Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars.
Time-line: This is about a year and eight months after the Naboo Crisis.
Chapter 11: The Baguetteing of Windu
In the dinning room of the Jedi Temple, an interesting scene was unfolding. Rae had finished training a Master Padawan pair and emerged from 'her' training hall to grab a bite to eat when Windu accosted her with a grievance. "Wait wait wait... what?" Rae asked, giving Windu a completely befuddled look.
"You can't keep dominating our training rooms," he said, sipping aggressively at his tea and appearing completely unfazed. Rae blinked.
"I... dominate... your training rooms?" she asked. Surely, she'd heard wrong. There was no way...
"Yes," Windu answered firmly, giving her a gimlet eye. Yoda Force lifted himself to the top of a sturdy pillar to watch the unfolding drama safely.
"Interesting, this will be," he mused. Rae took a deep breath and held it for the count of ten.
"Master Cue Ball, with all due respect, I'm a night guard for a mid-level diner. I am not a world class fighter... like most of your Masters are reported to be," she said, eyes narrowing slightly at the Jedi Master. Bristling slightly, Windu glared right back.
"I don't think you realize that we are peacekeepers," he said, a step above growling. Rae laughed derisively, a mildly mocking light in her eyes.
"Oh, I know you're peacekeepers, oh great Malted One," she said. "But ya know, you lot are more Shaolin warrior monks than Buddhist pacifists. I mean, laser swords! Come on! Besides, some of those places you're called into require force, not just the Force. And why do you think everyone is wary of fighting you lot? Because the Jedi are regarded as some of the trickiest fighters in the galaxy, heck, known space! So if I'm dominating the training rooms, you lot need to step up because guess what! I'm only a little above average when it comes to fighters in Republic Space." Windu bristled.
"Who do you..." he began, not realizing the error he'd made. Once Rae sunk her teeth into something, it was difficult to get her to let go.
"Think I am? I think I'm a waiter, a baker, and a bouncer for a local diner who is cursed to know things she shouldn't. I'm a girl who has been rudely pulled from my home and shoved into a galaxy in turmoil. I'm Rae Donna Mayar and I'm trying to help you lot," Rae answered, cutting him off with narrowed eyes and shaking fists. Yoda was just glad she hadn't raised them yet. He was under no illusions who would win that fight.
"We don't need help," Windu said flatly. Rae laughed, throwing her head back, but there was no amusement in the sound. It was cold and harsh and mocking, as though Rae had never heard something so ridiculously false in her life.
"Oh! What arrogance! And you honestly don't see why I'm worried for the Order?" she asked cuttingly, blue-green eyes nearly flashing while her lips twisted in challenge. "Honestly, you need all the help you can get, Master Jedi."
"You know nothing..." Windu began but before he could get any farther Rae growled and grabbed two baguettes from the sideboard and threw one at Windu before jumping at the mildly distracted Jedi. Immediately, she began beating on the man with all the skill Obi-Wan had given her and listening to the warning bells of her Force Intuition to dodge the return strikes of Windu, who'd taken up the baguette Rae had thrown at him. Yoda was quite glad he'd moved himself onto the pillar as the two turned into a whirling dervish of limbs and far too hard bread.
"I know nothing? I know nothing?! What do you think my Force Intuition is? What do you call my ability to navigate the Temple? I know far and away more than I should! I know what happens behind closed doors! I know what the endgame is! I know why you have a purple lightsaber! I know where you came from as a youngling! I know who your Master was! I know too much, Windu, not nothing!" she screamed as she battered the respected Master Jedi. Yoda caught a flying piece of bread, he couldn't tell whose baguette it came from, and popped it in his mouth. Ah yes, like a rock it was. No wonder it was raising welts on both combatants.
"Popcorn, I wish I had," he muttered.
"I don't have to help you, you know. I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Trying my best to help you all, despite not knowing how my actions might be effecting the future that I Know. Despite the fear, the uncertainty, and running on the blind, naive, hope that maybe, just maybe, I can make enough of a difference that the epic tragedy looming on the horizon doesn't swallow us whole, I am here," Rae hissed, striking Windu's baguette with incredible force and splitting hers in two. The fallen half got kicked at Windu's feet and Rae shifted the remaining half to simulate her shock stick while adding strikes from her fists and feet as well.
"It sounds like you are the one in need of help, Mayar!" Windu snarled. Rae's eyes glinted dangerously and Yoda noticed that the rough edges of the broken bread was beginning to draw blood from his fellow Council member. "A mess, they are making," the wizened master muttered, comming the Healers.
"You are no Jedi!" Windu snarled, causing Yoda to wonder what he'd missed. Rae once more laughed in scorn.
"And thank goodness for that! You'd be claiming I'd fallen to Darkness within a month!"
"I am not so sure you haven't!"
"You have no power over me, you Lawful Stupid Jedi!" Rae spat, landing a harsh blow.
"How dare you... !"
"Your adherence to tradition and Republic laws will be your undoing!"
"Your arrogance shall be yours!"
"Do not speak to me of arrogance!" Rae shrieked, redoubling her efforts. "You sit here in your opulent Temple, contemplating words and tenets that have remained unchanged for centuries, pondering mysteries from a fixed perspective, believing you know best, while the galaxy grows and changes around you! While people starve and children are born into poverty, crime, and slavery you debate among yourselves how best to feel the Force and listen to the demands of the Core Worlds. This Order is crumbling and you can't even see it, too wrapped up in the pretty shine of the Light Side and far too convinced of the infallibility of the old masters. Do not speak to me of the Sin of Pride when you cannot see the stain upon yourself, Mace Windu! For all your vaulted wisdom I dare say my eyes see clearer than yours!" Even Yoda felt that one, wincing as the Force rang with truth and pain in the wake of her outburst. Windu, however, didn't seem to notice.
"The Jedi have stood..."
"I am aware!" Rae shouted, ducking and waving around Windu's strikes, still landing her own. The fire in her eyes was unabated and the snarl on her face was fierce as she battered at him with broken baguette and bare fist and heavy booted feet. Yoda winced in sympathy when she landed a kick to Windu's ribs, seeing as the bouncer had worn her work boots, the kind with durasteel in the toe. "The history of the Jedi Order is long and storied, filled with conflict and resolve. I am aware of the Jedi's history, perhaps more than even yourself, Windu. I know of the origin of the Order, the mysterious ships that brought Force-sensitives of all races and backgrounds together upon a world dominated by the Force, one where the Light and Dark must be kept in balance or the planet would be torn apart. I know of the practice of these ancient Jedi to maintain such a balance within themselves, meditating upon one or the other of the planet's moons should they stray too far to either side. Do you, oh venerable Master?"
"Legends, nothing more," Windu answered. Rae growled and somehow managed to knock his feet out from under him.
"In many legends, there is a grain of truth to be found, Windu, but in this I know it to be true. Just as I know Revan's fall and return are true. Or the story of the Exile, Meerik? Do you know the older Codes? The full forms?" Yoda sighed and bowed his head as Windu got to his feet and continued the fight, pressing Rae hard enough that she could not speak. The question was not whether or not she was right; despite the fury and derision in her words, the Force rang with the truth of them; it was how the Order should act on them. This was not a question that would be answered quickly, nor easily.
/*/
Ten minutes after the fight began, Rae's rage had not abated but she had agreed to let Windu go on Obi-Wan's urging. In fact, she helped Windu to the infirmary. "Just where does he get off saying tripe like that?" she asked some time later, leveling her bokken at Yoda, who had graciously agreed to spar with her.
"Master, he is," Yoda pointed out, rolling out of her way.
"Permission, you gave," Rae growled.
"Set in our ways, perhaps we are," Yoda allowed. Rae laughed hollowly and swung viciously at the Space Troll.
"Gee, ya think?!" she snarked. Yoda sighed before Force jumping to avoid a strike to the chest. "It's just..." Rae sighed and stopped. "My knowledge weighs heavily on my mind, especially within these walls," she told the old Master, refusing to look him in the eye. Yoda hummed.
"Troubled, it makes you. Tell me, you may," he said. She laughed wryly and put away her bokken.
"No, I don't think I may," she said as she walked away, her rage suddenly replaced with grave melancholy. Yoda hummed, troubled by her close lipped mien. She was hiding something, he knew it, he just didn't know what. And from her reaction, as well as her earlier vitriol... he wasn't so sure he wanted to know.
/*/
Once Yoda made it back to the infirmary to see Windu, he was shocked to see the healers still pulling pieces of stale bread from angry red wounds. "Wounded this bad you were, I did not think," Yoda declared.
"That woman is dangerous," Windu said, though it was difficult with his swollen jaw. Yoda thought the marvelously colorful bruise on it might extend all the way down to the bone.
"Skilled, she is," Yoda allowed. "Sparred her, I did." Windu perked up some at this. "Controlled even in anger, Rae is. Impressed, I was." Windu fell once more.
"It is not the Jedi way," he muttered.
"Perhaps not, but her way, it is," Yoda said. Windu scowled as best he could.
"Her way is..."
"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you," Obi-Wan remarked as he strolled in. Keen eyes flicked over Windu's battered frame and the young Knight shook his head before turning to Yoda. "Rae's in a right snit, muttering about self-righteous Malt Balls, acrobatic Trolls, and cooks who should be hung with their own spaghetti for leaving food out. The first two I can mostly understand but the last..."
"Baguettes, surprising weapons they make," Yoda remarked. The healers froze.
"All this damage... was caused... by just baguettes?!" they asked, whirling around to face Yoda.
"Stale, they were," the Troll said.
"Ah," Obi-Wan stating in understanding. "That explains why Rae was so upset with our cooks. How old were those baguettes?"
"Like steel, they were. How old, I cannot say," Yoda said, shaking his head. Obi-Wan snickered as he walked away shaking his head.
"Stale baguettes... who knew?" he muttered.
/?/
A/N: Rae... may have some anger issues. Also, Windu is probably a bit more than a little OOC here... but I'm not changing it. Sorry not sorry.