A/N: Thanks for all the comments and encouragement! We always love hearing what you think.
As for the question of communicating through their bond, we imagined that their bond might be a lot less precise and exhaustive than verbal communication, and require more focus. Else they wouldn't have to talk at all, we presume… and where would the fun in that be? :-) Also, Raven could sense that Eeth was too busy to talk to her, so she refrained from asking… at her own peril.
The Council session dragged into the afternoon. It became more and more obvious that negotiations were pointless unless the Republic was ready to meet Antar III's demands, which it was not. The Council members eventually agreed that their only option was to keep pretending to negotiate while simultaneously sending a covert rescue mission. Eeth would not be part of that mission, much to his relief; his familiarity with the political field in the Antar system would not be an advantage on such a mission, but rather a drawback because chances were that someone would recognise him. They chose four knights, all of them currently without a padawan. Two were fairly young while the other two had considerable experience. They were to gather in the Council chamber by 1500. Eeth spent the next two hours giving them as much advice about the situation on Antar as he could before they had to make their way to the hangar to leave for the Antar system.
At 1700, Eeth finally left the Council chamber, intending to find his padawan and take her out into the city for dinner, to make up for the lost day at least in a small way. To his dismay, he could feel her nowhere near. She was definitely not in the Temple. Frowning, he pulled out his comlink and punched in her code.
Raven, however, was oblivious to Eeth's efforts as she had switched her comlink off for the show, which had only just ended. Besides, the crowds were making it impossible to notice the slight buzzing that the comlink emitted even if she had thought to switch it on.
"What was your favourite part?" Bindi asked, looking around at each of them all as they made their way onto the shuttle that would return them to the Temple.
"The harps," Raven and Orion said at the same time. They laughed. "I do like the Taknyssian tree harps at Tree World, but this?" said Raven, closing her eyes and smiling. "This was rolling incredible light and sound into one." They all agreed with that assessment, Greg possibly most of all since he was hugely impressed by the precision involved.
While the padawans boarded the shuttle, Eeth reached out with his senses to find Raven. She seemed to be somewhere to his south, quite far away but moving in his direction. He suspected she was on her way back to the Temple. Anything else would have been incredibly stupid; he assumed she was hoping that he would not notice her absence and that would only have a chance of working if she was back before dinnertime.
Eeth decided that there was no point in hunting Raven down. She might be in a speeder piloted by someone else, a cab or a shuttle, each of which would be hard to track. Since she was eventually going to arrive at the Temple anyway, he might just as well wait for her at the main entrance.
The very last thing Raven expected when they made their way up the stairs leading to the huge set of doors to the Temple was to see Eeth standing in the main entrance, arms folded and looking rather grim.
Bindi looked from Raven to Eeth and then back. "Oh shit."
"Oh shit is right," Greg added.
Raven unclipped her comlink, thumbed it on and frowned. Eeth had tried to contact her half an hour ago which meant he'd probably been waiting here for a good portion of that time. Still, Raven was annoyed. Yes, she had left without permission and would pay for that, but why should she put her entire life on hold to suit Eeth? And her expression said just that as she moved to where he stood waiting. Raven did have the sense to greet him politely, but the bow was curt and perfunctory, unlike those of her peers, who all bowed low. It occurred to Raven that Eeth might be expecting some sort of explanation, but for once, she didn't know what to say. "I was at a concert," came out, but that was about it.
"I see," said Eeth. "Come, padawan." His voice and face were impassive as he pointed towards the doors, clearly expecting her to go first. He was not going to start a discussion on the hows and whys of this in front of the Temple's main gates.
Raven obeyed reflexively and started walking towards the lift, but before passing him, she hesitated. "You did give me the day off. I was going to go to the lounge for an hour with everyone else. Was that okay?" Raven was under no delusions that she was in deep shit here but thought if she stood any chance, any chance at all, of pulling this off, it was going to be right now.
Eeth's eyes narrowed. "Do you really want us to have this discussion here, in front of your friends?" he asked in a low voice. "You need only say so."
"No, master," Raven was fast to respond. She entered the lift without more than an apologetic glance at her friends.
Eeth entered behind her, stony-faced and looking right over her head, which further irritated Raven. "It was just a concert. It's not like I could have contacted you to ask," she said.
"If you think that 'just a concert' justifies leaving the district without permission, think again," said Eeth coolly. "We both know you broke the rules I set for you, and you are in big trouble for it. I had meant to take you out into the city for dinner, but since you chose to disobey me, I will instead have to spend the evening teaching you a lesson you will not soon forget."
"I broke the rules because you weren't around to ask," Raven reiterated, trying to ignore his closing statement which did not bode well for her at all. "Also, Greg is a senior padawan. He's practically an adult."
"Greg is nowhere close to being an adult," said Eeth. "Even if he were, you would still not have been allowed to go this far from the Temple without my knowledge and consent. No, padawan. At the very least, I am going to make quite sure you think long and hard before you ever go and disobey me again."
The expression on Raven's face hardened, her jaw squaring. She knew what Eeth meant by that statement. "I don't want a spanking. Can't you punish me some other way, any other way?" Raven tried, thinking that she'd rather be grounded for the rest of her apprenticeship than experience her master's displeasure through physical correction.
"Oh, I will not spank you," Eeth replied coolly as the door of the turbolift opened to the level on which their quarters were located. "For this, I will definitely cane you."
Well, that was one way to kill a conversation. Raven didn't respond, at least not verbally. The tears that filled her eyes and the expression on her face spoke volumes. Raven might be accustomed to Eeth's austerity; she had been one of the few in his initiates' saber class who wasn't terrified of him, after all! Still, brave she might be, but the threat of his cane had her silent and pale.
Eeth refused to pity his padawan, at least for now. The walk to their quarters passed in stony silence. Once they had entered, he pointed for her to stand in front of him and folded his arms across his chest.
"First of all, was there anyone else in your group who did not have permission to attend this concert?" he asked brusquely, intending to get the technicalities out of the way fast.
"No, master. Everyone had permission. They were all granted permission because it wasn't that far away, it was at the HoloDome, and it was just a laser concert. It wasn't dangerous or reckless and I wasn't alone."
"It was further away than you are allowed to go without my explicit permission," said Eeth, "and today you would not have received permission, for good reason. There was a very real possibility for me to have to go to Antar, and given the stage of your training, you might have been allowed to accompany me. However, time was of the essence and there would have been no time to find and retrieve you from the HoloDome. You did not even answer your comm when I called you."
"Neither did you!" Raven retorted, ignoring his admittedly pertinent comments on not being able to locate her and focussing on her irritation with Eeth instead. "All you have time for lately is your Council duties. I'm your lowest priority. How do you think that makes me feel?" It wasn't really a question and so she didn't expect an answer. Apparently he cared when she screwed up, but about nothing else, or so she felt.
"I was in the middle of negotiating with Antar III's rebel leaders when you commed me," Eeth replied in a tight voice. "I was not about to tell them to hold the call because my padawan needed to make plans for her afternoon. And I am sorry you feel the way you do about my priorities, but I was busy saving a group of Jedi from imminent death by contributing knowledge that nobody else possessed. That might not have been my preferred way to spend the day, but it was unavoidable and gives you no right to disobey me. The outcome of that must have been clear to you from the outset. Why did you do it, then?"
Raven folded her arms and looked away, her expression hard.
"Padawan, I asked you a question," said Eeth in a dangerously low voice.
"Because Greg had free tickets, everyone else got permission, it wasn't that far outside the travel boundaries you set, I had the day off, you didn't specifically say I couldn't go, and," Raven's tone went from annoyed to slightly sullen, "I didn't think you would be home until late tonight." The latter, of course, meant that Raven had hoped not to be caught.
Eeth paused for a moment, giving her a penetrating look. Her answer was more or less what he had expected but not what he had wanted to hear. He was sure there was an underlying reason for her to act up in this way, which had not happened in a long time. They had had this discussion before and had revisited the rules afterwards, which Eeth had later revised to grant Raven more freedoms, appropriate to her age. Still, her freedoms did not include leaving the sector without explicit permission, and he was sure that Raven had been perfectly aware of the fact. When she did not say more, though, he decided to focus on the matter at hand, which was her gross disobedience, and explore the underlying causes later.
"None of this justifies your behaviour," he said. "The HoloDome is outside our sector and far beyond walking distance. And you know well that the other padawans are not my concern. You are. Bring me the cane."
Raven's face crumpled, the anger morphing into fear. "Please, don't use that. It hurts too much. I promise to all that is sacred that I will never ever disobey you ever again. Ground me, anything!" Raven was mad at Eeth but she wasn't crazy. She would stay in the Temple for the rest of her life if it meant Eeth would change his mind!
"You knew perfectly well what the outcome would be when you chose to break the rules I set for you," said Eeth implacably. "Bring me the cane. Now."
Her lip trembled at receiving that command for the second time, but Force, she'd also just promised eternal obedience for the rest of her born days, not that it appeared to have made any difference to Eeth's decision. Reluctantly, Raven dragged her feet. There were two canes in Eeth's infamous cupboard of torture. The one that she now held in her hand Raven had felt many times; the larger, more sinister-looking cane she had yet to experience. She hesitated, closed the cupboard door and moped back to where Eeth stood waiting, moving as slowly as humanly possible. Knowing what was going to happen next, she remained silent, one hand subconsciously covering her ass and the other holding out the cane.
Eeth accepted the cane wordlessly. "Bare your bottom and bend over a chair," he instructed curtly. His padawan knew what she had done wrong, so he saw no reason to drag this out.
Raven, however, had a plethora of reasons to drag this out, the most pressing of which being the knowledge of how much it was going to hurt. She shook her head, both hands moving to protect her backside as she backed into the chair. "Please, master. Won't you reconsider?" Raven was ashamed over resorting to pleading here. It was cowardly, and so she started unbuckling her belt.
Eeth's mouth tightened into a firm line, and his stern gaze turned into an outright glare. The look on his face made clear that, as much trouble as Raven was in, it could always get worse – and that was what was about to happen unless she bent over the chair, fast.
The look was enough to have Raven hasten her efforts and comply. She wasn't happy about it. In fact, it was taking considerable bravery and control to remain bent over, waiting for what she knew was going to be excruciatingly bad.
Eeth knew perfectly well that the punishments he dealt out were harsh. He also happened to think that Raven needed them to be harsh. She was too headstrong for her own good, at least if she meant to reach the goal of knighthood she had chosen for herself. It was not an easy goal to reach, and Eeth rather thought he was doing her a favour by providing suitable deterrents against her tendency to put her own judgment above that of her superiors. That was why he typically displayed supremely little tolerance for pleading, arguing or dawdling, and today was no exception.
"This is what deliberate disobedience will earn you," he said. "Every single time. If you do not want it, make better decisions the next time. Which is precisely what this punishment is meant to help you achieve."
He took a position to Raven's left and brought the cane down with considerable force, causing Raven to suck her breath in sharply. The line burned like fire, but before it could settle into anything that even remotely resembled bearable, another landed, and Raven let out the breath in a gasp. This trend continued, Raven's discomfort becoming increasingly vocal as each swipe landed until she was begging, wailing and struggling to stay still. Her fingers were white from gripping the chair, her hips twisted away, and tears and snot were clogging up her nose.
Without losing a beat, Eeth used the Force to restrain her and continued the caning at a slow, measured pace until he had completed the dozen.
Unable to get out anything coherent through her cries, Raven kept her face buried in the crook of an elbow, too ashamed to look at him. That had hurt more than the last time she had disobeyed him, Raven was sure of that! And, indeed, Eeth had made sure of that because Raven was fourteen now and, he felt, really ought to know better.
He leaned the cane against the table and released the Force hold on his padawan, whereupon he gently helped her up and offered her a hug. Her punishment was not over yet, but for the moment, he thought that some comfort was in order. This did not come naturally to him; but he had learned a few things about emotional needs during these past years, and as a result, he was more than willing to offer support when he felt it was needed and warranted.
His comfort was welcomed, more so than usual because Raven had been having a hard time these past few months, and so her cries were from more than just the pain (which was significant, to be sure); they were also a release. "I-I'm s-sorry!" she spluttered into his tunic, unperturbed by the spectacle she was making of herself.
When Raven had pulled herself together enough to face Eeth, she made an effort at pulling up her trousers to regain what was left of her dignity. This had the undesirable effect of wedging her underwear into her ass crack, but she didn't care; at least this way, one cheek was spared the cotton covering. Raven gave Eeth a pained expression, the question remaining unasked.
"Not quite yet, padawan," Eeth said quietly. He handed her a handkerchief, waited until she had cleaned up her face, and said, "Padawan, I know you are sorry, but I am not sure if you understand how serious a transgression this was. I need to be able to rely on you to obey my instructions especially when something unforeseen happens. I might not always have the time to explain things to you, and I cannot have you jumping to conclusions about my motives and priorities and acting on them. Imagine I would have been sent to Antar, which seemed very likely for a while today. I would have had to leave within the hour. The fact that you were not at the Temple and unreachable would either have delayed my departure or forced me to leave without you, with no opportunity to say goodbye or leave instructions – and all this while Lakhri and Flynt are away, too. Do you understand what a problem that would have caused us?"
"Yes, master. At the time, I didn't think you'd care where I was, but I guess whether or not you care has little to do with the fact that you need to know." She looked at her hands, feeling hurt but hiding it well. "It's not my place to question your motives."
"No, it is not," said Eeth. "Padawan, I do care. But even if I did not, I would need to know where you are, at all times, no matter how you feel at the time. You have to think things through before acting on your emotions."
Raven gave him a wary look because it wasn't the first time he'd said that.
True to her expectation, Eeth continued, "That is an important lesson for you to learn, and I feel it needs some reinforcement. Now, I am sorely tempted to ground you, but after the past weeks, such a punishment might overtax your endurance. You will therefore receive a spanking every night for the next week, after dinner, whereupon you will write lines. What kind of lines and how many of them will depend on your behaviour during the day. The same goes for the type and severity of your spanking. You had better be on your best behaviour, or you will be a very sorry padawan."
Despite knowing that this was most definitely a situation in which the words 'Yes, master, I'm sorry, master, it won't happen again' were appropriate, Raven could not bring herself to utter them. "BUT! I am already a sorry padawan," she cried, swiping at tears with the handkerchief. "Please ground me instead, please! It won't overtax me at all, I swear."
"No," Eeth said with an air of absolute finality. "Now meditate for half an hour. I will tell you when your time is up."
Given that Eeth just hauled her over the coals for her inability to obey orders, Raven did not argue and went to her mat to do as told without protest. Which wasn't to say she had no protests. She did! They just wouldn't get her anywhere.
Raven slumped onto her mat, belly down, only to reconsider; if she fell asleep, Eeth would not be happy. Groaning, she got to her knees, thunked her head into the wall and closed her eyes. It wasn't easy as all she wanted to do was slink off into her bedroom to sulk, but eventually she managed to do as told.
Eeth left her to her meditation for half an hour. In the meanwhile, he prepared sandwiches, iced tea and a plate of sliced fruit and placed them on the dining table. None of them had had dinner yet, after all.
When Raven's time was up, he said, "You may get up, padawan. I will tend to your bottom, we will have dinner, and then you may start on writing lines."
Wordlessly, Raven moved to his side, dropped her trousers and lay on the couch where she buried her head into a cushion. The slight sting caused by the bacta didn't exactly rate highly, considering what she had endured to warrant it, and the fact that Eeth used the Force to heal her almost immediately after application meant that the pain faded fast, albeit not entirely. Raven lay there for several minutes in complete silence. This was unlike her, but she had a lot on her mind. Recently Raven had confided in Lakhri about feeling pushed aside by Eeth, among other things, and he had advised her to talk to him about it. So far, the timing hadn't been right. The padawan fidgeted. She had brushed on her feelings a couple of times during their meditations, but not in any depth. Later she would, she vowed to herself. Yes, later.
"Padawan," Eeth asked softly. "Is anything the matter?" His sense of the bond he shared with Raven told him that something was on her mind that was troubling her. It was better to resolve such things, especially since Raven was at a stage where she was easily frustrated and volatile.
Her mouth opened to say no, but that would be a lie, and not lying to Eeth had been one lesson he had only needed to teach her once. Raven knew she would not be able to lie outright, courtesy of their training bond and Eeth's uncanny ability to sniff out bullshit, but there was always room for a bit of subterfuge. "'Is something the matter?'" she repeated with a touch of disbelief. "You just caned me harder than you ever have before and pronounced a week of misery, so yes, there is plenty the matter." It wasn't said angrily, just matter-of-factly.
Raven's answer was plausible, but Eeth was not entirely convinced that this was all there was to it. It was not that he expected his padawan to be overjoyed at her sentence, but nor was it something that she tended to brood about to this degree. After all, her punishments were usually a pretty straightforward matter. Her outright disobedience had left no room for argument, and there was little point in dwelling on the consequences. Since he was not sure what else he wanted to hear from Raven, though, he decided to let the matter rest for now.
"Done," he said simply, patting her back lightly and rising smoothly from his kneeling position. "Let us have dinner. After that, you will start on your lines."
Raven thanked Eeth for the healing, honestly grateful for his belief that there was nothing to be gained from sleeping on welts. His views on lines, however, left much to be desired. At least this evening, she would not be writing them on an incredibly sore ass. Small mercies, thought Raven as she went to help Eeth prepare dinner.
"So, what are you planning to make me write and how many times?" Raven asked when they were seated at the table, eating soup and bread rolls. Raven would have chosen to stand, but Eeth had insisted she sit. He did offer a pillow, though.
In light of the fact that Raven had refrained from complaining about having to write lines, Eeth decided on a moderate sentence.
"You will write fifty times 'I will not disobey my master's instructions'," he told her. "And you will sit while doing so." Sitting on the desk chair would be uncomfortable, but not excruciatingly so since Eeth was a fairly good healer.
"Why do you insist I sit? Haven't you tortured me enough already?" Raven asked, reproducing Eeth's stony-faced expression with uncanny precision.
Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Obviously not, else I would not have told you to sit," he replied in a tone of voice that was not altogether pleased. "I gave you a fairly low number of lines, though, in light of the fact that you had refrained from complaining thus far. Apparently I made that judgment too early. Better make it sixty lines."
This went down like a lead balloon with Raven. She scowled at him but refrained from compounding her problems by arguing. Still, she gave him the silent treatment during dinner, which in hindsight probably constituted as somewhat of a break for Eeth, or so Raven thought.
Despite the pillow, it took Raven just over half an hour to complete the lines Eeth set her. "Done. Can I get up now, or would you have me sit here longer just because?" she asked over her shoulder, a hint of sarcasm to her tone. This was unlike Raven, especially so soon after punishment, but there was more going on here, and it was something that only she could deal with, or so she kept telling herself.
Eeth frowned at her. He had no idea what was the matter with Raven, but this level of insolence from a padawan who was currently being punished was not something he was prepared to tolerate.
"If this is the way you are handling your situation, then yes, you may continue sitting there," he said sternly. "And write me twenty more while you are doing so. When you are done, we can try this again."
"I won't!" Raven stood abruptly, incensed. "You've already punished me more than enough. It's like the only thing you care enough to do is punish me. You don't spend any more time with me than necessary. Everything else is more important to you than I am. I'm meant to be your padawan, and yet I'm your last priority."
Eeth was momentarily stunned with disbelief, and that did not happen often.
"Why don't you go to the Council and tell them that you don't have time for me?" Raven continued her rant. "Because it's clear that you'd rather be off helping the rest of the galaxy with their problems than doing anything with me, other than punishing me! In fact, I'll save you the trouble and let them know myself because I'd hate for you to tarnish your reputation with a failure. I QUIT!"
She strode to the door, swiped her cloak and pulled it around herself, fully intending to present herself to the Council.
This finally spurred Eeth into action. He was after her in a heartbeat, his hand clamping around Raven's braid and stopping her short.
"You," he informed her, "will not walk out on me. Ever. You know perfectly well how to deal with negative emotions and it is not by giving in to them. That is exactly the type of behavior that is buying you more and more punishment. Not any desire on my part to get rid of you. That is just ridiculous nonsense. And before you start venting your frustrations at me again, we had better meditate."
He pointed her towards the balcony.
Raven hissed because the hold Eeth had on her braid actually hurt. Not badly enough to pull her from her rage, but enough to keep her from continuing out the door. "If you think how I feel is all just ridiculous nonsense, then what's the point of meditating!?" Raven ranted, leaning into him so as to take some pressure off the hold he had.
"Maybe," Eeth said in a dangerously low voice, "it is going to teach you something about how I feel about this, as opposed to you, because whether you like it or not, the universe is not centred on you and your feelings. And maybe, just maybe, I would not punish you quite as often as I lately seem to do if you managed not to question my authority and my judgment at every step."
He released his hold on her braid and nodded towards the balcony door.
Cowed, Raven took her mat and preceded him onto their balcony. "It's not just me, you know. Maybe you'll realise that the universe doesn't centre around your duty to every other being in this galaxy other than me. I'm meant to count as well," she told him and knelt were bade. Raven had a hurt expression on her face and her gaze was lowered. She didn't like feeling this way; being this upset and angry with her master rarely happened. She probably should have brought this up when Lakhri had suggested it weeks ago, instead of allowing herself to get into this state.
Eeth followed her onto the balcony and knelt opposite her.
"I am sorry you feel that way," he said quietly, "but it is simply not true. I make a point of spending time with you every single day. Even in situations like these, or rather: especially in situations like these. Had there been a need for me to go to Antar, chances are I would have taken you, not because you are far enough advanced in your training to make a substantial contribution to this mission, but because I felt that leaving you behind would have been more than you can handle right now. I am doing my best to fulfil my duties both towards you and towards the Order. This is an unusually busy time for the Council, but from my experience, it will not last. If it does, and if I end up feeling that my duty towards the Order seriously impairs my ability to guide you to knighthood, I will not hesitate to resign from the Council."
"I don't want you to resign. I just want to feel that I'm as important to you, and lately I don't," Raven told him honestly.
"Padawan," said Eeth softly, dropping his mental shields and holding out his hand in invitation, "link with me."
Raven closed her eyes and hesitated; if she dropped her shields, it was all going to come flooding out. Everything! The frustration and confusion over whatever was going on with her hormones, the trouble she was getting in with her teachers, Eeth, heck, even her peers! And the hurt and anger she felt over being pushed aside time and time again! Naturally, Raven had been unable to hide all of that from Eeth over the past few months. She had, however, been able to temper it, to play it down and to pass each of these incidents off as a minor blip on her daily radar. If she followed Eeth's orders now as she knew was expected of her, he was going to be privy to it all. "Could we do this another time?" she asked hesitantly.
"No," said Eeth firmly. "You have postponed this for too long already. I have tried to get you to talk about it before. At the time, I dropped the matter. I should not have, and I will not make that mistake again. Drop your shields."
Despite recent behaviour to the contrary, Raven was not typically disobedient. She was headstrong, stubborn and occasionally thoughtless, but rarely did she intentionally outright disobey Eeth when he gave an order. She let her backside rest onto her heels, her shoulders slumped, and with a deflated sigh, Raven dropped her shields. The crapshoot that ensued was impressive, to say the least, and it wasn't Eeth's ability to deal with it that concerned Raven, it was the content. Frustration, guilt, angst, anger, sadness, jealousy, it all poured out in a cluttered mess, exposed and without constraint. The padawan almost flinched with the ripple that it caused across their bond, but she followed Eeth's lead, resisting the urge to attempt blocking him out.
Eeth patiently helped Raven work through all these emotions, examine them, feel them and release them into the Force. He did so calmly and without judgment. Force knew he had his own share of emotional baggage to deal with, and it would never occur to him to blame his padawan for harbouring these feelings. It also became clear to him that Raven's current level of frustration was more of a problem than was typical for her. He would need to think about how to deal with this. For now, he led her through a meditation that helped her cope with the worst of it, all the while flooding their bond with reassurance, affection and a sense of the responsibility he felt towards her.
It wasn't that Raven was shocked over the fact that Eeth cared about her. Of course she knew that he did, even if he didn't always show it. No, Raven was more surprised to discover that she rated higher on his priority list than she had thought. He was taking a lot of time to help her through this when Raven had half expected him to tell her that 'life as a Jedi was a difficult path,' and to 'stop whining'. That he did not, and was spending this time to reassure and confirm his affection for her, was unexpected.
When Eeth called the meditation to a stop, Raven opened her eyes but kept her head down because their meditation had brought a mixture of surprise, gratitude, embarrassment and shame.
Eeth brushed his hand across Raven's cheek in a gesture of affection, causing her to look up at him. For the first time in a while, she smiled at him.
"The next time I ask you if something is the matter, be honest," he said quietly. "I know that ignoring your negative emotions might seem like the easier option at times, but it is not. It will only get you into trouble. And then, you will end up feeling as if all I do is to punish you, which is simply not true."
"Yes, Master. I-" She sighed and shifted to get comfortable. "I didn't want you to know. Those feelings, they're unJedilike, you know? I thought you would be disgusted to find out how I felt. But I couldn't help feeling them. It hurt." In theory, Raven knew that, as long as she dealt with emotions appropriately, feelings of all creeds and colours were standard fare in the life of a Jedi. Unfortunately, the practical application of that theory sometimes left a bit to be desired.
"It is entirely Jedilike to have such feelings," Eeth said softly. "Like you said, you could not help feeling them. The important thing is to confront them and deal with them. Which is what you tried to avoid. It is a mistake most of us make from time to time. I did, when I took you to Nar Shaddaa in an attempt to get rid of the demons of my childhood instead of working through my fears the hard way. If there is one bad decision in my life I feel sorry for, it is this one."
He had never quite worked up the courage to tell Raven this before, but now he felt that she might need to hear such a thing from him. The fact that he had finally managed to get it off his chest was an added bonus.
Raven raised her eyebrows. It was very unlike Eeth to share what was obviously such a personal emotion. Sure, he had mentioned that it had been a bad decision on his part. He'd even seen a soul healer to work through the problems he carried with him thanks to his first four years on Nar Shaddaa, but to hear him say that this was one decision he felt particularly sorry over? That was new. On a whim, Raven got up on her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. She wanted comfort, and that he had confided something had her wanting to offer comfort in return. Even if her way of doing so was likely to achieve the opposite, it came naturally for her.
Fortunately, Eeth's discomfort with situations of physical closeness had decreased considerably over the past years. He had come to accept long ago that this was something his padawan needed from time to time; by now, he had stopped feeling awkward over it. Maybe, just maybe, the hug was even appreciated. In any case, Eeth returned it readily, wrapping his arms around his padawan and pulling her close.
Raven wasn't sure how long they had stayed like that, but it was comfortable, and it was something that she had needed from Eeth without even knowing so. "Thanks," she finally said, kneeling opposite him once again. She looked at her hands. "I shouldn't have hidden things from you, or any number of other things that I did. I didn't mean to cause you all that trouble, although I rather think I paid in kind for that." Raven gave him a look that signified that she wasn't entirely serious.
"Apology accepted," Eeth said gently. "And you may rest assured that you will never be able to cause me more trouble than I can deal with. Nothing you might conceivably do would make me want to get rid of you, nor would it make me doubt whether you are meant to become a Jedi. You will reach that goal. And I will guide you there."
Raven knew that what Eeth had said was true. Still, she had had a lot on her plate lately, and hiding things from him had not helped that. "Sometimes I think it might come close," she admitted, a little of her sense of humour showing that she was no longer moping.
"It does not," said Eeth. "Now go and finish your lines."
Her nose wrinkled. "Do I still have to do twenty more?"
Eeth raised his eyebrows.
"Do I really need to answer that?" he asked. "Padawan, you earned them. Get to it. I will bring you some tea and possibly a few cookies. Afterwards, it will be bedtime for you."
"Yes, master." There was no point in arguing, and besides, there were cookies on offer!
Raven went to bed that evening feeling unburdened and with a smile on her face for the first time in quite a while. She was having a hard time lately, but apparently there were some bright patches among the gloom.