had been taught to not feel. After a moment's collection, he hefted a grip on his consciousness running wild with questions and fashioned his first,

"How?"

Simple and quiet it was the loudest and most twindeling one he had.

"My father. He knew him and they had become like brothers before he met my mother."

Memories hugged themselves around me in warmth and comfort as I was taken back to when I was but a mere youngling. Running and laughing through my home, the gardens and with my father. An entranced smile grew its blossom on my lips all the while I continued,

"Uncle Jinn would visit whenever he could and tell all the stories of him and his padawan. I never knew who it was, until now."

A wave meeting the shore again after its journey is a slow and steady guiding back to one another, as was my gaze finding Obi-Wan's again. He remained in a posture of serene, yet it wasn't. His blue eyes were filled with so many things I couldn't see them all separately.

"I never understood where he would go and why it was so important. He would tell me scarce things and... and that someday he would take me so I could meet friends of his. It saddens me that we meet under different circumstances."

Blue hues aware yet remorse painted him from behind, and his voice carried the same colour. Mine in contrast was like the faintest of golden shine from a single lit candle flame,

"Uncle Jinn told me many things about his padawan, you know. How he was so courageous and righteous. Never giving up when the time was most dire and hopeless. How he fought on and on to do what was right. Qui-Gon always wondered how you could know what was the right thing to do. He also said that even though you were a most formidable fighter, you were always prone to negotiation. It is your strongest quality."

A sheen of light reflected stronger from his eyes than before. Averting them from me I couldn't hinder the sorrow that escaped my own. Caressing their way down my cheeks, then falling silently on to the reflective floors holding us up. When I had arrived here for the very first time, clouded in fear and disarray, the news of Qui-Gon had utterly depleted me. A dying plant being denied the water it so desperately needed. A flame being stripped of its warmth to keep going, I had fallen to withering embers in the wind. Drifting further and further from my place of origin, of who I had once been born. And this very place we now resided in, had held the knowledge of who his padawan had been. The one I now watered, the one I gave warmth to so it could grow into a mighty fire once more.

"Master always was fond of my way to always head for negotiations first."

Seeing the light in him assert a gentle yet strong shine to carry on, I let myself mend one of my broken pieces. I would carry the burden of broken pieces from anyone who bared them for me, for I wouldn't wish them to fall apart like I once had. But if I too was broken, beyond fragile and decayed, I could not heft my task. The darkness I carried was mine and mine alone, although it could be seen in moments of hesitation. But I would keep it to myself until it was little enough to not burden others. Obi-Wan regained his calm demeanour and if I had not been too lost, I swore I saw a faint shadow of a new pass by. Blinking it was gone and the colours of before shined bright as ever, not giving in to tell me right from wrong.