They leave mere hours later - the Jedi are renowned for travelling light. A space-scarred red transport rises slowly above the Coruscant skyline, solid and nondescript. It carries a crew of twenty, a large cargo of machine parts, a small, carefully hidden quantity of semi-contraband tropical plants, and two slightly tired Jedi.

Obi-Wan shrugs his robe from his shoulders and produces, from somewhere, a thick, leather-bound book. He hands it to Anakin.

The teenager frowns as he takes it, "What is it?"

Obi-Wan raises his eyebrows and Anakin looks down at the object in his own hands. He squints to read the faded black lettering, "A Short History of Hyspero." He opens the book carefully and flicks through thin, rustling pages.

"Which I expect you to have read by morning, Padawan."

"Master..." he begins, but Obi-Wan raises a hand to silence him.

"A Jedi is always prepared, Anakin. What if you were unwittingly to break a cultural taboo and cause some sort of incident? Again."

Anakin flinches, ever so slighty. "You know that was an accident, Master. How was I to know that-"

"Well, this time you will know." He smiles wickedly and turns towards the door.

"Aren't you going to help me?" Anakin looks confused. The book is suddenly a little heavier, the thin pages a little more numerous.

Obi-Wan doesn't turn around, calls over his shoulder; "I'm going to bed."

Hearing Anakin follow him, Obi-Wan stops at the doorway, spins round to face Anakin so suddenly that his apprentice almost stumbles into him.

"No." He stretches his arms out to block the entrance.

"I want to."

"Goodnight, Padawan".

* * * * *

"I like it here."

"Why?" They are in the streets, where they are unwanted and where they have no real reason to be. The closest Obi-Wan can find to reason is that Anakin is young and restless and doesn't want to spend their only free afternoon in a palace. "Palaces are boring," he'd complained. So here they are.

"There's no sand." Anakin grins, because in this hostile city he is in his element. He fits in best, Obi-Wan notes yet again, in places where he can never hope to never fit in. It's the strange mix of infamy and anonimity, being unusual makes the boy feel acceptable.

"I expect you to pick up a little more about this planet than the lack of sand, Padawan. Looks around you. Learn."

Anakin blinks at him. "Can't we just have fun? We have nothing better to do." Which isn't true, he knows, but he says it anyway. Obi-Wan had been becoming as claustrophobic as his Apprentice in the palace.

"Anakin if you were a little less worried about 'fun' and more concerned with..." He tails off.

Anakin sees his Master staring up at a red and yellow sign above the entrance to a canvas tent: Fortunes Told. "You have got to be kidding..."

Obi-Wan smiles at him. "Well, I have nothing better to do. It might be fun."

"Master..."

"Never be closed to local cultures Anakin. I won't be long." He produces some coins and hands them to Anakin. "Why don't you have a wander round, hmm? See what you can find."

"Oh, and Anakin?"

"Yes, Master?"

"Don't break anything."

The boy grins, "Yes, Master."

* * * * *

The fortune teller's tent is dark and cool. It smells of spices and lingering smoke. Obi-Wan finds it quaint. He smiles a little, but he wonders if this is a mistake. At best, the mystic can tell him a few stories and take his money, at worst he lends credence to a heresy. He realises that he is nervous.

"Eretychi."

He jumps at the sound. The reaction makes the old woman smile as she pulls the tent-flap closed. She shambles over to the pile of cushions at one side of the tent, half-sits, half-collapses onto them.

"Pardon?"

She gestures for him to sit, and he sinks onto the threadbare carpet crossing his legs under him.

"Eretychi. It's my name. Now tell me yours, boy." From somewhere in her layers of clothing she produces a pipe and lights it. She draws on it, breathes in deeply, then stares at him through a cloud of exhaled smoke.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi." He looks up as the smoke rises to mingle among the ribbons and feathers hanging from the ceiling of the tent. Very ethnic, he thinks, very traditional. The old bat probably lives in a high-rise in the suburbs. Does this all for the tourists.

"Your boy," she nods her head to one side to indicate the doorway, "He's got that Force of yours dripping off him."

"Yes." He is perfectly calm, now that he knows this all about illusion. Anakin is a Jedi, and this woman hasn't shown any magical insight.

"Frightening, isn't it?"

The skin on his back begins to chill as the tiny hairs along it lift from his skin. His heart beats slightly, almost imperceptibly faster. He forces the breath from his lungs. "The Force isn't frightening, Mother," he uses the honorific in the lightly condescending fashion of the young, "It never causes harm to any lifeform. It is benevolent."

She fixes him with a steady gaze, still smoking on her ridiculous pipe. "Is that what they teach you in that temple of yours?"

"Yes." Cold, almost aloof.

"Then may the gods protect us. You all running around the galaxy with your fancy laser swords and your silly haircuts and that's what you think you're serving. There's no hope for any of us, is there?"

* * * * *

Meanwhile, in the air and in the sunlight, Anakin stands on the corner of the street, trying to make up his mind. The Force is indeed dripping off him. It gathers in clumps and bundles, disperses into waves and swirls. Today it is green, with shades of violet. But Anakin does not know this, because this is not the way the Jedi think that the Force should be.

He looks up at the towers and the domes. The people of Hyspero have made their world beautiful by viewing every object as a work of art. The buildings are not simply shelters from the elements, they are poetry in stone and glass and metal and plastic. Wooden spires climb from concrete, copper mates with transparency. Hyspero is a popular destination for tourists.

Anakin is also, in his own way, a tourist. He decides that he wants to see some art.

* * * * *

TBC