AN: Merry Christmas everyone if you celebrate it (and if not, happy holidays)! Wow, another year has passed us all by; they seem to be speeding up the older we get. The timing of this chapter could not have been better, so we would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very safe and happy holiday season. We look forward to writing more in the new year and hope that you all continue to enjoy our stories.
Season's greetings from
Livia & Raven. X
As Eeth disappeared into his bedroom to rest, leaving Raven to do her homework, she slumped onto their common room floor, datapad from today's classes still in her pack. He'd denied her permission to study Bothese with Bindi and Fae'lin, which usually wouldn't have been such a big deal. Today, though, Bindi had announced that she was using a hologame to study and Raven had really wanted in on that. Okay, so she wasn't exactly taking Bothese, but still! Study was study if you asked her. Unfortunately, nobody ever did, which was part of the reason she was even contemplating sneaking out. She pulled out her datapad, powered it on and waited for the screen to light up, but her mind was on anything but the work. Sneaking out would be risky; disobeying her master always was. This wasn't the serious sort of disobedience, though; they weren't on a mission and this was just class stuff. Nobody would die. Also, this happened to be one of those rare cases in which there really was a very slim chance he would ever find out. After all, the medication he took after his meals reliably knocked him out for at least two hours. If Raven left, she would only go for a short time, just long enough to check it out, have a couple of turns, and then return to do her work.
Despite the best planning and circumstances, Raven was still wary of disobeying Eeth; the consequences should she be caught were suitably dire to make her so! Thus, the padawan continued to deliberate the pros and cons while making very little progress on her work. "Come on, you're a padawan now, be braver!" she scolded herself and worked up the courage to lightly probe at the outer edges of their training bond. It was not invasive, not at all, as they both did this often when communicating across their bond and checking each other's whereabouts. True to her assumption, Eeth was out for the count. He was in a very deep sleep, probably the combined result of a healing trance and his medication. It would take quite a lot to wake him from this, Raven knew.
It was now or never, his rest was not going to get any deeper than it was right now. Very quietly she got to her feet and slipped her pad into her pack. She didn't feel good about this, and it really was a war in her mind over whether or not this was a good idea. If Eeth caught her out disobeying him, it wasn't going to end well for her, but if he didn't, well, she could add it to the short list of misdemeanours that she had gotten away with. Finally – after another twenty minutes of agonising over it, all of which she concealed, Raven decided that it wasn't such a bad thing; it was just study. It wasn't like she was sneaking out to go to an amusement park or something. Besides, Bindi's quarters were conveniently close-by, and it would take her less than a few minutes to arrive. She could be there and back again well before Eeth woke.
The reaction she got from Bindi and her friends was expected; they too sensed her guilt and shared her fears that staying too long would be unwise. Given she had decided to only risk thirty minutes, the others let her play, forfeiting their turns so Raven could have a go before going back to her quarters. It was expected of Jedi children; they were raised to be selfless, although that did not mean they were immune to normal childhood mischief. In fact, the Temple's children found quite a bit of trouble as their minds were trained from the youngest age to think laterally, to find ways around obstacles to succeed in their tasks. Unfortunately not all of those tasks ran in line with what was best for them. This was one such time and Raven knew that.
Eeth, in the meanwhile, slept soundly. Under ordinary circumstances, he did not need an alarm clock, but since his medication was making him drowsy, he had set one to four o'clock. When it went off, he awoke abruptly, switched it off, took a drink of water from a glass beside his bed and stood up very slowly – much more slowly than he would have liked, but then, he had learned the hard way that rushing this was currently not a good idea. He took a moment to rearrange his clothing and hair and then emerged into the common room.
"How is your homework coming along?" he asked Raven who was busy with her datapad.
"Still going," replied Raven, nonchalant, and rolled onto her back giving a dramatic sigh. She had worked hard during the past hour, but was still making up for lost time. "Can we go now? I sooo need a break from this …" She stopped short of saying 'shit' as, although Eeth wasn't harsh when it came to her language, it would probably be frowned upon.
Eeth shook his head. He knew that his padawan hated studying, but it was simply a part of her duties that she was going to have to cope with.
"A quarter of an hour more," he said. "You need to finish your homework as well as your maths assignments. If you had made better progress, I might have granted you a free evening, but as it is, you might have to spend it on the assignments. I will help if necessary."
For now, he needed to give himself a shot of his medication and drink some tea to sustain him through the next few hours, so he resisted the urge to check her work. He would do so after dinner.
The expression on Raven's face was piteous, but thankfully he had his back to her and didn't see it. A whole evening off and she'd wasted it for thirty minutes of guilt-ridden 'fun' with her friends. She was sick of doing homework, yet again, there wasn't much of a choice. Thus, she flopped her head into her arm, groaned and kept at it.
When the fifteen minutes were up, Raven skidded her datapad aside with a little more force than was absolutely necessary, and went to change into her workout clothing before Eeth decided that she needed to do yet more classwork.
Eeth emerged from his room when Raven did. In contrast to her, he was not carrying a gym bag. There was no way he was going to be able to participate in any kind of workout. Sitting on a bench giving instructions was all he was up to.
"We are going to your favorite obstacle course," said Eeth. "Today, you will try to master it with an ignited lightsaber in hand."
"Yeah!" she whooped, jumping around a little. That was the course she had been hoping for!
The trip there was painfully slow, but the girl didn't care; Raven wanted Eeth to be careful with his health and so she adjusted to his speed despite her exuberance. When they arrived, the previous team was just finishing up. They bowed respectfully when they caught sight of Eeth and then hit the showers.
"I'm ready!" said Raven, drawing her saber and vaulting to the start point; this was just what she needed.
Eeth knew that, which was why he drove her hard this afternoon. The healers had completely cleared Raven for all forms of physical activity now that she had fully recovered. She was still not quite as fast and strong as she had been before her illness and her endurance had suffered slightly as well, but she was close to regaining her former degree of fitness. It was only after a full two hours of vigorous exercise, at the end of which Raven had finally managed to complete the whole course with her ignited saber, that Eeth sent her to take a shower.
"We can go to the dining hall for a quick dinner," he said. This was the first night he actually felt up to this.
Raven looked at him skeptically. "You sure you're feeling up to it?" she questioned. Truth be told, she hoped he was, as going back to their quarters meant going back to studying, and Raven had had enough of that over the past weeks to last her a lifetime.
Eeth raised his eyebrows. "If I was not up to it, I would not suggest it," he replied. He did not allow Raven to dawdle on her dinner, though, knowing his padawan's tendency to procrastinate when she had to study. Thus, he pushed her to finish her dinner while he ate a bowl of soup and a slice of bread. He felt full after that and pocketed his piece of fruit for later.
"Now, show me your homework assignments and the work you did this afternoon," he said to Raven once they had returned to their quarters and he had plopped down on a chair. And he had really plopped down, as opposed to his usual fashion of sitting down in an unhurried, dignified manner!
Raven groaned at receiving this order. "Really? Like, the very second we walk in the door?" she complained, thinking that he ought to cut her some slack considering the amount of work she'd done lately.
Now Eeth was beginning to get suspicious. If Raven did not want him to see her work, there was probably a reason for that. Maybe she had done a shoddier job than she cared for him to see.
"And why not?" he inquired. "I hardly think it is going to get any better if it is left lying around. Bring it to me."
Raven could argue that, but it didn't look like it would do her any good. More likely it would just further annoy him. Sighing, she retrieved the datapad from where she had left it and held it out. "Here." She had a plan to explain the lack of progress if he noticed. Raven wasn't sure he would, though, as she had rushed through quite a large section in an effort to make the lack of work less obvious.
Eeth carefully looked over the assignments and the work that Raven had done and frowned. Unfortunately for Raven, he was already suspicious and therefore noticed that there was a rather large amount of gaps and mistakes in her work. If she had properly used the time during which he had been sleeping, she should have been able to do a much better job than this.
"Padawan, this is biology," he said, holding up her datapad. "It is not a subject that you have ever had any difficulties with. How is it that you did not manage to produce more than this in two hours' time?"
Okay, so if Raven lied, Eeth was probably going to be able to tell. She had yet to successfully lie to him. Besides trying had only made it worse. "I, um, well," she stuttered. Fuck, not a good start. She needed to pull herself together. "I might have been taking my time, and I studied other subjects for a while. Kinda mixing it up, you know?" There, not exactly a lie, but not entirely truthful either.
Eeth was not as dumb as to buy this. There was something that his padawan was trying hard not to tell him. His face darkening, he said sternly, "Who do you think you are fooling, padawan? Try that again, and make it truthful this time. I do not appreciate having to drag it out of you."
"It was truthful," she defended herself. However, the expression on his face had her reconsider leaving it at just that. She moved a little to the right, conveniently positioning the coffee table between them. It was then that a thought came to mind; perhaps he was too ill to punish her over this? It was possible as the healers had specifically stated that he wasn't to exert himself. Then again, he had a cupboardful of reasons why that logic wasn't going to fly. The longer Raven took to think, the deeper Eeth's frown became, until the padawan could see no other option. "I might have gone to Bindi's to study with the others for a little while, but it really was only a little while. Just half an hour. I needed a break. I swear I will get this finished. I have all night now, after all." Raven thought bringing up the fact that she was missing out on the padawans' lounge tonight because he was making her study might work in her favour.
"And what, precisely, did you study at Bindi's?" asked Eeth coldly. "I assume it was Bothese, rather than biology?"
"Yes. I was still studying, though." Raven thought it important to point that out.
"No, you were not," snapped Eeth, and he suddenly sounded remarkably like his old self. "You were hanging out with your friends to play a game involving a subject that you are currently not taking. What you did was blatantly disobedient. I told you to come home after lunch and study, and you used the first opportunity to violate your explicit instructions. That opportunity, incidentally, was created by the fact that I was ill and in need of rest. If you think you can start exploiting that fact, you are sorely mistaken."
He considered his options for a moment. He was still very weak, and besides, dealing out a full-fledged spanking would probably count as "physical exertion", which the healers had unambiguously ordered him to avoid. On the other hand, his padawan's notion that she could use his fatigue to her advantage had to be discouraged. The idea of asking Lakhri to take over briefly crossed his mind, but he felt an instinctive aversion against delegating this task to someone else. Lakhri had disciplined Raven before, but that had been for disobeying his own orders, when he had been in charge of her. Right now, it was Eeth who was in charge and Raven needed to learn that this had not changed in the slightest. There was nothing for it; he would just have to make up for his lack of physical strength through the use of an appropriate implement. And fortunately, he owned quite a number of those.
"Go to the cupboard and fetch me the large strap with the split ends," he told Raven. "Then bare your bottom and bend over the table."
That way, he would not have to exert himself restraining her over his lap, and he would have more swing, which would hopefully ensure the strap left a strong impression.
"Wait, master… Please be reasonable about this," Raven was panicking now as it seemed the shit was about to hit the fan. Force, had she really taken advantage of his illness? Well, kinda, yeah, although at the time she hadn't seen it quite like that; it had simply been a mechanism to getting what she wanted. "I didn't mean it like that. I swear. I just wanted a break. Can't you take that into consideration? Please?" Raven was outright begging now. Okay, so he hadn't ordered her to get his cane, but nor had he ever used that particular strap on her before. The only certainty was that it was going to hurt!
"No," said Eeth, stony-faced. "I fail to see how you could have believed even for one moment that your excursion might have been authorised, whether you 'just wanted a break' or not. You know what to expect for disobedience. Fetch the strap. Now."
She did, although owning those consequences was never easy. Swiping her hands down her trousers, Raven swallowed and inclined her head. She didn't argue further, not due to a lack of material — heck, Raven had that shit in spades — but more out of shock. How had it come to this? It was all moving too fast! Ten minutes ago, none of this had been happening. And now? Now she was walking back to the table, strap in hand!
"Master, please. It was just, just–" She paused, holding out the strap for Eeth to take when he extended his hand. "Just a small break." The latter was uttered quietly, and possibly more to herself as it became clear that nothing short of a full-scale Temple invasion was going to persuade Eeth from walloping her. And even then, would he wallop her first and then go fight off the bad guys? Raven thought that might just be plausible if the determined expression on his face was anything to go by.
Eeth accepted the strap and pointed at the table, the look on his face brooking no opposition.
Resigned, Raven pulled a chair from their dining room table, unbuckled her saber belt and trousers and then slid the lot to bunch at her knees. They wouldn't stay there for long once Eeth started swinging that strap around, she knew that, yet for some reason pushing them down to her ankles was just too much for her twelve-year-old pride. The last thing Raven wanted to do now was bend over as it flew in the face of her sense of self-preservation. Unfortunately, failing to obey Eeth for a second time today was also a violation of said sense. Thus, the padawan bolstered her courage, pulled up her tunic and gripped the edge of their table tightly with a hand, the other reaching back to cushion her hip bones from mashing into the table edge because, well, any small comfort was worth the effort at this point.
Eeth had not used this particular strap on Raven before, but he had used it on Lakhri a few times and knew that it did not need to be wielded with much force in order to leave an impression, which was the reason why he had chosen it. Raven's offence would probably not ordinarily have earned her an implement this harsh, but he was not in any state to deal out vigorous over-the-knee spankings. Since Raven had exploited that state, it was only fitting that she received this now, and he told her as much.
"Had you made the unwise decision to disobey me in order to swap homework against a bit of fun with your friends under normal circumstances," he said in a tight voice while taking up a position behind her, "you would have received a sound paddling over my knee and been grounded for a week. As it is, you will still be grounded but since you saw fit to exploit my illness, you will have to cope with whatever implement I can wield without much of an effort now."
With this, he raised the strap and brought it down onto the lower curve of Raven's bottom, careful not to overdo it as per the healers' orders, but with perfect aim.
"Ahhowww!" Raven hissed. Before she could brace herself for the next lick, it landed, turning the hiss into something a little more vocal. This was not at all pleasant; it stung like a leather paddle yet also had a deep thud to it like a belt. It was not that she had a lot of time to contemplate the similarities between Eeth's implements here, as he wasn't cutting her any slack. When the next couple landed with no less alacrity, Raven was having trouble keeping still. "Master, oww! I-I didn't mean to disobey! I swear I didn't!" Begging off never worked, yet for some reason this information rarely stopped Raven from trying at least a little. Besides, this really fucking hurt!
"Padawan, you acted against your explicit instructions," snapped Eeth. "Of course you meant it." He made his displeasure with her argument clear when he dealt out the next stroke, which was impressive. Well, not as impressive as he could have made it had he been in perfect health, but definitely more forceful than the previous ones.
Okay, so that lick had her complete and undivided attention. She rose onto her toes and twisted, a foot stomping in an effort to confuse the pain receptors. It didn't work; all it managed to do was send the bunch of clothing from her knees down to her ankles, further restricting her movement. "It was a stupid instruction," Raven gasped out, her eyes squinted shut tightly against the pain. Apparently, her brain had malfunctioned, or perhaps the swat had rattled something loose up there because had she just told him that his orders were stupid? Fuck. Attempting damage control, the padawan started babbling. "I mean, uh!" What exactly had she meant?! "I didn't mean you were stupid, just that–" Force, this was getting worse, and Raven had nothing.
Now she had done it: she had managed to seriously annoy Eeth, as opposed to him just being strict.
"You may safely leave it up to me to decide whether the instructions I give you are stupid," he said in an icy voice. "Your only concern should be obeying them. Your opinion of them is irrelevant. You deserve this punishment several times over and you will take it without further backtalk, unless you want me to add a few strokes with the cane to it."
Since Eeth was confident that Raven did not, in fact, want him to fetch his cane, he did not give her time to reply; he simply continued wielding the strap until her yelps turned into genuine cries, and she fell limp, no longer trying to twist from the swats or talk her way out of it. As usual, he was unperturbed by Raven's yowls. If anything, it showed him that the punishment was having the desired effect, which was to make her think twice or possibly three times before she next decided to run off from her studies against explicit orders.
Therefore, he dealt out a full two dozen strokes. He probably would have had difficulties doing this a couple of days ago, but right now, it truly and honestly was no more than he could handle. By the time he was done and hung the strap across the back of a chair, Raven was sobbing. She lay limply across the table, her knuckles white from gripping the edge. That had been truly memorable, not that Raven had expected any different for disobeying him. Still sobbing openly, the padawan slowly pushed herself up off the table, one hand immediately moving back to massage her backside while the other came up to hide her red and tear-streaked face.
Eeth found a handkerchief in his pocket, handed it to her and returned the strap to its place in the cupboard. Then he came back to the table and sat down. "Come here, padawan," he said softly.
Raven kicked off her trousers and reluctantly pulled up her underpants, as both had been effectively hobbling her. By now her bawling was reduced to a more subdued sniffling, yet she still held the back of her underpants away from her ass with a hand as she moved to comply with his instructions. Raven was not happy. Her face was a hot mess, and no matter how hard she tried, the occasional breath continued to hitch in her chest as she stood before Eeth, her gaze on his boots.
Eeth put his right arm on her shoulder, offering her a hug in a way that was half dignified, half awkward. Hugging did not come naturally to him, but he had learned that most children and adolescents needed some physical comfort on certain occasions, and the aftermath of a strapping tended to be among those.
Raven was still struggling with her composure. She curled into his side, allowing his arm to pull her into a hug. It was often hard for her to forgive and forget after punishment. Sure, she knew that it had been deserved, yet she still found it hard to accept after someone had caused her so much discomfort. And Raven was not comfortable right now, even though she was feeling content in Eeth's arms.
"You mad?" she whispered into his lapel when her sniffling had ceased. Of course she knew he wasn't; Eeth was rarely, if ever, 'mad' about anything. Still, it was her way of asking if he forgave her, if it was over now or if she had more coming. Raven fervently hoped it was, that the week's grounding was all, but experience had taught her that this wasn't always the case.
"No, I am not mad" Eeth said quietly. "That said, I will make sure you catch up on all the study you missed out on, and then some, during the period of your grounding. And needless to say, if there is any kind of repeat occurrence, you will be in a lot more trouble than you have been in today."
While he said that, he patted her back slightly in what he hoped was a comforting way.
Raven nodded into his shoulder. She wanted to argue that she had only missed half an hour of study time, but decided against it. Her ass already felt like the surface of Mustafar, and being grounded for a whole week was going to suck royally as it was. Arguing with him might just add to her misery.
Still pouting a little, she reluctantly pulled back from his hug and swiped the handkerchief under her nose. "Can I go to my room, please?" she asked, wanting a moment to sulk and lick her wounds, but mostly so she could sit on the cold tiles in her bathroom or stick her ass under the cold shower; either would be fine.
"For ten minutes," replied Eeth. "After that, you will do your homework properly and then I will study some maths with you."
He knew that Raven much preferred studying with Lakhri, since the man had much more of a sense of humour than Eeth did and generally was more easy-going; but Eeth was not a bad teacher himself, and good at explaining things. He could be very patient, too, but that patience vanished instantly if he sensed the slightest lack of effort in his student. This was something he was not tolerant with at all, and Raven knew it.
Ten minutes wasn't very long when you were using said time to nurse a wounded ass. There wasn't much Raven could do about it, though, and so she sat on her bathroom floor until her time was up and then dressed in a comfortable sleep shirt and underwear. She really was sick of classwork, and her expression said as much when she entered the common room exactly ten minutes later.
Eeth handed her the datapad containing her biology homework. "Do it properly this time," he said. "As well as I know you are capable of."
"Yes, master," said Raven, accepting the pad as if it were her death orders.
While she did her homework, she was a lot more mobile than usual thanks to a burning ass. She started off draped over the back of their couch, then slid down the front and had her legs over the backrest and eventually wound up on the floor, in various eye-watering positions. "Done," she finally said, flipping to her feet and stretching. Raven didn't actually mind biology, yet with all the work Eeth had assigned her, courtesy of her jaunt with remedial maths, the padawan was sick of it all.
Eeth held out his hand for her datapad. "You may start setting the table for dinner," he said. "After dinner, you will work on your maths assignments."
"No wait, but! Ug! Master! Pleeeease, you're killing me here," Raven told Eeth, dragging a hand down her face when he erased the datapad for the third time, bringing up yet another equation that she needed to solve. It was just a matter of practice, of course, or at least that was how it was put to her when she became disappointed in her slow progress. Oh, and then there was the state of her ass: it hurt, which was doing nothing for her concentration, despite the fact that Eeth had been lenient and allowed her to stand, and then had turned a blind eye when she returned from a toilet break carrying a pillow.
"The last time I gave in to some of your incessant whining about how practicing maths is supposedly 'killing you'," Eeth said frostily, "you managed to obtain a D- in your exam and earn yourself a remedial maths class. I will not make that mistake again. You are not stupid, nor are you incapable of grasping the concepts involved here and applying them correctly. The only thing you are lacking is motivation. If you need me to provide some, you need only say so."
Did she need motivation? Heck no, especially if it was of the sort she suspected he meant, but neither did she want to study maths any longer. Raven looked from Eeth to the datapad, and then to the door, silently begging the Force to send intervention, anything to save her from more maths. Alas, it was not to be. "For the record, I do not 'whine incessantly', I whine just enough to be cathartic. So there," she corrected him, her lip pulling into a crooked smile.
"The only thing that exceeds your capacity to whine about maths," Eeth replied, stony-faced, "is your capacity to procrastinate about it. If you have not completed five problems by bedtime, I will wake you an hour earlier tomorrow morning so you can finish them before breakfast."
The corner of Raven's lip fell, and her crooked smile was replaced with a wary expression. If there was one thing she wanted less than doing this now, it was prolonging the agony. So it was that the padawan kept at it, despite wishing she was doing just about anything else!
Some time later, the door chime sounded. Eeth rose from the couch to open the door and found himself looking down on his former padawan who was quite exhausted from a very long day of teaching. Still, he had wanted to check on Eeth.
"Hi, Eeth," said Lakhri. "Raven. Are you doing alright?"
"That depends." Raven gave Eeth a pointed look. "I'm being tortured. I'm going to report him to the Council. After all, slavery is against the laws of the Republic." She was joking, of course. Still, the padawan knelt on the cushion and pushed her datapad toward him so he could see the current equation, as if it explained and validated everything.
Lakhri stepped inside and looked from Raven, to the datapad she was holding out to him, to his rather weary-looking former master.
"So he's making you study maths," he said. "Well, I hate to disappoint you, but that's not torture. Rather, it's going to be a blessing in the long term, at least if it saves all of us another round of remedial maths."
Lakhri had done a lot of school work with Raven, and he knew what he was talking about. And in this particular instance, he happened to agree with Eeth.
Raven rolled her eyes. Lakhri was right, of course, and she hadn't really been serious about reporting Eeth to the Council; he was on the Council, they'd just take his side. Raven grinned at her thoughts.
Lakhri returned her grin and sat down on the couch. Eeth took a seat in an armchair opposite him. "You look tired," said Lakhri. "Do you want to lie down? I can take over here."
"Thank you," replied Eeth, "but you do look tired yourself. And Raven is almost finished. I do not want her to miss out on her evening meditation. Padawan, complete this now. It is nearly your bedtime."
"Hey, I don't need supervising, you know," said Raven, looking from Eeth to Lakhri, and then back again before sitting on her pillow to do as told.
Fifteen minutes later Raven had finally finished with her work. She stood from the table where she'd remained, given that Eeth and Lakhri were occupying their common room, and took the datapad out for Eeth to check.
"Thank you," said Eeth, accepting the datapad. "Could you get ready for evening meditation, please?" He could not quite prevent himself from sounding a little weary.
Raven perched herself on the arm of Eeth's chair, a leg tucked up beneath her. "I can meditate by myself, or with Lakhri if you don't trust me." The latter was said with a slight grin.
Eeth raised his eyebrows. "I do trust you but I will nonetheless meditate with you," he said. "However, I need to take my evening medication first. Lakhri, could you do me a favour and check these while I do?" He held out the datapad to Lakhri and rose.
"Sure," said Lakhri. He dragged the datapad towards himself and studied it. "These are correct," he said, tossing it back to Raven. "Obviously, Eeth has successfully bullied you into mastering that type of problem."
He checked that Eeth was out of earshot and then turned back to Raven. "What's with the pillow?" he asked. "Was that part of the bullying? If it was, you must have really pushed him." From his experience, Eeth did not usually resort to dealing out full-fledged spankings over a reluctance to study unless that reluctance crossed the line of outright disobedience and disrespect. What was more, Lakhri would not have expected Eeth to have recovered to the extent where he would have been physically capable of making sitting uncomfortable for Raven; but then, the man had never let anything stand in the way of his intention to punish an unruly padawan!
"Nah, that was for thinking that I could pull one over on Eeth," Raven replied, standing so that the pillow was no longer necessary.
Lakhri looked at her incredulously. "How did you get that idea?" he asked. "I mean… I don't think it has ever worked before so why would you think it works now?"
"It's complicated." Raven shifted her weight, folded her arms and leant into the table. "Firstly, I didn't think I'd get caught. And, if we want to get technical about this, I ditched studying to, well, study! Just not the subject I was supposed to be working on." As Lakhri's expression became even more incredulous, Raven huffed, throwing up her hands. "I went to play a holo game instead of doing my homework and the extra maths Eeth assigned." She lifted her sleep shirt and pulled her underwear down to expose her left butt cheek. It was still decidedly pink and sported several faded welts. "He whaled my ass with that horrible thing with the split down the middle, you know?"
Lakhri grimaced. "Yeah, I know that thing alright," he said, remembering at least three different occasions on which it had made an appearance.
"I thought I was gonna die," the padawan confided, rubbing at her ass absentmindedly, and truth be told, at the time she had thought death might just have been preferable!
"I know," said Lakhri. "And he won't be able to provide any healing either unless he's intending to disobey the healers, which I'm sure he isn't. But if you're lucky, he'll give you some bacta before you go to sleep. Anyway, this just goes to show that you should never rely on Eeth to be indisposed to call you to task for any kind of mischief or rule-breaking. He could be on Hoth and you could still not be sure that he wouldn't find out. I can count the incidents of disobedience that I got away with during my entire padawanhood on one hand, I think."
"Such as?" asked Eeth pointedly, returning from his room with a tray of pills and a hypospray.
Raven let go of her ass, the elastic of her underwear snapping and causing a wince as she spun to face Eeth, face slightly red.
Lakhri grinned. "You would like to know that, wouldn't you? I'm afraid I'm… disinclined to tell you. I might tell Raven at some point, when you're not listening."
Eeth set the tray onto the table and went to the kitchen to fetch himself a glass of water. When he returned, he sat down and said, "Fair enough. Keep in mind, though, that if I discover any kind of mischief that was inspired by your tales, I will hold you responsible."
Lakhri rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right," he said. "As if I'd ever actively advise someone to get into trouble with you! How dumb do you think I am?"
Eeth smiled. "Not dumb at all," he said calmly and proceeded to take the first of his pills. "I will be with you in a moment," he told Raven. "Lakhri, would you like to meditate with us? You do not have to, though."
"I know I don't have to," said Lakhri. "But, yeah, I will. Why not?" He rose from his chair and stretched. "Come on, we can get started already," he said to Raven. "While Eeth takes his hypospray and all."
Raven dashed for her mat; meditating with both Eeth and Lakhri was somewhat of a treat, after all.
Eeth applied the hypospray to his upper arm and put it aside. His arm felt thin when compared to what it had been before their return from Borleias; he had lost a lot of muscle mass. Healer Sopan had told him that he would start on physiotherapy next week in order to slowly rebuild his strength and endurance, but that it would be a while yet before he would be handling a saber. He had accepted that statement with a nod, the impassive look on his face not betraying his dissatisfaction. For now, there was nothing he could do about his weakness, much as he despised it. And so he went to join Raven and Lakhri who had already started to meditate. When they were done, Eeth produced a very small tube of bacta from the pocket of his robe and handed it to Raven. "Get ready for bed," he said matter-of-factly.
Raven looked from the tiny tube of bacta Eeth had given her, to Lakhri and then back to Eeth again. It briefly crossed her mind to ask why he hadn't given it to her before they had meditated! But she kept her mouth shut and ran for her bedroom before Eeth decided that she was being ungrateful and took it off her.
"You might have been a bit more generous than that," Lakhri said reproachfully.
Eeth raised his eyebrows. "It is not as if I caned her," he pointed out. "It will be sufficient to allow her to sleep."
"Probably," Lakhri agreed. "But only just."
"Exactly," said Eeth. "If I wanted her to go thinking she could exploit my weak state, lenience would be the way to go. It is not what I am aiming for, though."
Lakhri sighed. "Alright, alright. She did disobey you, I know. Is there anything I can do for you? If not, I'm turning in."
Eeth studied him for a moment. Then he said: "No, there is nothing more you can do for me. Thank you. For everything. You did not need to spend all that time on us."
Lakhri looked at him in surprise. "What else would I have done?" he asked. "You're welcome and all, but it's really no big deal. You are my former master, after all."
"Yes, and if you held a grudge against me due to my … lack of empathy and excessive harshness, I would not blame you," Eeth replied quietly.
Lakhri was a bit taken aback. He had not been expecting this; he had had no idea that Eeth still held regrets over all that.
"Eeth," he said solemnly. "It's true, we had a rough time, especially during our first years. But you've never stopped trying to improve. And I admire you for that. I hold no grudge." Breaking the tension with a smile, he added: "And now stop worrying and go to bed. Healers' orders."
Eeth returned the smile. "Alright," he said, rising from his chair. He briefly put a hand on Lakhri's shoulder. "Thank you," he said again.
Lakhri impulsively hugged him. "I'm just glad you made it," he said with feeling. "Take care of yourself." He held the hug for a moment, then released Eeth and made for the door, waving his goodbye.
When Eeth entered Raven's room sometime later, she was lying on her tummy reading. A discarded tube of bacta that had been squeezed within an inch of its life then slit open and completely scraped clean, sat on her bedside table. "Good night, master. I hope you feel better tomorrow," she told him, not bothering to cover her backside, it wasn't like he'd never seen it before and she didn't want her sleep pants fusing to her ass overnight.
"Thank you," replied Eeth. He bent down, cupped his large hand around the back of her head affectionately, and then switched off the lights and left.
A week later, things were looking a lot better. Eeth had started his physiotherapy and was finally able to get through the day without the need to take naps. He had nearly resumed walking at his normal pace and generally felt much stronger – strong enough to attend Council sessions, at least the important ones, and to request an assignment that would not require much physical activity on his part.
On Friday, as he was making his way home from the Council session, he decided to resume cooking their lunch. He had usually ordered in since he had been released from the healers' wing but today he felt energetic enough to produce a meal himself. He still had time before Raven was due home; she was writing a biology test today, the last of a number of tests she had written this week. Eeth was less concerned with her biology results and more with her remedial maths test. The results might just be in when he came home. But first, he was going to do some grocery shopping and cook a stir-fry.
For Raven, the week of grounding had been as mundane as expected, that being incredibly boring and filled with little more than study and extra chores. Lakhri's visits were a welcome reprieve, though, as were their gym sessions and the several moving meditations that Eeth had allowed her to do this week. The latter were strictly out of necessity, of course; nothing at all to do with cutting her any slack, or so Eeth had implied.
"I'm glad that's over with," Raven said to Worik, a Mon Calamari boy she had met in Eeth's advanced saber class last year. They had met in the corridor after their test and, given that their quarters were located in the same spire, they were walking together.
Worik shrugged. "Tests and classes don't bother me, but it sure will be good to have a week's break and use it to go with my master to a few Senate sessions." Worik was apprentice to Councillor Adi Gallia, a female Tholothian senator. They were well-suited, as far as Raven was concerned. Worik was fascinated by diplomacy and the goings-on of the Galactic Republic. The girl practically shivered at the thought; she hated diplomacy and considered their last mission to Borleias enough politics to last her well into knighthood.
"You can keep that one. If I had my way, I'd be done with diplomacy. Oh, and we can ditch all the classes and exams while we're at it. Unfortunately for me, my master does not share my sentiments." Raven adopted a stern, Eeth-like expression. "Padawan, exams are important steps on your path to knighthood, as is a thorough training in diplomacy. Nobody said becoming a Jedi Knight was going to be easy," she mimicked Eeth while making air quotes.
Worik snorted. "You look ridiculous, just saying."
Raven smiled; she did enjoy their banter and actually wished that she had more time to spend with Worik. They had become good friends over the past year. "See you soon, unless I failed another exam in which case I might see you next decade as I'll be grounded until I'm knighted."
"A whole decade. Harsh. I'll come sneak you out if that happens. You can count on me," replied Worik, smiling broadly as Raven rolled her eyes and stepped inside the turbo lift.
Okay, so perhaps being grounded for an entire decade was a bit over the top, even for Eeth. Still, when Raven entered their quarters that afternoon it was not without a certain sense of trepidation. Had she put in enough effort to pass everything? Would Eeth send her to the AgriCorps if she failed again? Raven might make light of her lack of academic prowess to her friends, but the truth was she wanted to do well, to please Eeth and make him proud.