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quigonejinn*holds out for all of, like, three days*
Your planet is new to the Republic: the Council of Three Nations found the moons within living memory, and your father remembers a time when all ships traveled slower than light. Your children, when they are born, will never know anything but the Republic and the Senate and the Federation. By the end of the decade, in fact, your planet will have a representative in the Senate.
This, however, the first time you have ever met Jedi.
...
What is surprising, in a way, is how much they look like your neighbors. Long lost family members. The undertones on their skin are a little different, but it is not entirely out of the ordinary. They could be from the Highlands, for example, or have spent time in a poorly shielded spaceship. Over the years, holding the Director of Security position that you do, you've learned to hold no preconceptions about alien species; some of them resemble your own species to the point that they can marry and breed without scientific help, but others are completely alien.
You have done a little reading. There are species that do not breathe oxygen; there are others that have the power to look into a man's mind, and it is strange, too, how the older of the two treats the younger. Formally, they are teacher and student, and the boy barely comes up to his teacher's hip, but the teacher treats him as though he were entirely an adult subordinate.
"The representatives of the Trade Federation expect an update. Talk to them, Obi-Wan," he will say.
And the boy will go off at a steady trot, lightsaber at his side, and the master will turn around and continue his conversation without thinking any more on the fact that he has just told his hip-high student to talk to controlling representatives of the known universe's largest and most powerful cartel.
...
"Master takes training very seriously. Responsibility is an important part of any Jedi's development," the student offers up when you ask him about it on the second night that you and he and his Master are tracking the rebels through the wilderness.
You have a nephew who is about his age and spends his time playing at forts and dropping insects into his sister's friends' hair.
In the forest, though, the night is deep and dark, and a fire is in front of both of you. You are sitting to his left. His master is standing the second watch and has gone to sleep on the other side of the fire, and then, on the student's face, there's suddenly an expression, a twitch of a smile, that properly belongs on the face of someone at least twice his age.
"Also," he says. "Master hates dealing with them."
...
After the shuttle arrived and the Ambassador had been packed on it, there was a period of silence. You were glaring at Qui-Gon, and he was looking back at you with what you assumed as the Jedi ersion of acting as as intractably stubborn as a pack animal.
"You have no authorization to access those parts of the planet." You could be stubborn about it, too, and there was no way that they would be able to obtain aerial transport "There are cultural clearances. The Internal Ministry has methodologies and a ten year gradual exposure pla -- "
"No. We agreed to participate to this rescue mission only if your Internal Minstral permitted us to speak to the paren-- "
Something chirped at his hip. Qui-Gon reached down and shut it off with a swipe of the thumb.
"You can confirm -- "
The thing at his hip chirped again. Qui-Gon scowled down at it, and when he made no move to answer, it began to vibrate with substantial force.
"Excuse me," he said, his voice tight with irritation. "The Council is calling, and they insist on speaking to me. While I am talking to them, feel free to contact your Interior Ministry. Your superiors will verify the arrangement."
He turned and went to the other side of the clearing, and after a few moments, Obi-Wan wandered over to you and gave a conciliatory smile. Qui-Gon had, you knew, a great deal of interest in talking to all and sundry -- your men had tailed him through the early morning marketplace on each day that they were in the capital city, and he spoke to eighteen, nine, and twelve people on the first, second, and third days respectively; you had records of the articles on your planet that he has called up on his personal terminal. His investigations are been wide-ranging and engaged; you looked over them while eating fruit and lirr-bread that last morning, and you had, in fact, learned a few things about your own planet.
So the man has an avid interest in alien cultues. And you have seen him be remarkably pleasant to the charwomen as well as Ministers. Consequently, it was not a matter of class, and you continued to seethe while he went off to the edge of the clearing to argue with his holoprojecter.
And then you blinked.
"You're bleeding," you said to Obi-Wan.
Aside from the vine scratches up and down his forearms, there was a deep scratch running down the side of his face. A stone chip, perhaps, knocked loose from the temple pillars by the projectile weapons that the kidnappers had used. There was dirt smudged onto his cheeks. His robe was filthy; there had been smoke, and the three of you had been moving through the woods for the better part of five days.
He reached a hand up to his forehead, then frowned, which made the blood well up fresh and start to run down his face more thickly. As he kept his hand there, though, and held it close to the wound, you watched as the blood clotted, hardened. Before your amazed eyes, the ends of the wound knit together and formed a pink scar that was almost entirely gone by the time the boy dropped his hand.
The air tasted a little strange in your mouth.
You were gaping, and Obi-Wan shot you another smile -- cocky, sublimely confident and more than a little arrogant. It wouldn't have been out of place on your nephew's face after he'd gotten away with some particularly naughty stunt on his motorbike, and you were still trying to unknit your forehead when, since Qui-Gon was standing a bit to the side and waiting expectantly, he turned and trotted over to his master.
...
"So you weren't born as Jedi?"
"Nobody is born in the Order. They tested me when I was born on Corsucant, and my parents gave me to the care of the Order when I was a few days old. We're not allowed to have children or families."
You must have transmitted your distress to him with a change in posture or some other non-verbal cue, and he tried to reassure you. The ground was whipping by underneath the airtransport -- Qui-Gon was in the far back of the transport, arguing with the Council about something -- but Obi-balanced easily in his seat and was turning this way and that, studying the scenery. The pilot's area was enclosed by clear plastic, and it was possible to see above and around and below the cockpit. Obi-Wan was, you knew, keeping the safety belt for your peace of mind more than anything else.
"It's not as bad as you think it is," he said, gently. "We don't fall in love, you see. We're not raised to expect it."
...
Are you ever lonely?
You want to ask him this, but you're not sure if it would be appropriate -- Obi-Wan turns out to be a veritable fount of opinion and trivia when it's been made to clear to him that his conversation is welcome. It was pent up, perhaps, and that night, after a dinner of field rations, he tells you about Corsucant and Alderaan and Sharda IV, the space platform on the edge of the Dranall Nebula, which has regular magnetic storms and an area where gravity is reversed so that the inhabitants can walk on the ceilings sometimes. He has a friend named Quinlan. You hear about him in great detail.
Qui-Gon stays on the opposite side of the fire. He had been a foul mood after arguing with the a series of hand-twitches. When Obi-Wan realized that his master was listening, he began to leave openings, small invitations for his master to join in the conversation, but Qui-Gon never responded. He watched. Kept his counsel. Stayed half in the shadows. While the three of you were setting up camp, his voice had been hoarse from arguing with the Council, and he had communicated with Obi-Wan primarily through a series of curt hand movements.
Is your master lonely?
Is this what being a Jedi is like?
...
The Order has its roots as an academic study group, you know, and you are also aware of the status they have in the Republic. They are never criticized. They are revered, and from the research you have done, it is easy to see why they are held in such high regard.
Your party reaches the cottage in the foothills early in the next morning. The sky is purple and gold higher up in the mountains, and you sit, on a hill, outside the cottage while Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan go to speak to the parents, who have already heard the information. They had been on a commercial freighter, and the delivery had been difficult enough so that they stopped at a Republic space station. As part of the standard medical procedures, the infant was scanned for midichlorian count. They received counseling, but did not think that they could bear to give their child up to the Jedi. They had not even really bleieved in midichlorians, but Obi-Wan has explained to you some of the joy that he feels in the Force.
He cannot remember a time when it wasn't with him. He has never, in his entire life, felt as though he was walking alone. It had been difficult for him to describe it to you; there was nothing he knew in his life that came close. He described the physical sensations to you, and you identified them for him -- comfort. Happiness. Contentment. He had never spent a single day doubting his place in the universe.
After a while, when the sky had turned almost completely gold, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan came out again. They walked on either side of the mother as she brought her child to the transport.
...
"That was what Master was arguing with the Council about," Obi-Wan says, sounding very confident. "The Order hasn't had anybody from this planet, and they were worried, but Master convinced them. Master says that he was older than this when he came to the Order, that we don't have enough faith in the ability of people to learn and change and adapt."
You look at him, small and neat-looking with the braid hanging by his face. Sunlight pours in through the windows on the side of the interstellar transport depot, and you can see that the scratch from the day before is entirely gone. It is as though he had never been wounded, and you stand by him a little longer, watching the traffic in the port.
When it comes time, he pauses for a moment, then sticks his hand out. He has observed this small, planetary tradition, and it pleases you very much that he would make this effort.
"I think the child is too old," he says in a confiding tone. "It's very likely that he could wash out, and maybe, when that time comes around, I will be old enough to bring him back. Perhaps -- " he says, and here, his face lights up. "Perhaps I will see you again."
"I should like that very much," you say.
Both of you smile at each other for another moment, and Qui-Gon calls him once more -- the infant is settled, and they are cleared to leave, apparently. After another moment of turning and smiling at you, Obi-Wan turns, and he goes, happily, to the rest of his life as a Jedi.
Your planet is new to the Republic: the Council of Three Nations found the moons within living memory, and your father remembers a time when all ships traveled slower than light. Your children, when they are born, will never know anything but the Republic and the Senate and the Federation. By the end of the decade, in fact, your planet will have a representative in the Senate.
This, however, the first time you have ever met Jedi.
...
What is surprising, in a way, is how much they look like your neighbors. Long lost family members. The undertones on their skin are a little different, but it is not entirely out of the ordinary. They could be from the Highlands, for example, or have spent time in a poorly shielded spaceship. Over the years, holding the Director of Security position that you do, you've learned to hold no preconceptions about alien species; some of them resemble your own species to the point that they can marry and breed without scientific help, but others are completely alien.
You have done a little reading. There are species that do not breathe oxygen; there are others that have the power to look into a man's mind, and it is strange, too, how the older of the two treats the younger. Formally, they are teacher and student, and the boy barely comes up to his teacher's hip, but the teacher treats him as though he were entirely an adult subordinate.
"The representatives of the Trade Federation expect an update. Talk to them, Obi-Wan," he will say.
And the boy will go off at a steady trot, lightsaber at his side, and the master will turn around and continue his conversation without thinking any more on the fact that he has just told his hip-high student to talk to controlling representatives of the known universe's largest and most powerful cartel.
...
"Master takes training very seriously. Responsibility is an important part of any Jedi's development," the student offers up when you ask him about it on the second night that you and he and his Master are tracking the rebels through the wilderness.
You have a nephew who is about his age and spends his time playing at forts and dropping insects into his sister's friends' hair.
In the forest, though, the night is deep and dark, and a fire is in front of both of you. You are sitting to his left. His master is standing the second watch and has gone to sleep on the other side of the fire, and then, on the student's face, there's suddenly an expression, a twitch of a smile, that properly belongs on the face of someone at least twice his age.
"Also," he says. "Master hates dealing with them."
...
After the shuttle arrived and the Ambassador had been packed on it, there was a period of silence. You were glaring at Qui-Gon, and he was looking back at you with what you assumed as the Jedi ersion of acting as as intractably stubborn as a pack animal.
"You have no authorization to access those parts of the planet." You could be stubborn about it, too, and there was no way that they would be able to obtain aerial transport "There are cultural clearances. The Internal Ministry has methodologies and a ten year gradual exposure pla -- "
"No. We agreed to participate to this rescue mission only if your Internal Minstral permitted us to speak to the paren-- "
Something chirped at his hip. Qui-Gon reached down and shut it off with a swipe of the thumb.
"You can confirm -- "
The thing at his hip chirped again. Qui-Gon scowled down at it, and when he made no move to answer, it began to vibrate with substantial force.
"Excuse me," he said, his voice tight with irritation. "The Council is calling, and they insist on speaking to me. While I am talking to them, feel free to contact your Interior Ministry. Your superiors will verify the arrangement."
He turned and went to the other side of the clearing, and after a few moments, Obi-Wan wandered over to you and gave a conciliatory smile. Qui-Gon had, you knew, a great deal of interest in talking to all and sundry -- your men had tailed him through the early morning marketplace on each day that they were in the capital city, and he spoke to eighteen, nine, and twelve people on the first, second, and third days respectively; you had records of the articles on your planet that he has called up on his personal terminal. His investigations are been wide-ranging and engaged; you looked over them while eating fruit and lirr-bread that last morning, and you had, in fact, learned a few things about your own planet.
So the man has an avid interest in alien cultues. And you have seen him be remarkably pleasant to the charwomen as well as Ministers. Consequently, it was not a matter of class, and you continued to seethe while he went off to the edge of the clearing to argue with his holoprojecter.
And then you blinked.
"You're bleeding," you said to Obi-Wan.
Aside from the vine scratches up and down his forearms, there was a deep scratch running down the side of his face. A stone chip, perhaps, knocked loose from the temple pillars by the projectile weapons that the kidnappers had used. There was dirt smudged onto his cheeks. His robe was filthy; there had been smoke, and the three of you had been moving through the woods for the better part of five days.
He reached a hand up to his forehead, then frowned, which made the blood well up fresh and start to run down his face more thickly. As he kept his hand there, though, and held it close to the wound, you watched as the blood clotted, hardened. Before your amazed eyes, the ends of the wound knit together and formed a pink scar that was almost entirely gone by the time the boy dropped his hand.
The air tasted a little strange in your mouth.
You were gaping, and Obi-Wan shot you another smile -- cocky, sublimely confident and more than a little arrogant. It wouldn't have been out of place on your nephew's face after he'd gotten away with some particularly naughty stunt on his motorbike, and you were still trying to unknit your forehead when, since Qui-Gon was standing a bit to the side and waiting expectantly, he turned and trotted over to his master.
...
"So you weren't born as Jedi?"
"Nobody is born in the Order. They tested me when I was born on Corsucant, and my parents gave me to the care of the Order when I was a few days old. We're not allowed to have children or families."
You must have transmitted your distress to him with a change in posture or some other non-verbal cue, and he tried to reassure you. The ground was whipping by underneath the airtransport -- Qui-Gon was in the far back of the transport, arguing with the Council about something -- but Obi-balanced easily in his seat and was turning this way and that, studying the scenery. The pilot's area was enclosed by clear plastic, and it was possible to see above and around and below the cockpit. Obi-Wan was, you knew, keeping the safety belt for your peace of mind more than anything else.
"It's not as bad as you think it is," he said, gently. "We don't fall in love, you see. We're not raised to expect it."
...
Are you ever lonely?
You want to ask him this, but you're not sure if it would be appropriate -- Obi-Wan turns out to be a veritable fount of opinion and trivia when it's been made to clear to him that his conversation is welcome. It was pent up, perhaps, and that night, after a dinner of field rations, he tells you about Corsucant and Alderaan and Sharda IV, the space platform on the edge of the Dranall Nebula, which has regular magnetic storms and an area where gravity is reversed so that the inhabitants can walk on the ceilings sometimes. He has a friend named Quinlan. You hear about him in great detail.
Qui-Gon stays on the opposite side of the fire. He had been a foul mood after arguing with the a series of hand-twitches. When Obi-Wan realized that his master was listening, he began to leave openings, small invitations for his master to join in the conversation, but Qui-Gon never responded. He watched. Kept his counsel. Stayed half in the shadows. While the three of you were setting up camp, his voice had been hoarse from arguing with the Council, and he had communicated with Obi-Wan primarily through a series of curt hand movements.
Is your master lonely?
Is this what being a Jedi is like?
...
The Order has its roots as an academic study group, you know, and you are also aware of the status they have in the Republic. They are never criticized. They are revered, and from the research you have done, it is easy to see why they are held in such high regard.
Your party reaches the cottage in the foothills early in the next morning. The sky is purple and gold higher up in the mountains, and you sit, on a hill, outside the cottage while Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan go to speak to the parents, who have already heard the information. They had been on a commercial freighter, and the delivery had been difficult enough so that they stopped at a Republic space station. As part of the standard medical procedures, the infant was scanned for midichlorian count. They received counseling, but did not think that they could bear to give their child up to the Jedi. They had not even really bleieved in midichlorians, but Obi-Wan has explained to you some of the joy that he feels in the Force.
He cannot remember a time when it wasn't with him. He has never, in his entire life, felt as though he was walking alone. It had been difficult for him to describe it to you; there was nothing he knew in his life that came close. He described the physical sensations to you, and you identified them for him -- comfort. Happiness. Contentment. He had never spent a single day doubting his place in the universe.
After a while, when the sky had turned almost completely gold, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan came out again. They walked on either side of the mother as she brought her child to the transport.
...
"That was what Master was arguing with the Council about," Obi-Wan says, sounding very confident. "The Order hasn't had anybody from this planet, and they were worried, but Master convinced them. Master says that he was older than this when he came to the Order, that we don't have enough faith in the ability of people to learn and change and adapt."
You look at him, small and neat-looking with the braid hanging by his face. Sunlight pours in through the windows on the side of the interstellar transport depot, and you can see that the scratch from the day before is entirely gone. It is as though he had never been wounded, and you stand by him a little longer, watching the traffic in the port.
When it comes time, he pauses for a moment, then sticks his hand out. He has observed this small, planetary tradition, and it pleases you very much that he would make this effort.
"I think the child is too old," he says in a confiding tone. "It's very likely that he could wash out, and maybe, when that time comes around, I will be old enough to bring him back. Perhaps -- " he says, and here, his face lights up. "Perhaps I will see you again."
"I should like that very much," you say.
Both of you smile at each other for another moment, and Qui-Gon calls him once more -- the infant is settled, and they are cleared to leave, apparently. After another moment of turning and smiling at you, Obi-Wan turns, and he goes, happily, to the rest of his life as a Jedi.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-13 06:28 pm (UTC)And for the record, ahahaha. I'm totally fine wih you not reading this. It's not like I don't spam you with shit regularly anyways. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-13 08:34 pm (UTC)btw... I have glasses now. I'm getting old.