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“Be nice.”
Bultar looks up from the datapad she’s been showing to Rissa to see the deadly serious expression on Aayla Secura’s face.
“I’m always nice,” Rissa says, offended. “Bultar, tell her I’m nice.”
“She’s lying,” Bultar says, shoving Rissa away when she squawks in outrage.
“I’m serious,” Aayla says, pouting just a little.
“It’s the first day of class and we already all know each other,” Rissa points out. She’s sixteen, which is a few years younger than Aayla’s nineteen, and even more than Bultar’s twenty-one, so Bultar is already putting some effort into being nice to someone young enough to be a little annoying by default. Rissa’s probably more qualified for this class than they are, though. She’s actually artisan-and-piloting track, and she’s good at this stuff. “What does being nice have to do with anything?”
“Just promise,” Aayla stresses. “Be nice.”
“To you?” Bultar asks, wondering where this is going.
“No, just… just be nice,” Aayla huffs. “You’ll get it in a minute, just promise.”
“I promise to be nice,” Rissa says, only half-serious. She grins. “It’s the Jedi way, isn’t it?”
Aayla rolls her eyes and turns to Bultar.
“I’m nice,” Bultar protests, but Aayla doesn’t waver. She sighs. “Fine. I promise to be nice. There, happy?”
“Very,” Aayla says, and then flounces off to join Xiaan at the table those two have claimed as their own. They crowd together over the flimsi textbook, and then Rissa asks a question that drags Bultar’s attention back to their own datapad. It’s a few minutes yet before class starts, and people are still trickling in. It’s mostly senior padawans like Bultar and Aayla, but there are a few of the older, more skilled junior padawans here, like Rissa, and a handful of knights who specialized otherwise but are looking to expand their skillsets in new directions. Bultar thinks there are even occasionally masters taking the class, but there aren’t any on the class roster this semester, other than the teacher.
Engineering 3201 - Intermediate Mechanics: Hyperspace Engines
The teacher is a twi’lek master, Umika Sesseni. She’s got a prosthetic hand—explosion, they say—and she’s a lovely pale green that’s striated with darker shades of stripes. She’s also got ears instead of cones, and four head tails instead of the standard two, and Bultar knows more than a few younger girls who’d gotten excited when they figured out what that meant.
(There’s a reason the younger ones go to Master Sesseni for advice on certain personal matters.)
“Alright,” Master Sesseni announces, and everyone settles without her having to wave for attention. “This semester is going to be structured a little differently than usual. You are all aware of the Advanced Skills Modules in the Delayed Aging Padawan Placement Program, yes?”
Aayla’s warnings suddenly make a lot more sense.
“For those of you that are unfamiliar,” Master Sesseni says, despite almost everyone knowing what she’s talking about; Bultar thinks Rissa might be the only one young enough to not, “The program is in place for species such as Master Yoda’s, Wookies, and others who age at a slower rate than most, and complete classes through knighthood in their specialty fields while still in early adolescence. The Advanced Skills Modules is for those that have completed their classes and wish to continue in the field, but are too young to be allowed self-study, and so are placed to teach classes of beginner to intermediate level in their specialty area in conjunction with a Jedi Master.”
Rissa’s watching Master Sesseni in rapt fascination, but she turns to Bultar to whisper, “So we’re going to be taught by a kid?”
Bultar puts a finger to her lips and points to the front of the room.
“This particular situation is a little odd, as the padawan is, in fact, human,” Master Sesseni says, watching everyone with hard eyes, “but he has nonetheless passed all the advanced courses and taken the placement exams that declare him an expert in the fields of droid building and enginecraft for speeders, pods, and all spacecraft from low orbit to deep space. He is competent in these subjects, but this is his first time teaching. I will be here the entire time, but you will behave for the student teacher, at risk of being reported to your Masters. Am I clear?”
Yes, Aayla’s insistence is making much, much more sense.
Master Sesseni looks over the room critically, and then nods and turns to the door. She waves it open with the Force, and her expression softens very deliberately. “Class, this is Padawan Skywalker. He’s going to be the student teacher helping me out this semester.”
Bultar’s seen Skywalker around before, usually in the Archives. He’s a subject of much gossip, and so is Knight Kenobi. Bultar’s still a year or two from knighting, herself, but she’s closer in age to Kenobi than she is to Skywalker. Part of her immediately goes ‘that’s a baby,’ when she thinks of Skywalker, and when the padawan walks into the room, she’s… well, she’s not actually that wrong.
Skywalker needs a stepstool to see over the podium. Ashla’s temples, he’s tiny.
Bultar is… pretty sure Skywalker’s only twelve right now. She doesn’t actually know where Master Jinn found him, so she can’t even begin to guess how Skywalker has a Master’s knowledge in engineering this young, but she thinks at least some of it might have been self-directed consumption of every engineering textbook he could get his hands on while Kenobi was running solo missions and leaving Skywalker in Knight Eerin or Vos’s care.
“Um, hi?” Skywalker manages, looking out across them with wide eyes. He’s so small. Sith hells. “I’ve, um, I’ve never taught anyone before, but Master Umika said I could help out with this class because I know engines really well, and I, um… I hope we get along?”
Poor kid looks petrified. He stands up straighter, all of a sudden, shoving a look of pure determination and ‘just try me’ onto his face. Absolute bluster and bravado. It’s adorable.
Out of the corner of her eye, Bultar sees Aayla Secura, in her front row seat, giving Skywalker a massive grin and two thumbs-up.
Skywalker smiles back, bravado disappearing into shy relief, and then he jumps down and looks at Master Sesseni for further instruction.
Rissa smacks Bultar’s arm a few times, eyes wide. “What the frip—”
“Rissa—”
“—he’s tiny—”
“Rissa—”
“—what if we break him?”
“Rissa, shut up,” Bultar hisses back. “He can hear you.”
It’s a bit of an exaggeration. Skywalker’s caught up in listening to Master Sesseni, and enough people are whispering while they chat that Skywalker probably won’t hear them in particular. Aayla is glaring at the entire room over her shoulder. She signs in GSL, something everyone except Skywalker himself knows by now, “be nice or else.”
Bultar shakes her head with a sigh and settles back in her chair. She turns to Rissa and, quietly, tells her, “besides, this is an engineering course, not saberplay. We’re not going to break him when all he’s supposed to do is talk at us.”
“I guess,” Rissa mutters.
Aayla throws a balled-up piece of flimsi at a senior padawan that’s eyeing Skywalker with disdain. Fingers in a vee, Aayla points at her own eyes and then his. There’s murder in her gaze. The other padawan leans away, despite being on the other side of the room, and stares in confusion.
“So do Secura and Skywalker… know each other?” Rissa asks.
“Their masters are friends,” Bultar explains. “Aayla looked after him a lot, his first few months here. I’ve heard her call him her little cousin before.”
“Oooooh,” Rissa intones, head tilted as she watches Skywalker nod to Master Sesseni and get back up on his stepstool, sorting through some flimsi on the podium. “He’s… should we be worried?”
“About what?”
“You know… learning from a baby,” Rissa says.
Bultar eyes her. “He’s twelve.”
“Yeah, that’s basically a baby,” Rissa asserts.
Bultar snorts. It’s not very elegant, but she doesn’t care. “Rissa, you’re sixteen. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a baby.”
“Hey!”
“Settle down,” Master Sesseni calls, and then steps back and to the side. A holoprojection goes up of what appears to be a Nabooan T-14 hyperdrive. Skywalker takes a deep breath and starts talking.
--
Skywalker isn’t terrible at teaching, but he’s very, very new at this, and it’s obvious. Master Sesseni takes over a few times while Skywalker gathers himself, and there are more than a few instances of getting his pronunciation corrected—it’s obvious he’s only ever read the words—or asking Sesseni for a translation. Apparently, he does know everything, but only remembers the terms in Huttese, as often as not. It’s a bit jarring, and a few people look frustrated. Several times, it seems like someone might be ready to say something, which they can all tell since they are all, in fact, Jedi. Every time, though, Aayla sends a spike of intent at them, quiet but intense a way that Skywalker doesn’t seem to notice.
Be nice, she’d said, and she seems very keen on making people keep to their unknowing agreement.
Skywalker stays late to talk over things with Master Sesseni, and Bultar sees Aayla hovering outside the classroom door. Xiaan’s already taken off for her next course, but Bultar takes a spot against the wall a little further down the hall just to see what happens. She’s curious. Rissa joins her without asking, and Bultar thinks she might just be mimicking an older padawan to feel cool, but that might be a little too self-serving of an assumption.
Bultar perks up as Anakin leaves the room, Master Sesseni behind him. The master locks the door, but Anakin finds himself being swept up into a hug by Aayla. He squeaks, datapad falling to the floor.
“I’m so proud of youuuuuu,” Aayla croons, twisting side to side with Skywalker’s face crushed to her collarbone. He whines and wriggles, and Bultar only just sees that his nose was getting squished against bone, and then he’s hugging her back. “My little Ani, teaching grown-ups about starship engines.”
“Aaylaaaaa,” Skywalker whines, “you’re being embarrassing.”
“That’s my job,” Aayla tells him. She doesn’t let go. “You said I’m like a cousin or a sister, and that means it’s my job to be embarrassing at you when you do something cool, like teach people my age, because you’re a tiny genius.”
“I’m not tiny!” Skywalker protests. “I’m a normal height for my age!”
“And your age is very small,” Aayla informs him, and then breaks down laughing. She leans down just enough for her hug to turn into a carry, and spins. “You did goooood!”
Skywalker flails and then hugs her back. Again. Bultar hadn’t known Aayla was this… tactile.
Maybe it’s just for Skywalker’s sake.
Skywalker buries his face against her when she sets him down. “I messed up my words.”
“Psh,” Aayla dismisses. “You needed help with some words. So what? Lots of people do. We all get words wrong when we’ve only seen them in books.”
“But I messed up the Basic.”
“And? I’d mess up if I was teaching in Huttese,” Aayla says. “There’s a reason Master Sesseni is involved, you know. You’re twelve, Ani. Most humans don’t start teaching until they’re eighteen.”
“I know people were laughing at me,” Skywalker mumbles against her. “Not out loud, but they were.”
“If anyone’s mean to you, I’ll kick their butts,” Aayla promises.
Bultar puts a hand over her mouth, to hide her smile and her laugh. Rissa does much the same, though she has a bit more trouble stifling herself.
“C’mon, Obi-Wan dropped you off, right?” Aayla steps away, but lets Skywalker hold her hand.
“Uh-huh,” Skywalker answers. “He’s still teaching that poetry class, though.”
“We’ll go wait for him to finish,” Aayla says, “and then we can go grab some ice cream to celebrate you making it through your first successful class teaching, yeah? We’ll invite Master Quin and make him pay for it.”
Skywalker snickers, and then takes his hand away from her to grab his datapad. “I don’t need you to hold my hand, Aayla. I’m a padawan and teaching and everything.”
“Yeah, but you’re short and I might lose you,” Aayla argues, and then grabs him under one arm and digs her knuckles into his scalp. “Little squirt!”
“Hey, no, no, my hair!”
“You’ve got a padawan cut, it’s already beyond saving, just—”
“Aaylaaaaaa!”