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"Master Wimdu?"
Mace looks down into big blue eyes. He's sure he should be becoming less susceptible to tooka eyes with frequent exposure, rather than more.
He raises an eyebrow in question.
"Can you be owr abulp superwision?"
"What is it you need adult supervision for?" Mace asks suspiciously, when no more information seems to be forthcoming. He does not trust his terrors an inch.
"Nin kitchwins." Obi-wan informs him seriously. "Need ta make cookies."
"You need to make cookies?" Mace repeats, sceptically.
Obi-wan nods his head enthusiastically.
"Mmhmm. Force says so."
Mace is going to make Jinn deeply regret corrupting a perfectly good Initiate with his 'will of the force' nonsense. Even if it technically hasn't actually happened yet. And never will, if Mace has anything to say about it.
"The force is telling you to make cookies." Mace clarifies.
"Makem a gift!" Obi-wan adds with bright eyes.
Fine.
Mace sighs dramatically, and Obi-wan beams.
A small hand tugging at his robes makes him glance back down again. Obi-wan's eyes dart furtively up and down the empty corridor. Mace isn't entirely sure how he's managed to escape his friends.
"Maybe," he whispers loudly, "maybe in a kitchwen wivowt knives."
"Ah. Good thinking, Initiate."
Mace does not want to be responsible for keeping sharp objects out of the hands of highly trained and experienced soldiers who have been flung back in time and de-aged into the bodies of tiny children. And the lack of coordination that comes with that.
Obi-wan's face scrunches up in thought.
"Tho dey pwobably allwedy hav knives." He mutters, then nods decisively. "Defnitly." He pauses, covers his mouth with his hands. "I no snitchin." He says with a glare at Mace.
Mace sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. On reflection it probably is impossible to keep his tiny feral murder children away from sharp objects even if he did decide to ban them.
"They're not going to hurt themselves or others?" Mace asks.
Obi-wan frowns again, and Mace can feel him prodding the force.
"Not bad." Is the response.
That will have to do, he guesses.
"Up!" One of the children demands, and Obi-wan floats him until he's standing on the countertop. He surveys the others with a frown.
"Oh no," one murmurs, "s Peel'ika."
There's a moment of silence, then roaring laughter.
Cody slaps his hands over his face.
"Wod, no." Somebody says, "can't call em Pee Leaker."
There's a horrified gasp, and even more laughter.
"Sowwy Peeler!"
Peeler glares at the offender.
"Twap'ika's on diss wassin." He commands, to good natured jeers and more laughter, and a groan from Trap'ika. "Now, who has respee?"
Mace nudges Obi-wan in the force, a request for explanation. Obi-wan glances at him, then looks to the child next to him, who follows his gaze back to Mace and nods.
" 'ika gowes on da end." Obi-wan informs him. "Means ittle."
"Ah." That makes sense. They'd all come back in time, and shrunk, and immediately started calling themselves little- whatever their name was. That's a brand of humour Mace can appreciate. "Thank you for telling me."
Cody reaches up to pass a datapad to Peeler, who takes it and carefully studies the contents. After a minute, he looks up at Obi-wan.
"Gen'ika, you know where tins are?"
"Nu uh!" Obi-wan says happily, shaking his head.
Mace is praying to the force that the 'Gen' in 'Gen'ika' is not shortened from 'General'. It doesn't matter, it won't be happening this time.
"Search teams!" Peeler calls, and the children split into groups. "Recon!" The teams disperse, quickly and efficiently opening all the cupboards, and glancing inside, before reconvening.
Mace settles in for what is likely to be one of his more interesting baking experiences, which, growing up in the temple, is saying something.
"Mixin bowl!"
One of the children hurries off, and comes trotting back clutching one, passing it forwards until Obi-wan levitates it up to the counter.
Peeler has already shouted "Mixin poon!" And another child is running back, waving one happily above their heads.
They continue like this, Peeler shouting out instructions, and Obi-wan levitating each child in turn up to the counter to have a turn at mixing. The children are perfectly happy to jump back down afterwards, without help from the force, and Mace is keeping an eye on Obi-wan for signs of force exhaustion. Cody seems to be doing the same. At one point, there's a chain of children between Peeler and the conservator, carefully passing eggs down the line. They only drop three.
It all goes well until the cookies are in the oven, and the washing up has been done. Mace folds his arms as he observes the chaos around him. Half of the terrors are in neat rows, doing knife drills with butter knives under the watchful eye of Cody. It's clear that each movement is deeply ingrained in their memories, but their tiny limbs aren't cooperating. Fortunately, this is mostly leading to giggling, rather than frustration.
The other half of the kitchen is less orderly.
Obi-wan had approached one of the others, Cwys'ika apparently, with a bag of flour, and the pair of them had proceeded to carefully smear the contents all through Crys'ika's hair, with the apparent intention of making him blonde. Seemingly following that line of thought, Obi-wan had then taught the others how to draw on themselves with icing, and now most of them bear smudged and sticky identifying features, that Mace guesses are patterns of tattoos and facial hair from the future.
He's going to need to take them to a barbers, and see if he can get hold of some temporary stickers.
"Who is this gift for?" Mace asks, watching the warm cookies be carefully tipped into a box. As Obi-wan grins innocently up at him, he realises he probably should have asked this question earlier. Well, he supposes he's learnt for next time.
Mace watches from the doorway as Master Dyas peers at the younglings perched on his bed. Frowns at them.
"You're early." He accuses. "By several years. Or am I late?"
"We early." One of the children assures him, wriggling to sink better into the covers.
Another of them perks up.
"We bought cookies!"
"Ah." He says, as the box of still warm cookies is thrust onto his chest, "then all is as the force wills it."
"Mmhmm." The child says, patting an arm. "You eats the cookies, an sleeps, and we do da fixin. An Wax'ika tells you bout time e muggled tooka in an it sleepin in Genenl's wobes."
Another child, presumably Wax'ika shoots a frantic look at Cody, standing near Mace, and shakes his head. "Nope. No tookas. All lies."
"Genel not had tea yet," someone adds in, "not wake, puts wobes on, an tooka still in the hood!"
"Was purring." Cody adds.
"You knew?" Wax'ika asks from up on the bed, turning with mouth agape.
"Know everyting." Cody says, expression solemn.
Obi-wan, Cody, and the child with the medkit, who's been hovering around his ankles since the kitchen, are all frowning up at Mace.
"Looks like you gettin more bwovers again." Obi-wan says. "Siff makes em nenyway." There's a thoughtful silence. "Makes siff your buir?" Obi-wan asks, mischief sparking.
"Not worse dan Pwime." The mini-medic grumbles.
Something sly winds its way through Cody's force presence.
"Siff had wed hair wen cadet." He says innocently, and Obi-wan's face is a picture of dawning horror. "Maybe he your buir."
"Ewww, no!" Obi-wan squeals, shuddering. "He duceing my padawan, dats icky."
Cody looks incredibly unimpressed.
"Not stoppin you flirtin with siff."
Obi-wan nods cheerfully.
"Makes em extra conwused."
Mace's little Initiate was doing what now?
"Gen'ika?" One of the children asks. Mace really must get all their names.
"Mmm?"
"Isn't der dark side dat has cookies?"
"Dat wot dey wont you to tink. But evyone has cookies." Obi-wan says, gesturing with a fistfull of crumbs, "cos cookies are nice."