Title: It is Your Destiny...

Author: Ruby-Flame Jedi Queen

Summary: Obi-Wan finds that the lack of past memories result in future errors.

Rating: G

Feedback: Please send some! It doesnít take much time, and it is what us authors *live* off of...

Anakin flattened his face against the window, struggling to see what lay beyond.

Gray clouds were covering the window, but for some reason Anakin kept the hope inside him that he might be able to see through them.

After a few minutes of wishing, the cloud cover cleared, and Anakin was surprised to see color seeping through the window. He blinked a few times, flattened his face a bit more, and then he saw it. Many miles beneath him lay a gleaming city. Miles and miles of buildings and shiny mental. A perfect place for flying ships, and pod racing, and...

"And becoming a jedi?" Obi-Wan finished for Anakin.

"Hey, are you reading my thoughts again Master Obi-Wan?" Anakin asked, still a bit puzzled by how jedi could accomplish that.

"Who, me?" Obi-Wan grinned innocently.

"You are a very bad liar," Anakin laughed, his eyes still turned towards the approaching city. He had been on a ship to Coruscant before, but he hadnít been awake to see the sight. Now, he was glad Obi-Wan woke him up, for the view before him was...

"Amazing!" Anakin breathed after a few moments of gaping.

"Hmm.." Obi-Wan answered, his mind floating else where.

Anakin recognized that look as the ëlost in memoriesí look, which he had had many times aboard this ship. He had gotten lost in thoughts of his old life, with his mother on Tatooine, and had wished it back more than once. But now, staring at the city, his doubts diminished and he thought ahead. He saw himself, older, swinging a brilliant red light saber... wait a second. Red? Garbed in black, wearing a mask...What? *It is your destiny.*

"What did you say, Master Obi-Wan?" Anakin asked, puzzled.

Obi-Wan raised his head out of his thoughts and gave Anakin an inquiring glance. "What?"

"Never mind..." Anakin mumbled, and his face twisted into a frown. What did this mean? As the ship approached the city, Anakin found that he could not get the image out of his head, and soon he could not keep the questions that ensued because of it to himself. He turned towards his new Master and got his attention, "Master Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan, who was just about to make preparations for their landing turned around to face his padawan, "Yes Anakin?"

Anakin asked him the first question that popped out, "Can you tell me about the dark side?"

Obi-Wan grimaced and wondered what had brought this on. "The dark side?"

"Yeah." Anakin nodded.

Still baffled, Obi-Wan shook his head and said, "Might I ask why?"

"Just curious." Anakin said casually, as if the subject had just been a random question Anakin just felt like asking out of the blue.

Obi-Wan really wondered what made Anakin ask such a question now. "Why do you ask me this now? And what is it you want to know?"

Anakin didnít answer the first question, but he asked in response to the second, "Do Sith use red lightsabers?"

ëThat was a strange question,í Obi-Wan thought, and finally he answered, "The Sith are extinct."

Anakin knew better, "Thatís what you thought before Darth Maul. Didnít Master Yoda say that when you find one Sith, there is always another; one is the master, and one is the apprentice? And Darth Maul used a red lightsaber. Do they all?"

Obi-Wan became even more troubled at this. One, at the boyís powerful perception, and two at the question. If Obi-Wan had learned anything about Anakin, he usually didnít ask a question with that importance out of nowhere. There was a reason. Obi-Wan didnít want to pry, and he didnít want to address Anakinís question just yet. So what resulted thereafter was an eerie total silence. Obi-Wan opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

The moment was finally broken when Anakin returned his gaze out the window, where the buildings were now all around them, and he exclaimed, "Wow, look at that building over there! Itís amazing!"

"Yes, thatís the jedi temple." Obi-Wan said, grateful to change the subject. "That is our destination." He gave Anakin a broad smile and said, "Grab your bags, Anakin, youíre going to become a jedi!"

Anakin cheered and ran back to get his belongings. As soon as he left that area, Obi-Wanís smile disappeared. Somehow, he had a sneaking suspicion that Anakinís question came from a vision. And Anakin hadnít even learned how to perceive them. Obi-Wan frowned. He would need to find out exactly what kind of vision Anakin had had, and what, if anything, it meant. It might have HUGE importance...

--But somehow, it wasnít important enough. For in between all the frenzy of being a new master, and teaching a padawan, and struggling with his padawan, Obi-Wan completely forgot about that incident. Forgot that is, until one eventful day about sixteen years later...

Yoda looked at Obi-Wan with a grave expression on his face. A few distant creatures that inhabited the planet Dagobah cut the thick humid air with their shrieks. Even the atmosphere seemed ominous and foreboding. The future did not hold many carefree moments. Of this, the two jedi were sure.

"Dead, the jedi you knew as Anakin is." Yodaís statement caught Obi-Wan by surprise. His face twisted into confusion. "That IS what I told you Yoda. And yet, you disagreed. But now you repeat my very words."

The shrieks continued. But neither jedi gave them any notice. More important matters were at hand. Yoda gave Obi-Wan an annoyed glance. "Alive, his body is. But under a new name. A name of darkness. Of the Dark Side. Darth Vader, he has become."

Silence became prominent as this next statement slowly sunk in to Obi-Wan. His mind couldnít fully register it, and as the pain began to seep in, so did the reality. Obi-Wanís eyes widened with shock. "THE Darth Vader is Anakin?"

A shriek jerked Obi-Wan out of his trance and he was well aware that Yoda had picked up on his nerves. Obi-Wan shook off his jitters and tried to read Yodaís expression in response to his question. Yoda lowered his eyes and frowned while shaking his head. "Anakin, he is no longer."

The air was choking. Obi-Wan remembered the day he met Anakin, on the Queenís ship when they were just leaving Tatooine. He remembered his wary feelings upon meeting him, that had been a constant nuisance at the back of his mind. He remembered his frustration with his masterís blindness to the danger the boy held, but he giving a dying Qui-Gon his word to train him. And then, quite suddenly, Obi-Wan remembered something else...

"Can you tell me about the dark side?"

"The dark side... Might I ask why?"

"Do Sith use red lightsabers?"

"The Sith are extinct."

"One is the master, and one is the apprentice..."

Obi-Wan suddenly felt very sick. How could he have forgotten all that time ago? Now everything was clear. Anakin had had a vision of the future--his future...*It is your destiny.*

He had failed the boy. If only he had paid more attention to his bad feelings about Anakin before, then Anakin would never have been trained and would never have turned. Now, because of his mistake, the whole galaxy would suffer. He had been filled with remorse when he thought his former padawan had died. Now he was filled with an even stronger regret, one that would plague him forever, for because of his shortsightedness, Anakin had truly suffered a fate much worse than death.