15 Jun 1999



----



I see Anakin in him.  His father's eyes, his father's fair hair, his

father's sun-browned skin--his father's strength in the Force.   I see

the anger and the impatience and the constant "why", the pushing and

pushing to know, to do, to be.



Luke Skywalker is his father's son, and more dangerous than Anakin ever

was.  Not quite as strong with the Force, but already possessed of a

confidence and a sure hand that took Anakin years of training to learn.

Anakin's boy, who raced speeders across the desert and through the

canyons as his father once raced pods, strong and swift and sure.



I see Amidala in him.  He is slender and I see in him a leader of men, a 

legend before his twenty-first birthday, with all her passion and

dedication.  



Luke Skywalker is his mother's son, and stronger than Amidala ever was.

Anakin's betrayal ultimately killed her, but when he learns of it, it

will not kill him.  What she could not incorporate into herself, he can

and will.  Where she failed, her strength and love inadequate to the

task, he will not.



Luke Skywalker, like his father and mother before him, holds the fate of 

the galaxy in the palm of his hand.



Luke Skywalker, born free, not a slave.  Luke Skywalker, whose highest

ambition was to be a pilot.  Luke Skywalker, with neither his father's

inborn fear nor his mother's love of power.



Luke Skywalker, who will be the last of the Jedi, and the first.



Luke Skywalker, kneeling at my side, this last night on Tatooine, as I

teach him the meditations of the Jedi.



He opens his eyes and smiles at me.  "What is it, Obi-Wan?"



Not Ben, the name he grew up with, the name he always called me.

Obi-Wan, and in his voice such self-assurance--



I look into his blue eyes, and see my Master looking out at me.



No, not my Master, not in this slender boy, smaller and slighter even

than I was at that age. I can feel Qui-Gon within the Force, as I always

have, and I know he is neither Luke nor within Luke.



But the boy's control reminds me of my Master; the amused blue eyes take 

me back to my eighteenth birthday, when Qui-Gon kissed me in

congratulations and I tried to take it further, leaning into him,

reaching up and tangling my fingers in his hair.



He looked at me then with that expression in his eyes.  *I know what you 

want, Obi-Wan: do you have the courage to say it?* the eyes said.



Luke's eyes, on me now, daring me to tell him what I want.  It has been

so long since I had a lover, so long since the shuddering release of sex 

and the scent of musk and sweat, and Luke is tense with need.  Owen's

and Beru's deaths hit him hard, and he wants to feel a body moving

beneath him and a mouth against his.



He also knows I want him, and that I will not say it.  He knows that

when he finishes the meditations he will leave me to my rest, and find

himself a companion for the night.



I drop my eyes and wait for him to complete the routine, without ever

answering his question.



Eventually, he leaves, squeezing my shoulder gently as he goes.



I shrug out of my clothes and lie down on the bunk, run my hand over my

body to my aching erection, and remember when my Master finally took me

as his lover, his mouth warm and wet as he kissed every inch of my body, 

the feel of his hardness against my stomach and then inside me.  Then, I 

was a young man--no longer a boy, and bold enough to tell an older man

that I wanted him.



Now I am the older man, and not bold enough to tell Luke--Luke, who

wavers in an instant between boy and man--that I want him.



Even when he looks at me with Qui-Gon's amused and lustful eyes.  



I come into my hand and wrap myself into my robe, lying calm and quiet

under the folds of fabric, thinking.



I see Qui-Gon in him.  His potential, his grace, his calm consideration

and control.  His demands on me, as inexorable as death.  The path I

follow, despite my misgivings, behind Luke as I once followed behind my

Master. 



I feel a hand in my hair, stroking me to sleep, and I think for a moment 

that my Master has come to me, as he has in the past when I was

troubled.  I open my eyes, and it is Luke Skywalker who is there, his

fingers as gentle in my close-cropped hair as Qui-Gon's ever were.  "You 

should sleep, Obi-Wan," he says.  "I'll be across the room if you need

anything." 



I sense unfulfilled need in him, and I know that somehow, my despair

called him back to me.



He is not my Padawan, but once I had such a connection with Qui-Gon,

before I was his Padawan, and I wonder what it means.



Across the room, he begins one of the meditations I taught him, the one

Qui-Gon liked to use before sleeping.



I drift into sleep, to dream of Luke Skywalker holding the galaxy in his 

hand as though it were a toy, to be used and thrown away on a whim.  And 

then the dream-Luke looks at me, and speaks in my Master's voice.  "Be

mindful of the living Force, Obi-Wan.  Understand the future, but do not 

let it rule you.  The last of the Jedi will walk his own path: do not be 

afraid, my beloved apprentice.  Do not be afraid."



The dream fades, but I remember.



I see myself in him, in that fire in his eyes, in the unconsciously

skilful way he held the lightsaber in my home, in the quick flashes of

annoyance with others' stupidity or duplicity.



I see myself and my Master and his mother and father, and I know: Luke

Skywalker will walk a path no other has ever walked, with Anakin's

deadly power, Amidala's strength, Qui-Gon's control, and my mercurial

temperment. 



I hope I still recognize him when he reaches his destination.



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The End