By Proxy


Scene 2

Having spent the intervening hours assiduously tending to the foremost item on his personal agenda, Obi-Wan wakes again at fifteenth hour in a more peaceable frame of mind. A Jedi rises to the occasion, even if the occasion is four foot six and half his weight. Duty is duty, odious or not. Thus fortified body and spirit, he sets about girding himself for proverbial battle. A quarter hour later, bathed, cleanly shaven, dressed in newly laundered tunics, polished boots and mended cloak, with his now luxuriant mane tied neatly back in a thick tail and his saber hilt clipped jauntily at one hip, he is armored in the civilized – that is to say, understated – splendor of the Jedi tradition which he strives to embody. Hopefully this will prove imposing enough to bluff his way through the crisis ahead.

In truth, he has no idea what to do with a nearly-eleven year old girl padawan who might, possibly, cry. In his presence. When he is expected to play the role of counselor and guide. When he was eleven years old, he only cried in the aftermath of violent nightmare. And he always had the common decency to do it in private. When Bant was eleven years old, she would sometimes cry in public. Then she would hug him, and he would permit this small indignity to be inflicted upon his person because Bant was… Bant. When Siri was eleven years old she never cried. Once when she had taken a particularly hard hit to the solar plexus in the dojo he had seen tears glistening in her glacial blue eyes, but upon issuing a solicitous – and only slightly condescending- inquiry upon the subject, he had been rewarded for his chivalric impulse with a solid punch in the stomach, one sufficient to reduce him to a similar condition. This, of course, means that certain kinds of tears do not count.

He is not disturbed by Zhoa's tender years, nor her girl-ness, nor Feld's somewhat flattering bequeathal of the magisterial role to himself. No. He is only… concerned… about the reckless admixture of these disparate elements. This is a truth applicable to life in general. Exempli gratia: compressed liquid tibanna, oxygen, and heat are all salutary and harmless things in and of themselves. But one should never, ever combine them outside the ignition chamber of a sublight thruster array. Or, in another vein: one may think impertinent thoughts about Master Yoda. One may speak one's thoughts aloud. One may speak frankly to Master Yoda. These are all innocuous when considered in abstraction, as singular events. But it would be most problematic were they all to occur in the same room at the same time.

His agile wit can readily formulate other, darker, variations on the theme, but before he can indulge his perverse sense of humor any further, he realizes he has already wended his way through the Temple's labyrinthine passageways, and come early to his destination. Most the classrooms in this corridor are familiar to him. He too, was raised and educated here, and little has changed. The older initiate classes will be dismissed soon enough, and the hushed hall filled with pattering feet and subdued but eager chatter. One does not so much as dream of running or shouting in the concourse; infractions of the unspoken rule are dealt with most severely, for a Jedi's life is built from infancy upward on a solid foundation of discipline and mindfulness.

Which thought ironically provokes the realization that he hasn't any notion which classroom his temporary ward is to be found within.

"Blast it."

Of course, he could simply wait in ambush outside the main arcade. He strides down the corridor and rounds the corner, only to encounter an arrestingly melancholy spectacle. Zhoa Pleromata is already here, crouched miserably upon the stone bench beneath the massive arched window. Her stubby green headtails droop like the fronds of a yarbanna tree; her slender arms are wrapped about her knees, her Force signature is awash with mortification and sorrow.

Stars' end… is she at it already?

He sits beside her, cloak pooling softly upon the marble floor. "Zhoa."

The tiny Nautonlan's head pops up, silpa bead braid swinging wildly as she slews round, fixing him with wide, opalescent eyes. "Oh! Master Obi-Wan!" Panic lends her voice a hysterical undertone.

"Well, I've had warmer welcomes, but I'll take what I can get."

The jest produces a small hiccup. Zhoa sidles nearer. "I've been waiting here a long time."

His brows contract. "You were dismissed early? Why didn't you comm me? Your master said-"

She hangs her head, small mouth curving down ward in shame. "No," she peeps, addressing the floor. "I- I was expelled from class for unbecoming behavior."

This is as boggling to the imagination as someone accusing Qui-Gon of stodgy conformism or suggesting that Quinlan Vos is a paragon of tact and subtlety. He blinks in outright surprise.

"I shouted at Zu-Li," Feld's ridiculously young apprentice confesses, in a breathless rush. "for no reason at all and she was my friend in Bear clan and she does not deserve such anger and now I've dishonored my teacher and myself and I was sent away and , and – oh I'm sorry, Master, truly I am, I'm sorry –"

He stems the flood of contrition with a small pat on her knee. "You would not be the first padawan to be chastised for telling an irksome contemporary that he was an illiterate nerfherder."

Zhoa's enormous black pearl eyes contract in the Nautolan equivalent of a bemused frown. "That's not what I called her."

"Never mind. Do you think this bench can bear to part with your company?" He gestures toward the nearest lift. "You can offer Zu-Li a proper apology later. In the meantime, I've promised your master not to let you mope about too much… and you're making me look incompetent."

Zhoa trots to keep pace with him, spirits lifting momentarily only to plummet into trepidation. "Are you… are you going to punish me, Master?"

He catches himself before he stumbles. This is a knotty diplomatic impasse. Is he expected to impose some fitting penalty for malfeasance? And what in stars' name would that be? His mind flits backward in time to the innumerable and diabolically cruel penances assigned to him for the innumerable and diabolically impertinent transgressions of his rash youth – and then recoils in horror. One glance at Zhoa's delicate frame and sweetly mournful mien is enough to convince him that she would not have lasted one day as Qui-Gon's padawan. And surely Feld does not….

Wait a moment.

"What would Master Spruu say in this situation?" Ha. The best answer is often found in a question.

"I don't know," she laments. "I've never been in trouble before."

"Well," he replies, lightly. "I've never been a master before. So our ignorance is complementary and reciprocal – and therefore cancels to zero."

Zhoa nods very slowly, reverting – in the absence of real comprehension- to the universal Jedi standby. "Yes, Master."

He waves the lift doors open and shepherds her inside. He has negotiated his way through the first crisis, with moderate success, but he is not foolish enough to congratulate himself yet. After all, they have only just begun.