Lineage VII
Chapter 3
"Here we are. An interesting choice of venues."
Obi-Wan doggedly tailed the Jedi master through the pressing throng on the pedestrian plaza outside "Snoodle's" – a boisterous eatery in the far-flung Barshuu district. A vibrant holoboard marquee outside the restaurant proclaimed that this was the only place on Coruscant one could enjoy the unparalleled delight of a Snoodle-burger, replete with the works.
A friendly Yammutz told the Jedi that their party had already arrived and directed them to a dining alcove just behind the sports lounge, where a motley crowd hooted and whistled their enthusiastic support for the various ooz-ball champions contending on four gargantuan wall-mounted holonet feeds.
Qui-Gon smiled benignly upon the uproarious proceedings. "What do you think, Padawan?"
The young Jedi lifted a brow. "I think we are over-dressed, master."
They rounded the corner into a relatively quiet section of the establishment – only to be greeted by a loud exclamation of joy and a flurry of long arms and overpowering embraces.
"Jedi Gon! Obawan! So good to see you, I do not lie!"
Obi-Wan collected his wits sufficiently to register that the pair of beaming Phindians presently constricting him to death were none other than Paaxi and Kaadi Derrida. He wriggled in the latter's grasp, feeling his head swim from lack of oxygen.
"Let go of my wife, Obawan, before I have to kill you!" the irrepressible Paaxi shouted in his ear.
Kaadi obligingly moved on to suffocating Qui-Gon, leaving the gasping Padawan to have his arm pumped off by Paaxi's ecstatically fierce and unending handshake. "It-s- good-to-see you- too," he managed to chuff, rubbing at his diaphragm with his free hand.
"Sit! Sit!" their Phindian acquaintance commanded. "We did not know what you wanted, so we ordered nothing for you – not, so, I lie! We have ordered one of everything on the menu, enough even to feed Obawan and my oh so fat and hungry wife."
The Padawan glanced uneasily at Kaadi, his limited experience with females assuring him that – with certain cultural exceptions, as for instance among the Hutts - such references to appetite and overall tonnage did not always sit well. But the Phindian woman seemed unfazed by her husband's remarks, so he brushed his concern aside.
"Oh, Obawan," Kaadi exclaimed. "All grown up now, no lie! Watch out Jedi-Gon or this heartbreaker will be sowing wild oats all over the known galaxy!"
The young Jedi gripped the edge of the table, willing himself not to blush.
Qui-Gon gracefully slid into the seat beside his apprentice, mercifully ignoring the last suggestion. "Speaking of which," he smoothly replied, "It seems we must offer our congratulations to you, Kaadi."
The lady Phindian grinned hugely with pleasure.
Obi-Wan blinked, caught off-guard. A moment later, as he extended his Force awareness, seeking whatever it was that his master had so adeptly sensed before him, he gasped in surprise. Kaadi's presence was now complemented by ancillary light, a cluster of new and delicate lives gently unfolding within her body. A smile slowly spread over his face as realization dawned. Qui-Gon flicked an amused glance in his direction.
"Yes!" Paaxi concurred. "And triplets, no lie! So I am to be congratulated as well, no?"
"But," the Padawan objected mildly, "Do not such things depend entirely on the maternal –"
Qui-Gon kicked him under the table and he fell silent.
The Phindian's chest puffed out pridefully. "A father to be, I am, I do not lie, Jedi friends. Wonderful is it not?"
"Indeed," Qui-Gon answered, a warmth of conviction in his voice. Another brief glance at his apprentice, one softened by some elusive sentiment.
The server chose this moment to arrive with their food, a veritable banquet of greasy and deep-fried novelties, garnished with every imaginable sauce and condiment known to sentient beings. The table groaned beneath its load.
"Enjoy!" Paaxi commanded. "A feast of celebration."
The Derridas tucked in without further ado. "Business has been good," Paaxi informed his friends. "Unstealing pays well in the Rims. Guerra and I have built an empire for ourselves: Derrida Brothers, Ltd., Property Recovery Services. The competition has even sent bounty hunters once or twice, I do not lie!"
Qui-Gon sampled the Snoodle-burger. "Risky business, then," he observed.
But the Phindian chortled with mirth. "Not when my wife is such a pot-shot with the long range blaster. You should have seen that last fellow—he won't be trying to break into our warehouse again soon. No, life is good. And you?"
The Jedi master inclined his head. "We have seen our share of joy and sorrow. But the Force is a wise and powerful guide; life is indeed, good."
"What did I tell you, Kaadi my love? The Jedi ! Never lacking for a mystical outlook. Enough to take away my appetites – not so, I lie!"
"All evidence points to your appetites remaining undiminished," Qui-Gon slyly remarked, popping a sliver of fried yarsil in his mouth and regarding the Phindian blandly.
Obi-Wan's eyes widened.
"Bwa ha ha!" Paaxi roared in delight. "I give as good as I get, Jedi-Gon," he winked. "Marriage is a hard piece of work, I tell you. Kaadi – she is a shrewd businesswoman. Driving a hard bargain and always demanding interest on her accounts, no lie." He turned to the younger Jedi. "Beware, Obawan: women demand a huge investment. Exhausting, no lie."
"Don't worry," the Padawan flippantly assured him. "I'm not brave enough for matrimony."
Kaadi gestured expansively. "You see, Jedi-Gon? A loose cannon, Obawan is. Better tie him down before he makes trouble all over the place."
"That's not what I-"
"Just so!" Paaxi vociferously seconded his wife's assessment of the problem. "An example of virtue is what he needs, like my brother and me – not so , I lie! But seriously, Obawan: think twice about it, so. Kaadi, she is work. But a Jedi lady, this must mean double, triple the work. You will die trying to satisfy her, just so."
The Derridas were lost in the avenues of their own amusement for a full minute, long arms wrapped about each other's shoulders as they guffawed. Obi-Wan caught the Jedi master's eye, but the tall man's face betrayed no flicker of emotion.
So….indecent! the young Jedi fumed, inwardly.
Not every outlook must be mystical, young one, Qui-Gon sent across their bond.
The Padawan shrugged and reluctantly re-applied himself to the food. After all, it was good to see the Phindians again, and who was he to question the ways of the Living Force or the peculiar sensibilities of those who were so manifestly devoted to its service?
Obi-Wan spent the majority of the ride home squirming uncomfortably in the passenger seat and attempting to discreetly relieve a renewed bout of itching.
Beside him, eyes still tracking over the nighttime city lights below, Qui-Gon chuckled. "Just have done with it and scratch like a Kowakian monkey-lizard, Padawan. You aren't deceiving anyone."
The young Jedi snorted in vexation and clasped his hands tightly in his lap, exerting severe self-control.
"I thought Ben To gave you something for those bites?" the Jedi master inquired.
"Oh… yes. He did. I just, ah, need to reapply it."
Qui-Gon dipped sharply into the next traffic lane, the reckless piloting maneuver eliciting a sharp hiss of disapprobation from his apprentice. "What did he prescribe, by the way?"
Obi-Wan shifted testily. "….Wookiee hacha-liniment, master," he mumbled.
The Jedi master's brows rose. "Indeed?"
"You needn't say it," his student irritably muttered. "You did tell me so."
"I did, and you chose to prolong your own discomfort. Had you heeded my advice earlier, you would not be suffering now."
The Padawan slumped further into his seat. "Had you not dragged us to that star-forsaken jungle, I would not be suffering now," he pointed out, peevishly.
"Had you not so clearly needed to reconnect with the Living Force, Padawan, we should not have visited Ragoon in the first place," Qui-Gon playfully responded.
Obi-Wan bit back the acid reply that sprang instantly to mind. It was tempting to inform his mentor that for all he cared at the moment the Living Force could re-connect with a very specific part of his anatomy – until he reflected that it already had, in droves, with most unpleasant consequences.
"Mind your thoughts," Qui-Gon warned him, smiling smugly to himself.
It might have attributable to the baleful effects of consuming an excess of rich and nutritionally deficient foods, or might rather have been a premonitory warning visited upon him by the Unifying Force, -or even some weird amalgam of both these things - but Obi-Wan's dreams that night were very disturbed indeed.
Pale blossoms drifted like ash on the wind, the dark twist of deflowered branches stark against oncoming night. Crimson streaked the far horizon, where a sacked city burned. Lamentations coiled mutely within the bitter gusts of air, piling softly at his feet with the downy white petals. When he looked down, they were spattered with bright blood.
He rolled over, sending the thermal blanket sliding, unnoticed, to the floor.
The gentle rain of flowers crystallized into ice, into stinging hail. The wind knifed through clothing, burned like fire in his lungs. Leaden, slipping into blackness, he groped across the frigid earth, seeking urgently. His fingers fumbled in stiff, frost bedewed cloth, white tunics spattered with the same bright blood. And he crumpled down beside her, beside her deathly still body, clutching at her stiff limbs in a paroxysm of regret.
Part of him struggled to break free of cloying terror, but the vision pulled him inexorably back into its clutches.
Columns of blue glass rose in rank upon rank, dim holograms swirling in their translucent depths. He wended through the labyrinth, seeking, always seeking, but for what he could not say. Beyond the borders of the frozen forest, blaster fire erupted and klaxons whined. But he could not cease his questing, not until he found what he was looking for, not until the last mystery had been unveiled.
Somewhere beyond the tormented images, the roiling Force wakened a Jedi master from his own uneasy slumber.
Tahl passed among the Temple's corridors, blind eyes unseeing, hair unbound, white garments hanging upon a wasted frame. She beckoned, and he followed, up unfamiliar passages, along mysterious corridors. They were lost; but she paced steadily ahead, not looking back. At the summit of the last stair she paused, before a final threshold, and then disappeared. He pushed open the portal and descended, into the Hall of Remembrance, the tiered circles surrounding a funeral pyre. And Tahl laid upon the cold slab, already aflame with Light, a beacon ascending into the open skies above, surrounded by fluttering white rainfall. And below, Qui-Gon slowly sank to his knees, red blossoming hideously in the center of his chest, head bowing to the floor as he collapsed beneath the weight of the blow.
"Nooooooooo!" Obi-Wan's appalled cry shattered the illusions to vivid shards, bright panic sparkling in the Force and in his veins. He bolted upright, sweat-slicked, adrenaline propelling him onto his feet and halfway to the door before he was fully awake.
The panel slid open; Qui-Gon Jinn stood faintly limned in blue by the dim night-lamp, his long hair unbound, his hastily donned tunic hanging open in rumpled folds.
"Master." For a moment, the Padawan thought his knees would give way; but dizzying relief was swiftly supplanted by mortification, a second wave of warmth suffusing his skin and stiffening his posture. "Master, I'm sorry. I did not mean to disturb you."
The older man waved the lights to quarter power, keen gaze taking in both his trembling apprentice and the twisted bedclothes, and nodded once. "I'll make tea."
When he had retreated, Obi-Wan sank into meditation posture and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as he painstakingly reconstructed his balance, found his own immovable center in the Force. He was far, far too old to be afflicted by night terrors – what had beset him from his early years, even in the crèche, had over time mellowed to mere occasional ground-quakes of ominous foresight, a connection to the Unifying Force that often proved useful, or illumining. But even now, after five grueling years of apprenticeship and unmitigated labor to attain Jedi tranquility, he was still helpless to stop the rare but devastating volcanic eruption of his gift. Or burden, depending on your point of view.
He rested in the Force's peace for a long stretch of time, releasing the visions and their uncertain meanings into the oblivion of its boundless luminance. When he dared once more to relinquish his hold upon the universal Light, he found that Qui-Gon was kneeling placidly beside him, a bowl of no-longer-steaming tea in his broad hands.
"Here." The tall man raised a hand. "And do not apologize again."
Obi-Wan drank; and then set the cup down upon the floor, aware that the brew had not been the Jedi master's favored silpa, but a heady dose of peruma and hatha leaves. He would be out cold within five minutes unless he exercised great resistance… but he found a strange solace in submitting to the once-familiar childhood indignity. Just this once.
"Too much Snoodle-sauce," he quipped.
Neither of them believed it for a moment, but Qui-Gon had the good grace to smile. "When shall I ever teach you moderation, my Padawan?"
"I follow your example in all things, master."
"Oh? What about my advice regarding the hacha-liniment?"
"Your example, not necessarily… advice…" Obi-Wan retorted, around a wide yawn.
."Of course. An elementary distinction." The Jedi master supplemented the tea's soporific qualities with a powerful Force induced sleep–suggestion. "I thank you for the lesson."
A silence, in which his Padawan groggily searched for a fitting repartee.
"Ah… at last he has attained to insight beyond words," the older man remarked..
"…ungh," the prodigy of wisdom responded, eyes drooping heavily.
Qui-Gon gently caught him as he slumped forward, nightmare and jest equally forgotten.