PRACTICAL APPLICATION
by ardavenport
"What did Master Cumotti say?" Obi-Wan Kenobi asked, looking up, as his own Master arrived at the seat opposite him in the eating hall that murmured with the morning movements and sounds of the first meal crowd in the Jedi Temple.
"Our mission to Settak has been cancelled," he replied, taking his bowl, plate, cup and utensils off the tray and sliding it onto Obi-Wan's on the side of their table. "The security issues with the government there have been resolved." He sat down. Obi-Wan stared back in disbelief, a roll of sweet bread halfway to his mouth.
"Or rather," Qui-Gon Jinn continued, picking up his food scoop and stirring the boiled grain in his bowl. "The populace of the planet is now aware of the government's profligate spending in the name of security. The Jedi cannot be of any assistance to them with their new scandal," he finished, taking a bite.
Obi-Wan nodded and they both ate in shared silence for a moment.
"However," Qui-Gon said, sipping his juice. "Master Cumotti asked for our attendance at Master Rudeok's Lecture after first meal. And I said we will go."
Obi-Wan stopped chewing, slowly resumed and swallowed.
"Master, do we need to attend Master Rudeok's Lecture?"
At once he knew his question was a mistake when he saw the cold, critical expression on Qui-Gon's bearded face.
"Perhaps we do."
Obi-Wan nodded, lowered his eyes and reapplied himself to his meal. Anything else he might say would just bring out more disfavor from Qui-Gon. It had been years since he had attended Rudeok's Lecture and at twenty-three, he had thought he would not attend one again until he was Knighted and would take his own Padawan to it. But apparently not.
He finished his sweet bread, sweeping up the last few bits of spicy protein mash with it and started on his muja fruit and julaberries.
"Do you expect that we might be called up on another mission soon?" he asked as casually as possible. "This could cause difficulties if we have to re-provision ourselves quickly."
It was a reasonable question and Qui-Gon shrugged amiably, his displeasure gone. "I asked Master Cumotti about that and he thought it was very unlikely. I expect the Council will be aware of who attends and take that into account when assigning missions in the immediate future."
Nodding, Obi-Wan took another bite of fruit. Rudeok's Lecture was inevitable. Qui-Gon would go. He would go. He would accept it. He glanced around the small groups of other Jedi in the eating hall and wondered how many of them he would see there as well.
They finished their meal, cleared their table and, after passing the trays and dishes to one of the attending droids, left to go to the assembly room.
There were many such assembly and learning rooms, but Master Rudeok always seemed to give her lecture in one of the more ancient ones, deep in an older part of the Jedi Temple. And she only gave one lecture, on one part of the Jedi Code, the prohibition against attachments and possessions for a Jedi.
They descended a staircase to a long hallway, narrower and darker than the ones above, the stone floor rougher by the walls and worn smooth in the middle with millennia of foot traffic. Other Jedi headed toward the same assembly room. Obi-Wan heard more coming down the stairs after them.
The assembly room was like a circular stone pit with rows of stone seats rising steeply all around the central presentation area. The only light emanated from the top of an open plasma furnace on a platform in the speaker's well. Master Rudeok stood serenely nearby, eyes closed, face in shadow under the hood of her dark brown robe, nearly black in the cold blue-white blaze from the furnace. A short distance away from her and further away from the furnace was a huge stack of gray drapes, piled high and overflowing the top of a small stand.
The room slowly filled. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon took seats in the middle back. Jedi Knights and Masters with younger Padawans mostly filled the rows below them in the front.
Just as they had the first time Obi-Wan had been part of this Lecture.
He had been fifteen back then and all Qui-Gon had told him when they sat down was that they were to be part of a necessary demonstration of the Jedi Code. At the time, he had been eager to view this mystery of his training as a Jedi apprentice. He felt far less enthusiasm now.
"We are Jedi," Master Rudeok began in her strong high voice. A slice of bright bluish light touched her lips as they moved. Otherwise Rudeok remained perfectly still as she spoke, the rest of her face hidden in shadow. The low noises of people settling down immediately fell silent. She began to circle the perimeter of the speaker's well.
"As Jedi we wield the Force to serve others. That is the path of the Light Side." Obi-Wan felt the anticipation of the younger Padawans leaning forward in their seats, not knowing what was to come, what Jedi wisdom they would learn.
"We pledge ourselves to peace and justice and to defend them when necessary."
Rudeok suddenly raised her arm. Her lightsaber, silver and black, shot up out from under her robe and ignited a blue blade. Some of the Padawans started and a couple of them nearest to her shied back though their Masters remained still and impassive. Rudeok continued her slow pacing around the perimeter of the well.
"To do this we learn the ways of the Force. We follow the Jedi Code. And it guides us in the ways of the Light Side. And away from the Dark." She swung her saber down and up, the deadly hum rising and falling with the motion. More Padawans started.
Obi-Wan had to admit that Rudeok's Lecture was dramatic, executed like a priestess performing a sacred rite. But the Jedi Order observed no ceremony or ritual. Only practical applications of the Force and the Jedi Code.
"And to follow the Light Side we pledge ourselves to the Force, our Master's teachings and the Jedi Code." She swung her saber again, down and up into a salute before her and stopped.
"We are selfless. We have no attachments. We have no possessions. We are Jedi."
Her saber clicked off. Then she held the hilt out at arms length before her and twisted it hard with both hands. It clicked loudly. The power cell cylinder fell out into one hand. She held that up and the Force lifted it up out of her open palm as if she were setting it free. Then it darted down to the lower shelf of the stand and thumped into a hard container under the huge stack of gray coverings.
Now Rudeok held the empty hilt up, her half-lidded eyes not really looking at it, but Obi-Wan knew that she saw it through the Force.
She thrust her arm out and threw it into the plasma furnace. It flared and flashed, snapping and squealing as the metaloid and plastoid crimped and shriveled, caught in the tremendous energy before vanishing completely.
Obi-Wan heard gasps from the younger Padawans, saw their mouths become wide 'oh's of surprise. He smelled the faint acrid taint of heat and buring.
The Lecture part had ended. The practical application had begun.
Rudeok threw the hood back off her head, revealing the pale, dry sticks of 'hair' covering her scalp, her pink skin a luminous light purple in the furnace glow. She threw the rest of the robe off behind her and, with barely a glance over her shoulder and a small hand gesture, the robe flew up and vanished in a huge whoosh and blue flare.
She clicked her belt off next and that vanished. The acrid taste of the air intensified. Then her tabbards and obi and out tunic went into the cracking blue energy. Finally she removed her inner tunic, revealing that she was barefoot. Obi-Wan supposed that she had incinerated her boots earlier for convenience.
Then Rudeok resumed the same posture she had when she began.
Except that she was completely naked. She was a long-lived species and had given this Lecture in the Temple for the past few generations. But Obi-Wan could still see signs of aging. She was a little fat in the belly and her muscles were thin and sinewy. The skin at her elbows and knees sagged and her breasts were slack and drooping. She folded her arms before her, serene as a statue.
On the opposite side of the room a thickly bearded Master climbed down the steep stairs to the speaker's well. He carried his boots, belt and robe and tossed them immediately into the furnace as soon as he reached the floor. His lightsaber went next after he removed the power core and tossed it into the container with Rudeok's. Then he quickly stripped and the remaining clothes went whoosh into the furnace with everything else. Ventilators above hummed on, lessening the odor of burnt clothe considerably.
He was an older Human, with a broad muscular body that was quite hairy front and back. Smirking, he bowed to Mater Rudeok who did not acknowledge him. He took a gray covering from the top of the pile on the stand, threw it over his shoulder, climbed up the steep stairs of the aisle and left.
By then, two of the Masters in the front row had removed their boots, belts and robes and were tossing them up into the furnace. From their wide-eyed expressions, Obi-Wan could see that the younger Padawans now knew what was expected of them.
Next to him, Qui-Gon was already taking his boots off. Sighing, Obi-Wan did the same. The room came alive with the rustlings of clothes, thumps of boots and the air ventilators hummed a little louder, a soft and escalating background.
In the speaker's well, the first younger Padawan tossed her robe into the furnace. It missed. Only one big sleeve and side caught the blue flame and puffed into ash. The Padawan cringed, but her Master caught the rest of the robe with a raised hand and the Force. The remains of the small robe stopped just above the floor, reversed and disappeared into an eerie fireball over the furnace.
Obi-Wan recalled nearly the same thing happening to him during his first time. He had not been sure of which had flustered him more, the intentional destruction of his lightsaber or Qui-Gon and other Masters standing before him completely naked, waiting for him to strip down as well. But nudity was not required for this demonstration. He, along with other Masters and Padawans, had put drapes over their heads before removing the last of their clothes.
There were grateful expressions from some Padawans now when they realized that they did not need to reveal their awkward and seldom exposed bodies to the whole room. But Obi-Wan thought that this time there were more uncovered bodies in this group. For the multiple times that he had participated in Rudeok's Lecture, he had always opted to cover up before disposing of everything on him.
He sat with his boots, belt and lightsaber in his lap with Qui-Gon and the others in the top rows. The speaker's well was still too crowded for them to take their turn. The plasma furnace almost continuously flashed and crackled as various equipment and pieces of clothing fed it. The ventilators hummed at maximum, filling the room with a mechanical breeze.
When the crowd finally thinned, Qui-Gon rose and Obi-Wan edged out of his seat to the aisle to let him go first. They descended to the speakers well and after depositing their lightsaber power cells in the nearly full container, they tossed their hilts, belts and boots into the furnace.
The air ventilators sucked air upward, drawing away the exhaust from the continuing incinerations. Obi-Wan's short, stiff hair and thin braid were unaffected, but the ends of Qui-Gon's long, slightly graying brown hair fluttered wildly about his head as he threw off his dark robe, rolled it up and tossed it upward to be caught, along with clothing from others around them, in an explosive flash before it vanished. Obi-Wan whipped off his own robe, swiftly wadded it up and tossed it overhand to land perfectly in a poof of destruction. His aim and skill with the Force had increased greatly since his first time.
He began unwinding his obi from his middle but a small figure amidst the crowd caught his eye. Immediately, Obi-Wan knew he should avert his eyes, but he didn't. The sight seemed so familiar.
While nearly all the young padawans had finished and stood grayly draped with their Masters along the circular perimeter around the furnace, one still remained. He was stalky and somewhat humanoid with delicately pointed ears, large pale eyes and a crest of stiff hair that ran from his brow, over his head and down his back to a short tail at the base of his spine. And he had a very short Padawan's braid. His hair might have been red, but blue tinted everything into shades of furnace blue.
He was unclothed except for the gray drape slung over his shoulder. But he still tightly clutched a Jedi tunic with both hands before him, its medium brown color turned gray in the ghostly light.
Obi-Wan remembered. . . .
He'd had a coin in his tunic pocket his first time at Rudeok's Lecture. A girl, his own age, had insisted on giving it to him after he rescued her and her sisters from Tarablenian soldier droids. It had been gold and silver with brightly colored highlights and fashioned with runes and sigils that symbolized the aspects of family on her world. It had been beautiful; even Qui-Gon had said so. And Obi-Wan had frozen in a sudden panic when he removed his tunic and then remembered the coin. His mind had flashed through ways that he might quickly remove it. He could palm it easily. It had been small.
But back then, Obi-Wan had only hesitated for a second. The coin had gone into the plasma with everything else. If he had tried to save it, he knew that the coin would become a symbol of shame and cheating to him. He couldn't do it. The Jedi Code's prohibition against owning any possessions had never felt more real to him then.
Obi-Wan whipped off his obi and rolled it up tightly.
'Look,' he thought, his mind and the Force focused toward the younger Padawan. The obi vanished into the furnace.
'Look at me," he thought, taking off his tabbards and winding them into a tight, easy-to-throw knot.
Sad and heartbroken, the young pale eyes turned toward him. Obi-Wan's thrown tabbards barely touched the plasma as they flared up. The continuous random flashes from the furnace seemed to stop and start the movements of everyone, defining everything in deep black shadows and cold wavering blues as they threw their offerings into the plasma. The upward rushing air cooled his skin.
The young Padawan looked down at the tunic and then back at him.
'Why must I choose?" the eyes seemed to ask.
A few paces away, Obi-Wan saw a tall young Jedi Knight with an enormous feathery crest of dark hair and pale blue eyes fixed just above the young Padawan's head. The delay was becoming conspicuous, but no one else looked their way though others must have noticed. There was still enough of a crowd around them; the hesitation did not stand out too badly, yet.
Obi-Wan had no idea what significance there could be in that one tunic, but it didn't really matter. He slipped off is own tunic and carefully rolled it up. The young Padawan followed his hand motions, long-fingered hands rolling it up tighter and tighter. Obi-Wan threw his tunic up in the air and it arced over the heads of the others to its destruction.
Face scrunched up, large eyes squeezed shut, the young Padawan thrust the balled up tunic away from him with no aim at all. It almost hit someone's leg before it stopped abruptly and then shot high into the air, caught in an updraft of the Force. Then it snapped into ashes in a bright blue flash.
Obi-Wan lowered his eyes to his own Master whose finger still pointed to where the young Padawan's tunic had incinerated in the furnace. Standing in the crowd, completely naked, Qui-Gon folded his arms impatiently, but Obi-Wan saw a smile in the older man's eyes.
With mock surliness and not bothering with a gray drape this time, Obi-Wan ripped off his under-tunic and tossed it to the furnace. Then he untied his pants, bent forward and pulled them and the shorts under them off in one motion, slipping them from one foot, then the other. He threw them up and away and they were gone with a flare and hiss of energy.
Qui-Gon did not give him the satisfaction of showing any surprise at his new lack of modesty. He just shrugged as if this change was expected and long past due.
Giving up on impressing his Master, Obi-Wan turned back toward the young Padawan, who had turned away from him to rejoin his own Master who had thrown a gray drape over his apprentice's shoulders.
Obi-Wan saw no gratitude in the Knight's stricken look, confirming that the tunic had significance to both of them. But there was no offense or hostility, either. This Knight only nodded back to him and led his Padawan to stand with the others.
Both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon backed away from the furnace. Most of the Jedi left were already unclothed, still standing among the risers and throwing their clothes and lightsabers from greater distances. The Force guided everything to it's fiery destruction. They only remained to give Rudeok a last bow and collect a drape since walking around the Jedi Temple hallways naked was still frowned upon.
Master Rudeok remained outwardly oblivious to the activity around her, but her lips curled in a small satisfied smile.
Obi-Wan took a drape from the ones left on the stand and handed one to Qui-Gon. All the younger Padawans and their Masters stood waiting around the perimeter of the speaker's well. They would leave last after thanking Rudeok for her wisdom. She would acknowledge them. For Obi-Wan's first attendance she had only smiled broadly at them and said, 'The Force be with you all.' He supposed that this was all she ever said. Her introductory remarks hardly changed for all the times that Obi-Wan had attended her Lecture.
They climbed the stairs with the other gray draped bodies heading toward the exit. The ancient and worn stone floor was cold on Obi-Wan's bare feet. They stepped aside to let others pass them in the hallway and the quiet, leaving the whirlwind of cold energy behind in the assembly room. They walked away, stripped to their skins colored in browns, tans, greens, blues and yellows and minimally covered in rough gray. Many of them smiled the same way Rudeok did, not looking like Jedi, but satisfied that they were. There would be a bit of a crowd at the Temple Custodians and the workshops for the next few days as people replaced the clothes and weapons they needed for their service as Jedi.
"I sensed that you learned much this time, my young Padawan," Qui-Gon commented as he shook out his drape before knotting it around his waist. It hung down his long body almost to his knees.
"I only learned from the experience of others," he answered, thinking of the young Knight and Padawan. He did not know them. And he would not intrude on their privacy unless they came to him.
He shook out his own drape and wrapped it around his waist, the same way as Qui-Gon. It hung down well past his knees, but fortunately did not drag on the floor. His Master smiled and put his arm over his shoulders.
"And from your own experience, I think," he reassured. They went back the way they had come together.
***!!!*** END ***!!!***
This story first posted on tf.n: 10-May-2009
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.