A/N: Sorry this took so long. I had a serious case of writer's block on where to go from here. Also, I'm busy rewriting the adventures of Eeth with his second padawan, Raven, together with my co-writer. That, and, well, real life is sometimes more important. ;) If you feel that this chapter ends without proper closure, that's because another chapter from Lok's perspective will follow. Enjoy!
Three hours after their ship had been damaged, Eeth, Lok and Knight Satii, with little Marla in tow, made it to the spaceport of Chakrest. Eeth had managed to lose their pursuers in the most dangerous sector of the asteroid belt without sustaining any damage to their ship, which seemed to impress Satii quite a bit. Eeth could not quite see what the big deal was. He had merely done what any Jedi would have done under the circumstances, which was to rely on the Force and let it guide him through the asteroids. Lok had missed most of this, being busy with Marla. As a reward, Eeth had let the boy perform the landing with minimal help from Satii.
"Alright," Eeth said, once their spaceship had docked. "We need to find out whether anyone here can repair our spaceship. The damage is clearly beyond what we can achieve on our own with what spare parts we carry. The alternative will be to request a replacement ship with a repair crew from the Temple, but that will take four days to arrive. We should thus try to find a faster solution." Personally, he was not convinced that this place had what it took to get their hyperspace engine back to working order; but they needed to at least rule out that option before they called an entire crew from the Temple here.
"Let's go and find one, then," Lok said brightly, jumping up. He was obviously eager to get off the ship and explore. At that moment, a loud wail could be heard from the sleeping quarters.
"We will look after Marla first," Eeth said firmly. Lok's face fell, but he nodded obediently. Eeth's heart softened at this demonstration of compliance.
"Looking after Marla does not require three persons, though," he conceded. "Knight Satii, take Lok and see what you can find out."
"Alright," said Satii. "If the brat promises to behave himself and listen to my orders."
Lok's eyes narrowed. "I'm not a brat," he said coolly.
"Not when your master is around," said Satii. "The last time he wasn't, you weren't that keen on doing what I said. We can't afford that kind of behaviour on the space station, is all I'm saying."
Lok opened his mouth to reply. Eeth cut him short.
"There is no need for either of you to antagonise each other," he said firmly. "Lok, you will do as Knight Satii says. Knight Satii, condescension is unwarranted. Lok generally does know how to behave on a mission. Now go. I have a baby to look after." He hurried towards the sleeping quarters and the source of the insistent wailing. He could only hope that Lok would prove him right.
Lok and Satii were gone for a long time. Since Eeth sensed nothing unusual through the bond he shared with Lok, he assumed that they were investigating. So he waited. And it was quite some wait.
Two hours after Lok and Satii had left, Eeth realised that he was hungry. He pondered taking Marla and leaving the ship, but decided against it. Until they knew more about this place, it would be better for him to guard the ship. He prepared himself a meal that was at least a little more satisfactory than usual spaceship fare due to a bag of fresh produce they had brought from the farm on Tovar. He ate with Marla on his lap, then fed and changed her.
Shortly after that, Marla took a nap. While she did, Eeth busied himself researching starship repair facilities in the sector but came up with nothing much – at least nothing they could reach without being in danger either from pirates or the locals. Lok had indeed found them the only safe spot in the quadrant.
Eeth was a rather patient person but having to look after a baby for hours on end in a confined space, without company, tested his patience in ways that he was not accustomed to. He was well and truly fed up with this by the time Satii and Lok came back, more than six hours after they had left. They were carrying boxes of fried fish, tubers and salad that they had bought at a fast food joint, and they looked nearly as tired as Eeth felt – not that he would ever have admitted to feeling tired!
"No luck," said Lok wearily, shuffling into the galley, dropping his bag onto the table and plopping into a chair. He reached for one of the boxes and a bottle of some drink that was green and fizzy. Eeth gave him a stern look. Lok sighed, got up again and went to the sink to wash his hands, just like Satii was doing.
When the knight sat down, Eeth gave her an inquisitive look.
"We've been to about every workshop on the satellite," said Satii while opening a box and starting on the rather appetising-looking meal. "There are only three that do hyperspace engines. Two of them said that for a model as recent as ours, they'd need to order spare parts and that would take two weeks minimum. The third said he could do it in three days but at an advance payment of 20.000 credits."
Eeth, who was currently trying a piece of fried fish and finding it delicious, raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah, that was my reaction, too," Lok commented, sitting down and finally helping himself to some food. "I told him that 20.000 credits would buy us the whole damn satellite. He said that might be the case but that still wouldn't get us to Coruscant."
"In any case," Satii said, "I'm pretty sure that even if we had that kind of money and were willing to give it to him, he'd just cash it and try to disappear. So that's not an option."
"And just in case you're wondering why it took us six hours to find that out," Lok added, "I have to point out we spent half that time looking for freighters or passenger flights that would take us to the Core. We did find a freighter that leaves for Coruscant tomorrow but it stops at fourteen systems on the way which means it'll take us eighteen days to make that trip. Stuck in a small cabin that we're not supposed to leave. That wouldn't be fun without a baby. I shudder to think what it would be like with Marla in tow."
After this afternoon, Eeth tended to agree to that assessment.
"Are there no passenger flights from here?" he asked.
"Only to neighbouring systems," said Satii. "We could try our luck and see if we can get an onward flight from there but it would probably require for us to change flights at least three times until we got a ship to Coruscant. In the end, it would be expensive, mean a lot of hassle and it might take just as long as taking the freighter or waiting for spare parts."
"Alright," said Eeth. "That is unsatisfactory but it was to be expected. I will comm the Temple after dinner. I will leave it to the Council to decide whether to send us a replacement ship with a repair crew or whether we will have to wait for the spare parts. I assume it depends on whether they can spare a ship and how urgently they need us back."
Lok scrunched up his face. "I hope they do," he said. "This is the most boring space station I've ever been to. I mean, I realise I haven't been to many of them but this place is still boring as hell."
"I agree," said Satii. "Which is why, no matter whether we end up waiting for the spare parts or the replacement ship, we should really take little Marla down to the planet. Keeping her entertained on this ship for four days would be a major ordeal."
Lok's face lit up. "You think so?" he said. Turning towards Eeth, he explained: "There were advertisements for the Chakrest beaches everywhere. Apparently, you're not allowed to land spaceships down there but there are shuttles every hour and it's only a two-hour ride. They have everything from fancy resorts to small huts with communal refreshers. It shouldn't be too expensive."
"And I have to point out," said Satii, "that Lok completely refrained from nagging me about it so far."
"Well, you were busy with more important things," Lak remarked. "We both were."
Satii gave him the most genuine smile that both Eeth and Lok had so far seen on her face. "You've been really helpful this afternoon," she said. "Sorry for the way I talked to you earlier."
"That's alright," Lok said, clearly a little embarrassed. "I wasn't exactly nice to you during our workout. Let's call it quits."
At this moment, Marla started wailing. Suppressing a sigh, Eeth rose from the table and went to look what was wrong.
Eeth was lying on the beach, his eyes closed, breathing deeply and regularly in a state that came close to meditation. The hot sun felt pleasant on his skin. Little Marla was asleep on a towel next to him. Lok had gone off to talk to a few boys his age. Eeth was quite glad that Satii had offered to look after the ship for them. This had given them opportunity to go down to the planet last night. They had picked the island of Ngatahat as their destination, and so far, this had turned out to be an excellent choice. During his career, Eeth had wound up on sunny beaches occasionally, for various reasons, and if he was honest with himself, he had always enjoyed those times. Being from a desert species, he preferred heat to cold. And he loved swimming in the sea. He had done so quite extensively this morning, and now his muscles felt pleasantly exhausted.
He heard light footsteps approaching and stopping close by. Half-opening his eyes, he found Lok standing next to him, gazing down at him.
"What is it, padawan?" he asked quietly, taking care not to disturb Marla.
"Nothing," said Lok, sitting down cross-legged next to him. "I've just never seen you so… relaxed."
Eeth smiled a little. "I rarely am," he admitted. "But right now, there is no reason not to be, is there?"
Lok had to grin at that. "Nope," he said. "Life is perfect." Then a shadow passed across his face. Eeth knew that he had remembered Jerad. But he still thought it was an excellent sign that the boy was regaining his ability to enjoy his life. He took Lok's hand briefly and squeezed it. And Lok squeezed back.
Two days later, Eeth was sitting on the beach, patiently picking up seashells that Marla kept throwing away and handing them back to her. He was waiting for Lok to return from meeting some boys he had met here. One of them was a local, the other two were on vacation here. Eeth considered the island sufficiently safe, and thus, he had allowed Lok to go off on his own as long as he took over his fair share of babysitting duty. So far, this had worked out quite well. But today, Lok was late. He had called half an hour ago, sounding very apologetic, to tell Eeth that he had been kept up but would be with him as fast as possible. Eeth found that annoying, not only because he generally had no patience with tardiness but also because in this particular instance, he was keen on having a swim before the tide turned and the flags would be up, prohibiting anyone to get into the water. Eeth was rigorous about maintaining his physical condition; that, and he also enjoyed these swims. Lok was depriving him of that, and he was not pleased about that. However, there was nothing for it but to wait.
It took Lok another twenty minutes to arrive, making for a total delay of thirty minutes. By this point, the look on Eeth's face was quite thunderous.
"Sorry, master," Lok panted. "Maglag took us to the other side of the island, to the cliffs, and his older brother was late driving us back here."
"We will talk about this tonight, when Marla is asleep," said Eeth brusquely. "Right now, I have only half an hour left to go swimming and I want to make use of it."
He shed his shirt and strode off towards the waterline, leaving it to Lok to look after Marla. The boy was in trouble, and he probably knew it.
Two hours later, Marla was finally asleep in the master bedroom of the small apartment that Eeth had decided to rent. Lok and Eeth washed the dishes in silence. When they were done, Lok made to sidle off to his room but Eeth cut him short.
"Sit down, padawan," he said. "We need to talk."
Lok rolled his eyes. "Can you stop saying that when all you mean is really 'I need to make you feel like the worst padawan in the world and then give you what for?'" he complained.
"Oh, I might get to that eventually," said Eeth coolly. "But before I do, we need to talk." He pointed at a chair, the look on his face brooking no objection.
Lok sighed and complied. "Alright, so I was half an hour late," he said. "And I'm sorry about that. Really. Look, like I told you this morning, Maglag's brother is a shuttle driver and he offered to take us to the cliffs. They're really spectacular and they have underground caves. Maglag's uncle runs a diving centre where you can rent underwater breathers and explore the caves. Can we do that, master? Please?"
"We can talk about that later," Eeth said because he knew all about Lok's ability to digress from the subject at hand. "Right now, we are talking about the fact that you arrived half an hour late which deprived me of half my swimming time."
"Yes, well, I'm sorry about that, too," said Lok. "I told Maglag and his brother when I would have to leave. I even asked them to take us back twenty minutes earlier than we absolutely would have had to leave. And they promised me they would. But Maglag's brother simply didn't show up when he was supposed to. He was driving a bunch of tourists around the island and he only picked us up when he was done. And there was no other way for me to get back here that wouldn't have taken hours. I tried to be on time, and I feel really bad that I was late and that cost you your swimming time, but what could I have done?"
Eeth gave Lok one of his patented long, scrutinising looks. Lok returned the look bravely. Eeth could sense no dishonesty in the boy.
"Alright," he finally said. "There is indeed very little that you could have done. But do not let it happen again or I will be forced to conclude that you will have to pick your friends more carefully."
Lok sighed. "Master, these people are alright. They are just very relaxed about time. It's not just Maglag, it's all of them. Haven't you noticed?"
Now that Lok mentioned it, Eeth realised that he was right. They had been kept waiting by waiters and waitresses, their landlady and all kinds of vendors. It had never been done with bad intentions or out of spite; people had always been cheerful and kind to them. This did indeed seem to be the local culture.
"I have not," he replied to Lok's question. "But I do think you are right. It was rather perceptive of you to pick this up. Tomorrow, I would like you to take over Marla after breakfast so I can have a swim and will be sure not to have to cut it short. The tides will be just right for that."
"Alright, and tonight?" Lok asked hesitantly.
Eeth frowned. "Tonight, we will meditate and then go to bed. What did you expect us to do?"
Lok looked as if he had seen a ghost. Obviously, he had entirely expected Eeth to pull off his belt, at the very least, at exactly this moment. "Who are you and what have you done with my master?" he asked faintly.
Eeth raised his eyebrows. "I might be strict," he said, "but I also try to be fair. Which is why I wanted to talk to you before doing any of the things you suggested. Maybe the next time, you will not treat my instruction to talk quite as derisively."
"I won't," said Lok, clearly relieved. He shifted around on his chair, looking as if he was trying to gather his courage. "Umm. Once you're done swimming, how about we go diving in the underground caves? Or I, umm, go with the others?"
It was quite obvious that the latter option was what Lok was really getting at. He just did not want to exclude his master, which was kind. However, Eeth was not sure that anyone in their right minds would let a bunch of thirteen-year-olds go on an underwater dive unsupervised.
"We obviously cannot go together since one of us has to look after Marla," he said. "Is there an age limit?" From the look on Lok's face, he immediately knew that this was the one question the boy had hoped would not come up.
"Well, sort of," Lok said awkwardly. "But, I mean, I'm a Jedi and we've practiced that stuff at the Temple. And Maglag does it all the time. His family owns the centre! He'd get us in without any trouble."
"What is the official minimum age?" Eeth inquired relentlessly.
"Well, sixteen," Lok said defensively. "But, like I said, it wouldn't really be dangerous to me. And Maglag–"
"Maglag is none of my concern," said Eeth. "You are. And you are not going."
"Why did I know you would say that?" Lok said angrily.
"Maybe because you knew perfectly well that you are underage to go diving," Eeth replied, unperturbed. "Or maybe because you know just as well that I always have your safety in mind. If there was any way for us to go together, I would consider it. Since we have Marla to look after, there is not."
"So you want me to be the only one left out," Lok accused Eeth hotly.
"No," said Eeth. "I want nothing of that kind. But if the others insist on doing something that is both dangerous and illegal, I will still not allow you to go along with it. Now kindly get your temper under control."
"Oh, just f–" Lok started. And broke off. He had probably – hopefully – remembered what had happened the last time he had tried that line on Eeth. 'Well, good', thought Eeth. 'So he has learned something.' He rose from his chair and stepped over to Lok's, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"We have had a pleasant time on this planet so far," he said quietly. "Please do not ruin it by having an entirely avoidable temper tantrum. Come on. We will go to the deck and meditate."
Lok sighed and acquiesced. "Alright," he said unenthusiastically. But he did comply.
The next morning, Eeth decided to make it an early morning swim and thus give Lok most of the day to himself, under strict instructions not to do any diving and to be home on time. It was their last day on the planet, after all; they would need to go back to the space station tomorrow morning to meet the backup ship from the Temple. This was an unusual amount of indulgence, especially given how late Lok had been last night. But then, Eeth was immensely glad that Lok had finally got over his reluctance to socialise and have fun. If it had taken a pirate attack and an emergency stopover to achieve this, then it had been worth it. And Eeth wanted to allow Lok to make the most of the remaining time.
He decided to take Marla on a hike in the meanwhile and to explore the rocky hills at the centre of the island. Having packed the inordinate amount of things that babies seemed to need, as well as water and a lunchbox for himself, he wrapped Marla into a sling on his back and took off. This usually worked well; Marla was used to being carried around, and she seemed to enjoy watching the surroundings. Eeth was able to walk for a good two hours before she became restless. He found a spot on top of a hill that offered a spectacular view of the entire island, took her out of her sling, fed her, changed her diaper and played with her for a while. All was well. Until a sense of panic so violent surged through the bond he shared with Lok that he jumped up. They had not been a team for long enough to be actually able to communicate through their bond in any meaningful way, but Eeth sensed that Lok was somewhere to the north, probably near the cliffs. He took out his comlink and tried to call the boy but received no answer. Thus, he did the next logical thing and called a speeder to his location. It took a quarter of an hour to arrive. While he waited, Eeth tried several times to call Lok but still received no answer. They boy was still frantic, and seriously afraid. Something was wrong and the fact that he could do nothing about it drove Eeth crazy.
Finally, the speeder appeared at the coordinates Eeth had given the central. Eeth threw his bag onto the backseat, got onto the front seat, took Marla on his lap and directed the driver towards where his bond with Lok guided him. That bond also told him that the boy's fear had been replaced with relief and some sort of giddy excitement. Something strange was going on here. He tried once again to call Lok, and this time, the boy answered his call. "Master?" Lok said, ostensibly nonchalantly. "What's up?"
"That was the question I was going to ask you," Eeth replied.
"Why should anything be up?" asked Lok. "We were going to have lunch on the clifftops just now."
"Padawan, we share a training bond," Eeth said sharply. "You were panicking a while ago. Something must have caused it. And now you try to pretend that nothing happened? I am coming to get you and you will wait for me at the diving centre."
"But master! I'm fine! There's no need for you to come!" Lok protested. Eeth's announcement had clearly caused another surge of panic which only confirmed Eeth's suspicion that something was not at all as it should be.
"Padawan, have you been diving?" he asked pointedly. There was a moment's silence at the other end. "Uh, why would you ask that?" Lok finally said, trying hard to sound hurt. "Don't you trust me?" That was a rather smart move, Eeth had to concede. But he refused to enter a debate on trust when Lok, quite clearly, had disobeyed his instructions in a quite outrageous manner.
"Padawan, I am neither stupid nor gullible," he retorted coolly. "I am coming. And you will wait for me at the diving centre."
Without giving Lok a chance to argue any further, he ended the call, frowning. Marla had fallen asleep on his lap. And she was still sleeping when they arrived at the diving centre where Lok was sitting on a bench in front of the low building, alone, a huge scowl on his face. Eeth found it impossible to leave the speeder without waking Marla which made for a rather undignified arrival, trying to manage a wailing and struggling baby while simultaneously paying the driver. Lok continued sitting on the bench, his arms folded across his chest. He did not move to help which Eeth was not at all happy about. Having paid the driver, he decided to calm down Marla before anything else.
"You wait here," he told Lok. He gave Marla a drink of water, put her in the sling and walked up and down the street until she had fallen asleep again. And then he had time to deal with Lok.
"So I take it you went diving, after all," he said, sitting down next to the boy, careful not to bump the baby on his back against the backrest of the bench.
Lok shrugged sullenly. "The others all wanted to," he said. "Was I supposed to tell them that I'm not allowed to?"
"For your sake, I will consider that a rhetorical question," Eeth said icily. "What happened to give you such a fright?"
Lok scowled. "I'm really looking forward to the day on which I will have learned to shield my emotions well enough to prevent you from picking up such things," he grumbled.
"Do not hold your breath," Eeth said curtly. "That is not likely to happen until after you are knighted. Now stop being evasive. I want to know what happened. Incidentally, where are your friends?"
"They went to have a picnic on the clifftops, like I told you," Lok said. "I told them to go and that I couldn't come because you needed me for something. I had no desire to have them witness the big showdown, you know." He rolled his eyes.
Eeth was not impressed with his attitude and it showed on his face. "What. Happened?" he asked, emphasising each word in a way that made clear he was not going to ask that question another time, at least not without Lok receiving a sound spanking while he did.
Lok apparently realised that, too. "Nothing much," he said begrudgingly. "One of the boys, Micos, got stuck in a gap between two rocks when we tried to leave an underwater cave. He eventually got out. So everything's fine. Happy?"
"Padawan, that is the most inanely stupid question I have heard in a long time," snapped Eeth. "You panicked. You were quite frantic, and seriously afraid, for a long while. I want to know why, and I want to know details. Even when I receive them, I will be unlikely to be happy with any of this so you had better lose the attitude. If you find yourself unable to give me specifics without being forced to, feel free to pull down your pants, bend over the bench and receive some encouragement from my belt."
Lok's eyes widened, and very reluctantly, he started talking. "Well, we went diving and we entered this cave," he said. "It's not part of the official route, strictly speaking, but we wanted to see what was in there. And, uh, we might have wanted to avoid the other divers. Anyway, we all fit through the gap just fine. Only when we wanted to leave, Micos must have taken it at the wrong angle and got stuck. He panicked totally. I hadn't expected him to. I probably forgot that civilians just don't have the same kind of training as we do. Instead of letting us help him, he kicked and struggled and somehow managed to lose his breathing device. That was when we all started panicking, too, because it was seriously dark down there. We had lamps, of course, but they could only illuminate so much of the cave. I managed to calm down enough to find the device through the Force, and Maglag finally managed to get Micos out of that gap. But then he went up way too fast and Shevar went after him just as fast. Maglag and I knew how dangerous that is but we couldn't hold them back. We came after them more slowly. Fortunately, we found that they were more or less fine, so we all calmed down and decided to keep this to ourselves. And just have our picnic. Until you decided to spoil the fun, that is."
"What," Eeth asked pointedly, "do you mean when you say 'more or less fine'?"
"Their muscles are a bit sore, they were itching a bit and they have a few bruises," Lok said airily, "but it isn't as if they were unconscious or anything."
Eeth got up abruptly. "These boys," he snapped, "are suffering from decompression sickness, and you sent them off to have a picnic?"
"Well, Maglag said it'll go away by itself," Lok said defensively.
"It often does," Eeth said cuttingly, "but it may just as well get worse. They need medical attention. I am going to talk to the staff of the diving centre. And I can only hope that they will make sure your friend Maglag refrains from taking untrained minors on such trips again because this might very well have turned out to be fatal, or at least very serious. I cannot believe how irresponsible you have been, padawan. Come."
Without giving Lok a chance to react, he turned and marched towards the entrance to the diving centre. Lok groaned and hurried behind him, catching his robes.
"Master, can't you look after them, instead of ratting Maglag out?" he implored Eeth. "You are good at healing. I get that you're mad at me but do you need to go quite that far?"
"I might be good at Force-aided healing," Eeth snapped, "but the last time I checked, I did not carry an ample supply of oxygen with me. I am not telling on them because I am mad at you, I am telling on them because these two need serious medical attention and because what you and friend Maglag did was extremely dangerous and should not be allowed to happen again."
He pushed open the door, pulled Lok inside and lost no time in telling Maglag's aunt, who was manning the reception desk, everything.
Some time later that afternoon, Maglag's uncle was driving them back to their apartment. Little Marla was awake now but had fortunately missed most of the show: medics, upset parents, a lot of interrogations and one boy who had been taken to the hospital for treatment. Lok was sitting on the backseat, looking unusually pale and having lost most of his bluster since he had obviously realised that Micos had been in a bad state, and Shevar might just as well have been.
"I called Knight Satii," Eeth told him quietly. "She is coming down and will spend the last night here with Marla. The two of us will go back to the ship and have a serious discussion on obedience and responsibility. In this case, as you are so fond of pointing out, the 'discussion' will most definitely involve more than talking."
Lok swallowed but did not protest. Apparently, he was learning a lesson here. Well, that was all for the better, Eeth thought.
It was evening by the time they arrived on the starship. Eeth had picked up some food from a vendor at the space station.
"Eat," he told Lok, pointing at a chair at the dining table.
"I don't feel like eating," Lok said morosely, sitting down listlessly.
"Nevertheless, you will eat," Eeth decreed. "You have not had lunch, after all."
Lok was wise enough to comply. They had their dinner in silence and cleared away the dishes. Then, Eeth motioned for Lok to sit down again and sat opposite him.
"Tell me, padawan," he said in a low, stern voice. "Do you have any idea how irresponsible you were? I will not even bother to talk about your gross disobedience. We both know that was unacceptable. But how could you possibly go along with something that put lives in danger?"
"Well, I didn't know it would put lives in danger!" Lok said, flinging up his hands. "I mean, I didn't anticipate these guys to panic like that! Maglag had told all of us not to come up too fast. How was I supposed to know they would still do it?"
"You knew about the age limit," Eeth said coldly. "And even grown-up tourists are only allowed to dive with an experienced guide, as the signs at the entrance to the diving centre state quite clearly. Has it occurred to you at all that all these restrictions are there for a reason?"
"Yes," snapped Lok. "I thought it was the same reason as it always is: only grown-ups are allowed to do this because teenagers are stupid and incompetent and yada yada yada."
The stony look on Eeth's face said what he thought of this answer. "So, because you dismissed all the restrictions that more experienced persons have imposed, you were ready to let your friends risk their lives," he said in a tone of deadly quiet. "Because that is what they did. And you know it. Micos would not have been hospitalised if that had not been the case. Your vocation is to save lives, padawan. Not to encourage others to throw theirs away."
Lok bit his lip. For once, he seemed at a loss for words.
Eeth rose. It occurred to him, briefly, that since the day they had left for this mission, this was the third time that Lok had got into trouble over typical teenage misbehaviour, caused by his interaction with others his age, as opposed to some consequence of the trauma he had experienced. Psychologically, that was probably a very good sign. Unfortunately, Eeth was not prepared to show any tolerance for the kind of recklessness Lok had displayed, nor the disobedience.
"Give me your saber," he said brusquely, holding out his hand. Eyes downcast, Lok complied. "For how long?" he asked in a small voice.
"Until we return to Coruscant and two weeks thereafter," said Eeth. "If your behaviour is impeccable. If it is not, I will extend that time."
He laid Lok's saber onto a free chair and started opening the clasp of his belt. "Bare your bottom and bend over the table," he ordered. "I would like to establish a few essential rules and I want to make sure I have your attention."
Lok groaned. "I hate it when you do this," he complained, not making to get up. "You can just tell me. I'm not stupid."
"Your behaviour today," Eeth said grimly, "suggests otherwise." He stepped over towards Lok, clamped his hand around the boy's ear and pulled him up.
"Do as I told you," he snapped. "You are not in any position to be obstinate. You are in more than enough trouble as it is, but I can assure you that it can always get worse."
"Ouch!" yelled Lok. "Alright, alright, I'm doing it!" He was already fumbling with his belt. Eeth released the hold on his ear, finished undoing his own belt and let the utilities slide onto the chair that already held Lok's lightsaber. Then he doubled the belt over in his hand and motioned for Lok to assume his position.
"I'm sorry, master," Lok said as contritely as he possibly could while he reluctantly bent over and gripped the far edge of the table with his hands. "I shouldn't have–"
"No, you should not have done any of this," Eeth cut him short. "Be silent. I will do the talking for a while, and you will listen. When I want you to say something, I will ask."
He knew he was being harsh. He also knew that Lok needed to learn that his behaviour had been completely and totally out of line. Therefore, he swung the belt and brought it down onto Lok's bottom smartly. Lok flinched slightly but remained silent.
"Just to be clear," Eeth said. "We are not discussing your gross disobedience right now. That will come later. We are exclusively discussing your recklessness and disregard for safety."
He swung the belt a second time. Lok flinched again and squeezed his eyes shut.
"You are trained to help maintain peace in the galaxy," Eeth informed him, bringing the belt down a third time so forcefully that it elicited a strangled yelp from Lok. "How can you fulfil that task if you do not even care to take responsibility for the well-being of your friends?"
A fourth swat landed to the undercurve of Lok's bottom, and this one drew a pain-filled yowl.
"Tell me, padawan," Eeth said, pausing momentarily. "Did you even think about whether your friends were experienced and skilled enough to do this? Or did you just think about yourself when you made the decision to go diving?"
Lok drew in a ragged breath and exhaled shakily. "Put like that," he brought out, a hint of sarcasm in his tone, "I definitely just thought about myself. Which you doubtless knew when you asked that qu-AAAAAAH!"
Eeth had brought the belt down again, and this time, it had painted a line of fire across Lok's bottom that had made him cry out and had brought tears to his eyes.
"Lose that flippant tone," Eeth snapped. "You are exceedingly lucky that none of your friends are in critical condition right now. They might have been just as irresponsible as you were but that is no excuse." Another swat came down and had Lok starting to cry quietly.
"Even if you were an ordinary teenager, rather than a Jedi padawan, I would have expected more maturity and common sense from you," Eeth informed Lok. Two strokes to the tops of Lok's upper thighs followed. The volume of the boy's sobs increased; his knuckles whitened as he held on to the table and he stomped his feet.
"Stay still," Eeth said mercilessly. "You are not an ordinary teenager, as you well know, which makes your carelessness even less tolerable. This punishment will hopefully help you remember to think of the wellbeing of others, the next time temptation arises."
With this, he started the belting in earnest. Everything he had meted out so far had only been a prelude, as Lok was starting to discover. And that he was indeed discovering it was evident from the increasing volume of his howls and his ever more energetic wriggling. To his credit, he managed to maintain his position. When Eeth was done, he was lying slumped over the table, sobbing. Eeth calmly reattached his belt, utilities – and two lightsabers – included, and then rested a hand on the still sobbing boy's back, patting it lightly. Lok did not seem to resent this or, in fact, him, but he did not stop crying either. His sobs were not getting any quieter either. Eeth waited for a couple of minutes and then waited some more, but it just did not seem to be happening. Finally, he gripped Lok by the shoulders and pulled him up.
"Why are you working yourself up?" he demanded. This, at last, had an effect because it got Lok all indignant.
"I'm n-not working m-myself up!" he brought out, wiping a sleeve across his face. "You whaled my ass clean off of me!" He was still shaking and apparently could not stop the tears from falling.
Eeth handed him a handkerchief. "True," he said, "but you are still working yourself up disproportionately." He studied Lok as the boy wiped his face, then pulled him into a hug. He usually tended to offer hugs, rather than impose them, but this time he felt that Lok needed the comfort, whether he wanted it or not. He felt his padawan tense up at first, as if he was preparing to pull away from Eeth, but then Lok fell limply against his shoulders, still crying. Eeth cupped his head in one hand and stroked his back with the other, and slowly, very slowly, Lok stopped shuddering and calmed down.
"Sorry," he finally sniffled, still hiding his face in his master's robe.
"Was that an apology for your behaviour this morning or for crying into my shoulder?" Eeth asked.
Lok sighed. "For getting snot on your robes," he said. "But I'm sorry for the other stuff, too."
"My robes have seen worse," said Eeth. "But your behaviour this morning definitely warrants your feeling sorry for it."
"I know," Lok murmured.
There was a moment's pause. Then Eeth said quietly: "Can you tell me why you were so upset just now? I know it was not only because of the belting you received. And, yes, I know that it hurt plenty."
Lok sighed. "It's just… you were right, I was really afraid, first when Micos got stuck and then when he went up too fast," he admitted in a slightly choked voice. "I tried to push it away and convince myself that nothing much had happened but I couldn't keep that up. Not when you… well, whaled the ass clean off of me."
"I did, and it did serve its purpose, apparently," Eeth pointed out. "Not to mention the fact that you deserved it. And your punishment is not over. But we will get to that. First of all, we will meditate."
Lok heaved a sigh. "Alright," he said. "Not that I'll be able to focus." He reached back to gingerly touch his bottom, but pulled his fingers back fast. "Ouch," he hissed.
"I know it hurts," said Eeth, entirely unsympathetic. "And yet, you will be able to focus. If only because the consequences of failing to focus properly are not something you will want to endure right now. You may safely take my word for it."
A good half hour later, Lok was lying on his bunk and Eeth was spreading a thin layer of bacta on his bottom, letting a fairly generous amount of healing energy flow into the boy's skin.
"As for your disobedience and the fact that you broke two clear rules when you made your ill-advised decision to go diving," he said.
"I will be spanked every night for the rest of the year, perform five hours of official meditation every day and write one gazillion times 'I will not disobey my master ever again nor will I break the RUUULES,'" Lok intoned solemnly.
Eeth fought hard to keep his mouth from twitching.
"If you say so," he replied in a deadpan tone of voice. "That sounds quite appropriate."
"Aww, don't be like that," said Lok. "Can't you for once assume that I learned my lesson?"
"It is usually a mistake to assume," said Eeth. "I would rather make sure. Besides, you knew all along that there would be a price to pay for disobedience. And it was no small case of disobedience either. So, you WILL be spanked every night, maybe not for the next year, but for a week. And since you mentioned it, writing lines and meditation sound like excellent ideas as well. You will do both every night, after your spanking. I am sure that after one week of this, you will think long and hard before you treat my instructions in such a cavalier manner again."
"Master," Lok said in disbelief. "The lines were a joke! I told the farm people you know what a joke is but it seems I was mistaken."
"I have made my padawans write lines since before the time you were born," Eeth said sternly. "Including you, if I remember correctly. On our flight to Mahau."
"Yes, and that was already ridiculous, but I thought it was a one-time occurrence!" Lok exclaimed, propping himself up on his elbows and turning his head to throw an accusatory look at his master. "I'm nearly fourteen, not six!"
"If you want to be treated like a grown-up, act like it," Eeth snapped, rising abruptly. "Since you have such a hard time accepting this punishment, we will start tonight. Just so you do not get any wrong ideas. One hundred times "I will not argue my master's instructions. Now."
The look on Lok's face was thunderous. But so was the look on his master's face. It clearly said that any further attempts to challenge his authority would render the healing he had just performed quite futile. Lok was smart enough to desist. Fuming, he stood up, pulled up his pants, grabbed a data pad, threw himself back onto his bunk and started scribbling.
"I expect legible handwriting," Eeth said coolly. "Any line that is too sloppy, you will redo twice. Come and see me in the galley when you are done."
With this, he left Lok to his task, giving him no further opportunity for belligerence. Which was probably all for the better because Eeth was not really keen on dealing out any further correction that night.