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It's interesting how we do this. Lock our minds and hearts away from each other, spill our desires into books of wildly written dreams, and watch as our fantasies crumble under the everyday pressure of living with each other.

So often I have pictured my master as different than he is, someone who never loses his temper and snaps at me, someone who can be the person with gentle eyes I see in my daydreams.

But he's not. He's the man who knocks me to the ground time and time again to get a lightsaber lesson through, who is not above a harsh word, extra chores or mediation, whose voice at times sounds not at all like that of the man who held back the fighting Sorsins in their late civil war.

I used to resent this. How dared he treat me like this, I used to think.

And then I found it, completely by accident...his mediation journal, where he had written about his dreams for *me*.

"Obi-Wan is growing up far too headstrong, I'm afraid," he'd written. "There are times when my temper is at the breaking point, when he is so incredibly stubborn, when he decides that he needs to punish himself, once he realizes his errors. I shake my head at him, but sometimes I can't help but wish he was less hard on himself, less stubborn, more willing to hear what I have to say, to approach his problems with calmness. I've prescribed mediations on self-esteem. He, of course, thinks they are a punishment."

I read no further. I didn't need to. At once I saw myself through his eyes -- stubborn foolish child, persisting in habits and ways he knows will get me killed -- the self-pity complex not the least of them. And my master, trying patience, day after day, hoping that I'll understand he's not punishing me, but molding me.

I laid the book aside, and for once, did not mentally assign myself extra duties or mediations for transgressing. Instead I came to him, eyes lowered as a sign of respect, and knelt before him as he sat reading on the couch.

"My master?" The words were a question, and he looked up, eyebrows furrowed.

"Obi-Wan," was all he said.

"Forgive me, master," I answered. "I have transgressed. I submit myself to your discipline."

"What have you done, padawan?" he asked, and laid the datapad aside, sitting up straight. "And what prompts this unasked confession?"

I looked up. "I found your book, your journal. My curiousity overcame me, and I read part of it."

He leaned forward. "And what did you think of it?"

"I thought it was...correct," I answered. "I am all those things you say I am."

Qui-Gon laughed. Taking my hands in his, he pulled me closer.

"Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan, you stubborn padawan," he said. "Don't depend on me for your self-worth. What I write are merely my rather educated opinions. Develop your own view of yourself."

And in the last seven years I have. In all my ponderings about the nature of love, and what the self really is, and who I really am, I've never come to an answer. That, I see now, is my strength.

We humans are far more than any fortune-teller could predict, or any philosopher could study. We have variants beyond variants in our natures, and the ability to choose right and wrong. Our very complexity is our confusion, as well as our delight. We are all exactly the same, yet infinitely different.

In those years, I have learned to accept that "me" varies, and varies widely. I am both a being earthy and starry, formed of human clay, yet with a mind that can rapturize and dream.

And he is too. At last I can see me through his eyes as well as my own. At last I can begin to see him with his own eyes, as well as my own. I know his faults, none better, and yet there is a fire that burns in me when I look at him.

I have no fear that I will become a carbon copy of Qui-Gon Jinn. I have accepted that I have opinions different than his, some very different, and yet, I love him.

He may have molded me, but I have made me. He has his opinions of me, and I respect them, but claim the right to have my own view of myself.

I grow apart from him,, and in doing this grow closer to him. The more I become my own person, the more I can see him for his own person, and the more I can love him.

For I do love him. The man who knocked me to the ground time and time again to prove a point made me a warrior. The man whose words were harsh taught me diplomacy. The man who molded me set me free.

And on this night, just before I take my trials, I pause a moment to thank him for his care throughout the years. Force willing, if I am successful, there will be other words we will share tomorrow morning, perhaps words of love.

His answer to my thanks is a smile, and for once he looks like the man in my long-ago daydreams.

"You were worth it, Obi-Wan," he says then. "You have been a good padawan -- and you are a much wiser man than I am."

He pauses, and runs his hand down my braid. "Now go," he says.

And for the last time, I obey him.

END