Sand Cube Assignment 2 Masters' Meeting
Obi-Wan scratched the new stubble on his chin as he stepped through the library and found seven of his peers waiting in the deep, unfrequented corner of the stacks. It was an obscure place for a Masters' Meeting, and an obscure time for one too. Their students would be released from class in just a few minutes. As it was, Obi-Wan received news of this meeting late in the day, long after any convenient chance to let Anakin know he wouldn't be there to pick him up this afternoon.
It wasn't a big worry, for all padawans of this class were safe inside the Temple, and most younglings rarely found trouble when unattended anyway, (most of them), but masters of padawans were expected to be waiting outside of class to pick up their apprentices daily. Obi-Wan expected this meeting to be quick.
He bowed in friendly greeting to Master Kirano who grinned easily back. The eight of them stood in silence along the dark hallway with nods of hello to each other. Questions began flitting through his mind, as well as the minds of seven others. Where was the other dozen young Masters of this class? Why did only the human Masters show up? Where was Master Windu who called this thing in the first place? Obi-Wan tucked back his robe to pull the chrono from his belt.
"Do you know what this one is about?" Master Kirano muttered to him, his whisper seemed to amplify in the echoing silence of the hall.
Obi-Wan shook his head and stuffed his chrono back on his belt. He shrugged as he looked back over his shoulder to the main entry of the library. Mace Windu and Yoda were strolling in just then, walking slowly and muttering to each other.
"Here they come." Obi-Wan announced and clasped his hands together in front of him again.
"Where is everyone else?" Kirano suddenly queried in a quick whisper. He glanced to young Master Shisha, who in turn shook his head and shrugged too.
"Maybe we're in trouble," Shisha joked, his eyes peeking around the corner to the approaching Masters of Masters.
No one got the chance to respond more than a grin. The crowd parted to let Master Yoda walk through on his short legs, and in no hurry to do so. Mace Windu followed the little green man without a glance to any of them. They silently flowed into the room one by one to follow these higher-ranking Jedi with respect and patience.
Master Yoda stepped to a seat on the side of the room and levitated himself into it. Master Windu paused to close the old hinge door behind the eight young men with a scowl on his face. Eight zufas were arranged on the floor in dais toward one side of the room, curiously not aimed at Yoda's perch. This wasn't anyone's first time here, albeit the room was rarely used for formal purposes. It was where they all learned, many years ago, what came to be known as the Tree Meditation. The Tree Meditation was a particularly difficult self-inflicting mind-trick requiring both alertness and deep peace in which the subject was to meditate on a painting of a tree until they saw the leaves moving in the breeze.
Of course, there was no breeze in the room. There wasn't even a window, only single painting of a mature tree standing alone in a slope of grass, and just enough space for up to a dozen people to sit and discuss how difficult it was to make themselves see the painting move.
Obi-Wan unraveled his robe from his arms and tossed it to the side so he could squat down on a sepia zufa. Kirano settled down on the zufa next to him, eyeing Master Windu as he strode to the front of the dais. The elder Master's eyes remained hard on his own feet as he stepped to the front looking like he'd just received the worst of news.
Obi-Wan's brow flicked at the man's demeanor. Maybe we are in trouble.
The young masters glanced at each other with questions and curiosity while Master Windu's back was turned. The elder rummaged through a medium-sized burlap sack on the little table under the tree painting.
Tinak, legs crossed and hands easily on his knees, leaned to Shisha's shoulder and whispered his best guess at an explanation to all this. "They're getting their sand cube assignment today."
This brought instant alarm to Obi-Wan. Remembering how poorly he handled the impossible assignment, he was terrified how Anakin was going to handle it, especially without supervision. His fists pushed against his zufa to get up—
"Somewhere to go, do you, Master Kenobi?" Master Yoda queried.
All looked at Obi-Wan. Mace Windu turned from his task to glare.
Obi-Wan's mouth paused open. His body froze half-raised out of the round seat. He looked to Master Yoda with urgency. "Yes, Master. I request to be excused. Our students are getting the sand cube assignment today?" He squeaked to confirm.
Yoda slowly drooped his eyelids and nodded.
Obi-Wan shook his head. He was the youngest of the Masters and yet his student was older than all of theirs. Anakin was eleven and attending classes with seven-year-olds, which was difficult enough on the boy's demeanor. "My apprentice isn't likely to handle this assignment well," Obi-Wan informed apologetically. "He'll need help."
Master Windu angled his chin. "Have you no confidence in the abilities of your apprentice?"
Obi-Wan's eyes widened. "Of his skill, yes. His self-control, however…" he grimaced dramatically to make his point.
"Stay, you will." Yoda instructed firmly and motioned Obi-Wan to sit back down.
With a silent sigh, Obi-Wan settled and dropped his hands into his lap. As Master Windu finished preparing himself for this meeting, Obi-Wan snuck in a quick, closed-eyed meditation to rally his patience and calm his worry.
"Good idea," Master Windu grumbled.
Obi-Wan opened his eyes to find Master Windu was gesturing to him and motioned to the others. "Five minutes of meditation."
Shisha squinted one eye at the standing man. "They're going to be out of class in moments, Master."
Mace Windu nearly yelled it, shooting the word at Shisha like a projectile weapon. "Now."
Obi-Wan and Kirano exchanged glances. Shisha sighed and accepted it. All eight Masters in Training settled into their meditations like the professionals they had become. (No one bothered to eye the tree painting to visualize it moving in the breeze, however, for there was no way that level of concentration could be accomplished in five minutes anyway.)
Obi-Wan meditated deeply and calmly, calming his emotions and unraveling his worries, gently reining back in any wandering thoughts. But the focus of this particular assignment and its related history kept a thread in his mind anchored with feelings. Even after a determined focus to clear his mind, he discovered an under-layer of lament for Qui-Gon Jinn. Mild as they were, they were, as yet, unresolved.
Obi-Wan accepted it. He still had work to do.
Mace Windu pierced the silence with a loud voice. "Your students are getting their sand cube assignments today."
Obi-Wan's eyes popped open, as did all the others, to find a single sand cube sitting on the floor in front of each of them. His shoulders melted with premature defeat at the transparisteel cube on the carpet in front of him. The translucent white sand and the heavier hot pink sand was a mixed up mess as if Mace Windu had scrambled it before setting it down.
Kirano exhaled a wry grin through his nose and let out a tiny, smiling whine. "Awe, man!"
Obi-Wan and Shisha fought back groans and grins.
Tinak dared to smile up at Master Windu. "Please don't tell me we have to do this one again."
Shisha's head whipped to Tinak, gritting teeth smiling in exasperation, his very audible voice tightened to try to be quiet. "No. Tinak! You fool! Never say anything like that to Master Windu."
"Never say that to any Master," Kirano muttered wisely.
Obi-Wan's eyes stretched to the side to watch Master Windu step in front of Tinak and glare down like a vulture.
Tinak rolled his neck and sighed in respectful defeat. He centered his sights on his own white and teal sand cube and huffed again.
Mace strolled slowly back and forth in front of the class. "Never require your apprentice to accomplish that which you cannot accomplish yourself." He waved an open hand to them all. "Make a tree!"
Obi-Wan was hardly the only one to huff at this order, and he was hardly the only one to meditate for another quick moment before starting the project. The room fell to silence again and Master Windu strolled to the side of the room, standing against the wall beside Master Yoda, out of convenience glance of the eight young Masters while they worked on the elementary project.
Obi-Wan rested his hands on his knees and focused. First, he separated the translucent white on top of the hot pink, a task in itself because the pink sand was heavier than the white and naturally wanted to fall to the bottom. He struggled with the logic of it as much as he struggled with the task itself.
The assignment made no sense then and it made no sense now. The homework didn't seem to be graded on success. Some of the ugliest trees got the highest grades. And the assignment was never repeated. The sand cube assignment of the tree was the last of all assignments involving sand cubes. This was, in fact, the first time Obi-Wan had seen one in a classroom setting since he was seven-years-old.
After he separated the sand, he took a moment to gather his wits again before approaching the hard part. He brought up memories of Qui-Gon sitting by him on the couch that day. He remembered the smell of his tunic, the sound of his voice. 'Give me crazy hair.'
Obi-Wan grinned inside.
He closed his eyes and brought his mind back to the task, but allowed the warm feeling to stay with him. Obi-Wan concentrated and began to arrange the hot pink sand into a ball, then a cylinder, then a taller cylinder, struggling the entire time to keep it from falling over.
He glanced to Kirano's project to find the other was having the same difficulty with the orange sand in the other cube. Obi-Wan returned his sights to his hot pink mess and began to give 'Qui-Gon' a few arms and carefully strung out cords that would be his 'crazy hair'. He glanced at the painting more than once to get some ideas on how to make it look more like a tree and less like a clay blob of a dead Jedi, but the heavy pink sand refused to stay in place. It kept dribbling deeper into the translucent white even with finest telekinesis instruction to stay put.
Patiently, and meditating frequently to maintain his patience, Obi-Wan accepted his failure and just did the best he could…
Soon enough, Master Windu strolled back to the front of the room and stopped to review the results of each project. Kirano's orange sand looked like a fat cigar with trails of smoke coming out of the top. Obi-Wan's pink branches looked like they were dripping with pink moss. Shisha's looked like—
Windu broke the silence with his loud voice hiked up an octave, "What the hell is that?"
Shisha's meekly grinning eyes stretched up to the standing master.
"Looks like a squid," Windu complained.
Obi-Wan bit his lips together. Kirano sniggered. Shisha grinned and shrugged at the man.
Master Windu continued his stroll. He motioned to the next one. "That's not a tree, that's a bush." Tinak chuckled at himself. Windu waved away Ruku's aqua blue blob. "I don't even wanna know what that's supposed to be."
The eight young masters fought to contain their chuckles of communal failure. Obi-Wan dropped his eyes to his sand cube and the pink blob sculpture of an overly tall stick with crazy hair.
I miss you.
Mace Windu then boomed to them all. "What is the purpose of this assignment?" He clasped his hands in front of him and looked at each of his students one by one…