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“Ah, don’t worry.” Dooku stepped aside so Qui-Gon could enter. “You get used to it.”
Qui-Gon kept his gaze fixed strictly on Dooku’s face, expertly ignoring the ever-growing collection of pink sticky notes decorating every available surface of the apartment. “I didn’t say anything.”
“No need for words,” Dooku said. “Your little eyebrow twitch, remember? Did you get everything?”
Qui-Gon handed him the small bag. “They have stopped selling Electric Lavender. I got you Brachiopod Violet instead. The vendor said if you dislike it, you can ask for your credits back, though that probably won’t save your beard.”
Dooku waved it off. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary as long as the shade is similar. Thank you.”
“You should. Thank me, I mean.” Qui-Gon eyed him with skepticism, his eyes lingering on Dooku’s beard. “You don’t know how tempted I was to come back empty-handed.”
“Jealousy does not suit you, Qui-Gon. I have been telling you for months that blue would look good on you. You should take advantage of the fact that you are starting to go gray. It makes at-home dyeing a lot less tedious.”
“I’m not going gray,” Qui-Gon protested. “I think you need glasses, Master.” On impulse, he lifted his hand to touch his beard, but immediately lowered it when he saw Dooku smile. Blue was one of his favorite colors, though …
Dooku entered the kitchen area, dropping the bag on the table as he passed. “Let me offer you something to drink, as a thank you for taking care of those pesky purchases. Why don’t you sit down?”
Qui-Gon eyes wandered to the chairs at the table, their backs and seats decorated with hieroglyphic scribblings on pink sticky notes. His gaze moved on to the couch, where notes were stuck to the cushions and pillows. He looked back at Dooku.
“Please try not to crumple them,” Dooku said. “It took Obi-Wan so much time to write all of them.”
“I can imagine.” Qui-Gon stared wistfully at a potted plant that had notes plastered to one of its huge leaves and its red flower. Poor thing. He looked for a safe spot on the couch where he could be sure he wouldn’t be covered in stray flimsi after his visit. “Which language is this supposed to be anyway?”
“Ancient Durosian.”
“And I suppose if it’s ancient, that means it’s basically useless for everyday purposes.”
“It has a few thousand speakers, if I remember correctly, none of them native, though. It is a dead language, after all. But you should ask Obi-Wan for the details.”
“Hmm.” Qui-Gon watched Dooku open a note-covered cupboard and carefully peel off another note from one of the teacups, all of it with the casual aplomb of a man used to greater sorrows. “Somehow you always seem to end up with the weird ones.”
“I’d much rather deal with some removable flimsiplast notes than a menagerie of little critters.” Dooku turned on the electric kettle (also marked with a sticky note), then reached for the hair dye. One hand in the bag, he paused. “You bought quinberry chocolate?”
“Hands off, that’s for Obi-Wan.”
Dooku frowned. “What are the two of you—”
He never finished his sentence, because at that moment, the door opened and Obi-Wan strode in, balancing a teetering stack of holobooks on his arms. “Master Dooku, I’m back,” he called but stopped still when he noticed Qui-Gon. He peered around his stack of books, eyes widened, his gaze racing over Qui-Gon’s hair and clothing. Qui-Gon rose with what he hoped was a familiar smile.
“Padawan, Master Qui-Gon came to visit us,” Dooku said.
“Hello Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon greeted.
Obi-Wan smiled back. “It’s good to see you, Master Qui-Gon.” There was no uncertainty in his voice, and in fact, his hesitation had lasted only a few short seconds, yet long enough for something in Qui-Gon’s chest to tighten. Suddenly he reconsidered the color of his beard.
“Qui-Gon is very interested in your progress in Ancient Durosian,” Dooku said, probably to tease Qui-Gon or to show off Obi-Wan.
Qui-Gon cleared his throat. “Oh, yes,” he said, trying his best to sound at least a bit enthusiastic.
“Really?” Obi-Wan’s smile widened. “I’m working on expanding my vocabulary.” He sat down his books on the table in front of Qui-Gon, carefully avoiding a note-covered lamp, a note-covered pencil, and a note-covered notepad. “I came up with the idea of sticky notes and it helps so much with my progress. I’m getting much faster at deciphering the writing because I’m surrounded by words all day. It’s confusing because of the mixture of logographic, syllabic and alphabetic symbols that Ancient Durosian uses … sorry, you must know that already”—(Qui-Gon didn’t; he had no idea what Obi-Wan was talking about)—“and at first I thought about just using the unilaterals, but eventually I’ll have to learn the glyphs anyway, so why not integrate them from the beginning?”
“So these,” Qui-Gon made a gesture that encompassed the entire room, “are all vocabulary words for things and objects?”
Obi-Wan nodded and pointed to the plant in the corner. “Arezmy,” he said, “that means plant. Kibath: flower. And bi, um ... binmy: leaf. And its plural form is binme, not binmywe, as one might think. Weird, isn’t it? On the other hand, it also kind of makes sense to think of each leaf as a little plant in itself.”
“You can propagate some plants by cutting off their leaves and this will sprout a new plant,” Qui-Gon supplied helpfully.
Obi-Wan beamed at him. “Exactly! You see, Master?” He glanced over his shoulder at Dooku, who was still busying himself in the kitchen area. “I told you it made perfect sense!”
Dooku’s only reply was an absent-minded hm-hm.
Qui-Gon couldn’t blame him; it probably took most of his attention to circumnavigate all the various notes as he prepared the tea. A note on the lid of the tea tin, notes on the drawers (which Dooku took off and dutifully put back on after he closed them)—Force, there was even a scrap of flimsi on one of the spoons Dooku took out of a drawer! Flimsi everywhere! Qui-Gon got a headache just looking around the place. Back in his days, Master Dooku would have given his Padawan a trash bag and a death glare, had their apartment looked like this. “But why Ancient Durosian?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s easy to explain,” Obi-Wan said. Five minutes later, when Dooku finally joined them with a tray of tea, he was still talking. Qui-Gon had never heard him talk so long and so persistently. The last two or three times they had all been invited to dinner by Yoda, Obi-Wan had seemed happy to listen to their conversations and had only spoken up when someone addressed him directly. Qui-Gon had thought him shy, not unusual in a young Padawan, especially in the presence of so many older masters with impressive reputations, and doubly so since most of them were human men whose faces Obi-Wan didn’t see on regular basis. But the boy who now sat across from Qui-Gon, explaining the details of old Durosian starship supply lists with such fluency and confidence, struck him as anything but shy.
“With his linguistic talent, you should encourage him to learn some languages that are actually spoken,” Qui-Gon suggested later, after Obi-Wan had excused himself to take his holobooks to his room. “It will definitely give him diplomatic advantages if he is able to talk to local rulers in their native tongue. Master Windu mentioned the other day that some of the young Padawans had started a self-study group for languages.”
“Obi-Wan has no interest in such social affairs,” Dooku said dismissively. “His approach to languages is … somewhat unique, as you may have noticed.”
Qui-Gon was silent for a moment, unsure how to phrase his thoughts. “I look back fondly on my apprenticeship,” he said, “and I know Rael feels the same way. You know that, too, Master. And I’m happy with my place in the Order. I wouldn’t change anything about it even if I could. But that doesn’t mean all of us have to become social outsiders.”
“I was not aware that you perceived us that way,” Dooku said lightly.
“Maybe I’m just getting a little sentimental,” Qui-Gon said. “I admit it’s hard to look at him and not see a younger version of myself.”
Dooku said nothing. Maybe his thoughts were going in a similar direction because he had that look of tired fondness again that he used to get when he thought Qui-Gon was being too affectionate. A moment later, he reached into the inside pocket of his tunic and pulled out a slip of flimsi, which he handed to Qui-Gon: another pink sticky note. Curious, Qui-Gon took it. “What does it say?” he asked. After being surrounded by them for almost an hour, he immediately recognized the glyphs as Ancient Durosian.
“Obi-Wan has this little book he uses to note down things about every person he meets,” Dooku said. “Not only appearances and physical mannerisms but also social information such as their favorite food or what they love to talk about. From what he has told me, it is primarily an emotional and psychological support for him, its practical use is secondary. He writes everything down in Ancient Durosian. He says the language and writing have a calming effect on him.”
Qui-Gon lowered his hand with the note. “And did he show you his writing?”
“He did,” Dooku said, “but I am unable to read it and he is well aware. That’s probably why he showed it to me. I have no intention of prying.”
“Me neither, don’t worry. He shouldn’t feel like he has to learn some obscure language to maintain his privacy.”
“I doubt that’s the reason he chose to use that language.” Dooku’s eyes wandered past Qui-Gon to the window behind him, decorated with sticky notes as well, and he rubbed his lavender-and-pepper beard, lost in thought. “It’s like painting, he says. He is painting people with words.”
Qui-Gon looked down at the symbols on the piece of flimsi. “I can see where he’s coming from,” he said softly. “They do remind me of little pictures …” Indeed Obi-Wan seemed to have put great effort into drawing these glyphs in an appealing way. He had embellished them more; with one of them, it was easy to imagine an animal, something with claws and curved wings, and next to it perhaps some kind of gate or arch, drawn with straight, elegant lines. Qui-Gon raised the note to eye level, then his gaze went back to Dooku, who sat across from him, watching him with his Jedi-Master-stare, as if waiting for Qui-Gon’s own conclusion. By now, Qui-Gon was too old for these games. “Did he tell you the meaning of this word?” he asked.
Dooku lowered his eyes. “When I asked him, he told me it was no longer a word,” he answered. “He said it was my name.”
It was about three days later—Qui-Gon was preparing for his next mission and was visiting the Archives for more information about the history of Genassa—when he spotted a familiar figure in the study hall. Obi-Wan sat alone at a large table, bent low over a holobook, his head resting on his hands, his face illuminated by the blue glow of the device. At the table next to him, a group of Padawans surrounded by holobooks and flimsi rolls was engaged in a very lively discussion, but the noise did not seem to bother Obi-Wan. He was lost in his own world, his eyes flitting over the text in front of him. Likewise, the other Padawans paid him no attention, either oblivious to his presence or already accustomed to ignoring him.
Qui-Gon decided to approach him. “Hello,” he said. “Still studying hard, huh?”
Obi-Wan looked up at him, blinking. “I’m trying,” he said with a polite smile. His eyes strayed toward the three holobooks Qui-Gon was carrying and he squinted as if trying to read the titles.
Qui-Gon held up the top book. “Just some reading for my next mission.”
“Ah. May I ask where you are going?”
“To the Genassa system.”
Obi-Wan merely nodded and smiled politely, and Qui-Gon wondered if perhaps he hadn’t recognized him after all. Hey, it’s just me, he wanted to say, but that would mean assuming that Obi-Wan was only acting cautiously because he was still waiting to see who Qui-Gon was, and not perhaps because he recognized him very well and merely didn’t enjoy conversations with him. He cleared his throat. “Still Ancient Durosian?” he asked, gesturing toward Obi-Wan’s book. “How is your—wait, what was the word?—your arezmy?”
Obi-Wan’s eyes lit up, his smile becoming a touch more familiar. “It has formed a second flower.”
“I’m glad.” Qui-Gon smiled back, relieved, and pointed at the seat across from him. “Do you mind if I sit with you for a moment, Obi-Wan?”
“No, of course not, Master Qui-Gon.”
“Just Qui-Gon will do. No need for formalities between us, Obi-Wan.” He settled down in the chair and folded his hands on the table. Obi-Wan looked at him intently. He knew Qui-Gon wasn’t likely to join him merely to pass the time, and admittedly, Qui-Gon couldn’t think of a trivial topic they could chat about to ease their way into a conversation. It was better to get right to the point. “Why aren’t you sitting with the other Padawans?”
Obi-Wan nodded as if he had anticipated the question. “I can concentrate better when I’m working alone,” he said. He looked down at the holobook lying in front of him. “I need to finish this by dinner.”
“What’s it about?”
“The technical history of holo-astrocartography.”
“Is Master Dooku telling you to study this much?”
Obi-Wan’s expression grew wary. “I study as much as I can because I want to be a good Jedi Knight. Master Dooku is giving me the best support I could ask for.”
Qui-Gon had to smile. “And I doubt neither. I’m just wondering why you’re giving him the chocolate I’ve been buying especially for you? If you want to bribe him to be a little more lenient with you, you have the best chances with these nasty sticky maraffa-filled candies. Trust me, he loves those.”
Obi-Wan lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“That’s not what I’m about, Obi-Wan.”
“I really liked your chocolate. And I wasn’t trying to bribe Master Dooku either.”
“If there’s something that is bothering you, you can tell me.”
“It’s silly, really.” But after a moment, he continued anyway. “When I started learning Ancient Durosian, I came up with the sticky notes idea. It felt like an efficient study method for a language that is so different from the ones I’ve grown up with.” He brushed some nonexistent dust from the surface of his holobook. “I told Master Dooku about my idea and asked him if I could do it that way, and he immediately agreed. So I didn’t even think about it twice. I put up more and more notes and everything was fine. It wasn’t until I talked to the other Padawans that I figured out it was weird. It’s weird to have a Padawan so obsessed with a useless dead language that they cover the whole apartment with notes.”
“You told me how well it helped you with your studying,” Qui-Gon said. “And if your goal is to be a great Jedi, then you need to study hard. So how would any of what you do be weird for a Jedi?”
Obi-Wan frowned. “You yourself think it’s weird that I don’t sit with the other Padawans,” he pointed out.
“I never said it was weird,” Qui-Gon objected. “I was just worried.”
“It’s the same thing. You’re just putting it more kindly.”
“Look,” Qui-Gon said, “when I was your age, I preferred the company of animals to other people. It wasn’t that I disliked people. I just always felt I connected more easily with animals. There’s no shame in focusing on the things that bring you comfort. I once found a bograt with a cold and tried to nurse it back to health, and then when I got sick myself, I spent two hours convincing Master Dooku to carry the poor little creature around under his cloak to keep it warm—”
“Master Dooku told me you cried for two hours until he got a headache and gave in.”
Qui-Gon groaned. “The point is, who isn’t weird? We all have a weird side. And I bet if you talk a little bit more with your fellow Padawans, you will also hear stories that will make them seem weird to you.”
Obi-Wan shrugged. “Everyone loves stories about cute creatures. Believe me, no one wants to hear about Ancient Durosian.”
“That’s not true,” Qui-Gon said. “The last time we talked, you got me so interested that I considered borrowing a book on the subject myself. What you said about how plural forms of a language influence how we see the world and divide it into segments, those are fascinating thoughts.”
“Really?”
“Of course. And I like the way you draw the glyphs. They look beautiful.”
Obi-Wan gave him a shy little smile. “I love how you can tell a little story with two or three glyphs if you combine them into a word. With Aurebesh, the individual letters have a sound, but there is little meaning associated with them. But the glyphs not only have a sound, they also represent an image. An idea or a concept. And so, if you combine them into a word, that word does not convey a single idea but is itself made up of other ideas.” He didn’t look at Qui-Gon anymore; his gaze had wandered off somewhere into the distance as he rambled on. “So the glyphs always carry some kind of truth within them, something that is real. They create a connection to the world.”
It wasn’t anything Qui-Gon would have ever said like that. At least not at Obi-Wan’s age. He didn’t think about words that way. He loved languages only insofar as they helped him communicate with other beings, so he had learned the most important of them by sheer necessity, sometimes with more, sometimes with less enthusiasm. And yet, looking at Obi-Wan and his lonely study table full of holobooks, Qui-Gon was suddenly reminded of a time when he had been sitting alone on a bench in the Temple gardens, tracing the edges of a fallen leaf, rubbing his tear-streaked face. And how Rael had appeared next to him, nudging his side, laughing and saying something like “come on, don’t you hide out here” and “it’ll all work out, just give it time” or something similar. And again, there was that tight feeling in Qui-Gon’s chest, as if his heart was curling up inside him. As much as everyone loved to groan and roll their eyes when Yoda once again insisted on eating together at least twice a year, Qui-Gon suddenly wondered … Surely it had been more than half a year already?
He took his hands off the table. “Can I ask you a personal question, Obi-Wan?”
Obi-Wan nodded slowly.
“Do you think I’m more of a blue person or a green person?”
Obi-Wan stared at him.
“I’ve been lying to myself for a long time,” Qui-Gon said, “but this morning in front of the mirror I came face to face with the truth. There’s no denying it. I’m really starting to go gray. Might as well start dyeing my beard, like Master Dooku. I was thinking green, kind of like Mossbeard from the children’s story. What do you think?”
Obi-Wan continued to stare at him, mouth slightly open, and for a brief, terrible second, Qui-Gon thought he had somehow hurt him with his words. But suddenly Obi-Wan laughed. “Green? Oh, I don’t know … You might end up looking like some kind of swamp monster.”
“Probably.” Qui-Gon chuckled. Rael would either drop dead from laughter or be the next to join them in their league of colorful beards. What a terrible thought.
“Well, you can try both,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s just hair. It will grow out quickly. Just please ... don’t forget to tell me beforehand.”
“You’ll be the first one I tell. I promise.”
Obi-Wan smiled and seemed lost in thought for a moment, then picked up a small flimsi booklet from his bag. “I have something for you,” he said. Qui-Gon caught a glimpse of pages scrawled with hand-painted glyphs before Obi-Wan pulled out a sticky note in familiar pink and handed it to him. “I tried to come up with a way to write your name,” he said. “This is how I would do it. The first glyph is pronounced qi and the second is go, and that little squiggle up there is an N sound.”
Qui-Gon stared down at the glyphs that formed his name. Together they almost gave the impression of a highly abstract landscape: a curled up nexu and next to it a flower or a tree, the squiggle of the N could be the sun. “Thank you,” he managed. “This is lovely, Obi-Wan.”
“Ah. Glad you like it.” Obi-Wan brushed back his braid that was dangling in front of his shoulder. “Well, I have to go,” he muttered. “I’m late for … I promised to be back at one for lightsaber practice.”
“An important task I wouldn’t want to keep you from.” Carefully, Qui-Gon tucked the sticky note with his name into the inner pocket of his tunic. “I’ll see you around, Obi-Wan.”
They said goodbye to each other and Qui-Gon watched Obi-Wan hurry out of the study room, stuffing his holobook into his bag as he walked. Tonight, this young Padawan would return to an apartment covered in pink flimsi, in carefree ignorance of the rights Qui-Gon and even more so Rael had fought so hard for back then. Envy was far from the nature of any Jedi, but sometimes … As he collected his own books from the table, Qui-Gon changed his mind. He turned around and headed deeper into the Archives.
It didn’t take long for Madame Nu to find a suitable beginners’ book on Ancient Durosian glyphs. Qui-Gon thanked her and left the Archives. As soon as he found a quiet corner, he paused, took the sticky note out of his tunic, held it next to the open holobook, and began to scroll, his gaze wandering back and forth between the flimsi and the screen. Why did these damn glyphs all look so much alike? The longer he scrolled the more they all seemed to blur in his mind, at one point he even thought they were starting to repeat themselves—he could swear he had seen this very glyph just a moment ago! Helplessly he stared at the screen. How could Obi-Wan tell them apart? They all looked the same! Qui-Gon scrolled and scrolled and … Wait, was that the nexu? And this was the tree, right?
He checked again, just to be sure, and yes, they looked very similar to the ones Obi-Wan had drawn by hand with so much patience. Two different glyphs, combined into a new word. His name.
The translation was just below the glyphs. And as he pieced together his name, his smile widened into a grin.
Oh, he would just have to buy Obi-Wan so much more chocolate for this one.
Still standing in his lonely corner in the middle of the busy Temple, the maverick master earned a few confused looks when he burst into hearty laughter.