When Conrad and Raven had reentered the shelter, Eeth went to relieve himself as well and brush his teeth as best he could, given the circumstances.
"I am going to get some sleep now," he told Raven, having crawled back into their shelter. "Wake me at eleven. Or whenever there is anything that requires my attention. Conrad, best try to get some sleep as well." With this, he lay down, turned towards the cave wall, closed his eyes and entered a calming trance that would take him into a deep sleep within minutes.
Raven and Conrad sat there in awkward silence for a moment before Conrad became restless. It was clear to Raven that he was not planning on sleeping, so she decided to nip it in the bud. "You want to play checkers?" she suggested, pulling her datapad from her bag.
Conrad met her with a raised brow. "You want me to play checkers with a Jedi? You'll just use the Force to beat me. What's the point in that?"
"The force is not magic, you know. I can't read your mind. Not even Eeth can read your exact thoughts. We can read intent and emotion and can influence the weak-minded, but even if I could, I wouldn't," Raven said in a tone that said she spoke from experience as she began punching in settings.
"Why, have you used the Force to win games before?" he asked, quick to pick up on the slight reluctance in her tone.
"Once," Raven admitted, and given how interested he looked, she began quietly telling him the story of what happened the day she had spotted the men gambling whilst they were checking out weapons dealers. "So you see, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't for obvious reasons," she concluded. After making her move, she passed the pad to Conrad for his turn.
The two played for a couple of hours before Conrad grew tired of the game. "Hey, I need to take a leak. Can you open the entrance?" he asked, thinking now was as good a time as any for an extended break.
Raven scrutinised him. "Again? But you only went two hours ago."
"I might be built like a brick shit house, but my body is smaller than yours. Remember, a smaller body equals a smaller bladder. I gotta go," Conrad said, feigning urgency.
Raven frowned. Then she closed her eyes, scanning the area for danger. Thankfully the closest living being she detected outside their shelter was a tiny rodent of some description. So she lifted the tree covering the entrance but grabbed Conrad by the collar as he tried scrambling past her. "Do your business close to the shelter, cover it with snow and come directly back," she ordered. When she received an eye-roll in response, she kept a hold of his jacket and turned him back to face her. "I mean it, you better mind me," she warned.
"Alright, alright," he complained, yanking himself free from her grasp and muttering something about 'Great Galia's balls' as he exited the shelter.
Raven had a bad feeling about this and contemplated waking Eeth. However, she decided that he was just a boy and she could deal with this. After all, she was fifteen now and no longer felt like a junior padawan.
Conrad, of course, didn't need to pee at all. He was enjoying the fresh air and the opportunity to explore a little. He stretched up tall – well, as tall as a Gelis could manage – and gazed at the treetops, simply appreciating not being confined for the moment. He planned to stay out here until the girl came to fetch him, as he doubted that this would work a second time and really wanted to milk it for every second it was worth.
Raven waited. Then she waited some more. Her anxiety was growing with each passing minute. It was taxing to focus on her surroundings after having spent hours doing so throughout their travel today, but she persisted. Perhaps Conrad had to do a number two, she reasoned, knowing that this could take a while for some beings. When almost ten minutes had passed and the boy appeared to be moving further away from the shelter than necessary, even for a number two, Raven groaned. She'd been 'had' by a nine-year-old, and she was going to kill the little turd when she got her hands on him.
Eeth could sense his padawan's growing agitation, even in his sleep. When she groaned, he woke up, stirred in his sleeping bag and rolled around. "Is anything the matter, padawan?" he asked quietly. Having checked the inside for their shelter for their charge without success, he added, "Where is Conrad?"
Raven didn't want to rat the kid out, but skirting around the truth would just land her in the shit right next to him. "Apparently, he went to 'take a leak,' but that was ten minutes ago. I thought maybe the kid was, you know, dealing with something more than a pee, but he's getting further and further away from our shelter. I was about to go find him. I can handle this if you want to go back to sleep. It is my watch," Raven offered.
"No, thank you, padawan," Eeth said grimly, rising to his feet in one smooth motion. "I will take care of it."
If Raven wasn't so annoyed at Conrad ignoring her orders, she might have felt sorry for him. As it was, she just blew out a sigh and, seeing the resolve in Eeth's expression, hoped for Conrad's sake that he had a good excuse.
Conrad was squatting down with his back to the shelter by the base of a giant conifer, tracking some tiny footprints in the snow, when he heard the log move from the entrance and sighed. Well, he'd gotten longer than he had expected, so he ought to be grateful. "I'm coming already. Keep your shirt on," he said in a smug tone and was about to stand when someone far bigger than the skinny human girl took hold of his ear, forcing him up on his toes in the process. "Ahh. Legggo!" Conrad yelped.
"Back into our shelter. Now," Eeth said in a tight voice, hauling the boy towards the entrance by his conveniently large ear.
Conrad's hands flew up in an effort at freeing himself, but it didn't work and all he managed to do was a rather undignified crab walk as Eeth pulled him along. "Let go of me, I can walk," he ground out. It was taking considerable effort on his part not to whimper. It wasn't excruciating yet it was far from comfortable and entirely undignified!
Pride smarting, and furious at the treatment, Conrad started throwing haymakers. He wasn't aiming for anywhere specific, just as long as it hit Eeth and he let go of him. Lashing out at an ally was seriously frowned upon among his people but right now, he didn't care. To his frustration, though, not one of his punches had elicited so much as an 'oof' from Eeth, who instead rewarded his efforts with a hearty swat to the boy's bottom. The teeth-rattling smack was more than enough to stop Conrad fighting and struggling.
Once Eeth had deposited the boy in the middle of their shelter, he knelt down in front of him, since the ceiling was too low for him to stand upright. He folded his arms across his chest, the look on his face rather foreboding. "Do you have any excuse to offer for disobeying and deceiving my padawan?" he snapped, his tone of voice suggesting that it had better be a good one.
"I don't have to answer to you," spat Conrad, "and you have no right to hit me. Do it again and I'll, I'll!" Shit, Conrad didn't know what he'd do, but whatever he came up with was not going to bode well for Eeth! Or so he told himself.
"Oh, I will do it again," Eeth said in a quietly dangerous tone of voice, "and whatever you decide to do about it, I highly doubt that it is going to change my mind." In fact, he was quite certain that the only response the boy was going to be able to muster in a few moments was crying, begging, pleading, and possibly apologies and promises to do better; but as far as he was concerned, Conrad could find that out for himself.
Eeth pulled his backpack over, sat down on it, grabbed Conrad by his shoulders and, despite his struggling and attempts to call Eeth every vulgar name under the suns, deposited him over his lap. The boy was divested of his pants in one smooth motion, and a moment later, Eeth's hand exploded on his backside, effectively silencing the stream of vitriol.
"For as long as we need to reach your father, you have me to answer to," Eeth informed him, meting out a second swat. "You do not have to like it, but you would do well to mind me, or you will not like the consequences." With this, he settled into a steady rhythm of hard and fast swats that had Conrad's bottom quickly reddening.
It briefly crossed Conrad's mind to yell fire, perhaps rape? But who would hear him? His father's guards were days of travel away. Hell, not even Greyhym's men were around to recapture him; he was on his own. Ironically, after little more than ten seconds of the hardest smacks Conrad had ever felt, he was hoping for just that, recapture! Because anything was preferable to this. Tears rolled from the corners of his eyes and along his pointed nose. If he could not force Eeth to stop, maybe his apprentice could because he couldn't take much more of this. He shot the most piteous expression he could muster at Raven.
"Master, c'mon, he's sorry," Raven tried. She was feeling bad for them and herself right now. Conrad was doing a valiant job of toughing this out, but it wasn't going to last.
"He is not sorry in the least, he just realised that a spanking hurts," Eeth replied sternly, not letting up on Conrad in the slightest. If he stopped now, just because of a few piteous looks, the boy might get the impression that he could manipulate his way out of a well-deserved punishment, and that would not do.
"I AM I AM!" Conrad cried, each swat lighting a fire on his ass the likes of which he had not felt before. But it wasn't until he started sobbing that Eeth paused.
"Are you willing to agree to follow our instructions?" he asked without releasing his hold on the boy.
Despite his considerable pain, there was no way Conrad was going to belittle himself further by simpering and promising to be a 'good boy,' he resolved. No way. He was a Gelis and could withstand such juvenile ridiculousness without simpering and begging! "Release me!" he ordered, although there was no hiding the breaths that caught in his chest or his struggling against Eeth's hold.
"So be it," Eeth said calmly. He picked up the utility belt that he had put on the floor before going to sleep, folded it over and brought it down across Conrad's bottom. It drew a gasp of shock from the boy, but Eeth ignored it. "I advise you to rethink your attitude," he told him and laid down a second swat, this one having the effect that Conrad redoubled his efforts to escape. "The faster you do," said Eeth, "the sooner this is going to stop." The belt came down a third time, and this time Conrad shrieked. "Ahh! ALRIGHT! I WILL, stop!" he yelled because whatever Eeth was using to spank him with now hurt a lot more than his hand, which was really saying something.
"What is it that you will do?" Eeth asked relentlessly, pausing for a moment, but poised to continue.
"Follow instructions," Conrad ground out. It really did feel like pulling teeth, but he said it. He started to struggle again, wanting to get up.
"Good," Eeth said evenly. "If you ever again do not feel like doing so, remember this." He brought down the belt once more, with gusto. Only then did he drop it and release his hold on Conrad.
Conrad scrambled to his feet, ripped up his pants, regretted it, glared at Eeth and did his best to hide the fact that he was crying. It was a pointless exercise, of course, as tears had tracked rivulets down the dirt on his face. He opened his mouth to tell Eeth exactly what he thought of him only to notice Raven shaking her head in what he recognised as a silent warning from the corner of his eye and closed it again.
Eeth found a handkerchief in the pocket of his tunic and gave it to Conrad. "You may go outside for five minutes if you wish," he said quietly. "But only if you stay right in front of the entrance." Said entrance was still open; Eeth had soundproofed their hideout, however, lest half the forest be alerted to the fact that Conrad was being punished!
"Oh, so it's ok to go outside NOW?!" Conrad sniffled, although the retort was not delivered with half the insolence it would have been previously. There was just something about sniffling into a gigantic handkerchief, ass blazing, that chastened a boy into adopting a more respectful attitude, at least for now.
"Yes, because I specifically told you that you may go," Eeth replied. "I also told you the rules for going outside and I expect you to stick to them. If you would rather just go to bed, though, feel free to do so."
"No. I'm going out," Conrad blurted and was out the entrance in a heartbeat.
Raven looked from where Conrad had disappeared to Eeth and sighed. "Sorry, master, you can go back to sleep, really. I doubt even Conrad is crazy enough to try anything with you at the moment," she said, feeling guilty over the trouble the boy had caused on her watch.
"No, it is alright," Eeth replied. "I am awake now anyway. Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a long and exhausting day. I want to make the most of the hours of daylight. The sooner this trip will be over, the better."
Raven nodded and yawned. She wouldn't say no to more rest right now, as much as she wished it wasn't needed.
Given he had been told to stay in front of the entrance, Conrad had to actively block out their conversation. He didn't want to know what they were saying lest it piss him off, and he didn't think his ass could take any more. It was with that in mind that he pulled up his jacket, yanked down his trousers and sat in the snow, planning to stay like this until his ass went numb.
"Just so you know, I don't have a watch. Those bastards took it off me," Conrad announced in a curt tone that would easily be heard from inside. He didn't know how long he'd been out here at this point, but nor was he willing to take any chances.
"I was about to ask you to come back in," said Eeth. "It is high time you went to sleep."
Conrad entered a second or two later, still trying to appear as if nothing had happened. He tucked the handkerchief into his pocket for now, as he didn't think Eeth would want it back given the state of it, and crawled into his sleeping bag where he rolled onto his stomach and tried to will himself to sleep. It wasn't easy. For one thing, his ass hurt, and for another thing, he was actually beginning to feel a little guilty over having lashed out at Eeth. The Gelis did not attack an alley, let alone one that was trying to rescue them.
"Are you unable to sleep because of the pain in your bottom?" Eeth asked, crouching down next to Conrad and talking quietly so as not to disturb his padawan.
"A bit," Conrad admitted.
"I could help with that if you want," Eeth offered.
Conrad pushed himself up on his elbows. "I figured you made it hurt for a reason, so why would you want to help now?" he asked, and for once he wasn't being a smartass about it, he was honestly curious to know.
"You learned your lesson, I hope," Eeth replied. "I try to spank hard enough to ensure that. However, there is nothing to be gained from being unable to sleep. All of us need some rest. I can use the Force to take away most of the pain. If you would like that, bare your bottom."
Conrad looked away for a moment, expression sheepish. Had he learned his lesson? He didn't know, but what he did know was that if disobeying this particular Jedi master resulted in what was quite possibly the spanking of his life, he was going to do his darndest not to get caught if he ever needed to do it again. "You can?" the boy asked in surprise."How? Do you block the nerves or something?"
"No, I do not block the nerves, I speed up the healing process," Eeth replied. "I am not a fully trained healer. Those could make your bottom look and feel as if nothing had happened to it. I am by far not as able, but I can reduce the pain significantly. ."
Satisfied with that answer, Conrad pushed down his trousers and shorts, lay on his stomach and craned his neck so he could see how this worked. Unfortunately for him, he didn't really see anything except Eeth sitting there with his eyes closed. He did, however, start to feel some relief.
He lay there for a long time without saying anything. The stress of this week had finally gotten too much for him when he'd let fly at Eeth and copped it in kind. Leaving aside the fact that he was the son of Chancellor Andrag Mitaivar, Conrad was an everyday kid, which meant that the concept of obedience had areas of grey that did not exist in the Jedi Order. The idea of lashing out at an ally, however, was another matter entirely, and his guilt was starting to get to him.
"I shouldn't have taken a swing at you," Conrad said, breaking the silence. "The Gelis never attack an ally. It is not honourable, and I'm sorry for that. Will you forgive me?" Conrad wasn't sure how much Eeth knew about their traditions but he felt that, even if Eeth hadn't known to expect this apology from him, it was the right thing to do.
Eeth was indeed slightly surprised. He had not expected this to bother Conrad still. After all, the boy had paid for his transgressions. "I thank you for the apology," said Eeth gently. "That was a brave and very honest thing to do. Of course I forgive you."
Conrad smiled, perhaps for the first time since having met the two Jedi, so relieved was he to hear Eeth accept his apology. After all, attacking an ally was a serious breach in tradition. Although children were almost always pardoned, it was still not without serious repercussions. Adults received no quarter: they were dealt with to the full extent of the law. This was drummed into the children from an early age, and after having had some time to calm down, Conrad had felt ashamed that he'd lost control over himself like that, even if he had been entirely stressed out.
"Will you be able to sleep now, or shall I help?" asked Eeth softly, drawing Conrad from his thoughts. "There is a Force technique that could assist you with falling asleep."
"Yes, I'd like that," Conrad replied without hesitation. The Force fascinated him and he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to experience this if Eeth was willing to do it. "Is there anything you can't do with the Force?" he asked. It seemed like the possibilities were truly endless.
"Of course," said Eeth. "There is a lot we cannot do with the Force. We are only mortals, after all. Now sleep."
He rested his hand on Conrad's head and sent a sleep compulsion through the Force, strong enough to quell the palpable excitement and restlessness.
It was almost a full eight hours before Raven stirred. This mission had not been particularly difficult but it was physically demanding, and as Eeth had pointed out, she was still growing. The padawan sat up, looked around the warren that was dimly lit by the small heater and focussed on the still form of her master. "What time is it?" she asked. She could sense that he was in a light meditative trance, but alert all the same, and thought he might like to sleep if they had time left before light.
"A little before seven," Eeth said softly. "You can sleep for half an hour more if you like. It is still dark outside."
"Or I can take over while you sleep if you like," said Raven. "You have only had two hours so far."
"Alright," said Eeth. "If you are willing to prepare breakfast, I will sleep for a little while. Wake me in forty minutes."
It was then that Raven noticed light snoring coming from Conrad and raised an eyebrow. "Did you knock him out?" she asked, thinking it was strange that he wasn't still up smouldering at Eeth.
"I helped him along with a sleep compulsion," said Eeth mildly. "He asked me to." He lay down, pulled his sleeping bag around himself and closed his eyes.
Raven was not a morning person at the best of times, least of all with another six days – possibly seven depending on Conrad – of slogging it out to look forward to. Still, she got the small power cell device heating to boil snow and started rummaging around for energy bars, despite the fact that she really was getting sick of these.
The next day was tiresome, to say the least, but they covered a lot of ground. By day three they were on schedule to arrive a day earlier than anticipated, thanks to Conrad's perseverance which was far higher than Eeth and Raven would have thought possible in a civilian nine-year-old.
As the evening of that day approached, they split up, searching for something that would pass as shelter for the night. Eeth and Conrad headed north and Raven east. Even Eeth was getting a little tired of the snow-covered woods at this point. He came from a desert race and had grown up on a moon that was all city; being in the woods for long periods of time, in combination with the cold, wet snow, tended to depress him. He focussed on releasing those feelings into the Force, though, and plodded on, careful not to leave Conrad behind, but not particularly talkative.
As far as Conrad was concerned, Eeth was never talkative. He answered questions, but he definitely wasn't the sort of person his parents would invite around for afternoon tea and a chat. The boy was trailing along behind, doing his best not to show exactly how much this was taking out of him, and was just about to put on another burst of speed when he noticed some tiny tracks in the snow. The dirt had been scratched up every half a metre or so. They were definitely tracks from a small animal. "Wait," he said, or at least that was what he tried to say; it was a bit hard to project his voice with his nose to the ground.
Eeth stopped in his tracks. "Conrad, what are you doing?" he asked. "We need to find a shelter before it gets dark."
Conrad followed the tracks for another metre or so before getting to his feet and dusting snow chunks from his knees. "I remember this from my tutor. During winter, rodents live off wild garlic, mustard leaves and tubers. They can smell them under the snow, see?" Conrad pointed towards small dark patches of earth that had been dug up. "If the animal that left these tracks found food, we'll find it too, and I could use a night off the energy bars."
"That is valuable knowledge," Eeth said. "But we do not have much time before it gets dark. We can try to find food, but if it takes too long, we will abort the search, and I will not want to hear any whining about it."
"I don't whine," Conrad stated with a touch of indignation to his tone.
"No, you usually do not," Eeth conceded. "You do not always know when to desist, though. Now hurry. There is little light left."
Together, they followed the tracks. Eeth was better than Conrad at finding them and distinguishing them from other kinds of patterns, once Conrad had shown him what to look for. While he had never been on Gelisia before, he had vastly more practical experience than Conrad, and he tried to explain as much of it as he could to the boy while they made their way to a small sheltered dip in the ground, overgrown with bushes, where many spots of earth were dug up.
Conrad was intrigued, Eeth was able to pick up the tracks even when they seemed to have disappeared. He tried to take in as much as he could; Conrad really did enjoy this sort of thing. "If we dig around here, we might find something they missed," he said. Not waiting for a response to this, he picked up a stick, dropped to his knees and started stabbing into the clods of dirt left by the rodents.
"Stop stabbing," said Eeth. "If there are any tubers or bulbs, we want them whole. I brought a shovel. But first, I will clear away the snow around the holes and look for signs of plant leaves."
He knelt down next to Conrad and used the Force to blow away the snow in a radius of about one metre around them. Then he took a small foldable shovel from his backpack and used it to carefully loosen the ground. "I am focussing on places the rodent has not touched yet," he explained to Conrad. "See if you can find anything."
With the ground loosened, it was easier to slip the stick beneath each clod and break it open. "Jackpot!" Conrad said after five minutes of crushing clods; he'd found a small cluster of tubers. Ordinarily this small amount would barely touch the sides, but he was looking forward to sharing what he and Eeth had found with Raven. By the time Eeth told him to stop, Conrad had filled his jacket pockets with a variety of things that he hoped would be edible. "What did you find?" he asked Eeth.
Eeth had concentrated on gathering tubers because he figured nothing else would provide much value in terms of food. He had also discovered a cluster of small, black, fragrant fungi. "Do you know these?" he asked Conrad.
"Nu uh," Conrad said, wrinkling up his nose; they didn't look all that appetising. "I don't know what half of this stuff is either." He pulled out a fist full of nuts and some bulbs from his tunic pocket as an example. They smelled okay, but he had no idea if any of it was edible.
"We are going to analyse everything before we try to eat it," said Eeth. "The fungi smell like an ingredient that people on Coruscant pay a high price for, but they might as well be poisonous for some or all of us. I have a device in my pack that will be able to tell." He glanced at his comlink. "It seems that Raven has found a shelter," he said. "Twenty minutes from here. We need to hurry or it will be dark before we arrive."
Half an hour later, they had helped Raven finalise the building of their shelter, whereupon Eeth set to examining the food they had collected.
"Nearly everything is edible for all of us," he said. "We should boil it and mix in some of our dehydrated soup. That will add proteins and fat, which will greatly enhance both the flavour and the nutritional value."
Although she didn't show it, Raven too was looking forward to a change. She was sick to death of energy bars, and the idea of a hot meal with tubers was enough to keep the smile on her face as she worked. She pulled the snow melting device from their pack and started to boil water while Eeth found the dehydrated soup packets.
Fifteen minutes later, the three enjoyed a hearty soup that was indeed rather tasty. "Master tells me you found the tracks," she said to Conrad. "Good job."
Conrad shrugged off the compliment. "Similar tracks as the ones I saw the other night, but he found the actual spot to dig," the boy gestured towards Eeth with his chin.
"I would not have done so without your knowledge, though," Eeth said. "If you find more of these tracks tomorrow, you can show them to my padawan. Do you eat meat?"
"Of course," Conrad said in a tone that clearly stated he thought the question was ludicrous. "Why do you ask?"
Raven just sighed.
"Because some beings do not eat meat, either for physiological or for ethical reasons," Eeth replied neutrally. "Many Jedi avoid eating meat even if their physiology would allow them to do so. I am not one of them, but my padawan is. I was asking because we never know whether there might be a chance for hunting. There have not been any pursuers in our proximity for more than two days, so we should be fairly safe."
"You don't eat meat?" Conrad turned his incredulous expression on Raven. "I've never heard of such a thing before." Then, despite the pained expression on Raven's face, he asked, "Why not?"
Raven clicked her tongue at being drawn into this. "Because I don't believe a being's right to life should be species-specific." It was a concept she was still working through herself. It just felt like the right thing to do, especially so when one was as attuned to animals as Raven. "Tell me about these tracks," she said. "What will I have to look out for?"
Conrad just looked at her, ignoring the attempt at changing the subject. "So if it is alive or has lived, you wouldn't eat it?" he pushed.
That wasn't quite right, Raven would eat plants and technically they were 'alive', but she wasn't about to start splitting hairs. Thus, she just said "Correct" in a tight voice.
"What about if it was really old and had been dead for ages, like a fossil? Would you eat it then?" Conrad persisted.
"Ugh, stop it. You're putting me off my soup, and I'm hungry," she whined, giving him a nudge with her shoulder. Unfortunately for Conrad, he was not as balanced as her Jedi peers, and the soup ended up down the front of his shirt.
"May I remind you that food is scarce and that we do not have an ample supply of clothes?" Eeth asked icily. "Padawan, you know better than to shove others during a meal. Conrad, take off your shirt. You can wear one of Raven's tunics for now. Raven can wash yours after dinner."
"Ha ha ha! You have to clean my shirt," Conrad crowed in a sing-song voice while Raven hunted around for a cleanish tunic that she could give him. As far as he was concerned, this was fantastic, since for once Eeth wasn't picking on him.
"Here," Raven said, tossing a balled-up tunic at the boy's head and chuckling as the smug expression was, quite literally, wiped from his face. "Enjoy," she added knowingly.
Two seconds later…
"Blahhh! No way, it smells like, like!" Conrad took a sniff and cringed. "Human masked with refresher spray," the boy complained, tossing the tunic back at her. "Can't I have one of yours?" he asked Eeth.
Raven thought this was priceless. If her master agreed, Conrad would look like he was wearing a dress.
"No," Eeth said flatly. "I want to eat in peace, and if the two of you do not let me, you can go outside and wait until I am done, with or without a shirt. Now stop bickering. I mean it."
Raven lost the grin immediately and turned her attention to refilling Conrad's mug of soup.
"You can't do that. It's freezing outside. Besides, your orders are to deliver me to my father safely, not with pneumonia," Conrad challenged him, confident that this time he had the man over a barrel.
"Shut up and drink this before you get us tossed out," Raven warned, the corner of her mouth twitching up slightly as she shoved the tunic back at him.
"No child in my care has ever caught pneumonia, and you would not be the first," Eeth said dismissively. "Now I do not want to hear another word out of you until we have all finished eating."
Conrad frowned at Eeth, pulled on Raven's spare tunic, took a mouthful of soup, swallowed and said, "Word!"
Eeth's eyes narrowed. "If you insist on being insolent, you may wash your shirt yourself after dinner and think about your attitude while you do," he said coolly. "Until you do, let me eat my dinner in peace. If I have to remind you one more time, you will not like the consequences."
Conrad stopped eating his soup for a moment and met the Jedi with a surprised expression, but instead of spouting a smartass reply he hesitated. "But I wasn't the one who messed up my shirt. It's not fair that I have to clean it," he said.
"Well, you would not have to wash it if you did not insist on disturbing everyone's dinner," Eeth said in a tone of voice that clearly suggested he was running out of patience. "End of discussion – unless you want to go over my knee."
Conrad folded his arms. "Is that your solution to every argument? Do as I say or I'll spank you until you do?"
"Yes," said Eeth without humour. "Do you want to test me on this?"
Conrad did not. Cowed, the boy shook his head, pulled on his jacket to camouflage the small of Raven's tunic somewhat and finished the soup without comment. He had never washed a garment in his life, let alone attempted to remove a soup stain from one whilst camped out in the middle of nowhere. Besides, he had fifty shirts at home, he thought. Who cared if one got a stain on it? Certainly not him. He'd throw it in his hamper and use another one.
Once they had finished eating, Eeth told Conrad, "Go and wash your shirt. My padawan can show you how to do it."
When it looked like Conrad was about to offer up some protest or snide remark that Raven knew would end in tears, at least for Conrad, she snagged her pack and grabbed his arm. "Come on, let's go," she said, practically dragging the kid from their shelter.
"I am capable of walking, you needn't drag me," Conrad protested when they were out of what he perceived as hearing range for a Zabrak. "He has no right to threaten me, you know, and when we get back, I'm going to report him to my father."
Personally, Raven thought that he had been exceedingly lucky to have gotten away with a warning. If it had been her, Eeth would have been a lot quicker to start swatting, she knew. Still, she didn't think further antagonising Conrad by pointing out his good fortune would go over well. Instead, she busied herself looking for a place to sit where they wouldn't get wet pants. "Over here," the girl said, brushing snow from a large flat rock and gesturing that he sit.
"I don't want to clean this, it's pointless. I have fifty just like it back home," Conrad said in exasperation.
"If there is one thing I am sure of, it's that nothing my master assigns is pointless," she said, ignoring the mutinous expression on the boy's face. "The sooner you do this, the sooner we can go back inside where it's warm." Raven summoned the shirt from where he'd tossed it and pulled a small bar of soap and a flask from the pack.
Fifteen minutes later a less agitated Gelis preceded Raven into their shelter, grasping his newly washed shirt that was still dripping a little from his efforts at wringing it out. "Here, good as new," Conrad announced, holding it up as if it were some sort of talisman.
"Well done," said Eeth. "Let me help you wring it out properly, else it will not be dry by tomorrow morning." He stepped in front of the door and effortlessly wrung the remaining water from the shirt. Then he stepped back inside and hung it up to dry.
"Are you up for a sparring session?" he asked Raven. "We should be safe here, and we have not practised in quite a while."
"I always am," Raven replied with a huge grin on her face.
"Would you like to watch?" Eeth asked Conrad.
"Would I like to watch, is that a serious question?" he asked back. He was already heading outside. Conrad was tired of being pent up, and getting to see the Jedi use their lightsabers was a thrill he had not anticipated.
"Well, you might have opted to sleep instead," Eeth said, his face unmoved. He and Raven went to the clearing in front of their shelter and took up positions opposite each other. "Padawan, before we start, do you sense any predators near here?" Eeth asked. "I do not but your sense of animals is better than mine."
Raven paused for a moment and closed her eyes. "Just rodents," she replied confidently.
Eeth nodded in acknowledgment. That was what he had thought, too.
They bowed to each other, took a ready stance, ignited their sabers and, at Eeth's command, started to spar. The snow-covered, uneven ground, with its many hidden holes and branches, meant that they had to be very careful and draw on the Force in order to avoid accidents. Eeth felt that this would do both of them good.
Conrad watched the match with great interest. He'd heard stories about Jedi before but secretly thought there was some exaggeration going on. There wasn't, he now realised. By the time they'd finished, the boy was transfixed. He wanted to see more. It was like watching a circus to him. He wished that he had some way of recording this to show his friends, but Greyhym's men had been diligent and taken everything not essential for life or dignity from him. He wanted to try one of the lightsabers so bad that the words were practically written across his forehead when the two Jedi approached. His request was denied, of course, but Conrad was not deterred. However, he was side-tracked asking questions, questions that continued long into the night and didn't stop until Eeth ordered him silent so they could sleep.