Archive: yes to Master_Apprentice; all others please ask.
Category: Pre-Slash, Point of View
Rating: G. Totally G. Hey, he's thirteen.
Warnings: No smut here. Not an iota. Smarm, though.
Spoilers: presumes familiarity with the Jedi Apprentices books.
Summary: This is a missing scene from JA# 3, and a Very Tiny
Tale (TM). Qui-Gon contemplates the unexpected introduction of
an apprentice into his well-ordered life.
Feedback: feel free.
I was rather preoccupied as we boarded the ship taking us to
Gala. My life had just been radically altered, and I wasn't yet
sure I was ready for the alteration. I was also nursing a bit
of a grudge against a certain ancient green troll back on
Coruscant; thus did my foul mood reflect itself into my
characterization of Master Yoda.
The boy trotting beside me seemed to sense my mood - or he had
a native self-preservation that kept him from questioning me.
My new padawan. The padawan I didn't feel ready to accept. The
apprentice thrust into my life by the Force itself, with a
skillful assist from the aforementioned troll.
We were on the ship, and underway before I returned to my train
of thought. It wasn't clear to me that I was going to be able
to train another padawan, and I hoped I wasn't setting this boy
up for another crushing disappointment. I wasn't sure I could
relearn that way of thinking, that automatic inclusion of
another, that is required to develop a good Master/Padawan
relationship. I'd been alone, and glad to be alone, for too
long, perhaps.
Sith fly away with Master Yoda, I thought vulgarly, and then
grinned at the very word picture I had conjured up. I looked up
to find the boy studying me closely. "Obi-Wan, have you
finished the mission material?" I asked him.
"Yes, Master," he told me. "It seems straightforward enough."
"Well, nothing's as straightforward as it seems... See if you
can find us something to eat in this ... " I almost said 'rusty
bucket', but tact prevailed, the pilot and presumed owner being
within earshot... "conveyance."
Obi-Wan grinned in sympathy, having guessed what I hadn't said,
and left the front of the vehicle for the messy interior.
Leaving me to contemplate my earlier conversation with Master
Yoda.
I'd called the Council on Coruscant to report the conclusion of
the Bandomeer fiasco and to officially request Obi-Wan as my
Padawan. Because my readiness, or lack thereof, to take on a
new apprentice was rather moot at this point - we had already
formed the beginnings of a Master/Padawan bond in the course of
my last mission, and to deny the bond at this juncture would
have been compounded cruelty, something I found I couldn't do.
Yoda didn't have the facial structure for me to be able to tell
whether or not he was gloating, but I was fairly sure that he
was. I asked that the boy's records be downloaded into my
data-pad, and was half-listening to Yoda's recitation of our
next mission, and half-scanning Obi-Wan's Temple records.
Finally I quit pretending I was listening to Yoda, and he,
sensing that I was no longer attending, ceased to speak.
When I looked back up at his silent hologram watching me, I
couldn't decide whether or not to be angry with him - it's
usually a waste of time, with Yoda. "Why hasn't this boy found
a master before?" I settled for asking.
"Unknown, these matters are," Yoda tried to forestall me. "When
master picks a padawan, reasons they are not required to give.
When master doesn't pick a padawan, the same it is."
"From his records alone, he ought to have been selected any
time in the past two years. I know any number of knights who'd
have picked him. How did you manage to hide him from everyone?"
"Hide him, you say?" Yoda's hooded eyes gave nothing away. "A
large boy like that?"
"Stop pretending you don't know what I'm talking about,
Master." I was starting to come down on the side of anger. "You
kept this boy from registering with others looking for a
padawan, and kept pushing him on me. I want to know why."
"Reminds me of someone, young Obi-Wan does. Who, I cannot
recall." Little green liar. "Special, he plainly was. A
particular master, I decided he needed." So he was admitting
it.
"Even if the particular master you had in mind had no intention
of ever taking another padawan again? Would you seriously have
let him go to be a farmer?" Now I was curious - just how far
would Yoda's belief in his own infallability have led him.
"If stubborn you had remained, my padawan he would have
become," Yoda stated. I was mildly shocked. Yoda had always
maintained that he was past the training of padawans; that his
last had proved too much for him.
"Well, at least you have the brains to know he's too valuable
to waste in AgriCorp," I snapped, then went on, "but that
doesn't stop you from being an interfering little gnome who
doesn't know when to leave well enough alone." I finished with
more heat than I had intended.
But Yoda just smiled serenely, and said "I love you too,
Padawan," before closing the connection.
So here I was stuck with a boy already burdened with the belief
that he was somehow inferior as he watched children with
significantly less talents being snapped up while he languished
unchosen because of the machinations of my old Master. I wasn't
sure I had the skill to deal with the situation, but I was
fairly trapped.
I went back to the rear of the ship to see what Obi-Wan had
managed to forage, and found him back in the far corner of the
main compartment of the small ship; the ship being comprised of
a cockpit and a cargo-hold, there wasn't a lot of room to get
lost.
"I have a bad feeling about this," he said, sniffing at a
dubious bit of cheese he'd found in a cooling unit.
"T'saurian," I identified it at a glance. "Most people prefer
it when it gets that ... rank. Ew, put it back."
Further rummaging turned up some olen nuts, which are edible a
hundred years from the tree, some reasonable bread of an
unknown grain and some metal bottles of a recognizable brand of
ale. Leaving some of the dried meat that we took with us when
we travelled, and which I had discovered was a prized treat
outside the Temple, although reviled within, in exchange for
our forage, we returned to a bench near the fore of the
cargohold to eat.
While we did so, I quizzed Obi-Wan on his knowledge of the
Force, and the history of the Order, to discover what things
we'd need to concentrate on. He answered me willingly enough,
and his book-knowledge seemed complete, and he was completely
honest with me about his lack of anything other than
book-knowledge. Well, that was only to be expected for a boy
just out of Temple Academy.
I soon suspected that the boy may have untrained but
significant diplomatic skills; a few prodding questions and
interested looks and he had me telling him more of my past
adventures than I had willingly shared with anyone but a few
very old friends over a much greater quantity of ale than we
had found here. I filed that notion away for further thought -
skilled diplomats were in short supply in the Order, and my
temperment certainly did not run in that direction; perhaps he
had something to teach me.
One thing were clear - he was still a little frightened of me,
and although I didn't expect that would last long, the sooner
he got over it, the better for the both of us.
We were still twenty hours from Gala. I stuck my head into the
cockpit to ask the pilot if there was any place to catch some
sleep, but he simply pointed back to the cargo hold and
continued ignoring us.
"I guess this is it for sleeping facilities," I nodded to the
bench we'd been sitting on.
Obi-Wan looked dismayed. "There's not a thing in this whole
cargo bay to pad that damned rock with! I looked in every bin
when I was looking for food."
"Young people today have gotten so soft," I grumbled, and laid
down on the bench to try it out. It was certainly hard enough.
Sitting up, I took Obi-Wan by the wrist, and pulled him to me,
laying down with him atop me. "There, how's that?"
He started giggling. "I can't use a Jedi Master as a mattress!"
he sputtered. "It's Disrespectful!"
"Sith fly away with Respect," I snorted, and I could almost see
him filing the phrase away to be used against me later. "I'm
using you as a blanket; it seems a fair exchange. It's going to
be rather exhausting once we get to Gala, Padawan. Get some
sleep."
"Yes, Master," the already-sleepy voice replied, and he
burrowed his head into my tunic.
Surely a thirteen-year-old should mass more than the little
monkey snuggled on my chest, I thought; I wondered if the
Temple fed their pre-teens enough. It had been quite some time
since I had been around one, but my memory of
thirteen-year-olds was that they were constantly eating, and
eating enough for a pre-hibernation tauntaun, too.
"Master?" A sleepy voice from the vicinity of my ribcage.
"Yes, Padawan?"
"mm ...nothing..."
That woke me. "Obi-Wan, you are my Padawan now. You should feel
like you can ask me anything."
He sat up to poke sharp elbows in my chest as he rested his
head in his hands. "No, really. I meant I really had nothing to
say. I thought I wouldn't ever be calling someone Master." He
laid his head back down on my chest. "I just like saying it."
I felt my chest constrict and my eyes itched slightly. Was I
catching a cold?
I also like to hear you call me Padawan, he sent
directly to my mind.
"Then I must make a point of calling you Padawan at every
available opportunity," I spoke aloud. Padawan, I sent
back, laying a hand on the back of his head. No cold, I
decided, as my eyes got unusually wet, just ... unaccustomed
emotion. Damn Yoda anyway.
I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to disabuse the
boy of the notion that his delay in selection meant he was
somehow less worthy than his peers. I clearly couldn't tell him
about Yoda's puppeteering; as annoying as he was, I still felt
the need to protect him from the bad opinion of others,
especially that of my new padawan.
Then I noticed what I was doing - I was thinking like a master
again. Not twenty-four hours after I'd first called him
padawan. Maybe it was going to be alright. I laid my hand over
the smaller one covering my heart, and whispered "Happy
birthday, Padawan." I wondered with a smile when he'd figure
out about the rock.
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