KAYWANTHA
by Vicki Vance
Summary: A light mission for Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan turns out to require more involvement than originally planned. Ranges from deep drama to quip humor.
Rated PG-13
Disclaimer: I own nothing, so I am making no profit from this.
Author's note: You get a golden balloon if you can tell me what the meaning of a certain planet's name is. Here's a clue: it has nothing to do with Star Wars.
Pikinel woke slowly. Her mind was groggy and she felt no need to wake right away. She never did anyway because she stayed up late and woke up late, usually just in time for lunch. She had no use for an alarm chronometer.
Memory suddenly rushed back to her and her eyes snapped open. Great elders, she thought. She propped herself onto her elbows and saw the Jedi man sitting in the chair without a leg, apparently asleep. It was rather odd because he wasn't limp in the chair and the chair hadn't fallen over, in fact, he seemed to be keeping himself up by holding one foot stiffly on the floor.
She looked at the Jedi teen. He was curled up on the sagging sofa, sound asleep. Pikinel frowned. Didn't that sofa have a loose, sharp spring poking out of it? She saw the pointed spring on the beside table. He'd probably ripped it out when he'd realized it'd jab into his rear. Or perhaps it already had.
She grinned and wondered why the thought of something pointy in that young man's buttocks entertained her so much. He wasn't that attractive, even considering she'd learn to look past adolescent pimples. He wasn't exactly the most intelligent young man she'd met. He'd said some things about her father that made her feel awful.
He was, however, a pretty nice guy. He'd saved her from the rebels, carried her all the way back to her apartment and treated her wounds. He'd done it all without complaining or making her feel like a burden.
Now that she watched him closely, the way his face was so peaceful, the way he lay all curled up and even the way he breathed so quietly made him seem so innocent and sweet. She'd love to go over to him and give him a little kiss on the part of his cheek that was acne-free, but just light enough so he wouldn't wake up, so he'd dream about it.
She shook her head. Why should she be getting all mushy about him? She barely knew him. She could hardly remember his name.
But then again, he slept like a baby...
A baby with zits, she reminded herself.
She looked back at the man Jedi and couldn't decide if he was asleep or not. As she contemplated it he suddenly opened his eyes as if he'd simply been sitting waiting for her to wake up and smiled kindly.
"Did you sleep well?" he asked.
Too shocked to try to evade the question, she answered quietly, "Uh-huh..."
"Good," he said, giving a little nod. "Anything I can get for you?"
"No..."
"Oh," he said, a bit put off. "Well, I'll get you some water, anyway."
He got up, didn't stretch, and went immediately to her kitchen. The chair beneath him fell towards the place where the leg had been once and it crashed to the floor. The teen Jedi started awake, grabbed his lightsaber from his belt, looked over at the furniture wreckage, sighed, and got up from the sagging couch to stand beside his Master, who was pouring water from the tap.
"Did she say anything while I was asleep?" he asked in a low voice Pikinel could hear nonetheless.
"No," Qui-Gon answered, dumping the yellowish water back in the sink and turning to the miniature refrigerator.
"Shall I ask her some questions?" Obi-Wan asked.
"Just be mindful of her feelings and condition," Qui-Gon said, nodding.
Obi-Wan turned to her and smiled nervously as if he was approaching a rabid gundark. He sat beside her and examined her foot.
"Is it feeling any better?" he asked, gently prodding her ankle.
"A little bit," she answered.
"Looks like the swelling has gone down," he said, proceeding towards her forearms, which she had held in front of her face to protect it when the rebels had pummeled her with their fists.
"I'm sorry you've had to endure this," he commented. She said nothing, only watched him run his fingertips over the bluish bruises, frowning as if he could feel the pain.
"For your own sake," he said carefully. "To keep this from happening again, I'll ask you: where is Kaywantha?"
She pouted and looked away.
"We only want to help," Qui-Gon said, bringing a bottle of clear water. "We are Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace in the galaxy. We wouldn't be pressing the matter if we weren't in the pursuit of serenity."
Pikinel frowned and finally met Qui-Gon's cool gaze with her own fiery stare.
"My father brought this upon himself and me," she said. "It's his own fault that I got hurt."
"Your father cares for you very much," Qui-Gon told her.
Her gaze faltered and she balled her hand into a fist. She mumbled something that sounded very much like, "No he doesn't."
"When morning comes, we'll take you back to your father," Qui-Gon said. Pikinel opened her mouth to say something but Qui-Gon wouldn't let her. "And we'll see if you still want to stay with him. If not, we can take you home to Mebyl."
Rebine Roemohn was a heavy sleeper. When night fell, he took full advantage of the loss of light and slept through it in much the same way a hibernating gundark would. Even after fitful nightmares of Pikinel's angry face yelling at him, he still slept through the nights.
Except for this one. After all, it is hard to sleep when the commphone keeps ringing.
He hauled himself up from bed, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and picked up the receiver. Where was the wimpy aide when he needed him?
"'Ello?" he grumbled.
"Pardon the disturbance, senator," a man on the other end said. "It's Qui-Gon Jinn."
"Qui-Gon?" the senator said, collecting his sleepy thoughts. "Oh, yes. Hello. How are you?"
Roemohn glanced at the chronometer and mentally moaned at the ungodly hour.
"I'm fine," the Jedi answered. "I have news. My Padawan and I have found your daughter and you'll see her tomorrow."
"Really? My Pikinel? That's wonderful!"
"Yes, I know," Qui-Gon said, not encouraging him, but calming him with his tone. "You must understand this is almost completely against her will."
"Yes, yes," he said, his energy leaking away slowly.
"Something else, senator, you must know about your daughter," Qui-Gon said seriously. "Mebyli rebels tried to get the jewel from her and she sustained some mild injury."
Roemohn's jaw dropped. His baby Pikinel hurt by filthy rebels? Such a sacrilege on her innocent beauty was unthinkable.
"She was conscious enough to direct my Padawan and I to her apartment," he continued gently. "She felt most safe and comfortable there. We'll be here until morning, resting and recovering. Please, don't worry. She's safe with us."
"Can I please speak to her?" he asked weakly. He heard the silence as the Jedi hesitated.
"Yes," he said. "Here she is."
He heard the clatter of hands on the commphone and a girl said in the distance "He does, does he?" and someone else say, "Do you really want to hurt him like this? He's not as tough as you and you need to treat him so." Then there was a brief silence.
"Dad?" came Pikinel's soft voice, as if she didn't want the nearby Jedi to hear.
"Pikinel baby?" Roemohn said. "I've missed you, princess. I haven't heard your voice for so long. Oh, honey, I've missed you so much."
"Yeah, well," she sputtered, as if she was about to cry. "I don't. I think it's stupid what you're doing and I want to hear you say you'll give the jewel back right away."
"Nelly, I never wanted anything like to happen," he said.
"Well, it did happen," she said, her voice sounding wet like tears. "I'm all beat up because of you.. You know, I'm lucky I wasn't raped-"
From beyond the immediate area of the commphone Roemohn heard Qui-Gon say, "That's enough, Pikinel." There was another clatter as Qui-Gon took the phone in his hands.
"She really misses you," he assured him gently.
"I know she does," Roemohn said, trying to dry out his own voice.
"We'll bring her back tomorrow and then we'll find the jewel," he assured him.
"Thank you very much," Roemohn said. "Please say goodnight to Pikinel for me."
He hung up after Qui-Gon said "I will." He stared at the commphone, trying not to think of Pikinel's cold, breaking voice. He tried not to imagine his little girl bruised from dirty rotten rebels. He tried to think of her smile, the way her light brown eyes twinkled when she laughed.
Rebine Roemohn was a heavy sleeper. He lay down in bed, expecting the dark wave of sleep to overpower him fairly soon. It didn't come. Not once throughout the remainder of the night did sleep still his troubled mind. In the morning his pillow wasn't wet from the usual drool, the by-product of deep sleep. It was wet with tears.
The Jedi and Pikinel walked up to a taxi stop the next morning and waited for it to arrive. Pikinel kept staring at the ground, imagining a hole to suddenly appear and let her fall through and out of where she was and onto the stage back as Bass Beat Club. The big, fading yellow taxi whooshed to a stop beside the platform and the doors creaked open. Beings flooded out and beings flooded in. Pikinel got to sit down next to a cranky-looking Human grandmother and the Jedi stood up in he aisles around her. She kept her head down, staring at her knees.
Obi-Wan's overactive empathy make him feel compelled to comfort her. He put a hand on her shoulder and he felt her tension at being touched. Obi-Wan wished so much he hadn't done it, but also felt compelled to keep his hand where it was for her sake. He finally gave it a gentle squeeze and took his hand away, hoping it hadn't been too embarrassing but thinking nonetheless that it was.
Qui-Gon observed all this from the corner of his eye with amusement. It was hard to tell if Obi-Wan had an inclination towards the senator's daughter or if he was merely sympathetic. He'd like to think it was the former, but by the way Pikinel looked so pitiful and bruised it was obviously the latter.
The taxi dropped them off near the Senatorial buildings and they flowed out with the crowd into the roundabout junction. They took the left middle fork, towards the private quarters of the senators.
Pikinel had been limping slightly because of her swollen foot and hadn't complained about it at all and the Jedi kept at a slow pace to make her feel less burdensome. Now she slowed down to a complete stop, sitting at a public bench. Qui-Gon stood above her as she rubbed her food.
"My foot hurts," she explained, as if it wasn't obvious enough.
"I know that's not the only reason," Qui-Gon said, his tone partly between gentleness and reprimanding. "But if you please, we'll wait for a few minutes."
The Jedi didn't sit down; they didn't want to put off meeting the senator any longer than they had to. Qui-Gon could feel Pikinel burning with apprehension and embarrassment. She finally held her chin up, set her face, and nodded.
"Let's go," she said firmly. She stood and walked in front of them and they walked on either side of her, like bodyguards. The guard at the gate didn't ask for identification and Qui-Gon couldn't tell if he'd recognized them or her.
When they came to door 241, Qui-Gon knocked and the door immediately opened. Rebine Roemohn had been waiting by the door for them and he looked like he was about to explode with relief.
He saw his daughter, saw the marks on her face and arms, saw how she refused to stand on one of her feet, and saw the joyless expression on her face. Uttering a quiet word of thanks, he reached out and held her with surprising gentleness.
"I've missed you, baby," he told her.
"I know, daddy," she said, her voice garbled with tears. Qui-Gon sensed an almost instant change in emotion in Pikinel when she saw the state her father was in.
"I'm going," Roemohn said slowly, thinking as he went. "To take you shopping and we'll get some nice clothes and make-up and computer games and we'll go out wherever you want to dinner."
The Jedi stood awkwardly in the doorway as the Mebyli hugged each other. They pulled apart slightly and Pikinel saw Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan watching them and, reminding herself she was mad at her father, withdrew from him and hugged her arms around herself.
"Pikinel," Qui-Gon said. "Where is Kaywantha?"
She paused, looking at her father with sad defeat. "It's in the Bass Beat Rock Club. In my dressing room. I hid it on top of the tallest dresser."
"We'll bring it back as soon as we can," Qui-Gon promised them gently.
"You know, I've seen a lot of hard stuff," Obi-Wan said late that night as he and Qui-Gon walked the dark streets of Coruscant. "I've seen war, drought, starvation, raw pain. But I've never seen anything like that. Pain like that isn't natural and it runs so deep. It's..."
"It's just plain sad," Qui-Gon said.
Obi-Wan nodded in agreement. They had reunited the senator and his daughter over twelve hours ago and they were only now talking about it.
"When we return the jewel I believe the Roemohn's will be happy again," Qui-Gon said. "Or they'll at least start to heal."
Up ahead of them on the dark, narrow street they saw the neon sign that read Bass Beat Rock Club. Beings were filing out of it, showing it was closing up.
"Now," Obi-Wan said. "It's dark in there. And it may be loud, too. There's lots of stoner kids and girls wearing next to nothing. Just giving you-"
"Fair warning?" Qui-Gon asked. "Don't worry, Obi-Wan. It's not like I've never been inside a nightclub before."
Obi-Wan blinked in surprised and abruptly stopped walking. Every brain cell strained, tried will all the power he possessed, worked until it hurt, but he couldn't imagine a young Qui-Gon Jinn in that kind of place. His Master half-turned and gave him a little smile. He began to walk again, now wondering what the reason was that compelled his Master to go into such an un-Jedi and definitely un-Qui-Gon like place.
Obi-Wan expected the Trandoshen to refuse them entrance; they had no membership card, the club was closed and Qui-Gon was too old. But with a simple pass of Qui-Gon's hand and a strong rumble of the Force let them enter without difficulty. Obi-Wan directed Qui-Gon to Pikinel's room which was still broken from when Obi-Wan had slashed it with his lightsaber.
The looked up briefly at the tallest dresser, estimating and planning. Obi-Wan dragged a footstool over and Qui-Gon stepped onto it, peering at the dresser top.
"Hey!" a voice said from the door. Obi-Wan saw it was the surly Trandoshen he'd learn to dread. He froze on the spot, wishing suddenly and quite stupidly that he and Qui-Gon were invisible.
"Jusht what do you think you're doing in Pike'sh room?" he asked, rather loudly. Obi-Wan couldn't even blink. He knew at any moment the Trandoshen would turn his head and yell for his burly Wookiee companion in security.
His mind suddenly unfroze when he thought of how dirty his robes would get if they'd throw him out when they'd get a hold of him.
"Nothing that would concern you," Obi-Wan said firmly, using the Force to affect his mind. He hoped the Trandoshen was used to being ordered, or at least had no mental power. How much brain power could it take to push people around and toss them outside when told it's closing time?
The Trandoshen blinked at him slowly, carefully, as if trying to figure out the square root of four-thousand, seven-hundred sixty-one (which is, after all, sixty-nine).
"Why don't you just take a nap?" Obi-Wan suggested, bringing the Force the bear again, as strong as he could manage without losing control of it.
"I'll jusht take nap," he said suddenly. He promptly sat down against the doorframe and closed his eyes. Seconds later he was snoring.
Letting out a breath of relief, Obi-Wan dragged him into the room, out of the view of people outside and closed the door. Qui-Gon jumped off the stool and observed the Trandoshen.
"Well done," he said. "But the effort is wasted. The jewel isn't here."
"Shall we look around for it?" Obi-Wan asked, glancing about at the random tidbits in the room.
"Might as well," Qui-Gon said. "As long as we're here."
They proceeded to paw through Pikinel's belongings. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan both felt like they were violating her privacy, but they looked anyhow. Under the dressers, on top of the ceiling fan, beside the chronometer, inside the dirty rainbow toe socks, absolutely everywhere in the room.
Qui-Gon stood up with his hands on his hips.
"I don't think it's here," he said frankly.
They heard someone speaking from outside. In a flash, Obi-Wan hid himself inside the armoire and Qui-Gon buried himself under the pile of animal hides. Through the door crack in the armoire, Obi-Wan saw three red-skinned men enter the room.
Obi-Wan sucked in a breath. The Trandoshen was snoring near the door. They hadn't hid him. Maybe, he hoped, they won't notice him.
Unfortunately, the cowardly Mebyli, who's head jerked around as if trying to see everything at once, saw him immediately and squeaked, grabbing his friend's sleeve.
"What is it, Jerlen?" he asked, then spotted the reptilian bipedal on the floor. "Aww, Shitzen."
"He's sleeping," the brave one said, kneeling beside him. "Pretty soundly, too."
"I wanna go," the coward named Jerlen moaned. "I wanna go. I wanna go."
"Shut up, Jerlen," the brave one hissed. "He's probably just a narcoleptic guard."
Reacting to the silent order from Qui-Gon, the Jedi emerged in a flutter of cloth from their hiding places. Qui-Gon blocked the door and Obi-Wan helped corner them. Jerlen screamed, backed into the wall behind him, jerked as if the wall had been a rancor and slid down the wall whimpering. The brave one stood strong and the other watched the Jedi warily, half-expecting to get hurt at any time.
"What do you want?" the brave rebel asked.
"We can ask the same of you," Qui-Gon said.
"We came for Pikinel," he explained carefully.
"Why?" Qui-Gon asked.
"She has the jewel," he said. "Or she at least knows where it is."
He glanced about and asked, "She's not here, is she?"
"No," Qui-Gon said flatly. "Why do you want the jewel?"
He raised his chin and said, "An outsider like yourself wouldn't understand."
He kept eye contact with Qui-Gon's piercing blue eyes for several moments before he stepped aside from the door.
"Get out of here before I kill you," he said.
Running like the seat of his pants was on fire, Jerlen promptly exited through the door with the speed of a pod's engine. The other two followed cautiously and disappeared from sight.
"We should go back to Roemohn's quarters," Qui-Gon suggested, to which Obi-Wan nodded earnestly.
To Be Continued…