Eeth Koth, Jedi Padawan
Eeth Koth, fifteen-year-old Jedi padawan, was not happy. Of course, there were those who claimed the entire concept of happiness was alien to him anyway; but people who knew him well, like his master, could tell his good from his bad moods even when they were hardly apparent from the expression on his face. Right now, his mood was far from good. In his opinion, he ought to use his considerable talents to hunt down drug traders or at least negotiate peace settlements at his master's side. Of course, he realised that he might not be quite far enough advanced in his training to spend all his time on missions, but if that meant he had to spend some time at the Temple, he should at least make use of that time by improving his already extremely impressive lightsaber skills or by furthering his already rather vast knowledge of astrophysics, languages or politics. But what was he doing instead? Supervising three-year-olds in the garden of the junior creche!
He had not even done anything to deserve this, he thought in annoyance. Alright, so he had got into an argument with his master over the concept of "free time". He did not really think he needed any such thing. It was bad enough that they had not been assigned a single mission for two months now. On top of that, his master, refusing to add yet more workouts to their schedule, thought he needed to learn to "unwind". She had also said he needed to learn to patiently wait until it was his turn to do his duty instead of "getting on everyone's nerves and being insufferable", as she had put it. This had caused quite a bit of righteous indignation in her padawan who, grown-up as he thought he was, was a fifteen-year-old teenager after all. Finally, she had lost her patience, telling him that if he wanted to make himself useful that badly, she had just the thing for him. So here he was, in a sunny creche garden, supposed to look after three-year-olds who were running around on the playground. Fortunately, none of the children dared approach him; they were shrinking away from his glower. That was fine with him. As far as he was aware, he was supposed to supervise them and make sure they stuck to the rules, not to play with them. He wasn't even sure how to do that!
"Uh, Pa'wan Eeth?" one timid three-year-old ventured from a safe distance, giving him a beseeching look from large black Nautolan eyes. "Canya fet'th our ball?"
She pointed at a bright yellow ball, stuck in the branches of a tree.
"I will fetch it when we go back in, not now," Eeth said sternly. "You need to learn to pay better attention to your toys."
The look she gave him was one of mixed consternation and hurt, but she did not dare protest. Instead, she backed away from the intimidating Zabrak as fast as possible to join her friends. Eeth did not see why they needed to play ball anyway. There were far better ways to train one's coordination and reflexes. Besides, some of the children were not even doing that, they were pretending to be fairies or something. Had nobody ever told them that fairies did not exist? Surely there were more productive ways to fill these children's time! He did not voice any of these thoughts, however. For one thing, he had learned that this tended to antagonise people; for another thing, this might cause him to become involved with the children more than he strictly needed to, and he did not feel comfortable with that idea. He was vaguely aware that this degree of discomfort in dealing with children was not entirely normal, but he would rather not go into the reasons for it; that would evoke too many memories that he was not keen on thinking about.
About a mind-numbingly boring half hour later, he suddenly spotted a small Twi'lek boy doing something he was definitely not supposed to be doing. Well-hidden by bushes and trees, the child was climbing the fence, enthusiastically urged on by his friends. Eeth had been informed about all the safety rules that were in place. He had also been told that the children knew these rules, and he had been asked to see to it that they were kept. Well, this he could do.
He made his way towards the fence in firm strides and plucked the hapless boy off it. In one smooth motion, as if he had done this a hundred times (as a matter of fact, this was the first!), he tucked the small child under his left arm and brought his right down onto his bottom with a swat that practically rang out through the garden. The child immediately started screaming blue murder. Unperturbed, Eeth dealt out a second swat. He was fully aware of the crowd of children staring at the scene with wide eyes. Well, good. The more they respected his authority, the better. Unfortunately, before he could deal out a third swat, he was stopped short by a hand that had grabbed his padawan braid and turned him around (and that was painful even to him, not that he'd ever show it!).
An irate creche master Shanli-Yan plucked the crying Twi'lek out of Eeth's hold and cradled him against her chest.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, irritation clear in her voice.
"He was climbing the fence," Eeth replied evenly. "You told me this was forbidden. I was teaching him to mind the rules."
"And who told you it was your job to discipline the children?" Shanli-Yan demanded to know. "Let alone with swats that would be harsh for a twelve-year-old, not to speak of children this young? I specifically asked you to fetch me if there was any trouble. There was no call for you to take matters into your own hands. Nor was there any need to start spanking without even a warning."
There was not much he could say to that, and Eeth did not like that. Nor did he generally like being told to fetch an adult for help instead of dealing with things on his own. He liked being in charge; he disliked being dependent. Maybe this was what made him reply in a fashion that he knew was unacceptable.
"They knew the rules, so why should I have bothered with warnings?" he asked haughtily. "You told me to supervise them, not to pat them on the head for rule-breaking."
Shanli-Yan's eyes narrowed.
"I know someone who is definitely not going to receive pats on the head," she said sharply. "I'm going to call your master and ask her to discuss with you appropriate ways to perform your duties and to talk to Jedi masters. For now, though, you can go inside and help Master Roch'lean change the diapers of the toddlers who just woke up from their afternoon nap. Go on. What are you waiting for? Oh, and, by the way, it would not have hurt you to just fetch the ball. The next time you are asked for help, you help."
It took all of Eeth's considerable self-discipline not to stomp off in a fit of temper. Even now, he was very much on his dignity.
When he returned home, his master, was already waiting for him, sitting at the common room table and beckoning him over. He hated such situations. His ambition was perfection, and being reprimanded for some sort of misbehavior did not sit well with him. However, he would never allow himself to run away from facing up to whatever it was that he had done wrong; that would have been cowardly and he hated cowardice.
"I'm sorry, master," he said a little stiffly, walking over to where the Iktotchi woman was sitting and taking a seat on a chair opposite her. "It seems that I was unable to meet Master Shanli-Yan's expectations."
"You are being evasive," his master replied sternly. "This is not about Master Shanli-Yan, this is about you. What did you do?"
Eeth pursed his lips briefly, then said: "I was not very helpful and… kind towards the initiates. When one of them broke a rule, I disciplined him instead of telling his creche master. She… seemed to think I should have uttered a warning and that I was excessively harsh."
"Yes," Fenya agreed pointedly. "She also seemed to think you were displaying quite an attitude. As far as her expectations are concerned, she was definitely expecting a more respectful tone."
"I might have been… arrogant," Eeth conceded. "I will apologise to her if you wish."
"I do," said Fenya. "Moreover, I think you desperately need more practice at getting along with people in general, and children in particular. I have enrolled you for two hours of creche duty every weekday and five on Saturdays and Sundays until further notice; most likely until we are assigned the next mission."
Eeth was dumbfounded for a moment, and that did not happen often.
"Master, could you… reconsider?" he finally asked, and that was another thing he did not do often. "I volunteer for any other type of duty. I will gladly clean the refreshers in the healers' wing or scrub the fountains."
"And what would you learn from that?" his master asked, implacably. "No, padawan. Creche duty it is."
Eeth recognised that he was fighting a losing battle, but the thought of being saddled with creche duty for the next days or weeks was so horrifying that he gave it another try.
"Master, I am no good at this," he said earnestly, and the fact that he even thought of uttering such a thing was proof of how desperate he was. "I scare the children. I do not know what to do with them. You are not doing them a favor. My time would be much better invested doing other things."
"What's this?" Fenya asked, giving him a politely incredulous look. "You are giving up on yourself? You want to run away from a task you find challenging? Do you think this will be too hard for you? Are you afraid?"
It was a tactic worthy of a three-year-old, but she knew it would work. Eeth knew that she knew it and hated himself for reacting exactly as she had anticipated; but there was absolutely no way that he would ever admit failure or, Force forbid, fear.
"Of course I am not afraid," he said with as much dignity as he could muster. "I was merely thinking of the children's benefit. If you insist I do this, I will."
"Oh, yes, I insist," his master replied firmly. "I absolutely do. And what is more, I order you to make an effort to establish some kind of relationship with the children. And I don't mean the kind of relationship where they are afraid you will paddle their bottoms if they act up. Be nice. Be helpful. Be gentle. If I hear otherwise, I will not be pleased. Is that clear?"
Issuing orders usually worked well with Eeth. He might not like them, but he liked disobedience even less.
Eeth scowled. However, he said quietly: "Yes, master." He just hoped he knew how to be all these things. He wasn't entirely sure.
"Eeeeeth!" the nearly-four-year-old human girl wailed, clinging to the highest rope of the climbing net with her dark brown arms. "I can't get dowwwwwwn!"
With an internal sigh, Eeth moved over to her. What would be the "gentle" and "kind" thing to do, he wondered? Plucking her off the rope and putting her down? But how would she ever learn if he did that? The last time he had tried to teach one of the children a lesson, though, it had backfired spectacularly. Of course, he mused, there might theoretically be ways to teach lessons that involved being "gentle" and "kind". He'd give it a shot.
"If you can get up, you can get down, too," he said reasonably, standing next to Nganshi.
"But I'm afraaaaid!" she wailed.
"Well, that's–" Eeth started, but swallowed the word "stupid" before he had said it. "Pointless," he said instead. "Look, I'll teach you how to get down."
Nganshi shook her head vigorously, squeezing her eyes shut.
"But, uh," Eeth said, searching for arguments. "It would be practical," he tried. "You could go up and down on your own all the time, see? And I'll take care you don't fall. I'll catch you if you do. Look!"
He waited until Nganshi had tentatively opened one eye, then unclipped his lightsaber from his belt, tossed it into the air and, when it started to fall, used the Force to hold it in mid-air.
"See?" he said, reattaching his saber to his belt. "I could do the same thing if you fell. Will you let me help? Think how proud you will be if you can do this on your own."
He threw a quick look around to make sure none of the other children was in danger or up to mischief, then started coaching Nganshi through the process. Remembering his master's order, he offered encouragement whenever her feet found the next rope and uttered no more than mild admonishment when she hesitated. Finally, she jumped down to the ground, beaming all over her face.
"Again!" she yelled, instantly climbing up again. Eeth groaned.
"I have received a favorable report about you," Fenya remarked as Eeth said down opposite her in the dining hall, placing his tray onto the table.
"What, does Master Shanli-Yan give you blow-by-blow accounts of my activities?" Eeth asked in the level tone of voice that indicated he was not altogether pleased. "In any case, I have no idea what I did that was particularly praiseworthy."
"Among other things, she said you can be a very good teacher if you apply yourself," Fenya replied. "And unusually patient if you choose to be."
"Given that I was ordered to be gentle," Eeth replied solemnly, "it is not as if I had a choice."
His master grinned; despite the fact that the expression on Eeth's face was inscrutable, she recognised her padawan's way of teasing her.
"Then it is good you have someone to give you orders, for now," she said, leaning back and biting into a bwalla fruit. She was confident that her padawan was going to turn into a formidable Jedi if only he learned to conquer his arrogance and to nurture his underdeveloped people skills to a certain extent. Encouraging him to do so was her job, and the creche duty she was currently making him do was an essential part of that job.
"Terren, you always need to hold your saber with both hands," Eeth told a five-year-old who was making his first attempts with a children's training saber. "If you don't, it will be knocked out of your hand faster than you can look."
"But I can move it like this, look!" Terren protested, twirling his saber around in a circle. "Isn't it cool?"
"No," Eeth said decisively. "It's entirely useless. Focus on what you want to achieve here, not on the looks."
He had been helping out in the creche for close to three weeks now. After a week with the three-year-olds, he had been moved to an infant creche where he had been bored out of his mind and changed enough dirty diapers to last him a lifetime. The third week wasn't so bad; he was assisting various instructors with teaching a group five- to six-year-olds the basics of Force work and combat training. He had worked with them on rolling falls for two afternoons, on basic levitation for two more, and then moved on to introductory lightsaber training. Today was Saturday, and the group was being taught their first basic attack and defense sequence, together with the fundamentals of placing their feet.
Eeth turned towards Tapsi in order to correct her stance, then turned back to find Terren twirling his saber around with one arm again, an impish grin on his face.
"Terren, both hands," he said firmly. "Do that again and you will run ten laps around the gym, understood?"
"Yes, Eeth," Terren mumbled sheepishly.
'There,' Eeth thought with some satisfaction. 'I gave him warning.'
By now, he had learned that he was not expected to refrain entirely from reprimanding or even disciplining the children. He was, however, expected to take into account their age; he was supposed to give warnings; and he wasn't to mete out corporal punishment, but leave that to the creche masters. Eeth had found that there were other ways to assert his authority, though. He had also found that he liked teaching. The instructors seemed quite happy with his performance. He frequently managed to teach individual children things that they had found difficult to master, which made the children happy and was quite a satisfactory feeling. He much preferred this to the infant creche!
He encouraged Tapsi to attack him and, in reward for the good effort she made, allowed her to score a hit, which everybody cheered at. Next was Terren who obviously wanted to prove something because he immediately charged as if he was holding a rapier, thrusting his lightsaber out with his right hand, holding his left behind his back. Quick as lightning, Eeth knocked it out of his hands, and it went sailing through the air.
"Ten laps," he said firmly, folding his arms across his chest and pointing a glare at Terren. "Now."
"Awww, c'mon," Terren complained. "I thought it'd work, alright? I won't do it again if it's such a big deal."
He bent down to retrieve his saber. Eeth pulled him up by an ear.
"Ouch!" yelled Terren. Eeth caught Knight Ptchen's eyes and gave him a questioning look; the instructor nodded at him, almost imperceptibly.
Coming to a decision, Eeth braced the junior padawan against his hip and delivered three firm, but measured swats to his bottom that elicited loud yelps.
"When I tell you to run laps, you run laps," he told the hapless initiate without letting him up. "And when I tell you to hold your saber with both hands, you do just that. You do not get to negotiate your teachers' instructions. And that is a rule you know perfectly well. Are you going to behave now or do you want to discuss this with your creche master?"
Terren knew that this would most likely mean a painful run-in with a cooking spoon, and he was not keen on that at all.
"I'll behave," he said quickly and a little tearfully, for the swats, while not being excessive, had stung.
"Good," said Eeth grimly. "Fifteen laps, then. Starting now, unless you want to make it twenty?"
"No, no," Terren said even more quickly and started running.
"Was that alright?" Eeth asked Ptchen quietly a moment later as Ptchen came his way, fetching a bunch of blindfolds.
Ptchen knew what he meant immediately.
"Absolutely," he said quietly. "I would have done exactly the same thing. Terren badly needs to learn that the gym is not a playground and that a lightsaber is not a toy. As long as you don't start dealing out full-fledged spankings, I'm sure his creche master won't object. And, by the way: You did a fine job with Tapsi."
He gave Eeth a brief smile and started handing out blindfolds to his initiates.
Eeth, in the meanwhile, went to fetch the training droids, but was cut short when his comlink beeped. He had switched it off before the lesson, but emergency calls always went through.
"Master?" he asked, having recognised her code and accepted the call.
"Eeth, I'm sorry, but you need to cut short whatever you're doing," Fenya's hologram said. "We have been assigned a mission and we are leaving immediately. One of our knights was taken hostage on Wantodar, and time is of the essence."
"I will be home in ten minutes," Eeth promised her. He had a brief exchange of words with Knight Ptchen who dismissed him immediately, said goodbye to the initiates and was on his way home with fast strides, just short of a run which would, of course, have been forbidden in the Temple corridors.
