A/N: Edited for some formatting issues

Anakin sat with Eraan in front of the moisture vaporator, the fifth one they'd looked at so far in the fallow fields on the northeast quadrant. The machine whirred, every so often emitting an unpleasant clanking sound as it ran through its diagnostics check.

"Couldn't one person do this?" Anakin asked impatiently. At this rate, checking all the vaporators was going to take all afternoon, and they weren't even really doing anything but pushing a few buttons and waiting. Is this really how Obi-Wan wanted him to spend his time? Maybe there was some kind of cryptic Jedi lesson here, but he couldn't see it.

Watching Eraan fight the droid earlier had been kind of funny, but all the same, he didn't really trust the boy. Aside from their rough start, he'd always had a hard time getting a read on the Jedi kids raised in the Temple. He knew they didn't get him either. At best, his relationships with padawans were those of awkward politeness. He always sensed they felt sorry for him, somehow, and he didn't like it.

"Yeah, sure, one person could do it easy," Eraan said, picking at his toe nail. He looked up at the sky, which was a deep sapphire blue and contained nothing but a couple wispy clouds. "I suppose Declan is still mad about yesterday. Wanted us to talk and get to know each other better I guess."

"Oh," Anakin said. A few moments of silence passed. Anakin really wished he had his remote droid to practice with now, but Obi-Wan had made him put it back in his room.

Eraan seemed to pick up on his thoughts. "You think your master would give me another lesson with my lightsaber sometime?"

Anakin felt a sharp prick of indignation at the question, but he shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

"No one around here is too good with a lightsaber. Kenji's okay, but he doesn't like teaching. He likes to practice alone but I watch him sometimes."

"Really," Anakin said, thoroughly uninterested.

"You're jealous, huh?" Eraan said. His face had the faintest trace of a smirk. Anakin kind of felt like shoving him again. "You don't want your master giving me lessons."

"What? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Eraan went silent again, but not a thoughtful silence. He seemed to be listening to something, though all Anakin could hear was the clanking and occasional beeping of the moisture vaporator in front of them. Eraan got to his feet and started pacing back and forth for a couple moments before giving Anakin a piercing look.

"Do you feel that?"

"What?"

"I've gotta go."

"Where?" Anakin asked. Force, but this kid was weird.

"You don't sense it? A disturbance." Eraan said. But before Anakin could reply, he took off, running quickly across the field toward a wooded patch in the distance.

Never one to be left behind, Anakin leapt up and chased after Eraan, catching up with him after a couple moments. He hadn't sensed anything, and couldn't imagine what Eraan could be racing toward.

"Where are you going?

Eraan didn't answer. His entire focus seemed to be locked in on something. Anakin followed him into the woods. For several minutes they scrambled over fallen tree trunks and boulders, finally emerging again from the woods and now standing on the edge of a small, shallow canyon. Eraan took the scene in for a moment before continuing, running along the canyon's edge.

"Is this a normal day for you?" Anakin asked, not exactly tired yet, but wanted to have at least some idea of what was going on. He wondered if Eraan was in the habit of suddenly shooting off into the woods.

The canyon was getting noticeably narrower as they ran on. Eraan stopped. "We're close."

"To what?" Anakin asked.

As if on queue, a loud cry echoed across the canyon, something between a shriek and a roar. Anakin felt a chill go through his body. Eraan took off again, now at a frantic pace. The canyon was getting narrower and Anakin could see what looked like an abrupt end of it. Up against a cliff wall there was something huge and grey, like a boulder but hairy. Anakin didn't register what it was until it lifted its head and bellowed, the same cry they'd heard before.

"Is that a dentherium?" he asked Eraan as they got closer. He reached down to his belt for his macrobinoculars, but realized he'd thrown them in his bag earlier that morning with his remote droid, and had thrown the bag onto his bed after his midday break. Still he could make out the creature writhing around, clearly in pain. It seemed to be caught in something, a large net.

"Yeah," Eraan breathed, his eyes wild now. "Look - those are poachers for sure."

Anakin looked further down the canyon and counted six men with blaster rifles standing a good distance away from the beast, probably because of the noise it was making. They seemed to be chatting casually as they drank from their canteens. A cluster of speeder bikes hovered near them. They must have chased the animal down the canyon and trapped it.

Eraan turned to Anakin. "We've gotta help it. They can't do this."

He didn't wait for Anakin's reply before taking off again. Once again, Anakin followed, trying to keep his eye on both the men and the dentherium. They crouched down as they came to stand on the cliff directly above the animal, which Anakin now recognized as the same one in the tapestries in the guest suite at the farm. Although in real life it was much uglier, he thought. Huge bent tusks, a rough mane of fur and a short trunk. Four eyes that were beady and small in proportion to its huge body, and four short but powerful looking legs. It was indeed twisted up in a net, one with barbs that were caught in its hair.

Anakin and Eraan crouched down behind a boulder, just peeking out enough to take in the scene. The dentherium made a loud huffing noise and Anakin mentally prepared himself for another ear-splitting below, but it seemed to calm down almost immediately. He glanced over at Eraan, who was in deep concentration.

What do we do, Anakin thought. The smartest move would be to make some kind of distraction, lead the men away from the animal while Eraan freed it. But what if that didn't work?

While he was thinking, the hum of approaching speeder bikes down the canyon got louder and then abruptly stopped. Anakin squinted down the canyon and saw a new group of people, a few men and a woman, approach the poachers. Anakin recognized them as the Cheen'jo, one of the ancient clans of Helia. From what he knew, the Cheen'jo were't too friendly to offworlders or anyone outside of their clan, but these seemed to be on friendly terms with the poachers. The new group looked at the dentherium appreciatively for a moment, then turned back to their companions. Anakin wondered what they were waiting for, but surely they wouldn't wait for that long. They'd be over here soon to kill the animal.

Eraan had opened his eyes and was taking in the scene as well. "Funny, seeing Cheen'jo here. They usually don't come this close to the farm."

"We've gotta make our move, and quick," Anakin said.

Eraan nodded. "We'll have to cut the net off. But carefully, or she'll bolt. I'll do my best to keep her calm. I'll jump down first." He closed his eyes again, concentrating, and without hesitation jumped down onto the animal's back. The dentherium was still now, still breathing loudly but making no other sounds. Eraan had his lightsaber out and was cutting the net down the middle. Anakin looked at the group in the distance before hopping down to join Eraan. They surely only had a moment before being noticed.

The net was easy to cut but there were a great many barbs still caught in the animal's hair and it began to shriek again and buck. Anakin fell forward and caught hold of its mane to keep from getting tossed to the ground.

"Careful!" Eraan hissed.

Then a deep male voice echoed through the canyon.

"Hey! What are those kids doing? What do you think you're doing?" The man yelling sounded more surprised than angry.

Anakin raised his blade, preparing for any shots that might come their way.

"Almost!" Eraan panted, still slicing at the net, a bit more frantically now. "You'd better sit down and hold on."

Anakin did so, his eyes still on the group. A few of them were stalking over, though tentatively. The creature turned around and gave a great bellow, then charged forward, scattering those standing in its path.

"Don't shoot at them! Let them go," Anakin heard one of the Cheen'jo men say as the animal bolted past them. "They have strong magic."

Anakin looked back over his shoulder as the dentherium galloped down the canyon, keeping his eye on their enemies until they were out of sight completely.

"Now what?" Anakin asked Eraan. He turned off his blade and put his lightsaber back on his belt. It was easier to hold on with two hands.

"She's going to find her herd," Eraan said, looking back at Anakin and smiling. "We'll make sure she gets there safe."

Anakin nodded, beginning to enjoy the ride. Today hadn't ended up so boring after all.

It was late afternoon when Obi-Wan emerged from the cool air of the central workshop into the stifling heat. He'd spent the last few hours helping with repairing some power components for the farm's droids. This kind of work was more up his padawan's alley, but he had certainly learned enough about droids in the past few years, thanks to Anakin. The work was not something he generally enjoyed, but it was rare these days he got to work much with his hands, and he had found it a nice change of pace. He wondered how Anakin had done in the fields with Eraan. According to Declan, the work should have kept them busy the greater part of the afternoon.

He was heading back to their rooms to get cleaned up when Tika, a young and - at the moment - quite frazzled-looking Zabrak approached him. "Master Obi-Wan, have you seen those boys?"

"Not since about mid-day. Something wrong?"

"They never reported back. Should have been done an hour ago, at least. I just gotta run those numbers."

"I'll let you know if I -" Obi-Wan started, but Tika was already headed in another direction, scratching at a data pad screen and muttering to himself.

Obi-Wan frowned and pulled out his communicator. He waited a few moments for the connection to pick up, but it never did. Not terribly surprising. Anakin had been known at times to "accidentally" silence his device, or to be "too busy" to pick it up. He would just have to be patient.

They'd better not be fighting again, he thought, feeling discouraged. Maybe it had been a bad idea to send them out into the fields alone. So far this trip was not off to a good start.

They were still quite a distance away, clustered around a small watering hole when Anakin saw them; he counted fifteen of the creatures, almost all of them larger than the one they were riding now.

"I knew they couldn't be far," Eraan said. They'd been riding for about twenty minutes, and he hadn't spoken much. He seemed to be locked in some kind of communication with the dentherium. Anakin had known Jedi to be able to pacify animals, this was a common enough skill. But he'd never met anyone who could really talk to them, the way Eraan could. Had he learned it, or was this an innate power, he wondered. Could Eraan teach him?

The animal slowed and Eraan hopped off into the long prairie grass. Anakin followed his lead, and they watched the reunion for a couple minutes.

"They come close to the farm sometimes," Eraan said, his voice somewhat hushed so as not to startle the herd. "But I never got to ride one before. I never thought they'd let me"

"Well," Anakin shrugged, "we did save its life."

Eraan nodded. "We'd better head back to the farm. It's gonna be a long walk."

Upon returning to the guest rooms after dinner, Obi-Wan found them as empty and quiet as they had been that afternoon. There had still been no sign of either boy - no one had seen them or heard from them since much earlier that day. Tika the Zabrak had gone out to the fields in the northeast quadrant to find that the speeder the boys had taken out was still there. So, wherever they had gone, they had walked there.

Over dinner, Declan had shrugged off the whole affair in his predictably casual way. "When Eraan gets an idea in his head, he sees it through. Not the first time he's missed dinner and it probably won't be the last."

Obi-Wan was trying to relax about the situation. He hadn't exactly given his padawan very hard and fast rules about when to report back, after all. Even at the Temple, Anakin sometimes disappeared for long stretches, and unless this were in the middle of the night, or he missed a lesson or assignment, Obi-Wan typically didn't press the matter. Still, they were on a strange planet and he wished Anakin would get into the habit of answering his communicator, at the very least.

He pulled his own communicator out again for the third time this afternoon, hoping -but not really believing- that this would be the time his padawan finally answered.

There was no voice answering on the other end, but the silence in the apartments was broken by a familiar beeping sound coming from Anakin's room.

Of course, Obi-Wan thought bitterly. He walked into the boy's room and followed the beeping to a bag sitting on the bed, and took out Anakin's commlink.