AN: Just a short piece of fluff. Enjoy! There'll be more tomorrow, and some trouble for Kaden soon...
"C'mon, it's this way," Kade said, leading the way. He kept his pace slow, though, just in case. Less than a minute later, the boy palmed open one of many doors along a narrow hallway. "This is my room, it's pretty small but you'll fit, just," he encouraged, kicking the last three days' worth of tunics and trousers beneath his bed, and quickly yanking up the sheet. "Have a seat," he offered. It was cramped, and the tiny room wasn't exactly the tidiest of places.
Drex nodded. He could sense the general structure of rooms he entered, and he wouldn't run into obstacles, but that was about it - he had no idea how they were decorated, what the furniture looked like (other than its rough shape), whether the bedspread was beige or red and so forth.
"Tell me about it," he said to Kade, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "How long have you had it? Does it have anything special about it? Are there things that are dear to you, things that you would like to take if you were to move?"
"I got it when I turned eleven, I guess they figure that if you are still in crèche at eleven and twelve years old that you've kinda earned you own space, however small," Kade said through a smile, and he wasn't joking: the room was tiny, just big enough to fit a single bed, desk and wardrobe. "There's nothing really special about the room, except that it's my personal space. I can come here and be alone, I don't have to share it with ten others."
Kade took a small, ornately carved wooden box from the top of his wardrobe and sat on the bed beside Drex. "This is all I'd take," he said, placing the box in the Jedi master's hands. "The inscription on the inside says: 'My beautiful Kaden, I love you with all my heart. Ma.' Apparently the team who discovered me told my crèche master that my mother wanted me to have this when I was old enough," he explained.
Drex explored the box with his hands.
"It's pretty, and very carefully done," he said softly. "Do you know anything about its origins? Have you ever wanted to meet your mother?"
"I'm not sure, but I think she made this, look." Kade gently peeled back the lining inside and took the man's hand, running his finger over the moniker carved into the underside. "It says Zam Lightbane. I've never really thought about meeting any of my family, I was only a month or so old when I was brought here, it might be in my file or maybe the name of the Master who found me is? I've never really thought to ask, I just kinda know it was her, I can't explain how."
Kade smiled and ran a finger over the surface, his dark brown eyes and boyish features softening.
"Do you know anything about your parents?" he asked. "How old were you when you came here? Who was your Master, and…" Kade paused, not sure if this was going to come across as insulting; he hoped not. "Are they still alive?"
Drex smiled.
"I was only a few months old when I was brought here," he replied. "I've met my parents later; I requested it when I was a senior padawan. The Council granted me leave so I could put in a week's stay at Hraki when we passed by there on our return from a mission. My parents were decent people; both of them worked as teachers. We never really bonded, but it was good finding out where I come from. My master, on the other hand, was very close to me. She was a Cerean called Te-Inda Devno. She died many, many years ago, however; I had only been knighted for a couple of years when the space station upon which she conducted peace negotiations was blown up. She had sensed it coming and had tried to evacuate it, but people were slow to react and the explosion happened before she could make it out of there. She had a second padawan at the time who had fortunately remained behind at the Temple. I took over her training. Shmilla was my first padawan, and she's still around; as are the other two padawans I trained."
"Whoa, you've trained three padawans, how old are you?" Kade asked without thinking, studying the Jedi master more closely: the lined, gold-skinned face, the silvery eyes, the formerly golden hair that was now streaked with silver. Drex was still tall and broad-shouldered, though; he did not look ancient.
Drex smiled again. "I'm sixty-eight," he replied, "which is why I was so reluctant when Eeth asked me to have a look at you. I am still in good physical condition right now, but who knows whether this will still be the case ten years from now? However, if the Force means for us to be together, we have to trust that it will work out."
"Sixty-eight, whoa. Well, at least you can't pin any of your grey hairs on me," Kaden quipped, sliding from the bed and gathering his clean uniform. "You sure you want to take on a fourth padawan? Master K'Mi says she's going to retire to a nice sandy island somewhere when she is too old to run her crèche group. She claims the reason her fur is white is because of all the grief we give her," he said through a chuckle, and ran a hand through his dark mop of shaggy brown hair.
Drex chuckled as well.
"I think she was joking," he told Kaden. "We Jedi try to serve the Order until our death, although she might be looking at a nice and quiet position in the gardens or archives at some point."
He rose from the bed. "Let's hit the showers," he said. "Come see me when you're done."