Master Apprentice Archive Naming Days II Quick search:

Rating: PG

Archive: M_A, and yes it does mention the relationship, Just you wait :)

Warnings: 12 hours of labour ahead. Hey, that's how I came into the world too, so why should Obi-Wan's old lady have it any easier?

Notes: Thanks a bundle to Lady Salieri for letting me play with her Lady Saedi Kenobi - she was great company!! (Hope you forgive me for making her 'as Force-sensitive as a baked bean'!) And another huge bundle of thanks to Writestuff for allowing me to stick the civilian name she invented on to Obi-Wan, along with the number. Read it and you will see :)

Summary: Unhappy with the size of her room and the naming practices of the House of Kenobi, Lady Saedi tries to make a dash for it. Of course the court and the Force have other ideas.

The silence annoyed her more than anything else. Oh, she had tried to liven up the room, but it had resisted. Yes, the Sithdamned room had had the cheek to resist, to resist her, Saedi Muth-Lars, the 127th Lady Kenobi.

For a start, it was too small to accommodate any musicians, strolling players, or even a handmaiden with a decently risqué book. There was no way even the dressmaker could visit to entertain her with visions in emerald green satin and compliments on the natural sheen of her bright red hair and how well it would go with this or that. Right now, there was not much choice. White sheets, clean starched linen surrounded her, its rustle the only noise to breach the sanctuary of the small room.

Oh yes, it was traditional. Of course it was traditional. Anything that didn't make sense to the modern mind had to be traditional. Apparently the ladies of the Kenobi family had always given birth in this tiny cramped chamber, which is why the lords of the Kenobi family had never bothered to just simply tear the place down. They had torn all the rest of the old quarters down, mind, leaving the Birth Room standing on its own out to the back of the windowless wall of the new ballroom, facing the magnificent efficient sturdy new wall. Even that paled after a while, and Lady Saedi was ready to testify to that. And there was only one Gods-damned window in this chamber too.

To be frank, there were hardly more than a dozen objects in the room altogether, and most of the available space was being taken up by the generously proportioned bed, doubtless suited to the size of Feci, the 65th Lady Kenobi, the largest there ever was, if the portrait gallery was to be trusted. Even in this day and age of holography they would have had to hire oversize lasers to capture her on film, and the thought brought one of the rare flickers of amusement to Lady Saedi's face. Not that she felt far from being the size of Feci right now, staring miserably at the dome of linen-covered belly rising up before her and wondering how on earth she was ever going to lose that weight again.

The physicians had declared that the birth was imminent, of course. Not that they had asked her, Little Gods forbid. She had only had three children already, and still they weren't happy with her. What was wrong with Enyd and Sidha? Perfectly sweet little girls they were, eminently marriageable and sprightly, and with their fluffy little heads full of ideas. No, they were not The One. What was wrong with Owen, the youngest, a smiley puffy babe, gentle and universally loved except by these crows of physicians that Lord Gareth kept about him at all times these days. Owen was not The One either, and when she lost her patience and shouted at them they had simultaneously launched into a long and involved explanation about forces and auras and portents and lost her immediately. She'd only stayed the course to see if they could keep it up and actually finish together as well. They could.

Marrying Kenobi had been pretty much of a disaster anyway, all told. Oh, not that she had ever entertained romantic notions about Prince Charming or whoever anyway -- she had been perfectly aware at all times that Lord Gareth Kenobi was as ordinary a sod as it got, right down to the fondness for ballgames and the belching contests at formal dinners. As for the near-mythical heritage of the family, she had never bothered with that, especially not in the face of the good-natured oaf that was the current Lord Kenobi. The one who would so kindly bestow his illustrious surname on her and then gladly leave her alone to run the palace and set about becoming the talk of the solar system.

And now she was stuck in this bloody room for the fourth time running, trying in vain to produce The One, some blessed kid she had no idea about. Oh, he would be the 90th Obi-Wan Kenobi, that much she had gathered from the synchronous physicians. To her, this reeked of nothing more than unimaginative naming policies, and frankly she didn't go with centuries-old names for modern children. She cringed at the thought of any son of hers introducing himself as 'Obi-Wan' at the prom. Well, at least that would never happen ... once she'd managed to produce that One, he'd be whisked away to his destiny in the Jedi Order, and she'd be done with it.

Until then, there'd be more lounging about in the big silent bed, counting the aches and pains in her back for want of a better thing to do. She had tried rearranging the ceramic effigies of the Little Gods on the altar that took up most of the space left by the bed, but even that had worn out her imagination pretty quickly, and all told there wasn't an awful lot of positions one could achieve with non-bendy figurines that may have looked venerable to the first dozen Ladies Kenobi, but looked plain drab to her. She missed her action figures.

And then there were these weird food cravings. For days now, she had eaten nothing but sticky white stuff of all descriptions -- steamed rice, semolina pudding, clotted cream, mayonnaise -- he tastes seemed to centre much more on the way a dish looked than how it tasted these days. And right now she appeared to want sticky white stuff. Or maybe the baby inside her wanted sticky white stuff, not that it ever complained when it wasn't getting it. On the whole, the baby kicked about far less than the other three had, and the morning sickness had been barely noticeable. Still, it seemed to insist on making her want strange things for food. Another favourite had been pasta in raspberry sauce, for days on end, and then this morning this incredible desire for chocolate cake with an inch-thick layer of fudge icing on top. Once she had set eyes on it she felt quite unable to eat even the tiniest bite of it, and had had half a mind to just smear the icing all over her swollen belly to get her own back on this devious baby in there.

On second thoughts, Lady Saedi had decided that this was not a thing one did, not even when pregnant, and besides, what would the handmaidens have said.

"Light! Bring ... more ... light!" She moaned and gasped in agony. Surely it must be dawn by now? Lady Saedi sagged into the pillows, worn out from what felt like at least twelve hours of continuous labour. The thing just would not come out, and through the haze of exhaustion and sheer battering pain she felt a twinge of indignation at how many people had suddenly seen themselves fit to crowd the room, some of them kneeling on her bed, taking up her private space. If only the blasted child ... she broke into a new fit of contractions, screaming out some of the lights that had been brought and that were crowding every available surface. Handmaidens hurried to re-light them, and it was good. Every time a light came on, the pain eased a little, and it felt as if the candles, censers, oil lamps and luminous crystals (no electric lighting allowed in this most traditional of hell-holes of course, and no bloody painkillers either, she thought dimly) were communicating their warm light to the child inside, calming it.

Not that it helped. Lady Saedi desperately wanted the kid out, dead or alive, and was ready to contemplate a quite substantial donation to the Little Gods knocking about the altar facing the bed when the sun rose outside the tiny window, and one last wave of agonising contractions made her roar. The last thing she felt was a sense of splitting open, then the soft pink dawn light subsided into blackness once more.

When she came to, the place was still crowded with physicians, handmaidens, and courtiers, Lord Gareth standing around a little forlornly while all of the above busied themselves about Saedi and underneath Saedi where a piercing scream announced the arrival of yet another person to crowd the already-crowded room.

"He's got the umbilical cord round his throat!" -- "Quick! Get scissors! Guthe, don't stand around gaping!" -- "Is it? Is it a boy?" -- "Did you see the colour of his eyes?" -- "Any birthmarks? Do Chosen Ones have birthmarks ... ?" -- "Get that blood off me, you hag, and hand me the child!" That last voice boomed above the hubbub of mostly female voices, the men having decided to wisely retreat from the scene of the carnage, lining the walls trying to blend into their whiteness and almost succeeding. That last voice belonged to Master Illuan, head astrologer and physician and a host of other things he preferred not to be questioned about. Without missing a beat, the child travelled along a chain of hasty hands towards his arm. Silence fell.

"Hm ... " Master Illuan concentrated, closing his eyes. The child screamed, then fell abruptly silent as the old physician opened his eyes again. "Lord Gareth?" Uneasily, the current Lord Kenobi shuffled forward to perform the task handed down to him by rite and by rote, a task believed so sacred it never went into writing and was never mentioned among non-family members. In reality of course that was because it was so ridiculous.

Concentrating on the unsteady glow within him, Lord Gareth reached out all the way across the crowded room to tickle his son's tummy ... and was rewarded with a burst of Force-light so bright he blinked involuntarily. And a babyish giggle.

The assembled courtiers relaxed, and Master Illuan's voice boomed over the incipient chatter, "I pronounce the 90th bearer of the name of Obi-Wan Kenobi born!". Clearly audible over the hubbub of voices was the shrill squeak of the 90th Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, probably craving something white and sticky for all Lady Saedi cared. He was there, the morning-born son of the Little Gods. That was what she had made up her mind to call him now that the haze of pain had subsided, and the Little Gods damn anyone who dared interfere with her policy. If the little one had to have a ridiculous-sounding name, he would have a sensible one alongside it, and Ben-Zhao Lars was just fine. Ben-Zhao Lars alias Obi-Wan Kenobi was here, and he would be gone soon, leaving Lady Saedi to get on with her own life.

Oh, she did not let go easily, especially not once she had set eyes on the baby. Typical, she thought, it's always the really pretty ones they take away. She saw the potential for enlightened government and lots of shagging nubile princesses right there in the baby's silly-coloured eyes and its winning smile. Oh well, she hoped the Jedi would find it in their callous hearts to appreciate the virtues of a tiny pink tongue and a pretty face. For her, this one marked the end of that particular duty. Now, it was time to be pretty herself again, and she was already planning the Naming Day reception and ball before the handmaidens had got round to removing the last bits of the umbilical cord from the cause of all the hubbub.

Another bloody Obi-Wan Kenobi, thank the Little Gods.

The young Jedi Knight arrived in the middle of what looked like a mass hangover. Of course he had been summoned well in advance, as the Kenobi family were rumoured to have a direct comm line to the Council in case of the appearance of The One, but even the Kenobi family were too stingy to get him a dedicated transport, and so he had spent considerable time hanging around spaceports. Well, at least that way he could be sure there would be a baby to pick up.

Not that he would have been able to miss it -- for all the tattered bunting and spilled wine, fingerfoods and in some cases clothes that littered the palace halls, all he had to do was follow the pulsating Force aura emanating from one of the private suites. He dismissed an ostensibly grateful and terribly hungover guard, telling him he knew where to find the child, and set off along the marble-lined corridors.

It took all of four standard minutes for someone to answer his knocking, and the sight that greeted him then would have been interpreted as a minor scandal to any discerning diplomat such as himself: the pink-skinned woman in the crumpled blue negligée was not merely sleep-addled, hungover and extremely grouchy. She was also about as Force-sensitive as a baked bean. Hm, that came as a bit of a surprise.

She waved him into the room with an unsteady hand, clearing a path through the assorted messes on the floor with her silk-slippered foot. "Sorry 'bout the mess. We've-been-celebrating 'is arrival rather enthisssi ... enthusiastically. Nno, Ewan, you can stay in bed, really you can ... " The Jedi saw a shock of jet black hair retreating back under the sheets and decided this was not where his focus needed to be right now. "Thereheisss. Hups. Sorry." She pointed a slightly wobbly finger at the baby in its elaborate cradle. It was gazing at the Knight levelly, interested more than anything else. Curious. "Lady Kenobi, it is required that I take a sample of his -" - "Yesyesyes I know. Do what you always do, Jedibaby, and let me get on with my morning exercises ... " She yawned cavernously, and the Knight suspected that these exercises involved that daylight-shy being called Ewan currently nestling in the depths of the bed. Still, he unpacked the test kit and pricked the child's arm for a drop of blood. As was to be expected, the reading was sufficient, pretty impressive actually, and Lady Saedi was suitably impressed, knowing she'd be able to get back to bed soon.

"One last question, Lady Saedi. What is the boy's name?". Lady Saedi stared at the Jedi as if she'd never seen one in her life, then drew a deep breath, knotted her eyebrows in a thundercloud made even more menacing by her towering hangover, and yelled: "He's a bleeding Obi-Wan Kenobi, for Gods' sake!! Trust me to get that right evenshually, do you?! Spell 'm any which way you like, you hairy robey offspring of 'ell if you can spell at all, but mark my worrrds: 'e's an Obi-Wan Kenobi, the ninetieth of that blessed lot, right-o? Now push off to your Ttemple and be-donewiffit. Report t'mee later, man ... "

By the time the echoes of her clamouring voice had faded from earshot, Qui-Gon Jinn was safely out of the palace, shaking his head all the way to the ship and sharing a quiet grin with the little one he'd rescued from certain death by nobility.

---The End---