Lok had a hard time falling asleep that night, and that was not due to the minimal lingering sting that the switching had left; Eeth had giving him some bacta after their evening meditation. Rather, it was at least partly because of the hole cube that was still sitting on his desk. It had only contained a brief message, but Lok kept replaying it in his head.
"When you hear this, I have become one with the Force," his former master had said. "However devastating that might be for you - trust in the Force. It will lead you onwards. Be as brave as I know you can be; and be a good padawan to your new master, just as you have been to me. You have many fine qualities. You are bright and strong and diligent, you are honest and you have courage. You have it in yourself to become a formidable Jedi one day. Make the best out of it. I love you, padawan. May the Force be with you."
The trouble was, Lok thought, that he was currently being neither honest nor diligent. And that thought was the other reason for which he had a hard time falling asleep. It had started with a forgotten Huttese assignment on the very first day of school. Their teacher had given them two tasks to do, and Lok had truly forgotten about one of them. In his former life, he would most likely have been told to do it that afternoon and be given a warning if it was the first time, and some kind of extra work if it was the second time. A strict teacher might have dispensed with the warning (and Lok really worked best with strict teachers).
That was not what happened with his Huttese teacher at all, though. She just gave him a kindly smile and told him that he had a lot on his plate these days and she understood. Lok nodded quickly, seeing a chance to avoid both warning and punishment, and said that he just found it so hard to focus (which was technically true, but not at all the reason for which he had not done his homework). And from that point, it had spiraled downwards.
The next day, he had again not completed all of his Huttese assignment, and this time, it had been a act of conscious negligence; it had just been so hard to force himself to concentrate on his work, and Eeth had not allowed him to let his attention wander for long, so he had decided that one paragraph of translation was really enough and that he was going to skip the other one. Well, and maybe two thirds of the math problems were sufficient, too, because if it worked with his Huttese teacher, why not with his math teacher? And his astrophysics teacher as well?
It had indeed worked for the most part. His gentle Huttese teacher, Knight Ithrin, had merely asked him in concern whether his master knew about his troubles, and Lok quickly nodded and said it had all been sorted out with his master and his soul healer and they had told him to just do as much as he could, which was a blatant lie. Amazingly enough, most of the other teachers had swallowed this excuse as well, as he had found out quickly since it was the only thing he could think of saying when they started to get suspicious. The only one to whom he didn't dare present this excuse was his astrophysics teacher, Master Gurnio, because Master Gurnio was the oldest, the most perceptive and certainly the strictest of the lot. When he had not completed his astrophysics homework for the second time in a row, she had told him that while he might be in a difficult situation, she could not allow any student in her class to ignore her assignments. And then she had given him so much extra work that it had taken him three hours to complete and had said that if he had a problem with this, he should tell his master and ask him to call her. Of course, Lok would be damned before he told Eeth because he knew very well what the outcome of THAT would be! Unfortunately, the huge amount of astrophysics homework had made Eeth quite suspicious. It was lucky that Gwened's arrival had distracted him.
All in all, Lok felt rotten. This type of behavior was not like him at all. He might be rude, disrespectful, disobedient, careless with his safety at times, but he was not usually dishonest to this extent. And he had absolutely no idea why he had done this. Sure, at first it had been more or less an accident, and he had just exploited his teachers' unexpected lenience like most students would have done. But why had he gone on neglecting his work and lying about it, despite his misgivings? That question worried him quite a bit. Finally, after a lot of tossing and turning, he resolved to talk to Ngka about it when they next met. The frequency of her visits had been downgraded to once a week by now, though, and their next meeting would only be on Friday. This was fine because she would definitely tell him to tell Eeth and when he did, there would be trouble. But Lok was about ready to face that trouble at this point… although not right now. Friday was fine. And until then, he would buckle up and do all of his homework, every day. Hopefully, this would convince Eeth that he was serious about regretting his misbehaviour.
Things did not quite turn out as Lok had planned, however.
As he walked to classes the next day, he suddenly realised that he had forgotten his Huttese homework AGAIN, all of it, because he had been so busy with astrophysics and with sorting through his master's things. Alright, he might have found the time to do it after dinner, realistically, but he had been so glad to have his astrophysics assignments over with that he had simply not thought any further. There was nothing for it; he would have to count on Knight Ithrin's gentleness one last time.
Knight Ithrin was gentle alright, and she did not reprimand him in the least. What Lok did not reckon with was that after the lesson, she called his master and asked him whether he was sure that it was the right decision to send a boy back to school who was so obviously unable to cope with the work…
"Hello, Master," said Lok, not suspecting a thing, as he entered their quarters after school that day. Eeth was sitting at the terminal, wearing a headset, and motioned for him to be silent. As Lok pulled off his boots, he heard Eeth say: "I see. – Thank you. I can assure you it will not happen again. If, in the future, there is anything out of the ordinary, please notify me at once. – Thank you. May the Force be with you."
Lok frowned. This did not sound good. If masters promised someone that something was not going to happen again, this usually meant one and only one thing: trouble for their padawan.
Sure enough, Lok had only just hung up his robe and entered the common room when Eeth said in a rather foreboding tone of voice: "Padawan, we need to talk."
He rose from the terminal and walked over to the table, motioning for Lok to sit opposite him.
"Master, if it's about my homework, I… I can explain," Lok said quickly. This was, after all, the only thing this could possibly be about, and he might look a lot better if he spilled the beans right away.
"Oh, it is about your homework alright," Eeth said grimly. "A lot of missing homework. That I, apparently, told you you need not complete if you do not feel up to it. Strangely enough, I cannot remember ever having said such a thing."
Lok swallowed.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I hadn't meant for any of this to happen. And I had also meant for it to stop. I was even going to tell you about it, honestly. I just wanted to talk to Ngka first."
"Your intention to stop it seems to have been a questionable, seeing as you handed in no Huttese homework at all today," Eeth said coolly. "And what does it say about the sincerity of your intention to come clean if you thought it could wait until Friday?"
Lok felt his cheeks starting to burn with shame.
"I did mean to stop it, really!" he said desperately. "I just forgot about Huttese because of astrophysics and the whole affair with Gwened and my master's thing. Anyway, I hadn't planned for this to happen at all. It all started with a homework that I had truly and honestly forgotten about, and I totally hadn't expected to get away with it… but I did, for some reason."
"And so you exploited that fact," Eeth said pointedly. "In every subject except astrophysics, because Master Gurnio was not quite as willing to make exceptions for you as your other teachers. I talked to all of them, you see. And the list of assignments you neglected to do is impressive, just as the list of lies you told to your teachers."
Lok suddenly felt himself getting angry at being confronted in this way when he had planned to own up right by himself. He had no idea how it had happened, but he had been deprived of the chance to show that he was capable of doing the right thing, and that frustrated him thoroughly. He jumped up, stamped over the Eeth's cupboard, got out the cane, returned to the table and held it out to his master.
"Apparently, you already know everything," he snapped, "so there is really no need to talk. Just get it over with, will you?"
Eeth folded his arms across his chest, refusing to accept the cane.
"I will be the one to decide if and when to use this," he said very quietly and very sternly. "And when I tell you that we need to talk, then we need to talk. Return the cane to the cupboard and sit back down."
This only made Lok angrier. And suddenly, he saw red. He flung the cane onto the table and yelled: "Fuck you!"
And that was something you did not yell at Jedi masters under any circumstances, he knew that perfectly well. Master Jerad had made that very clear to him when Lok had tried that line on him, early in his padawanhood. He had lifted Lok up effortlessly, carried him into the refresher, stood him under the shower – uniform and all – and turned the cold water on. After some sputtering and swearing, Lok had found out through first-hand experience that a hairbrush hurt a lot more on a wet bottom than on a dry bottom. That had effectively snapped him out of his temper tantrum, and he had been sure, at the time, that he would never make that mistake again. Obviously, that resolution had not lasted nearly long enough. Lok had no idea how Eeth was going to deal with this, but he was not in a hurry to find out. Turning on his heel, he stormed towards the door.
He did not make it far. The door had barely swished open when Eeth had grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back in.
"Oh no, you don't," he said grimly, then clamped his hand around Lok's ear. Lok yelped and tried to twist his bottom out of harm's way on instinct, but no swat followed. Instead, Eeth dragged him into his room by his ear and deposited him in the empty corner behind his desk.
"Nose into the corner," he ordered. "You are staying there until this tantrum of yours has stopped."
This just served to increase Lok's indignation.
"I'm NOT having a tantrum, and I'm NOT going to stand in the corner like a naughty youngling," he spat out. Unfortunately, his attempt to writhe away from the position was futile because Eeth was still holding his ear in a vice-like grip that only intensified at hearing Lok's protest.
"If you behave like a naughty youngling, you will be treated like one," said Eeth very quietly and very firmly. "Your only choice is to stand in the corner with or without a sore bottom. And that sore bottom is not going to be detracted from your actual punishment. Do the maths, or get ready to go over my knee."
Lok was good at maths, even when in the throws of a temper tantrum. He was fuming, but he was also forced to admit that continuing to fight Eeth over what he considered extremely childish and degrading was only going to make things worse on himself. Clenching his teeth, he turned towards the corner, folding his arms across his chest defiantly in order to make this look a little less stupid.
"Arms at your side," said Eeth immediately. Lok growled in frustration, but he complied, slowly and hesitantly.
"Good," said Eeth implacably. "Now I don't want to see you move a muscle or hear a word out of you until I ask you to come out."
With this, he left, but he disabled the closing mechanism of Lok's door so that he could see his padawan from the common room.
Lok was angry, but it was difficult to hold on to that anger when one was standing in the corner, which was mind-numbingly boring. He stood and stared and stood and stared, and slowly his anger abated. The downside to this was that he became acutely aware of how entirely unacceptable his behaviour had been. He had disobeyed his master and pulled an attitude over being reprimanded for his own misconduct. And then he had cursed at him and ran away over it. Force, WHAT had he been thinking?
The truth, of course, was that he had not been thinking it all because at the time it had been much more satisfying to indulge his temper than to feel chastened about his "forgotten" homework and the lies he had told about it.
He heard Eeth move around in the common room and in the kitchen and thought he'd better apologise.
"Master?" he called out.
Instead of giving a response, Eeth entered his room, stepped up behind him, bent him forward and firmly swatted him across his bottom three times. The swats weren't as harsh as Lok knew Eeth to be capable of, but they did sting.
"I gave you instructions, and I expect you to obey them," said Eeth sternly. And left.
Lok groaned softly in frustration, leaning his head into the corner. This was going to be a long afternoon.
By the time Eeth told him to come into the common room, Lok was well and truly tired of the corner, and his feet were tired of standing. Besides, his stomach was growling; he was used to having lunch right after coming home from school. Feeling much chastened, he left his room on slightly stiff legs. To Lok's surprise, Eeth had placed a bowl of soup, a plate of buttered bread and a pitcher of water onto the table, along with a data pad. The cane was nowhere to be seen.
"Eat," said Eeth. "When you have eaten, write down what happened; what you think might justify any of your behaviour; what you did that was wrong, and what you intend to do about it. You are not going anywhere before you have finished, and I am not going to continue our talk before I have read what you have written and found it sufficiently detailed."
Lok was not entirely sure whether to be glad that the spanking that doubtlessly awaited him was not imminent, or unhappy about being forced to write a novel while the threat of said punishment was hanging over his head, but he was fully aware that he had no choice. Wordlessly, he sat down and started on his soup, which was as good as everything his master cooked.
By the time he had finished eating, he felt almost calm and, unfortunately, deeply ashamed of himself. He was also a little confused. The more he thought about how was going, the more surprised he was that he was still able to sit. He was under no illusion that this was going to be a permanent condition, but for the moment, he decided to be grateful for small favours.
Writing generally came easy to him, but the questions that Eeth had asked him to write about were not exactly easy to answer.
Alright, the "what happened?" question was straightforward enough, if a little on the complicated side. Lok tried to be as truthful as possible, which included his misgivings and his cluelessness as to why he had actually continued to act this way despite the fact that he had been fully aware how wrong it had been. What might have justified his behaviour? Nothing, really, other than the fact that his teachers had made it too damn easy for him. He knew that this was no excuse, but he wrote it down nonetheless, not as a justification, but because it puzzled him.
What had he done that was wrong? Well, that one was simple, but not exactly fun to answer. He had not done his work and lied about it any number of times, to his teachers and also to Eeth when he had asked whether this was really all the work that Lok had. He had exploited his teachers' kindness and, in short, behaved like an ass.
So, what did he intend to do about it? Well, his intention to own up had been sincere, he wrote that down because it was true; but that option had been taken from him – which showed, he supposed, that it was not a good idea to postpone such things. With a sigh, Lok proposed to apologise to his teachers, catch up on all the work he had missed and accept whatever additional work they might assign him as punishment. As for his dishonesty… Lok hated to admit it, but he probably deserved to be punished for that and was going to accept whatever punishment his master saw fit to mete out. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach as he wrote it, but it was the right thing to do, he knew that. He was just about done when it occurred to him that the temper tantrum and the swearing should find mention, so he added a sentence stating that these were entirely inappropriate. On second thought, he added an apology.
"I'm done," he finally said quietly. Eeth, who had been sitting at the terminal reading, rose, came over to the table and accepted the data pad. Lok waited in silence while Eeth read through its contents carefully not once, but twice.
"Alright," he finally said. "I accept your apology, but that does, of course, not mean you will get away with your actions."
"Awww, haven't I already had to stand in the corner for hours and complete half a novel about my misdeeds?" Lok said, looking at his master with what he hoped were puppy-dog eyes. Unfortunately, he had never been good at puppy-dog eyes; that, or Eeth was not the type to fall for them. He levelled a severe look at Lok and said: "Padawan, your corner time, which was only meant to snap you out of your tantrum, was a mere twenty minutes."
"No way!" exclaimed Lok. "It must have been a lot longer!"
"Do you really think that now is a good time to start a debate about the amount of time you spent in the corner?" Eeth asked in a dangerously low voice.
Lok shrank back.
"No, master," he said as contritely as he possibly could. "Sorry. So… what did you want to talk to me about?"
Eeth's eyes narrowed.
"Stop trying to be smart," he said sternly. "You know perfectly well what we are talking about Or do you want to do some more writing?"
Lok shook his head quickly.
"Sorry, master," he said apologetically. "What more do you want me to say, though? I've written everything down. I've apologised. If I could turn back time, I would."
"And what would you differently if you could?" asked Eeth.
Lok looked at him in surprise.
"Do all of my homework, of course," he said.
"You don't feel that your teachers and I were expecting more from you than you could manage, then?" Eeth inquired.
Lok blushed.
"I, uh, might have led them to believe that this is the case," he hedged, "but no. Not really. I mean, it WAS harder than usual for me to do the work, but not impossible. Especially not with you after me."
"Yes, I thought so," said Eeth. "I just wanted to make sure. Now, do not get me wrong. I will not punish you for being unable to do stellar work in your current situation. I do, however, expect you to give the best effort that you are capable of, under the circumstances. And that is not what you did at all. Not to speak of the deceitfulness that you displayed, not in a singular instance, but on a daily basis throughout a whole week. And when I confronted you about it, you chose to throw a tantrum and curse at me."
"Well, yeah, I'm sorry again," Lok said defensively, "but you did make me stand in the corner and write an essay for that, didn't you?"
"No, that was just in order to make the tantrum stop," replied Eeth. "The alternative would have been to put you across my knee. I thought you might prefer it this way."
Lok sighed. "Alright, what's my verdict?" he asked, flinging up his hands melodramatically.
Upon which Eeth did not quite manage to suppress a smile.
"It's not funny," grumbled Lok.
"No, it is not," agreed Eeth, returning to his usual serious self in a heartbeat. "Alright. This was no minor slip, and to make things worse, it was repeated and sustained misbehaviour. Like you proposed so suitably, you will apologise to your teachers and catch up on the work you missed. I do not want you to ask them for additional work, though. You have a hard enough time completing your homework as it is. Doing the full amount of homework and catching up on what you failed to do will be difficult enough. Instead of asking for additional assignments, you will spend the following two weekends tutoring creche children."
Lok groaned.
"Can't you just spank me?" he asked dejectedly. He had never tutored creche children before, but the idea did not appeal to him at all.
"Oh, I will," said Eeth grimly. "In addition to those tasks, of course. For the lies, both towards your teachers and me, you will receive a paddling. And for your little outburst earlier, you will receive another spanking tomorrow night after dinner. Now go to my cupboard and get me the black paddle with the holes."
Lok gaped at him. Yes, he had entirely expected not to get out of this with his butt intact, and he even knew he deserved it, but TWICE?
"You must be kidding me," he said faintly.
"Certainly not," said Eeth sternly. "Get me the paddle, now. I guarantee that, as bad as it may seem to you, disobedience will make it worse. So will dawdling."
"Wait a moment," Lok said hastily, but he rose from his chair while he said it to demonstrate compliance. "You want me to spend my weekends entertaining creche kids AND paddle me, like, TWICE? Don't you think that's a bit over the top? I mean, whom did I kill?"
"No, I do not think that it is a bit over the top," Eeth said, stony-faced. "This is not what you get for killing, it is what you get for neglecting your duty, lying about it repeatedly and cursing at me when called to task for it. And you just raised your count by two swats. I'm waiting."
Lok realised that this was an argument he was not going to win. And so he unenthusiastically dragged his feet over to the cupboard and looked for the paddle Eeth had described, not that it was hard to find. It was considerably larger than the one Eeth carried in his belt, and while Lok had no clear idea what the holes were for, he assumed that they were not meant to make this any easier on him.
Eeth accepted the paddle wordlessly and laid it onto the table behind himself.
"Bare your bottom and get over my lap," he said.
Lok sighed – which, it seemed, he was doing rather a lot today – and reluctantly pushed his pants and underpants down to his knees. Jerad had cured him of attempts to preserve his modesty, or possibly to protect his bottom at least partially; he knew by now what was expected of him when he received this command. With another sigh, he awkwardly draped himself across his master's lap.
Unfortunately, Eeth started to spank with his hand which probably meant that this was going to take a while. Lok hated that. His old master had sometimes made short work of such things, bending him over and giving him a dozen painful strokes with his belt or so, but it seemed as if Eeth did not subscribe to the brief-and-intense variant of dealing out a hiding, at least not for the more formal punishments.
Eeth did not hold back much, which meant that this hurt from the first swat, and the pain was accumulating fast. Lok tried to take it stoically, but it of course he was doomed to fail. Soon he started to hiss, to kick his feet and to twist around in a futile attempt to remove his bottom from the line of fire. And yet, Eeth spanked and spanked. Just like the last time Lok had earned himself some serious punishment, he did not stop until the boy was sobbing and had lost all fight.
As Lok felt his master shift in order to pick up the paddle from the table, his crying increased in intensity, but he did not protest. He had messed up, after all, and he deserved to be punished. Alright, so Eeth was even more of a hardass where punishment was concerned than he had reckoned with, but he was hardly in any position to do something about that.
There was a brief pause, and then the paddle came down for the first time and Lok let out a pain-filled howl. Eeth's normal paddle hurt, but this was in a class of its own.
"Master, no, I'm sorry, I – AAWAAAAH!" he yelled and starting bawling. And that was what he kept doing until Eeth had finished the dozen. By the time his brain registered it had stopped, he was convinced that his bottom was never going to feel the same again. Not even able to think coherently, he made to get up from Eeth's lap, possibly in order to flee to his room, but to his surprise, his master's heavy hand was holding him down.
"You are still two swats short," said Eeth evenly. "It would have been over by now, were it not for your unfortunate tendency to argue my instructions."
"Wha- No, m-master, y-you needn't d-do this!" Lok protested through his sobs, frantically trying to think of something that would convince his master to reconsider. "I've learned my lesson, I'm sorry, I- OWWWWWWWWEEEEEHH!"
The paddle had bit into the undercurve of his bottom, right where it met his thighs, and before Lok could gather his thoughts, it hit again in the exact same spot. When that was over, Lok was defeated; he simply cried and cried and cried, making no attempt to get up on his own.
After what seemed like an eternity, he felt Eeth's hands on his shoulders pulling him into an upright position. Lok did not fight them, but neither did his crying abate. A small part of him hoped that Eeth was feeling sorry for having punished him so harshly.
Eeth, however, merely handed him a handkerchief, of which he always seemed to have some in his robes, and said firmly: "Stop working yourself up."
This effectively worked to stop the flow of tears, if only because it instantly made Lok indignant.
"I'm not working myself up, you spanked my bottom off of me!" he said hotly.
"You," said Eeth sternly, "are working yourself up, and your bottom is still in one piece. Now hush."
He rose and pulled Lok into a hug.
"Oh, alright," murmured Lok, sinking against the man's chest and sniffling into the handkerchief. "But you DID spank my bottom off of me."
"Do you ever stop arguing?" Eeth asked in quiet amusement, shaking his head. "You could talk a Hutt into making gifts. Maybe you should opt for a career as a salesman, after all."
"If that saved me from your wrath, I could consider it," Lok replied. Through the handkerchief, it sounded rather muffled, but the cheek in his voice was unmistakable.
Eeth smiled.
"No, padawan," he said. "You are not getting rid of me quite that easily."