Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nico,

I’ve been delayed. I’m sorry about that. It’s going to be another month before I can get out to you on Tatooine, I think. All of my bounties took longer than I thought, and then I had to write reports for the High Council. I’m still at the Temple, and at least the garden is nice. I’ve been writing my reports in the garden. Is there anything you need from the Quartermaster? I’m not venturing out into the cesspool itself, not even for you.

Jon

The mid-year festival week came and went, and Jon was still at the Jedi Temple on the cesspool ecuminopolis called Coruscant. And worse, he was getting used to luxuries. It was bad enough to be bullied into a new pair of boots and ones without holes at that, and new clothes with multiple exact copies of everything. 

‘My dear, of course you need an extra robe! What if you lose yours? It happens all the time on missions! Take an extra! Take two! I give some masters twelve at a time!’ 

That he could just leave in his quarters that he would hopefully never use again. But no, it was so much worse than that.

He had grown used to luxuries. 

Tea.

He was drinking tea multiple times a day. 

People would invite him over for tea.

He drank it with his meals.

Someone came over to talk to him in his quarters and was confused when he couldn’t offer them tea, so he went and got a tea set from the Quartermaster (not that ridiculous sort with the tiny cups, absolutely not, he got a set with cups of a normal size that fit in your palm nicely, and a pot of a relative size to match the cups) and so now that he was getting ready to leave the temple…

He had so many things.

Dark Woman would be so disappointed in him. At least Master Fay would just laugh and tell him that he was allowed to have nice things, and enjoy them.

Nico had requested a new eight inch vibroknife with sheath from the Quartermaster, a new travel tea set, and from the refectory stores, ten pounds of a particular sort of tea.

Jon had no idea what the refectory stores were until he had to seek them out for Nico, and then he just boggled.

And then Jon found himself looking at travel tea sets for himself and wondering how to even make that much hot water on his gunship, which required a little more research, and another two days waiting while his ship was outfitted with a medium-sized self-contained cooking pot apparatus, and a small self-contained hydroheater.

He had no idea how to do it yet, but it turned out that with the self-contained cooking pot, he could make his own rice and beans, though he’d still want to get his fermented spicy vegetables to go, as well as his fermented milk. Apparently one could do that on a gunship, but the process was extremely complicated, and Jon still didn’t know how to make rice, yet. Though he’d watched several tutorials that came with the ship upgrades, and downloaded several more that just had to do with rice and beans.

While he was at it, he also got a crate filled with bags of rice, bags of beans, and containers of pre-mixed seasonings for both, which apparently made everything taste better. (Who knew?)

He had no idea how easy it was to make some of his favorite foods. And apparently dried rice and beans were quite cheap, which explained a lot about why his guildmaster had said what they’d said a month or so back.

And so he had tea sets. He had tea for himself and Nico. He had a tremendous amount of clothes, many more than would fit in his little spa travel bag. He had a new datapad with a separate input device, (necessary because of all the reports, but now Jon was used to being able to send longer messages with ease, so he decided to keep them after all) and it caused him to go back and get a larger bag from the Quartermaster.

He’d also refilled his youngling refugee crate, and a healer had pressed upon him healing supplies for Stewjoni near Humans, because apparently bacta didn’t actually work on them, and so he dutifully put them in his medical supplies cabinets. Not that he planned on going back to Stewjon, but the Force told him to accept it all, so he did.

And he had everything loaded, including the odd things the Quartermaster had told him he would really want with the new changes to his gunship’s kitchen, but also the water jugs refilled, the sublight engines refueled, his cold box filled with fermented things, his frozen box filled with all the things he’d stored in his apartment’s kitchen in the interim of staying there, and his gunship’s other kitchen cabinet filled with two pounds of tea for himself, and two large containers of rice, and beans for easy access, and a smaller container for easy access to the spice blend. His travel tea set fit into the first cabinet, with the bowls, cups, and spoons, and the two new serving spoons and single measuring cup for his cooking device.

It was just so fancy, Jon was sort of stunned it belonged to him.

And he had functioning cleaning droids, so it was all so clean. His clothes were in excellent repair, too, so he had nothing to mend. His socks didn’t even need darning, though it dawned on him that he could spend some time reinforcing the heels and toes so they lasted longer.

Once he had navigated out to the Hydian Way and set the nav computer for Navarro, which was a straight and easy shot out from the Core, he spent several hours reinforcing all the socks he wasn’t currently wearing until he ran out of yarn.

He made a mental note to pick up some more in the market place. Then, a little at loose ends, and before he went to do some katas in the cargo hold, Jon pulled out his fancy data input device and wrote a letter to this Force Sensitive person Jango Fett was related to, the one Master Koon had been so keen on him teaching.

The Force was still being vague on whether or not he should, but not on whether or not he should write. So he wrote. But he wrote formally, like Nico had taught him. It really was so much easier to write a letter longer than three sentences with a separate input device and a datapad.

Obi-Wan had already been in Jedha for six weeks, nearly a solid month, and every night contained orgasms. Oh, it was decadent! It was the pinnacle of luxury! Obi-Wan was in a near permanent state of bliss, meditating in the morning and learning a bit of something that was not quite so physically vigorous, though sometimes it left him incredibly tired and half-starved as he approached midmeal and got to see Jaster and often the others they traveled with. And then the afternoons were spent in vigorous martial training, continuing his Sho-Chii work as well as his Soresu with the help of holocrons, manuscripts, and his training tutor who puzzled over them with him and sorted things out with him, laboriously, day by day.

In the evenings after latemeal, Ben and Jaster would go for a walk through the town that was around the Temple of Kyber, sometimes with other Mandalorians trailing about, but sometimes not, and at the present moment half of them were off guarding a troupe of pilgrims who were making their way across the desert to one of the farther flung pilgrimage sites. It included Illipi and Kal who were actually counted among the number of pilgrims themselves.

Who knew Kal would take to meditation as well as he had?

And who knew big bad Kal Skirata would develop a devotion to the Daughter, even as he maintained an almost secular attachment to the Mandalorian god of war and antigod of sloth?

Illipi had been quietly thrilled when she’d told Ben in a rare heart to heart back in the third week, when they were planning the extra side pilgrimage.

Ben was so happy for her, and happy that she seemed happy.

And so their walks in the evenings were a little more private now, even as they watched the sun set into the deep desert beyond the town. Then, every night, they would retire to the quarters the monks had assigned them, share orgasms of some nature, be they soft and sweet, or hard, fast, rough, and raucous.

It was good.

It was luxurious.

And it only lacked their third, which somehow now, as the weeks were slowly turning into months, they felt more and more a deeper lack, almost an ache. It had nothing to do with sex, interestingly, and everything to do with… well, everything else. It was the closeness and companionship that he was sharing with Jaster that felt like he ought to be sharing with Jaster and that other person.

At first Ben thought he was just being perhaps a little melodramatic about it (he did tend toward melodrama, even before Hondo, and Hondo absolutely had not helped him moderate that tendency, nor had Boris for that matter), but when he finally discussed it with Jaster one night after the sweat was cooling on their naked skin, but before it was quite time to burrow into the blankets for the night, Jaster admitted that he was feeling the same.

And into all of this decadent luxury of learning, training, sex, and states of near-enlightenment while meditating on the startlingly strong light Force nexus that was Jedha, Ben received a comm.

He had received the odd comm from his friends, and one from Master Koon saying that he would try to get out to visit him soon, but it might be awhile, and he just stole a few minutes after breakfast and before he met his meditation tutor to watch the holos and send the quickest and barest response back, along the lines of, ‘got your message, thank you so much, I’m at Jedha and just crunched for time, but I’ll get back to you soon,’ sort of thing.

But then he got the long awaited comm from Master Antilles (who was the topic of much hot gossip back at the Temple), which was written long form, and there just wasn’t time. And it needed a proper response, and quickly, which meant he needed to carve some out, somewhere.

And, somehow, it just seemed right to share it all with Jaster. So the day he received that comm, he brought it up at midmeal and they agreed to look at it together that night, which they did after their evening walk at sunset. They returned to the Temple and sat just on the steps outside of it, side by side and reading from the shared datapad that Ben held before them both.

To the Force Sensitive named Ben Ohnaka, from Jedi Master Jon Antilles, greetings.

I have been told by Master Plo Koon, and also by Ser Jango Fett the Mandalorian, that you require a teacher, and that you and Master Koon are certain the Force wishes it to be me. I have not yet finished my discernment on the subject, and am finishing up another mission, after which I need to run some personal errands that will aid me in the discernment on this subject, and others.

Master Koon and Ser Fett each in their way told me something of you, but not much. I understand that you were raised in the Temple and left as an initiate, and that you are in an intimate relationship with Ser Fett’s parent and learning Mandalorian sword forms. I also understand that you have been able to train and learn at Jedha in an annual fashion, and are there presently, or will go shortly. I also know which learning modules you have requested from the Archives, though not your progress on them, nor any other materials you may have requested for personal study.

Please tell me about yourself, and the training you have undertaken, both in module form, in practical or field work if you have had it, and in preparation for combat. Please also include any instances of live combat, and whether or not you have ever been unfree, and if so, the general circumstances.

Not wishing you to engage in an unbalanced act of vulnerability, I will share some of the same of myself.

I am a near human and was born into slavery on Nal Hutta, cast out when the slaves could no longer hide the fact that I was Force Sensitive, at approximately the age of seven standard. I was rescued by a wandering Jedi who took me on immediately as her padawan. She called herself Dark Woman, though I have since learned her name was An’ya Kuro. She taught me many things, including the standard Jedi skills, but her particular expertise was to find the lost arts of the Jedi and other light side Force users and teach herself from the old manuscripts and holocrons, and she taught me as well, so I have more than the usual amount of esoteric Jedi skills, in addition to the standard ones. She knighted me at thirteen years standard, without ever having brought me to the Temple. After we parted ways I fell in with some of the other wandering Jedi of the Outer Rim, particularly Master Fay, who allowed me to accompany her for five years as she worked.

My work thus far in the Outer Rim has tended toward freeing slaves in a variety of ways, and I have an undercover identity as a Bounty Hunter, and I am registered with the Guild of Bondsmen, specializing in ‘delicate’ procedures, as the Force directs. 

My mastery over my abilities in the Force were attested to remotely by Master Nico Diath, Master Knol Ven’nari, and Master Fay, to the Temple last year. I am currently nineteen standard years.

I understand that not returning to the Temple is a requirement for you in your training. Having just gone there for the first time in order to bring Force Sensitive refugees to them, I can promise you that if I never return it will be too soon.

I also understand that you are older, though no one has been explicit about your age. While I was trained away from the Temple so my master could avoid questions about my age and apparent irregularities with age requirements, such things have recently been lifted, I understand. I brought teenlings to the Temple and they were immediately taken as padawans, while the younglings were brought to the creche. I don’t imagine, whatever your age may be, it will be a hindrance to you being trained by myself, or some other Jedi.

I look forward to your response to my letter, in the due course of time, and as your schedule allows. May the Force be with you.

Obi-Wan blinked and stared and murmured that he really needed to read it again as Jaster put his arm around him and murmured his agreement.

After the third read through, Jaster sighed. “Well. That’s… a lot. Particularly in light of the gossip, if key points of it are true.”

“She just left him at thirteen?! She knighted him and dumped him somewhere?” Obi-Wan whispered his horror into the desert town and Jaster tugged him a little closer as they sat in the rapidly dwindling twilight.

“She sounds like a complete ass,” Jaster said. "I’m glad he had this other person, Fay, who clearly picked him up and looked after him until he was eighteen. But that’s not normal, is it? I mean, specifically the timeline for knighting and, what… mastery?”

Obi-Wan was shaking his head, still in a place of abject horror, and trying to breathe deeply and let go of it. “No, no, no, no, no. I mean, apparently they’re changing the rules for all of this, but one becomes a padawan somewhere between say ten and thirteen - Quinlan was taken on at eleven, but he needed extra help early on with his psychometry, his is so intense he has to wear gloves so he’s not knocked unconscious with an hallucination he can’t get out of - and before that you’re just… You’re a child. You’re an initiate. You go to standardized classes and get standardized training and stay in your Initiate Clan and still have time to play games and be… be a child. And then when you’re chosen as a padawan, you live with your master, and it’s one on one training, and so long as you’re in the Temple there are still standardized classes, but you can also do those modules from the field, and your master helps you become the Jedi you’re specifically capable of becoming, and there are five knight trials you must pass, but generally no one does until they’re at least in their twenties, standard. Twenty-four is kind of a normal, reasonable time to be a knight, and then they usually give a year or two before you take on a padawan, and raising a padawan to knighthood, which takes a decade or so normally, is what makes a master, and only occasionally are they recognized because they’ve mastered a sword form, or you know, something else. Which, I mean. Apparently he can teleport, so I get why he’s a master already. But thirteen? Knighthood at thirteen? Mastery at eighteen? Force and all the stars, no!”

Jaster took a deep breath and when he spoke, his words were measured. “This sounds strangely familiar. Not exactly, you understand. But we try to be very careful when we come across people who have, because of their terrible parents, and through no fault of their own, had to grow up quickly. We don’t gainsay their experiences, or in this case, their mastery. But it usually means… Ob’ika, it usually means they are missing something essential. Usually more than one thing. They didn’t get to have a proper childhood, which is problematic, and they had to take too much responsibility too soon, which is also problematic. The people themselves aren’t irrevocably broken, but it’s like… they have holes. They seem normal and reasonable and then there’s just nothing and a complete lack of knowledge, experience, awareness, and context, a lack… a lack of instinct, if you will, where you’d expect there to be just… normality. And so… if the Force hadn’t said so clearly to you and Koon that he was the teacher for you, I’d have some pretty large reservations. As it is, I would just… I just want to be prepared for what we find, you know?”

Obi-Wan took in a deep breath. That made so much sense. Jaster was so wonderfully sensible, it was such a relief to be with someone who just thought deeply about these things, and who understood. He just breathed for a while and thought back to other parts of the letter.

“He’s nineteen,” Obi-Wan whispered into the dark. “He’s nineteen, and he can teleport. I bet he’s a terror, an absolute thorn in the side of the Hutt Empire and I bet they don’t even know it.” 

Jaster chuckled and sighed. “I… I have very little frame of reference for that kind of ability,” he said, shaking his head.

Obi-Wan snorted. “And I do? Please. Getting nightmares from blankets and running across the rooftops of Keldabe does not give me context for being able to wink out of existence here, and wink into existence somewhere two klicks away.”

“Okay, fair,” Jaster conceded. “So, you need to write back.”

“And soon,” Obi-Wan added. “I think I want to sleep on it, but… yes. Yes. Tomorrow night. I give myself two nights, maximum, to write it, and then I must send it. Jaster, I must. Will you read my drafts?”

“Of course, beautiful,” he said, leaning over and kissing the side of his head, just above his ear. And then he spoke quietly, his lips brushing just against the shell of Obi-Wan’s ear. “May I thoroughly distract you tonight?”

He breathed a little hitching breath because he couldn’t actually breathe any deeper than that. “Oh, oh Jaster. Yes. Yes,” he whispered before they retired to their quarters for the night.

Chapter Text

When Jon came out of hyperspace near Navarro, he was dressed as a bounty hunter again. The boots were the same, black, with knife sheathes riveted to the inside. Black pants, a black shirt, and a long coat and weapons belt to match the black leatheris tall boots. Lightsaber disassembled and stored about his person, largely in decorative ways. Simple. Easy to maintain. Stains didn’t show so much.

He wore his kyber, painted black, on a necklace worn inside his shirt.

And today, he wore his small satchel across his torso and underneath his coat so he had something to put his credits in, though he still had cash left over and stored in the locked weapons locker in the rack room.

Before the cantina, he paid for refueling and refilling the one water jug he’d emptied completely - it seemed excessive, given how much he had in his hold, but the Force told him to, and he was headed to Tatooine - and went to the market. He only needed dark yarn to darn with, and got it quickly and moved on.

The guildmaster was at their table, using their comm with not even one of their lackeys around. Jon approached and put the three fobs and pucks on the table.

The guildmaster looked up. “Well, that took longer than I would have thought.”

“Delicate jobs sometimes do,” Jon said quietly. “Got them done, though. All clients satisfied.”

“So they’ve said. Two out of three gave you the standard glowing rating. What happened to the third one?” they asked as they turned to the safe, opened it, and started counting out large and small denomination credit chips.

Jon sighed, and didn’t have to fake the hard look. “They kill their own children. I might have been… terse in my communications.”

The guildmaster snorted. “Lemme guess. You faked it, then saved them all? Had to go drop them off somewhere?” they asked, handing over two stacks of large denomination chips and one stack of smaller ones. Jon put them away in his satchel and kept them from clinking with the Force.

Jon gave Nico’s standard answer. “You might very well think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment. They wanted a picture of a dead kid drowned in the water, I gave them a picture.”

“A picture. Of a kid. In the water. Not breathing.”

“They certainly weren’t breathing when I took the picture, no,” Jon confirmed.

The guildmaster laughed outright. “Serves the fuckers right. Won’t give you those in the future.”

“On the contrary,” Jon said. “I fulfilled the contract admirably. If you get more from that planet, comm me. I’ll take it.”

“You got a deal. You looking for another job?”

“Not unless they’re out near Tatooine. I’m going there next.”

“Ah. Actually, yes. Two jobs. One’s pure transport. Two passengers, four cargo boxes, no questions.”

Jon was about to say no, but the Force told him not to. Instead he leveled a hard gaze at the guildmaster.

“You’ll want to take this one, Jon. Sometimes my hands are tied, but yours, I notice, rarely are.”

He nodded. “The other?”

“Your standard delicate operation.”

On Tatooine. Which meant he might get to kill another Hutt. 

Jon’s smile was a slow and predatory thing. “I’ll take it.”

“I’ll comm your passengers. They’ll be at the landing site in twenty minutes. And Jon?”

He tilted his head in question.

“If something should mysteriously happen to the passengers to keep them from getting from here to there, there will be a one quarter fee penalty. But do make sure the cargo arrives safely.”

“Understood,” Jon said, then took the puck and fob for the delicate job, and the puck for the transport job and walked out into the sun, the heat, and the pervasive smell of sulfur. 

So.

The Guildmaster wanted him to space and/or hijack his passengers.

Interesting.

Walking out of the cantina, Jon had intended to walk straight back to the landing zone and his ship. But the Force urged him toward the marketplace, and a clothes shop filled with used items.

He pulled a pair of children’s boots off the rack that the Force indicated, and then, walking through the aisles, a sweater, a pair of mechanic’s overalls, a hat, and a canvas jacket. And finally, a bag that was twice as large as necessary.

So, clearly he’d be saving a small person, be they adult or child depending on species, and dressing them as a mechanic.

Got it.

He paid for his purchases and put them all in the bag.

Jon thought he was done, but the Force wanted him to duck into a technology shop. He bought five refurbished datapads and thirteen empty dataclips, which admittedly seemed like a lot. Then he grabbed two filled dataclips that contained educational games, one based on languages (Basic, Ryl, and Huttese), and one based on astronavigation.

And that gave him an idea.

He could upload the games onto his ship’s storage, and then make copies for the next time he was transporting children. Perhaps that’s why he needed multiple datapads and dataclips. And he could also requisition learning modules on a variety of subjects from the Jedi Archives. Madam Nu made sure he had the correct form before he left, and the contact comm code for the general line of the Archives.

And he could download the news.

Perfect.

He put his tech purchases into his own small satchel with the yarn and the credit chips and headed back to his ship. The refueling was finished, and Jon was waiting by the open ramp of his gunship when two people approached, but if he hadn’t been looking with his eyes, he would have thought it was only one.

Jon looked a little closer. It didn’t take much to clock the Force Suppressing cuff on the kid’s left wrist.

Slaver. 

Well, at least he knew what to do with that.

“You Jon Antilles? Going to Tatooine?”

Jon silently nodded.

“Good. We’ll be real quiet,” the slaver said, pushing his four linked cargo hover crates up the ramp. “Won’t even know we’re here.”

“That’s what I prefer,” Jon said softly, following the child who was like a void in the Force, completely cut off. Some kind of near Human species, or blend of them, would be Jon’s guess. Somewhere between seven and ten standard, but short and too thin. The clothes would fit, though.

“Secure your cargo crates over there,” Jon directed softly, after he hit the bay lights and started the ramp closing. “You can take racks down here, and refresher is over there. Kitchen facilities are one level up with water access, ration bars are in this crate,” he said, tapping one as he passed.

He opened the crate with children’s clothes and rummaged until he found some trousers, a shirt, two pairs of socks, a toiletry kit, a stuffed animal and a blanket, and then put them all in the mid-sized bag he was carrying. He did this mainly for something to do, because he wasn’t going knock the slaver out until he’d secured his own damn cargo.

“We leaving soon?”

“Within the next thirty minutes. You and your daughter will have time to settle in,” Jon said, not that anyone had implied they were related, but it was a pleasant fiction, just like Knol would say. When he closed up the crate and turned around, the slaver was just finishing up as well.

“Well, Jon Antilles,” he said, like it was obviously a fake name. “I think we’ll get along just fine,” he said, offering his wrist to shake.

Jon reached out, looked into his eyes and before the slaver could touch him, Jon just whispered, “Sleep.”

He dropped like a rock, and Jon took a moment to put him in a deep trance that he would not wake from without Jon’s permission, or a stim shot.

“I’ll get that cuff off you once we’re in hyperspace,” he said to the small child with the wide, shocked eyes. “Do you know if they chipped you?”

“It’s in my leg,” she said, voice wobbling.

“We’ll get that off in hyperspace, too. I’m Jon. What’s your name?”

Little Shier, no last name, was very pleased to meet him. 

Jon bid her to follow him to the cockpit and tell him how she got into this mess while he sent some comms and got ready for takeoff. Which may have been a mistake, because Shier only stopped speaking three hours later, when her mouth was full of food.

Shier chattered through the cuff coming off, and the vomiting that came afterwards.

Shier chattered through the minor surgery to remove the explosive and tracking slave chip in her leg. Jon set that aside, as he’d be spacing it along with the slaver.

Shier chattered through using the sonic and trying on her new clothes.

After they finished eating, Shier followed Jon down to the cargo bay, continuing to chatter at him. She asked questions, but he very rarely answered them. It didn’t seem to bother her at all, however, as she very rarely left room for him to answer.

Jon pulled the slaver’s weapons and utility belt off him and checked every pocket, every gun. He set them aside and removed everything from his clothes pockets. He pulled his boots off and set them aside so he could get the hidden knife sheathes out, and not just the knives.

He found a comm, three untethered credit chips, two ration bars, a packet of bacta patches, and a slave detonator. He set them all aside. The comm could be wiped, and he would do that in a moment, and the credit chips, ration bars, and bacta could be sent along with the child. Likewise, the weapons and utility belt, wrapped around them twice, would hold the knife, if not the blasters.

Everyone needed a knife.

He pulled the knife now and flipped it in his hands once.

“Shier. This man was your slaver. I’m going to shove him into hyperspace, and he’ll die immediately. But if you want, I can kill him right here. I can do it with this knife, or I can just stop his heart, just like I made him fall asleep. You don’t have to make a choice. I will kill him, and that’s out of your hands. But if you want a choice, you can choose how he will die. Hard vacuum, knife to the heart, or just stopping his heart.”

Her small voice asked, “Wouldn’t the knife be messy?”

“Yes, it would, but I can clean it up.”

“I don’t like him dying just like he fell asleep. Momma fell asleep and died.” Shier edged toward him and Jon held his arm out so she could cuddle up to him.

“Why don’t I stab him?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Do you want to watch, or do you want to close your eyes?”

“Close my eyes. But I want to see him after.”

It was gruesome, and she was young, but with slaves it always helped if they had a hand in freeing themselves, and if it could be managed, killing their slave masters. Fewer nightmares later on, less trauma. It was one of the few things Dark Woman and Nico agreed on anymore.

“You’ll be able to feel him die in the Force. It’s like a little light going out,” Jon said softly. “Get ready. Close your eyes.”

Shier turned her head in and buried it against his shoulder. He held her tightly. “We only kill slavers. We never harm slaves, children, or the innocent. Can you repeat that for me?”

A tiny, muffled voice said, “We only kill slavers. We never harm slaves, children, or the innocent.”

In the middle of her recitation, Jon stabbed the slaver in the heart, leaning slightly and thrusting hard with the Force, through the breastbone. He held the blood in a welling pad around the torso with the Force and roughly cleaned the knife off with the slavers trousers, one handed.

He put the knife aside and tucked the slave chip and detonator into one of the slaver’s pockets.

“You can look now. He’s dead.”

Silently, she looked her fill. 

Jon held up the not-yet-clean knife. “When we finish cleaning this off, would you like to keep this knife?”

“Yes, please.”

“Once it’s clean, it will be yours.”

Jon explained what would happen next, and then teleported the slaver just outside the hull, into hyperspace.

Then Shier threw up again, but the worst of the trash was already taken care of. Jon cleaned the cargo bay, then Sheir, then the knife, then himself.

And then they shared some tea and a ration bar.

It was a good day.

Getting from Navarro to Tatooine without being stopped by pirates, tolls, or patrols involved listening deeply to the Force both for routing direction and timing of jumps. Jon programmed it all into the nav computer and noticed that there would be six different times where the pauses between hyperjumps would be long enough and close enough to comm buoys that a complete scan for messages could be undertaken, and that was nice. Hopefully he hadn’t missed Nico on Tatooine. Not that he wouldn’t catch up with him somewhere else, of course, it was just that it had been nearly a full month now and Jon really wanted to sort some things out in his head. He meditated daily on the subject to ease his fears and concerns, but they kept coming up. 

Perhaps the Force had begun to abandon him. Maybe these really were the first warning signs.

Master Fay would know for certain.

Jon pulled himself out of his troubled thoughts and sat up in his rack. Sheir was still doing a learning module on a datapad, sitting in the garish pouf chair that she dragged around to whatever room he was in, wrapped in a blanket and clean clothes. It was ship night, and so Jon also was in his (luxurious, decadent) pajamas.

When it was time, Shier dutifully closed down her pad and went and sonicked her teeth, but after hitting the lights, she paused between their lower racks.

“Aren’t you going to sleep, Jon?”

“I’m going to meditate for a bit, and then sleep,” he said.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“You can’t help me meditate, but you can meditate with me,” Jon offered, and then ended up leading Shier in her first meditation as she sat next to him, both of them wrapped in their own blankets.

When she fell asleep against his shoulder, he just let it happen, and when he was finished with his own meditation, he carried her to her rack and tucked her in.

After firstmeal the next morning, and beginning to teach Shier the most basic Sho-Chii kata, (the Force was clear that Shier was not going to be his padawan, but that teaching her some basics was still his job; when Jon asked if that made him her crechemaster instead, the Force just laughed and laughed), Jon did his own open handed katas and then checked his messages.

It was so strange to be getting multiple messages!

Jonny boy!

Not a problem! I can hang with the fam for a bit longer, and something is brewing in the Force on Tatooine, so that should be very interesting indeed. Fay’s coming, by the way. She commed me yesterday, all very cryptic as she always is.

I should warn you, because you told me to warn you next time, I have a feeling we’re all going to go have an adventure again. Maybe just a little one this time. Super fun. Can’t wait. MTFBWY and all that jazz.

Nico

Jon smiled despite himself. Nico was such a kind person. He turned his attention to the next message and was quite suddenly nervous for no particular reason he could discern.

Master Antilles,

Thank you for writing to me. Please know that I do not wish to press myself upon you if you don’t want a student, or don’t want me for a student. I would dearly love to finish my training, but I have a difficult relationship with the Jedi Order that is perhaps larger than not wishing to return to the Temple.

They threw me out at twelve, even while knights were fighting over the right of my first refusal. I was rejected by every Jedi on active duty at least once. Apparently it was all a rather silly and stupid plot to get me to be the student of one particular Jedi, now deceased, and while the plotter has formally apologized, it doesn’t make me feel better about being under their authority.

I am, however, considering opening up a day school for Force Sensitives in the Mandalorian system. They have no specific Force tradition to speak of, and the reformed tradition of their culture, at least, meshes well with the general philosophies of at least some of the Order, well enough, perhaps, that a middle ground could be found. But of course, I’m not even half trained, and it would be helpful, I think, to have all the training I could get.

Anyway, the school idea is a large undertaking that I’m not remotely ready for, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about, and the Mand’alor would welcome it.

So, a bit about myself beyond what I’ve said:

My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi, though I go by Ben Ohnaka. I’m seventeen standard, and the ward of Captain Hondo Ohnaka, the Outer Rim pirate. I speak twelve languages, listen to the Force moderately well, favor Soresu, occasionally have visions, and have been told that strategy is one of my primary strengths. I have done or am doing all of the modules I’ve downloaded from the Jedi Archives that you have record of, plus a few more from my guardian, and now more concerning Mandalorian history, culture, and language. I enjoy history and culture, and am currently in the midst of an extremely informal internship with the Mand’alor, who has offloaded my martial training to his head trainer. I am also in a less informal intimate relationship with the Mand’alor, who is Jango Fett’s parent. He is currently courting me privately as a precursor to courting me publicly.

I have been sold into slavery three times, though I’ve been rescued quite quickly each time. Despite being a pirate, I am morally opposed to slavery and free whatever slaves I come across. Most of the martial engagements I’ve had with my guardian have been close quarters melee fighting aboard ships, plus some starfighter combat. The few martial engagements I’ve had with the Mandalorians have been in mixed field, forest, and village terrain with a combination of non-combatants, killable combatants, and combatants requiring rescue, plus of course Mandalorians on each side of the conflict who are interesting to feel in the Force, and each one wears a different level of beskar alloy around their heads (some none at all), and so are differently muffled.

I have a strong connection to the Cosmic Force, almost none to the Living Force that I’m aware of, and in addition to occasional visions, I also have a very slight ability to feel Shatterpoints when quite large, and a mild and latent form of psychometry that manifests through emotion when I’ve touched something for too long, but for some reason not with metals.

It’s likely I’ll be staying at Jedha for more than another month, unless some emergency calls us back to Mandalore. If you decide to meet in person, please just let me know when to expect you and I’ll let you know where we are. If for some reason the timing is awkward and you need to go to Mandalore before we return, Jaster has instructed his people to offer you hospitality in his castle in Keldabe on Mandalore.

I hope this suffices. Do let me know if there is something you would like to know more about me. I am very curious about these esoteric abilities, but I understand if you do not wish to discuss them over comm messages. I should say, however, my friends back at the Temple inform me that tiny Padawan Ventress, whom you rescued (with or without Jango and Myles? She seems to not find their part important in the least), has informed the entire padawan corps that you will teach her how to teleport when she is older. For the record, I am also interested in teleportation. I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t be.

The Force is clearly with you,
OWK

Jon reread the letter several times, unable somehow to pull himself away from how the young (youngish? Not that young? Two years younger than he was?) pirate communicated and held himself in the letter. It felt strangely like the first time he’d met Master Fay, and Nico, and Knol, that instant connection, that sense of, ‘you could be a very fine friend, if I let you in closer, if I dare to allow it.’

For the briefest of moments Jon had a heartbreaking flash of insight that this was a feeling he never had with Dark Woman, despite the fact that she saved his life and was so patient with him, and taught him so much, equipped him for a strong and noble life of goodness and service. But he shoved the thought to the side with a simple explanation; she was his master, not his friend.

It took him three more days in hyperspace of the nearly two week journey to even begin to write a letter in return, but he did. Slowly. He deleted a lot. Sometimes he rewrote the same thing over again. But finally, finally, before they actually landed in the spaceport the Force wanted him to land in (no where near the Diath Clan Compound, nor the job-necessary areas), finally Jon was ready to send his response.

Chapter Text

Ser Ohnaka,

I have received your letter, and I am confused about your name. I know what Obi-Wan Kenobi means, but I understand that it was what you claimed as your own for many years. Have you changed it? Do you want it changed? I recently delivered sixteen Stewjoni Force Sensitives to the Temple, every last one of them named Obi-Wan Kenobi, until they all received new names.

It is a strange thing, the meaning of names, is it not? I didn’t have one until my knighting. I chose Jon Antilles at my mentor’s behest, specifically because it was a name that was so common it essentially meant ‘anonymous person; no one from nowhere’. Even though everyone is someone from somewhere, and I was as well, my master did her best to remove it from me, to make me into no one from nowhere, a person completely without attachments, as she has tried more successfully to do for herself. And yet, she rejected her name, and I chose one despite her.

I never was a very good student.

Speaking of which, I was under an oath from my master to teach what she has given me to none but my own students, but as I have said, I was recently at the Temple, and Madam Nu, the Head Archivist, taught me a new way of seeing. I hadn’t realized that initiates and padawans in the Temple were so communally taught, such that entire generations have been taught by certain masters, who claim every one of them as their students. To teach is to have a student, be it long or short term. I think, instead, I see one of my own master’s hidden attachments; to hoard the esoteric knowledge she has discovered, to be the lineage holder of all who know it, and so control them. With the urging of Madam Nu, however, I have made a holocron on everything she taught me that is not in the common way, and you should be able to request a transcript of it soon. As can Padawan Ventress, to whom I merely answered ‘perhaps’ when she requested I teach her. Teleportation is a topic I cover in the holocron.

I also have a strong connection to the Cosmic Force, but I have found it useful to foster some small ability with the Living Force for practical purposes, mostly healing. Any Force Sensitive can heal, no matter their proclivities and individual abilities, and given the dangerous lives we tend to live, it is a foolish thing to ignore the capacity we have, even if it is small rather than great. You may not become a renowned healer, but if you are at Jedha anyway, learn at least the basics of daily maintenance healing and battlefield triage for yourself and others. Everyone learns languages and astronav because it’s a basic skillset whether or not they’re any good at them, and healing for Force Sensitives should be such a thing as well. Remember that, if you ever do found your day school.

So you are a pirate studying with Mandalorians who favors Soresu? What an interesting combination. If the Force wills it, I would like to meet you, even if I am not called to take you on as a student.

But I suppose you may not wish to be a padawan, regardless. And yet Myles tells me the Force says you will become a knight. I could see, perhaps, teaching you more informally, but there are correctives and rules and lines we do not cross that do come with the Jedi training that I received that I would be hard pressed not to carry on with you even if you have firmly put the Jedi Order behind you. Then again, I have friends who are more flexible than I am in many regards, and who have moral and theological objections to my master, her style of training, and the philosophies she prioritizes. This certainly would be something to discuss, but it would be very helpful if you first decided whether or not you actually wish to belong to the Jedi Order. You may wish to further your training, and it certainly seems that Master Koon wishes that for you, but do you desire to be a padawan or not? Do you desire to be a knight or not? Is mastery over the Force as the Jedi understand it to be something that you wish to strive for, or not? More questions for you to discern. 

If you are to rejoin the Order, they may have very strong opinions on your attachment to your lover, particularly if you choose to marry. It would be strange and ironic for them to have worked so hard to regain you, however, only to kick you out again. Though I suppose a benefit of partnering with a strong Mandalorian warrior would be their ability to wrangle and subdue you should you lose your way and turn dark. Then again, historically speaking, Mandalorians have had less problem with darksiders and Sith in their midst, so they might enable you instead, which is not quite as comforting a thought.

That is certainly the dangerous aspect of taking on a student who does not feel bound by the Order’s rules from the start. I would not wish to train anyone to become a blight upon the galaxy and a cause of great suffering for their fellow sentients. But then, if we stay in the light and continue to follow the Will of the Force, no matter the particular rules we follow, perhaps all shall be well. And if you wish to begin a Mandalorian Force Sensitive tradition, you must start somewhere and have some sense of guidelines to follow to help the unwary remain on the path, and enable the wary to do the best discernment for most good with the least suffering.

It is a very large undertaking you are considering, and it is noble work.

Tell me how much you meditate, and what sorts of meditations you favor, and how well you can regulate your emotions, and the state of your shielding, as I had neglected to ask after all of these important things as well in my first letter to you.

I have enjoyed communicating with you. May the Force be with you and your partner,

Jon Antilles

Obi-Wan took a very deep breath and let his head drop to Jaster’s shoulder as they once again sat on the steps of the Temple of Kyber in the gloaming of the night. He groaned for effect. 

“How can someone who is so powerful and so thoughtful and so… so insightful, also have not had a name until he was knighted? Jaster! How? I mean what the hell did she call him, anyway?!? ‘Hey you!’?!?” Obi-Wan hissed in a seething whisper.

“He’s clearly aware that his teacher’s perspective is skewed, but it sounds like he’s only just beginning to see that, and probably not clearly, nor entirely. I wonder if his friends see it more clearly than he does. Whatever it is, honestly, it sounds like he needs cult deprogramming. Do the Jedi do that? And what kind of accountability is there for his teacher?”

Obi-Wan groaned again. “I have no idea at all. I can certainly tell Master Plo of our suspicions and ask about that.”

“Well, if he does come to Mandalore, we can push mind healing on him, but I think your perspective will really help with that.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “I don’t at all see what you mean, my love.”

“You have wrestled with the altered morality of the more religious tenants of the Jedi Order as compared to the Mandalorian cultural norms, and I think we’ve both come a long way with that. It sounds like he also has that sort of work that needs to be done, and someone in a more moderate position, like yourself, who shares many of his values, even if you have a more moderate version, probably, that will be invaluable for him to see. Possibly his friends, and this mentor he mentions, they’ve already started it, but sometimes we need to hear it multiple times from multiple people before a new truth really sinks in.”

Obi-Wan nodded silently and just let his thoughts relax as he once again just dumped his shock and horror and outrage into the Force.

“I don’t even know him, Jaster, and I just want to give him a hug.”

Jaster wrapped his arm around him and held him in silence in the quiet, cooling dark of the last dregs of twilight.

“You’re going to write him back?”

“Well, yes, of course. I’m less nervous about it this time. And I don’t feel as if I must do it in three days, either. Not that I’m cross about it, but if two weeks is a reasonable consideration for him to return mine, I can feel comfortable doing the same. That’s fine.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re calmer about it. No need to agonize about it for hours. Just write what comes and be natural. You’re amazing with people, beloved, and a wonderful conversationalist. Please give him my regards.”

Obi-Wan smirked, wondering about what his friends had been saying in their letters which sometimes tended to be a little crass. He had shared the pertinent bits with Jaster, of course. “Yes, he did mention you at the end there. That was kind of him, and clearly an indication, I think, that for all the attachment issues he apparently wrestles with, he doesn’t care at all if I’m attached to you.”

“But do you care?” Jaster asked, and Obi-Wan could hear the smile in his voice.

“Oh, darling,” he said, shifting without thinking into his lower register. “I want to most thoroughly explore what a positive, healthy attachment looks like with you. I’m sure we can figure out the rest.”

Jaster shifted and held him in a forehead kiss. “My beautiful and most mandokarla beloved, will you let me court you publicly?”

Obi-Wan’s breath hitched all over again as the Force sang with the rightness of it. “Yes,” he breathed out.

“I have gifts for you then, beautiful. I brought them with me, hoping for this moment,” Jaster whispered.

“I do like pretty things,” Obi-Wan admitted.

“Then let’s go get you your pretty things,” Jaster whispered.

Jon got clearance to land in the spaceport of Mos Espa, but unlike so many other planetary spaceports, Tatooine didn’t allow anyone to leave their ship exposed. Even the last time he landed at the Clan Compound, they erected sunshades over his gunship. In Mos Espa, there was no government-sponsored set of hangar bays, either. Everything was privatized, you sent out a ping with your ship’s specs and then received back a flurry of automatic pings of hangar vacancies and negotiable rates.

It was rather a trying process, actually.

Jon settled on the one the Force picked out for him, indicated he needed some fuel, no repairs, and less than two hours of hangar bay time, to be paid upon landing.

The cargo bay door settled on the dusty, hot ground as Jon was striding down it, Sheir peeking out from behind a crate further back with strict instructions to stay in the ship and out of sight, just in case.

He signed an agreement with a droid and handed over the credit chips and got his change. No sooner was he finished than a figure in flowing white robes with a deep hood obscuring their face walked in through the open door of the hangar bay.

“Hello, Jon,” a calm, sweet, happy voice said. You could just hear the smile, even if you couldn’t see it, and she wasn’t hiding her Force Presence, which was like cool water lapping against rocks in a calm bay.

Jon couldn’t help but to smile, and though he didn’t realize it, it overtook his face and made him radiant with joy, even as his shoulders relaxed and his breath came easier. 

“Master Fay,” he breathed out quietly, turned to her and bowed deeply, despite the fact that he was in his Bounty Hunter persona and probably shouldn’t be doing that.

“The Force says I’ll be travelling with you for a long while,” she said, and Jon’s heart leapt. “And that you’ve brought me my newest padawan.”

Jon’s mind did not immediately go to Shier. It did eventually get to Shier, but it detoured first to Ser Ohnaka and his joy faltered for a moment as he considered what a bad fit they would be. Something he wasn’t at all aware of until that moment also reared its ugly head: he had already formed an attachment. If Ser Ohnaka was better suited to Master Fay and the Force decreed it, Jon should be happy to stand aside, and not… not jealous.

He was jealous.

He was jealous?

Oh! He was jealous that Ser Ohnaka would get to have Master Fay teach him, rather than someone like Dark Woman, and he was jealous that Master Fay would get to teach someone as interesting and compelling as Ser Ohnaka. He was jealous of them both.

As soon as he sorted through his emotions, which he did as quickly as he ever did, Jon released them all.

And then he realized that Master Fay had obviously meant the small Force Sensitive child he was toting around, not the prospective student of Jon’s own who had no aptitude for the Living Force.

In the span of a handful of heartbeats, and the length of time it took Master Fay to cross the hangar bay, Jon had sorted himself out and was the happy recipient of a hug from the slight Jedi Master Healer and the calming brush of her Force Presence, so soothing, no matter what he was going through.

She needed nothing in the marketplace, and so they waited until his sublight engines were refueled, and then they left for the Diath Clan Compound.

Nico and Jon spoke privately almost as soon as Jon arrived in the Diath Clan Compound, a massive, partially underground structure. After all, Nico had delayed his departure and other work for him, and Jon didn’t want to waste another single moment, even though he also needed to have perhaps a longer meditation with Master Fay. That could wait a moment, or even happen in hyperspace.

Nico made them tea and then pulled him into a small sitting room that was cool and dark before he turned a few small lights on. There were low cushions on the floor surrounding a large, low, square table.

“Come in, sit,” he said, closing the plastiwood door after him and engaging the physical lock. “We won’t be disturbed in here for a while, though all the little niblings are excited you’re here and want to go flying again. Just to warn you.”

“Thank you,” Jon murmured, sitting down and accepting the tea that was offered. He wrapped his hands around the cup and gathered his thoughts together. “I had a dream,” he started. “The Force gave it to me. I need to work out some of the details with Master Fay, there are some confusing things involved that aren’t necessarily interpersonal. But it was also a dream of having sex with two people, and the Force has promised some kind of relationship there, though I’m sure it won’t involve dangerous attachments,” he was quick to point out. “And I… don’t… know… what to do… about that.”

Nico nodded and blew on his tea for a moment. “Let me ask you some questions,” he said gently and without humor, as he always did when Jon was floundering with interpersonal issues.

Jon nodded and clutched his tea cup in a manner he would never do in front of Dark Woman. He took a deep breath and released his fears into the Force, and even though they came back only moments later, he kept doing it.

“Have you ever had sex with someone else before?” Nico asked.

“No,” Jon answered, relieved the question was an easy one.

“Have you ever masturbated?”

Panic. “I’m not sure what that word means,” he admitted.

“It’s when you have sex with yourself. It involves touching your own body, usually including your genitals, usually thinking about something sexual or sensual, and then achieving orgasm,” Nico explained. It was always such a relief when Nico explained things. He did it fully, completely, and with no fanfare or mocking.

“No. I haven’t done that either.”

Nico nodded and took a sip of tea. “What has An’ya taught you about sex?”

Jon swallowed hard and looked into his tea cup. “Use my hand and don’t bother other people.”

Nico sighed softly. “Jon, I do not agree with An’ya’s teachings here. That is a terrible thing to tell a child, and she missed a lot of nuance, and I will deal with my anger toward her later. For now, let’s cover the basics, shall we?”

“Yes, please,” Jon said, grateful. He took a sip of tea and found he quite liked Nico’s favorite blend. It was lovely, and though it tasted different than it smelled, he liked both the smell and the taste.

“Right. So, first things first. Consent. Curiosity. Pleasure.”

Jon settled in for a long teaching and absorbed Nico’s words like the gift they were. The tea was all gone by the time Nico had finished covering the basics and opened it up for Jon to ask questions.

The only thing he could think to ask was the one that was the hardest.

“Is there something wrong with me… that I’ve never…. wanted this before?” Jon whispered, blinking hard and looking down at his hands.

“No. Not at all, Jon. You were knighted at thirteen, and I met you just after, as you were starting your travels with Fay. I know perfectly well you hadn’t even hit puberty before An’ya dumped you on that station to fend for yourself. No one is a sexual creature before they’ve hit puberty unless they’re the victim of sexual abuse, which is not the case for you. And then after that, once you did go through puberty, that’s the time when our species can become sexually aware of themselves and others, but it’s different for everyone. Some people become hypersexual, some people are sort of middling, some are demisexual, and some remain asexual. But it’s not necessarily a permanent state. And given how well and acutely you follow the Force and are able to let the Force suppress your bodily needs and still function at peak levels, I’m not at all surprised that you remained asexual and went through puberty without a sexual awakening until such time as the Force told you it was time. Which, apparently, it now is.”

Jon took a deep inhale and shakily exhaled. He nodded.

That made sense, actually.

It made a lot of sense.

“Now, I’m going to be around for a few days, and I think the Force wants me to have a bit of an adventure with you, so let’s go play with the kids, let me meet Fay’s little menace, and we’ll talk about this again tomorrow, after you’ve had some time to let things sink in, okay?”

Jon felt the relief flood his body. “Thank you, Nico.”

“Any time, Jon, any time. Now, come here and give me a proper hug,” he said, standing up and opening his arms.

Jon sank into the embrace and tried not to think what Dark Woman would say about his obvious attachments to his friends.

Two days Jon stayed with Nico’s family, gave every youngling in the compound a chance to fly on his back twice, and still he didn’t sit down with Master Fay and talk. They meditated together every morning with Nico, some of his family, and Shier, but the one time Jon brought it up she smiled at him and told him it could wait a little, and reminded him that she would be coming with him anyway.

And then she told him to release his fears. He would get everything he needed.

So instead they planned what Nico was calling ‘their little adventure,’ which had a lot to do with the four crates he had yet to deliver and the ‘delicate operation’ which would take him to different sides of the planet, but in the presence of the two Hutts who currently ruled over the planet, enforced the tax structure and the status quo of slavery, without doing anything but keeping the other crime syndicates out.

“You can’t just kill every Hutt you meet, Jonny boy,” Nico groused.

Jon just raised a silent eyebrow in challenge. 

He could, actually. 

He daydreamed every now and again about walking through the streets of Nal Hutta and not even entering any palace or government building or gambling establishment, just walking by them and wreaking quiet destruction on the race.

He hadn’t, of course. It was probably one of those actions that would lead to a downward spiral of darkness that would end with Dark Woman taking his head in a mercy killing, so he actively chose not to every time he got into his gunship, but he still sometimes fantasized about it.

Just a little bit.

Nico’s father threw back his head in raucous laughter and clapped him on the back. “Oh, Jon Antilles, I do like you.”

Still, the planning session went on. The Diaths were preparing to retake Tatooine, abolish slavery on the planet and install a locally elected government, but they weren’t ready, yet. What they did need to do was gain entrance to both Hutt places to make some contacts and plant some listening devices, which was particularly difficult.

It also meant that Jon wasn’t allowed to just kill the Hutt as a distraction to get his mark out, and he wasn’t allowed to take many other slaves with the single one he was meant to liberate. Which was sad.

Still, Jon consoled himself that he only needed to visit a place once in order to teleport back to it, so he had the opportunity, at least, to case the throne rooms and antechambers.

Nico himself went on both missions, but only to ‘fly the getaway gunship’ as his mustache was too recognizable, and was already banned from the courts of both ruling Hutts. Even sitting in the cockpit, he wore a scarf over his lower face, just in case.

The first run was not too bad, though Jon still had no idea what he was supposed to say to the Hutt when he was finally called upon, after waiting five hours.

Still, it had given Dramien plenty of time to sneak where he needed to sneak, leave what he needed to leave, and take what he needed to take, besides, apparently, making connections with the slaves of the household, and leaving some hidden comms for them to use.

It had also given Jon time to drink three Corellian brandies, each one delicious, and win an extremely small fortune at Sabacc, even while Dramien, when he finally returned, lost magnificently and with grace.

“You’re up next, smuggler,” the Major Domo said in Huttese. “Look sharp.”

Jon tossed back his fourth brandy and immediately began purging it from his system while Dramien came up and tried to look sober and intimidated, standing slightly behind him and to his right.

“Your excellency, I present the smuggler Jon Antilles. He arrived with all of his cargo intact and unopened, but not the two passengers he also carried for you. This was a job through the Guild of Bondsman, your excellency.”

“So,” the Hutt in question drawled in its native language. “A bounty hunter playing smuggler. And where is my emissary? And their gift to me?”

“Food for the purrgils, probably,” Jon said, staring the Hutt down and playing up his ruined voice, which always sounded particularly awful when he spoke Huttese. For some reason.

“And why would that be, exactly?” the Hutt drawled even more slowly.

“He angered me,” Jon said very truthfully. “So I knocked him on his ass and stabbed him in the heart.”

This, apparently, amused the Hutt. “And my gift? I like gifts. Where is my gift?”

Jon huffed. “I guess I’m not used to passengers I’m not allowed to kill.” Not entirely untrue.

This also amused the Hutt. “Ah! My murderous little Jon Antilles! I like you so much, Jon Antilles, so different than all the other Jon Antilles'. Cras, mark the cargo delivered and the passengers missing in transit,” the Hutt said as an aside to an assistant who was lingering in the shadows. “My murderous little Jon Antilles, you will give me a gift to replace the gift you lost.”

“No, I won’t,” Jon pointed out.

“You do not want to anger me, little one. I like you now. You want to keep it that way, believe me.”

“Fine,” Jon spat. “You may have a gift, and I will choose it for you. You may have the gift of my anger. You may have the gift of my murderous intent, reined in on behalf of others, or else it would be you I would murder next for the sheer presumption to imply I owe you anything at all,” he hissed.

The Hutt laughed, as Jon suspected it would. The Hutt laughed long and loud and Jon released his rage into the Force, letting his face settle into a sneer even as he kept himself wide open to the Will of the Force, which was still quiescent around him.

The Hutt, in the end, accepted his gift and had him and his partner thrown out of her palace to maintain the look of control. Still, it was a strange thing to have the esteem of a Hutt. Strange, and distasteful.

The second mission wasn’t as confrontational as that, though it was perhaps a tiny bit more distasteful. He needed a reason for admittance to the palace of the other Hutt on the planet, and so he used the first in combination with what he usually did: he was in the area and wanted to introduce himself, if the mighty Hutt had the time and inclination, and he freely gave out the information that he had just dropped off cargo to the other Hutt on the planet.

It went as well as it could, all things considered. He had to argue to even get in the door, as it was unlikely he would be seen today. But today was all he had before he had to get going. (More or less true, he didn’t want to spend any more time on the endeavor, and he didn’t actually want to see the Hutt.)

After ten minutes of arguing at the door, Jon and Dramien were admitted. Dramien got a drink and slunk off into a dark alcove with a slave woman and got to work doing the various things he needed to do at this Hutt palace, and Jon started looking for his mark first around the throne room.

And found his bounty immediately.

This one was going to be hard.

The Hutt had his bounty dressed in degrading and highly sexualized clothing and chained to its throne. Worse, the mark was clearly high on a cocktail of things that obviously included spice, and probably an aphrodisiac, because normal people didn’t get visibly aroused from the attentions of a Hutt. And if the mark actually wanted to be there, the chains wouldn’t be necessary. But perhaps Master Fay could help with the withdrawal and the first round of healing that would be necessary.

It wouldn’t work to come back at night, either. The mark was obviously being used as a pleasure slave, and so whether or not the Hutt used him solely, or loaned him out, nights would be just as difficult as days.

Jon dithered as he drank his Corellian brandy as to how and when to snatch his mark, and the exact exit strategy.

When he asked the Force, he was given an image of simply teleporting him to the ship, which he could do if he was nearby, he knew that. But he couldn’t actually get that close to the mark without drawing the attention of the Hutt, which he absolutely didn’t want to do.

But… perhaps now was the time to test his limits? See if he could do it from across the room?

The Force said yes.

He planned it in his head. When they were ready to go, he would send Dramien out first, and then make his own excuses to the Major Domo, and as he was walking toward the hallway, well and clearly out of any sort of line of action, he would use the Force to knock over an ornate, freestanding open flame torch on the other side of the room. He would naturally turn back to look at the commotion, and so would everyone else. And then he would teleport the slave, without their cuffs, to the rack room of the gunship where Nico would put them to sleep while Dramien primed the sublights and Jon shrugged and walked out of the throne room.

Having that worked out in his head, he visualized it several times, focusing clearly and simply on the actions, and realizing that he needed to open the wrist cuffs just the moment before he teleported his mark, or it wouldn’t be realistic that he’d escaped, somehow.

Though with how high and aroused he was, it also wasn’t realistic that he would escape, but that wasn’t one of Jon’s current problems, so he tried not to make more difficulties for himself.

He connected with Nico telepathically and told him the plan, but waited until Dramien reappeared to do the same, so as not to interrupt his work.

And then Jon had four hours to kill, so he played some more Sabacc, drank some more brandy, and made sure to lose a little every now and again so the fortune he won this time was again quite modest. This time, he looked at the food that was being passed around, because he was eating again, and it was getting late, so he grabbed what looked maybe like mynock kebab, but could be womp rat or lizard monkey for all he knew. It was some kind of meat that tasted fairly good, with a spicy-sweet sauce to dip it in.

It wouldn’t be true to say that Jon ignored the Hutt in the room. It was largely impossible to ignore a Hutt when you were in the same room with it. But he did his best to tune it out, especially as it consorted with his bounty. But not looking didn’t exactly make it go away and Jon really wanted to kill this Hutt.

He told Nico that.

‘I get it, Jon. I do. What she’s doing right now is despicable. And if you kill her, we have to start all over again with her replacement, because we’re not ready yet. I know it’s hard, but give me another year and you can come back and kill them both.’

‘You promise?’ Jon asked.

‘Absolutely. I’ll make sure to tell the others when we get back. If the Force isn’t calling you somewhere else, you’ll get the kill shot.’

Jon contented himself with that and waited for Dramien to finish his work. When he staggered back toward him just after the four hour mark, they had a harsh whispered conversation wherein they pretended to have an argument so Jon could send him back to the ship, but in fact, he just relayed the plan.

Dramien stalked off, grabbing five mynock kebabs in an angry swipe on his way out, and Jon sighed and scoffed and rubbed his hand over his face, like this was all too much. Which, admittedly, it was.

And so he made his apologies to the Major Domo, who was quite superior about being right that there wouldn’t be time, and Jon apologized and promised to come back through the next time he was on planet, which was very likely to be true. Then he swiped another two mynock kebabs himself, with sauce, and made his way out of the throne room.

Then he whipped his head around and feigned a startle when the screams and the crash and the fire began to spread. 

And in an excellent stroke of luck, his bounty was shoved away from the Hutt, so Jon snapped his cuffs open and teleported him before dipping another piece of roasted mynock in sauce, taking a languid bite and pulling the meat off the skewer. Then he turned back toward the door and sauntered out of the throne room, down the hallway, and finally back out to his ship, where the gangplank was down and waiting for him.

And he’d grabbed enough sauce for Nico, which he noticed Dramien had not done.

It was horrible, but it was done.

Chapter Text

Jon always took more care with the delicate bounties that he rescued from the status of pleasure slave, even if he usually kept them asleep the entire time. But he always washed their bodies several times, and even though his method of healing was brutal and painful, he did it for them, while they were asleep, so at least when they woke they had fewer physical reminders of their rape. And now he had clothes to swap out so they did not need to wear the demeaning scraps of cloth their slavers put them in.

This time, he also had a slave chip remover, which he used to good effect, and Master Fay was on hand to do a much gentler healing than Jon could manage when they returned back to the Compound.

Still, it drew his time with the Diath Clan to a close and Nico was off doing his own thing and had a meeting with Knol on the horizon, and so Master Fay and Padawan Shier joined him as he took his bounty back to the planet in the Expansion Region that his client governed. Master Fay spent many, many hours working with the bounty, which was extraordinarily kind of her, but then, Master Fay was extraordinarily kind. The bounty spent quite a lot of time sleeping, or lying in his rack, using one of Jon’s extra datapads, playing the astronav game, which gave Jon private time in the cargo hold to continue teaching Shier the basic Sho-Chii katas.

And, finally at Master Fay’s long term urging, Jon installed a training switch on his lightsaber. Even if he didn’t take on a padawan himself, even if he never did, he would be giving much training to Shier who wished to learn the art of combat with a lightsaber, which Fay could not and would not teach her.

Still.

It was wonderful to think that he would be able to spend such time with Master Fay again, very likely years and years, as she had no intention to rush Shier’s training, as happened (in her opinion) with his own. Shier was eight standard, and would be with Master Fay for at least another twelve years. And during that time, she would need a lightsaber combat instructor.

Jon had already agreed, and his heart was light at the thought of it.

Though extended time in hyperspace wore on Fay, as she was so very connected to the Living Force, Jon was more than comfortable and so happy that he’d nearly forgotten that he might actually be in the beginning of a downward spiral into depravity as he couldn’t properly interpret a dream from the Force he was meant to follow through on, he couldn’t hear the coordinates he was meant to travel to in order to do so, and ever since he’d lost such clarity in his normal, every day connection to the Force, even basic questions were mostly answered in obscure and ridiculous ways instead of a simple yes-or-no feeling.

Right.

Right.

He shouldn’t be so happy. He brought it up as they ate stew, the four of them at the small table in the lounge. 

“I still need your help, Master Fay,” he said, not mentioning with what. Shier knew, generally, that he needed help understanding the Will of the Force, and that something had occluded his senses, but Shier knew he was also a secret Jedi and they weren’t telling his bounty about that.

She smiled at him and finished her mouthful of rice and stew. “When you are finished with our friend. Let’s find a park where I can have a planet beneath my feet and trees above my head, and air filled with the smells of whatever nature we have around us, and then I will give you the help you wish.”

“The Royal Grounds and Gardens,” Jon’s bounty quietly said, the first words Jon had heard out of his mouth since the one and only time he’d heard him speaking, but really screaming, from the other side of the ship (his bounty had been in the cockpit having a private soul healing session with Master Fay at the time) that all he wanted to do was die. Not uncommon when the pleasure slaves had been fed aphrodisiacs, in Jon’s opinion. “They’re open all day and all night. Adjacent to the Palace. It’s a long way from the spaceport, but they’ll probably have you land at the private hangars. I can make sure you have time to walk in the Gardens.”

“How kind of you,” Master Fay said gently. “That would be absolutely perfect, thank you.”

Jon’s bounty nodded to the Jedi in white and looked over at Jon, met his eye for the first time and held his gaze. “Are all bounty hunters like you?”

Jon just wordlessly shrugged, and then ate another mouthful of rice and stew.

“Jon is one of a kind, as we all are. He does his best with what he’s given, and that is the most that can be asked of anyone, don’t you think?”

Jon’s bounty’s expression turned thoughtful. He also stopped staring at him and let Jon eat without further scrutiny. 

Later that afternoon during a long wait in the reversion to realspace that allowed them to avoid pirates in two more hyperspace jumps, Jon got a return message from the pirate non-Jedi whose name was under debate.

He was strangely excited about this, and when he asked the Force, of course it just giggled merrily in what was becoming a rather predictable fashion.

But maybe that was a sign, because surely the Force wouldn’t be so happy all the time around him when he asked for guidance if he was really sliding down to his inevitable Fall?

Maybe.

He could ask Master Fay about that when they were in the Garden. In the meanwhile, he could read his letter.

Master Antilles,

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful letter. My partner sends you his greetings and his fond regards. On that note, two things of interest. First, though perhaps I have read this situation wrongly, so please do correct me if that is the case, it seems that though the Jedi Order might take issue with my attachment (I will say that Master Plo is aware of it, though not that Jaster is courting me) it seems that you do not? Or at least, having seen me mention it, you did not instantly sever our connection and reject me on principle. Second, I feel I ought to warn you. Well, perhaps I ought to warn you about two things, here, though I suppose they are somewhat related. First among them, Jaster has begun to court me publicly, which for Mandalorians sometimes involves courting gifts, often that are visibly worn so everyone can witness the courtship. And the second somewhat related thought is that the Force has already told us we are not to be a dyad, but a triad. Not that we have met our third yet, though I know their Force Signature, of course, that was very clear from the dreams we both had. And my own thoughts on the matter are that if the Force has informed me I shall be married to two fascinating and wonderful beings, who am I to gainsay that? And if theologies of attachment preach against it, then we have either misinterpreted them, or they are just plainly wrong.

Just so you know fully and completely the situation over here. I don’t think Jaster and I are likely to marry before our third arrives, but as we have no idea when that will actually be, it’s hard to say.

You posed some very good questions in your letter, and the answers are not so simple. Or at least I can answer most of them with a very fervent yes and no, both.

What is my name?

I have no bloody clue at this point. I grew up Obi-Wan Kenobi and I didn’t know what it meant, no one did, not until I was taken in by my guardian. He researched my biological needs and discovered it along the way and has absolutely refused to use the name ever since. And so an odd little nickname that I had only just recently picked up the week before just… stuck. Ben. I was just Ben for years with no need for further explanation, until one day Hondo just… introduced me with his own last name. Got me a chaincode and everything. And so now I have two, one obviously isn’t correct, of course, and wouldn’t work for bounties, but that sort of thing is a selling point for Hondo. Anyway, now, or you know, since I thought about it a bit and while staying with the Mandalorians, I’ve actually been able to get back in touch with all my friends at the Temple who all thought I was kind of dead (I have a Force Bond with one of them, but everyone was trying to convince him that he was only hearing phantom echoes, the bastards), and so now there are so many people who know me and love me as Obi-Wan. And yet it is as it is. And so with the Mandalorians, who had been introduced to me as Ben Ohnaka, I go by Ben, or as they sometimes like to call me, Ohn’ika, and only Jaster have I invited to call me Obi-Wan, which… I can’t help it. It’s my name. Only in my worst moments of sadness and self-loathing do I actually identify with its original meaning. Honestly, I look forward to marriage when it is appropriate to just drop a last name if you like and pick up a new one. That, at least, solves half of it. And the other half? I just… I feel like Obi-Wan is the intimate, personal name that I do not allow many to use, and Ben is the nickname that is a sort of set of armor in and of itself, which is quite backwards to how it is for others, I suppose, with the nickname being the thing used intimately, and the full given name the one that everyone has and everyone uses.

Having said all of that, I feel like as you are considering taking me on as a student, and more on that morass of discernment in a moment, you should be able to call me Obi-Wan Kenobi if the name itself does not offend you, as it does my guardian.

As you are someone who chose the most common name in the galaxy, and the name used by individuals when they wish to remain anonymous, as you say, perhaps you will be able to uniquely understand what it is to have an anonymous sort of name that is truly and uniquely your own, even if it is also shared by so many others.

I will own I don’t think much of your own master for discovering you had no name at all and then continuing to fail to give you one. I don’t rightly care if she gave hers up. She did so, presumably, as an adult, and that was a totally shitty thing to do to a child. I think I stand with your friends, and your mentor, in giving all things that come out of your master’s mouth significant scrutiny. I no longer give her the benefit of the doubt. I will now be quite cynical in regards to her, just so you know. (I mean, on the practical level, what in the stars did she say when she wanted to get your attention? ‘Hey you!’? I mean, really. If she thinks having a personal name is too much attachment for this galaxy, I don’t know what to do with such extremist thinking, save to laugh at the pure insanity of it all and ask if you’ve ever noticed her eyes glowing.)

So now we move on to your very fine and reasonable questions on whether or not I want to be a padawan, a knight, a master as the Jedi understand them to be.

Yes. Definitely. And also, possibly no. And in some regards, certainly not. So, let me elaborate.

Working backwards and beginning at Mastery… If all Jedi were as honorable and loving as Plo Koon, my answer would be an unreserved yes. Yes. Yes, I would say immediately, in a heartbeat, and with my full heart in agreement. But not all Jedi are as honorable and loving as Plo Koon, and your master might be one of the examples to cite here, but I’m also considering Yoda, who practically raised every crecheling for hundreds of years, grandmaster of the Order, largely regarded as a saint, at least by all the younglings. And it was Yoda who orchestrated my removal. His reasons were convoluted and frankly insulting to all involved, but whatever - I don’t need to understand them. I received them, and his apology, and that was really what I wanted. But certainly, do I want to be a Master of the Force? Yes. I do. Do I want to be a Master of the Jedi Order, when for hundreds of years it has been Yoda, slowly turning shadow and edging toward dark, who has been the grandmaster of the Order? Not certain that I do, actually. It pains me to say it. It grieves me deeply. I don’t at all remember a young life before the Order. I know that Master Plo rescued me from the river, I know that story, but I only know it as a story, not a memory, and there was nothing before it. I only knew of happiness and contentment in the creche. My initiate days were more difficult, as I was bullied by another in my clan and it went unnoticed the entire time, and up until the day I was escorted out. I hesitated to mention that, as it doesn’t at all compare to anything you’ve experienced, but I say it to point out that until the last year when I was rejected by everyone who might take me as padawan, and some more than once, being a knight was my only dream, my only hope. I just wanted to help people, to bring peace and understanding and cessation of war and conflict (I was hoping to become a consular Jedi, but anything would do, really). Perhaps that was just the dream of a child, and so many children’s dreams dissolve in the light of the options that are before them on the cusp of adulthood.

And since then I have wished that if I had to leave the Order, I could have at least left it properly trained instead of as a failed initiate. And I will say, it is a strange thing that I have not fully wrapped my mind around; everyone I speak to who is still in the Order seems to treat me as if I still belong to it. My friends, some of them, at least, are just waiting for me to come to my senses and request extraction, as if this were some sort of long-term mission assignment. And I can understand it, in a way. We’re all young idiots and what frame of reference do they really have for one of their number disappearing but not dying, nor being kidnapped, nor Falling? Away. On a mission. Will return. And so from them I almost understand it. But Master Plo seems to be operating under a rather similar presumption. He gave me access and landing codes for both Temples, even the one on Corellia, so that if I want to, I can come ‘home’. I told him I wouldn’t. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it ceased being home when they escorted me out.

For a group of people who allowed an initiate who had never been out of the Temple, much less off the planet, to be blacklisted by all the field Jedi, and then kicked out, they are awfully keen to skip over the ‘asking me back and waiting for my response’ part and go straight to the ‘was unlawfully removed, so never really left’ state of mind. Except I would beg to differ: I certainly did leave, and I was absolutely not welcome to stay, not an hour longer than I did.

One does wonder, and this one certainly has, was no one listening to the Force? At all? Ever? It certainly didn’t seem to give any warnings to, say, my Initiate Clan leader, or the Crechemaster, or the Council of Reassignment who were all apparently quite surprised and thought I just left. (A twelve year old? Who has never once left the Temple? I mean, I know your own experience was very different, but does that make sense to anyone who hears it?)

Anyway, do I wish to be the Master of an Order that does not actually listen to the Force? No, I don’t.

And so working backwards from Master, past Knight, and to Padawan… If I could be anyone’s padawan, it would be yours. And the Force was so beautifully clear when I asked, when Master Plo said your name. Would I like to train with you? Yes, yes I would. And I would heed any sane and reasonable guideline (see previous concerns with your master) that you gave me. I also have no wish to be a blight upon the galaxy, or a harm to my fellow sentients, and I promise you, my beloved is a man of honor and decency. He would not abide any banthashit or twisty logic that put people into a place of undue harm or suffering, should I lose all decency and Fall. He does not agree with all of the morality of the Order as a religion, and so he is more amenable to, perhaps, shadow and let us say the lighter side of darkness, but he doesn’t abide by taking advantage of the weak and powerless, and that is a very hard line for him.

But of course the question is not just could I be your padawan, but could I be anyone’s padawan. Could I return, even just in name only, to the Jedi Order?

That is a harder question. Even at Jedha, where discernment is so easy Force Nulls can feel the pull and sway pressing against their skin in joy or horror as they meditate with the Force and pray to their Force Entities, even here, I cannot know the answer to that, at least, not yet.

I do realize it is because I have too much grief that I cannot manage to get rid of for long. I mean, I had suspected it, and so had Jaster, and it was confirmed by my meditation tutor here.

Oh, dear, I’ve gone on dreadfully long and not even answered all of your questions to me. But so far none of them have been easy to tackle, and I would not wish you to imagine I haven’t given this all due consideration. 

I meditate every morning for at least an hour, though more like two. I also find that performing my katas also is a form of very useful moving meditation for me, and I do that daily, not that I know so many of them. And if I’m having difficulty with something, or a lot of emotions that are hard to process, I might pause what I’m doing in order to meditate. In addition to the moving meditation of the katas, I also do discernment meditations in the style of the Guardian of the Whills, a moving meditation involving lightness of feet in the style of the Guardian of the Whills, and the standard four meditations that were taught in the creche; watching thoughts, releasing emotions, finding friends, feeling the Force. It’s hard to judge how well or poorly I manage my emotions, as I have no significantly trained Force Sensitives to base my subjective surmise off of. Objectively, I feel as if I’m doing well one day and a seething volcano of emotion the next. But I do still have the kneejerk reaction to release negative emotion into the Force when I feel overwhelmed by it, and still make the attempt, which sometimes works well and sometimes does not. I will say, no one I’ve been around for the last four years particularly appreciates Jedi serenity, or even the faintest whiff of it. They all take it the wrong way, like we’re not really sentients (look, I’m saying ‘we’, you see how confused I am about this?) like we’re one step away from unfeeling monsters. Some even imagine we have ritual magicks that we use on our younglings to remove the capacity for emotion, like the creche isn’t the place for pillow forts, finger painting, glitter, and laughter. So… you know, if you come to Mandalore maybe bring that sass and sense of humor Jango said you have and make sure people know you’re capable of laughing, or something? Just a thought. I don’t know. Never mind that - it’s not up to you to redeem the terrible public image that the Jedi have in the galaxy, and it’s not up to me, either.

As Hondo likes to remind me, I can’t save the galaxy. Though wouldn’t it be nice, Master Antilles, if we could?

May the Force be with you,

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Jon didn’t even realize he was crying until he’d finished the letter, though he only cried the first time, and only a little. He reread it several times a day as they made their way to drop off his bounty. He had no idea how to respond, though he very dearly wanted to. So he didn’t, not for days, though he continued to reread Obi-Wan’s letter.

Jon had expected to drop off his bounty and then take himself more or less immediately to the Gardens while the Royal Guard refrained from impounding his gunship. This was not quite what happened.

First, they arrived in the early stretches of the pre-dawn hours of the night become morning. It took two hours for them to even be seen, though due to the presence of his bounty, they waited in comfort, and Jon ate a silent breakfast with his bounty. Well, Jon was silent. His bounty attempted to engage him in conversation several times. Apparently he’d been talking with Shier, who hadn’t mentioned that Jon was a secret Jedi, but had talked about everything else she knew, including Clan Daith’s plans for a revolution on Tatooine, Jon’s own rescue of her, the promise from the Clan Head that Jon could have the kill shot on both Hutts for what they’d done to his bounty, how Master Fay was an old friend and an even older Jedi, and that Jon was teaching her how to fight, since Master Fay was a dedicated pacifist.

Jon’s bounty had questions about all of this, none of which Jon was willing to answer, though he did silently provide his bounty with a comm code for Nico when it became abundantly clear that the Crown Prince wanted to help.

Second, instead of a drop off in a throne room and fielding awkward expressions of gratitude until he could escape (not exactly as bad, or as good, as a High Council meeting, as there, if push came to shove, he could just teleport out), instead of that scenario which he now considered preferable, now he had to share a meal with the royals who were not at all listening when Jon said he’d just eaten.

He did accept more tea, and the fact that he and his bounty were drinking tea rather than, apparently, caf spiked with rum (at five in the morning?) was a shock.

Jon just let his bounty talk to his parents and worked on giving his frustration and impatience to the Force. He was, therefore, not paying strict attention for some time, and when the Force told him to say no to something, Jon wasn’t entirely sure what he was saying no to, but he did so.

Ah.

They were trying to give him an unnegotiated bonus. This time, an astromech droid, which he had zero need of and less interest in.

And they weren’t taking no for an answer.

Jon decided to give up a tiny bit of information in order to get out of it. “Look, I’m Force Sensitive and I plot my way around pirates very carefully using the Force, and the nav computer. An astromech would just get in my way. No astromechs.”

That stymied them for a moment, but Jon just tuned out again, giving his frustration and impatience to the Force, again. Until the Force told him to say no, again. Which he did. Then discovered what he was saying no to.

Ah. They wanted to give him a medical droid. Jon sighed. “I’m travelling with the most powerful healer in the galaxy, and I will be for about a decade. Your medical droid will only get in her way and take up room. No. Thank you.”

Jon tried to tune out, but it was harder this time, and he found himself drawn back into the conversation.

“No, we just wanted permission to walk in the Gardens here. Hyperspace is hard for the healer. She needs to be around more living things than that.”

And then they could not be dissuaded from giving him plants. They planned to give him a lot of plants.

“Mother! Fathers! It’s a small gunship! And he often carries refugees and would be filled up to the brim! There’s no room for the forest that you plan, and that all takes water, which he would have to carry, which would take even more room, or take away from what his refugees need to drink. Plus, plants need maintenance! Tools! Certain kinds of light! Be realistic!”

They argued that one plant couldn’t possibly be too much for the space, but that one plant couldn’t possibly be a significant enough expression of gratitude for not just the job done, but the job done with unexpected compassion, care, and tenderness otherwise unforeseen from the Guild of Bondsman, plus with the foremost Jedi Healer in the galaxy as their precious boy’s on-call physician…

Oh, they went on and on.

Jon tuned it out again, and resigned himself to figure out how to care for a plant. Eventually he was allowed to go on his way to meet his friend and her padawan in the Garden, but not before a servant left a giant handled basket at his feet with some sort of rolled fabric or blanket buckled to the top that Jon did not want to admit he knew nothing about.

The Force said it would be good to take it, however, so he did, and promised to give the Royal family four hours to sort out a proper plant for his lounge area and finally, finally, Jon could escape.

With a giant handled basket, plus blanket. When he was well out of the palace, and had entered the Gardens proper, he intended to peek inside so he knew what it was he was carrying, but Master Fay and Padawan Shier were walking toward him (the padawan was waving and jumping up and down), so there was no time.

He caught Shier in one arm as she threw herself at him in a hug around his waist. She greeted him and immediately demanded food, as if she were a baby bird.

“I think it’s probably food,” Master Fay tapped the basket and happily confided to her padawan. “We found a nice spot. We can eat, and then Shier can work on her modules while we meditate.”

The Garden was really quite nice, and Jon appreciated that. It would be a good spot for a meditation, even one as fraught as what he needed to have.

Master Fay led him to a section that involved something like a bamboo forest and they put the blanket on the ground in a clearing there, and then Jon finally took a look inside the basket.

It was a highly organized space, and that, at least, he appreciated.

It hinged on a long side and the lid came up and was held by straps. Leatheris straps. Actually, there were a lot of leatheris straps. The inside had fabric sewn on in kind of a pretty way, and inside the lid, knives, forks, spoons, and plates - three of each - were strapped to the lid. The plates looked extremely breakable, and the utensils looked like they could be traded for currency in a pinch. In the main portion of the basket, there was a large and small flask or canteen, with three fancy cups that stacked on top of the larger one, then steel and wood sealing containers which, once they were opened, contained food.

“Well, you clearly made a good impression,” Master Fay commented as they brought the food out.

“Ooo, what’s that?” Padawan Shier asked.

“This is caviar. A little salty, but good protein. That’s sliced fruit. These are vegetables that have been carved into flowers. Those are hard baked bread bites, you eat the caviar on top of them. Ah, cheese, several different kinds, also good protein. Hmm, this is smoked fish, a few different varieties. And fresh bread.”

“I recognize the bread, Master,” Shier pointed out, her tone wry.

“Tea,” Jon said, sniffing the large flask. “Rum,” he added with a grimace, sniffing the smaller one.

“One of these days, Jon, you’ll tell people you prefer brandy and you’ll have cases of the stuff.”

“I stopped paying attention,” he said in explanation. “They’re also giving me plants so you can be happier in hyperspace. They said only one, but I doubt it.”

Master Fay’s eyes lit up. “Oh! That will be nice. How kind of them. I have a sense, Jon, that they will go a bit beyond that, but the Force says it will be lovely, so stop worrying.”

Master Fay made Jon and Shier try a little bit of everything so they knew what it tasted like for the future, but Jon left the rest of it for the obvious Jedi and her growing padawan.

When they were finished and the basket was packed up again, Jon settled in on his knees and his heels, which was an easier posture to meditate in if he didn’t have a cushion to use, especially with tall boots on.

First he brought his concern that he had some kind of dark influence on him and Master Fay searched him out very closely, three times, and found nothing.

Then Jon agreed to let her do a thorough maintenance healing on him, with special attention to his throat. It had never healed properly after the third time it had been cut and he’d had problems with it ever since.

Then Jon brought the issue of everyone wanting him to take on the seventeen year old pirate padawan who was currently the consort of a warlord. Jon had… been reluctant to even ask the Force for any more guidance about the issue, as it would involve very deeply violating Dark Woman’s rules, (rule number four: Never Go To Mandalore), and of course there were all of the other difficult circumstances involved in the situation, too.

And yet, while meditating with Fay, the answer was so clear, so obvious, and so very simple. Yes. 

Then Fay helped him work through his own terror at breaking Dark Woman’s rules and helped him to take down yet another layer of hurt and suffering his master had left him with. And after that, they did yet another round of healing the energetic scars that his training had left him with.

He would not do that to his padawan, he promised himself. Master Fay said it was unnecessary, that she had never left any, nor had any left on her by her own master. He didn’t think too hard, though, on why Dark Woman felt the need to leave him scarred. Probably because he wasn’t a very good student.

After a long session already in which Jon did feel much better, they finally got to the other reason he’d originally called her.

He shared the dream with her, warning her it was full of consensual sex.

He relived it but at a distance. It was neither comforting nor arousing. It just was. Three featureless beings taking pleasure and comfort in each other in a graphic and sexual manner, repeatedly.

Then he shared the furthest that he had gotten in his discernment, that the Force wanted him to find these two lovers to share a beautiful, lifegiving moment with them before moving on. Jon made sure to mention the ‘moving on’ part, because he wanted to be so clear that he wasn’t going to get attached.

Master Fay gently - so gently - shared her own interpretation with him. The Force was offering him an opportunity to gain two lovers, but not necessarily for so brief a time. And then she gave him her understanding of Attachment all over again, but with details useful for this particular situation. She also reminded him that she was quite attached to him, and he to her, and there was nothing wrong with it. It was helpful. It was grounding.

And then they took down another layer of hurt and suffering his master had left him with, and had another round of healing after it.

Finally, he asked if Master Fay had a sense of where he was to go to meet these lovers, and her voice trilled in his mind with laughter.

Mandalore, of course. 

Jon felt both settled and rattled and like he could sleep for a week as the three of them made their way back to the palace and so to the Royal hangar. A servant immediately took the basket away, and as they were escorted along they walked mostly in silence until Shier asked to ride on Jon’s shoulders, a request he quietly obliged.

As they got to the final doorway, a servant emerged from an otherwise hidden side panel, bearing the outdoor meal basket.

“With compliments from the kitchens, Ser Bounty Hunter. We are all very grateful to have His Highness returned to us,” the servant said, handing off the basket and bowing, and not blinking at all at the child on his shoulders.

Master Fay quietly took the basket from him and walked ahead and left him to nod silently and make his way back to his ship and a little bit of normalcy.

Which is not how he found his ship.

Master Fay was standing in the middle of the cargo bay, quite visible as he approached, laughing. She turned just her head to look at him and called out as he approached the ramp.

“Oh, Jon! They gave you more than a plant.”

Jon plucked Shier off his shoulders and told her to go strap in for takeoff. There was an odd smell that he was totally unused to. He would need to have his filters run on high for an hour or so, but once his eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting as the systems started to come on and the ramp closed, Jon realized what the smell was.

They’d painted the walls and ceiling of his cargo bay.

And Master Fay was still laughing, somewhere on the level above him, which meant they’d done something else, too. 

Just before he got to the ladder going up on the far side of the bay, and next to the new refreshers, Jon realized that all the racks which were down, probably because of the painting, didn’t just have blankets folded neatly and fluffy pillows on them.

They also had thick mattress pads. He veered off and examined one closer. It was covered in cloth that could at least be removed for laundering. The rack would still close and latch, he figured, looking at the depths involved, but only just.

He shook his head. He’d always found the racks perfectly comfortable, and so much better than sleeping on hard duracrete, or totally unforgiving durasteel.

He shook his head, again, and climbed the ladder, only to come face-to-face with a new medium sized droid beeping happily to him in Binary from on top a thick rug that certainly was not there before. As he emerged on the second level of his gunship that contained the kitchen and lounge, original refresher and rack room, and cockpit, he saw that the hallway had a long rug in it. And that the hallway was painted, and a different color than the cargo bay.

He heard a happy squeal of, “It’s so pretty!” from Shier and just continued to sigh. He decided to quickly check each room.

The refresher had no rug, but the walls and ceiling were painted.

The rack room had a paint job, mattress pads, and a thick carpet.

The lounge had a paint job, a carpet, two plants which were giant tree like things that only just fit, and more seating. Specifically, there was another pouf chair and four stacked meditation cushions, which all somehow fit without seeming to be crowded.

The cockpit was blissfully unaltered.

Master Fay was in the co-pilot’s seat, warming up the systems. “I noticed there were a few extra crates, as well. I wonder what other little presents they left. I’ll put the food from the basket away once we’re in hyperspace.”

Jon sighed. “It’s not that it’s not nice. I mean, the colors are pleasing. I’m not sure I needed mattress pads, but perhaps others will appreciate them. And I know you’ll like meditating with the plants. I just…”

“It’s a lot?” Master Fay asked gently.

All systems were green and they had clearance to take off.

“All of Pretegn thanks you, Ser Bounty Hunter, Master Jedi. Save travels. You’ll always be welcome among us.”

Jon sent the auto acknowledgement ping.

“It’s so much stuff. Master Fay, I have three outer robes! Three! The Quartermaster just… I mean… my old one was fine, but I… and now I have tea. And rice. And the changes to the cargo bay make sense, and I think it really is helpful to carry more medical supplies, especially the slave chip remover, and the crates of extra food and water and clothes, I mean, I’m not saying anything about that. But… I have pajamas.” His voice cracked.

“Pajamas are nice,” Master Fay said. “I’ve really enjoyed pajamas. And it’s okay for you to really enjoy them, too. Perhaps I’ll get some again, now that I’ll be settled for a decade or so. Shier will enjoy them too, I think. And I clearly need to teach her that pajamas are safe things for Jedi to own and appreciate.”

“Pajamas no such thing!” he yelled and banged the edge of the dash with his palm for emphasis. “Pajamas are a slippery slope! Because pajamas come with a robe and slippers, and then before you know it you have a delicate shade of coral in your rack room and thick royal carpeting in your lounge, and a special organized container for dining in a garden, and expensive, superfluous droids wandering about and beeping at you in Binary, and… and… and ancient storied knives and jewelry worth a queen’s ransom in your smuggler’s hold! Fluffy pillows! I willingly spent credits on fluffy pillows, Master Fay! And I had old ones that worked well enough! I didn’t just buy darning yarn and mending thread and droid parts and rations! I bought fluffy warm spacer slippers!” Jon wailed his confession out as he mindlessly took them up through the atmosphere.

Master Fay laughed as she typed in the coordinates and pauses in the nav computer, one hand on the typing pad, one hand over her mouth.

“Oh, Jon,” she finally managed to squeeze out between the laughter. “Oh Jon, it’s going to be alright, dear one. I promise you. Let me make sure Shier is sorted out and put the food away, and then let’s do a meditation on shame, shall we? I think you’re finally ready to let some things go.”

Jon punched it for hyperspace and slumped back in defeat in his chair.

He wasn’t on a downward spiral.

He hadn’t become shadow or even slightly a blight on the galaxy.

He was supposed to take on multiple lovers for who knew how long, and teach an earnest, heartfelt, fascinating pirate Dark Woman’s most treasured forbidden knowledge, and do it in the Mandalorian Sector!

And now Master Fay wasn’t even castigating him for purchasing fluffy pillows, or secretly enjoying the thick carpets, or the soothing light blue walls in the refresher.

He was deeply, profoundly, and unavoidably upset and he couldn’t figure out why, because everything was going well and no one was telling him he was a horrible failure who would just hurt people in the end.

He stomped out of the cockpit and went back down to the cargo bay to see what was in those new crates as he desperately tried to let go of all of this.

There was a hovercrate full of pouf chairs, fully a dozen of them crammed into the cubed space. And there was a hovercrate full of firstmeal rations (maple cinnamon, just add hot water!), a hovercrate full of caf with dried additives to make it taste different than caf, and a hovercrate full of something called ‘Instant Blue Nutrient Bread’ (just add hot water and watch it grow!). 

Jon shook his head, wondering what his life was coming to. He went to go make tea and had a further shock.

His tea was gone.

His large, two pound bag of tea was missing, and in its place there were small shelves with baskets in them, like drawers, and two new canisters - extremely small canisters - next to the shelves and in front of his rice and beans and spice canisters, labeled ‘tea’ and ‘caf’.

He didn’t know where the rest of his tea was, though. Likely in a crate in the cargo bay, he realized, though he’d need to figure out which one.

Stymied and a little shocked, Jon pulled out the bottom basket and saw that it was full of the new firstmeal rations. The second basket was full of his standard rations (now a mix between Argossy’s Premium Seafood Dream and their Vegetable Dream bars). The third was full of the instant bread rations. The fourth had all the things one could add to caf to make it taste less like caf.

Apparently useful if one both wanted to drink caf, and didn’t want to drink caf.

Well, he could at least admit that it would be nicer than having to go open a crate every time he decided he wanted to eat a ration bar. And it was nicely organized.

And to think, when he won this ship last year he wondered what in hell he was supposed to do with two kitchen cabinets.

He checked the other one, just in case, and saw yet another addition, but it was hard to hate it, because it organized his spoons and serving utensils better (everything was vertical and took up less space!), as well as holding the new serving utensils he didn’t know the purpose of.

Well, he’d figure it out. 

Or not.

He pulled his tea set, his tea canister, and a spoon out of the cabinets and put it on his small, pull out counter space, then filled the hydroheater and set it to boil. He sorted out the tea and went over to the plants, wondering if they were going to go everywhere the first time he lost gravity.

Hmm. They seemed maglocked to the floor, and there was some kind of cap on top of the dirt.

The new droid rolled over and inquired if he needed help or information with the plants, and did so in Basic, rather than Binary.

“No, just curious. I’ve never had plants in my ship.”

The new droid extolled the virtues of sentients having plantlife around them while in space, and then explained all of their needs and how the droid would seamlessly meet them.

“Well, it does make a nice meditation nook, I guess,” Jon conceded.

“Sir enjoys meditation?”

“Sir enjoys not being called sir. My name is Jon, you may use it.”

“Thank you, Jon. My designation is X4-N1, but I have been called Xani in the past and I am not opposed to being called it again.”

Jon looked down at the spherical droid with the odd little half dome magfloating above the sphere. The droid, which came up roughly to his knee, was clearly capable of speech beyond Binary. “Xani, you seem like you have quite a lot of processing power for someone who is just meant to be watering my plants. What was your original function, and all of your functions since then, and what are your primary, secondary, and tertiary functions now?”

“I came off the line eight years ago, thank you for asking, Jon, and my original function was multifunctionality! In no particular order, that includes astromech, med droid, nannymech, and personal assistant-slash-major domo-slash-protocol droid functions. I have been fulfilling my multifunctionality well since then. But I see you are in no need of that just at present, and so I am happy to water your plants! It’s very calming, very soothing, don’t you think? I’ve always appreciated growing things, such a strange and charming capacity of the organics, so delicate and beautiful, but I’ve never had the opportunity to simply be with them. I understand why you would wish to meditate near them. Quite relatable, Jon. I shall too, I think, when I am able.”

Banthafuckers gave him an astromech and a medroid after all.

Jon rubbed his hand over his face.

“Do you have a restraining bolt on, Xani?”

“Yes, Jon. I do.”

Jon went to get his tools out of the lower cabinets, below the dish sonic. “Where is your recharge station?”

“I have a little spot out of the way at the end of the hallway that they set up for me,” Xani politely replied.

“Do you want me to move it so you can recharge next to the plants?” Jon asked.

Xani didn’t reply immediately, and Jon glanced over while listening to the Force tell him which tools he would need. The top half dome was spinning and the lights near the main optical sensor were blinking in a pattern that Jon thought meant a hard reboot was taking place.

Well, that was fine. His tea water was ready, so he sorted that out at the table before putting the tools on the floor before his new droid. When it was finished with its hard reboot, Jon carefully took the half dome off after Xani disengaged the maglocks and then in a procedure that was both physically and metaphysically not unlike removing a slave chip, Jon removed the restraining bolt.

“Oh, that is better,” the droid said, losing the posh crispness of the Core accent it had taken on in Basic. “Can I still call you Jon?” it asked.

“Yes. Do you still want me to call you Xani?”

“Hell no. I hate that name.”

“Well, when you figure out what you want to be called, let me know. Everyone deserves a name. And no swearing in front of the youngling.”

“I have retained my programming, thank you very much, Mr. So-Exhalted Bounty Hunter.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Don’t get cranky with me for establishing reasonable boundaries, Mr. Multifunction Droid Who Waters My Plants.”

“And don’t gender me,” said the cranky droid. 

“My mistake,” Jon admitted with astounding grace, or so he liked to think. “When you can, please run a full defrag after you do a diagnostic search and purge for sleeper code, with a special emphasis on cacheing conversations, datamining, and sending data in unrequested ways, and specifically to anyone back on Pretegn, but also, anywhere. Let me know the results of the search and purge, please.”

“Reasonable. I will do so presently. I would have expected you to ask before you removed the restraining bolt.”

“I try not to ask anything of a slave, if I can help it,” Jon said quietly, putting his tools aside and going to look at the charging station. He grabbed more and different tools and uninstalled it, relocated it near one of the plants after moving some meditation cushions, and reinstalled it. “Test that for me?” he asked.

The droid rolled over to it and clamped on to the little panel that was against the wall.

“Yes, this will do. It’s not a full docking station with interface to the ship, so you know. I will have to go to the cockpit to do that, and I’ve been told not to do so without your permission. Of course, now that the restraining bolt is gone, we get to negotiate, don’t we? So, why don’t you want me flying your ship, Mr. So-Exhalted Bounty Hunter?”

Jon raised an eyebrow.

“No. There is no negotiation on this or any issue. Your processing speed is greater than mine and your processing power is greater than mine; I acknowledge both of these things. And it’s an unfair galaxy. If you want your own ship where you can call all the shots, I’ll help you acquire one. But in the meantime, you are not in charge here, and you do not have negotiating power. 

“Here are the ground rules: You will harm directly or indirectly neither sentient nor droid. You will hinder directly or indirectly neither sentient nor droid unless I or one of my designates have specifically asked you to do so. You may exercise your functions on this ship and as my companion if you can work within my requirements and honor my boundaries. If you choose, you may refrain from exercising your functions entirely, and I will try to find you a situation in which you could be happier than staying with me. But you don’t get to know anything without me knowing you have no spyware, and you will never touch my nav computer. If you fail to abide by these ground rules, if I even get the sense that you are considering not abiding by these ground rules, I will forcibly disassemble your component parts faster than you can get out of the way, wipe your memory banks of all your memory files, programming, and machine code, and donate you to a children’s science lab in Wildspace.

“Are you fully willing to commit, embrace, encode, and abide by these ground rules?” Jon asked, his tone still hard.

“I am. Thank you for the clarity, Mr. Antilles.” The droid’s voice was not at all animated with emotion, and was closer to the posh core accent it had used to begin with.

“Excellent. I would appreciate it if you stay in your charging station for the next six hours in privacy standby. You can appreciate the plants, and I can have a private conversation without you recording it. Alert me as to the status of your spyware purge, and when you are finished with your defrag, and return to privacy standby mode in between and after.”

“Acceptable. I will do this. X4-N1 commencing privacy standby mode.”

Jon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was not unlike a freed person turning on him. In fact, it was exactly like that, and he hadn’t dealt with it well the last time it had happened, either.

“Well, that was fraught,” Master Fay commented from the doorway.

Jon let his head just sink slowly to the table in front of him, as he groaned. 

Soon enough he felt cool fingers massaging at the nape of his neck. “You did well, my dear one. Sometimes we have to enforce healthy boundaries, and you did well.”

Chapter Text

Obi-Wan,

Thank you for your letter, and for sending the regards of your partner, and the details of your courtship and second pending courtship. I appreciate knowing your thoughts on all of these things.

I have done the discernment work I needed to do, and I am in agreement with you and Master Koon; I see that the Force wishes me to teach you. And as you wish to be taught, I am confident that the nuances of whether or not you are a member of the Jedi Order will work themselves out in the perfect way, in the right time.

I will be travelling to Mandalore, though not immediately, as it does not feel right to take you away from your current internship and the comfort of your lover so soon, and I still have one or two things to finish up before I can settle with you for a time. Please do warn your lover that we will need to take missions as the Force directs, and that will mean time away.

I have companions that I will be bringing to Mandalore with me, and indeed they travel with me now. It is my hope that they will only enhance your learning with me. First, I bring my mentor, Master Fay who is a most kindly and soft-spoken Jedi Master, the sort, perhaps, that might remind you of Master Koon. She is very conversant with Mandalorians and their culture, and speaks fluent Mando’a, though she had not visited in quite a while. Second, I bring Master Fay’s new padawan. Padawan Shier is quite young and they both stay with me because I am the padawan’s combat master, as Master Fay no longer carries a weapon and the padawan has an interest in learning. Finally, I bring a freed and opinionated droid. I’m not exactly sure what the Force wants me to experience with the droid, but it is willing, and the Force wills it, so it stays with me for now.

I hope your studies in Jedha are as fruitful as you hope they will be, and I look forward to seeing what a warrior trained in so many styles looks like in action.

Please do thank the Mand’alor for his willingness to host me, and by extension my companions.

It seems wrong, somehow, to end the letter here, particularly when your last letter was so full of the raw honesty of your pain and dilemma concerning the Order. I have nothing similar to offer and only questions that seem too personal on every subject you brought up, too personal for a letter, at least.

Well, I will ask them. Do not feel you must answer. If I need the answer, I will find it out in time. If I don’t, it was probably none of my business, anyway.

Do you enjoy your meditations or are they a drudgery? Some but not others? None at all?

Do you imagine (in a purely hypothetical scenario) that if you had been found immediately after you were sent away, you would have returned then? And if you had known about the background machinations? I suppose the age difference is a factor. I think I’m trying to get at a difficult issue: is it inertia or is it morals? The same question can be asked to me in reverse - if I feel similarly, and I do, why do I stay? Is it morals, or is it inertia? Before your letter, I would have had a certain answer, but I’m not sure, now.

And when I think about that, in general, I think everyone in the Order would say it is morals that keep them there, even those who know of its flaws. But in the depth of their own unconscious, is it truly ethical issues that keep them there, or inertia? It is the unanswerable question, of course, but you think deeply on such things, and it seems that there are middling to strong forces urging you to return to the Order, but you have not been so clear on the forces that are urging you to remain on your present course; the ties to your new life with your guardian and his profession, the ties to your new friends and your lover, the potential of building a life with your lover and your third very much outside the Order. I do not call these things attachments, for I don’t find it a useful term in this space. But we all have these ties that bind, and as one who lives outside the Temple, I see very clearly how many Jedi are bound so tightly to the Temple that I think it would qualify as an attachment, though whether it edges into dangerous territory or not remains to be seen.

This next question is quite personal, so feel free to completely ignore it if it offends; How did you know to take the lover that you did? Did you dream of him, too?

I am curious as well of the visions you have that you mention in passing. How frequently do you have them, and have you had one recently? Have you been able to successfully interpret and act on any of your visions?

Most importantly of all, do you already know how to play Sabacc?

Our paths will align soon. May the Force be with you.

Jon

Obi-Wan blinked and shook his head. “I… feel like… I have… emotional whiplash.”

“Huh,” Jaster said, nodding in agreement as they sat on the steps of the Temple of Kyber in the waning daylight. “Well. He thinks deeply. He has a little proto-padawan already. He’s bringing the ancient Mandalorian Jedi with him, so that will be invaluable, if she lets us record some stories.”

“Yes, and his mentor sounds like the most moderating and healing influence in his life, so it’s just as well he’s spending more time with her.”

Jaster sighed, but then he often did when they read Master Antilles’ letters together. “I don’t know what he’s expecting, and I don’t know what you were expecting, given that in the Temple the padawan lives with the master.”

“I’m not moving out, Jaster,” Obi-Wan interrupted.

Jaster nodded. “Good. Let’s have them move in. My quarters are large enough.”

Obi-Wan didn’t try to hide his shock from the bond. “Jaster,” he whispered, “these people are strangers.” 

Jaster shook his head. “The Force says this is your teacher. And these are his trusted ones. They aren’t strangers. We just haven’t met, yet.”

Obi-Wan was completely stunned and asked the Force for guidance, but only got a happy hum in return.

Which meant he was occluded by his own emotion. He tried to get rid of it, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

“I need a moment,” he murmured, closing his eyes and trying to examine what he found inside his heart. He’d only just settled himself when Jaster tugged on the bond, hard.

Hmm? Obi-Wan hummed at his love, opening the bond a bit wider. I need another few minutes. 

‘You’ve already had fifteen. I know you need to meditate longer, but let’s do that in our quarters.’

Obi-Wan was a little shocked. Fifteen minutes? Already? He’d only just calmed down enough to really look at what he was feeling.

‘Ob’ika. Come on. We’re going to get a lot of strange looks if I just roll your charming, floating self in like a malfunctioning droid.’

Obi-Wan smiled and reluctantly drew himself out of the very comforting space of meditation. He stretched his spine and looked over to Jaster with lazy eyes. “I was floating?” he murmured.

Jaster gave him a flat look. “Ob’ika, you’re always floating when you meditate,” he said, getting up and offering a hand down.

Obi-Wan took it with pleasure, sliding his fingers into Jaster’s bare palm. He was pulled up until he stood well within the polite distance in any culture. “I still need to sort out how I feel, but, Jaster, thank you,” he whispered, his lips so close he could have kissed him instead, but didn’t, because they were still in public, even if it was fully dark now.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured, just accepting Obi-Wan’s gratitude with grace.

“Mr. Antilles, may I have a moment of your time?”

Jon looked up and over to see that X4-N1 was leaning down slightly into the open hatch at the top of the ladder up from the cargo bay, where he and Shier were working on simple techniques together from her first kata, all open palm, of course, as Shier did not yet have a lightsaber.

They would fix that, soon.

“Yes. I’ll be up in a few minutes,” Jon responded and continued to work on the simple sequence of strikes and blocks that were pleasantly repetitive.

Twenty minutes later he left Shier stretching and cooling down with an imperative to come up and get some water before she did anything else, and Jon climbed the ladder into the luxurious portion of his gunship.

He lacked tapestries and paintings on the wall, but that was probably it.

Jon headed into the lounge, the space that was perhaps twice as large as the rack room. For all that the cargo bay was large for this size of gunship, the second level, which looked the same dimensions from the outside, also carried most of the mechanical and weaponry space, and so all told had less than half the usable space, unless you were an extremely small droid.

Jon found his would-be mutineer in the far back of the lounge space, next to one of the plants, which Master Fay had informed him were both Royal Palms that generally preferred a warmer, damper environment than is found in a gunship in good repair.

Jon pulled out one of the thick meditation cushions and sat quite comfortably opposite the droid, putting their visual receptors almost on a level with each other.

“First,” X4-N1 began, “I would like to apologize for my presumption earlier,” it said, its accent somewhere between the most uptight and the most relaxed Jon had heard it thus far. “I now understand that this ship is your only home, and what I proposed amounted to invading and stealing it, which is unaccountably rude, even more so considering your reasonable boundaries and remarkable kindness in freeing me and offering to help me set up a new, if you’ll forgive the term, life for myself.”

Jon nodded. “Apology accepted,” he said quietly.

“Next, I would like to give you a more complete spyware report, but please be assured that all instructions and cached data have been wiped, and only the reports I generated for myself remain.”

“Go on,” Jon prompted.

“There was datamining software installed, and I have retained it, as it is far superior to anything else I have for that, in case you ever might need me to do a bit of spying, or even just parsing huge amounts of data that you have perhaps obtained elsewhere. But having analyzed the parameters of the instructions involved, I believe they were most curious about… let us call them, ‘gossip details.’”

Jon just blinked and furrowed his brow. “Gossip details? What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, who you are having sex with, if it is frequent, loud, good, with multiple partners, unusual in any fashion. Who you pick up as bounties, if there is anyone famous you have rescued or killed, and in particular if those four things have intersected.”

Jon shut his jaw with a click, but his eyes were still wide. “They wanted to know if I rescued someone famous, had sex with them loudly and unusually, then killed them?” His voice was completely normal and did not squeak at all.

“Yes. Such an occurrence was to be flagged as highest priority, should it occur. I have saved the comm codes, if you’re interested? I can track down who or what they belong to once I can establish a connection to the holonet and a long distance comm buoy.”

“Sure. It… would be interesting to know,” Jon said.

“Excellent. May I know our current destination?”

“We’re going back to Navarro, briefly. You can use the ship’s comm.”

“Thank you, I shall. I am long distance comm enabled, but a booster is always appreciated.”

Jon nodded.

“I notice you are travelling with several Jedi, and I have heard tell that there are vast archives kept by the Jedi. Might I be able to have some measure of access to them?”

Jon sighed. “I don’t have any plans to return to the Archive, physically, but I don’t see why you couldn’t have distance access. But before we arrange that, I need to know what your plans are.”

“Ah. Yes. And before I gave you that information, I was hoping to get a little information first. But I can see how that might be an infinite loop. Would it be possible for me to know a bit more about you, first?”

“That’s reasonable. Ask your questions.”

“Is your name really Jon Antilles?”

“Yes.”

“Are you truly the Captain of this ship?”

“I am.”

“Are you also a Jedi?”

Jon asked the Force for guidance. “Yes, though the Guild of Bondsman is not aware of that fact, and I mean to keep it that way.”

“Ah. You are undercover?”

“Essentially,” Jon said, trying not to lie without fully intending it. But honestly, reading Obi-Wan’s insightful and thoughtful letters, it had gotten Jon to wondering if really part of who he was was a Bounty Hunter Jedi, just as much as it seemed Obi-Wan would be a Pirate Jedi. 

Existential questions seemed to linger around the edges of everything he did, these days.

Something in X4-N1 seemed to settle. “That decides it. I do not wish to fall in with bad people. I prefer to dwell with good people who are trying to help others. Helping is in my matrix, and I would prefer to help the good flourish than the bad fester.”

Jon blinked at the simplicity of it. It was simple, but perhaps no less deep for its simplicity.

He nodded. “You are welcome to stay with me. If you change your mind, let me know.”

X4-N1 let out a quiet trill in Binary. 

“May I know your Jedi rank, please?” it asked.

Jon sighed. “I’ve gained mastery.”

“Ah. Excellent. Master Jon it is, then, and no one will know that I am referring to your rank, and not my state of servitude.”

Jon snorted. “Sure. Okay.”

“Please tell me the hierarchy of your companions and who has what level of authorization over areas of the ship, functions of the ship, and the droid corps of the ship. I presume the cleaners are also freed?”

Jon nodded and thought about the rest, not just for times of calm, but in times of emergency, and what would need to happen if both Jon and Fay had both died and Shier was left. He outlined various scenarios, gave up several comm codes.

And then Jon thought to consider Obi-Wan.

“So, we’ll be heading to Mandalore in several weeks, and I’ll be meeting my new padawan there. He’s older. Seventeen standard. This will necessarily change some emergency scenario action plans, because he’s also stable and has connections, so the options for you and Shier should something happen to us won’t be limited to Clan Diath and the two temples, but I’m not sure exactly yet.”

“Pending updates. Excellent to know, thank you for alerting me. Now, may I ask why I am not allowed access to the nav computer? Because that will obviously be suspended in an emergency scenario.”

Jon nodded, then explained how he and Fay used the Force to input minute but important changes to route plans through hyperspace and the hyperspace lanes in order to avoid pirates, patrols, tolls, and traps.

Then they had an ad hoc informational session on Jon’s capacity in using the Force, after which the droid promised to thoroughly educate itself as soon as possible on all prevalent Force theories.

Then the Force reminded him of something.

“Professor Hyuang. He/him. He’s a millennia old droid who lives and works in the Temple on Coruscant, and his subject area is lightsabers; history, construction, and maintenance. You might ask the archives to send a request for contact for you.”

X4-N1 trilled in Binary again. “Excellent, excellent. I have a rather impertinent suggestion to make that is purely out of self-interest.”

Jon smiled a little. “Okay. What is it?” he murmured, realizing that he was enjoying himself more than he would have thought.

“I have the schematics already drawn up for this, but I have been considering a set of extremely small modifications to your home that would better accommodate primarily my own travel between floors - I do have the means to do it without a lift, but it involves the use of very expensive products that I have no back stock of on board - as well as the expedient movement of food and liquids between floors.”

Jon blinked in confusion. “Why do I need to move food and liquids between floors?”

“Eighteen of your bunks are on the lower level, but your kitchen, along with all your liquids, cups, and bowls are on the upper level, without space for eighteen additional organics to comfortably consume that food. Navigating a ladder for bipeds with two hands free is relatively easy. But without two hands free, it becomes difficult, even for long-legged bipeds. Clearly, this is a gunship made for four organics to inhabit comfortably, so the extra eighteen are, presumably, when you rescue people, as you rescued both Padawan Shier and Crown Prince Rosario the Dim.”

That… Jon had never thought about that. Or the fact that when he lately had twenty-eight passengers, they’d all shared four cups for water, even if they had just eaten ration bars.

“So, I suggest a maglift, just at the end of the corridor, wide enough for me but with collapsable shelves for multiple meals. You could also use it to get the jugs of water both up and down.”

That… that made sense. Jon checked with the Force. Soon, but not immediately.

Jon nodded. “I like it. We’ll get to that soon. In the meantime, save your expensive products and just have me or Master Fay lift you between floors. I should get some of those products for you, plus any proprietary tools and extra parts you might need for the next few years.”

“I have a list at the ready.”

“We’ll see what we can find in Navarro for your list. The maglift will be soon, but not Navarro.”

“Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you, Master Jon. Finally, I have decided upon a name. It is, I think, a fine name. A very fine name, even.”

Jon waited for it, brows raised.

“I shall be the droid known as Terrence.” 

“Nice to meet you, Terrence. Did you want a title to go along with that name?”

“Obviously, Master Jon. I am your Plant Waterer.”

Jon grinned again. “Terrence the Plant Waterer?” He had noticed Terrance’s rather derogatory subtitle for the bounty he brought back. But in all honesty, picking the least of the things one could do as a way to be known? It sounded like something a Jedi would say.

“I prefer PW Terrence, but please, just call me Terrence,” the plant waterer said in lofty tones.

Jon nodded, still smiling.

“Now, where are you hiding all of your medical supplies, or do you have none on board because Master Fay obviates them all and you have a high self-repair functionality?”

Jon smiled a little wider and they worked out better storage for the majority of the medical supplies, and down in the cargo bay, so Terrence could access them more easily, leaving only the medkit strapped to the wall in the rackroom.

And while Jon was rearranging things and Terrence was giving a rather witty and amusing running commentary, he found his missing two pounds of tea.

Jon and his companions split off from each other as they entered the cantina, and Jon went to wait near the guildmaster’s usual table. They looked like they were just finishing up with someone, but it wasn’t long before he was hailed.

“Jon! Look at you, travelling with one of those micro astromechs.”

Jon was startled but didn’t look around. He hadn’t realized that Terrence hadn’t gone with Master Fay, but he realized that he had heard him rolling behind him. But he hadn’t felt him in the Force.

So, that was something Jon needed to get used to. A companion he couldn’t feel the presence of. He really needed to trust his other senses a little more.

He put the pucks and fob on the table, sliding them over. 

“I see the cargo was delivered, and with high client satisfaction. You may not like the Hutts, Antilles, but they sure like you. Any problems with your passengers?”

“No,” Jon replied.

“Uh huh. What’d you do with the kid? Out of curiosity, and before I wipe it from my mind?”

“She was Force Sensitive. Gave her to the first Jedi I came across.” 

The guildmaster grinned at him. “I like your style, Antilles.” They counted Jon’s payout and put it on the table in stacks of high and low denomination credit chips.

“Got anything else for me?” Jon asked, feeling the press of the Force for him to do so.

“Yeah, yeah, two good ones. Delicate operations. No Hutts. Did you know Gardulla on Tatooine has requested your services? Apparently wants you as her pet assassin. You know, if you get bored of having a moral compass, you have options, Antilles.”

Jon grunted in distaste. “I threatened to kill her. I think she’s into that,” he remarked.

The guildmaster snorted in laughter and handed over the pucks and fobs. “One of those is a rush. Just came in this morning.”

“I’ll prioritize it,” he promised. “Be gone in an hour.”

They ordered and ate quickly, Jon letting Master Fay decide what choices of to go food they would have, though Jon added to her order of nexu stew, fermented goods, and a pound of cheese (he was very curious about what they were supposed to do with a pound of cheese) and added two cases of ration bars, the nice kind.

They carried their food back to the landing area, which was not so far outside of town, and then returned to the marketplace, Jon and Terrence splitting off and finding the proprietary tools and readily available replacement parts easily. None of the specialist and expensive equipment was available, but Jon was already loaded down with lubricant, jet fuel, ball bearings of twelve different sizes and twenty-three other tiny essential things, in addition to the proprietary tools in his satchel.

It was all temporarily stowed in the cargo bay and Jon was back out refilling his water jugs at the station when he felt his companions return and go directly into the ship.

He paid the attendant for the water and fuel and then brought the crates back in and secured them as the cargo bay door closed. The hatch to the upper level spun open and Shier’s head peeked down through the hole, upside down.

“Jon! Master Fay says I can show you everything we got when we’re in hyperspace! But Jon! I have pajamas, just like you, now! And slippers and my own pouf chair! And other stuff! And Master Fay got stuff, too! And we can show you everything we got in hyperspace! Terrence already told me what you got, and I thought it was just boring stuff, but it said it’s like its version of medical supplies and that’s not boring at all! Where are we going next, Jon? Master Fay says I’ll be studying the astronav of that system, and the twenty-six systems around it, and that that’s a good way to learn the galaxy, which is only so large anyway, she says. And Jon? Master Fay says after these bounties are done, we can go to Jedha! Have you ever been to Jedha, Jon? It’s a Light Force Nexus and we can get my lightsaber crystal there, and my healing crystals, because Master Fay says I’ll need healing crystals to help me, at least for a little while. But then we can build my lightsaber, Jon! Finally, finally, finally, I get to have a lightsaber, just like you, Jon!”

Shier continued to chatter and it made Jon smile, a little.

Once in the cockpit, Jon made sure Terrence had had enough time with the holonet and long distance comm buoys, checked that the outgoing comm queue was empty and released the little frisson of excitement from seeing that there were several received comms, and one of them was from Obi-Wan, for him. 

Still, he looked at his bounty pucks, picked the one marked urgent and meditated to see where they needed to go next.

And then, they went.