Chapter Text
The Force made the island around him, and in the island he must stay.
Obi-Wan sighs, stretches at his seat til the fine cluster-work of knots along his spine begin to ungroup themselves. He has been at the autumnal piece for the better part of night into dawn, and watched through his mirror the progress of the clouds wisping themselves towards dew. A drop of rain alit on his cheek near the third hour; he did not think to turn his hand near the casement to tug it shut. So pleasing it remains, even after these ordered and quiet years--these years that are, themselves, becoming their own loom--to be touched by the water of the outside world.
This morning, the bindings of the corset that helped keep him aright in the darker hours now chafe. He should stop, set down the shuttle, and undo himself. But his body will not move for comfort. Not yet, not when the scene is so close to being set. A little while again, another hour or so’s furtherance of the ache in his arms, and autumn will be spread before him, in skirts of burnt orange and buttery marigold, in the thousands of leaves worked into this pattern. If he is allowed to keep this piece, he knows just where it will go in his bedchamber. He wants to hang it right where the sun sets, and oh, he will be studious and practiced at the winter offering, so he may keep autumn close.
Of all the pieces he has made in service to his unseen wards, Obi-Wan has never missed winter’s work most. Winters in his keep are cold, clear as many small bells, and he spends months trying to blot out the sound that nothingness makes, that not even the clack and whirr of his loom can cover. But to think on that time stretching in an icy wail ahead of him is to borrow trouble, and so he suppresses a shiver with a steely set to his back, with a grimace of concentration as the shuttle flies back into his waiting palm. The corset creaks along his sides like the hands of two old bullies, pinching him dearly.
It is a beautiful day outside, along the river, which the mirror tells him in plain sight, lifting his gaze to sound of the farrier’s passport, that smart clop of well-shod horses’ feet taking produce and persons to Camelot for morning’s business. This far away, Obi-Wan nonetheless imagines he can scent the freshness of the hay, hear the idle gossip passed between the cooks wearing homespun scarves against the dew. He thinks, not for the first time, that he would make them something finer, something warmer and less prone to unravelling, but lets the hope slacken and droop like discarded, lustreless thread.
The Force has given him this island, and this island is held in the power of the Force. Eternally so.
To say it over and over, warp and weft, has made the telling of it easier at times, unpalatable at others. Sometimes the taste of its truth is a balm, especially when he can shut the casements to blur the sting of the coldest months. At others, when the sweetness of summer pitches birdsong at his open windows, and the sound of townsfolk laughter seems even more honeyed with the season’s idyll, its warmth creeping under the linen corset he yet laces taut in those sweaty days… well. At those times, he saves the miniature curses that threaten to spill his mouth. He tucks them beneath his tongue, and reminds himself he must be grateful for the certainty of what enfolds him.
A glance, now, at the mirror, which reminds him that this is simply as true as it has always been. Wanting, watching for a difference, will not prompt it to come sooner. Had it come sooner, nothing could make it come close to him.
He leans forward, presses his forehead against the solid oak beam of the loom, and focuses, quieting his breath so he can hear the nearing susurration of the cooks hitching a ride in the produce cart. “- new regiment to Camelot, and not a bent penny’s worth too soon,” one says to the other, some of the words clipped out by the horses’ progress. “Aye, hardier soldiers these, from some dust bowl province where there’s naught but sand for leagues. What business do you suppose the King will put them to?” comes the reply, offered between the responder’s avid turnip crunching. Obi-Wan knows the sound of a varietal of raw vegetables between the teeth, and these are young, fresh goods. He likes it when the people feel safe enough to eat and drink their own wares on the high road. He remembers a time when it was not always thus, and his stomach, unbidden, clenches in a spasm of sympathy for a kind of hunger he has simply never known. Such is his indulgence, and if it is a cage he inhabits, he cannot complain that its corners hurt.
“Safeguarding the territories, I should think,” the senior cook--Obi-Wan recollects the grizzle in that baritone, the way his displeasure sounds like animal fat spitting in the pan--rasps, a horse’s satisfied nicker as it receives a turnip of its own drowning out some of the shared speech. “- young swordsman, as agile with a blade but marked badly in the face for it -” another chomping of turnips devoured between equine and human alike, then, right as the carriage passes out of earshot of his castle walls, “- the kind we need, in a kingdom full of sorcerers and sinners, and that crazed fairy lord locked up high.”
Ah. Obi-Wan opens his eyes to regard the mirror, standing to greet it as the human voices carry themselves up to the gates of the city. He swallows, regards his countenance, and bids himself good morrow.
“Hello, there,” he sighs. His own face, thirty-seven and untouched, does not answer.