'Twist' and 'Shout'
By Jemmiah
"What are you two up to?" Mace remarked, making his way forward through the regimented line of tables in the refectory, carrying a simple wooden tray in his hands. Steam seemed to issue from one of the bowls on the tray - probably soup of some kind, Qui-Gon thought as he watched Mace weave through the other padawans similarly laden with their lunch. He wondered idly what kind of soup it was, but then gave it up as a pointless exercise. It hardly mattered: all the soup in the refectory tasted the same. Some force-related trick, no doubt, passed down from generation to generation of temple cooks that rendered the spiciest Takkini identical to the blandest goural.
"What does he mean, up to? Is he insinuating something, Qui?" Dex Berlingside asked innocently with a deliberate pout of his lips. "If I didn't know any better I'd say Mace was suffering from extreme paranoia."
Windu placed his tray down on the table next to Qui-Gon, sitting opposite Dex so that he might keep an eye on him.
"With good reason, surely?" Mace replied firmly, running a hand over his newly cropped hair. "I know what YOU are like. I've come to expect it from you. But when I see him," he nodded towards Qui-Gon, "in cahoots with you - that is when I get worried."
"I don't have the faintest idea what you are talking about." Qui-Gon replied with the faintest trace of a smile. "When do I ever misbehave?"
"That's what has me worried." He pulled his chair towards the table with a scraping sound, his posture defensively rigid. "Anyhow, what are you both doing here at the same time? I thought your master always liked to keep tabs on your nutritional intake." Mace dipped his spoon into the reddish, pulpy mess that was masquerading as soup and stirred it gently, not wanting to disturb the sediment at the bottom for fear of discovering something even more unpleasant lurking beneath. "Won't get any nutrition here!"
"My master has a meeting with his former padawan. He's just returned from some kind of undercover mission which from what I gather lasted for an entire year!" Qui-Gon released a deep breath, not truly able at that point in time to comprehend being part of such a lengthy project. "It all sounds rather cloak and dagger to me. Still, as long as this Dooku can remember how to dodge Yoda's stick I'm sure he will be fine."
Mace made a protracted show of cooling his soup, blowing on the surface gently. Anything to put off the inevitable.
"And what about you?" He asked Dex with a frown. "Has Master Montal run out of cream cakes? Why are you slumming it with us lesser mortals? Don't tell me there's nothing left in that freighter-sized refrigeration unit of yours?"
Dex sat back in his seat and fixed Mace with a breezy smile.
"I had my lunch before I came down here. Do you think I'm totally mad?" He winked. "I thought I'd keep Qui company seeing as how he's on his own today. It certainly wasn't for the privilege of seeing you struggle to keep your food down." Dex made a show of peering at the still steaming bowl of gunge in front of Mace. "Say, what is that, anyway? Looks like candle wax consommé to me!"
Mace, who hadn't been terribly keen on eating his lunch in the first place, replaced the spoon into the bowl with an annoyed clatter.
"Thank you for your observations, unnecessary as they were." The padawan grumbled, eyeing Dex balefully. "As if this sorry excuse for brain food wasn't unpalatable enough without you adding to its nastiness."
Dex drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table worksurface. At fourteen years of age his young brain was at its most inventive: always quick to exploit new ways to have a little fun. Especially if that fun was at Mace's expense!
"It could be worse." Berlingside commented wryly after a while, waiting until Mace dared to pick up his spoon once again. "It could be gruel!"
"Gruel?" Mace repeated uncertainly. "What's that?"
"Gruel is an horrendous dish found on the outer reaches of the Dagobah system." Qui-Gon chimed in, pulling a disgusted face. "Master Yoda seems to think it helps a young padawan to grow."
"Certainly didn't work on him!" Laughed Mace, picturing a Wookiee sized Yoda towering over them armed with an incredibly long stick. "So, you've tried this gruel, have you? What's it made of?"
"Leftovers." Qui-Gon replied with distinct unenthusiasm. "Everything and anything that doesn't get eaten in the course of a week. Scraps, stale bits of meat, rotting vegetation..."
"Bit like the food here then." Mace murmured, fishing an unidentified foreign body from the side of his bowl.
Dex nodded sympathetically. "Of course, in all the old stories and holo serials, gruel is eaten by all the poor kids in orphanages. Only they get the grey, watery version with rancid strands of sea-slough floating in it..."
"Is he trying to make me ill?" Mace asked of Qui-Gon.
"...and then there was that famous story where the kids all drew lots, and the one with the shortest straw had to go up to the assistants and ask for more!" Dex's eyes grew theatrically large.
"Why would they do that if the food was as terrible as you say?" Mace demanded, clearly never having heard the story.
"Because," Qui-Gon interjected calmly, "the other orphan children put him up to it. And if he had backed out then they would have made his life a living hell."
Now THAT was something Mace could identify with. Trying not to appear too interested Windu leaned heavily against his right elbow, shoved the bowl of soup a few inches further away from him and began to scratch in a carefree manner at his left ear lobe.
"So what happened to him?" He asked with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
This time Dex replied with typical Corellian over-eagerness.
"He went up to the assistants, held his bowl out and asked them for more! Imagine that! Especially when orphans were supposed to be grateful for a roof over their heads, nevermind the meagre scraps they got by way of food! I kid you not," Dex held his hands out before him in an entreating manner, "he said 'please can I have some more' and then because he was sooooo greedy, he got thrown out of the orphanage!"
"Not very fair." Mace commented gruffly. "The other children must have known what would happen to him."
Dex and Qui-Gon exchanged swift and meaningful glances with one another.
"Yeah." Berlingside grinned. "I guess they must have. Do you mean to say you've never heard the story before? It's famous! Really Mace; you should read more!"
"I don't have time for such trivialities." Replied Mace firmly. "It's not going to help me become a better Jedi, is it?"
"You might learn a little compassion." Qui-Gon answered, coughing into his hand so that his words were all but covered over. Mace frowned at him, clearly wondering if he'd just been insulted. That said it was difficult to insult Mace: he was as thick-skinned as a Reek and twice as stubborn.
Berlingside snapped his fingers together as if an idea had just occurred to him.
"I know!" He exclaimed with unconcealed glee. "Why don't we draw straws to see who gets to go up to the cooks and ask for more food?"
"I'm fine with that." Qui-Gon consented.
"Have you taken leave of your senses?" Mace shrivelled Dex with a contemptuous glare, his braid almost becoming rigid with disgust. "Who in their right mind would willingly walk up to the likes of Master Wending and ask for second helpings? We'd get boiled in the soup vat for our temerity!"
"And it just so happens..." Dex fumbled for a moment inside his tunic top, "...that I have here a handful of straws...well, actually their stalks that I snatched from Master Quillan's gardens, but who cares? He'll never know!"
"Whaaaaat?!?" Mace let his mouth hang open in dismay. "He WILL know! He knows if you so much as trample on a single flower! And I've had enough confrontations with Quillan to last me three lifetimes! The man thinks I'm an idiot!"
"Well, that's him and everyone else in the temple." Dex offered cheerfully. "They can't all be wrong, can they?"
"Look here..." Mace began.
"As a concession to you Mace," Qui-Gon offered magnanimously, "we'll let you pick your straw first. The short one loses. Chances are it won't be you."
"But it might be!" Windu's indignant voice shot back.
"So? It might be me, or Qui." Replied Dex, seeding the idea in Mace's mind. "We're both willing to go up there and risk ridicule and death by soup ladle. It's as good a way as any to draw attention to the state of the disgusting food in this place, isn't it? A nice, peaceful protest that will ultimately be of benefit to the whole temple. What do you say?"
Mace mulled it over slowly. He'd been backed into a corner by his so-called friends: no wonder they had been as thick as thieves when he'd first encountered them mere minutes ago! Pre-picked stalks...stories of starving orphans? Whilst Mace was the first to admit he detested the refectory food he'd never felt he had the right to complain about it. Generations had undergone the same maltreatment at the hands of the kitchen workers. Why should it be any different to him, a mere padawan? Maybe when he was older and had a padawan of his own he might consider a tactful word in the ears of the council regarding the food standards, but until then he'd always thought it his lot in life to suffer with everyone else.
And yet...it was tempting. Tempting to see Qui-Gon or, especially, Dex getting into severe strife for their grandiose plans to reorganise an area of temple life that had really nothing to do with them. If they wanted to incur the wrath of Tuurith Wending and her ilk then he wanted to be there to see it happen! That and the fact he'd never live it down if he didn't agree...
"Very well." He said haughtily. "I accept your challenge. But I will be picking mine first."
"Suits me." Dex agreed, holding out a hand with three green stalk tips bunched within, all at equal height. It was impossible to tell which was which but Mace made a large show of considering his options, peering at Berlingside's clenched fingers from every conceivable angle.
"Oh, just pick one would you, Mace?" Qui-Gon sighed. "By the time you've finished I'll have been knighted!"
"Getting nervous that it might be you?" Mace smirked, his hand hovering over the stalk furthest away from him.
"No." Jinn replied honestly.
Mace's mouth curled up at the sides, his fingers twitching for a mere second over his chosen stalk before diving in for the critical choice. Subconsciously he licked his lips, pulling the little stem from Berlingside's grasp. For a moment he felt profound satisfaction that he had plucked up the courage to take Dex and Qui-Gon on at their own little game.
That feeling did not last long, however. Not when he looked down and saw for himself that -
"You've drawn the short straw!" Dex whooped, delighted. "Well done, Mace! A three to one chance of doing it and yet you still managed!"
Mace looked as if he'd been stunned by a Nerf prod, his eyes glazing over as he focused on the tiny piece of stem between his own fingers. His first reaction was that he couldn't believe it: that if he stared at it long enough the stalk would somehow manage to grow. Then when initial disbelief had given way to shock, Mace turned to Qui-Gon and protested in the most vehement manner.
"You cheated, both of you!" He hissed through his teeth. "I don't know how you did it, but you have!"
"Why would I cheat?" Qui-Gon demanded, looking heartily displeased at Mace's insinuations. "What reason have I to do such a thing?"
"Maybe not you, but HE has always been the bane of my life since I first met him!" Mace turned his icy glare on the younger of his two companions.
"Steady on there." Qui-Gon snapped back. "Dex has played a lot of pranks in his time but he doesn't cheat...well, not much." He amended hastily. "You will just have to face the fact that you are a sore loser. We let you go first, which meant that statistically you had less chance of picking the short stem - and here you are, whining about it! And did we make you take a stem? Did we force you at the business end of a lightsabre to select a straw?"
"You tell him, Qui." Dex sniffed.
"Look, I'm not doing it." Mace was on the point of backing out of the dare. "The refectory cooks will deep fry me!"
"Not all of you." Dex said in a small voice. "Just your b..." He backtracked on seeing Qui-Gon's raised eyebrow, "...bellybutton."
"You're both not treating this with the seriousness it deserves!" Mace swallowed.
"Look, we dared you - you lost. Big deal." Berlingside was becoming bored with Windu's complaining. "You wouldn't want the other padawans to think you were a scaredy-nerf, would you? And besides, who likes a person who breaks their word, huh?"
Mace flinched. He didn't really think that either Qui-Gon or Dex would go out of their way to destroy his reputation but the idea that they would remind him of his cowardice for the next fifty years was something he wasn't prepared to have hanging over him. He could see Dex casually dropping it into the conversation whenever he had the chance. Jokes about it 'being the last straw' or 'the straw that broke the Bantha's back' would follow him round like a bad smell. Or 'stalk' him, might be a more appropriate term...
"Still, if you don't want to then that's fine. Dex and I will still be your friend even though you're such a terrible coward." Qui-Gon smiled sweetly at Mace.
"Oh, Qui! That's so gruel...did I say gruel? I meant to say cruel!" Tittered Dex behind his hand.
"Okay, okay!" The exasperated Mace banged his fist against the table in an uncharacteristic show of frustration. "I'll do it! Anything to shut the pair of you up! What was it I have to do? Something about wanting more, wasn't it?" Windu found his mouth suddenly becoming extremely dry.
"That's the spirit!" Qui-Gon punched him on the arm in a friendly gesture. "Now, you take your tray and head up to the front of the queue..."
"I can't queue jump! How will I get on the council if I do such a thing?!" Mace looked at Qui-Gon askance at the suggestion.
"...And then you hold out your empty soup bowl and say 'I want some more'. It's that simple."
"If it's that simple then you do it!" Mace growled. "And can't I say 'please can I have' instead of 'I want some'? It's not terribly polite..."
"Just keep to the script." Qui-Gon said tersely. "You would-be council members can't afford to be imaginative. Now, have you got it?"
Mace nodded listlessly. "Tray...queue...bowl...ask for more..."
"Murdered." Interjected Dex happily.
"Dex!" Qui-Gon reproached him, seeing that Mace was once again on the verge of getting cold feet. "Shush! Mace is doing this thing for the common good of padawan kind. When the masters make an example of him we'll all know that deep down his suffering won't have been in vain..."
"Suffering!?!"
"Look, just finish your soup and go?" Begged Dex, pleading with his green eyes.
And so it came to pass that young Mace Windu was forced to scrape every last morsel of the sludge-like soup from his bowl. Qui-Gon had even suggested he lick the bottom clean so that it looked as if he were so desperate for food that he would eat just about anything, and as Mace had scoured the bowl with his tongue he'd become increasingly aware of the fact that just about everyone sitting at table in the refectory was staring straight in his direction. The sight of someone clearing their plates was just about the most unusual phenomena a Jedi could hope to see in the temple, and Mace's behaviour caused total silence across the expanse of the hallway.
"Go on." Urged Dex. "Now's your chance! Good luck!"
"There's no such thing as luck." Mace replied, feeling his arms shaking slightly with trepidation, adding silently under his breath, "but right now I wish there was!"
Armed with his tray, a gleaming, shiny white bowl and a suddenly acquired nervous twitch, Mace stood up, heavy legged, slowly retracing his steps across the floor back to the refectory counter. A thousand smells combined within the steamy cauldron of the kitchen, none of them especially pleasant. What was he doing?!? Tuurith Wending wasn't known as Draigon Lady for nothing! Did he really want his career as a Jedi cut short in such a brutal manner? The woman was well known for the practised way she handled a soup ladle! Wondering if his nerves were showing, or if his wobbly arms were shaking the tray too violently, Mace all too quickly found himself back at the front of the queue. His lips were so parched with fear that he wondered if he'd manage to squeak out the words.
Fear was of the darkside, he reminded himself. But then so was Master Wending's ladle.
"What do you want?" A gruff, female voice asked, booming out through the now silent refectory hall, where scarce a spoon or a knife clattered against plate to cover the hammering of Mace's heart. The padawan looked up, and to his relief he found himself not staring into the piercing eyes of Tuurith Wending but rather her assistant, the slightly more sympathetic Jia-Nu Ri. Such was Mace's relief that he very nearly dropped his tray.
"P-p-please." He stammered, his voice sounding strangely unlike his own. "I...I want some...more???"
He'd done it! He'd done it! Now Qui-Gon and Dex had nothing to hold against him! Because he, Mace Windu, had held his nerve and done it!
But what exactly had he done???
Jia-Nu gawked back at Mace as if she were having difficulty understanding exactly what had been said.
"Excuse me?" She stared blankly at Windu, her mouth an open cavern of disbelief. "What did you say?"
Mace's instincts, contrary as they were to Jedi teaching, was to drop the tray and run.
"I...I...er," He stumbled once more, "Want some more. Please."
"That's what I thought you said." Jia-Nu said in a stunned whisper. She blinked, momentarily speechless, rooted to the spot through sheer astonishment. Then after a five second pause in which Mace thought he would surely die, the thirty-something kitchen assistant grabbed hold of her ladle and marched over to the vat of steaming soup, shouting into the smoky nether regions of the refectory.
"We've got a padawan here who wants some more!" She shouted above the whirring of the food processing units.
"WHAT?!?" Came back the collective yells of the other kitchen workers, their words overlapping seamlessly like waves upon the ocean.
"He says he wants more! And what's more his bowl is licked clean!"
There was a collective thundering of dropped utensils and footsteps as several kitchen staff; humans and droids alike all hastened to the counter to take a closer look at the boy who dared to ask for more. One of the padawans gaped from behind the huge, imposing frame of Tuurith Wending, the very sight of whom sent Mace into tremors of fear.
"He wants more?!?"
"I don't believe it!"
"That's not normal!"
"See? I said his bowl was empty!"
"Not a scrap left! He must be starved!"
Tuurith Wending, looking hesitant and shocked, fought her way through the collection of uncomprehending co-workers until she stood merely inches away from the wilting Mace Windu, looking down on him from her great, mountain-like height.
This is it, thought Mace, half-closing his eyes. This is the death the force has chosen for me!
And then, unexpectedly, Master Wending's lower lip began to wobble.
"Forty one years I've worked in here." She said in an emotional voice. "Forty one whole years. I've seen generations of padawans come and go through this kitchen. In all that time nobody has ever said they liked my food. Nobody has ever wanted more!" She sniffled, wiping a tear away on the back of her hand. Suddenly the old gleam sprang back into her eyes and Mace recoiled, wondering what else might yet befall him.
"Jia-Nu!" Wending cried, snapping her fingers authoritatively. "Get this poor staving padawan a big bowl of soup! No...not that one! The biggest bowl imaginable! At last someone appreciates the hard work we put into these lunches! He can have as much as he wants! In fact he can have thirds as well as seconds as far as I'm concerned! And some of our doughbread! And an extra portion of rice..."
Mace's expression turned to full horror in an instant, reminding Qui-Gon of one who was stuck fixedly staring into the lights of an oncoming speeder, powerless to move.
"Extra helpings for the rest of the week!" Wending declared triumphantly. "No - the rest of the year!"
"There's no need for that, Master Wending..." Mace squawked.
"I've lived for this moment." Tuurith breathed in deeply with an exultation of rapture. "My life is complete! Someone who appreciates what I do! I'll treasure this moment!" She turned to her former padawan. "Jia-Nu, I want this one so stuffed with food he won't be able to walk! Oh, the joy! The absolute joy!" And with that the grey-haired master waddled off in the direction of her Draigon lair, swallowed up by the billowing steam and dabbing at the corners of her eyes with the corners of her long apron as she went.
Mace whipped around to shout something vaguely obscene at Qui-Gon and Dex, only just in time to see them vanishing rapidly out of the refectory doorway. They may not have been there in person to hear it, but his scream of anguish could be heard floating through the force towards them, carried with the precision of an arrow through a windless sky.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...
Qui-Gon found himself gasping for air in the corridor outside, holding his side as he tried to breathe normally, fighting the urge to once again double over with laughter. Dex flattened himself against the nearest pillar, tears of mirth streaming down his face, so helpless that he allowed his legs to buckle and his body slide slowly down the pillar towards the ground. Poor Mace! Poor idiot padawan to have fallen for such a trick! To have succumbed to the idea of vengeance, hoping to see either Qui-Gon or himself being ladled to death by an irate Master Wending! Dex puffed his cheeks out like a sand hamster, exhaling loudly and in an exaggerated fashion.
"That was soooo funny!" He wheezed. "I can't believe he did that!"
Qui-Gon nodded, laughter wracking his body so that his words were punctuated by coughing.
"The look...on his face when...he drew...that short...stalk!" Jinn gasped, his shoulders silently rising and falling like two giant pistons.
Dex let his head fall back against the cold marble of the pillar with a satisfied thunk. He opened his hand, holding the three stalks in his open palm.
"Yeah," He beamed, closing his eyes, "What a good thing all three of them were short!"