GONCHAROV (1973)

GONCHAROV (1973)

Obi-wan was dead: to begin with.

(an obi-wan x 2nd person Original Female Character)

you thought he was dead, no - you knew he was dead. You’d seen him die. Sobbed over his lifeless body as you nearly bled to death yourself. You had not eaten, nor drank, nor slept for weeks after you were finally dragged away from his body. You spent the days staring at the wall of your Jedi quarters, wasting away in isolated mourning. it had taken you ten years to gain any sense of normalcy again. ten years.

Ten years of feeling nothing but emptiness and despair over your friends sudden departure. You knew he was dead,

you had felt it, you had gotten over it.

but yet - yet he stood in front of you.

Sure, the past ten years had taken the same toll out of him as it did you. Grey hairs peppered his trimmed beard, matching the swept back hair that sat atop his head. Long gone was his Jedi uniform you were so used to seeing. Instead, he donned a simpler sand-coloured cotton shirt and worn, black trousers. And - of course, he wore his signature mud brown cloak which hung loosely around his shoulders.

The light of the two Tatooine suns casted their brilliant glare onto his face. Apricot and mandarin flickered through the open door of the small, empty cafe you worked in. Blue eyes fixed on yours, gone was the spark that swam in the blue ocean you had missed. and, oh how you missed them dearly. That spark had been replaced by the dull glaze of regret, so familiar with those who’ve seen the chaos of battle.

As your brain took a beat to register what you have laid your eyes on, you have to blink one, two, times to make sure it wasn’t just the dust that hung heavy in the air. Or spice, left over from people who wanted to forget their past.

Now, he stood at the threshold of the cafe,

his tired face twisting into something resembling shock, it matched yours.

It was quite metaphoric, actually, when he stepped past the invisible barrier back into your life.

“You’re dead.” Is the first thing to break the silence. A statement, one of which you though to be true for the years now passed.

At this, the man only smiled at the sureness of your voice.

“Well, I hope not. Tatooine isn’t exactly my idea of heaven.” A smooth, velvet voice replied. It reminded you of the bedsheets in your penthouse back at coruscant when the senate was at its strongest. Back when all you needed to feel safe was warm, clean sheets on your bed. Back when chaos was still a stranger.

The lightness of his reply makes your heart flutter, you can’t count how many times you asked the maker to allow you to hear the soft melody that came from his lips just one more time.

“You’re- you’re not- this isn’t real. This isn’t real- i’ve gone insane. Or-or i’m dehydrated. Sunstroke. i’ve got sunstroke-“ you begin to reassure yourself, voice shaky and knees weak. You have to grip the counter in front of you to stop from collapsing on the floor.

Without thinking, he moves to steady you. The action as fluid as a dance, on the balls of his feet as he glides across to where you shake. without thinking, he places a large calloused hand on your waist to ground you. And, without thinking, you lean into him.

Musk and sandalwood attack your senses. But you surrender to the smell willingly, dragging the long lost scent into your lungs with a deep and heavy breath.

He smells of home, it almost makes you forget the past ten years, it almost allows you to smile.

Once you regained your composure, you quickly pushed him away.

He stumbled back at the suddenness of it, but quickly becomes stable again. His eyes find yours, weary, careful.

“Obi-wan.” His name tastes strange on your tongue, it’s a name you haven’t said in a long, long time. You can still taste the salty tears that had usually followed when you thought of him.

Obi-wan doesn’t say anything at first, still the gentleman as ever, letting you collect your thoughts before he makes any more moves. He knows how hard this must be for you. he can sense it. He can hear the drumming of your heart, the rush of your mind. He smiles. It’s a sad sort of smile, a smile you would find at a funeral. A smile that says - i’m sorry, truly.

“Hello Elora,” he begins, the lightness gone completely, replaced by silent an apology, replaced by the heavy burden of guilt. You take a sharp breath in at the sound of your name on his lips. It doesn’t sound as natural as it should. Instead of rolling of the tongue in that familiar way you know it should, it catches at the back of his throat as if it physically hurt him to say it.

“-you look well.” he finishes, hand running through his hair to push back the hairs that had fallen onto his forehead.

“I look…well?”, a small humorous laugh was all you could manage.

“well, as well as one can be on this planet. I suppose, you seem like you’ve done well for yourself- not that I ever doubted that you couldn’t. You have a natural knack on that sort of thing. But, anyways, you look good. I mean- you’ve always looked good but what i’m trying to say is that you don’t look too worse for wear. In any sense that could-”

You can only stand speechless as you watch one of the most poised people you’ve ever known, stumble over their words.

You interrupt before he could finish his word vomit of an explication.

“You’re alive.”

A heartbeat of silence passes.

“I’m alive.” He replies, and the sentence hangs heavy in the air.

To make sure this isn’t a cruel trick, you move closer towards where he stands.

Your hand shakily finds the edges of his face, holding it slowly around the soft skin of his cheeks. He sinks into the touch, dipping his head down for better contact.

Obi-wan lets out a sigh of relief and closes his eyes, just feeling your skin on his.

“Maker only knows how much i’ve missed you, Elora.”

With him being so close, you can feel the slight shudder in his voice, you can feel the elevated rise and fall of his chest that matches yours.

“How are you alive? why- why didn’t you come back? you left me to believe you were dead, all these years. I mourned for you! For ten years i-“

This time he cuts you off by placing his forehead on yours.

“please, can we just. stay? like this, just for a moment.” he asks, almost begging, hot breath tickling your cheek as he does so.

you don’t know if it’s for his sake or yours but you comply. and stars, you’re glad you do. The almost instantaneous shift in the force feels like a million weights being lifted that you hadn’t even realised we’re holding you down. with this, you release a breathe you’d been holding for who knows long and close your eyes to match with the man in front of you.

the moment feels like a lifetime, the hot suns making your already hot skin tingle.

it’s not until you hear the familiar chime of the door do you pull away, muttering a flustered apology and scurrying away to serve the customer. throughout your interaction, you can’t help your gaze as it scans over the cafe and lands on Kenobi, his eyes meeting yours each time.

It was strange, seeing him like this - hand raking over a greying beard and fidgeting.

He was …. nervous. He had never been nervous, in all the years you had know him. Apprehensive and guarded? Sure, as all good Jedi are - but Obi-wan Kenobi was never nervous.

“Thank you for coming in, enjoy your day~” You shout out as the customer leaves, following him to flip the open sign and lock the door, Obi-wan’s eyes never leaving your body.

You’re purposely slow closing the shop, trying to stretch out the time you have before you need to confront the man currently sat in one of the booths.

“I’m sure you have some questions, Elora.” He states, his poised accent cutting through the stiff Tatooine air, your name on his tongue rings in your ear.

You spin to face him, “I have a lot more than some.”

Your voice doesn’t sound like your own, it’s distant and cold and it’s broken. It’s ten years of grief and it’s an unexpected visit. It’s the voice of a widow, whose husband is standing in front of her, alive.

NASA Data Sonification: Black Hole Remix

In this sonification of Perseus. the sound waves astronomers previously identified were extracted and made audible for the first time. The sound waves were extracted outward from the center. (source)

if i look for a character playlist and it has ANYTHING by Mother Mother I am going to go insane

housewife kink through the roof right now.