Master Apprentice Archive Qui-Gon's Nose Quick search:

Category: humor, adventure

Rating: PG for implied sex and adult situations

Archive: Master and Apprentice

Standard Disclaimer: Only toying with the boys.

Caution: Tall tale telling and cats leaving bags...

Summary: Mace checks up on a lonely young Obi-Wan while Master Jinn attends a late meeting.

Feedback: Yes, PLEASE!

Good evening, Padawan Kenobi. Your master sent me to check on you. He's with the Senate Committee on Outer Rim Affairs. We believe it's going to be an all night session. Have you finished your class work? Any questions? Oh, is that fresh cressa bread? Qui-Gon told me you are quite a good cook.

"Come in and sit down, Mahstah Windu," Obi-Wan said. "Enjoy what we have to offer. I don't have any study questions but if you have the time, I would like to learn about my Mahstah. Perhaps, how he broke his nose and why it was never healed properly."

Well, as you know, Padawan, your Master Qui-Gon and I go all the way back to the Creche. We spent a great deal of time together and our Masters were friends too. We had many opportunities to travel and learn together.

I can recall what led up to his broken nose as easily as remembering yesterday. We were in the space port of Mos Eisley on Tatooine. Our adventure started like any day on the desert planet, waking up just past noon, too hot for anything but drinking fermented kella fruit juice and wandering under the shade of the market stall canopies. Out of idle curiosity we stopped and watched a slave auction that afternoon. That's when the pressure began to build. Qui-Gon wasn't the same after what we saw.

The human boy was younger than we were. Two over-seers stripped him naked in front of the crowd. I remember his skin. It was a dark tan except for his lily white backside. We moved up to the front of the bidders. The kid had a handsome face with defiant eyes. He looked straight at Qui-Gon. Then he blinked and looked away. I can still recall the blush of shame on the boy's face and the heat of his anger.

They started the bidding at 10 credits. The Hutts were there. Jabba's agent was bidding and the price rose to 16, a pittance for a young and healthy boy. Qui-Gon looked at me and I shrugged. I was penniless. My Master was wise enough never to give me more than a day's worth of credits. And Qui-Gon even owed me money. There was nothing we could do.

I remember the boy watched us as he was led away to the Hutts' market cart. Qui-Gon stamped his foot and kicked at a stone in the street. I slapped him on the back and he followed me back to the cantina. We ordered some of the local fare and settled back in our seats. Your Master was too quiet. I check and learned that he was shielding his thoughts from me.

We were quite the rogues in those days. We were loud and drunk sometimes, but we were careful to break no local laws. Our Padawan braids prevented the locals from cheating or harassing us. We were tolerated. And they appreciated that our Masters paid for what we wanted. Secretly, the tavern keepers were pleased when we chose their establishments. We drew a good crowd. All the younger freighter pilots wanted to test their reflexes against us in games of snatch the pebble. We always won. It was certainly amusing, and we learned more than a little about the Hutts.

Jabba was much younger then. He had a taste for youngsters too. Oh, don't make a face, Obi-Wan. The pilots told us that Jabba was already a master of the pleasure arts. Hutts are, you know. Why else would so many races serve them so loyally? No doubt he'd treat the boy well. At least that's what I told Qui-Gon that afternoon.

By evening we were dozing again under the fronds of the biggest golalipi tree I'd ever seen. Its roots went down a thousand feet into the deep well that nourished the space port's fragile oasis. Its fronds not only sheltered us but they shaded the slave pens on the other side of the mud wall. The Hutts courtyard surrounded the deep well and sale of water was the legitimate business that built the first Hutt Empire on Tatooine.

All at once, Qui-Gon was shaking me.

"Do you hear that, Mace?" he hissed in my ear.

"Sounds like a wild canid on a chain. What of it?" I asked him.

"It's the boy. I heard him."

"So?" I said shrugging off his grip and trying to doze again. But your Master wouldn't let me.

"He's a sensitive," he whispered. "Can't you hear him?"

"No, Qui-Gon, I can't. And neither can you," I said with a long sigh. "Too much kella, that's all."

"Mace, he's begging me."

Then, Obi-Wan, your Master set his foot upon a path that he follows to this day. No offense to you, of course. You are the best thing he's ever found. But...

"Oh I know, Mahstah Windu. A hopeless compulsion to rescue pathetic life forms. I see it quite often."

Well, you understand then. We climbed the tree and dropped down into the courtyard. Before I could stop him he sliced through the boy's chains with his lightsaber. Then, we levitated back up over the wall with our prize. We gave the kid a decent meal and a warm bed. Do you believe it? His father had gambled and lost on a pod race. The kid was sold to pay off the bet.

Qui-Gon slept with me the rest of the night. I remember he was on fire, Obi-Wan. The Living Force burned within him like a solar flare. I think I was burned a shade darker that night. He was sure of his path. He was afraid of nothing.

Then he faced Master Yoda in the morning. Even the displeasure of his Master did not seem to bother Qui-Gon. You know how he gets when his mind is made up. Well, Master Yoda told him flat out to return the boy. Slavery wasn't right. The boy was an innocent. All true. Even so, Jedi were impartial. And more importantly, a Jedi did not steal.

We fed the boy a good breakfast. Then Qui-Gon explained to him that we were ordered to take him back. The boy turned those hard, sharp eyes on Qui-Gon. I saw your Master melt. He likes to think we don't see it. He pretends to be so serene. But, you know, one look from a pathetic life form and he's gone.

Well, I watched him perform a centering kata after breakfast. He meditated a while. I suggested lunch at the cantina but he declined. He simply tapped the boy's shoulder and curled his finger. Without a word, the boy followed him. I threw my hands into the air, grabbed my robe and saber too.

At noon, we were pounding on the gate of the Hutt compound. They let us in. The boy stood between us. Jabba himself slithered out. He didn't look happy but how can you really tell about a Hutt, eh? I hoped that Qui-Gon was going to apologize. I should have known better.

He stepped up to Jabba, leaving the kid with me. He ignited his lightsaber and offered to take on any one of Jabba's henchmen in a combat to submission. I was aghast when he offered a year of servitude to the Hutts if he lost. Can you imagine a Jedi willingly in their employ? Jabba slobbered openly. If Qui-Gon won, he only wanted the scrawny untrained boy and Jabba's indulgence regarding the breaking, entering and theft that had already been committed. It warmed my heart to think he thought to get me off since technically, I was his accomplice.

Jabba rolled his amber eyes. I suppose he quickly did the math. Compared to Qui Gon Jinn, the boy was a wamprat in value. Jabba swiveled his head around on his great sluggish bulk. He eyed a half dozen mercenaries, older and craftier than a young over-reaching Jedi Apprentice. Jabba nodded his great head and summoned his aide.

I spoke with the aide and we laid out the basic rules. The combat would not require death to win. Exhaustion on the part of one of the combatants was enough. The man who could not toe the line a half standard minute after a fall would lose. Bare hands, strength of mind and body only. No blasters or Jedi lightsabers. May the best sentient life form win.

Lucky for Qui-Gon, the creature Jabba chose was humanoid, no claws or massive incisors. The guy weighed twice as much as Qui-Gon, but they matched roughly in height. I knew Qui-Gon would have speed and agility to his advantage. Good for defense. Yet, how could he possibly win?

Never bet against your Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. He has more tricks in a fight than a ten credit whore has on a typical evening on Coruscant. Oh, please don't tell your Master I said anything like that. He hates me talking crudely around Padawans. But you do know what I mean, right?

He started with a few little light jabs and a waving dance of his hands that would have mesmerized a sand viper. It slowed the humanoid down at first and I was breathing easy. That is until the guy's mates started yelling and the trance ended. After that, Qui-Gon kicked, punched and kneed the guy for a quarter of an hour without any ill effects. I was starting to get worried. All at once, I bit my lip. Qui-Gon had been knocked flat by the sheer weight of the man falling on him.

Half a minute later, they both stepped wobbly to the line. Sweat carved little rivers in the dust on them both. Your Master's jaw was set and a cold light shown in his eyes. I dropped to one knee and gathered the force to me. I sent him a jolt of confidence along our friendship bond. It was the least I could do. The other guy had a crowd of friends cheering him on and sustaining him. Qui-Gon had me. Then, the boy next to me touched my shoulder and I felt a wave of raw energy pass through me and into Qui-Gon.

All at once his eyes blazed. He stepped back and began the open hand kata. From there he leaped to the creature's back. His arm snaked around the thick neck, his elbow a sharp point as he squeezed the carotid arteries closed on either side of the neck. The guy's massive fist smashed into your Master's face but he didn't let go. Blood streamed from his nose and his breath came in wheezing gasps but he hung like a rock ape to the back of Jabba's champion. A minute later Qui-Gon rode the man down and sat on his back in composed triumph.

Jabba was not completely displeased with the outcome either. He laughed and thanked us for an amusing afternoon. We found out later he'd made a sizeable bet against his own man with the man's friends, so he hadn't lost all that much financially. Qui-Gon and I couldn't stop laughing, sitting in the cantina, drinking kella, while he snorted dark blood from his broken nose.

I tried talking him into going to Master Yoda immediately, but he can be stubborn, as you know. Well, that evening, we found the boy a place working a freighter going to Corellia where he said he had family. We saw him off and then went back to our lodgings.

After, ah, um, relaxing a while, I asked Qui-Gon what the boy had done during the fight that gave him so much determination. Freedom, your Master told me. He had communicated a vision of open space and planet-wide vistas, with allegiance and obligation to no man. I asked if he even learned the kid's name.

"Solo," Qui-Gon told me.

Then your Master explained that one day he believed when things looked as black as they could possibly get, a pilot would come to our rescue from out of the stars. Force knows, Obi-Wan. Maybe someday the kid, or some kid of his, will be back to turn the tide in our favor. We'll have to wait and see, right? Oh, and about your Master's nose. Yoda advised him to let it heal on its own as a reminder of what would always happen when a nose gets stuck where it might not belong.

Now it's time you got some sleep, Obi-Wan. Master Jinn will return in the morning and I want you to look rested. Understand? And, he'll probably ask you what we talked about. Just tap your nose, all right? He won't ask you again.

"Yes, Mahstah."