Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. They belong to George Lucas. I just do this to waste time.
Author's Note: Inspired by something Obi-Wan said in 'Revenge of the Sith'. And just because. I hope you enjoy!
They were on an unfamiliar planet and it was the middle of the day. The sun beat down upon their backs, hot and unrelenting, and although Anakin Skywalker had spent the first nine years of his life in constant heat, he did not find himself any more immune to it than any other Jedi. No, the heat made him tired and uncomfortable and all the thirteen year old wanted to do was jump in a huge ocean full of water.
"Thinking about water will not make things better," his master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, intoned.
"But Master," Anakin whined, "it's hot!"
"I thought you would be excited," Obi-Wan said, raising an eyebrow. "You certainly were on the way here. This is your first mission."
"I hate it," Anakin said. "Why couldn't they send us to a planet covered in water?"
"How would we breathe, Padawan?"
"I don't know." Anakin frowned. "I don't care. We're going to die from the heat."
"You are not going to die," Obi-Wan said. "We're almost there."
"Why did we have to crash the ship in the middle of the forest?" Anakin asked, folding his arms.
"We couldn't crash it in the town. That would have caused great harm to the people living there."
"But did you have to crash it so far away?"
"Don't worry," Obi-Wan said. "We'll get the ship fixed and perhaps the negotiations won't take a long time, and then we'll be on our way back. Although, Anakin, I'm surprised at you. This planet is not as hot as Tatooine."
Anakin ignored him. "Why do we have to wear all these layers, anyway? I would be a lot more comfortable without them."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "I would not appreciate a naked Padawan. It would compromise the mission."
"Then let it be compromised," Anakin muttered.
The two continued to walk in silence. Anakin could hear his breathing, loud and labored. Obi-Wan was strangely silent and Anakin wondered how the older Jedi could handle the heat. He had mentioned something about using the Force to release heat into the atmosphere, but there was so much heat that Anakin didn't know where the he ended and the atmosphere began.
A noise came from the bushes and, abruptly, Obi-Wan came to a stop and thrust out a hand to catch Anakin before he walked any further.
Anakin remained silent, but asked through the bond he and his master shared, What is it?
Use the Force, Anakin. What do you sense? Obi-Wan had put his hand on his lightsaber.
Anakin reached out with the Force, a difficult task when his mind was so muddled by the incessant heat that seemed to weigh upon him. A headache began to form, but Anakin could sense something…no, somethings in the bushes.
Great, he thought, now we're going to be attacked. Sighing, he put his hand on his own lightsaber.
The two Jedi remained standing still in the middle of a clearing, staring at a bush. For a moment, nothing happened. Anakin began to feel the urge to fidget but suppressed it. He knew his master would be displeased.
When it seemed that the two would be standing there forever, the bush moved again and several things flew at them.
Anakin's lightsaber was out before the things even reached him. He brought his 'saber up and through the first of the flying creatures, which Anakin vaguely realized was a droid.
Still, Anakin did not stop. The fighting took his mind off the heat. Having something more exciting than walking to do, Anakin's thoughts instead focused on the fight, on defending he and his master from the strange flying droids that seemed intent on approaching the Jedi.
As Anakin took down three more droids, he began to feel something strange at the edge of his mind. He wondered why he was doing so much work and why the blue glow of Obi-Wan's lightsaber was missing, but he got his answer a few seconds later as he attacked another droid.
"Anakin, STOP!"
Shocked out of his task, the last droid falling to the ground, Anakin stumbled back and whipped around only to find Obi-Wan staring at him. One of the droids was in his hand. Anakin stared back, unsure of why his master had chosen to yell at him both out loud and through their bond. He frowned.
"What, Master? I was winning!"
"No, you weren't." Obi-Wan shook his head, frowning. "You did not take the time to assess the situation properly. If you had, you would have known that these droids are messenger droids sent from the nearby town to make sure that we were fine, and you would not have attacked them."
Anakin's mouth dropped open as the words sank in. "Oh…" His eyes left his master's face and found the lone remaining droid. "The droid told you this?"
"Yes," Obi-Wan sighed. "The droid told me this."
"Master," Anakin said, feeling his face flush (even more uncomfortable in the heat), "I'm sorry."
"I know you are."
"I thought I was winning," he added.
Obi-Wan rubbed his head as though in stress. "I know you did."
"But Master," Anakin continued, "they are only droids."
Obi-Wan shook his head. "It seems you have taken to the lessons of self-defense and have completely ignored the negotiation lessons. We are, first and foremost, negotiators."
"I negotiated with my lightsaber," Anakin replied, re-clipping said weapon onto his belt.
Another exasperated sigh issued from his master. "Come on, we should go. We do actually have a mission here and now I must also explain why we have returned with only one droid."
Anakin turned an even deeper shade of red and said, "I don't know why you think that negotiating with a lightsaber isn't negotiating."
Obi-Wan sighed yet again and Anakin wondered just what he had done to make his master so stressed.
"Fighting for no good reason," Obi-Wan murmured, casting a last look at the pile of destroyed droids, "is so uncivilized."
Burning from the embarrassment of his master's remark, Anakin shone like a beacon.
Somewhere along the bond, his could feel his master's amusement finally emerge.