Although the next few days felt positively surreal to Kaden, he did not mind the changes at all. In fact, he positively embraced them, especially the slightly extended bedtime and his introduction to the padawans' lounge. His opinion on classes did not change that much. He was still not interested in school work; however, his mission prep class on survival techniques turned out to be one of the highlights in his new routine.

It was late on Saturday afternoon, a little more than a week after Kade had become a padawan, when the boy entered their quarters, still smiling and absolutely slathered from head to toe in grime. He knew Drex would smell the earthy slathering of mud on his uniform, so removed his mud-caked boots at the door and tiptoed into his bathroom; he did not want to leave a trail of dirt clods across the common room floor, at least not on purpose!

"Eesh," Kade winced upon getting a good look at himself in the mirror: he was a mess! So much so that he decided it would be far less work to simply get in the shower fully clothed, and he did just that.

Drex, in the meanwhile was sitting at the terminal in his room with earphones on his head, listening to a report. He had sensed Kaden enter, but finished listening to a section before turning off the device and going to look for his padawan.

"Kade?" he called, knocking on the boy's door.

He had just gotten out of the shower when Drex called for him, and after grabbing a towel from the rack he padded from his refresher, the muddy tunic forgotten on his shower floor as he opened the door. "Class was kinda hands on today," he said, still trying to scrub a few missed spots of dirt while drying himself off.

Drex chuckled. "Sounds like fun," he said. "Did you come home dirty?

"Yeah, you could say that," Kade replied, giving his body a once over and glancing at the shit state that was his shower.

"I don't mind that," Drex said, grinning, "but please try to clean up after yourself. I don't see dirt and I'll end up spreading it everywhere or having it on my clothes without noticing. Besides, I don't want to have my padawan run around like a street urchin. Are you hungry? I could make us a snack while you get ready."

"Alright, I'll clean it up, but I'm starving, can't we eat first?" Kade asked, tossing his towel on the bed and pulling on a clean pair of pants. "I can help?"

"Thanks, but I'll manage," Drex replied. "Clean up now, please. These things tend to be postponed and ultimately forgotten. I'm quite inflexible about this since the time I stepped in front of the Council with chocolate stains all over the front of my tunic because Shmilla made pancakes with chocolate syrup for breakfast and forgot to clean up after herself."

Kaden's mouth twitched into a smile at hearing that story. "Alright," he acquiesced, still grinning at the mental picture as he started cleaning up the huge mess of mud and dirt coating his bathroom.

Twenty minutes later the boy appeared in their kitchen, dirt-free and starving. "Whatever it is can I have more?"

"Sure," Drex said. He had just finished peeling and cutting up a variety of fruit and stacking them onto a plate. Handing the plate to Kaden, he turned towards the oven and pulled out a tray of sweet buns. He had already set out butter, honey and ginger lemonade.

"Could you get out plates, knives and glasses?" he called to Kade. "We should be done then."

The boy nodded, then remembering that Drex could not hear his head rattle he quickly added: "Ok," and started pulling plates from the top shelf. Kaden had realised pretty early on that his master's ability to pick up on silent gestures was hit and miss, especially if they were brief and unemotional like a simple nod or headshake; he did not always remember, but Drex didn't have a problem asking if he was in doubt.

He made short work of setting the table while his master brought out the fruit and tray of sweet buns. The boy's mouth was practically watering, but he waited for Drex to sit down before starting to pile his plate. "What did you do today while I was crawling around in the mud having fun?" he asked through a grin; he loved the survival class, especially when they got to actually practice what they'd learned in theory.

"I had a workout, practiced kata, and then I listened to reports," Drex replied while searching for the butter; when he found it, he took some off with his knife and spread it onto his bun.

"I'm currently preparing a mission briefing for a team of Jedi who are to be dispatched to Escolar," he explained. "This is something typically done by experienced Jedi who know the planetary system in question and are staying at the Temple for some reason or other. I need to gather information on the situation on the ground and put together everything that's relevant for the field team. I might also include recommendations for strategies if I have any. With Escolar, that's not the case. Nobody has found a good strategy to solve that crisis so far, so I assume it's unlikely that I'm going to be the first."

"Escolar? That's been going on for years…." Kade commented, taking another bite from his bun.

"Some crises tend to do that, yes," Drex said drily. "There's another peace conference scheduled in two weeks' time and the Jedi are sending a whole team of negotiators. I'm to brief the two persons who are going to moderate the negotiations on agriculture and land distribution. I've covered the topic for the last failed peace conference, two years ago; they might have sent me again if you hadn't come along."

He smiled at Kade while spreading honey on his bun, then taking a bite.

"Why is it my fault that you can't go? It's not like it sounds overly dangerous, and I wouldn't get in the way if I went with you I promise," Kade stated.

Drex shook his head. "You have got enough on your plate settling into your padawanhood without going on missions to the Outer Rim," he said matter-of-factly. "You need to complete at least two cycles of classes and a number of mission preparation classes before you will be given clearance for off-planet missions. Exceptions to this rule are rarely made, and only for good reason. And most certainly not for anything remotely related to Escolar. Escolar is always dangerous, you can take my word for it."

The boy rolled his eyes but did not argue; he knew little about the Escolar crisis but had to agree, if only grudgingly, that he had enough on his plate already. "Alright, but the minute I'm cleared we should go and help," he stated, starting on his second bun.

"The minute you are cleared, we will most likely be going nowhere," Drex said mildly. "We will wait for the Council to assign us a mission, and that will almost certainly not be a mission that involves any kind of danger. It might be a conference, or negotiations, or a representative function, or a mission to retrieve a Force-sensitive child. Fairly short, so as not to interrupt your training too much, and very safe. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it will be many years before you get to intervene in civil wars of any kind."

"I'm not disappointed, not really, I was more thinking along the lines of Escolar missing out on the years of experience you have because of me. That sucks," he stated honestly, stuffing down the last of his bun and taking another, although he paused long enough to actually put some honey on this one.

"It's not as if my years of experience have ever been able to help solve the Escolar crisis," Drex stated. "Maybe fresh perspectives will help. Most likely, they won't."

Kade shrugged. He really didn't know a lot about Escolar, although hearing he wasn't making things worse was a bit of a relief. "Do I have free time for the rest of today?" he wanted to know. He had a mountain of homework, but figured he could do that tomorrow as Sunday was the only day he didn't have classes.

"If you have completed at least half of your homework by dinner time," Drex said, "you can have the evening free. I want to take you out into the city tomorrow, so you won't have all day to work on your assignments."

Drex was well-informed about his charge's school work; he always tried to be, at least initially, until he had a better notion of his padawans' study habits and could decide on how much responsibility they could be trusted to take.

"You're gonna take me into the city if I finish half today?!" The boy didn't know if that was a question or a statement. He swiped a dribble of honey from the table with his sleeve. "What do you want to do in the city?"

"We will explore a bit," replied Drex, "and later on, we will attend a reception at the Embassy of Malastare. I think it is important to get you exposed to real life. I will soon start taking you to the Senate, too. You need to learn how this planet works and how politics work in this Republic, and you won't learn that by sitting in the Temple and listening to teachers."

Kade just looked at him, mouth agape. "You're serious, this isn't some sort of cruel joke, right?" he asked, but wasn't seriously expecting the man to swing around and say: 'syke!' "Because I couldn't agree with you more," he added.

Tomorrow could not come fast enough for Kade, although the prospect of time away from the temple provided him with incentive enough to work until he had finished the assigned quota.