"Can't we skip the meditation this once?" Lok asked Eeth imploringly, waiting for his master to finish lunch. "I've been good lately, haven't I?"
It was true, he felt. Since the incident where he had yelled at Eeth in the gym four weeks ago, and the talk they had had afterwards, Lok had made an effort to be on his best behaviour. He had also worked on his issues with his soul healers and - although he hated to admit it - the enormous amount of meditations Eeth had made him do had helped, too. He had not been in serious trouble ever since, and he had finally received his saber back. Flynt had made a full recovery and seemed to hold no grudge, which helped. All in all, Lok thought he was entitled to a break.
Eeth, however, did not seem to agree. "Yes, you have, and no, we cannot," he said, unfazed.
"Are you going to make me do this until I'm knighted, or maybe until I'm old and grey?" Lok inquired impatiently. "I told Gareth I'd meet him for studying chemistry and we won't have time unless we get a move on - or you let me skip meditation this once."
"I have already told you I will not let you skip it," Eeth replied with a hint of sternness to his voice, "nor is the point of meditation to 'get a move on'. You knew what your schedule was. If you make appointments that you might not be able to keep, there is no reason to blame me."
"I'm totally blaming you. For being the most inflexible master in the history of the Jedi Order," Lok grumbled.
"Oh, yes," Eeth said calmly. "I am entirely inflexible about what I think is good for you."
He laid his fork and knife onto his plate. "We can meditate now," he said. "If you are willing to wash the dishes after dinner, you will have about an hour left for your appointment. After that, I have booked us a gym."
Unfortunately, Lok's unprecedented streak of saintly behaviour seemed to have caused him to forget just how much Eeth valued timeliness. And, of course, the RULES. In capital letters. He came home, out of breath and with flushed cheeks, to find a rather displeased-looking master waiting.
"You," said Eeth, "are twelve minutes late."
"Yes," said Lok, rolling his eyes. "A huge deal. AND I've been running in the corridor, and no, I don't have an excuse other than forgetting to look at my chrono, and I know that's no excuse, so I apologise. And if that's not enough, I apologise again. And a third time if you like me to. And – OWW!"
Eeth had grabbed him by the ear, bent him forward and swatted his bottom, hard.
"Stop giving me cheek," he snapped, "or the next time you absolutely want to fit an appointment into an already busy day, I will simply say no. Is that clear?"
"Yes, master," Lok brought out, wriggling around in a futile attempt to escape the vice-like pressure on his ear.
"Good," Eeth said grimly. He released his hold on Lok's ear, but pressed down on the boy's back with his left hand. With his right, he swatted him soundly a dozen times at a measured pace. Lok flinched, whined and shifted his weight from foot to foot; this was not excruciatingly painful, but painful nonetheless. When Eeth had completed the dozen, he made to get up, but his master continued holding him down.
"That was for being twelve minutes late," said Eeth. "As for running in the corridor…"
He swatted Lok's bottom another three times, and those three were quite spectacular. Lok yelped at the first two and nearly wailed at the third. Then Eeth's large hand left his back, and he was free to stand up. Which he did, but slowly. His bottom was stinging mightily, after all, and it required a lot of self-control to refrain from rubbing and hopping around. He did not quite dare to scowl at Eeth, so he scowled at the floor instead.
"See? Rigid and inflexible, I said," he muttered very quietly.
"Quite so," Eeth, who had very good ears, replied, entirely unmoved. "And since you knew that all along, you had all the more reason to be in time. Now go to your room and pack a mission bag. There has been a change of plans."
Lok stood and stared.
"You might consider actually folding your tunics," Eeth said severely. "No wonder you need two bags for an unspecific mission of short duration."
Lok rolled his eyes. "I asked you for advice on how to pack efficiently, not for being told off," he said. He said it politely, though, since his bottom still felt as if sitting down too fast might be a bad idea.
"When you deserve to be told off, you will be told off nonetheless," Eeth replied drily, without heat. He neatly folded a tunic into a rectangular shape.
"Fold the others like this as well," he said. "Four tunics will suffice. We will spend most of our time on a spaceship where we can sterilise our clothes."
"Won't we get to spend any time on, what's the name of the place – Tovar?" asked Lok. "We just grab the child and return? How old is he or she, anyway?"
"Six months," replied Eeth. "Which more or less answers your question. Or do you really want to spend your time carrying a six-months-old baby around a nondescript colony on the Outer Rim? Our task is to bring her to the Temple and hand her over to the creche masters. I am afraid it does not involve tourism."
Not the most thrilling of missions, he knew; but then, the Council and he had thought they had better restart Lok's mission schedule with something that offered as little risk of triggers as possible. Lok had made enough of a mess of the last mission that he had unwittingly become part of, after all.
Lok grimaced.
"That young?" he asked as he haphazardly folded a tunic into an untidy heap. "Do we even know how to take care of a baby?"
He made to lay the tunic onto the one Eeth had folded, but Eeth plucked it from his hand and shook it open.
"Do it properly," he said. "We still have some time before we need to leave, so you may as well learn how to fold a tunic. Has Jerad not taught you that? Anyway, I do know how to take care of babies. And if you do not, you will learn."
Lok scowled a little, but he had to concede he had not really made an effort. Sighing, he laid the tunic flat and tried to fold it as neatly as he could.
"No, Jerad has not taught me how to fold tunics into rectangles," he said, "nor flowers nor gliding swans. And we never went on missions that involved babies."
Saying this did not hurt as much as it would have a month or two ago, he realised. He did not know whether to feel good or bad about this.
"My master forced me to help out in the creche quite frequently when I was a little older than you," said Eeth. "At the time, I resented it, but I later realised I actually learned a few skills, such as changing diapers. That was not the reason for which she assigned me creche duty, but it was a useful side effect."
He gave Lok a thoughtful look.
"I know what you're thinking," said Lok. "No, I don't urgently need to be put on creche duty. You can just show me how to change a diaper when we've picked up the baby. How long does the trip take, anyway?"
Eeth had to suppress a smile at Lok's perceptiveness.
"Four days each way," he replied. "I daresay you will acquire some skills."
"Oh joy," said Lok. "Look, I managed to fold it into a rectangle. At the rate I'm acquiring skills, I'll have super powers by the month after next."
It turned out the ship was equipped with a pilot, a young Iktotchi knight called Shanaee Satii.
"Mostly so you can devote your full time and attention to taking care of the baby," she told them, giving them a toothy grin.
"Yes, that will be practical," Eeth replied, his voice and facial expression entirely deadpan. Lok laughed at her confused look.
"He's always like that," he told her. "And it doesn't mean he didn't get the joke."
"There is no need for you to explain me to other people," Eeth remarked to Lok in an undertone as they made their way to the large cabin they were going to share. "I usually get by without an interpreter."
"Your sense of humour needs one," Lok said. "Because people who don't know you reliably think you don't have one."
Eeth looked at Lok strangely.
"What?" asked Lok.
"The last time somebody tried to be this protective of me was when I still had a master," said Eeth. "I might have told her there is no need."
Lok badly felt like sticking his tongue out at Eeth.
"However," Eeth continued, "I am still not entirely sure whether I was right."
He pushed open the door to their cabin, leaving Lok staring after him. Sometimes, his master still was an enigma to him.
The ship was a little slower, but larger and more comfortable than the one they had used on their last trip. It even contained a well-equipped gym; apparently, it was routinely used for transporting Jedi.
Eeth nodded in satisfaction as he surveyed the room, complete with ropes hanging from the ceiling.
"Time for a workout," he said. "We might be too busy for that on our way back, so we should make good use of our time now. I will also want to look at your skills at using the Force to conceal yourself."
"You will?" Lok asked, pleasantly surprised. He was actually fairly accomplished at that for someone his age, due to the fact that it had been Jerad's specialty. Eeth had not worked on it with him so far, though, and after his spectacular mess-up during their trip to Mahau, he had not dared ask him.
"Yes, I will," Eeth assured Lok. "So far, I have not considered it a priority since you were quite young to have mastered such skills anyway. On the other hand, it occurred to me that letting you become completely out of practice is not a very good idea either."
He hesitated a little, then continued slowly: "I should really… consult you more where your training is concerned. There can be no debate about the basics of your lessons and physical fitness, but I am willing to take your talents and your wishes into account as far as the rest of your schedule is concerned. If you would like me to."
Again, Lok stared. These days, his master did not cease to surprise him.