Summary: Obi-Wan has to write ballads about the events of The Phantom Menace
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I do not.
Notes: You wanted Obi-Wan singing, you got him.

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Obi-Wan leaned his head on his hands. It was times like these that he really missed his Master. Qui-Gon had been much better at writing ballads than Obi-Wan. Much, much better. This long, formal account of Naboo, Tatooine, the Sith, the battles...losing his Master, winning the war. Qui-Gon could have finished it in a day or two, but Obi-Wan was a week into it and still felt it wasn't finished.

He sighed and set aside the pad. He'd take a nap, and then he'd finish it. Tomorrow, he would sing it before the Council, done or not, and then he and Anakin could go hack things to pieces in peace. He went over to his bed and promptly fell asleep.

While he was asleep, he dreamed. The dream woke him into cold sweats and shudders, and he called the pad and stylus to his hand almost frantically. And, for the first time in his life, Obi-Wan wrote a prophetic ballad, a song only for the Council, never to be sung by students. It would be sung once, and never again, except in the hearts of those who heard it, and the text would be saved in the archives to be studied.

Not for the first time, Obi-Wan wished he was a better writer, more eloquent, able to put this vision down in words, but he couldn't. Only two parts of it would come out: that Anakin would marry Amidala, and that Anakin would become Darth Vader.

He bent his head and eventually managed two separate ballads: the long, formal teaching ballad, which barely mentioned the boy, and the prophetic ballad, which told Ani's story within a framework of the whole. He studied it. It was terrible. He was almost ashamed of it--but it was the only way it would come out.

He sang the teaching ballad to the Council, and then he looked at them and sighed, and told them of his vision. And then he opened his mouth and began to sing again, his voice, at least, clear and true, even if his words were not.

He ended the first verse, and he could see the confusion in their eyes. They didn't see the prophecy in it, not yet. One more line.

"Oh my my, this here Anakin guy
May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry
And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye
Sayin' 'Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi'
'Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi'

Did you know this junkyard slave
Isn't even old enough to shave
But he can use the Force they say
Ahh, do you see him hitting on the queen
Though he's just nine and she's fourteen
Yeah, he's probably gonna marry her someday..."

They reacted to that. The name "Vader" *felt* like a Sith name, crawling over the skin of any Jedi who heard it. And that Ani would marry Queen Amidala--that seemed both likely and unlikely. Part of a clouded future. Obi-Wan could see the pain in Yoda's eyes, but he kept singing. His voice held true and strong until the end.

"...And the Jedi I admire most
Met up with Darth Maul and now he's toast
Well, I'm still here and he's a ghost
I guess I'll train this boy..."

And then he lost it, crumpling there on the floor of the Council chamber, shaken by the vision and the loss of his Master and his own inability to put it into words, true words, to tell the Council what it all meant.

The Council stood and filed out, leaving Obi-Wan in the center of the room, alone with his pain.

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The End.

Further disclaimers: Lyrics are from "The Saga Begins" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, and are used without permission. Hopefully, anyone who recognized them had a "holy crap!" moment in the middle of reading this story. This was the evil plot bunny that bit me the other day...sigh...I know...I'm pitiful. --laura