| Foundling, Part 1/3 By Darth Ishtar "This isn't a mission. It's...it's..." "An honor?" "It's..." "A necessary service to the Republic?" "It's..." "An exciting opportunity?" "NANNYING!" Qui-Gon was fighting to keep a smile from his face, but taking one look at the way his Padawan was cracking her knuckles made the task nearly impossible. G'emela was a devoted Jedi and an excellent apprentice, but her idea of what constituted the activities of a "proper Jedi" were something of an amusement over the years. She had declared on her first day of training that dishpan hands were not the trademark of a proper Jedi, so she couldn't be expected to pitch in after dinner. He'd thought he'd been fortunate enough to take on a Padawan with a sense of humor. It turned out she was deadly serious. Over the years, her perceptions had thankfully changed and matured, thanks to discipline, training and a healthy dose of custodial punishment, but she still looked on many things as wholly too jocund for the Jedi lifestyle. Apparently, the solemn and noble duty of retrieving a child for entrance into the Temple was one of these things. "Calm yourself, my young apprentice," Qui-Gon chided. "I won't make you change the whelp unless you persist in this line of conversation." That shut her up, since he wasn't one to make threats of that sort idly, but the look she gave him reminded him very strongly of an unpleasant experience when he had been trapped before a charging bantha while wearing a red tunic. "As it is," he continued, "we won't know if the child is to come with us until we have tested him. You may not have to mind him at all." That seemed to inspire a degree of relief. "However," he concluded, "I will then have to recommend to the Council that we be sent on more of these missions, since all Padawans should be well-versed in the Temple's admissions procedures." She adopted a pleasant smile but the gesture, coupled with the fire in her eyes, made her look like a Devaronian out for blood. "The first rule of this sort of mission is that the child must not be frightened of us," Qui-Gon explained. "I would suggest that you make that achievement your goal for the day." They rode in relative silence from that moment on, though he heard frustrated hisses of breath as she practiced her pleasant, amiable face in her pocket mirror and found herself to look neither pleasant nor amiable. The word formidable was what was most used to describe her in polite company. Qui-Gon most often called her strong-willed or, when pressed by the subject herself, proclaimed her to be a "nice young woman of admirable determination." Translation: One scary blighter you wouldn't want to cross and you didn't hear that from me. This was not to say that she was not a talented girl who was a credit to the Jedi Order. It was simply to say that she was skilled as a negotiator because she could grandstand the most hardened terrorist into an early grave in five minutes flat. This was not the most terrifying thing, though. The most terrifying thing was that she could just as quickly turn and affectionately mother you to death as have you hiding under a table. Her training, therefore, had been something of a challenge. Qui-Gon could be hard-headed at time, but he was generally the type to follow Master Khafut's admonition to enact the duties of a Jedi with "gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned and a well-built lightsaber." This was a matter of frequent irritation to G'emela, who didn't particularly like diplomatic responses to her bold arguments. "We're here," she pronounced shortly. "Seems we have a reception committee." That wasn't entirely true. It was a fact that there was a growing number of people emerging from the remains of Huramek, the village that was their destination, but it was most likely the group of survivors rather than envoys. According to the reports, no one was quite sure what had happened. Some kind of seismic disaster had befallen Akurnesa's southern continent, wiping out hundreds of homes, setting fire to government buildings, and killing over twenty thousand. The governors of Akurnesa had, naturally, provided what aid they could, but their resources were already strained. Therefore, when the Republic offered help, it gladly accepted. The humanitarian aid team had arrived a week ago and sent along word almost immediately that a child among the survivors might be a potential Jedi. This was the case in many situations, where a great disaster would leave the rare survivor and that one would become a Jedi. It was the story of many, from Yoda to Mace Windu. Qui-Gon powered down the speeder, then exited with measured strides, letting the apparent leader of the survivors come forth to meet him halfway. "Master Qui-Gon Jinn," he introduced himself. "This is my Padawan, G'emela Lothric." "Uri-Len Muroni," the man greeted. "Thank you for coming." "The aid team is being of assistance?" he inquired gently. "Oh, naturally," Uri-Len said enthusiastically. "The team and our builders will be joining us for midday meal in an hour's time, so you will be able to judge for yourself, but they have already done wonders here..." He proceeded to give a detailed accounting of every pipe laid, every wall reconstructed, every medical procedure completed and the like, but Qui-Gon was only half-listening, senses stretching out for the telltale tremor of unchecked Force potential. He had sensed it upon arrival, which was a good start in the first place. "What of the child?" Uri-Len's face screwed up in a pained expression. "The only survivor of his family," he explained quietly. "He filled two years on the day that this happened. He had been brought back from the highlands a week before, so we had not yet given him a village name. He is a Kenobi." Qui-Gon grimaced. "You call him Kenobi, then?" "Some do," the man said quietly, "but many have begun to call him Obi-Wan." "Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon repeated. "It meands 'found in hope,' as he was." "Though Chumi-Wan would be more appropriate," another interjected, inciting a round of laughter. "Found in..." G'emela prompted. "Food," Uri-Len supplied with a grin. She shot an amused glance at Qui-Gon. "Of course," she surmised. "Set a garbage disposal to catch a garbage disposal." Uri-Len turned through a door that led into a small courtyard, littered with broken vegetation and shattered cobblestones. Behind was the remnant of a house, mostly caved-in or charred. "We found him in the kitchen," Uri-Len explained. "It had been three days since the event and we didn't expect to find anything, much less a survivor, but he had decided to deal with his grief by eating himself out of house and home." "How is he...emotionally?" Another collective grimace, but this time it was a woman who answered. "He appears to be in a kind of shock. He doesn't cry, doesn't make any noise, and he won't speak. He will obey if we ask him to do things, but doesn't respond otherwise." Well, at least G'emela's fears of minding a screaming brat all the way back to Coruscant are fairly unfounded. "Can you help him?" It was an interesting trend among victims of such disasters. Their question was never 'What can you do for us?' It tended to be a matter of 'Can you help the children?' "We will do our best," he assured her. His first impression of the boy was of a scrub-brush, since his light hair had obviously been washed, but not styled in preparation for the visitors. Between this effect and the wide blue eyes set in a pale face, he looked as though he had been carbon-frozen in the midst of a terrifying experience. He was curled in a corner, knees to his small chest, not moving. "Obi-Wan?" The boy's head moved slightly at the sound of the name, but he did not respond any further. Qui-Gon crossed to the corner, kneeling so he was less foreboding. G'emela didn't bother, only looked on rather suspiciously as if thinking that any kindness would backfire. "Obi-Wan, I'm Qui-Gon," he introduced himself, letting one hand come to rest on the child's shoulder. "We'll help you." No sound came out of Obi-Wan, but his mouth silently formed the word 'help.' "Yes," he confirmed. "Help. We need to make sure you're all right, first. Is that all right?" He nodded almost imperceptibly. Qui-Gon turned a patient look on G'emela. "Could you hold him, Padawan? I think it would help for the blood test." "Certainly," she said with a resigned sigh. Her strong arms, more suitable than giving her opponents a solid thrashing than exchanging embraces, came out to lift Obi-Wan with perfunctory efficiency into her lap. Obi-Wan stared at her for a long moment, expression still frozen in fear, so she gamely tried one of those winning smiles that she had been rehearsing in the mirror. And then Obi-Wan began to scream. |
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