"There are thousands of people in this temple and I cannot possibly believe that every last one of them dislikes you, Anakin," Obi-Wan sighed as she sat cross-legged on a meditation pillow that faced the western wall of the Temple and the shaded garden sheltered there. "You are overreacting, my young Padawan, and letting your emotions get the better of you."
Anakin rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. I hate it when she calls me that. I am not nine years old anymore.
"No, you are not," Obi-Wan replied with a crisp tone, wincing a little at the unintentional volume of his thoughts. "You are eleven standard years old. I know. You've told me."
Anakin folded his arms over his chest and contracted into a proper sulk. He loudly patched up the holes in his mental shields, leaking angry and sullen gusts of emotion as he worked.
Obi-Wan let out a long, exhausted breath and turned to her Padawan. "I am sorry, Anakin. But I cannot understand how you have failed to make one single friend in two years. You can take apart an Em-Dee-eight and reassemble it with your eyes closed but this simple task eludes you. Why?"
Anakin shrugged, his blue eyes fixated on a spot on the far wall.
Obi-Wan waited patiently, knowing her silence would do far more to convince her Padawan to open up than any sharp words or loud chastising. Silence unsettled Anakin. It made him antsy and chatty as he hurried to fill up the quiet with noise to distract his thoughts with.
It was another thing to add to the list of things she needed to work with him on.
That list will never end. We will both die old and grey, still Master and Padawan trying to be still and silent but failing.
She felt like she was always failing him.
Anakin cracked, hands jerking free from his glower to gesture wildly. "They're jealous! I'm better than them! I can do things the other Padawans can't and they're jealous!"
Obi-Wan's eyebrows arched in dismay. "Ah… I see. And is that all?"
The emotional boy looked off to the side, his hands balled on his knees. "They… They just don't like me! Last month this one sleamo said his master told him not to talk to me! Said the Council made a mistake! That 'a Jedi of Kenobi's talent shouldn't be wasted on a feral desert rat' like me!"
That was what really scorched Anakin, the idea that his existence in the Temple was damaging to his master in some way. That he made Obi-Wan look bad because of who he was.
That he was bad for Obi-Wan to be around.
Obi-Wan was all he had left and if the Council took her away…
"Ah… yes," Obi-Wan murmured, her voice cool and soft, like a still pool. "I believe I was there when Padawan Carr Du'signe shared that tidbit with you."
Anakin knew that tone and shivered. It usually meant he had pushed his master too far or asked too many questions about the Sith Lord his master had defeated. That tone meant laps around the temple gardens, leg-breaking frog-hoppers or worse.
"Yeah… well," he huffed and looked away. "If his master is saying it then that means the Council is saying it too. They really don't like me."
Obi-Wan blinked, as if drawn back into her body, and she smiled at her Padawan. "I don't know about that. They censured Padawan Du'Signe and his master, Froosh Wexl. They're leaving for Bandomeer on one of the praxeum ships tomorrow."
"What?" Anakin's head jerked up in shock. "Censured? What does that mean? What's a praxeum ship? Can I get censured? Is that bad?"
Obi-Wan gave her apprentice an enigmatic smile. "Yes, you could get censured and it is not a pleasant thing. Luckily, I have not experienced it."
Well, not since I was Qui-Gon's Padawan.
She rose up from her meditation pose to stretch, twisting this way and that as if blown by the soft breeze of the Coruscant twilight. Anakin popped up next to her, his eyes full of questions, his mouth open to ask ten more, all at the same time if that were possible.
"I am hungry, Padawan," Obi-Wan placed her hand on Anakin's head, laughing softly as he squirmed out from under her sisterly attention. "Bring us some dinner from the main hall and I shall see you in our suite. And mind you do not get censured on the way!"
Anakin was already off at a run, because the sooner he got them dinner, the sooner Master Obi-Wan could tell him what all being censured entailed and what the kriff a praxeum ship was and why he hadn't heard of it before now?
"You have three questions, young one," Obi-Wan said after finishing off a mouthful of spicy noodles from a Mid-Rim planet. "Choose wisely."
"Three?!" Anakin protested, the Force crackling with how unfair he found this to be.
Obi-Wan smiled into her noodles and took another bite, enjoying his frustration. It was about time he got some of his own back. "Yes, three."
She watched as the boy shoved a large mouthful of noodles in, his mind working through the myriad of questions he no doubt had. She could see his mind work, trying to distill them into three coherent and comprehensive queries. This would serve him well later when the Council would send him on investigative missions.
And the earlier she got used to the idea that her little golden shadow would be leaving her side, the better.
Obi-Wan took a sip of sweetleaf juice and arched an eyebrow as Anakin shoved another mouthful of noodles in, his brow still furrowed in deep thought. She reached over to him and touched his forehead. "Don't forget to breathe, nerf-herder."
Anakin jerked away from his master's gentle mocking, the intense furrow momentarily directed at her before the first question clicked into place. "Ha! How did the Council know about what Du'signe said, to censure him and his master?"
Obi-Wan took a large bite of noodles, a teasing grin on her face. There were times when it was easy to forget they were master and Padawan. Instead they were something more like siblings, brother and sister, forever entwined in loving antagonism.
She felt these were their best times, when it was just the two of them, in private, away from the Order and the rules that seemed designed to break the spirit of anyone who did not fit the mold that Obi-Wan herself was barely suited to.
Anakin groaned. "C'mon, Master Obi-Waaaaan!"
She took a long, unnecessarily long, sip of sweetleaf juice.
"You're killing me!" the boy slumped backwards into his chair, noodles momentarily forgotten. "Obi-Waaaaaaaaaan!"
"I told them," she answered, her voice entirely too chipper for a proper master.
Later she would chastise herself for her selfish moment of schadenfreude, but she had learned early that the Jedi Order was not made of identical compassionate warriors who strived to be the best example every hour of every day. The Temple was full of individuals, mostly good, some less than, and a rare few that perhaps shouldn't have ever been considered for training. Master Froosh Wexl and his Padawan Du'Signe were of the third group and Obi-Wan was relieved to discover their censure involved them being sent off to an Agri Corps posting, far away from Anakin. Perhaps some humility would help reset their arrogant and unkind world view.
She knew she had been utterly humbled when that had once been marked as her fate.
But she was getting distracted and Anakin was staring at her with an open mouth and she really did not need to see the remains of his noodles. "Please close your mouth, Anakin. That is revolting."
His mouth closed with a snap, the boy still bug-eyed. "You told the Council?!"
"Is that your second question?" Obi-Wan smiled up from behind her glass.
"NO!" Anakin nearly shouted, shaking his head vehemently. Master Kenobi did that for me? She… she told the Council about that sleamo for me?
Anakin felt a surge of absolute love and adoration for his master explode through his spirit and a bright smile appeared on his face.
She did that for me.
Obi-Wan looked down at her plate of noodles, pickled vegetables and grilled meat, spearing a bite with her fork. She could feel Anakin's overwhelming delight and joy through the Force and it was taking quite a bit of control to not pull the boy into a fierce, tight hug and swear on the stars above that no one else would ever speak out of turn about him again. But she couldn't promise that and wouldn't so it was time they moved the conversation on.
"Padawan…" Obi-Wan murmured as she finished her bite. "You have until the end of my meal to ask your next two questions."
Joy evaporated in a gust of anxious curiosity as Anakin turned his sharp mind back to crafting questions that required more than one simple answer.
There was a long period of silence as Anakin continued to stuff food into his face while Obi-Wan did so with far more elan. It was a companionable respite from their usual dinner time conversation, which usually consisted of Obi-Wan reprimanding Anakin for his terrible manners and Anakin glaring sullenly out at nothing.
Obi-Wan liked this much better.
He seems to be enjoying this. Perhaps his acting out is a sign that I have not challenged him enough.
"Ah ha!" Anakin announced, slamming a fist down on his leg. "What all do you know about Jedi praxeum ships and the one that's arriving tomorrow?"
He caught her mid-bite and she held up her hand for a moment before swallowing and setting her fork down. "Well thought out, Anakin."
He smiled, proud of himself.
"The praxeum ships travel around the edges of the Galaxy," Obi-Wan began, scanning her memories for what Master Qui-Gon had taught her. He had considered taking her aboard one, once, before they were assigned a mission to Corellia that nearly ended up in a marriage for her master. By the time they got themselves out of that mess, the ship had already left for the Expansion Region and Master Yoda sent them back out to deal with pirates near Bespin.
"They fly from system to system, providing advanced study for masters, knights and Padawan alike," she continued, wishing she had a schematic to show Anakin. That would have kept him entertained for days. "They visit some of the furthest outlying satellite temples, performing repair and in depth scholarship. Sometimes they encounter new systems or peoples who are just stepping out into the galaxy. They can be a… challenging posting for those who prefer routine and the creature comforts of the Temple and Coruscant."
Like Master Froosh and his bullying Padawan.
"And the ship that's arriving tomorrow?" Anakin asked, his eyes alight with the idea of adventures in the far reaches of the galaxy. "Can I see it? Will we go on it? What spaceport is it docking in?"
Obi-Wan frowned. "That's three extra questions. Is that how you really wish to end your investigation?"
Anakin collapsed into another full body eye roll of frustration. "Master! C'mon! I've never even heard of a ship like this and I've been all over the starfighter specs in the archives."
"It's called the Chu'unthor," Obi-Wan continued, ignoring Anakin's fit. "And it is the last one in operation. It will stay in orbit around Coruscant and your brother and sister Jedi will take a shuttle to the Temple. I'm sorry to tell you that you won't be able to visit while it is here. You will be attending the welcoming ceremony for the initiates and Padawans who will be joining the Temple with their Masters and fellow Knights."
Anakin looked like Obi-Wan had just stabbed him in the gut. "A welcome ceremony? Do I have to?"
Obi-Wan finished her meal and nodded. "Yes. You have to. Don't forget you promised to clean up your workstation in the hangar bay."
"What?" Anakin gasped. "I have one more question! No fair!"
"By my count I have answered eight questions during the span of this meal which is more than double the number I granted you," Obi-Wan said, the mental robes of Master Kenobi settling over her as she took her dishes over to a small depression in the wall and placed them inside and let the temple droid service sweep them away to be washed. "Finish your meal and report to the hangar bay or I will forget to renew your privileges there."
Anakin looked scandalized but he knew when he had pushed Obi-Wan too far. He scarfed down the rest of his meal, dragged his sleeve across his mouth and nearly flung his empty plates into the cleaning receptacle before he darted back into the temple, leaving his master alone with her thoughts and an empty room.
Please let there be a friend for Anakin on that ship, Obi-Wan prayed to the Force, a bone-deep plea for some kind of benevolence in the hardscrabble life of her Padawan. I cannot be Master and playmate to him. He needs friends that aren't droids, that don't speak binary.
The Force was silent around her and she decided that a few velocities in the training halls would help her clear her mind and purge some of the negative emotions that were clouding her objectivity.
There is no passion, there is serenity.