Your mother dries her hands on her apron. That apron hangs from the tie at her waist and is more of a constant than your father's snoring. It is white, starched and smells of citrus and rosemary...two of the things that your kitchen is never without. She leans around the door frame, her small body barely clearing the jam. The knot of dark hair at the nape of her neck swings as she draws her body back to face you.
With a sigh you shake your head. "Momma...stop..."
"A Jedi....in this house." She clucks her tongue and quickly walks back to the cooking station. The stool that you sit on is hard and cool against your legs. When you had entered the house, you had shed your wet, sticky and earthen smelling skirt for a loose fitting pair of pants and a cotton shirt and the wood is easily felt through the material. "I must cook something for him..."
"He won't want any more than you will cook for the rest of us, Momma." You put down the red-striped dragon beans that you hold in your hands.
Your mother clucks her tongue. "His Master is at the Grand House, apparently he is a Jedi Master of some prestige. And how do you know, Tira, what he will or will not want...you have just met him." She spins and grabs a bowl of buttermilk and some of the greens that you had picked. The boar's roast is in the oven, and from where you sit you can hear the snapping of the spit. Its strong odor makes your mouth water.
Sliding down from the stool, you walk around the door. For some reason, although Qui-Gon represents a guest in your house, you are walking around barefoot, an insult in situations such as this. As you clear the doorjam, you hear your mother's exasperated sigh at your state of dress. But you continue to walk as though you had not heard her.
"Yes, Master, but...."
"Stay there you will. Get you at the bonfire I will. Learn you will, not to dally and learn you will to pay heed to directions."
"Yes, Master...but..."
"Silence, Jinn."
"Yes, Master."
The screen went black before Qui-Gon's form. His head was bowed and his chestnut/copper braid of hair at his back sweeps forward over his shoulder. His feet are spread and his hands are folded in front of his chest.
"Qui-Gon, are you meditating, or are you just unaware that the transmission is over?" You ask, leaning back against the wall to the right of the doorway. From inside the kitchen, you hear your name muttered in exasperated tones.
"Neither...." He raises his head to look at you and smiles. In the golden light of the lamps, his skin seems darker, but his eyes seem that much more deep and...well...deep then they were outside. His eyes waver from yours to glance at the door and the kitchen beyond. "Just suffering from chastisement. Your mother appears to be going through great pains to cook a meal for me...she does not need to do that..."
You glance over your shoulder. All you catch glimpse of is your mother's sapphire blue skirt as it swirls in the air current as she ducks back around the door. "She feels we are honored by your presence in this house."
"And you don't think so..." he raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow into the short blond tipped strands of hair at his brow.
"I think we are honored by any guest, not just you...but I feel...very..." you shrug and rub the arch of your bare right foot into the calf of your left leg. The friction makes you want to squirm.
"Bothered? Put out?" He supplies, turning so that you are faced with his body. The woven strands of his tunic now appear metallic in nature: white gold and pewter perched upon a cut opal stone. It is so clean, so bright that the black mud covered surface of his boots is a startling contrast that makes what you see that much more surreal.
"At home," you answer. "Are you messing with my mind, Qui-Gon?" You know you should feel more...private... less revealing around this Jedi apprentice, but knowing and acting are two very different things. From inside the kitchen, you hear a low sigh and the clatter of a spoon as it is dropped into a pot. The boar roast is cooking well, and you can smell the mixture of herbs and juice as it wafts out of the kitchen like a mist on the morning wind.
"I have no reason to...yet..." he answers. He moves forward to stand only inches from you. You know that he does it both to test your boundaries (others do this at school often) and to speak to you privately. "Is there anything that I can do to put your mother at ease? Her agitation is causing quite a whirlpool in the Force."
You look down at your hands. The red juice from the dragon beans is under your nails and the bitter smell of fresh uncooked vegetable is powerful. "What do you know of food preparation, Jedi?"
"Enough not to starve," Qui-Gon answers. "Please tell me that you have something I can do in there. Anymore uptight and your mother will snap like a twig."
"Then I will introduce you to dragon beans, Qui-Gon," you lift your hand to wave the bean covered tips at him. "But you have to promise me that you will introduce me to this Master of yours at the bonfire when we deliver you there."
"Have you ever met a Dagobanian?" Jinn moves around you to glance in the kitchen. His sapphire sea eyes sweep around the interior as if sizing for a fight. "If not, do not let his size influence what you think. He is extremely powerful in the Force."
"I know about the Force, Qui-Gon, but only what they teach us at class. I don't have any thoughts on how to manipulate it or how to use it. And if I let looks influence me...I would have left you on the path..." you answer, turning your back to him. Yes, you like this boy. He is like you in many ways and does not judge by what he sees or hears as easy as others that you know. You have few friends since you have had to leave the town to study and since others judge you by your situation and not your personality now.
"Big words, small person..." he waggles a finger at you, treating you like a young sister. "It is not a good combination. But thank you for bringing me here. I have often wondered what life was like in the worker class of Alderaan."
You frown and sweep your hand wide. "Welcome then." After a minute, you allow your lips to break into a smile and it pulls at the corner of your mouth and chin. You like the feeling of smiling. "We will be eating in a half a standard hour and then we will go to the bonfire. My brothers and my father will be here soon."
"A large family?" he asks, as you turn and allow him to follow you into the kitchen. The wood underfoot settles with your footsteps and creaks with his. The boots click loudly on the grained surface and you know that he could never be quiet in this house. Your mother's back stiffens as the two of you enter the room. Qui-Gon takes a deep breath and sighs lowly, ruffling the hair on the top of your head.
"I have four brothers, all older." You show him to a stool and pick up a handful of beans. He follows your example, although the green and red molted surface of the large beans looks pale and their size small in his hands.
"A large family." He nods, watching you break beans and follows suit, doing what you do. The snap of his beans is louder than yours as it is apparent that he puts much more force behind the action. You sigh as you feel the juice and seeds from the beans glance at your skin. A stiff breeze comes in through the window and the curtain sweeps in to graze your back. You can hear your father's deep voice and the echo of your brothers' answers to his statement as they walk up the path. The crunch of the sticks and broken shells that line and create the path to your home lets you know that they approach. The hearth and home will be complete once more.
**
The roar of the fire is loud. It has always drawn you close, this marvel of nature...fire. Why it crackles when small...just allowing ash to rise and dance above it... and roars when large when the smoke is billowed, rolled and thrown aloft...has always been a mystery to you. But it is the power to reduce living tissue to ash, to reduce a tree that has taken nature centuries to grow to a pile of soot in such a short time, which draws you.
Before your older brothers have cleared the dune, you can see the cast of red and orange as it rises above the sand like a sunrise. You slide, trying in vain to keep up with their larger and more agile feet and legs. The granules of sand push through your toes, moving like liquid instead of solid, until you stand at the pinnacle of the sea lining mountain. Below you, around the fire, dance people, just mere shadows... ephemeral beings that have no substance. The shrill of the flute, like the call of a bird, and the pounding beat of a drum, like the pounding of the surf, is barely heard over the roar of that living, breathing, mountain of flame.
"Don't just stand there, Tira!" Lindal yells, as he slides down the other side of the dune. "The last one to the fire is always the one left out of the dances and the one that does not get any starfruit!"
You shake your head at the insistence of your oldest brother. At twenty, he uses the harvest festival as a time to dally with women, looking for a wife. He does not understand that this...this watching of the fire, the smell of the sea and the fruit...watching the swirling, dancing people makes you ache with happiness. You need no more to make this night perfect. This is what you have wanted to experience for years.
Qui-Gon flies past you, his boots slipping and sliding on the sand like a pebble tossed on a stream. He stops half way down and turns to glance up at you. His tunic, its ecru and tan now hues of red and orange, make him seem like an ember himself. He moves his shoulder as Hagdar, the closest brother to you in age, crests the dune and rockets by him.
"She is like that, Padawan Jinn," Hag addresses Qui-Gon properly, using his full title. "She will try and absorb everything into her being, sights, sounds, smells, until there is nothing left. I wouldn't be surprised if she is still there when the bonfire is nothing but ash. She has her head in another place too often..."
Qui-Gon nods to let Hag know he has heard him. You let your eyes run over the two of them and let them return to the glorious inferno in front of you. Let them both say what they will...they don't understand what it is you see, you FEEL when you look around you...
Your thoughts, vicious as they are, are cut off as Qui-Gon suddenly grabs your arm. His feet barely hold him up as he fights to keep them from sliding down the granule covered hill. "It's life, Tira. It is always here, but stand and watch it and you will miss it. I know what you see. What you feel...."
"Get out of my head, Qui-Gon," you turn your head to pin him with your gaze. You know that there are sparks flying out of your eyes, that they are akin to the fire below you. "I don't see the Force..."
"You see life." He answers, his hand tightening on your elbow. "And I know that you think that others don't see it, but they do, they just choose to let it pass without acknowledging it. And I will not read your mind again, my apologies." You can feel the power in his hand, so different now then earlier that day.
You don't know whether to yell at him or not. You don't know him. You don't have any knowledge of him, but suddenly he seems to be closer to you than others, than your own family. He knows what you think. He knows you...and for some reason, he seems to be the only rope that is tethering you to the shore in storm. Intelligence would dictate that you walk away from him, but you find that you are unable. There is something kindred in him that draws you in and anchors you. Whether you like it or not, this Jedi Apprentice is your friend and has been since he knocked you down on that path earlier that day.
And you know that this sudden friendship is a surprise to him. You know it as surely as the sun will rise in the morning. He is as unaccustomed to finding someone to talk to as you are. It is not that you are friendless, but here in the town, you are. It is only in the ivy covered sanctum of your school that you find others like you. And it is only in that elusive Temple of Jedi somewhere on Coruscant that he has friends as well. This place, this situation is neither for either of you. And as such, it serves as a place that is strange and new to both of you.
"We will miss the fruit," he states, holding your elbow in a vice of a grip.
"After all you just ate, Padawan Jinn?" You answer, squinting at him. In the fire, his hair and eyes seem to be alive, as though they are only attached to him, but have a life of their own.
"My Master will tell you that I am a growing Jedi," he retorts, tugging on your arm. "Just remember what you see, enjoy what you see...and it will all be there for you in your memories."
You shake your head. He is right about the fruit. Your brothers will eat all they can just to spite you. "True...you have a habit of that, Qui-Gon...always being right..."
"Please...tell that to my Master. He would just love to know that." His smile and the toss of his head and roll of his eyes make you smile.
"Speaking of your Master..." you turn to look at the groups of people removed from the fire. The lack of proximity to the flames casts them in hues of black instead of making them seem...formless.
"He is off to the side, about forty or so paces from the fire with the elder of your town. Your father is there as well. I should hurry and make myself presented to him." Qui-Gon's eyes are closed and he squints. "My Master wants to meet you as well."
"Well..." you sigh, allowing Qui-Gon's tugs to move you down the dune. You slide along side of him and the both of you stumble out of the tendrils of sand that surround the mountain of pulverized quartz. As you reach the bottom, you are assaulted with a mixture of aromas that you are sure you will never forget: ash and flames, fruit and sea...and just that hint of summer breeze that lends freshness to everything it touches.
"Let's not keep him waiting."
**
Waiting is something that Master Yoda could do forever, you decide as you stand in front of him. Qui-Gon is standing in front of you, half shadowing you with his lanky form. His feet are still encased in the black form of his boots and their dark hue is so far removed from the white of your bare feet that you are almost startled from it. But you are not as startled by that as you are the small Jedi Master, Yoda. He barely reaches Qui-Gon's hip in height, is green and wrinkled with a shock of snow white hair. He is, as Qui-Gon said, definitely a Dagobanian.
"Lost you were."
"Yes, Master. I helped Tira; I had knocked her down, Master...it was the least that I could do. And I did use the time to learn something of the culture here." From behind him, you can only hear the dusting of Qui-Gon's voice, the low tones are clear, but the high tones are lost on the breeze.
"Lost you were, and found you did a path. Not the right path, padawan, but a path you found."
"Yes, Master."
"Welcome at their house you are, Padawan, during our stay here."
"Thank you, Master."
"And visit you may, a friend it seems that you have made. Complete your katas and meditations you must before join them you can." The small Jedi Master thumped his stick on the ground impatiently, leaning on it unnecessarily. You glance around Qui-Gon to look at the small Jedi Master. His ears, like giant funnels are pointed at right angles from his head as you study him. "Consider this a time of lessons in life, Padawan, you should."
"Yes, Master."
Yoda's mouth folds in on itself as he stares at his padawan. "Then go, Qui-Gon. Learn this harvest celebration, you should. See you at our quarters in three hours, I will."
Qui-Gon bends at his waist, tucking his hands together against his chest. It is a low bow designed to show respect. He rights himself quickly and turns to face you. You are startled by his quick turn and you blink.
"I have three hours," he states unnecessarily.
"So I heard," you answer, nodding slowly. You can see your father shaking his head at your impertinence. But it seems natural to react to this Jedi in this manner, and he would want you to react in nothing less then completely natural ways to him. This you know.
"Then show me what there is here..." he answers back, lowering his hand to catch at your elbow. Your raised eyebrow makes him stop and he sighs. "Please?"
You nod again, letting his hand curl into your elbow. "Let's find my brothers...."
With a sigh you shake your head. "Momma...stop..."
"A Jedi....in this house." She clucks her tongue and quickly walks back to the cooking station. The stool that you sit on is hard and cool against your legs. When you had entered the house, you had shed your wet, sticky and earthen smelling skirt for a loose fitting pair of pants and a cotton shirt and the wood is easily felt through the material. "I must cook something for him..."
"He won't want any more than you will cook for the rest of us, Momma." You put down the red-striped dragon beans that you hold in your hands.
Your mother clucks her tongue. "His Master is at the Grand House, apparently he is a Jedi Master of some prestige. And how do you know, Tira, what he will or will not want...you have just met him." She spins and grabs a bowl of buttermilk and some of the greens that you had picked. The boar's roast is in the oven, and from where you sit you can hear the snapping of the spit. Its strong odor makes your mouth water.
Sliding down from the stool, you walk around the door. For some reason, although Qui-Gon represents a guest in your house, you are walking around barefoot, an insult in situations such as this. As you clear the doorjam, you hear your mother's exasperated sigh at your state of dress. But you continue to walk as though you had not heard her.
"Yes, Master, but...."
"Stay there you will. Get you at the bonfire I will. Learn you will, not to dally and learn you will to pay heed to directions."
"Yes, Master...but..."
"Silence, Jinn."
"Yes, Master."
The screen went black before Qui-Gon's form. His head was bowed and his chestnut/copper braid of hair at his back sweeps forward over his shoulder. His feet are spread and his hands are folded in front of his chest.
"Qui-Gon, are you meditating, or are you just unaware that the transmission is over?" You ask, leaning back against the wall to the right of the doorway. From inside the kitchen, you hear your name muttered in exasperated tones.
"Neither...." He raises his head to look at you and smiles. In the golden light of the lamps, his skin seems darker, but his eyes seem that much more deep and...well...deep then they were outside. His eyes waver from yours to glance at the door and the kitchen beyond. "Just suffering from chastisement. Your mother appears to be going through great pains to cook a meal for me...she does not need to do that..."
You glance over your shoulder. All you catch glimpse of is your mother's sapphire blue skirt as it swirls in the air current as she ducks back around the door. "She feels we are honored by your presence in this house."
"And you don't think so..." he raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow into the short blond tipped strands of hair at his brow.
"I think we are honored by any guest, not just you...but I feel...very..." you shrug and rub the arch of your bare right foot into the calf of your left leg. The friction makes you want to squirm.
"Bothered? Put out?" He supplies, turning so that you are faced with his body. The woven strands of his tunic now appear metallic in nature: white gold and pewter perched upon a cut opal stone. It is so clean, so bright that the black mud covered surface of his boots is a startling contrast that makes what you see that much more surreal.
"At home," you answer. "Are you messing with my mind, Qui-Gon?" You know you should feel more...private... less revealing around this Jedi apprentice, but knowing and acting are two very different things. From inside the kitchen, you hear a low sigh and the clatter of a spoon as it is dropped into a pot. The boar roast is cooking well, and you can smell the mixture of herbs and juice as it wafts out of the kitchen like a mist on the morning wind.
"I have no reason to...yet..." he answers. He moves forward to stand only inches from you. You know that he does it both to test your boundaries (others do this at school often) and to speak to you privately. "Is there anything that I can do to put your mother at ease? Her agitation is causing quite a whirlpool in the Force."
You look down at your hands. The red juice from the dragon beans is under your nails and the bitter smell of fresh uncooked vegetable is powerful. "What do you know of food preparation, Jedi?"
"Enough not to starve," Qui-Gon answers. "Please tell me that you have something I can do in there. Anymore uptight and your mother will snap like a twig."
"Then I will introduce you to dragon beans, Qui-Gon," you lift your hand to wave the bean covered tips at him. "But you have to promise me that you will introduce me to this Master of yours at the bonfire when we deliver you there."
"Have you ever met a Dagobanian?" Jinn moves around you to glance in the kitchen. His sapphire sea eyes sweep around the interior as if sizing for a fight. "If not, do not let his size influence what you think. He is extremely powerful in the Force."
"I know about the Force, Qui-Gon, but only what they teach us at class. I don't have any thoughts on how to manipulate it or how to use it. And if I let looks influence me...I would have left you on the path..." you answer, turning your back to him. Yes, you like this boy. He is like you in many ways and does not judge by what he sees or hears as easy as others that you know. You have few friends since you have had to leave the town to study and since others judge you by your situation and not your personality now.
"Big words, small person..." he waggles a finger at you, treating you like a young sister. "It is not a good combination. But thank you for bringing me here. I have often wondered what life was like in the worker class of Alderaan."
You frown and sweep your hand wide. "Welcome then." After a minute, you allow your lips to break into a smile and it pulls at the corner of your mouth and chin. You like the feeling of smiling. "We will be eating in a half a standard hour and then we will go to the bonfire. My brothers and my father will be here soon."
"A large family?" he asks, as you turn and allow him to follow you into the kitchen. The wood underfoot settles with your footsteps and creaks with his. The boots click loudly on the grained surface and you know that he could never be quiet in this house. Your mother's back stiffens as the two of you enter the room. Qui-Gon takes a deep breath and sighs lowly, ruffling the hair on the top of your head.
"I have four brothers, all older." You show him to a stool and pick up a handful of beans. He follows your example, although the green and red molted surface of the large beans looks pale and their size small in his hands.
"A large family." He nods, watching you break beans and follows suit, doing what you do. The snap of his beans is louder than yours as it is apparent that he puts much more force behind the action. You sigh as you feel the juice and seeds from the beans glance at your skin. A stiff breeze comes in through the window and the curtain sweeps in to graze your back. You can hear your father's deep voice and the echo of your brothers' answers to his statement as they walk up the path. The crunch of the sticks and broken shells that line and create the path to your home lets you know that they approach. The hearth and home will be complete once more.
**
The roar of the fire is loud. It has always drawn you close, this marvel of nature...fire. Why it crackles when small...just allowing ash to rise and dance above it... and roars when large when the smoke is billowed, rolled and thrown aloft...has always been a mystery to you. But it is the power to reduce living tissue to ash, to reduce a tree that has taken nature centuries to grow to a pile of soot in such a short time, which draws you.
Before your older brothers have cleared the dune, you can see the cast of red and orange as it rises above the sand like a sunrise. You slide, trying in vain to keep up with their larger and more agile feet and legs. The granules of sand push through your toes, moving like liquid instead of solid, until you stand at the pinnacle of the sea lining mountain. Below you, around the fire, dance people, just mere shadows... ephemeral beings that have no substance. The shrill of the flute, like the call of a bird, and the pounding beat of a drum, like the pounding of the surf, is barely heard over the roar of that living, breathing, mountain of flame.
"Don't just stand there, Tira!" Lindal yells, as he slides down the other side of the dune. "The last one to the fire is always the one left out of the dances and the one that does not get any starfruit!"
You shake your head at the insistence of your oldest brother. At twenty, he uses the harvest festival as a time to dally with women, looking for a wife. He does not understand that this...this watching of the fire, the smell of the sea and the fruit...watching the swirling, dancing people makes you ache with happiness. You need no more to make this night perfect. This is what you have wanted to experience for years.
Qui-Gon flies past you, his boots slipping and sliding on the sand like a pebble tossed on a stream. He stops half way down and turns to glance up at you. His tunic, its ecru and tan now hues of red and orange, make him seem like an ember himself. He moves his shoulder as Hagdar, the closest brother to you in age, crests the dune and rockets by him.
"She is like that, Padawan Jinn," Hag addresses Qui-Gon properly, using his full title. "She will try and absorb everything into her being, sights, sounds, smells, until there is nothing left. I wouldn't be surprised if she is still there when the bonfire is nothing but ash. She has her head in another place too often..."
Qui-Gon nods to let Hag know he has heard him. You let your eyes run over the two of them and let them return to the glorious inferno in front of you. Let them both say what they will...they don't understand what it is you see, you FEEL when you look around you...
Your thoughts, vicious as they are, are cut off as Qui-Gon suddenly grabs your arm. His feet barely hold him up as he fights to keep them from sliding down the granule covered hill. "It's life, Tira. It is always here, but stand and watch it and you will miss it. I know what you see. What you feel...."
"Get out of my head, Qui-Gon," you turn your head to pin him with your gaze. You know that there are sparks flying out of your eyes, that they are akin to the fire below you. "I don't see the Force..."
"You see life." He answers, his hand tightening on your elbow. "And I know that you think that others don't see it, but they do, they just choose to let it pass without acknowledging it. And I will not read your mind again, my apologies." You can feel the power in his hand, so different now then earlier that day.
You don't know whether to yell at him or not. You don't know him. You don't have any knowledge of him, but suddenly he seems to be closer to you than others, than your own family. He knows what you think. He knows you...and for some reason, he seems to be the only rope that is tethering you to the shore in storm. Intelligence would dictate that you walk away from him, but you find that you are unable. There is something kindred in him that draws you in and anchors you. Whether you like it or not, this Jedi Apprentice is your friend and has been since he knocked you down on that path earlier that day.
And you know that this sudden friendship is a surprise to him. You know it as surely as the sun will rise in the morning. He is as unaccustomed to finding someone to talk to as you are. It is not that you are friendless, but here in the town, you are. It is only in the ivy covered sanctum of your school that you find others like you. And it is only in that elusive Temple of Jedi somewhere on Coruscant that he has friends as well. This place, this situation is neither for either of you. And as such, it serves as a place that is strange and new to both of you.
"We will miss the fruit," he states, holding your elbow in a vice of a grip.
"After all you just ate, Padawan Jinn?" You answer, squinting at him. In the fire, his hair and eyes seem to be alive, as though they are only attached to him, but have a life of their own.
"My Master will tell you that I am a growing Jedi," he retorts, tugging on your arm. "Just remember what you see, enjoy what you see...and it will all be there for you in your memories."
You shake your head. He is right about the fruit. Your brothers will eat all they can just to spite you. "True...you have a habit of that, Qui-Gon...always being right..."
"Please...tell that to my Master. He would just love to know that." His smile and the toss of his head and roll of his eyes make you smile.
"Speaking of your Master..." you turn to look at the groups of people removed from the fire. The lack of proximity to the flames casts them in hues of black instead of making them seem...formless.
"He is off to the side, about forty or so paces from the fire with the elder of your town. Your father is there as well. I should hurry and make myself presented to him." Qui-Gon's eyes are closed and he squints. "My Master wants to meet you as well."
"Well..." you sigh, allowing Qui-Gon's tugs to move you down the dune. You slide along side of him and the both of you stumble out of the tendrils of sand that surround the mountain of pulverized quartz. As you reach the bottom, you are assaulted with a mixture of aromas that you are sure you will never forget: ash and flames, fruit and sea...and just that hint of summer breeze that lends freshness to everything it touches.
"Let's not keep him waiting."
**
Waiting is something that Master Yoda could do forever, you decide as you stand in front of him. Qui-Gon is standing in front of you, half shadowing you with his lanky form. His feet are still encased in the black form of his boots and their dark hue is so far removed from the white of your bare feet that you are almost startled from it. But you are not as startled by that as you are the small Jedi Master, Yoda. He barely reaches Qui-Gon's hip in height, is green and wrinkled with a shock of snow white hair. He is, as Qui-Gon said, definitely a Dagobanian.
"Lost you were."
"Yes, Master. I helped Tira; I had knocked her down, Master...it was the least that I could do. And I did use the time to learn something of the culture here." From behind him, you can only hear the dusting of Qui-Gon's voice, the low tones are clear, but the high tones are lost on the breeze.
"Lost you were, and found you did a path. Not the right path, padawan, but a path you found."
"Yes, Master."
"Welcome at their house you are, Padawan, during our stay here."
"Thank you, Master."
"And visit you may, a friend it seems that you have made. Complete your katas and meditations you must before join them you can." The small Jedi Master thumped his stick on the ground impatiently, leaning on it unnecessarily. You glance around Qui-Gon to look at the small Jedi Master. His ears, like giant funnels are pointed at right angles from his head as you study him. "Consider this a time of lessons in life, Padawan, you should."
"Yes, Master."
Yoda's mouth folds in on itself as he stares at his padawan. "Then go, Qui-Gon. Learn this harvest celebration, you should. See you at our quarters in three hours, I will."
Qui-Gon bends at his waist, tucking his hands together against his chest. It is a low bow designed to show respect. He rights himself quickly and turns to face you. You are startled by his quick turn and you blink.
"I have three hours," he states unnecessarily.
"So I heard," you answer, nodding slowly. You can see your father shaking his head at your impertinence. But it seems natural to react to this Jedi in this manner, and he would want you to react in nothing less then completely natural ways to him. This you know.
"Then show me what there is here..." he answers back, lowering his hand to catch at your elbow. Your raised eyebrow makes him stop and he sighs. "Please?"
You nod again, letting his hand curl into your elbow. "Let's find my brothers...."