Three days had passed since Lakhri and Raven had returned from their trip to Liana's Resort. Raven had begun classes again, and thanks to Eeth's near relapse, the Council had not given them other assignments. Still, Eeth kept his padawan busy; he would have hated to think of her idle and unproductive. So it was that on Wednesday afternoon after their classes, Raven found herself stretched out on their common room floor doing homework. Had this been but a few months ago, Raven might have protested the schedule, but given that she had flunked maths with disastrous consequences and had gotten away with lying to Eeth about Worik in order to get out of their Senate assignment, the padawan was unwilling to complain about anything lately.
When the door chime rang, Eeth went to get it.
"Hiya," said Lakhri, grinning up at him. "I'm finished with my work for today. I wanted to offer to take Raven to the gym. I know you're not allowed to have a sparring session with her, but I am."
"Thank you," said Eeth. "I had been planning to practice kata with her but this is a welcome offer. Raven, what do you think?"
"I think that Lakhri is my saviour! Thank you. I'd love to go." And with that Raven had abandoned her datapad, was in her bedroom and dressing before anyone got a word out. Sure, she loved doing kata with Eeth, but it was far from her favourite gym activity. When Raven emerged, she gave Lakhri a smile that was all teeth. The two had not seen each other since Lakhri had dropped her off last Sunday afternoon, after all.
"You are not getting out of your schoolwork, padawan," said Eeth mildly. "You will finish it after your return."
"I'll make sure to drop her off some time before dinner," Lakhri promised. "Come on, Raven. I've been teaching levitation and Huttese all day. I'm itching for some exercise."
Once they were in the corridor and making their way to the gym, he asked, "So, did you tell Eeth?"
Raven knew what Lakhri was referring to immediately. "No, not yet." She looked over at him with a slightly pained expression on her face and shoved both hands into her pockets. "The longer I've put it off, the worse I know it's going to be and the less courage I have to tell him about it." It was highly unlikely that Lakhri would be impressed with that answer; it was cowardly and Raven knew that. Still, it had been the truth.
Lakhri made to tell her that she was being stupid but he stopped himself. He had said that this was her decision to make and he was going to stick with that. Some lessons could not be forced on people, he believed, and having to live with one's choices was one of them. Therefore, he said nothing; he simply continued to walk towards the gym in silence.
Raven stared at him as they walked until it became obvious that Lakhri wasn't going to comment, and she looked down at the floor. She didn't know what was worse, having him call her on her actions or the silence! In any case, when they reached the gym, her gut was churning, and when they finished what was a pretty lacklustre effort on her behalf at sparring, she was not feeling any better.
Lakhri had a pretty clear idea of what she was feeling and it pained him. However, he knew that there was nothing he could or should do to help. She needed to make this step by herself. When he dropped her off at her doorstep, he merely squeezed her shoulder affectionately, gave her a brief smile of encouragement and left.
Raven stood outside the door to their quarters watching Lakhri's back until the man disappeared around the corner. It was taking all her self-restraint not to run after him and plead that he help her find a way out of this, but again, that was cowardly, not to mention it was entirely unlike Raven to be this afraid of owning her mistakes, yet afraid she was. No, Eeth would not actually kill her, but he might just make her wish he had. She stared at the door, took a deep breath and entered. Eeth was sitting on the couch, his eyes closed. Raven approached quietly, seating herself cross-legged on their coffee table opposite, waiting to be acknowledged.
Eeth emerged from his meditative trance a moment later, opened his eyes and smiled at Raven. "Padawan," he said. "How did your workout go?" She did not, he noticed at second glance, look as if it had gone all too well.
Raven's courage faltered, and there was a long silence before she finally spoke. "It was okay, I guess. You wouldn't have been satisfied with it, though. I-I might have some things on my mind that I should probably talk to you about." THERE, she had said it. Now it was just a case of getting out the rest. Yeah… "I'll be honest, I really don't want to talk to you about this because you're not going to be happy about any of it, but-" Raven squirmed, wrapping her arms about her legs. "I kind of have to. I can wait if you don't feel up to it. Maybe you need to rest some more?"
"No," said Eeth. "I am perfectly fine, padawan. Whatever it is you have to tell me, there is no excuse for procrastinating. At least none that I am willing to give you." He was not interested in spending tedious minutes on trying to drag it out of her, whatever it was that she had done: brought home a note from a teacher? Flunked a test?
She bit her lip and fisted wads of her trousers while perched on their coffee table, all the while trying to work up the courage to confess. It wasn't easy! Eeth was not exactly the most forgiving of Jedi masters, and Raven knew what to expect for this level of misdeed. "I might have done something that you didn't, well, find out about," she began, her eyes flicking up from her hands to meet his gaze and judge the level of his displeasure, or would it be surprise? Raven wasn't sure.
Eeth's gaze was impassive but that was only because he was so good at shielding his emotions. He prided himself on always finding out. Well, almost always. It seemed as if he was about to hear about one of the very few exceptions.
"And what is it that you have done, padawan?" he inquired, honestly curious.
By now Raven's hands were sweating, and she continued to grip at her pant leg. It took her a while, possibly several minutes, to get out the start of her tale. She explained how they had gone to the expo and how Worik really had been bitten by something and how bad his hand had looked. "It might not have been quite as bad as I made out, though," she finally confessed. "I might have embellished it in order to get out of our Senate meeting that day."
As usual, Eeth grasped her meaning rather quickly. "Do you mean to say," he asked in a dangerously low voice, "that you deceived me in order to receive permission to stay with your friend, rather than do your duty?"
"Yes, master." Raven wished that she had another answer to give him, but there wasn't one. Her gaze dropped to her hands once again. "I don't have any excuse. I wanted to get out of the Senate assignment and I knew that the chances of you finding out were virtually zero. I feel bad about deceiving you, about the fact that you almost relapsed and were pulled off the assignment. I was going to tell you what I did, but each day I waited, the worse I knew you were going to take this and the less courage I had to tell you." Raven stopped short of apologising at this point, knowing that it would probably seem superficial in light of everything else.
Eeth was silent for a long moment. He had to admit that he had not seen this coming, and that shocked him. How many other things were there that his padawan got past him? Well, probably not that many, he reasoned; after all, Raven had told him about this one because she felt bad about it which meant that she had not yet got into the habit of hiding things from him. And he would make sure she thought twice before she did it again!
"Very well, padawan," he said in a level tone of voice. "You deceived me and you shirked your duty. Incidentally, you lied to me when I asked you about your day. And you took several days – six, I think – to come clean. Is there anything else you want to tell me?"
At this point, Raven was starting to regret having owned up. She wasn't afraid of Eeth per se; she was, however, afraid of the punishment he might give out, especially so as he made note of each transgression, all of which were of the sort that Raven would expect serious punishment for on their own. The padawan shifted uncomfortably on the coffee table, forcing herself to meet his eye. "Just that I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have done it and it won't ever happen again, I swear it," she got out, her tone taking on a slightly desperate edge.
"Yes, I will do my best to make sure of that," said Eeth drily. "Just for the record: if you had not owned up and I had found out about this some other way, I would have considered it a case for the cane." While the punishment he was going to mete out would be guaranteed to leave an impression, he wanted Raven to know that it could have been worse. He wanted to reward her honesty, to a certain extent. But that did not mean she was going to escape with her bottom unscathed, as was clear from the expression on his face when he rose and beckoned for her to do the same.
The colour drained from Raven's face at the mention of how close she had come to receiving his cane. During her apprenticeship, Raven had developed a healthy respect for that particular implement and she would do just about anything to avoid it. She stood as he gestured, scrubbing both palms down her pant leg and looking slightly fretful. "Master," she said quietly, anticipating his next order. "You don't have to do this now, you look tired." It was true, too, he did look tired, although Raven's concerns were not only for him, they were also an effort at postponing whatever horrors he had planned.
"I might," said Eeth stoically, "but I will still 'do this now.' There will be plenty of opportunity for me to rest after you have taken your punishment, which will be followed by a lengthy meditation on why, exactly, it is a bad idea to deceive your master in order to escape your duties."
Raven's gaze lowered once again. She had to shove her hands in her pockets to keep from fidgeting, but it was obvious that she was nervous, afraid even. Still, she had pulled herself together as well as could be expected for a twelve-year-old about to face off against Eeth.
Eeth pondered his options briefly. Then he said, "Go to the cupboard and bring me the large strap." He had promised not to use the cane but that did not mean the punishment would be a light one!
Resigned, Raven turned on her heel and did as told. It wasn't until she had the horrid thing in her hand and was heading back that her courage once again faltered. "I did tell you," she felt compelled to remind him as she held out the strap for him to take.
"Which is why I did not ask you to bring me the cane," replied Eeth, unmoved. "Bare your bottom and bend over." He accepted the strap and nodded with his chin towards the table.
It took Raven quite a bit of self-control not to start arguing that point; Eeth might have skipped his cupboard altogether, for instance. Raven didn't, though, and instead dragged her feet towards the table, slid out a chair and pulled her trousers and underpants to her knees. Actually bending over was harder, it always was! Besides, Jedi or not, it was hard to be brave when your master was about to whale on your ass with the strap from hell. This was going to hurt. A lot.
Eeth hung the strap across the back of a chair, swatted Raven's bottom with his hand three times and ordered, "Tell me what you are receiving this punishment for." He did not do this often, but given that her misdeed had been six days ago, he thought it best to leave no room for ambiguity.
Raven had been bracing herself to feel the strap, so when Eeth's hand landed instead, it took her by surprise. Sure, it still fucking hurt and had her hissing, but it wasn't the anticipated showdown. This also meant that whatever he gave her now was just a preamble, which was a humbling thought, and so she started talking fast. "Because I deceived you, lied about it, and then kept it from you for an extended period of time," came out in a rush.
"And besides all that, you neglected your duty," Eeth pointed out. "Which is entirely unacceptable." He raised his hand again and started spanking her hard and fast.
"Ah! Yes, I neglected my duteeeee!" But that was all the begging and pleading Raven was going to get out, as Eeth's hand felt like a damned board! She did consider herself fortunate that he chose not to use his paddle instead, as that would have been worse. Not by much, but worse all the same. Raven also knew that he rarely stopped before she had, at the very least, started sniffling. Of course, being a padawan of considerable ingenuity, she had once dissolved into crocodile tears, hoping that this would make him stop. The problem with that tactic was that Eeth had somehow sensed her act which had resulted in a few swats that were so hard that Raven honestly thought she was going to stop breathing. Yeah, she had only tried that once, never again. Thus, Raven "Owwed!" and "AhHHed!" her way through as many as she could before her position began shifting and her eyes filled with tears.
At this point, Raven was nowhere near where Eeth had wanted her to be. It was true that he had a large and hard hand and was very strong, which was why he could make a hand spanking hurt quite a bit. Right now, however, he realised that his strength and endurance were considerably lower than they had been before his illness. Much to his discontent, he had to concede that his arm was feeling the strain. Therefore, a lot sooner than he would ordinarily have done, he reached for the strap, raised it high and brought it down across his padawan's upturned bottom smartly.
"YeooWwwchh!" screeched Raven in response. That had really fucking hurt and it showed in the way her body twisted, toes curled and the death grip she now had on the far edge of the table, fingers tightened until her knuckles went white. Somehow, the padawan managed to keep her chest down and hands away for the first half dozen, but by that stage the pain had built up to a point where it was almost unbearable. Raven had taken a full dozen with Eeth's paddle without making a scene when she and Eeth had first met, so she was well able to withstand pain while maintaining her dignity. The problem was that this strap was broad and thick; each lick almost covered her entire backside, and the pain it produced was enough to have her almost seeing stars. She was not going to last much longer, and she knew that. Her only hope at maintaining composure was that Eeth stopped. "Masterrr! N-nomorepleeeeeeease!" she begged him, swiping at her eyes with her shoulder in an effort at hiding her tears.
Eeth, however, was certainly not going to stop after a mere half dozen licks, not for a transgression of this order.
"Cry out all you like, but stay in position and accept your punishment," he ordered sharply, administering another stroke across the lowest part of Raven's bottom. "You have thoroughly earned it."
This had Raven rising up on her toes, her back arching. She wailed, one hand leaving the far edge of the table and flying to grip the edge closest to her hips. "Wait!" she tried, but was rewarded with yet another swat, this one reducing her to sobs. Raven knew this was deserved, but Force, if it wasn't hard to see it that way when she was in this position!
Entirely unperturbed by Raven's wails, Eeth continued his assault on her bottom. He dealt out another four swats and then hesitated for a moment. Normally, he would have stopped here; but then, the handspanking he had meted out had been considerably shorter than it ordinarily would have been, due to his weakened state. He thought he should make up for that.
Coming to a decision, he said, "Two more, padawan," and raised the strap again.
Despite having lost her mental count at around swat nine or ten, Raven knew that when he paused, he must have given her the dozen. It had to be! It sure as hell felt like he had in any case, because her ass felt like the surface of Mustafar. So, as one would expect, hearing that there were two more coming did not go over well. She fell limp onto the tabletop and started to cry in earnest, the pleading now unintelligible. She twisted her hips, unwittingly angling her backside away from him, her hands white from gripping the table and her face a hot mess. It was official, Raven was never going to deceive Eeth ever again, not as long as she lived!
The last two licks were aimed at the crease where Raven's bottom met her thighs, and Eeth put much of his weight behind them. They were designed to leave an impression that Raven would not soon forget. When that was done, he again hung the strap across the back of a chair and waited until Raven stopped wailing, which did not happen any time soon. She did, however, spring to her feet, both hands flying back to clench at her backside. The skin there felt scorched, like the ache, burn and sting was never going to subside! Not caring that she was perhaps not taking this as well as Eeth might expect from her, Raven kept at the bouncing around, rubbing furiously as tears continued streaking her face.
Eeth produced a handkerchief from his pocket and waited for her to stop hopping around. When that failed to happen, he rested a hand on her shoulder, effectively forcing her to stand still.
"Clean yourself up," he said firmly, handing her the handkerchief, "and meditate on what you did wrong and why you did it. I will want to hear some insights when you are done."
The handkerchief was swiped across her eyes, beneath her nose, and then she used it to blow. Raven was not happy with Eeth for being so hard on her, and so she kicked off her trousers, pulled up her underwear and went to her mat without comment.
To say that the task was arduous was a gross understatement. It took Raven quite some time to reach an acceptable state in which to meditate, and even then, it was difficult to maintain her focus. Raven did her best, though. Meanwhile, Eeth used the time to rest because, much to his dismay, dealing out this punishment had been physically demanding on him. He lay on the couch, closed his eyes and tried to ignore Raven's fidgeting. After all, the important thing was that she did as told. He hoped that this would help her gain a deeper understanding of why her behaviour had been wrong – before they got to the rest of her punishment…
"Come here, padawan," Eeth said when the hour was up, beckoning her to where he sat on the couch. "I would like to know whether you have had any thoughts about what, exactly, motivated you to act like you did and what you need to change in order to avoid a repeat occurrence."
Raven knelt by his side, lowered her gaze guiltily and winced as her backside connected with her heels. Eeth had done a thorough job and she wasn't going to be sitting any time soon, that much was certain. "I guess I didn't have the right attitude towards my duty." She wrinkled her nose. "I didn't want to do our assignment because it sucked, but that's probably not a good reason to deceive you."
"No, it is not," said Eeth sternly. "What kind of attitude did you have, then?"
"A bad one," Raven replied.
Eeth frowned. "I do not doubt that," he said coolly, "but I was expecting a more specific answer."
Raven sighed. She hated it when he made her spell out her failures like this, it was humiliating. "I showed a lack of commitment towards our assignment because it wasn't to my liking."
"So you did," said Eeth. "That was irresponsible, immature and childish. Now, I realise that you are technically a child. However, as a Jedi padawan, you cannot afford the luxury of neglecting your responsibilities and waiting for the adults to take care of them. What will you do to change your attitude?"
At this point Raven just wished the floor would open up and swallow her! Her face burned almost as hot as her backside. "I'll do better. I will give my full attention to all my duties, not just those that interest me."
"Yes, you will, at least if I have any say in it," said Eeth grimly. "We will try this again during the next term break. And until then, you will perform half an hour of additional meditation every day, after lunch, on your attitude towards duty."
"Every day? But master, please, can you reconsider? I hardly have any free time as it is," Raven complained, looking up at him for the first time since this conversation had begun. She stopped short of pointing out that she had already been punished enough, if only because that argument had never worked in her favour before.
"No, I will not reconsider," said Eeth flatly, drawing a wilting look from his padawan. "You need an attitude change and I am not convinced that physical discipline is sufficient to achieve that."
Raven just looked at him. Since when had his physical discipline not been sufficient! She held her tongue, though.
"Now, there is one last thing I would like to address," said Eeth. "And that is the fact that it took you six days to come clean. When did it first occur to you that it would be a good idea to tell me?"
Expression still slightly shocked from his earlier edict, Raven wondered if telling him the truth here was going to make things worse. She eyed him for a moment, and then looked back down at her hands and mumbled, "I don't know."
Eeth did not buy that for a second and it showed in the expression on his face, not that Raven could see it. "You do," he snapped. "Tell me."
Raven's head whipped up at his snappy tone, and her nose wrinkled. "I don't know," she repeated, this time with a bit more exasperation in her voice. "Probably the next day when I realised that you came close to relapsing. I felt bad about that. And then, I started to feel guilty because I got away with it. I talked to Lakhri when we went to the water park, and he said that getting away with doing the wrong thing can be dangerous because it might become a habit. I don't want to make a habit out of deceiving you… Besides, among other things, it's far too painful."
"While these are commendable insights," said Eeth, "it apparently still took you at least three or four days after having had these insights to act on them. Honesty was obviously not the only option you pondered. I do not want you to get into the habit of deceiving me but neither do I want to give you the impression that it is acceptable to postpone being honest with me. If you do that, your punishment will always be worse than if you had owned up right away. Therefore, you will receive another spanking tomorrow after dinner."
"Aw, no! You already whaled the ass off of me with the strap from hell, AND I have to do a tonne of extra meditations. Please, master… C'mon. Be reasonable about this." Raven knew that this approach never worked, but she simply couldn't stop herself from protesting.
"Do you want to make it two additional spankings?" Eeth asked icily. "Then by all means keep complaining."
Raven pursed her lips, and then they pulled into a thin line. Having to go through one was bad enough, but two? Pff, that was not happening. Thus, the padawan said nothing more, folded her arms and glared at the floor.
"Padawan," Eeth said, a wealth of warning in his voice, "lose the attitude. Now. You deserve your punishment, and if you cannot accept that, it will only be worse."
Raven sighed, her arms dropping to her sides in defeat. It was true that she was possibly failing to accept Eeth's edict with the good grace expected of her, but well, Force; it was bad enough having to endure the sentence, let alone not be allowed to complain! "Yes, master," she replied, unwilling to add to her woes. Raven relaxed her glare although she did keep her gaze fixed on the floor.
Eeth rested a hand on her shoulder. "Padawan," he said much more gently, "I know you feel hard done-by. But you did the right thing. Believe it or not, I am proud of you for owning up to your deception and accepting the consequences, even belatedly."
Raven looked surprised by this, yet she stopped short of asking him why; if he was proud of her, then why was he being so hard on her?
Eeth decided to let the matter rest. Raven was going to perform more than enough meditations during the next weeks, after all, which might help her to better understand things. "I am afraid that I am not up to performing Force-aided healing yet but you may serve yourself to some bacta if you would like to," he said.
"I would like to," came the predictable response, and Raven stood, rubbing at her knees as she rose. Her ass hurt, her knees hurt, she just hurt everywhere.
Eeth's refresher was as neat and orderly as it always was and so it was easy for her to find things. A minute later, Raven was on her bed, tummy down, strangling the life out of that tube. It stung a bit at first but nothing like the initial showdown.
Eeth, in the meanwhile, lay back on the couch and closed his eyes. He still needed all the rest he could get, much as he despised it.
After about half an hour had passed, he sent a mental summons through their bond. They were not yet able to communicate with any degree of precision at this point, but transmitting emotions, warnings and summons – and the occasional stern rebuke – worked reliably.
When Raven exited her bedroom, she was no longer annoyed at Eeth's decision to spank her again tomorrow, or over the fact that he was not even allowing her to complain about it. It was actually a fair punishment considering the transgression, she had eventually conceded while tending to her ass, even if it was one that Raven really didn't want. Resigned, she stood in front of where he sat on the couch, arms by her sides and no trace of her earlier resentment or frustrations remained on her face.
Eeth motioned for her to sit next to him.
"Have you learned anything from all this, padawan?" he asked.
Raven thought about that for a moment, and then she inclined her head. "Well, yes, master, I have," she told him and then met him with a cheeky expression. "But have you?" It was a bit impertinent of her, yet given that he had let himself become run-down to the point where he almost relapsed, she rather thought it was not just her who had learned a lesson in self-restraint.
Eeth raised his eyebrows. "As a matter of fact, I have," he said in a mildly reproving tone of voice. "But I was talking about you, not me. So let me rephrase my question: What have you learned from all this?"
"Must you make a lesson out of everything?" The question was rhetorical but Eeth felt compelled to reply to it anyway.
"Padawan, everything is a lesson," he said sternly. "As you correctly surmised, it was one for me, and I learned it. The more important question is, did you?" The look on his face suggested that she had better give a proper answer now.
"Well, yes." Raven sighed, knowing that to do anything other than answer him at this point was going to end badly. Besides, it wasn't worth it, not over something as trivial as her smarting pride. "I learned that trying to shirk my duties is not acceptable, failing to confess immediately earns a worse punishment, and…" Raven gave him a pained expression. "It is not conducive to my goal of knighthood to be deceitful, lie or to attempt swindling you out of my responsibilities."
"Correct," said Eeth. "I want you to become a Jedi knight. As always, failure is not among my objectives. Which is why I was so hard on you."
Raven shifted slightly on the couch because, and despite the bacta, she was still able to feel the level of his disapproval. Her gaze lowered momentarily, and then she met him with a sincere expression. "I know," she said, trying not to fidget. "And … thank you. I do appreciate that you take the time to correct me, even if I don't like it." That fact had been hard for Raven to admit to herself, let alone vocalise to Eeth. The skin beneath her eyes coloured ever so slightly, but she held his gaze.
That statement left Eeth speechless, which was a rare occurrence indeed. After a while, he shifted closer to Raven and put his arm around her shoulder. It had not come naturally to him, but he had learned that gestures sometimes said more than words.
Raven smiled, touched by the gesture, and leant her head into his chest. She did not linger here, though, knowing that this sort of thing made Eeth uncomfortable. Thus, after a few seconds, she lifted her head, but remained close. She had learned a lot more from their last two assignments than she had ever thought possible. But then, such was often the case.
A/N: Thanks for sticking with us until this point! If you did, we'd love it if you left a review. Please stay tuned for the next installment, Out in the Wild, which will lead Eeth and Raven on an interesting mission, together with two brand-new characters. :)