A/N: Reviews were mixed on this one. Some readers felt that Eeth is too overbearing, given Raven's age. Well, yes. He is. :) That's his character. And he's not meant to be a flawless hero (although, admittedly, this is the way we like him best). He's going to be overbearing for a bit longer in this chapter… after which all will be well, for the twins at least. No promises for other characters in this universe.

Livia&Raven

Eeth shepherded Raven to his bedroom and closed the door behind himself.

Raven turned to face him, crossing her arms. "Master, don't be like this. I am an adult and well able to manage my work habits," she said, trying to look unfazed and even a little put out by the accusation that she needed such a discussion.

Eeth sat down on his desk chair and motioned for her to sit on his bed, which Raven did with a huff.

"I am going to ask you a few questions," he said sternly, completely ignoring everything she had said, "and I expect truthful answers. I am not interested in anything else. When did you leave? And how much work did you get done before you left?"

"We left at 2pm," admitted Raven, "and no, I didn't get anything done before I left." The confession had been truthful, but she had more to add and as much was obvious from her crossed arms and demeanor.

"I seem to remember I told you quite clearly that your homework, chores and reading have to be finished before you leave," said Eeth. "You disobeyed my direct instructions, then."

Raven desperately wanted to scream that they were stupid instructions but wisely withheld this comment, for now. "I did, but as I said, I am WELL able to get my work done." Raven looked away from him, her chin in the air and feeling rather like a child despite her years. "How often do things like this come around for me? A concert with Lakhri, Flynt and Bram will probably never happen again and you're concerned about me disobeying some order to do work I can finish later." Raven met him with a glare.

"No, you cannot, since I am going to take you to the gym for two hours or more because the move I am going to teach you will require that much time," said Eeth. "Which is exactly why I gave you the instructions I did. I will neither have you do your prep under your blanket tonight nor go to class unprepared."

Raven was quiet for just a second. "How was I to expect this?" she finally burst out. "You might have told me you were planning to take up more than two hours with our gym time today. This isn't something you do everyday."

"I told you I would book a gym for us after dinner, and I also told you when to be back," said Eeth.

"Yes!" Raven butted in. "But you didn't say it would be for two or more hours!"

"I gave you clear instructions. I am under no obligation to inform you of my every motive," snapped Eeth. "Moreover, if you did not do any of your work before you left, it is safe to say that there would not be enough time for you to complete it even if I cut today's workout short. I assume you were counting on getting some work done when you are supposed to be sleeping, and probably also on getting away with less than thorough preparation for once. Were you not?" His penetrating gaze was fixed on her face while he was waiting for an answer.

"Well, yes," Raven was forced to reply, omitting the fact that she'd already done half an hour of it instead of showering earlier.

"Then there is no need to pretend you did not know what to expect if I found out," said Eeth. "The argument ends here. I will be back in a moment."

Raven's head lowered because she knew he was right, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

Eeth rose and went to the common room where Bram was sitting at the dining table with a cup of tea, a mixture of embarrassment, morbid curiosity and guilt written on his face.

"I will want to talk to you after I am done with Raven," Eeth informed him. He sat at the

terminal. He checked the lists of available courses for a minute, made some changes to Raven's schedule, downloaded a stack of reading and logged off. He then went to his closet, pulled out the black paddle with the holes and returned to his bedroom.

"I have disenrolled you from tomorrow's class," he informed Raven. "You have not done the required reading and I neither want you to go there unprepared nor overtired. Instead of a half-day crash course on Coruscant's political climate, you will now do a two-week course, four hours every morning plus reading. And you will be able to start on your reading this weekend because you will be grounded for a week. I will leave it up to you to decide whether the concert you enjoyed today was worth all this. I hope it was not. Whether your brother is here or not, whether Lakhri has interesting things planned or not, your duty comes first."

He pulled out his chair and sat down. "Pants down and over my lap," he ordered brusquely.

Raven almost choked. She stood, arms crossed. "No, master, you can't. Bram is not going to be here forever. I'll do anything, but please don't ground me! Please," she begged him. The paddle had not gone unnoticed either. She hated that thing with a passion, although facing off against Eeth in the face of punishment was equally terrifying.

Eeth gave Raven a glare that could have stopped a charging wampa in its tracks.

"Padawan, if you want to make that two weeks, by all means continue defying me," he snapped. "If you don't, you have five seconds to comply with my orders."

He was being deliberately harsh, even by his standards. Bram was going to be here for quite a while, and Eeth did not want his padawan to get the impression that this somehow made it okay to let things slide. Raven might not be particularly interested in politics and diplomacy, but she knew that she was expected to apply herself all the same. Eeth was not at all happy with the decision she had made this afternoon, and he was going to make that very clear to her.

Huffing, Raven reluctantly moved to stand at his side, threw open the clasp on her belt, pushed her trousers and underwear to her knees, lifted her tunic – it would come up anyway, she knew – and, none too gently, flopped herself over his lap. Raven couldn't say she didn't deserve this but at the same time, she was decidedly unhappy about it.

Eeth knew that his padawan hated this particular paddle, which was why he believed it to be particularly effective in teaching the more serious lessons; and this one was definitely one of those.

He raised the paddle and brought it down across Raven's bottom smartly. He did not nearly use full force, but then, he did not need to; this paddle imparted quite an impressive sting as it was.

Raven let out a pain-filled hiss at that first smack, closely followed by several more. This horrendous instrument of torment was designed specifically for her, Raven was certain of that. It covered all of her ass, both cheeks, and the scorching sting, burn and thudding ache it imparted was a combination that readily brought her unstuck fast. It hurt, and Raven couldn't stop herself from shouting, wailing, banging her fists into the floor and stomping her feet with each swat.

Entirely unperturbed, Eeth continued meting out swat after swat at the same force and unrelenting pace, oblivious to Raven's cries. This was a lesson that he wanted to make sure she remembered!

"Ahh'owww! M-master N-n, AHHhhhha!" Raven screeched. She bucked in his hold, kicked her legs and wailed loudly enough to alert this side of the Temple to the fact that someone had seriously pissed off their master. Of course Raven knew that Eeth soundproofed the room. Not that at this point she cared; no, at this point all she cared about was getting off his lap and drawing in enough breath to let out another wail.

Eeth, however, did not stop before he had dealt out a full eighteen swats, and he put even more weight behind the final six than he had behind the first dozen. In his opinion, his padawan deserved every single one of those swats. She had known all along that her behaviour was unacceptable and yet, she had gone along with it. He saw no reason whatsoever to cut her any slack.

Those last six had the girl promising that she would never, EVER disobey EVER again. She had apologised for any and all wrong doings on her part, her future padawan's part and her padawan's padawan's part! If only he would let her up, not that any of her words were decipherable at this stage, they sounded more like garbled wails than anything meaningful.

When Eeth finally paused, Raven tried to scramble to her feet. This was unlike her but she was desperate. That paddle hurt and she wanted to run to her room and sulk!

Eeth, however, did not release his hold on her.

"This would have been all," he said grimly, "were it not for your attitude and constant backtalk. Your behaviour when I called you out on this was unacceptable. And I do not want a repeat occurrence."

Raven started to really struggle against his hold which, again, was very unlike her but she knew what was about to happen and why.

Eeth merely tightened his grip around her waist, raised the paddle and brought it down three more times in quick succession, with gusto.

When he finally stopped, Raven was inconsolable. Her ass had its very own heartbeat and the pain was so intense that, even though he'd stopped, she couldn't tell. Her throat hurt from wailing but that didn't stop her from doing so.

Eeth waited for a minute for his padawan to calm down. It did not seem to happen. Finally, he hoisted her up from his lap and had her stand in front of him.

"Now, I'm going to talk to your brother for a moment," he told her. "You stay here, clean yourself up and wait until I am back."

He squeezed her shoulder briefly and left the room to find Bram.

Raven wanted to tell Eeth that this had nothing to do with Bram, but she wasn't able to get the words out. Thus, she hiked up her trousers and ran to his refresher the moment he stopped talking.

Eeth found Bram in the common room, still sitting at the table in front of his nearly untouched cup of tea. His eyes followed Eeth who slowly and deliberately put the paddle back into the cupboard. Then Eeth made his way to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down, facing Bram and fixing him with a stern look.

"Did you know that your sister had explicit instructions to finish her chores and her reading for her class before she went out?" he asked.

Bram lowered his gaze. "No," he said softly. "But… I didn't ask her about it either."

He sighed. "To be honest," he admitted, "I realised that she was kind of hesitant to agree to this outing. I could have guessed there was something wrong. It just seemed too good an opportunity to say no."

Chancing a look at Eeth's face, he asked, "Did she get into a lot of trouble?"

"That goes without saying," replied Eeth, stony-faced. "I hope you enjoyed your outing with Raven because she is grounded until next Friday. If you want to do her sister a favour, the next time you want to go out with her, think of her duties, too, not only of your personal enjoyment."

"But we were supposed to take Flynt to the podrace tomorrow!" Bram protested.

"You are welcome to take Flynt," said Eeth with a certain edge to his voice that told Bram he had better stop protesting. "Raven will not go. I will not entertain arguments about this. And your sister knows this."

Bram felt decidedly guilty by now. He had thought that moving in with Eeth and Raven would help him, and really, it had; he had done much better at work this week than in the time before, and his supervisor had explicitly praised his performance twice. However, this did not mean he was oblivious to Raven's needs, and he had definitely not aimed to get her into trouble. The problem was that he was only just realising that his sister's life was very different from his own. He went to work, and when he was done working, he was free. Raven, on the other hand, seemed to have duties all the time. He vowed to himself to help her fulfill them in the future, rather than prevent her from doing them.

"Is she alright?" he asked dubiously, remembering the kind of punishment Eeth meted out.

"Probably not," replied Eeth drily. "You are welcome to look after her. After that, I will want to talk to her myself."

Bram nodded, rose and went to knock at the door of Eeth's room.

"Can I come in?" he asked, opening the door a little and sticking his head through.

By this time Raven had cleaned herself up and was lying on Eeth bed. "Yes," she told Bram, and more for her brother's sake than her own, she flipped her tunic over her ass. "I'm sorry if he chewed you out," she said. "It wasn't your fault, it was mine. I knew what would happen if I got caught and I did it anyway because I wanted to share in the fun, but, as Eeth tells me ad nauseam, duty comes before pleasure. Sometimes I wish he'd just look the other way," she admitted, although truth be told, she'd feel worse if he did.

"Yeah, I can imagine," said Bram sympathetically, sitting on the edge of her bed. "Still, I'm sorry I didn't do more to keep you out of trouble. I should have asked if you were free to come."

"And I would have told you I was," Raven said with a smile. "It was my fault, believe me."

Thinking back to his school days, Bram had enough experience with successful and not-so-successful attempts at avoiding work that he could concede she was probably right.

"He grounded me for a week," said Raven morosely, "and if that weren't bad enough, I have to do a two-week course on Coruscant's political climate."

"He told me about the grounding," Bram said, "but the class… ugh. I'm sorry."

Raven let her head flop into the pillow. "Flynt is going to kill me," she mumbled into the pillow. Then her head shot up. "Unless… Do you think you could take him anyway?"

"Well," said Bram dubiously. "I could. Eeth said so, too. But are you sure? I'd feel pretty bad, going out with Flynt and leaving you back here. I'm perfectly willing to stay here as much as possible while you're grounded, to keep you company."

"Thank you for being so selfless," said Raven, honestly touched. "But yes, I'm sure. Flynt hasn't had much of a chance to get out lately and he really is looking forward to this. He is a huge podracing fan. I swear, if Lakhri allowed it, he'd enter in a heartbeat. I wish I could come, too, but…" She sighed, "There will be no convincing Eeth to let me, and bugging him about it will only get me in more trouble. Besides, if you take Flynt, he'll owe you one, and with Flynt that's always a good position to be in."

"Alright," said Bram. "Is there anything I can do for you? If not, your master wanted to talk to you. He didn't look as if he wanted to eat you, if that's any consolation."

"Nothing," replied Raven. "And I'm glad he doesn't want to eat me. I say he's already had his quota for today." Raven smiled despite her pain. Bram really was a sweet brother, and not for the first time Raven was grateful that he was here at the Temple, sharing their lives.

"Alright, I'll leave you to talk to him, then," Bram said.

Eeth, in the meanwhile, had cancelled the gym reservation and made a new one for tomorrow morning; he was not going to make Raven spend the whole day reading, after all. When Bram emerged from his room, he went in to talk to Raven.

Sitting down on the edge of her bed, he put a hand onto her shoulder.

"Padawan," he said, "you may be interested to know that I received a very positive report about your performance in your Cathar anatomy class. I am pleased that you applied yourself so much. When your two-week class on Coruscant politics is over, I would like you to take up some teaching assignments. Do you have any preferences?"

Again, Raven smiled in spite of the pain she was in. "I'm very good at human anatomy. I'd enjoy teaching that. Same goes for Ataru," Raven proposed.

"I agree," said Eeth. "I will see what teaching slots will be free two weeks from now."

"Sọ…" Raven started, and then paused. "Are you going to do any healing before we go to the gym?" she eventually asked.

"We are not going to the gym tonight," replied Eeth. "We missed our slot anyway, for which reason I cancelled the reservation and booked one for tomorrow. I want you to meditate for half an hour now. After that, I will perform some healing."

Raven sighed and dropped her head into the pillow. She didn't mind the meditation so much, it was more that performing it on the topic she suspected he expected with an incredibly sore ass was the problem. How she had ever thought that getting away with disobeying Eeth was doable, least of all the advisable path to take, Raven did not know. She was just about to enter another pity spiral over being grounded while Bram was here when her thoughts turned to Flynt. She would have to contact him and let him know what was going on.

Half an hour later, Raven was sitting somewhat uncomfortably on Eeth's bed, her head bowed slightly and, despite her discomfort, her expression was peaceful. Her eyes opened slowly as Eeth entered the room and she smiled just a little bit; meditation rarely failed to improve her mood, even if it was focused on obedience and her role as a Jedi padawan.

"I'm sorry I disobeyed you and tried to get away with it. I shouldn't have done it. Will you forgive me?" she asked, already knowing the answer. But the words had become somewhat of a ritual for her over the years and helped her to put the mistake behind her and move on.

"Of course I will," said Eeth gently, sitting down next to her and putting an arm around her shoulder. "I already have. I trust you have learned your lesson. Lie down. I will perform some healing on your bottom now."

The next morning, true to his word, he presented Raven with a load of reading for her upcoming class that was sufficient to last her several hours.

"Get started on it right after breakfast," he told her while they were eating. "I have booked a gym for eleven. Until then, I expect you to work."

Bram sighed. He had decided to keep his sister company during her grounding, but he had not exactly anticipated that this would involve watching her read.

Raven groaned. As if the buttload of boring reading Eeth had given her wasn't bad enough, one look at her brother had her feeling guilty. She glanced at Eeth, briefly contemplating the wisdom behind asking for a reprieve before deeming it suicidal. Most teenagers were simply relegated to their homes when grounded, but for reasons Raven could only guess at, Eeth preferred filling her time with extra work.

"Hey, why don't you go back to your apartment and pick up some clothes for tonight? You could check on the place while you're there and make sure that none of your goon friends have decided you've been kidnapped and start casing the place in your absence," Raven suggested. She really did feel bad for getting into this mess and dragging Bram down with her would only make her feel worse.

Bram shrugged. He did not really feel like going to his apartment. He felt as if he needed a break from it. Besides, the building was guarded and it was highly unlikely that the place had been raided without anyone noticing.

"Naw, I'm gonna keep you company and do a few online lessons while I do," he replied. "I need to learn more about non-human physiology. Strictly speaking, my contract says I only treat humans, but when there's a big accident where most of the victims are not human, it's always handy to at least know how many hearts an Iktotchi is supposed to have, instead of hanging around and letting my colleagues do all the work."

By the time he went to pick up Flynt, he was glad that he finally had a pretext to stop. He had learned loads, but he was also bored out of his mind. The same seemed to be true for his sister, despite the nearly three hours that Eeth had taken her to the aerials gym to teach her an impressive new move.

He listened good-naturedly as Flynt took him through the finer points of podracing while they were sitting in a cab to the colosseum.

"It's one of the most dangerous sports ever invented. Some guy named Gustab Wenbus was the first, but he didn't build his own prototype. That honour belongs to Phoebos. Brilliant mechanic. I bet they didn't know that what they were starting would grow to be this massive," Flynt said, gesturing to the hordes of beings that surrounded them as they disembarked and started towards the colosseum. "I've always wanted to do it, not for competition, of course, but who knows, maybe I will one day, when I'm a Jedi and free from the restraints of my apprenticeship," he added and for a moment looked as if he was deep in thought. "So, is this the first race you've been to?" he asked.

"Well, we sure as hell don't have podraces on Chine," said Bram, laughing. "Yes, it's the first."

"I appreciate that you came, by the way," said Flynt, "Lakhri wouldn't have let me come without you. He can be painful like that, although not nearly as painful as my grandmaster."

"Yeah, I can imagine," said Bram. "Eeth can be a real hardass. But I guess parents – or masters – are the same everywhere. They want to look out for you and make sure you're safe, even when you think you could do without that. Only your masters are a lot stricter than my parents. Did Raven tell you about that one time we borrowed my uncle's speederbike and rode it into the woods without permission, let alone a driver's license?"

"Heck yes. You must have balls big enough to come in cargospeeders to try pulling that off," said Flynt.

Chatting, they made their way to the ticket booth and entered the colosseum, looking for their seats. Flynt was just busy buying them snacks when Bram's com unit beeped. He picked it up and frowned; it was the hospital's number. And he was sure he wasn't supposed to be on duty right now.

"Hello?" he yelled into the speaker, given the level of noise around him.

"Bram Trebeck?" a female voice asked back. "This is Tish. Listen, there's been a HUGE speeder collision near the colosseum, on the intersection of 187 Alpha and 205 Delta. Dozens of vehicles involved because of a signal failure. Loads of victims. I've been asked to try and round up everyone who is remotely available. Can you come? Are you sober?"

This being a Saturday night, and given the noise, it was a reasonable question, Bram thought. He barely hesitated for a fraction of a second, though. He badly wanted to improve his performance, and much more importantly, there were lives at stake and he could help save them!

"Yeah," he said immediately. "As it happens, I'm at the colosseum. If I take a cab, it shouldn't take me more than ten minutes."

"Okay, go straight to the lowest level, then," Tish said. "Several speeders crashed so badly that they fell down. Let's hope there are a few survivors. Brace yourself."

She terminated the call, and Bram turned to Flynt, who had just returned with an armful of food. "Flynt, I'm so terribly sorry, but there's been a huge accident," he said. "I've been asked to help. I need to go, like, right now. I know this is a disappointment, but can you take a cab home? I've got no time to lose."

Flynt paused mid-bite upon hearing that news. As a Jedi padawan, he was used to this sort of thing, and he immediately felt for the lives that must have been lost if what Bram described turned out to be as serious as it was. "Do you need my help?" he asked. "I don't have Raven's healing ability. In fact, I can't even get rid of a headache, but I might be able to help in some way," he offered, putting the food down on the empty seat beside them.

"To be honest, it sounded like all they need is medics and doctors at this point, and a lot of them," Bram said. "Listen, I've gotta run. Take a cab back to the Temple. Can you let Eeth and Raven know I might be late? I promise I'll take you to a podrace at the very next opportunity, okay? See you!"

With this hurried goodbye, he clapped Flynt on the shoulder briefly and ran off. It vaguely occurred to him that he might have made sure to put Flynt in a cab before he left, but then, the boy was seventeen; he was capable of returning to the Temple on his own! And there really was no time to lose. Bram hoped that Eeth and Lakhri would understand.

"You just work on getting to the accident safely," Flynt called to Bram's retreating back and flopped into his chair. He took a bite of what was meant to be Bram's hot dog, then of his own. He was feeling rotten, what with so many people having been injured. And if that weren't bad enough, his evening at the podrace was over before it had even begun. He knew Lakhri would expect him to do as Bram said, but still… he had come this far. He took another bite of both hot dogs. He would finish them and then go, or so he told himself.

Ten minutes later, he was wiping a smudge of sauce from his tunic and stood to leave when the Dug team entered into the track below, causing the entire colosseum to jump to its feet and roar with a mixture of cheering and jeers. Flynt was immediately caught up in the hype as the big screen projected the tiny alien team, and the entry of the next. His favourite team was scheduled to enter the track ninth. He would wait to see them enter and then go, or so he told himself.

Another twenty minutes later, the teen was on his feet again with the rest of the crowd as the underdog team entered. They were a scrappy group of Aleena biped aliens and the very team Flynt had come to see. He thought their flying was incredibly skillful for non-Jedi. He glanced at his watch. The race would start in ten minutes. Just ten more minutes… or so he told himself.

An hour later, Flynt was engrossed in the twists, turns and near misses as the lead pair fought for victory. It was between the Aleena team and an unlikely team of newcomers that no one had given a second thought. That was until they managed to knock the Dug out of the race and take first place, bringing Flynt's Aleena team into second place and in good standing for a possible first if they played this right. As it turned out, the unknowns won, thanks to a sneaky move that left the Aleenan's in second place. Still, it was a fantastic race. Flynt would have loved to stay for the awards but he had already stayed for an hour and fifteen minutes longer than he should have. It was definitely time to go.

Much to his annoyance, Flynt discovered that there was a loooong queue for the shuttle services that would take him back to the Temple and not a cab in sight. For a seventeen-year-old, Flynt had patience – well, more patience than Raven when it came to this sort of thing, but still he was eager to get his ass home and the line looked as if it went on forever. He glanced at his watch. Lakhri wasn't expecting him home for another hour, he thought, so it should be okay.

Flynt swallowed. He didn't like to deceive Lakhri, but this was nothing horribly terrible. He was almost eighteen! Anyway, he decided to call Eeth and Raven's quarters and tell them that Bram just left. Yes, he'd do that right now. Flynt pulled out his comlink and dialled their quarters, his fingers drumming impatiently on his thigh as the call signal began to chime.

"Flynt! So did you eat your own body weight in hotdogs? Sorry I couldn't come, I – well, Bram told you why."

Flynt had never been so happy that Raven answered the call and he relaxed into a comfortable banter immediately. "Oh, yeah, although your brother was called away to an emergency, I'm on my way back to the Temple now. He asked me to contact you and pass on the message that he might be a little late and not to worry."

"What emergency?" Raven wanted to know, a feeling of protectiveness suddenly gripping her stomach.

"A multi-collision speeder incident, it sounded fairly… Argh! Hey, be careful with that thing," Flynt paused to scold a child who had almost impaled him in the leg with a plastic model of the Dug's podracer. "Serious enough" he continued to Raven without missing a beat. "He has backup, so don't worry, okay?"

"Alright, just get back safely," said Raven, because it looked like he was going to have a long wait.

And it really was quite a wait. By the time Flynt had reached the Temple, it was almost eleven. He was not late, but neither had he expected it to take him this long, especially since he had left right after the race finished and not stuck around for the aftermath.

Lakhri was lying on the couch, feet propped up on a pillow, and reading a graphic novel. He had always had an interest in popular culture, something that Eeth had frowned upon, but which had frequently turned out to be useful – for example, during undercover operations or when a topic for small talk was needed. Lakhri wasn't reading this particular novel because it might turn out useful, though; he merely did it for fun. And having been Eeth's padawan, it had taken quite a few years into his knighthood until he stopped feeling guilty for such small pleasures, rare as they were.

"Hiya, Flynt," he said, looking up from his reader as his padawan entered. "That took you quite a while. I guess it was hard finding a cab after the races, huh? Did you at least get to see the outcome before Bram was called away?"

"Yeah, my team came in second," Flynt was forced to admit, otherwise how could he explain how long it had taken him to arrive back at the Temple? "It was completely mobbed, of course, but awesome all the same," he added, pleased to have the excuse of shrugging off his cloak and pulling off his boots so as to avoid making eye contact as he said that.

"How did that meeting with your student go?" Flynt asked, yawning. He sat at the end of the sofa Lakhri was lounging on, causing the man's legs to bounce up from the rebound. His eyes twinkled a little at having disrupted his master's peace and quiet, but settled in all the same.

"Oh, it went alright," said Lakhri. "She should be ready to pass her exam now."

He smiled at Flynt. "Did you eat?" he asked. "If not, grab something to eat and drink, and then get ready for bed. I booked a gym for us tomorrow morning."

Flynt nodded and ran a hand through his hair. It smelled of ozone, smoke and the stench of Coruscant's night life. "Yes, I'm still full," he replied, getting up from the sofa and once again unintentionally causing his much smaller master to jostle as he did so.

Fifteen minutes later, Flynt exited his refresher bare-chested and shamelessly readjusted his junk as he entered the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. He glanced over his shoulder to where Lakhri still lounged reading his novel. "Want me to make you some tea?" he asked. Flynt was, in fact, quite a considerate teenager despite his penchant for mischief.

"Thank you for the offer, I appreciate it," Lakhri said with a smile. "But no, I'm fine."

He put the reader away. "Let's do our evening meditation," he said. "Then it's time for bed."

Flynt could not hide that something was on his mind; he rarely could, and during meditation, he could do it even less. Consequently, Lakhri sensed that something was off; but he decided not to ask Flynt about it. It might be something Flynt was embarrassed about, and Lakhri did not want to pry. If anything bothered the boy, he knew he could always come to talk to his master.

That night Flynt went to bed feeling better for their meditation. He was not one to dwell and was soon fast asleep, dreaming of piloting his own podracer some day.