A Wet, Pretentious Story ch. 97 - 100

[pronker]

 

Part Ninety-Seven

The morning of the Republic Day Jedi Annual Picnic and Open Temple Tour dawned with its usual golden and pink glory. Not only was Obi-Wan feeling better after recovering from his bout with intoxication, he was looking forward to seeing Quinlan Vos, who was returning for a brief leave before shipping out again.

After completing his Morning Wood kata with a luxurious stretch, Obi-Wan found both hands trembling at the expectation of seeing his friend and so he accessed Luminara's revised directive, breathing deeply. "I am Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master, Councilmember, Padawan of Qui-Gon Jinn, Master of Anakin Skywalker," he said aloud. "I am the Negotiator. These things are all that I need be in the Force. I do not need to feel any deeper than I must to be effective, and if I do, I will not be effective. For the Force's, Anakin's, my own, and the Order's sake ... " I like this sequence better.

Anakin entered from the 'fresher, toweling his hair. "Hangover?" he asked in a considerate whisper. Obi-Wan had used the Force in some unusual ways yesterday.

"None."

Anakin sat on the edge of the bed, his weight pressing the covers against his Master's outline. He continued to dry his hair to have something to do; it wasn't as if his bristles needed it. "Master, you Force-leaped from the mezzanine level of the Temple yesterday."

"I was under the influence of the Tatooni Junko ale, and the operative word here is 'Force'; I sustained no injury."

"Well, I did. Twisted my ankle while I was chasing you down the thoroughfare. What were you after, anyway?" Anakin dropped the towel on the bed in a soggy heap, but Obi-Wan didn't complain.

"I heard the frozen confection vendor's transport and I wanted something cold to suck on after sojourning in desert heat, that's all."

"Oh. Sorry you couldn't catch up to it."

"As am I, but the Phlog female kin-group with their prams got in my way." There are no ugly babies, there are no ugly babies ...

"I'll bring you some Herglic algae ice cream at the picnic today ... waaaaaiiiit a minute. How did you hear the transport's tinkling in the Temple, from inside Master Lu's office? I didn't hear it."

Yes, how did I? Obi-Wan's voice remained smug. "As a Master, there are a few things I haven't told you yet, Anakin. Something for you to look forward to."

Obi-Wan swung his legs around Anakin's bottom, sat up and pulled on his undergarments, having no trouble fastening the underarm seams with his right hand, Anakin noticed. Anakin stood up and retrieved the towel from the bed; he wasn't in the mood for another towel-snapping game. "What is that?" he asked, spying a parcel with Another Fine Custom-fitted Item From Eastport's Customizing Boutique, Located Inside The Spacers' Lounge, Which Customizes YOUR Shopping And Intoxicant Experience blaring from its otherwise tasteful white chipboard surface.

Obi-Wan clutched the large box to his chest protectively, then sighed. "It was a surprise for you. Close your eyes." Anakin closed his eyes, hearing provocative rustling, the sliding of cloth against something slicker, like nerf leather. His imagination danced overtime. "Open them." Anakin did. Fully clothed, arms akimbo, Obi-Wan had a sly grin on his face. "Like them?"

Boots. New white boots, made from something softer and thinner than the Quartermaster's issue, graced Obi-Wan's feet. Like in the vision, the cobbler's offering that looked in the beginning like Jedi standard-issue, but which I see now are flagrantly, outrageously non-standard. "Gorgeous!" Obi-Wan did a step-slide-slide-kick and the fringe folding over just below his knees swayed enticingly. Unifying Force, I'm getting better at perceiving you. "Shall we be off, then?"

"I'll bring our covered dish."

xxxxx

"Knight Kenobi!"

Dimmie and Beebar and some unfamiliar teens of varying species, one carrying a holocamera with its primary tail, trooped up to Obi-Wan and Anakin's blanket. To the Jedi's delight, the youthfully-dressed tourists smiled and bowed gracefully. Beebar's sporty cape flapped in the afternoon breeze. "I'm sorry we didn't visit sooner. Coruscant's busier than we thought. I get to park speeders at the Outlander. Some of them even have orbital capability, and they pay me for it!" He looked astounded at his good fortune.

"Coruscant's so big!" chirped Dimmie. "I found work right away. I even served at a banquet and guess who was there!" She didn't wait for an answer. "The Supreme Chancellor!"

Anakin looked away at the crowd. It was larger than he'd ever seen at one of these things, Jedi mixing with other Republic citizens freely. We're still here, Palpatine, sir. You didn't kill us. He summoned up a smile for Dimmie's enthusiasm, if nothing else. "That's nice."

"Y'see, he'd dropped his zog and I handed it back to him ever so nicely meself --- "

"Dimmie, what's that you have there?" Obi-Wan broke in. Some variety of comestibles would be welcome, because Jocasta Nu had misorganized their Masters' section of the potluck and everyone had brought protato salad.

Dimmie squatted and placed a plasticine bowl on their blanket, nestling it in amidst the bags of cracknuts and puffpackets of muja juice. She thumbed open its seal and beamed with pride. "It's me mother's recipe, though I did have to substitute ingredients some."

It was nutrient paste, almost glowing in heaps of purple sludge. "Dive in!" Beebar said cheerfully. All the teens stuck a finger or tentacle into the goo, sucking lustily at the mucilaginous paste. Obi-Wan and Anakin followed suit. It was demolished in minutes.

Obi-Wan shaded his eyes and looked up at the sun. "You've got time to make the last tour, kids! Better hurry!" With laughs and grins and giggles, the group scurried off. The teen with the holocamera panned it widely over the crowd to preserve the memory of cavorting Jedi in this prestigious event that occurred only annually. Obi-Wan arranged their umbrella to shade himself from a recurrence of sunburn.

The late afternoon sun warmed Anakin's mechno-hand as he reclined, nibbling on barbecued brot-rib whose sauce wouldn't quit burning his lips. Through the implants, its sensors registered the sun's heat to the section of his awareness that controlled their input as 'temperate for humans, high for Mirialans, frigid for Mustafarians,' until he pressed 'reset' on the second knuckle of its middle finger with his thumb. He didn't need to think about traveling into the war zone yet. Obi-Wan's health came first. With Dooku establishing a staging area on Alliga and Grievous' droid supply problems, the war went at least the same before their leave on Tatooine. Pehaps a bit better. Kamino's new clones showed more initiative than the first batch.

"Time for your scramball exhibition, too, Anakin. Off with you."

"Aren't you going to watch?"

"I see enough of you in action. I'm going to take a nap."

The river snoozed.

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Part Ninety-Eight

Before his Fall, Dooku gave the Temple Tour for many years. He always loved describing the history more than the ongoing life of the Temple. When his ideals led him to drop 'Master' before his name and substitute 'Count,' Jocasta Nu led the tours, using Dooku's speech nearly word for word. Twenty minutes ago, she had sprained an ankle in the three-appendage race and Healer Unduli instructed her to rest for the few hours it took until the swelling subsided completely. Yoda stepped in. "Constructed over four thousand years ago, this Temple was, but our first temple, it was not. A place of memory, it is. A place of change, it is. Events greatly affecting our Council's position on many things, large and small, taken place in only my lifetime, they have." The crowd goggled at the view out the splendid bank of windows.

"How old are y--- " asked a dark-skinned female, barely post-pubescent, before her friend clamped a tentacle over her mouth and bared its beak in apology.

Yoda chuckled. "Not too old to learn. Depart from our usual speech, I shall, to spend more time in Jedi philosophy than in architecture." The same female groaned, along with her companions. Hmmph. Manners, they need. "Our ... faith, some call it, means studying and using the mystical ways of the Force. Know of the Force, some of you do." A very few beings in the crowd acknowledged the truth of the Force in the various ways of their native cultures. Yoda smiled nostalgically. "My own training, I can bring up at will on every subject I have been taught. Less sure I am of things I have learned in nearly nine hundred" --- the crowd gasped --- "standard years of existence. Some lessons, stand out, they do" --- swim on a full stomach, do not; fly without calculating hyperspace jumps first, do not --- "yet the lesson I want to teach the most, learned late in life, it was: Attachments can lend strength to a Jedi when the Jedi path, impossible to walk, it seems." The crowd gasped once more. Yoda waited for their recovery. "Steps on our path, taken one at a time, they are. Not hops, but gliding steps." The crowd stilled in that way that any classroom had when the lesson shot directly over their heads. Yoda's centuries of teaching experience came to his aid. Relate to what is known. "Question I have for friend of young female with propensity for nosy questions." The crowd tittered uncertainly.

"Yes, sir." The male fingered the edges of his up-to-the-minute fashionable cloak. "I, I mean, ask away."

"When flying your Incom T-16 skyhopper and suborbital you are, how change direction, do you?"

"I use the brakes."

"I see. Come to complete stop, turn your skyhopper manually in new direction, then accelerate until top velocity again you acquire?"

The young man said seriously, "No, sir, I fly speeders for a living. I'll be clearer. I brake going into a curve, glide around the curve, and accelerate out of it."

"This young being, free meal for himself and all his friends at the Manarai restaurant in Monument Plaza, has he won!" Yoda exclaimed. The man stepped back into his group. They gathered around him with subdued cheering. Yoda continued. "Seeing you all here brings warm feelings to my heart. Someone tell me why they came to see the Jedi today."

"Because my folks made me!" one clear voice piped up. The gathering chuckled.

"Honest, the mind of a child is. Honest, I shall be. Changes to the Jedi Order will be in our glide period, because braking to our way has already occurred." The clones, standing where I am, blasting, slaughtering, nursery babes dashed to the floor ...

"You mean, you won't wear your bathrobes to work anymore?"

... babes like you, youngling ... Yoda roused himself out of the scenes from his last nightmare and laughed along with his audience. "Perhaps. More along the lines of what goes on underneath our robes, I was thinking. Friendship that engenders thoughts of tender touches, more than comradely embraces, long hours devoted to discovering another's exact shape --- "

"Yes, we know what you mean, Master Yoda," chimed in an Ithorian's bass voice. "Will this change in, um, philosophy be involving Jedi only, or will it involve non-Jedi with Jedi as well?"

Yoda choked on his own words. He hadn't considered that. The Force would smooth the course of any Jedi-Jedi relationships. The Force being accessed by one partner only, well ... He frowned, adding another bump to his brow. "Far enough along the curve, I see not. Keep you posted, I will." The Ithorian subsided and Yoda had to wonder if an Ithorian press release were being written in its bulging cranium right now. Onward. "See the Room of One Thousand Fountains next, we will, and then the Menagerie. Mind your step when we get down there and tease my kybuck, do not. Feisty, he is today." Yoda's slow steps led the tour deeper into the bowels of the venerable Temple. He had been in the audience during Anakin's debate on attachments. Yoda didn't know whether or not his vision of a revised Jedi Code was planted by the Padawan's debate, but it would not have surprised him. Upset by "traitors" to the Order, like K'Kruhk, I have been, also. Traitors to the Force, they are not. Good to practice my speech before civilians, it is; the Council will be much tougher crowd. Yoda shuffled down the hallway to their next stop. And young Obi-Wan's newfound happiness illuminates the Force around him. Cause for that, I believe, wears darkest of dark brown robes and plays scramball as I speak.

The Dark Side, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Joining the tour at the last minute out of curiosity because Siri was a disagreeable companion today, Adi Gallia split off from the group and headed back outside. She told herself to calm down as soul Healer Regork had taught her. Qui-Gon, you dear, stubborn fool of a Jedi, if you can hear your old friend, give me a sign that it is or isn't the Dark Side involved in these changes! Adi waited. Qui-Gon remained at rest. Adi mumbled to herself as she went back to the picnic area for more barbecue.

The river angsted.

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Part Ninety-Nine

"Gooooal!"

Another score for the opposition, three minutes into the match. Anakin hunkered down for a time-out with two of his old scramball teammates. "Vos is the one to look out for."

"He's tough," agreed Ferus Olin. The six volunteers had rolled a chance cube for picking teams before they began the shortened version of the sport. With a half-strength team of three players, Olin, Veld and Skywalker made up the Astounding Accipipteros while Vos, Secura, and Shylar comprised the Bodacious Bogwings. To honor Master Yoda, both teams were named after reptavians from the planet Dagobah, a world with a mysterious appeal to the Order's Grandmaster. Anakin was pleased this was only a short demonstration match, because the Quartermaster's hastily-made-up sports uniforms with their logos did not fit well. His pinney was too loose while his shorts were too tight. He supposed he hadn't finished growing in some areas of his body and would need to update his measurements with the Uniform Replacement Department. His cleats were his own and being well-broken in, fitted perfectly. Anakin eyed Ferus' powerful build. With a quick mind and admirable reflexes, Olin had matured from a few years ago into a fine teammate and was Jedi to the core. Their teen-aged squabbles Anakin had placed in the scrapbook section of his memories. The gold streak in Olin's hair would make him easy to spot for a pass. Since their demo's rules were for touch scramball only, they needed no helmets.

"Veld, you and Skywalker double-team Shylar. I'll handle Vos and Secura. I know their moves. They always circle the goal. It's predictable, really." Team Captain Olin waggled his bushy eyebrows at Tru humorously, a habit he had consciously developed to make himself appear less stiff. Tru had recovered from his bout with Togorian measles, but only now was getting back into the swing of things and having some fun. He'll be a liability to a team, Anakin thought regretfully. I've got to shore up our offense.

Tru grinned his wide grin at Ferus and Anakin, for once not saying much. He knew the game well, though, and his limber doublejointed physique could do remarkable things, like going between human or humanoid opponents' legs with just a wiggle and ripple of his supple spine. "Look over there," he giggled. Without pointing rudely, he gestured with a jerk of his head. "Knight Fee is making sure we don't dig up too many divots with our cleats." Sure enough, the Temple gardener stood in an uncrowded part of the green, hands cupping his elbows. Anakin couldn't see from here, but he supposed there was a slight scowl marring the man's handsome face. For a Living Force type, he sure worries a lot. The whistle blew. Ferus, Tru and Anakin nodded a 'yes' to their gameplan, slapped each other's behinds and trotted back to the match.

From a twenty-minute demo, an amazingly intricate game grew until Obi-Wan awakened from his post-prandial nap at the hubbub. He meandered over to the playing field after a stop at the dessert table, selecting a slice of air cake to enjoy as he watched the last five minutes of the match. As he mingled with the onlookers, he spotted Luminara and Plo Koon in deep discussion.

"How did you come up with your technique, Plo?" Its purpose is very unlike your personality. "And thanks for the help. I put off going to New Holstice until Obi-Wan's return from Tatooine. It's discouraging that he isn't recovered by now."

Plo was as earnest as a physicist could be. "You're welcome. Purely scientific reasons, Luminara. We've used the Force imprinting technique to find our way in untracked wilderness for a few decades now. It took some serious tweaking for mobile living beings to imprint on each other rather than on such things as mineral fractals in the soil, plant root diagrams or topography. Living flesh does contain minerals, though, and their proportions can be sensed and mapped onto a Jedi's mind so that a partner will always be able to find its mate." Plo scanned the game. Normally, he programmed his comm station to his favorite sports feed; All The Galaxy's Sports, All The Time statistics seeped into his consciousness without effort and were duly organized. Hmmm. Last night's pro scramball match didn't have anything on the Accipipteros. Look at Skywalker score!

Luminara followed his gaze. Anakin's golden body sidestepped Vos for another attempt on goal. She held her breath --- missed it! --- then focused again on Plo. "What did you first research when I commed you with his case file?" Please don't overdo the honesty and tell me that you picked someone's brain. I'd have to report you. Or at least I'd feel obligated to.

"My original notes, along with the updated comms from the eighteen successful imprinting couples" --- couples? odd term --- "and the two failures."

He's honest, anyway. "Yes, about those, Plo. How were they diagnosed?"

Plo folded his hands around his macrobinoculars to see a scrimmage at the far end of the field. "Hmmm? Oh. One partner of a Master/Padawan couple grew despondent over the failure of the technique and moped around the Temple for weeks before coming to see me. The other failure was of an imprinting couple who were long-time friends. Each partner showed different symptoms. Partner Aurek" --- Luminara knew who it was; the whole Temple knew, but Plo was being discreet in the mixed Jedi/non-Jedi throng --- "fixated on Partner Besh's safety. Commed her several times daily. Tasted her refectory food to smooth any lumps in her breakfast Ugorian spore-gruel. Partner Besh refused to allow Partner Aurek to pilot herself, took to escorting her everywhere, from outings with friends to appointments with me. They could not separate without psychic trauma. It took six weeks of intensive telepathic debriefing before the cure."

"So it was arduous, but you did secure a course of treatment?"

"Look at that! Look at that broken-field run! Go, Vos! Ruuunnnnn, Quinlan!"

"Plo."

"Noooo! He's checked, he's tagged out ... "

"Plo!"

The Kel Dor answered without lowering his macrobinoculars or turning to her. "Luminara, I constructed the technique purely as a scientific experiment. I, myself, never would choose to be that close to anyone. If your friend Obi-Wan displays similar symptoms and you have been treating them as purely psychosomatic, perhaps I can sense telepathically any complications. It can be with or without the patient's consent, if the situation is severe."

You're an ass, but I'll use your expertise anyway. Luminara watched the game. It was the final minutes of play. The Bodacious Bogwings were tied up with the Astounding Accipipteros. Suddenly the action was directly in front of them in a tackleless maneuver that nonetheless was thrilling to watch. Shylar's pinney was half-untied as she ran full out with the ball cradled in the curl of her right arm, long kinky hair streaming behind her. As arresting to view were Vos' flying dusky braids, whirling as he twirled deftly in and out of the wedge. A goal denied here would mean a tie, allowed in a demo match, but not in regular competitive play. Vos defended his offensive teammate Shylar on one side, Secura defended on the other, her lekku seemingly with lives of their own as they bounced on her shoulders. Defending the Accipipteros' goal were Anakin and Ferus, twin towers of fortitude alike in stature, glaring almost Masterly glares at the incoming attack. Tru held the position of goalie, certainly an asset to defense because of his marvelous ability to bend and block a shot. Close-in-to-the-goal action, though, might prove problematical because his recent weakening illness might make him too pliable. His body could give in a sustained push on goal, allowing the thirty-centimeter diameter ball to touch the goal line inside the net and thus score.

The Astounding Accipipteros and Bodacious Bogwings teams were as serious at this demo as in any other endeavor they'd attempted as Jedi. Maybe it was the frustrating war, maybe it was the shouting crowd, whatever the reason, Anakin found he wanted to win. Or at least tie. He quashed all notion of using the Force --- though it would make a terrific demonstration to Push the opposition unexpectedly and make them fly like real bogwings --- as he planted his cleats and crouched in a classic defensive pose. Stand firm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ferus mirror his stance and sensed Tru, a jittery presence behind him, figuring any weak spots that their bulwark wouldn't cover.

On rolled Vos in a charge, his cleats pumping out divots behind him. Yoland Fee will take him to task. Vos brought up his left arm for a straight-arm shove that skirted the rules, while his right arm distracted Anakin in a 'come-on' gesture that could only mean 'Faster!' to his fellow Bogwings. Anakin planted his feet more widely, ducked Vos' straight arm and grabbed his waist as if in a forbidden tackle. Shocked at the supposed violation of rules, Vos slowed his momentum and clamped his right arm, tense with outrage, on Anakin's left shoulder. Vos' momentum and his stiffened right arm let Anakin bend backwards slightly away from the attack but into the direction of motion even more to hoist the Kiffar over his head, trusting that the man's Jedi reflexes would turn the headlong toss into a walkover, which the astonished Vos did. Walking over not only Anakin --- Anakin felt Vos' head do a skull-to-skull roll, parietal bones together, then occiputs and then off, trailing the vines of his braids against Anakin's pinney --- but also the goal, with more impetus supplied by Anakin's grasp of Vos' left foot in a boosting step-up movement, Vos landed his unintended acrobatic display with only a slight wobble and bowed to the onlookers. Anakin recovered his equilibrium and the crowd roared in approval.

Anakin focused now on Tru and Ferus. Shylar's attempt on goal was imminent as Secura swarmed all over Ferus as roughly as the rules allowed and he stood his ground against her. Her lesser mass meant that he did not need to resort to Anakin's tactics. It was enough to absorb her charge. Secura kept Ferus occupied as Shylar homed in on the goal. Anakin reached for her, but she twisted and cocked her arm. Tru presented his best defense, locking all the joints in his strong arms for a handstand and cursing the demo rule that said a goalie could use only his lower limbs when in the crease. His agile legs windmilled, the cast was made, the ball hit his rippling right knees. The shot was blocked. The whistle blew. Secura stopped her squirming. Shylar stuck her tongue out at Tru and laughed merrily right before Vos scrambled around the goal, saw the situation, and relaxed in relief. "Whew! Great match!" He slapped Anakin's rump. That was when Anakin discovered his skin-tight shorts had not enough stretchability to accommodate his athleticism and had split at the back seam.

Physics, mused Plo Koon. Too much strain on a material and its integrity failed.

The river explained.

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Part One Hundred

Quinlan Vos' braids had puzzled Anakin from the beginning. "Didn't Master Vos want to lose the braided look when he passed his Trials?"

"Quinlan has his own style, Padawan. Jedi may be individuals. You've been in the Order months now, long enough to realize that. Back on subject, think about what I suggested, please."

For himself, Anakin couldn't wait to achieve Knighthood and lose the braid. At nine and-a-half, his smallish braid and Knight's tail prickled his cheek and arm when he lay his head down on them each night, curled into a ball next to Master's pillow in their wide bed. Anakin had never owned a pillow before and refused to use one. Master said there were fillets to keep hair smooth, but Anakin had been embarrassed to look "silly." "I don't think so, Master."

Obi-Wan came to realize that picking battles was an important part of living with a youngling in the 'tweens. "It's dark when you would need it, and at any rate, I'm the only one who would ever see you wear it," Obi-Wan went on stubbornly, despite himself. Anakin's tossing and turning at night needed some remedy, and his kicking was a Trial perhaps taking the place of Obi-Wan's curtailed official ones.

"No. Please."

But Master would see me in it. Obi-Wan read between the lines. Obi-Wan was learning to Master and after seven months understood better his bashful charge's sensibilities. A youngling who needed someone in the same bedroom to sleep through the night, not to mention the same bed, needed extra understanding. Master Ali-Anann spent one entire day playing with Anakin and said later to go along with whatever the youngling wanted; after a year, changes could be made. Ali-Anann was off by two years. At age twelve, one day from out of nowhere, Anakin announced that he wanted his own bed, complete with pillow. He was bigger in the bed then, though not as restless, and Obi-Wan was not sorry to see him go.

"Obi-Wan, I saw you with Anakin today."

Obi-Wan started. Leave the past, Obi-Wan. Quinlan is sitting next to you, remember? "Well, of course you did, Quinlan. We live together." Anakin, good Padawan that he was, was rummaging through the cooler at the dessert table for the Herglic algae ice cream he had promised to bring Obi-Wan.

"No ... oooooh!" Quinlan watched the fireworks along with his friend on their rumpled picnic blanket. The umbrella lay folded on the grass beside it.

"Ahhhhh!" Simple pleasures. Bright lights ... funny they don't hurt my eyes tonight. "Look, a krayt dragon!" Obi-Wan had seen them only on xenobiology specials on the HoloNet.

The breeze had freshened. Quinlan sat closer to his friend. "I mean, you and he are different together." I'm rusty at this. Been around gray Jedi, Turned Jedi, and spies too long. I miss my friends.

Obi-Wan played with the umbrella fringe. "He's more mature, twenty now, you know. Still growing, I think. You haven't seen him in a while."

"True. The war's eating me alive, Obi." Darkness was total now, the last indigo gone from the sky. A flash of blue-white turned Quinlan's yellow tattoo into a phosphorescent bifurcating brand on his face. "I ship out again day after tomorrow."

"We go a long way back, Quin. Care to unload on me?" Obi-Wan lay back on his elbows. "Ooooh! Flameflowers!"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"Pish. I am on the Council."

Quinlan laughed boisterously. "Same old Obi. Literal, serious to a fault, dull" --- he eyed the aurodium medallions across the instep of the white boots as they gleamed in the fireworks' flare --- "or maybe not so dull. Care to unload on me?"

Not even with you. "I've felt different lately, yes."

Quinlan closed his eyes. The fireworks glowed a dull red against the inside of his eyelids. "You're ... happier. Concerned about something, but happier in general." He opened his eyes. "What about me?"

Obi-Wan didn't need to close his eyes. Surges of images swamped his Force-sense, too much to See; he shut them out to concentrate on tactile and auditory input. One set eclipsed all the others. "She's wiry, but soft in all the right places. She has scarification around her navel that you traced last week. She moans when you tickle her above her --- "

"Stop, Obi! Stop!" Quinlan shifted away from his friend, the dazzling firework grand finale forgotten. "How" --- BOOM! --- "-ctly can you" --- crackle! --- "-cking" --- blam! --- "-nse so specifica-" --- hss pop! pop! pop! pop! --- "what I did?"" The fireworks ended. The crowd rolled up blankets and put sleepy younglings on shoulders for the trek out of the Temple grounds. Some too-dutiful Jedi began cleaning up.

It isn't that big of a mystery. "We're old friends, you're broadcasting deliberately, we're physically close, I am a Master, after all ... "

Quinlan pulled his cloak around him. The breeze had grown to an unlikely bluster, a glitch in the master weather controls, he surmised. "It's unusual. It's almost frightening." What a spy he would make for Master Tholme!

"Never."

"I mean it. It's true that I have an attachment to someone. Now you know it. You're a member of the Council. What will you do?" He loves the Code so much, you'd think he'd written it. I'm in deep ---

"I don't tell them everything, Quin. It'll stay confidential." Obi-Wan sensed Quinlan's renewed ease and smiled. Speaking of confidential, I have a bit of news for Anakin tonight.

xxxxx

" --- gasp --- guhhh --- Stars' End, Anakin, you and your imagination --- "

"Liked that, did you?" Anakin reattached his mechno-arm and lay down on the sweaty sheets. Good thing my arm is protected against shorting out from moisture.

"An understatement." Obi-Wan rolled over to face Anakin toe-to-toe, face-to-face. "I love you."

"Why?"

Did he guess that I was going to tell him why tonight? Obi-Wan, shields up ... no, shields down. All the way down. "I'm going to tell you why now."

"You're just 'Master' to me, you don't need to ... "

"But I'm going to. I love you, Anakin Skywalker, for your grace, your gifts in the Force, your laugh, the way that you make me feel, and for your circumspection." There. He was ready to hear it.

"And I love you back, for your caring, and your freckles, and for the way that you stir your Kopi tea to make those tinkly sounds like bells ... Kriff, Master, I'm not good at this, you could negotiate your way into love with billions of words and I can't. But it really doesn't matter, does it?"

"No. And I know of a marvelous way to celebrate what, wh-what we just said."

"So do I, but it's too soon."

"Let's get tattooed! Quinlan got me to thinking. A little one, right here." Obi-Wan touched Anakin's nipple. "That way, it will be camouflaged, only you and I will know about it, and when I suck it I'll remember this night."

"You mentioned my imagination? What would you choose, if we go do it?"

Obi-Wan had thought for hours. "A naynabo flower."

Yeah. "Works for me."

The river inked.

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