Parental Duties
By Rey
Chapter summary: There is task, there is duty, there is assignment, there is work. But, in any case, Obi would be willing to accept none of such from a meddling ghost.
Chapter note: If you wish to refresh your mind regarding this particular POV, please revisit Chapter 2.
21. Obi-Wan: The Assignment
Grogu promised an adventure and a family when he invited Obi to escape the Elders and come… here.
Well, the cheeky little one delivered. At least for the first part. And Obi can't say he dislikes Grogu's parent, either. Nor the twelve other Young aside from himself and Grogu. And, surprisingly, the two other Elders aside from Grogu's Mandalorian parent, too.
Maybe it's even unfair to call them Elders. They are adults, certainly, but until now they are yet to try to harm the Young in any way.
Grogu's parent even went as far as noting down individual supplies for each of the Young summoned by Grogu, just before they packed up and left that rainy, rainy unknown planet in the Deep Core, even though three of them – the only Mando-Jedi among them, from what he can see, though at least two others seem to be well on the way to becoming such, if not already there – had skedaddled elsewhere for an unsanctioned hunt-and-forage mission and worried the said parent. And Obi has just seen for himself that the list got executed to the best of the executors' ability, quite recently, even though it's a lot and the relationship they have with the Young's self-assigned caretakers doesn't seem to be deep enough for the excellent execution of such a big favour.
And the executors are adults, too. Adults who are not bad.
Well, the one named Greef Karga seems to be trying to do good in order to curry favours with Grogu's parent, but the effort is genuine anyway, so Obi will give him some slack and just watch passively for now.
In any case, watching over Grogu is already a full-time job, which Obi has taken for himself because nobody would really take it if not pushed, which Grogu doesn't deserve, though the imp could do with some exercise in restraint.
And, given this reality, he really doesn't appreciate it when he begins to get the sense that he's being watched closely by an unseen entity while he and Grogu are getting farther and farther away from the ships.
The little one's parent does need the time to sort and deliver the supplies in peace to all the concealed Young spread in the five ships, and Obi did willingly bring the main source of distraction away to peruse what the main settlement on Nevarro offers so that the said parent can do so, but this doesn't mean he'll suffer spies or hidden guards or would-be thuggy ambushers!
So, the moment he feels it's a good place to stop and confront the peeper… which is accidentally in a secluded niche deep in the not-so-used part of the residential area by the market, he scoops Grogu up into his arm, readies his knife, and calls out both verbally and in the Force for the vexing, blood-pressure-raising thing.
Oh, how unimpressed he is when the peeper turns out to be some… hologram? Which feels somewhat there in the Force and rather like him but in a shabby hermit kind of way, bushy untrimmed beard and would-be wise look and unkempt robes and all. And the hermit claims to be him from about five decades from now if events stay true!
Obi feels even less impressed when, instead of explaining what it's all about, the holo-hermit proceeds to urge him to leave the company of the Mandalorians and bring the other Force-sensitives with him.
"Someone will be by to retrieve you, young one," the thing continues when Obi stays silent and focuses more than half of his attention on where Grogu is crawling instead of on it. "He is a Jedi of the new era, for the New Republic. He has something the Mandalorians would want, as well. Help him keep the item safe, and we might get the more war-oriented Mandalorians on our side. There will be less chance of another war, then, and you could grow up in peace, serving the Republic like you wish – like we wish."
Well, it's got a pretty way of talking, Obi would grant it. He might like this aspect in himself, decades from now. What it says, though, feels awfully backstabbing to those who have been taking care of even the weakest of the Young all this while, those who are still taking care of them even now, not quite far away from him and Grogu, even though they are adults. The Mandalorians even got them supplies unasked for, and seem to view it as duty instead of a favour to be cashed in later, let alone a trap.
If the "new Jedi" got something the Mandos would want, though… "When will he arrive? How does he know we're here? Will he be alone?"
Suspicion wafts faintly towards him, feeling like the sight of a patch of mist that evokes the appropriate sensation in him without it ever touching him.
Perhaps he switches from disinterest to interest too sharply. Perhaps the holo-hermit is just too suspicious of everything in general. Perhaps it's even both. But, anyway, he makes sure that he acts like the answers would matter little to him outside the scope of curiosity, an eagerness to know something new, a peak of interest that can rather quickly sluff away if not engaged.
To demonstrate it, he even chooses to abandon the niche, following his green, waddling tiny charge to a narrow alley between two buildings nearby and down the stairs that burrows into the left-hand wall, which is as full of gravities as the right-hand one but interestingly – somewhat alarmingly – bears signs of a scuffle, unlike the right-hand wall.
Or rather, the staircase and its surrounding walls do, and Grogu is leading him… and the holo-hermit… down, down, down, further away from the surface.
`An underground dwelling? A smuggler's haven? A sanctuary?`
All three options are unappealing to him for different reasons. And two of them are unappealing partly because he does not want to lead the busybody, cryptic, bossy weird peeper to where someone should have felt safe and private.
If he's feeling charitable, he'd even count the possible smuggler in this consideration.
Eh, if he could even sympathise with a smuggler… `Grogu, let's go back up. Your Shiny must be worried by now. Come on, we might even get to eat, if Shiny'd spare some rations for us.`
Not that the Mando in all silver would punish their absence or even mischief by withholding meals, really. It's been proven with the troublemaking trio of Mando-Jedi among them, shortly before they prepared to leave the rainy planet. Obi just knows that, with how many mouths there are to feed and how strapped they are all for resources despite this boost of supplies, rationing everything is a vital necessity. Melida/Daan has taught him amply about that.
And, speaking of which, maybe he and Grogu could help by scavenging for usable or even edible things while they're out like this? Like the Mando-Jedi back then? Mando – the silver one, that is – would just lecture them long-sufferingly about letting your allies know so that they could back you up, no?
It's vastly better than waiting for answers from a holo-hermit and being assumed he'd do what the thing wants him to do, in any case.