With a sharp 'hiss,' sand swirled against the stone wall, propelled there by the quick pivot of a worn, but lovingly polished brown leather boot. A careful intake of breath followed: slow, measured, and controlled. Newly minted Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi closed his eyes and swept his open hand in a shallow arc before his chest. Another breath. He pivoted once more and dipped in a lunge, transferring his weight to his bending right leg. He inhaled deeply again, concentrating solely on lengthening the lunge, sinking deeper, each muscle stretching or contracting with excruciating exactitude. He exhaled, pushing out simultaneously with his still open right hand, his left hand fisting and drawing back into his body.
Obi-Wan bowed his head and held his position for a count of ten. He extended his senses to check on his apprentice, feeling Anakin's fatigue through their tenuous bond. The boy's muscles trembled with the strain of holding his small body in a position identical to his master's. His teeth were clenched in a vicious determination to be strong, to complete the kata without failing.
The young man sent a faint pulse of approval to the boy but did not relax or rise from his place. He allowed his breath to come naturally, drew slightly on the Force to keep his balance, and waited. Time slowed and expanded, and master and padawan remained motionless, right arms extended, palms open, heads down. The Force moved slightly between them, but they made no sound. To the casual, non-Jedi observer, the pair appeared to be carved from living stone.
Anakin felt his patience wearing thin proportionally to the increasing pain in his thighs, back, and right arm. He wasn't sure how long he could stay like this, and he felt a momentary spark of irritation at his master for being so calm and collected. He reached out gently and probed Obi-Wan's aura, finding tight shielding and only the barest trace of…amusement? This revelation irked Anakin even more, and the anger building within broke his concentration. He wavered and, after fighting fiercely for several long seconds with his overtaxed body, lost his balance.
"Sithspit!" he swore, picking himself up off the sandy, dirty ground and brushing vigorously at his tunic. His master appeared to ignore his apprentice's fall and outburst as he serenely finished the exercise and stood. "What in the name of all seven hells was that for?"
"Padawan," Obi-Wan said mildly, but with a touch of rebuke lacing his tone, "Your language is unacceptable. If you have frustrations to share, please couch them in more civilized and respectful words."
"You were laughing at me!" Anakin accused, placing his hands on his hips and glaring up at his mentor, "I heard you!"
Obi-Wan sighed softly and gathered his composure from the Force. "Young one," he said, "I was not laughing at you."
"Then what would you call it?" the boy demanded, unrelenting in his pursuit of an answer. Cerulean eyes flashed and shifted to a dark sea-grey, and Anakin suddenly thought perhaps he had pushed too far, too fast. "I'm sorry, master," he murmured hurriedly, before the knight could act on the promise of swift discipline, "I did not mean to question you." Obi-Wan said nothing and regarded him evenly for a few harrowing moments before finally relaxing his gaze. Anakin blew out a relieved breath and, grasping at barely remembered protocol, knelt clumsily at the young man's feet.
"Please, master," he said in what he hoped was his most contrite voice, "Teach me where I have erred and show me the correct path, and I will walk in it." He felt the master/padawan bond flex slightly with the weight of his master's thoughts, and the meaning slowly formed coherence in his mind as he struggled to hold onto it.
"There are proper words and actions for all occasions, my young padawan learner, but in this case, your heart betrays you."
Anakin quickly raised his eyes and found that Obi-Wan had crouched down to his level with his elbows resting lightly on his bent knees. Silence reigned as the two regarded one another carefully – the former with suspicious wariness, the latter with calm speculation.
"Do you know what this particular kata is named?" his master asked. Anakin shook his head, deciding to keep his mouth shut and really listen to Obi-Wan's instruction this time. "The cha'a'un," the young man continued, "The breath of patience. It is a kata of contemplation, of awareness, of discipline. It requires absolute concentration and focus, and completing it successfully means that the practitioner must let nothing interfere with his connection to the Force."
The padawan nodded again, tamping down ruthlessly on the spark of impatience threatening to ignite within. After all, weren't they talking about patience here? Did it really matter if Obi-Wan was as dry as dust when explaining the reasoning behind their actions? Wasn't an explanation what he wanted? There was another beat of silence as Obi-Wan waited for his apprentice to wrestle his wandering thoughts into stillness. "Forgive me, master," he said, "Please, continue."
"I chose the cha'a'un for our meditation kata this morning precisely because it strikes you where you are weak. Your restlessness and frustrations are too quickly manifested, my padawan. You allow yourself to be distracted too easily. In moving through the levels of the cha'a'un you must open your mind to the Force and permit it to aid you in tightening your focus and shutting out the minor distractions of muscle fatigue and the passage of time. Do you understand me, Anakin?"
Anakin tried to follow his master's teaching, to feel in the depth of his soul the truth of his master's words, but he only succeeded in touching the surface, and that only just. "I think I see," he said slowly, "You picked this kata because it would make me impatient. I need to learn control, right? That's what you're always saying. And this kata was supposed to help me learn control?"
Obi-Wan released a portion of his own frustration to the Force and made himself smile briefly. For all his staggering talent and almost prescient quickness, Anakin Skywalker could sometimes exhibit maddening density in response to the knight's attempts to tutor him in the ways of the Jedi. "In part," he conceded, "and in part it was also to introduce you to the sustenance of the Force." He rose from his crouch and motioned his padawan to stand beside him. "We will continue working on this, but enough for this morning. We have a busy day ahead of us."
"Master," Anakin said as he followed Obi-Wan into their quarters, "May I ask you a question?" When he was given an acquiescing nod, he plunged ahead. "I probed your shields – you were laughing at me. Why were you laughing?"
Obi-Wan stopped and faced his apprentice, a rare, yet genuine grin appearing just for a moment. "As I told you, I was not laughing at you, my young padawan," he said, "I was merely remembering a time not so long ago when I first learned the cha'a'un. We are not so different, you and I." He paused and the corner of his mouth quirked slightly. "I fell, too."