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Anakin knew better than to complain about the exhaustion playing at his bones to Obi-Wan. He knew that for every long day he suffered through, his master’s was that much longer. Someone had to actually plan out their training sessions and guide him through the meditations, after all, and he’d been reminded of that fact enough times that he had the speech memorized. So Anakin was silent as he slid open the apartment door, hoping that, for once, Obi-Wan was actually using his free moments to sleep.
He was proven wrong once he was through the door and Obi-Wan’s voice called out clear and alert toward him. “Anakin, back already. Time flies. How were your lessons?”
Anakin looked over to see Obi-Wan sitting at the small desk in the corner of their apartment. Around him, there were a half dozen datapads spread across the wooden surface, marked as borrowings from the Archives and in various states of wear. In his hand, which hung down behind the back of the chair now that Obi-Wan had turned to watch Anakin enter, he was grasping his personal device in a loose, haphazard grip. Anakin noticed the dimness of its screen; it had to have been on for hours now, at least.
“Master,” he replied. “They went well.” He moved to place his own datapad on the table. “Oh, and you’ll never guess. Out of all the padawans, Master Windu chose me to spar with today! He said he’d heard my reputation and wanted to test it.”
Obi-Wan looked at him with a queer glace and Anakin instantly regretted mentioning it. It wasn’t so much the story itself, but the excess of pride in his tone telling it. Obi-Wan had told him over and over not to let that pride go to his head. He stopped himself from saying more and hoped his master would see enough guilt in his silence to spare him the same lecture again.
The tactic seemed to work because Obi-Wan turned back to the pile of work on the desk in front of him. “Good,” he said. “Very good.” Then he fell back into the mild tedium.
Anakin felt a wave of relief and relaxed his shoulders slightly. As he rolled his head around, cracking his neck, he noticed an empty mug sitting on the floor by Obi-Wan’s chair. He figured cleaning it up would partially make up for the previous lapse. And, he noted, it would spare Obi-Wan the energy, something that, by the look of him, he definitely should be preserving. Anakin walked over to the desk and knelt down to grab the mug.
As he stood up again, though, Obi-Wan grabbed his shoulder. “Oh, Anakin,” he said, slightly startled. “That’s really not necessary. I can take it..” He reached to take the mug from Anakin’s grip, but Anakin didn’t let it go. He wanted to protest, but he couldn’t think of the right words. Obi-Wan seemed to sense his intentions. “I insist,” he mollified. “I really should stretch my legs anyway.”
At that, Anakin acquiesced and watched his master rinse what remained of the tea leaves out of the mug.
After a moment, he looked down at the datapads now that he was closer to them, curious as to what tedium the council was leaving his master now. He was taken slightly aback at what he saw. It wasn’t the mission reports or lesson plans he was expecting. He didn’t even need to read it to recognize the curves of the letters carved into the stone in the projection on the screen.
“What’s this?” he asked his master, almost aggressive. He shot his gaze onto him.
Obi-Wan didn’t seem to notice the tone, focusing on scrubbing the porcelain dry. “Oh, I’m learning Huttese,” he said evenly. “I’ve been meaning to for a while now. When I found those documents in the Archives I thought I could start with some translation exercises.”
“Oh,” was all Anakin could say. The accusatory instincts fell away.
When he felt his master’s eyes glancing at him incredulously, he darted his gaze back down. He moved to grab the nearest datapad, which happened to be Obi-Wan’s, and investigated it. He had a notepad open on it, already semi-filled with a Basic translation and several parenthetical notes. Scanning the table, he found the image Obi-Wan was translating from and pulled it toward him with his other hand. Once he lined them up side by side, he found he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.
“What?!” Obi-Wan asked. “Do you find my hard work humorous?!” Anakin could see through his annoyed tone to the playful curiosity underneath. Thankfully.
He pushed the giggle down into his chest. “Nothing. It’s nothing.” He laid the datapads back down and smirked. “Let’s just say, I fully agree with your assessment that you could use some more practice.”
Obi-Wan didn’t laugh, but he didn’t look angry either. He just huffed and strode back to the Anakin, grabbing his datapad back. “Is it incorrect?” he asked, looking between the two screens at an alarming speed.
Anakin took a step backward. Maybe it was best he hadn’t mentioned anything, even if to him the work was bordering on comedy. Obi-Wan was clearly tired — far more than even Anakin — and even in the best of moods, he didn’t take too kindly to criticisms from his charge; though he had become more willing to listen as Anakin grew older and gentler with his words.
“It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything,” he rushed. He brushed the matter off and went to walk to his bedroom.
“No no,” Obi-Wan stopped him. “If it’s wrong I could use your guidance. I know you haven’t spoken it in years, but you’re probably the best source in the Temple for Huttese.” Anakin looked back at the man’s tired face and saw sincerity in it.
Anakin rubbed his neck. It was rare for Obi-Wan to mention Tatooine, even in such a roundabout way as this. Granted, that was mostly because of Anakin himself, who used to have a tendency to shut down conversations about his old life when he was still freshly freed from it. Unless they concerned his mother of course. Those ones were shut down by Obi-Wan or the other Jedi.
“I, um…” Anakin stuttered. “I— I can try, I guess.”
Obi-Wan gave him a warm smile.
Anakin took the datapad with the original text from the table and brought it between his master and himself. “I should say,” he prefaced, “that I never really learned how to read it. Not like I did Basic, at least. If these were audio I’d be more help. As it is, I mostly have to sound all this out in my head.”
Obi-Wan hummed and urged Anakin to continue. He was slightly disappointed there wasn’t a witty retort.
“So, uh, what you have here isn’t really wrong per se. You’re just being way too literal. The meaning is more in the subtext with Huttese, especially with records like this. If you were copying off of an official legal document or something, then sure, you talk more like….” He paused. “Well, more like you. “But this here is more casual. It looks like a story or account to me. It’s going to be a lot less precise, especially since I think it was written by someone lower-class.”
Anakin remembered his mother for a moment. Her voice rose in his ears telling stories like this one — stories about nothing at all except people and their hearts. He tightened his mental shields, hoping the attachment-soaked memory didn’t reach his master. He looked back over at him and saw him jotting down this new information on a document of notes he’d evidently been keeping on the language.
Anakin focused back on the words, picking one out to use as an example.
“Like right here — pateesa . You have it translated as ‘friend’. While that’s technically true, here it has a different connotation. ‘Friend’ implies familiarity in Basic, which pateesa doesn’t here. It means more like ‘equal’ or ‘person of equal rank in society’. It doesn’t really have an equivalent in Basic, I guess, huh.”
Anakin rubbed his neck again as Obi-Wan copied that down too.
“Interesting,” Obi-Wan said. “That makes sense with what I read in the Archives. The Hutts put a strong emphasis on status. There’s a clear hierarchy in Hutt societies — and the societies they control, to a lesser extent.”
“Yeah…” Anakin breathed. He didn’t need Obi-Wan to tell him that. He still had a few scars to remind him.
Obi-Wan must have sensed his growing anxiety because suddenly his voice was much more concerned. “Are you alright, Padawan?” he asked. “If you’d rather not do this it—”
“I’m fine.” Anakin jerked his gaze back toward the datapads.
Obi-Wan looked him over with an air of suspicion but didn’t say anything else, which Anakin was glad for. It was true he’d rather not do this, but he didn’t need Obi-Wan to know that. He was supposed to be over his past by now, after all. He needed to prove that he was. That no one needed to beat around the bush with it anymore. Plus, Obi-Wan was right; Anakin was his only hope of learning Huttese at a suitable level. He let his hand fall from his neck and realized he’d been rubbing the small lump of scar tissue there. It was all that remained from when his detonator chip was removed.
“So what about sleemo ?” Obi-Wan asked after a small pause. Anakin raised his brow.
“ Sleemo ,” Obi-Wan reiterated. “It is used repeatedly throughout these documents.”
“Oh,” Anakin said. “Yeah, that’s a common one, huh. Um, well, literally it means slimeball, but your books probably told you that.”
Obi-wan nodded. “They did.”
“In context, it varies, though.”
“What about here?” Obi-Wan asked. He pointed to a different datapad, showing a scan of a hand-drawn table of words and numbers. Anakin looked closer at it. He drew in a quick breath when recognition hit him. He slammed his mental shields shut in the most silent way one could panic.
“Do you know what that is?” Anakin asked as lightly as he could. He didn’t look at Obi-Wan or bother giving him time to answer. “It’s a record from a slave auction.”
“I had a suspicion it might have been that, yes.”
Obi-Wan’s accented voice seemed far more remorseful now. There was its own anxiety in it — one Anakin had only heard during more tense moments on missions. Or, when he started talking too seriously about his past. Not that he’d done the latter in years, of course, but the reaction it always stirred in Obi-Wan would never really leave his memory.
Anakin took a deep breath and closed his eyes against the glow of the screen. Even through his eyelids, the blue light still reached his retinas. Barely. He focused on the ball of anxiety in his chest and did his best to release it into the Force before Obi-Wan got the idea to abandon this task before they finished it. When he opened his eyes again, he didn’t even bother to let Obi-Wan mention the feelings that he must have sensed floating past him. “Here sleemo is marked down as a buyer,” he started. “So it’s probably referring to a Hutt.”
“Interesting,” Obi-Wan answered. He seemed to be purposefully ignoring Anakin’s uncomfortableness now, which Anakin was relieved to see. “Is that a common term for Hutts? I read it has a negative connotation.”
“Both,” Anakin said too quickly. “The Hutts don’t really have many fanatics. Especially at events like this would have been.”
“I can imagine…” Obi-Wan breathed.
“I’m surprised whoever wrote this actually used it, honestly. If they’d gotten caught by the sleemo they would have wound up bantha poodoo for sure.” Anakin bit his lip. “At least on Tatooine. I’m not sure where this was.”
Anakin almost didn’t realize he’d slipped one of his own long-abandoned phrases into that sentence until he saw Obi-Wan’s face in reaction to it. It was the same one he wore when he asked how Anakin’s sessions with his mind healer went when he was younger. It betrayed the master’s youth. And his empathy, however deeply buried it was under Jedi stoicism.
“I’ll keep that in mind next time we’re on Nal Hutta,” Obi-Wan nodded curtly. He hid his own lip bite in the short ginger hairs starting to grow on his chin.
There was a beat of silence for a moment and Obi-Wan leaned microscopically closer to Anakin. “Padawan,” he prodded in a near-whisper “are you sure you’re alright? I know all this talk must remind you of your past to some degree.” He gently grabbed Anakin’s shoulder and turned his form to face him. When lifting his hand away, he pulled the long braid of hair forward from behind Anakin’s back. “If you think it best not to help me with this, I am sure I can figure it out by myself. I would hate to put you in that situation unnecessarily if you’re not—”
“I’m fine,” Anakin snapped. He quickly tucked the braid back again. “I’m over it. It’s in the past. I’ve let my attachments go.” He crossed his arms. His gaze was locked on his boots and his tongue burrowed around in his mouth recklessly. Obi-Wan said nothing. His presence in the force pulsed enough that Anakin could feel it even through his shields. He opened his mouth to say more but shut it just as quickly.
Anakin knew that Obi-Wan only wanted what was best for him. He hated how his emotions had caused so many in his master as well. He was supposed to be better than that. He was supposed to have control. To be strong. To be the Jedi his mother wanted him to be. And he was failing at that because of his stupid attachments.
Finally, after what felt like days, Obi-Wan moved again. He stretched out his arm and shook his neck and did what he could to drive the unease from the air. As he did, Anakin released a breath. He allowed a tiny amount of graciousness to sneak down their training bond toward Obi-Wan.
The presence beside him lightened some and finally spoke again. “Out of interest,” Obi-Wan began with a raised eyebrow, “are there any terms for Hutts that aren’t pejorative I could use?”
It was an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, as most of Obi-Wan’s jokes were, but Anakin had to laugh. “Not many, no,” he breathed. He looked Obi-Wan back in the eye.
He wondered, briefly, if this was some long-winded test Obi-Wan was putting him through. If his master was trying to evaluate the truth in Anakin’s assertions that he was, in fact, over it. That thought didn’t last him long, though. He knew Obi-Wan too well to think him that cunning. Or that cruel. When his master tested him it was always in the open, not clandestine, whatever the test be judging. Besides, it was far more in character for Obi-Wan to be sincere in his motivation.
Obi-Wan Kenobi was a curious man and a dedicated Jedi. It was perfectly plausible that what he had said was true: he had been meaning to learn Huttese. In fact, it probably was a long time coming, knowing Obi-Wan. Taking Anakin as a padawan probably stuck the idea in his head all those years ago, only for it to resurface when he came across those datapads in the Archives. It wouldn’t be the first time the man threw himself into a similar project. Obi-Wan spoke more language than Anakin would probably ever hear him speak. It seemed to him that every time they flew to a new planet for negotiations (which seemed to be happening more and more often as of late) Obi-Wan would greet whoever was welcoming them in their native tongue fluently, with all the cultural performance expected of a local. So far Anakin had counted almost ten, including Twi'leki, Amani, Felucian, and more. And he seemed to understand twice that number, beyond just the Jedi standards like Shyriiwook. It was almost embarrassing, really. Anakin hadn’t even been able to read Basic fluently when he arrived at the temple. But at least he’d always had Huttese under his tongue as an advantage over his master. Until now, at least.
“If you're talking to just any Hutt, pateesa would probably work,” he finally answered sincerely. “That’s what they call each other casually, and how they talk to associates. Force willing, you’d be considered at least that if the Council ever sent you to them. If it’s a big shot like Gardulla or Jabba or even Ziro, though, you’ll probably want to go with grandio . It’s the title they liked us — or really anyone they looked down on — to use for them.”
“Right,” Obi-Wan nodded. “I suppose you and I might be that, too. Especially to them.”
“Yeah,” Anakin chuckled. “ Jeedai kung, you and I. Doompa, dopa-maskey kung ”
Obi-Wan grinned and covered his mouth. Then, to himself, he mumbled “They’re right. It really is a great language for swearing.”
Anakin laughed even harder. He probably wasn’t meant to hear that. “It really is,” he nodded. “You have no idea.”
Him and Obi-Wan shared in a belly laugh and Anakin felt all his tension finally fall away. After the moment finally left, Obi-Wan patted Anakin’s shoulder lightly.
“Thank you, Anakin. You really have been a great help to me. I think we can leave it there for today. You can help me more tomorrow. For now, how about we get something from the cantine? As repayment, maybe, for your services to me.”
Anakin nodded. “Yeah, sure. I could eat. But please don’t think of it as repayment. Your training is enough to make up this a thousandfold. Really, I should thank you, Master.” Anakin didn’t need to shield his sincerity.
Obi-wan sent enough affection through their bond that Anakin nearly blushed. “Alright then,” he said. “I suppose we’ll consider it you repaying me, then. Either way, we should get going. We want to get there before Master Secura eats all your favorites again, don’t we?”
Anakin rolled his eyes and they got to work deactivating and stacking the datapads. They left Obi-Wan’s to recharge in the shadow of the desk, and Anakin berated him lightly about the risk of overheating. As they walked to the cantine together, Anakin finally shared the full story of his mock battle with Master Windu. Obi-Wan only half listened, just happy to see his Padawan in better spirits.