oom: meditation for Obi-Wan

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia's room at Milliways is simple, done in soft grays and muted, calming tones; one wall is a misty forest mural, concealing the door to the bathroom. But it has two sturdy and comfortable scoop chairs and it's quiet. She supposes that's enough to qualify as a good place to meditate.

So she leaves a note at the bar for Obi-Wan and waits, trying vainly to clean up, though there's very little to clean.

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[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan receives the note on his next visit, and he takes the time first to change out of his armour, so when he arrives at Sinthia's he's in his robes only, complete with volumnous sleeves and his favourite red boots. And it's with bare knuckles he taps politely on the door.

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia is barefoot herself, a comfortably oversized sweater falling loose off her shoulder, so she has little room to speak about his sleeves. The boots--their color, particularly--gets a second glance, but she smiles when she steps back from the door to let him in.

"Hello," she murmurs. "I hope this is an alright place. I didn't want to use the library."

[acertainpov]

"Oh this is a perfect place," Obi-Wan agrees. "Secluded, familiar enough to you to be safe. I think we can work well here."

He steps into the room, his hands held behind his back and his head lifted and interested as he looks around.

[abyssum_invocat]

There is, to be honest, not much in the room: the bed, a small pouf where she has a short stack of books an a glass cup half-full with water, the chairs, and a low table, on which is a shallow pot with spikes of petal-pink flowers and some kind of ivy spilling out. It's minimalist to the point of soulless, though pretty.

It's very clear she did not design the room, but she does seem fond of the colors pink and gray if the look of the room is anything to go by.

"You can sit wherever you like," Sinthia offers, though she backs up, unwilling to turn her back on someone in an enclosed space, to sit on the bed, legs tucked up under her. "I'm not sure how this is supposed to go."

[acertainpov]

"It can go wherever you want it to go," Obi-Wan says. He takes a seat on one of the chairs, his legs folded on the seat in front of him, sitting cross-legged as if he were on the floor.

"Why don't we start by letting me know what you'd ideally want to get out of exploring your mind? And how much you want to do it yourself or if you'd be willing for me to go with you."

[abyssum_invocat]

She takes a breath, and sighs. "I want to feel normal. To know what I'm missing," she says. "And to stop spiraling sometimes." She shrugs, lifting a shoulder and letting it fall again. "I don't really know what I'm doing, so I would need you to go with me."

Or to do something with her, either way.

[acertainpov]

"I don't know that I know what normal feels like," Obi-Wan says, "but we can start there. Why don't you make yourself comfortable - find a sitting position you think you can maintain for a while?"

He's happy where he is, sitting on the chair like it's a meditation mat.

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia looked down at her legs, tucked up beside and under her, and shifted to be sitting on her heels, ankles turned so her backside was cradled comfortably.

"All right. I can sit still for quite a long time."

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan nods. And then he closes his eyes and reaches out through the Force until he's touching her, light and warm and reassuring, ready to feel what she feels.

He breathes slowly, in for a long breath, out, and speaks with his normal, out loud voice.

"So just settle, for a moment. Experience what you are feeling right now."

[abyssum_invocat]

With effort, Sinthia closed her eyes, breathing in and holding, and slowly breathing out. The residual noise, so to speak, of stray thoughts quiets. She's still busy, for lack of a better explanation, mind darting between observations of everything around her, the ease of egress from the room, the threat levels of people she knows stay nearby, evaluating and re-evaluating.

"I don't feel...anything," she says softly, brows gently creasing. It would be contentment if she were happier, the familiarity of routine.

[acertainpov]

"You're not paying attention," he says gently. "What about the bed beneath you, the air in your nose flowing into your lungs? Start with the physical."

[abyssum_invocat]

Her brows crease as he tells her to try harder, and Sinthia takes a deeper breath, concentrating.

"The blanket is soft, it feels like...velvet," she murmurs, toes flexing underneath her. "The air is cool, but not cold, a little...damp. I can smell the flowers on the table."

[acertainpov]

"Easy," he says, his voice and his presence gentle. "That's good: the blanket, the air, the smell. Sit with that for now, experience it."

No need to try, or to concentrate too hard, just to sit, and be.

[abyssum_invocat]

Sinthia takes a deep and rib-expanding breath, trying to force calm even as her mind races, wondering what Obi-Wan is thinking and trying not to pry.

"I feel like I have to be doing something," she says softly. "Like...something terrible will happen if I sit still."

[acertainpov]

"And how does that feel?" he asks.

He stays with her - they're sitting across the room from each other but still he's next to her.

"Are you afraid of sitting still? Or is it something else?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"It's...hard to say," she answers eventually, mouth tightening as she thinks and trying not to spiral out of control. "It's a feeling like...if I'm not moving, or doing something, if I'm sitting still something is going to come for me. That I'm missing an opportunity someone else isn't. That...I'll be dead because I missed something."

It's an unpleasant buzz always in the back of her head, but Obi-Wan is in the room, no one else, an they're both safe. If he'd wanted to kill her, he'd have done it by now.

[acertainpov]

And, his presence indicates, the feeling despite his thoughts not actually being readable - and, he doesn't want to. That is as convincing on the psychic plane than if the words were said out loud. More so, in fact.

He's here, and he's paying a mild, unthreatened interest to the buzz, like an entomologist might an angry hornet that he knowsis unable to hurt him.

"You can stop if you want," he says. "But you might listen to it as well. Is it telling the truth?"

[abyssum_invocat]

The and, subtle as it is, is noticeable, and Sinthia breathes deep to try to listen.

It's difficult, like trying to hear notes in music being played in another room. "I don't know if it's lying to me now," she says slowly. "It...I've never been served ill by listening to it before."

[acertainpov]

"An interesting problem," Obi-Wan says, "you only remember the times it was right, and not the times it warned you of dangers that weren't there. Is it constant, or does it change?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"It's quieter sometimes. When I'm alone," she says. "But in crowds, when I'm downstairs, it's so loud I can't ignore it. I know people have told me I have nothing to be afraid of here, but if that's true, why is there a jail?"

[acertainpov]

"How loud is it now?"

He can hear it, of course, but he wants her to say it out loud. Wants to draw her attention to it now, rather then what it's like at another time.

[abyssum_invocat]

She takes a breath in, and listens, and sighs for a moment.

"Not very loud. It...reminds me you're here, and that you have abilities I do not." And that she doesn't know him very well. And that he, like everyone else, could be duplicitous.

Everyone can lie, she needs no little voice to tell her that.

"It can be ignored. Sometimes."

[acertainpov]

"The trick is to know when to listen, I imagine," Obi-Wan says, glossing over the part where he can very much be duplicitous. "Ignoring it just because you can is different from ignoring it because it isn't helping."

[abyssum_invocat]

"I'm...trying to learn," she says lightly. "But it's difficult to believe it...could be lying."

[acertainpov]

Obi-Wan just nods, in real life and, somehow, in the way he feels accepting, understanding.

"You've been sitting here for a while now. Has it got worse?"

[abyssum_invocat]

"Not worse," she says softly, shaking her head. "It feels...more insistent when I think about it. But I know--I don't think you'll do anything."

The distinction is important, not because she doesn't trust Obi-Wan's intentions, but because for the first time in a very, very long time, she's actively thinking about someone else in more than just terms of threat assessment. "I don't know how to make it go away entirely. Or if it ever will. But I want to learn to ignore it."

Or at least diminish it.

[acertainpov]

"Hmmmm," he says thoughtfully. "Maybe learning to ignore it starts with learning when it's safe to ignore it. And that takes time, I'm afraid."

[abyssum_invocat]

She sighs at that. "I didn't realize how much time everything took."

[acertainpov]

"That's very much the nature of the universe I'm afraid," Obi-Wan says. "But you're already doing well."