Master Apprentice
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Archive: M_A, WWOMB, my site, all others just ask
Disclaimers: George own them. I'm just playing...no cash...
Category: Q/O, Q/other, AU, Romance, Drama
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: is always treasured.
Summary: A young Jedi wanders off.
Note: This Samhain offering is dedicated to my wonderful Padawan, Hellsmouth. Special
thanks to Tem Ve for the luscious picture that inspired this story.
Part 1: Into the Wood
Qui-Gon shifted his weight and tried to find a comfortable place to stash his long legs. His Master was deep in conversation with Count Merna and he struggled to keep his head from nodding and his eyes from closing. Outside the long, arched windows, Thurasa's landscape beckoned, its fields plowed under as the harvest neared its end. There would be a huge banquet and festival tonight celebrating the end of the growing season and the start of dark winter. He had arrived with Master Dooku two days earlier to finalise the trade terms between Thurasa's noble elite and the Republican Free Trade Association. They were guests of honour for the celebration and Qui-Gon's initial flush of pride and accomplishment had faded into intense boredom as the formal speeches droned on and he was relegated to a nodding puppet at his Master's side. For two days, it had taken every bit of the restless young man's discipline to reign in his curiosity and energy and make himself appear every inch the very proper and respectful Padawan.
Forty-eight hours with little or no exercise, half-asleep with boredom and feeling weighted down by too much over-rich food had worn his patience to a nub. He shifted again with a stifled sigh, dropping his eyes as his Master glanced at him disapprovingly. He felt his cheeks grow hot and bit his lip, trying desperately to release the cramp in his left leg into the Force.
// Padawan, stop fidgeting like a crecheling. //
Qui-Gon nodded imperceptibly and wished to every deity he knew that he had the skill to will away his blush. He was twenty and, although at the top of his classes in most things, certain humanoid emotional responses were still beyond his ability to control. He made a mental note to attend his lessons in involuntary motor control and stared at a cobweb in the corner as it wavered and trembled in the currents of fireheated air.
Twenty minutes later, the cramp was intolerable and he shifted again.
This time his Master spoke aloud.
"Padawan, perhaps you would like to go for a walk."
It was not a question and Qui-Gon felt the tips of his ears burning as he quietly rose and retrieved his robe, trying to leave as silently as possible. The Fates were laughing softly as his numb left foot turned underneath him and he stumbled gracelessly out the curtained door.
Cursing under his breath, he shook his half-asleep foot and studiously ignored the chortling servants. Finally stamping the last of the pins and needles out of it, he hunched forward as he always did when embarrassed and fled the castle's dim recesses for the outdoors.
The weather was crisp and cool and he stomped his way through the courtyard, taking in long draughts of clean air. It smelled sweet, of distant chaff-burnings and wood-smoke, of ripe fruit and drying herbs drifting from the kitchens. For a moment, he paused, closed his eyes and simply breathed in the welcome scent of a place free of enviro-generators, hovercars, plasteel and forced air.
Qui-Gon Jinn hailed from a planet as green and unspoiled as this, although he remembered nothing of his home consciously. Like most exceptionally gifted infants, he had been tested by the Jedi Seekers at a mere 3 months and brought to the great Temple on Coruscant to be raised in the Creche. The imprint of his verdant home was less than a memory and more; it was a signature line to his very soul. Though raised in the Temple's high plasteel corridors, he had instinctively discovered the many gardens and hydroponic bays as though guided by a spirit untamed by the Jedi. For Qui-Gon Jinn was a child of the Living Force, an anomaly among Force-gifted humanoids. His heart and soul heard the call of the wild power that governs the winds and the waves, that sends mountains crashing and creates oceans where once baked desert floors.
It made him a strange child, apt to drift away on a sunbeam and just as likely to explode with emotion like a thunderstorm. His years in the creche would have been sadder and more difficult had not Master Yoda, ancient and inscrutable, discovered him in a corner of the tropical garden crying his heart out because, at five, there is no greater sorrow than that of being different from one's playmates. Yoda had taken the awkward boy under his wing and made sure he knew that at least one of the great Jedi Masters understood the voice that called so insistently in his small, dark head.
As the years went by, he'd discovered other species that shared his gift and had been taught to balance the frenzied whispering wildness of the Living Force with the measured calm of its Unifying counterpart. Always struggling to contain the emotions that ran so powerfully through a body growing too tall too quickly, he thrived like an over-energised weed in a hothouse. All his instructors, most of all, Master Yoda, were well-pleased when he had been chosen by Master Dooku as Padawan at a mere nine summers old. Dooku, a brilliant scholar and swordsman, one of the great Renaissance men of the Order, was particularly attuned to the logic and mathematical perfection of the Unifying Force. All were sure that his instruction would help to balance young Jinn and lead him to great heights of physical and mental prowess.
They were correct and Master Dooku proved a wonderful teacher and mentor to the youth, able to channel and train his extraordinary physical abilities as well as challenge and control his wildly curious, questing mind. At twenty, Qui-Gon had just achieved Senior Padawan status, the youngest in many generations to wear the coveted red bead in his dark braid, and had begun to grow out the Knight's tail. In truth, he thought the stubby little ponytail sticking out behind his rather pointed ears looked silly, but he bowed to convention and kept his laughter to himself and the mirror.
He passed through the courtyard gates and continued down the broad road at a fast pace, enjoying the walk and stretching his long legs to his heart's content. His robe billowing behind him, he strode passed farmhouses and animal pens, where young workers stopped slopping hogs to stare after the tall young Jedi. He saw threshers in the yards amid clouds of chaff, nodded to housewives stirring foul-smelling pots of soap and dye. It was so homely, so rooted in the timeless circle of season and husbandry. Ordinarily, all this pleasant activity would have roused his avid curiosity to help and understand how each task was accomplished.
This day, his restlessness kept pushing him further and further and the road became a narrow cart-track as the farms disappeared, replaced by fallow fields whose fences struggled halfheartedly against the twining underbrush that threatened to take them back into the great forest.
The afternoon sun was high and warm and he paused to take off his robe, bunching it up and tying the sleeves around his waist. His Master often reproved him for such actions, but there was no one here to see him and he did not feel very much like hampering a tramp through the woods with full Jedi dignity. Just to his right, a little path meandered away into the leafy distance and he smiled, his blue eyes beginning to sparkle. That voice in his head, the one he now knew was the call of the Living Force mimicked a stage whisper and he grinned to himself broadly. An adventure with Nature was just what his caged spirit needed!
"A lovely day, is it not, young stranger?"
Qui-Gon whirled around to stare at the old man leaning on the fencepost behind him. He had not even sensed another's presence and furrowed his brow at his own negligence. His Master would have called it woolgathering.
Bright eyes beamed at him under a tattered, floppy hat and the old man smiled toothlessly.
"I say, nice day, don't you think?"
"Yes. It's very beautiful. Where does that path lead?"
The old man smiled again, empty gums glistening with saliva. "Down into the Greenwood, boy. Don't you know?"
Qui-Gon shook his dark head. "I'm a stranger here, sir."
"Ah." He was mesmerised by the light gleaming off the threads of spittle in that ruined, aged maw. The bright eyes reflected the green of the man's worn cloak.
"A nice enough day for it, lad. But don't go in there, you know. Don't go to the Greenwood. Not at Year-End."
The young Jedi stared down the leaf-strewn path with sudden longing. The Living Force's voice rose a little, prodding him forward with an almost physical push.
"But why? It's a worn path, others have gone there."
"Aye, young sir. Others have gone." The old man turned abruptly and began to walk away up the cart-track.
"Why?!" Qui-Gon called after him.
"Others have gone, but have they come back?" He heard the old man's laughter fading up the road, the quavering voice fading with it. "Beware the Greenwood, boy."
For a long moment, Qui-Gon stared after the stooped figure until it disappeared around the bend. Then he turned back to the little path, where the sunlight danced on brown patches of leaves and the late-fall insects whirred a tune to the wind.
The smell of loam and softly rotting bracken, rich and full of promise for spring, was stronger as he brushed past branches wound with twisting vines and ducked beneath fragrant pineboughs, startlingly dark green in a world of red and gold and russet browns. The sunlight slanted through the high trees, dappling the soft ground with shifting leopard-spots of brilliance. He moved slowly now, winding his way along the tiny track until it suddenly turned out to a small, wooden bridge that spanned a slow-moving brook whose waters danced and rippled in the light.
Qui-Gon paused on the bridge and looked up through the tangle of branches at the sky, patches of soft blue blinking through the rustling leaves. Further down, the stream gurgled and giggled and the sounds of the underbrush in its dark recesses made him whirl around and stare into the waters, eyes searching the shadowy bracken. He lifted his young face to a patch of sunlight and let it warm his cheeks, gilding his lashes and touching him like a caress. He smiled into the warmth of it and let the murmuring, living world around him speak, his heart reaching out to embrace it like a lover.
The brook laughed softly and, through the waving boughs, the eyes that watched him smiled.
Part 2: The Golden Bower
All around him, the air felt charged, almost electric with an anticipation he could neither miss nor explain. Qui-Gon shook his dark head and plunged across the little bridge to follow the tiny track. The vines snaking around gnarled tree trunks flamed scarlet as they were lost in the sighing branches of gold. Late autumn was in full dress and there was scarcely a hint of green to the wood. All was decked in radiant glory and jewelled with light that poured down through the trees to spotlight a bit of moss-covered rock, a half-rotten branch black amid the leaves.
There were small sounds all around him, birds twittering and chirping in a tangle of wild grape, plucking the last of summer from its depth. A pair of squirrels chased each other up a sapling, diving into the branches of vermillion and umber, chattering their laughter. Qui-Gon moved quietly for all his height. He paused on the path and bent down, scrabbling in the damp for a few moments, then knelt, holding out an acorn in his hand. Shy and wary, one of the squirrels barked from the branch in low warning, while the braver sniffed forward, standing up on its chubby haunches to rub tiny paws together, then inching forward a little at a time until it could grasp the offering from the big human hand and dart away to safety.
Behind him, beside him, the breeze laughed softly and he stopped, listening intently. The leaves rustled and the brook murmured but he was so sure he had heard something else. He straightened up, laughing at himself and whistled an imitation of the nuthatch high up in the dark pine above him.
The path seemed to wind its way close to the brook but never far from it. He stopped a dozen times to watch a bird in a nest, a rabbit peeking up through the catkins, the slither of a snake disappearing into the clear water that corrugated the sandy bottom into endless waves. The sunlight glanced through a clearing and tickled the back of his neck like the soft feel of tumbling hair. Low boughs caught at his tunics and leggings like small, clever fingers seeking entrance, slipping beneath the fabric to touch softly at his flesh. There was laughter that echoed the brook's quiet soliloquy and through the russet leaves, he thought he saw a slender shoulder, a drift of flame-kissed hair, a pair of eyes that slanted through the dim, as clear and transparent as the murmuring water.
He stopped beneath a great arching oak and sat down, closing his eyes, breathless as the sunlight touched his lips, so warm and soft and real. No beam of light could kiss thus, lips as elusive as a dream but every bit as desirable. He didn't dare open his eyes, hardly dared to breathe. Tender touches along his neck made the hair rise up and he drew back in a shuddering gasp. The soft lips claimed his again, and he whirled away, lost in the sensations that seemed to envelope him in a cocoon of golden warmth.
There was no time for all had stopped in the still of that sunshot afternoon hour. When Qui-Gon opened his eyes, he was lying on his back, looking up through a gauzy shroud of russet and ruby into a pair of eyes that might have been the cloudless sky or a tide pool in a shallow rock, so bright and clear were the depths that danced into his, first blue, then green, then grey as a rainy sea. His vision seemed to melt at the edges and the filmy veil over his face caught the sunlight as if spangled with mirrors. A tumble of tawny hair fell forward, tickling his eyelids like the caress of a gossamer web and the rose-soft lips claimed his once more.
His hands fumbled up along slender flanks, their sculpted muscles quivering against his touch. The warm flesh flowed into his arms and the lips traveled soft down his neck to kiss the hollow of his throat. More laughter in his ear and a pointed pink tongue hop-scotched its way toward his lobe, delicately licking its way around to nip gently.
He opened his eyes again, wonderingly watched the lithe body above him arch and flex like a cat as the skilled lips moved down to touch nipples rising hard as though shivered by a sudden chill. Above him, golden leaves created a new sky of light and colour into which the beautiful creature kissing him seemed to melt. The air was pleasantly cool against his skin and, braver now, he reached up to run his hands through the mane of russet hair that slid through his fingers like silk.
For a moment, Qui-Gon simply stared up at the boy, if boy it was, whose eyes were timeless pools that laughed into his. One slender finger touched his lips, a shadowy smile, then the lovely thing stretched out over him, waves of sunset- coloured hair falling over his neck as the lips moved to kiss him once more through the siena-shaded veil.
Lust stabbed at him like a sharp stone in a shoe, and his hands grew rough against the satin skin, pulling the slender body close, inhaling the scent of desire and sunlight. More soft laughter echoed in the golden bower and the clever fingers wound their way down to flutter delicately against his straining hardness, like butterflies dancing around the twitching head, diving beneath to cup and caress his scrotum, lower still to push gently between his tensed buttocks. Those sunlight kisses rained onto nipples hard as small rocks, while the fingers teased and stroked, pulled and petted. His knees flexed, legs splayed open, he stared up at the leaves, eyes dilated nearly black as one finger trailed across his anus, making it twitch and pucker. Another breath of laughter and he made his first sound, a strangled groan of sheer pleasure.
His mouth trembling, fingers clutching at the slim arms, he felt the body shift above him, the slender hands still teasing. Another groan echoed in the still bower as his aching cock was engulfed in a sheathe of warmth, the long hair swinging about his face as the creature perched atop him, surrendering completely as Qui-Gon's mind fractured and his only intent was to drive himself inside that pulsing heat to the root. His eyes were filmed over, and he stared sightlessly beneath the veil that prisoned him as he was enveloped, welcomed into the warmth of the beautiful body yielding to him.
At the very last moment, when he could feel his balls tightening and knew that the wash of desire would plunge him over the edge, the veil fell away, his face was surrounded by that ruddy hair and his lips were claimed in a kiss that ravished his soul as he speared up into the hot depths of the boy. Faintly, he reached up to gather the slender form in his arms before the deathless eyes smiled down into his and he fell away in the loves' undertow to senselessness.
Part 3: Ill-met by Moonlight
Consciousness returned so slowly and with such dreaming quiet that Qui-Gon knew he was in a place beyond time, beyond reality as it spills into a workaday world. He looked up at the golden canopy that rustled above him, smiling in drowsy surrender. The Force itself could not have pried his arms from around the silken limbs he held, nor could any earthly power have offered more bliss than than the touch of that half-insubstantial flesh. All before his eyes was the same red-gold he saw through closed lids, so he listened instead to the myriad sounds around him, growing slowly fainter as the glow seemed to shrink down to the slumbering creature in his arms.
The figure stirred softly, wound slender arms around his neck and crested the tawny head against his shoulder, perfumed breath soft and warm on his throat. Qui-Gon wished rather distractedly that he could sit up and have a good look at this being who had given such exquisite pleasure, but his limbs seemed too languid to move, the effort too great. He sighed deeply and the warm body in his arms nestled closer, a little sound of contentment purring from the ivory column of his throat. The young Jedi drifted away into half- dreams and felt the warmth through the leafy ceiling grow deeper, then cool. Imperceptibly, the air around chilled, all except the glowing creature cuddled against him. He hugged the beautiful thing closer and let the moss-scented world grow quiet and dark around them.
A sudden chill brought him rousing to the sound of voices. No, not voices, for these were not sounds the ear could hear. These were some musical tongue he sensed deep within him, his native gifts lending understanding even as he wakened. Through his closed lids, he knew the sky had darkened and twilight stole throughout the once-bright bower.
"A pretty picture, Ruari of the Brook, to find waiting in the last of day!" The voice sent an involuntary shiver down Qui-Gon's back and he was suddenly acutely aware of the evening air's chill caress against his skin.
"What of it, proud Moiran, that you should come here and disturb my rest!" The warm voice moved and he felt the clinging limbs pull away reluctantly.
"Shameless you are, playing at love! And with a mortal such as this!" The iced tones sent more shivers through Qui-Gon, and he did not dare to move or open his eyes.
"A beautiful mortal and more besides, he is more welcome to my bower than you!"
"Take care how you provoke me! The last of light fades fast and you still refuse me?"
"Always and forever, Moiran. I will never belong to you."
The owner of the cold, proud voice leaned closer and Qui-Gon could feel the chill of his breath and the tickle of hair over his face.
"You refuse me and give yourself to that!" The voice hissed in scorn. "Then see how I shall treat your mortal."
Somehow, Qui-Gon managed to drag his eyelids open and found himself staring up into a pair of eyes the colour of winter ice, framed by a silken drape of black hair that caught the breeze and felt like spiderwebs against his cheek.
Somewhere deep inside him, the Force was screaming "Run." Qui-Gon swallowed drily, mesmerised by those cold, pale eyes in a face the colour of moonlight, as sharp as the shadows thrown by the sighing boughs overhead. The owner of the pale eyes smiled a cruelly beautiful smile, the blue-white orbs lasering deep into the young Jedi's soul.
"See, he would give himself to me even now, such loyalty do mortals lack! He finds me beautiful, foolish Ruari."
The warm, russet-haired boy snaked his arms around the Padawan's neck, soft fingers stroking his cheek gently. "Beautiful you are, Moiran, but not for him."
Above him, the changeable eyes were stormy and darkened. The soft- scented hair fell over his neck.
"Go Moiran, leave us to our dreams. You cannot have him!"
The dark one rose and flung out one milkwhite hand. "And you will stop me? Now, as the moon rises and the shadows fall?" The laughter was like the tinkle of tiny bells. "Little fool! For that, you will watch in wakefulness while I show your mortal the folly of his presumption."
"No!!" The warm arms clung to him tightly, but somehow Qui-Gon knew there was no strength left in them to save him. He looked up into the beautiful eyes and watched in silent wonder at the tears that spilled down to splash onto his face. Almost of its own volition, Qui-Gon's tongue flickered over his lips and tasted them, as sweet and clear as the brook's bubbling waters.
// Please! // he thought desperately. // Do not leave me. I won't be afraid if you stay. //
The changling eyes grew wide and wondering, then he turned to the dark one looming over them.
"Moiran, do not! He speaks! He speaks and hears!"
Another peal of chilly laughter. "More stories to console yourself of your foolishness, Ruari? You, who love each thing you touch and forget as quickly? See how he watches and waits!"
The dark creature bent low and pushed the other away, leaning in to taste Qui-Gon slack mouth with cold lips. "Yes, he will know the night's embrace and find an end therein." The cold breath sent shivers up Qui-Gon's throat and he longed to move, to grasp for the warm, loving boy but could not move at all, frozen in the spell of those ice-pale eyes.
The twilight grew darker still, until those pale eyes were gleaming in the white light of the rising moon. As he was lifted limply into a cold embrace, Qui-Gon could see the golden one, now dim and shadowed, tawny head buried in his arms, flung to one side. Outside the bower, the brook seemed to sob in the darkness.
His mouth was claimed in a kiss of ice that burned as long fingers trailed cold across his skin. The chill caress made his skin turn to gooseflesh and he whimpered low in his throat as Moiran's lips traveled down his chest to lap with an icy tongue at his already-hard nipples. Each shivering nub was claimed and sucked until they were so cold he was shuddering and he moaned softly.
He was lifted as easily as if he were a feather and tossed toward the shadowy figure sobbing on the leaf-strewn moss. The fall jarred him and he cried out in pain. Ruari's pale gold hands reached out, but his face was slack, his eyes half-closed and sleepy. Qui-Gon stared into the storm-coloured eyes in desperate fear as his legs were pulled open, spilling him forward.
As if by great effort, Ruari pulled himself upright and pillowed the frightened Jedi's dark head in his lap, faintly warm hand stroking his hair gently.
"I won't leave you. Won't leave..." the rich voice was soft and far-away.
Then Qui-Gon's face was shrouded and enveiled, this time in midnight blue and black, spangled with stars and icewhite moonlight. Through it, he saw the fall of Moiran's hair around him, felt its cold satin as his legs were parted and the cold hands reached between his buttocks to stroke and tease.
Qui-Gon stared dully through the blue-black veil of night, watching the shadows change and twist in the brightening light as the moon rose above them and he was caressed and kissed as if by the cold wind until he rocked and strained against the iced fingers gripping his hard cock and moaned as as his legs fell further apart, leaving him open, his breath catching in his throat.
A cold finger touched his anus, stroked it gently at first, then pushed its way inside, filling him and making him jerk and cry out against the comfort of Ruari's warm thigh. Deeper it went, its frigid touch penetrating to his soul, finding someplace within him that made him arch and gasp in sudden, shamed arousal.
As quickly, the finger was gone and he moaned as the warm hands stroked his tears away. A cold hand enveloped his straining hardness and then he was pierced, impaled on ice and screamed soundlessly as it touched that place and he sobbed. The warm body he rested on arched over him, mingled russet and black hair falling over his face and he was ploughed as an icicle digs deep into soft soil, stroked to helpless passion, all the while willing his terrified mind to the soft, warm hands that comforted him even as violation took him into shattered climax.
Limp with exhaustion and fear, he felt himself again lifted, the rough bark of a great tree hard against his cold skin. His head was raised by one cold finger and he gazed through the dark veil with helpless, frightened eyes.
"Moiran?" The soft voice had died away to a whisper as the proud dark creature laughed and waved one hand.
"Sleep as you must, Ruari. You have no power here. This night is mine and he is mine too, as you are. So sleep and dream your sunlit dreams and know that you brought him here. On your head this is, you fool."
The huddled figure at Qui-Gon's feet stirred, then became still and seemed to melt away into the leaves. The Padawan struggled to raise his head and found himself caught by those pale eyes.
"And here you will stay, to please me and entertain the night, bound here until mortal hands release you."
Moiran's fingers wove gossamer threads of silver spiderweb around Qui-Gon, binding him upright against the tree. Cold and damp, they wound round his wrists and ankles, snaked across his heaving chest, around his gulping throat until the only thing he could move was his head, to let it drop.
"Yes, hang your head and think how you ventured here. No one will find you, mortal. You are bound here forever and I will be sure to come to watch as you fade from life, boy. "
The cold fingers trailed up his limp cock and patted it gently.
"Farewell, foolish boy."
The dark veil was lifted and Qui-Gon stared with wide blue eyes at the light- splashed darkness, straining at his bonds and gasping for a voice gone silent amid the dim sounds of the deepening night.
Finale: Unto this Last
His head spinning with the shock of it all, he sagged against the gossamer threads that held him fast. He tried to clear his mind, to connect to the Force but he could only hang there, gasping and trying very hard not to cry. It wasn't the disconnection that made him so miserable, or even the fear that he truly had stepped beyond the bounds of mortal experience and would languish here in helpless humiliation until he perished that made him so unhappy. It was the loss of that bright warm being, whose hands had been such a lifeline to hope and love when cold fear had rendered him so vulnerable.
He gulped back a great lump in his throat and tried once more to calm his frantic mind. He was a Jedi, Padawan to one of the greatest Masters of the Order. There was no excuse for him to be in such a ridiculous predicament.
Alas, there was no logic in the winds that carried the leaves into tiny cyclones or in the moonlight silvering the trees and dropping fast behind his head as the night worn on and the chill seemed to settle in his bones.
He wondered idly where his clothes had gotten to, if his Master was worried about him, what was on the table at the banquet hall, if he would ever eat terrat muffins again in the Temple refectory. A thousand thoughts spilled through his mind until they spun and spun like the whirling leaves and his head drooped forward into dazed slumber.
A icy gust of air made him start and gasp and he looked up into Moiran's piercing eyes. He was beyond despair or fear, numb with cold and he simple stared in silence.
"I thought to hear you scream or cry. Braver boy than most!" the cold fingers raked through his hair, leaving tendrils of ice in the wings about his temples.
Moiran smiled and leaned in to brush his lips with burning cold.
"How long think you to last, mortal? How many days or nights?"
Qui-Gon's mouth had gone dry, his eyes level and wide. // Who are you?//
One black brow arched upward and Moiran's smile grew wider. "Ah, so Golden Ruari did not lie. You do hear and speak to us. Well," the tall figure leaned forward in a gusting swirl of black hair and shadow. "I am Fate to you, boy. You will know me by a word in your world that means death....thanatos. Remember that, should you survive."
Again, the long pale fingers ran through his short hair. "If you survive!" Moiran laughed softly into the dying night air. "No power can break my spell, mortal. Think on that as you wait for me to release you."
Still laughing into the wind, the figure seemed to fade amid the shadows, caught up in the breeze and then gone from sight as the first dim blue of dawn reached to the sky far in the east.
The young Jedi's head hung low on his breast and he slept while all around him, the woodland world began to wake as the sky brightened and the chill of night faded to the strange white light of dawn. Birds began to chirp their greetings to the sun and small animals scurried to the brook where clear water waited. In this waking world, Qui-Gon slept on, still bound by silver threads starred with dew that caught and refracted the growing light.
He sighed in his sleep, then stirred and shook his dark head, faintly wondering why he felt so cold and stiff and the bed was so hard. His blue eyes flickered open to gaze down at his bare feet half-buried in the fallen leaves. His head felt thick and strange and, in his disorientation, he watched as the leaves rustled and bunched and a slender hand reached up from their dark-scented depths to touch his leg with warmth. It was joined by another, then a shoulder, an upturned face that slowly rose from the ground itself to kneel at his feet.
The russet hair was softer than the lips that kissed him, and he groaned aloud as he was caught up in a rising tide of desire, his body alight with the warmth of those gentle touches. The petal-soft lips surrounded his hard cock, the tickle of the swinging mane of hair near-agony on his thighs. Slender fingers stroked and petted whatever the wet heat of that mouth could not enclose and Qui-Gon's head fell back against the gnarled trunk, staring up at the ever- brightening sky and welcomed his bound helplessness to such exquisite pleasure. The tender mouth surrounded him in a whorl of passion, glowing deep inside him and spreading liquid fire through his night-chilled limbs. With a low cry, he came, gasping, his legs gone limp, held upright only by the dew- sequined bonds.
Sweet kisses and a tender tongue kissed and licked him clean as the morning air and the warmth of the slight body at his feet, its head pressed now against his heaving abdomen, surrounded him. He blinked and watched, wishing so that his hands were free to caress the suntouched hair in thanks.
The big eyes which had been storms of sorrow in the night were clear and bright as the first rays of light streaked low from the east to paint the world in pale gold. Ruari rose, winding his arms about the young Jedi and warming him, rising up on his toes to press a kiss against his lips.
"Free you I cannot. Moiran's spell is too great. But I can help."
The smile was so sweet Qui-Gon felt his throat constrict and his eyes well. The small hands reached up to brush at his hair, then touched each gossamer thread that held him fast. As the sunlight broke through the high trees, each one transformed to a redgold vine, wound softer against his aching wrists and ankles, about his neck. A single tear spilled down the young Jedi's face and was caught on a tiny golden leaf.
"Hush, love, hush. I will not leave you, ever." The voice was like a lark's song, high and sweet in his mind.
Qui-Gon's brow furrowed. // Who are you? // he asked in wonder.
The beautiful eyes smiled into his and he bent his head to meet the upturned lips as the world seemed to well with warmth and light.
"I am Love."
His last memory was a soft caress against his cheek, fingers tender in his hair. Qui-Gon slept again.
Down the Great Road, before it became the Great Road and was only a cart- track, a little child toddled towards the tiny path, intent on the shining object that had caught her attention. Gurgling with laughter, she retrieved the red stone and saw another beside a strange bunch of twigs on the path. By the time her distraught father had retrieved her, she had a handful of brilliant stones glittering in her small palm and pointed with a laugh to the far end of the bridge. There, hanging neatly from a low bough, was a brown cloak.
The sun was up and shining brightly as Jedi Master Dooku strode forward down the road, following the farmer, himself followed by the Count and at least half his attendants and the village. Behind him were dark murmurings as they filed down the small path towards the bridge where a Jedi Padawan's robe danced in the morning breeze. His lips tightened with anger. Force knew how worried he had been all night when his student failed to return from his walk. Qui-Gon was impulsive , but he was an obedient and conscientious Padawan. It was not like him to disappear for an entire night. Certainly, Dooku had known him to wander away, entranced by some new phenomenon on a strange planet when he was much younger. He had thought his student had left such irresponsibilities behind with his breaking voice and adolescent awkwardness.
Master Dooku quickened his pace, now thoroughly disturbed and angry. Clearly, from the reactions around him, this was not a place to wander about lightly and the low murmurs had grown to voiced distress. Even the Count had a creased brow and a worried look as they trudged further and further along the tiny path.
The Jedi Master stopped and stared in absolute shock while, behind him, all murmuring had ceased and only the birds kept up their chatter.
There, before him, stark naked and half-aroused, was his Padawan, bound to a huge tree with winding vines that were caught round his limbs like ropes. His dark head hung forward and was crowned with a garland of golden russet leaves. He appeared to be fast asleep.
The crowd's low talk began and Dooku heard much more than he wanted.
"The Folk have had him!"
"He's been with Them!"
"I'll not free him!"
Count Merna leaned forward and whispered into Dooku's ear. "You get him free. I will make them go back to the courtyard. And Master Jedi, " he paused delicately. "I think perhaps you should take to your ship immediately. I will send the signed contracts after you."
Dooku repressed an irritated sigh and nodded. The crowd was herded away by the Count's attendants, still muttering loudly, as he pulled at the vines to free his student from his shameful predicament. One of the young women silently handed Dooku the boy's robe, one hand over her giggling mouth, eyes fixed on Qui-Gon's not-inconsiderable sex.
The Master yielded to his irritation and let his errant Padawan fall heavily to the ground. He was likely drugged and had been strung up like that as some kind of strange manner of humiliating the Jedi. It was not unknown for many planets to view the Order with distaste, fear or contempt. Qui-Gon would certainly not be the first or last Jedi to have been subject to such a shaming. What irritated his Master was that he had clearly been duped so easily. For a moment, the tall Jedi looked after the servant girl, who glanced back over her shoulder, laughing, as she trotted away towards the road. Then he turned back to the task of rousing his Padawan and returning to their transport a full day ahead of schedule. It would require some delicacy to make his report to the Council.
Confined to his tiny cubicle in the transport, Qui-Gon tried to return to his assigned meditations. It had been a very long time since his Master had given him such a dressing-down and he was at a loss to explain how he had come to be hanging from a tree, bare as the day he was born and excited to obvious hardness. His face flushed crimson again at the mere thought of his Master seeing him in such a state. Master Dooku had described it to him in quite vociferous terms and thundered for at least a hour about how he was a simple-minded fool. Had he learned nothing, to be taken in so easily? What tavern had he gone to and how much had he drunk? Was he thoroughly happy to have made such a laughingstock of the entire Order and wasn't it wonderful to give their host's such a fine butt for a joke? Qui-Gon wished he could shrink into the wall at the savage double-entendre.
Finally, Dooku's tongue-lashing ended with an order to meditate on his inability to concentrate or defend himself along with a dire threat of more punishment to follow back home. He knew his knees were going to ache from the hours of meditations and, if he was lucky, he might avoid the embarrassment of having to try to explain it to the entire Council himself.
He shivered in the spaceborn, metallic chill of the transport and got up with a sigh to retrieve his robe. They never had found his tunics or leggings, his boots or any of his underclothing. Master Dooku sarcastically remarked that he might be sent to Thurasa some day and be greeted by himself in effigy.
He glanced in the small mirror again, touching briefly at the newly silvered strands amid the dark hair at his temples. He wished he could remember what had happened to him. For hours now, he had thought and thought and searched through his mind, pleading with the Force to help, but he could only remember dreams of warmth and light, of cold and fear, glimpses of ruddy gold and ice blue that taunted him but refused to coalesce into memory.
Biting his lip in confusion, he pulled on his robe and tucked his hands into the pockets to warm them.
There, in one, something hard and sharp touched his fingers, warm to the touch. Curious, he pulled it out and stared down into his palm with wide eyes.
"I am Love."
The soft voice echoed in his mind, along with a sudden vision of a pair of stormy eyes and a sunkissed face.
His fingers closed around the tiny golden leaf, a bit of metal barely the size of his thumbnail. On its perfectly veined surface sparkled a crystal that caught the light and made a tiny rainbow dance on the cubicle wall.
Somewhere deep inside him, faint memory blossomed in a wash of golden warmth. The edges were sharp against his palm and he sighed and smiled, holding tight to a memento of a dream.
FIN