RETURN OF THE DARK ACOLYTE

After knighting his first padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi had never quite managed to complete his sabbatical. Initially, the matter was not even entertained. The republic was at war.

His first genuine attempt was interrupted by the jail-break of Aurra Singh, and subsequent death of Nute Gunray.

After that he'd been asked to take over the training of a twice-orphaned padawan. The Jedi Council thought him especially adept at dealing with emotionally traumatized force-sensitive beings.

Rheeke had taken five years to heal and complete her training. When she was finally on her own he was given the relatively relaxing task of caring for Carnith, a clan of ten to eleven year olds.

Quninann Avent was ten, a Rattataki/ Human mixed-race girl whose force signature and grey-blue eyes drew Obi-Wan's attention immediately. Having settled the younglings for the night he looked through their files again now that he had met them, to compare what was recorded with his own impressions.

Quinann had been found on the steps of the temple at dawn on her third lifeday, with a local datachip pinned to her copper-red ponytail.
Traced to a wholesale/retail dealer in Coruscant's industrial sector, the chip had been purchased the night before, though the proprietor had no recollection of the transaction.
The information indicated the youngling's lifedate as 15:4:20 and her place of birth as en route to Boz Pity. Her father had been a Jedi itinerant, name unknown, her mother force-sensitive but untrained, name with-held. Nothing unusual, except that the 'untrained' mother had apparently mind-tricked someone, and had kept her child far longer than most parents would have. However the child being part Rattataki could explain both.

Quinann had been tested, her midichlorian count found to be 11500, and she was taken into Carnith Clan just in time to start formal training with the other younglings.

She was talented, emotionally volatile, naturally aggressive, and already showing great promise with her saber skills.

Kenobi shook his head with disbelief at himself as he nodded over the file, already mentally selecting exercises that would suit the girl and help her gain emotional control. Deciding he must be temporarily insane, he set his Chrono and went to bed, because the one draw-back of this assignment was getting up early to get the younglings out to class on time.

In his months with them he got to know all the younglings of the clan, but Quinann stood out. Several months and many lengthy meditation sessions later, he could fathom only one reason for Youngling Avent's effect on him. The Force intended that he take her as his Padawan. When he completed the crèche assignment he took her before the Council and did just that.

Anakin Skywalker had been fully aware that his former Master was considering taking a new apprentice. Preoccupied as he was with his daughter's training and re-integration into the Junior Legislative Programme, he had no opportunity to meet Quinann until after she moved in. He would later describe the experience as unnerving.

Physically, the girl had white skin similar to Aurra Singh's, and copper-toned red hair, but her face was simultaneously familiar and strange, and her force signature ebbed and flowed like nothing he had ever experienced, yet caressed his senses like an old ambivalent friend. The hair on Anakin's neck stood up, and the fingers on his left hand tingled when he touched her. An involuntary shiver coursed through his body, and he withdrew his hand.
For all their ability to adapt and survive Rattatakis rarely ventured off their home planet, and the few life experiences Anakin had with them were negative, colouring his view of the group and this girl. He made few apologies for his occasional xenophobia, but he admonished himself to curb his response this time. Such feelings had led him to very dark places before.....

For her part, Quinann gave him a narrowed look of challenge at first, but within a minute her chin had tilted straight up, confident and slightly haughty in her manner. She had decided that he was not a threat, and could not become one, since her new Master had already taken his oath.
It struck Anakin as strange how quickly beings began imitating each other when they lived together, because the second expression had smacked every bit of Kenobi's usual look when he'd won a battle of wills.

Later, Anakin reasoned his reaction was partly born of subconscious jealousy. Obi-Wan had chosen this girl. No matter their close relationship now, Anakin had been a final assignment from Master Qui Gon. (Rheeke had been orphaned and reassigned, so there was no reason to envy her.) Further complicating matters, Anakin had hoped his mentor would eventually train Luke, but that was unlikely now. This realisation was also affecting his reaction to the new Padawan.

'She's something alright,' was the only response he could muster to Obi-Wan's quest for his insights after Quinann had gone to sleep.

Ten years later.....

'I'm getting too old for this sort of thing,' was Obi-Wan Kenobi's first thought as the small modified freighter the Jedi had assigned them for their current mission swept across the sky-lanes en route off Coruscant. At least Quinann was a little more considerate with her lane changes than Anakin had been at her age. His aging sphincters would most likely have failed if they were put to that kind of test now.

'You're not that old, Master,' the girl quipped aloud from the pilot's chair, her ponytail bobbing away from her padawan braid as she turned her head and reached over the instrument panel.

She was his height now, and the tuft of hair at the top of her mostly bald head made her seem even taller. Her hair was getting darker with age, Obiwan mused to himself, but her eyes were the same grey-blue, except when they shifted with her mood.

'Yours is getting greyer.' She glanced at him. 'Actually, I take that back. You're all white now, like Alderaan's last mountain winter happened on top of your head.'

He smiled. She had matured physically, emotionally and in the ways of the force. It would soon be time for her trials. He would miss her, but just maybe he would get around to taking some time for himself….

'Yeah. That's really going to happen. Those sphincters you keep worrying about would probably fail right then from the shock of having so little to do. You'll find some poor youngling to torture to Knighthood yet again…..'

He couldn't comment on that one. He only hoped the force would be merciful and give him a break. When they had entered hyperspace he turned to her, determined to review their mission.

Two weeks later……

Quinann stared with disbelief at the gaping wound in her master's left side. They had only been joking about this being his last field mission, but now it looked like it could become the truth. A sharp piece of alloyed durasteel that had impaled him during a freak speeder crash, so the injury was not cauterized. Air bubbled through the hole with each breath he took, and she could see parts of his insides that were never meant to be exposed. His blood had soaked everything, the smell, feel and sight of it stifling and terrifying her. He was trying to talk, and she trying to soothe as they were rushed from the site to the nearest healers' facility.

'So this is what this feels like, to die in my Padawan's arms,' he thought, remembering how it had felt to hold Qui Gon. The thought filtered over their bond.

'Haaasch, haaasch, you're not going to die, you old 'Bat. You can't leave me….'

'You won't….. be an orphan. I… submitted… your name….. You're ready……'

'No, Master. I'm not ready. I still need you…..'

They kept up the exchange all the way from the site, and then he was rushed out of her arms and into surgery, leaving her soaked and exhausted to wait. At least her hosts were kind enough to offer her space to wash-up and change.

An hour later......

The Firrerreoan Healer in charge of General Kenobi's care came to her looking grim.

'Padawan Avent, I am Arthrir. We have done as much as we can, but he needs Human blood, and we have none of that in stock here. We can ship some in from the Annaj System, but that will take hours, and I'm afraid he doesn't have that much time. Do you have any on your ship?'

They had substitutes, yes, and Quinann hurried to get them, but even after they were given he needed more.

'You don't have any human settlements on this world?'

'No. And even if we did, his typing is unusual. We've placed an order with the facilities on Bakura, and it will be here in one standard day, but….'

'Take my blood,' the padawan offered as desperation flooded through her at the healer's implications.

'You're not even human, young one. Most likely it won't match,'

'I'm closer to human than any other being here, and he's about to die. Take my blood. Please. I have to know I did everything…..'

Arthrir looked at her with the most irritating pity, but he took her into the lab, and complied with her request. He didn't expect this charade would go beyond the first round of tests. So when his tech commed him in the Healer's Lounge to inform him they had a workable match, he was flabbergasted.

Quinann did not question the Force's reprieve. She laid back on the lounge provided and stuck out her arm. 'Take as much as he needs,' she told the tech, who laughed.

'That won't be necessary. I'll take two units from you. Since you two match we can probably use the substitutes from your ship that were intended for you if he needs more.' After setting up her donor, she continued to chat. 'All this time, we never thought to test you. We had to go three sectors over to find a suitable match, that's why it took so long. Guess it's a Jedi thing,'

Feeling woozy despite her earlier bravado Quinann could only murmur her assent. Dull grey-blue eyes flicked over the room, searching everything, fixing on the Healer for a moment, then drifting closed.

Arthrir had signed off on the unusual procedure, but as he watched the now translucent donor, the sheer improbability of the situation disturbed him.
He went back to the sample comparison consoles and rechecked the information. He must be missing something. The moment the girl's eyes held his he had the disconcerting feeling he'd seen that look before.
Dropping into his chair he punched a single key where the machine had been blinking out options, begging him to run one more test.
When the 'beeeep' indicating a ready result sounded, he wondered if he'd made an ethical mistake, but the etcher was set to automatically duplicate such results, so the next sound was another 'beeeep' as the etching began, and a helpful synthesized voice said 'Match positive, match positive.'

On the other side of the room Quinann had finished her donation, and was now consuming an energy drink. She looked up at the voice. 'I thought that was already established?'

'Ummm, yes.... I… I…. just wanted to understand the compatibility before we went ahead......' The Healer was peering at the screen, and his agitation came to her clearly even without the force.

The girl's face hardened with fear for her Master. 'Don't try to keep anything from me. What did you just do?'

Arthrir opened his mouth, then closed it, unwilling to impart the information. With the elder Jedi still unconscious, he had nothing of relevance in the way of answers for the girl. His mental debate proved pointless as Quinann waved her free hand and the flimsy from the etcher wafted over the bank of computers and across the room onto the lounge beside her. He could only watch as her face (which had been returning to its usual vibrant white) transformed back to almost translucent.

'This, this can't be right! Can it? How?' Eyes went back and forth several times, from the flimsy to the healer. The result was in basic, with illustrative drawings. There was no chance she'd misunderstood.

Obi-Wan Kenobi awoke to the sensation of his Padawan at his side. He was surprised. She should be with the living, and the last he'd known he was preparing to join Qui Gon in the force. Apparently he had not. He reached for their mental bond but found it shut. Odd. He brushed her presence. She was angry, hurt and resentful. All directed at him.

'Quinann?'

'Master,' said with venom.

'I take it you regret…. whatever you did….. to save my life? Or…. are you upset I put…… myself in a….. position to need….. saving?'

'A Jedi does not regret and anger is a path to the dark side, but revere deceit, we do?' she hissed. 'You were never going to tell me! Not even with your dying breath!'

'Tell you what? ..... That you will be…… a Great Jedi Knight? ....... That I am…. proud of you? …… That I love you…… as if you were mine?'

She jumped from the chair at that point, started to pace and yell. His weak state was apparently not relevant to her.

'Stop it! Schut-Stang! It never ends with you! Everything is from a certain point of view! You were about to DIE! Who were you protecting? My mother? I remember her, you know. Her face, her voice, her laugh, how much she loved me, how she said the Jedi would take care of me......' She laughed harshly and whirled to face him. 'Or was the Negotiator and Grand Master-in-training protecting himself and his precious reputation? Is that why you trained me? To make sure no one would find out?'

'Padawan…. what are you…… talking about?'

'Stop calling me that!! I know!! Basic truth. That's all I want from you. Just tell me the truth.' Sobbing started, and Quinann's voice fell. 'All those fine words. Do you think so lowly of me? Is what I'm asking so very much?'

Unable to muster the strength to argue further, he tried their bond again. It had always taken the minimum of energy to work. 'Quinann, I would do anything for you, regardless of the code. You know that my reputation is variegated at best, because things even Anakin failed to find in his training bond, you found in yours….'

She was staring at him now, assessing his answers for the first time with some calm and the force, feeling the ring of perceived truth through their bond.

'Tell me, Padawan…… What has upset you so?'

'You don't know….. Oh Force…. You really don't know!' She giggled with relief, then sobered and began sobbing again. 'But you should have figured it out! Maybe you regret it happened, or you don't remember…. Force, if you reject me……' she shook her head, hid her face and began to cry in earnest.

'Quinann. Come. Why would I do that?'

He indicated the seat next to the bed. She took it, but instead of explaining, handed him the offending flimsy.

'You needed blood. I was a match, but it made no sense, so the Healer ran more tests. I think he meant to give it to you first, but I sensed something was wrong, and I grabbed it off the etcher….'

Her Master's hands were shaking so hard the flimsy looked like a leaf in a storm. He was starting to sweat, though the room was being kept very cool to control his metabolic rate.

'Oh Force, oh Force….. No…. how….. She…. She didn't….. Couldn't… Oh force, she did….. Ah!...... Sith!! Seven Hells of Korriban…….'
He looked the girl beside him over, appraisingly now. No doubt remained in his mind what had happened or when, just the details of the mechanics of it, and those had no bearing on the outcome. Sometimes, when people were tortured they lost…'time'. During those episodes anything could happen to them. Anything at all. And they'd have no clue it had happened until a piece of flimsy told them they had a half-Rattataki daughter they'd failed to recognize in ten years of close contact.
'Sith in Hell…. She did. Force….. She did.'

Quinann was quiet through his exclamations. Her Master seldom swore. The fact that he was doing it now made her sorry she'd ever seen that flimsy, and sorrier that she had confronted him about it. She waited, stomach roiling, heart sinking.

He covered his mouth with his left fist the way he was wont to do when something inappropriate amused him.
'I have a child,' he thought. 'Me. Of all the Jedi in the Temple. Me.' He chuckled, then hissed aloud. 'Asajj. I don't know if I should be furious or grateful,' he thought, as his eyes took in the girl in the corner again. By definition, she was a child of rape. He'd just admitted that he loved her as if she was his own. Well, she was his, and he couldn't take back the way he felt, even if he'd wanted to.
'Grateful,' he decided aloud. 'Yes…. definitely…. grateful. Come, young one….. let's see if this…… hug feels any different….. now that we…… know who you are.'

As they were having supper (for Obiwan it was something in a bowl that resembled babyfood in every way) Quinann replayed their conversation in her mind. Her Master ('Father' she corrected herself in addled mental parentheses) had used a name….

'You said Asajj.'

He looked up from his bowl. Denial was pointless. When he had swallowed he said 'Yes.'

'As in Asajj Ventress, Dark Jedi, second in line for the last Sith Apprenticeship, Rattataki female on OUR investigative list, obsessed with you, tried to kill Master Skywalker numerous times…..'

'One and the same,'

Quinann grabbed her datapad and scrolled through the stats, until she came to the holo of Ventress, which she now looked at much more closely than she had before. 'Oh Force, that's her! That's my Mother! She couldn't have……'

'I don't know,' he interrupted her train of thought. 'The flimsy is my answer, and it is the only answer I will ever need. Do you understand?'

She sighed heavily and nodded, but remained confused on another point. 'Why did you want this assignment?'

'Ventress began Jedi training as a child after her parents' death, but then she lost her Master too, and she grew up having to fight to survive. I believed those were the underlying reasons for her aggression, and that she could be 'turned' from the darkness if shown a different way. I attempted to reach her several times, including after you must have already been born.
Did my efforts encourage her to bring you to the Temple? I don't know.
Given your lifedate, you must have been conceived on Jabiim. She took less part in the war after that campaign. When she was badly injured in her last duel with Anakin, we thought her dead, but she had only disappeared.
Two and a half years later you turned up on the temple steps with your lifedate and some careful misinformation attached to your hair.'
He stroked her hair as he said it, running the coarse, slightly wavy strands through his calloused fingers.
'My hair. My eyes. Our training bond…. isn't a training bond at all. It's a parent/ child bond, like Anakin has with Luke. I didn't see it. But perhaps this was best. I might have reacted badly if I had found out before I got to know you, and I would not have trained you if I had known.'

'I think Master Skywalker suspects,' Quinann said.

'He senses something, but he's never been able to identify what. The first time he met you he was too thrown to speak. He put aside his questions about you for my sake, and it made him blind the obvious. I did the same. We can keep this private if you want, Quinann. Fame in the temple is difficult. Infamy is even worse. Believe me, after Anakin I know. So what we say when we get home will be completely up to you, though my medical record is going to raise the obvious questions. One look from an unbiased individual and the story will be all over the Temple.'

'I don't want to be reassigned. Master Erin will keep our secret if she takes over your care directly. We tell Master Skywalker, but only after trials. Did you really submit my name?'

'Yes. I was waiting until after this mission to tell you. With me injured like this we'll be going home now anyway.'

An invitation to the Knighting Ceremony was standard courtesy to all the Masters 'in Temple' at the time. Anakin's was personally delivered by his 'Sister' Knight Avent. His senses rose as usual, but he filed them away and offered her a welcoming smile and a cup of tea.

Celebratory dinners at Dex's Diner were traditional to this line of Jedi, and Quinann's Knighting was no different. After their meal the new Knight looked pleadingly at her former Master. Whatever the silent communication between them, she leaned into his chest and embraced him tightly. In response he kissed the scalp above her forehead. When he broke the kiss, she grinned, pecked him on the cheek, and stood up.

'Master Skywalker,' she bowed, and strode out of the diner, ponytail swaying, padawan braid in hand.

'Alright, Master, are you going to tell me what THAT was about?'

'No, but I have more important news I want to share.' Obiwan paused, gathering his thoughts. 'You have always been ambivalent towards Quinann.' A neutral statement of fact.

'I can't help the way I feel, Master,'

'I know,' the elder Jedi smiled. 'I am pleased that you did not allow those feelings to affect our friendship. You've been most helpful in her training, and for that I am grateful. On our last mission we accidentally came upon some information, in light of which your reaction to her is perfectly understandable.' The older man paused again. 'When I was injured Quinann gave me blood….'

'Master, that's not supposed to be possible, is it?'

'That is exactly what the Firrerroan Healers thought, so they ran some extra tests. As it turns out, Quinann is my daughter.'

'YOUR WHAT????'

Obiwan was half-laughing at the reaction. His best friend's expression had predictably turned to thunder, his eyes to ice.

'Who's her mother?'

'I didn't think you'd have to ask that, my old Padawan.'

Anakin looked askance, nauseous. 'You….?'

Obiwan cut him off with a shake of his head and a wave of his hand. 'Had I known anything about what happened I would have recognized Quinann when I first saw her in the Creche. Ventress had me drugged beyond recall or unconscious.'

'SCHUTTA!! Da dopa-maskey loca schutta! Chuba jujiminmee, E cheeska, E moocha, e jeeska do cheeka-nyee….. Oto cheekta crispo…'
Anakin growled on for some time in Huttese, heaping curse after curse on his long-time nemesis, while Obiwan winced through the more graphic descriptions and threats, and waited for him to calm down.
'You seem rather….. content with this…. Situation, Master,' the younger man observed when he was again capable of coherent basic.

'What choice do I have? It's no more Quinann's fault who her Mother is and what she did than it is my fault who my parents are, or your fault that you were conceived of the Force.'

That was absorbed with deep breaths, a working jaw, and the soft whirring of mechanical parts as Anakin clenched and unclenched his right fist.
How could Obiwan accept this? Quinann might be blameless, but Ventress was not…..
Then he remembered the emotional departure minutes earlier.

'Where was she going?'

Obiwan's eyes flashed reproach at the intrusive, hypocritical question. The lack of verbal response was enough to set Anakin off again.

'That….. woman is the Republic's most-wanted war criminal!! But then, you never saw her that way….'
He managed to stop short of accusing his Master of secretly wanting whatever had happened, though from the older man's pained expression the implication was clearly received.

'Anakin, the Mother Quinann remembers is hard to recognize as the Ventress we knew. She gave our daughter to the Jedi, and by extension to me. Should I deny what is rightfully hers and forbid Quinann to gift her braid as she wishes?'