Work Text:
36 BBY
It may be safely said that most sentient beings in the galaxy have never laid eyes (nor any other equivalent sensory organ) upon a Jedi, at least not knowingly, and may well live out the rest of their lives before they ever do. And yet amidst the rumors and half-truths and superstitions that must inevitably shroud any order that shares little of itself and seeks no glory, some portions of the Jedi reputation are at least deserved. Such as this: that the life of a Jedi is all duty, all the time.
Well, almost all.
Then there are those smaller spans of time that go a little more like this: two padawan learners fresh off an eleven-day wilderness survival course with their fellow trainees, two masters in-system at a convenient time to scoop them up before their course group had quite set out to return to the Temple, and another sixteen hours left before any of them need to be well on their way to anywhere.
It is evening on this world, just past the warm part of its year, the air cool enough now that coats have been dug out of the supplies from the masters' last mission. The careful fire is the girls' work - mostly Bultar's, for she is younger, and perhaps a little proud of what she's learned. Plo sits beside it, cross-legged on the lingering remains of summer grass, a damaged datapad sitting open on his knee while he prods idly at its wounded insides by the unsteady light. The padawans have scrambled back into the ship to scrounge up a water filter and a few other things to replace what their temporary instructors had packed up and taken home; for now, it is quiet again. There is only the fire, and Plo, and the datapad, and the shorter, stouter human man seated nearby comfortably doing nothing in particular. Contemplating the universe, perhaps.
Micah glances over at his work. "Pretty sure that thing's past saving, Plo."
Or perhaps not.
He grunts. "Probably. But I'd rather we have two working pads than one for the rest of this trip, if it can be helped."
Humans are one of those species whose eyes come in many colors. Micah's are green, and tend to look half a shade brighter when he is up to mischief. "You should have thought of that before you threw that poor Rodian fellow into the table."
"I didn't see you stepping in to gracefully solve all our problems."
"What, and leave you with nothing to do? If I make you look too useless they'll stop giving you missions entirely."
Plo does not look up from the stubborn tangle of components, but huffs a deep hrrmph sound into his mask. "Maybe then I could get through the day with a working datapad."
"Heh. Maybe so. You certainly can't seem to manage it now." A minute or so passes in peace, to the sounds of the fire and occasional distant wildlife. "What is taking those kids so long?"
"Perhaps," Plo offers, all thoughtful innocence, "I should have waited to tell them you wanted to cook dinner. They might be trying to start the ship."
"Watch it. Your cooking's no better."
"At least I've never injured myself or others trying to prepare a meal."
"That business with the live squirmer latching on to my face? That was on purpose and you know it."
"So you say."
Micah is leveling that up-to-mischief look at him again, he's certain of it. Never mind the Force; he can practically hear it in every word. "Besides, if we're bringing that up, I could talk about the things I've seen you put in people's food-"
"-at your insistence."
"You still did it. Take some responsibility for your actions, Master Koon."
If Plo were not a Jedi, and therefore certainly above such petty antics, he might have bounced the little wiring tool off his friend's shoulder. As it is, he raises his head and gives the man a positively withering glare that his goggles do absolutely nothing to conceal. Not in present company, anyway; the two of them have been doing this for years. But before Plo can find the retort he wants, there is a faint clatter from the direction of the ship and the two masters turn their heads in unison, the back-and-forth for the moment forgotten.
"I'm sensing a disturbance in the Force."
As is Plo, though not the sort that warrants bolting to his feet with saber lit. No, the abstract impression coming most clearly from his own padawan, Lissarkh, is rather more like... "I do believe they've broken something."
A smile slowly spreads across Micah's face. "Theyyy've broken something."
"Hm. Perhaps they were trying to start the ship."
"Oh, be still. You know, I'll bet you anything it was that one supply locker-"
Plo's eyebrows raise. "The one that was already broken?"
"The one that was already broken because some upstanding citizen was fighting in the ship? Yes, that one."
They contemplate this possibility for a moment.
"Do you suppose, if it is," Micah continues, "we should tell them that happened?"
"Well this is a planet for learning survival lessons. Dealing with...unexpected crises..." A vague clawed wave.
"One of these days I'm going to tell people that you're actually a terrible man and I don't know why I talk to you."
"You mean you haven't been doing that behind my back already? Micah, I'm touched."
Whatever answer was coming is interrupted by further faint clattering, and after a brief expression-contorting struggle to not succumb to undignified laughter Micah says instead "All right, that's it, I can't let this continue. I'm going to go rescue them."
The human stands, closes his eyes and takes a deep, steadying breath until he is entirely straightfaced again. Yet his eyes, when he opens them, still distinctly say I am up to no good whatsoever. "Children!" he calls out pleasantly. "What did you break?"
"Now which of us is a terrible man?" Plo mutters at Micah's retreating back, and returns to his work on the datapad. Which probably is past saving, after all. But it is something to do, and satisfying in his hands, and it will be a few minutes yet before anyone returns anyway.
It is good, this small span of time, this cool and quiet evening on this cool and quiet world. It is also impermanent, of course. It will end, as things do. The four of them will eat their dinner and get some sleep and tomorrow they will leave this planet behind. He and Micah will complete the second half of their mission, learners in tow. They will return then to Coruscant, and life will be Council meetings and training and then missions again, off to somewhere else, unless the Force wills otherwise. Years will pass. The girls will grow up - Force willing! - and go off on their own, with their own padawans. This good moment will end and those other moments will come, and some of those moments will also be good.
It would seem that old Plo Koon is the one who has found himself contemplating the universe tonight. Well, that's fine. It is a good moment. He will remember it, as he remembers many.
He senses them coming back before he hears them, and hears footsteps before words, and looks up. Ah, there they are: little dark-haired Bultar, all of fourteen, and his own blunt-snouted padawan Lissarkh, whose shoulders might well be as tall and broad as his own in another year or two. And Micah, of course, looking entirely innocent, which if the girls were wiser they would recognize immediately as a warning sign.
"Well, Plo, you wouldn't believe it, but our padawans were so looking forward to a proper dinner that one of them apparently ripped a supply locker door right off its hinges. Like hungry rancors, these kids."
Lissarkh and Bultar, trailing quietly behind with various necessities for preparing food in the field, look equally mortified. It is anyone's guess which of them did it, but a safe bet that both were scrambling to fix the locker before it was noticed.
Plo tsks behind his mask, resolutely not smiling, lest it show around his eyes, past his goggles, and spoil things. "Over Master Giiett's cooking? Padawans, I thought the instructors were supposed to have seen to it you were fed at least once while you were out here."
There is no harm in it, of course. Soon enough the girls will know they aren't in any trouble. They will huff and act scandalized, and perhaps complain, but they will also not soon forget this lesson that one should never leap to conclusions about the cause of a situation. Such is the nature of padawans: if you love them, you must trick them, from time to time.
"Here, master," Lissarkh says quietly after she has set down her burden and circled the fire to his side, meek and embarrassed even as she towers over him, two more small tools held out in her broad, scaly palm. "Since I was in there anyway, I thought these might help. With the datapad."
"Thank you, Lissarkh." He accepts them with all proper solemnity. She truly is a good apprentice, and a thoughtful girl, and he is entirely proud of her, for all that he's still not about to have mercy just yet. "Before I get back to it - will I be needed for anything?"
"Oh no. You trash talk my cooking, you can just sit there and contemplate how much of it I'm about to make you eat."
"...is it too late for me to go start the ship?"
"So help me, I will walk right back in there and disable the engines."
"May the Force be with us all," Plo murmurs ominously, and begins prodding at the datapad's components again.
So the evening goes, for a time. The padawans mind the fire and clean and cut apart the fish they caught earlier and other such survival skills as they've practiced on this planet, and Micah does whatever it is he's trying to do with the food, and he and Plo snipe at one another occasionally, and Plo makes no further progress on the broken datapad at all.
Later, dinner. Eating normally in this atmosphere (rather than yet another round of heavily-supplemented protein shakes through a tube) is a minor ordeal for him, but he has had many, many years to master holding his breath while eating, for a moment or two at a time. One must always be able to adapt to the situation, after all, and he certainly wasn't about to miss out on something the padawans had been so eager to do. Also if he is to be honest, the field ration shakes are dreadful.
It is during a lull in conversation about the adventures of the survival course, while he is busy eating some sort of chopped root with his mask in his lap, that Micah idly says "Bultar, where did I leave the salt?"
"I saw it earlier, master - here."
"Thank you. Also, Plo broke that locker two days ago."
Bultar chokes on a piece of fish, and Lissarkh's blunt-snouted head whips around to face Plo so quickly it is a wonder she does not make herself dizzy. "Master!"
Plo has too much training and self-control to laugh while holding his breath in a high-oxygen atmosphere, though really the worst he'd get from a breath or two is mild irritation, like sniffing at something caustic. But even so, the small black tusks at the ends of his mandibles are trembling with mirth, and he snatches up his mask to cover his mouth perhaps a bit more quickly than he did before.
"Come now, padawan," Micah is saying, now that Bultar has recovered. "You knew he and I were out on a mission while you took this course, and that we came directly here. You saw him playing with the sad wreckage of that datapad all evening, which should tell you that either things got a little interesting out there or he wasn't paying attention and sat on it. And then something in the ship we were using just falls apart on you far more easily than it should...and you don't look at it more closely, or examine anything else in there for signs of damage, or think about any other possibility before you decide one of you was at fault? I don't know what Master Koon teaches his students, but I know I taught you to be more observant than that," he scolds gently, reaching over and lightly tugging on her braid for emphasis. Bultar's cheeks puff out at him in a human expression of aggravation with her troublesome master, but she apparently can find no argument.
Plo is careful to breathe only through his mouth when he speaks; the slender nostril plugs are still dangling free from the sides of his mask as he holds it to his mouth. "And despite what Master Giiett seems to think, Lissarkh, I taught you the same."
He is smiling, of course, and it shows around his eyes, past his goggles, and even as Lissarkh huffs and sputters through her long teeth and can find no argument either he knows that she will understand the lesson, and forgive him for it. Such is the nature of padawans.
It is good, this small span of time, this cool and quiet evening on this cool and quiet world. It is also impermanent, of course. It will end, as things do.
But it is a good moment nonetheless, and he will remember it.