Master Apprentice Archive Naming Days I Quick search:

Rating: G

Archive: M_A, anyone else just ask

Warnings: absolutely none. Unless you count sentimental mush,of which there is some here I guess.

Notes: Yes, I'm back, and with a totally non-slashy story for a change! Not really the beginning of a series, but there is a companion piece in the making ... I would have written that today too, but frankly even I need some sleep sometimes :)

Feedback: Greedy for it, yummmm :)

Summary: On the Force-forsaken planet of Tihaar, someone is having a baby. Not just a baby, mind.

The silence of the flour was overwhelming. How something so opaque and palpable as flour could move and fall so noiselessly, like feathers, like a momentary exclusion of all sound -­ it never ceased to amaze her. She scooped some more on to the conical heap on the table, then buried her hands in the satiny cool silence, like disappearing from the hubbub of this place for a few seconds, at least in part. It calmed her. It always did.

In truth, that was probably why Mathana Tajunanthi was so notorious for her cakes -- they were a refuge to her, her mind delighting in the serene silent aura of the flour while her hands dug into the dough forcefully, kneading it into delicate smooth submission. 'Always a steaming hearth' was one of the things her neighbours said about her. Actually, that was one of the few friendly things they would be moved to say about her household, and it would almost certainly be drowned in the noise of the cattle-markets and tinkers' workshops here on the edge of Fifthtown on the planet of Tihaar.

With her hands sunk in the cool pliable dough, she found the strength to cast an unbiased glance out of the tiny window in the south wall, squinting into the harsh sunlight. It was not a pretty place. It was not quite the middle of nowhere -- she'd chosen it for that property precisely. Oh, nowhere was fine by her, but being the middle of somewhere just would not have felt right. Would not have done them justice anyway -- no, the house was on the edge of nowhere, with the scruffy skirttails of the town on its one side and the scraggy fingertips (fingernail-tips, she supposed, and blackened ones too) of the steppe on the other. The house itself was uncertain of where it belonged, being part solid structure built from the yellowish loam the river brought to the city and part tent, curving planes of dark red wool shading the north side. Sheer bloody-mindedness was what kept the house in place, here on the border, on the edge. Sometimes on the edge of collapse, but there was little that Mathana wasn't prepared to do to keep her House upright. Especially seeing as she would not have been able to count on anyone's help anyway.

Oh yes, it had been her idea to set up here, and she did not regret it, knowing in the back of her mind that she would have been even more ill-received anywhere else on Tihaar. Here at least, Tuoy could ply a trade seeing to the petty illnesses and defects of the townsfolk's pets and plants, healing, caring, studying. He had a talent for that sort of thing, Tuoy had, and it shone from his large watery eyes and his childish smile and the cloud of mild wiggling life he trailed behind him every night when he came home. Just on the edge of perception, but undeniably at the centre of his being. Tuoy had a talent for life in all its forms, be they impressive or pathetic.

Most of his people seemed to have at least some of that talent, Mathana figured. Not that she'd been in contact with them much; they lived a nomadic life out on the steppes of Tihaar and would not be seen dead in the towns, where rumours about them were rife, and Mathana had overheard many a mother warning their children of the bad enthrewuk, or grassland folk, coming to snatch them away and feed them to their shadowy gods. The nomads' own name for themselves was simpler and more complicated at the same time: they spoke of themselves as Asun-Tihaar, the children of Tihaar, their chief goddess, the incarnation of this planet in all its dusty glory.

Her own people, the Tihaaroth, or Tihaarians, held no truck with goddesses, at least not ones that could not be arranged nicely on domestic altars and sold to other Tihaaroth as ceramic figurines for profit. They despised the nomads, and though there had never been an outright war between the two peoples as far back as anyone could remember, the hatred had always bubbled beneath the surface, flaring up in a bout of cattle-massacring here, a burning house there. Most of all it was the utter rejection that troubled Mathana, for she had married one of Them.

Here, on the edge, was the only place they could half-comfortably be, in a place where the repulsive forces of both cultures were at an uneasy balance and neither could push the mismatched couple any further without losing one of their own. Of course, both families had broken off all contact and disowned them as soon as they heard of the despicable love that had bloomed between Mathana and Tuoy; it had been predictable really. In fact, she had made Tuoy hide the identity of his wife from his clients even to the point of telling lies, for she had found that while they might be willing to allow a nomad into the house to look at the plants and animals (at his pay, he could comfortably be regarded as a slave-being) they would inevitably throw fits once they found out he was married to one of their own, and she hated being cast into the "pitiable wretch" or "treacherous hag" role, depending on the client's frame of mind. The only person to be relied on for at least a little human contact beyond the absolutely necessary and mercantile was Msa, the neighbours' manservant, and he hardly found the time to sneak away often.

And now there was the child inside her. Oh, it was a good child, like the dough, gentle and sweet and calm and full of promise. It would rise. If only it had the chance, and Mathana had too much of her people's realism in her to believe that. It had been an accident given the circumstances -- but neither Tuoy nor herself had had the heart to kill the little germ while it would still have been possible. It had been too ... bright, too insistently sparkling with life from the outset, and yet Mathana wished the little one would never see the light of day, never be disappointed by the waves of cold hatred that would engulf him on Tihaar, the bastard child of an unholy marriage, always the son of a human and a beast to whoever he or she would meet here. And here was where he or she would be ... for apart from Ttiva the Messenger nobody ever visited this planet from outside, and he strictly refused to take emigrants. The gods knew she had pleaded with him, but to no avail.

It was no use. She would bring this child into the hostile world of Tihaar and cope with it as best she could. There was she and there was Tuoy, and precious little else. She sighed as she shoved the cake into the oven. Alone. No, Not alone. The glow of light in her belly was still there, an underlying hum of life, so full of promises, and it made her sick to think of the waste they would be laid to. It was not a twinge of regret she felt, it was a tearing ache.

No. It was a downright pain. She sat down on the ledge beside the oven, heavily, winded. "Msa! Msa ... fetch Tuoy, will you?"

Tuoy arrived late, having spent an unholy amount of time coaxing an Asun-Tihaar healer into coming with him to see to his 'filthy foreign wife'. Trailing Msa and the muttering shaman behind him, he burst through the door only to be greeted by the smell of cake cooling and the sight of Mathana sitting on the floor leaning against the oven wall, her skirts a bleeding mess, her hair matted with sweat and tears, her face radiating an unearthly peace as his gaze travelled down along hers to the little bundle in her arms. A wrinkly pink little blob of humankind, with a shock of black hair on its head, gurgling peacefully and sucking its thumb.

Tuoy moved in closer, and the baby turned its heavy little head to look at the new arrival. The gaze from its blue eyes hit him like a blow, a mind-shattering ray of light, or the sound of a temple gong about six inches away. Almost all iris and no white, they were the deepest blue he'd ever seen and held such understanding, such recognition that Tuoy felt the inexplicable urge to say his own name by way of explanation, or just to reassure himself that he was the one that the child meant. Softly, Tuoy knelt down beside his wife and kissed the little one on its forehead. It giggled, pure joy at the slightest caress and the presence of a loving soul. Oh, it pained Tuoy to think of the disappointments that would be the fabric of that child's life here on Tihaar. "Our child ... " he whispered, reverently. "Our little boy." Mathana agreed, exhausted but washed with the same inexplicable joy of life that emanated from the baby with every breath it took.

"Pity he's half-blooded." The healer's voice was full of ill-concealed disgust, and Mathana found it in herself to dismiss him with a glare, momentarily incapable of the harsh words that she usually found so easily. The healer shrugged arrogantly and strode out of the house. Msa bowed awkwardly, decided he was not needed right now and closed the door behind him with a faint smile.

"Half-blooded!" Mathana spat the word like sour grapes. "What do they know?! He is ... he is ... Tuoy, I'm out of words for what he is. He is one of a kind. Special. Ours. Not ours. He's ... just ... so full of it ... " She waved her hand in frustration, then let it drop into her lap with a sigh. "So full of it. Just it." Tuoy nodded. He understood perfectly. "I've felt it too, and all the time he was inside you. He is full of it, full of the fabric of living beings, more so than any plant I've ever seen in bloom, more so than any prized racehorse. More so than even you and me, Mathana dear. He is ... as if the emanation of the goddess had found its way into a tiny human being, as if the Qui of Tihaar had decided to take up residence inside a half-bred baby. He is all the promise of living things. He is Living-Thing incarnate ... "

They sat in silence for a long time, trying not to speak the unspeakable. In the end, it was Tuoy, not his headstrong wife, who made the first move, got up and cut the fresh cake, just to occupy his hands, then sat down again while both of them ate. "He is he," Mathana said finally, in almost resigned tones edged with a serenity that she was sure was not hers, "we are we. We have each other, Tuoy. And ... I would die every day watching him grow up here, that bright light being broken, trampled into the dust of Tihaar every bloody day. We are hardened, Tuoy. We are stubborn and we don't give a damn ... but he is ... ", she broke into a fit of uncontrollable sobs, "I will not see him broken here!"

Tuoy gathered her in his arms, cradling the little one between them. "Shhh, shhh, be still, my beloved ... I could see that even less than you could. You know my meek heart, Mathana ... I would suffer more than even he would, at the hands of the people. This one," he gathered as much dignity and strength as his tear-stained voice allowed, "this one is more than the two of us combined. He is the beginning of something new, and the best we can do ... I believe, and I believe with all of my heart and none of my intellect, Mathana, believe me ... we should give him up. Send him somewhere where he can be happy, and put all this seething livingness to use and be himself. The only thing we can give him on his way, I fear, is our love."

"And a name." Mathana dried her tears, and her customary confidence started seeping back into her features, answered by a glowing smile from the little one. As if he understood, Mathana thought. Living-Thing ... the Thing That Makes Living ... he should be named for this, she had felt it from the outset, even before they had been sure that she was pregnant, even before Tuoy picked up on it. It connected with her, this Living-Thing. "We should name him after this ... thing in him ... the Thing That Makes Living, Tuoy. The thrust of the Goddess' Qi ... " -- "Qui," Tuoy corrected almost automatically before giving an apologetic little grin. "Your intuition, my language ... The Thing The Makes Living is quite a nice-sounding concept in the Asun-Tihaar tongue actually. He'll like it ... Qui-Gon."

Mathana smiled. "Qui-Gon." The little boy opened his mouth in a tiny O, then yawned healthily, raised his barely-visible eyebrows and made an awed little noise. "It's as if he's realised he's been named," Tuoy beamed. "Well, not quite actually ... a surname would be appropriate, wouldn't it?" -- "Tuoy. You know he will never be either a Tihaaroth or an Asun-Tihaar. It would sound wrong to give him one of our surnames. He is not a Tajunanthi, he's better than that. And he's far from an En-Yijen as well."

"Ah, but ... " Tuoy looked so uncannily wise and witty that even the baby gave a little giggle at his father's unusual expression, "still he did grow out of the union between you and me, and would not exist if it hadn't been for us. He is built on us, on the best of both worlds -- "

"Hold it!" Mathana grinned triumphantly, fully aware that she had crashed into her husband's train of thought head-on. "The bare particles we've got in common. The letters our surnames share. Tajunanthi. En-Yijen ... " They raced each other to figuring it out, Mathana furiously mouthing letters in her mind while Tuoy scrabbled for a pen and paper. Seconds later, they cried it out loud, and both would later swear the child in his mother's arms joined them in the syllable of his last name:

"Jinn!"

"Qui-Gon Jinn." Tuoy smiled, all proud father, then sagged as he became aware of the paper and pen in his hands. "Well, that'll give me something to put in the letter I guess. Ttiva isn't due for another few half-moons, but when next he arrives I shall make damn sure he takes this letter with him in his Goddess-damned spaceship and delivers it to whoever seems the most hopeful out there!" Mathana smiled at such unaccustomed language from her husband, and the maelstrom of emotions swirling through the kitchen, and gave all due credit to the arrival of the Living-Thing. For all his uncertain destiny and his beautiful name though, little Qui-Gon was definitely getting restless now, and when she saw the tiny face smacking its pink lips, Mathana laughed heartily, tore open her tunic and let the greedy little mouth drink its fill.

It was not Ttiva the Messenger. It was a small hired spacecraft that touched down outside Fifthtown over a dozen half-moons later, bringing with it the first off-worlder in decades, eyed suspiciously by both peoples, just like the half-blood baby that had been born in the half-blood house on the edge of town. And just as well the stranger in the brown robe made her way there, rather than trouble the good folk with her presence.

Knight Arsu H'syan was a little surprised at the calm friendliness with which she was received, but she was quick to sense the untutored Force auras of the odd couple singing with defiance and love and a sheer raw life that was wounded but unconquerable even by this harsh world. They needed little by way of explanation, justification, introduction. They understood. Almost reverently, she approached the cot. Yes, this one would do. No, she corrected herself, he wouldn't just do. He would excel. The little round face turned to her in barely veiled curiosity as she pricked the child's skin. There was no cry, not even a sound of pain. As if the little boy knew what was being done. Knight H'syan was in awe. This one would do. And do good.

She nodded at the parents, sensing that she was only confirming what they had somehow known all this time. "Yes. He is positively humming with the Force, near the top end of our common scale. We would be honoured and privileged indeed to ... " -- Mathana cut her short. "Knight Jedi, we know not what his future will hold, but we know it lies out there. We cannot but give him to you, and hope for the best. You have our permission, and our love." Impulsively, she drew Knight H'syan into a tight hard hug and soaked the shoulder of her robe with her tears.

"Does ... does he have a name?" Arsu H'syan's voice was slightly croaky with emotion too now, though on her part it was still mostly awe at the sheer raw light glowing within the child. Whatever name the boy had, it would be sure to be preceded by the title "Master" at some later point in his life, of that she was certain.

"His name is Qui-Gon Jinn."

Awed, silent and bathed in the child's unformed Force light, Knight Arsu H'syan settled the little boy in the crook of her arm. He bunched his little hands into the fabric of her robe and beamed one last look at his parents, then turned his curious deep blue gaze to the Jedi. The question in his eyes was as loud and clear as if he'd spoken it aloud.

"Yes, Qui-Gon dear, I feel it too. We all do, where I'm taking you, and we commune with it. We love it too. We call it the Living Force. You'll like it in the Temple, believe me ... and if you make yourself any heavier, boy, I might have to levitate you the rest of the way to the ship!!"

Qui-Gon laughed, and the sound travelled all the way home.

---The End---