Warnings: This is a sillyfic -- it does not recognize either
reality or sanity. Please keep that in mind :) Furthermore,
this is a fanfic in the true sense of the work -- fans are
literally characters in the fic, though not in the form of Mary
Sues (thank goodness). It came about after a discussion I had
with Christy, when she mentioned that back in the days when the
whole Master/Padawan thing was starting on the list, a lot of
people ended up not having any official ceremonies or
announcements. I immediately set out to remedy that. Oh, and
please don't be turned off by the fact that Qui and Obi don't
appear until the second half of the story -- their roles are
peripheral but quite crucial :)
Spoilers: This is set way before TPM, and months before my
master, Barri, aka Padawan's Pet, was knighted.
Disclaimer: Ain't mine, dammit. The boys belong to Uncle
George. The others belong to themselves. I don't think anyone
wants to take responsibility for Yoda.
Summary: The fic that answers the question "Why wasn't Jedi
Master Elayna ever knighted?" Chaos, grape Jell-O, alcoholic
Yoda and Q&O tumbling in the hay ensue.
Feedback: I'd love ya if you did.
Other Notes: Thanks and huggles to Ophie for impromptu grammar
betas, The Giant Sea Turtle for a very thorough reading and
editing, my ever-supportive Master Barri for cheering me on,
and Great Grand-Master Christy for inadvertantly tossing me
this bunny. Woo-hoo, my first fic with even an ATTEMPT at a
plot! :D
Jedi Master Elayna was experiencing a Bad Feeling [registered
trademark of LucasFilm, Incorporated]. She couldn't quite
localize where it was coming from, but it had started the
minute she had landed on the planet of Promethazinia. An
incessant gnawing at the back of her mind, rather like the
attentions of a rabid mutated gawan [copyright Jayde Amali
1999], troubled her patented Jedi calm. She centered herself,
grabbed the Force by its ears, and shook it hard. The Force let
out an 'eep!' sound and spit out a bit of the future for her to
see. Damn, she was good. They didn't call her a Master for
nothing.
Satisfied, Elayna sat back to examine her new revelation. Ah,
so it had something to do with the trade negotiations that she
had been sent to this pathetic rock to settle. Fair enough --
these things never went smoothly, especially when the
participant civilizations were known for their centuries of
bloody (a misleading adjective, mused Elayna, considering the
Promethazinians were silicon-based life-forms who actually
didn't have anything resembling blood in their biological
systems) warfare. But that was why the government of
Promethazinia had been prescient enough to ask for help from
the Jedi, of course.
She delved deeper. It would happen today... in the early
evening... during the unity celebration when the leaders of the
warring factions were scheduled to sign the treaty that would
lead to new economic order for their combined nations. It would
happen during the... Elayna frowned. During the Jell-O
wrestling match? Startled, she blinked and the bit o' future
slipped away into the aethers from whence it came. Elayna
reached out hastily, but was only able to catch one final
passing thought from it before it disappeared altogether...
farm animals.
Bad Feeling? Peace treaty? Jell-O wrestling? Farm animals?
Elayna felt that blasted gawan gnawing full throttle at the
back of her mind again, this time having enlisted the help of
two homicidal Ewoks and a really hungry Calamarian beaver as
well. Bad Feeling, yes. Very Bad. She clutched her lightsaber
hilt warily and proceeded to disembark from her transport
vessel.
"Gee, Master Amber, did you know Master Yoda has a vestigial
tail? How do you suppose he fits that into his undergarments?"
The Padawan's Pet, aka Padawan Barri, looked over to her
instructor with a rather puzzled look on her face.
"That, my dear padawan, is probably one question better left --
and never touched again, even with a ten foot pole -- as one of
the great mysteries of our Order." Amber glanced sideways from
her datapad to track her apprentice's movements. "Aren't you
supposed to be working on your Trials story? If I find you
squandering your time chattering on the Temple mailing list
again, I might just have to assign you a few hours of extra
meditation tonight."
"I'm taking some time out to research some of my facts -- some
of which required me to look up stats in the Temple
database..." Barri tapped some keys on her pad and looked back
up. "Have you ever just gone through these files for the heck
of it? There's some really interesting stuff in here... For
instance, do you know the real reason why Master Windu
is so immaculately bald?" She paged down some more and giggled
as she read the data on the screen. "And let me tell you now,
his head is just the tip of the iceberg. Woo!"
"Padawan..." Amber intoned with a bit of warning. "Have you
ever heard of the term 'Too Much Information', perchance?"
"There's nothing wrong with being knowledgeable, though, is
there? Master Yoda always said that on the side of ignorance,
danger lies. Don't you want me to educate mysel... Wow, will ya
look at that."
Amber looked up from her reading once again. "Hmmm?"
"Did you know that Master Elayna was never officially knighted?
How do suppose the Council let an oversight like that slip by?"
Amber frowned, looked down at her datapad, then back at her
apprentice. "No official records of her rank whatsoever, you
say?"
Barri scrolled through, then did a double check. "Nope. Looks
here like she just appeared out of the blue one day and was
made a Master. Lucky duck."
"Maybe not so lucky, my serendipitous charge..." She sat up,
pointing to her datapad. "You see, I was just wondering why it
was that the secret service of Promethazinia had requested an
ID verification and background check on your grandmaster...
even after we had sent the information, they had seemed a bit
on the suspicious side. The Promethazinian culture places great
importance on official ceremonies, and probably will not accept
her readily at all if they do not fully approve of her
background. This could lead to quite a few complications for
her..." Amber stood up and started for the door. "We should
speak to the Council at once."
Without a word, her padawan dutifully gathered their cloaks and
trotted off after her.
The Force, Master Elayna decided as she was being led into a
dark dank secluded alley by twenty Promethazinians in dark
robes carrying wickedly sharp ceremonial daggers and chanting
in low tones, could be a real bugger at times. She wasn't sure
when they had appeared, how she had ended up being surrounded
by them, or whether they even noticed her in their midst at all
as they proceeded along their path. To try to extract herself
from the crowd would be difficult and possibly lead to hurt
feelings or some other social faux pas that she just wasn't in
the mood to handle. All she had wanted was to get this mission
over and done with, like so many of the others she had under
her distinguished belt, then go home to a nice hot bubble bath.
With maybe a pinch of those fancy vanilla bath salts that she'd
won from Master Gallia during last week's round of strip
sabbac... of course, she'd have to feed the cats and give them
scritchies first... and make sure they hadn't scattered all the
contents of their litterboxes across the kitchen floor in
retaliation for her prolonged absences...
Elayna wrinkled her nose at the thought of such a mess awaiting
her -- she had been lucky enough in the past to have a padawan
along with her whenever she got home from such trips. She
briefly wondered if taking on another apprentice would save her
a couple of credits over the cost of hiring a maid every other
week. It was worth doing a few calculations on when she had
some spare time, she decided.
Speaking of which, Elayna further decided, she had spared quite
enough time with these wacky rejects from some B-movie death
cult. While they had given her perhaps more a taste of the
local culture than she had really wanted, dawdling was not a
part of the Jedi credo. She turned to the alien standing
nearest her and politely requested in a fair semblance of its
native language that it move aside so that she may pass. The
whole crowd suddenly ceased moving and went silent. From the
way they were staring at her, Elayna wondered if she had
perhaps goofed and said something bad about the alien's
maternal parentage by mistake. That would definitely be the
last time she bought mission- critical translation texts from a
travelling Ewok discount book salesman.
Oh, poodoo! were the last distinct words that ran through the
Jedi Master's mind as a swarm of chattering angry aliens
suddenly rushed her, their primitive but effectively deadly
weapons raised in bloodthirsty rage.
Master Amber and Padawan Barri raced through the darkened halls
of the Jedi Temple, searching for any council member they could
find. The meeting chambers were deserted, as were the training
rooms and personal quarters. There was not an elder to be
found. Standing at the entrance to meditation gardens, Amber
did a quick scan and found they were deserted. Very strange,
indeed. This could only mean one thing.
"Barri, what's today?"
"Seventh rotation, fourth cycle. Why do you ask?"
With a curse, Amber headed back indoors. "It's the council's
'private contemplation' day, when they sequester themselves in
the hidden reaches of the temple to divine future outcomes,
discuss matters of great consequence to the very existence of
the Republic, and commune with the Force. They will not be
happy about being interrupted."
Barri nodded solemnly as she followed her master through deep,
winding hallways. They were headed to the underground levels of
the temple, a region which only Masters of the highest ranks
were allowed to enter. The ground sloped beneath them and the
air grew damp. She marvelled at the intricate stone carvings
that lined the walls and ceilings, etchings that seemed older
than Coruscant itself. How many generations of Jedi had walked
this path before her? Did she, a mere padawan, profane this
place of gravity and magnitude by her mere presence? She dared
not to touch anything as they passed countless doors marked
with cryptic symbols. The marble statuary depicting heroes and
ancestors of the Order, standing in their niches in the walls,
seemed to glare at her. Barri averted her eyes from their cold
piercing gazes, keeping them fixed on the billowing umber cloak
of her master as they proceeded. She nearly bumped into Amber
as they stopped in front of an ancient wooden door large enough
to fit a ronto through. This, too, was covered in that same
enigmatic etched script. There didn't seem to be a way to open
it.
Amber took a deep breath, then turned to Barri. "Remember,
padawan, whatever you witness beyond these doors must not leave
them. The secrets you might encounter here are more than the
world will ever be ready for." Barri nodded again, and braced
herself.
Having made her point, Amber turned to the door again, drew
upon the Force, and triggered the internal lock mechanism. It
swung open upon a tableau that left Barri speechless. Inside
the cavernous room, strobe lights flashed and loud music
pounded from hidden speakers. She saw glimpses of various
council members doing who-knew-what-was-appropriate-
for-their-species in dark corners. And then she saw it: Yoda.
Bare as the day he was birthed. Playing bongos. And singing.
With Master Windu in a similar condition doing some sort of
rhythmic dance to the drumbeat. Her eyes felt like they were
going to roll out of their sockets.
Her master calmly stalked in, leaving the shocked padawan to
scrape her jaw off the floor and follow.
Elayna watched five of the vicious little aliens go flying back
with her Force shove. She slashed her saber at another group as
they advanced, then did a somersault over them to land on a
convenient catwalk jutting from the side of one of the
surrounding buildings. Blast it, the little buggers were
starting to scale the walls in pursuit! She leapt from her
present position onto an adjoining staircase, ran up two
flights, then saw an open window in the building across the
alleyway. Sparing a quick glance down to gauge her distance,
she noticed one particularly quick assailant had almost reached
her. She gave it a sharp kick in the face and watched it go
tumbling down, bumping off a few of its comrades in the
process. She climbed the last few steps, then backed up to get
a running start. With a Force-enhanced leap, she went sailing
through the air, across the expanse of the alley, and dove
neatly through the window. She rolled to a stop and stood,
shaking out her cloak.
Damn, she was good. She clipped her lightsaber to her belt
(making sure it was turned off, of course. mistakes like that
tended to make one be more careful in the future), smoothed
back her hair, and took a step towards the door which led down,
hopefully out onto a main street. Turning the knob, she
promptly activated a force-shield which shot up on all sides
around her. The door creaked open and she muttered a dozen
curses as a phalanx of those damnable murderous aliens
surrounded her once again, their leader clearly holding the
controls to the shields which imprisoned her. Awww,
Sith!
The gimmer stick pounded, emphasizing each syllable. "Grave
situation this is. Afford to lose Master Elayna we cannot. Owes
me a raunchy PWP starring myself she does. Rescue her we must.
Get this lampshade off my head, you will."
Master Amber?
Yes, padawan?
That was Too Much Information. I apologize for my earlier
disputes -- I now understand the value of foregoing some forms
of knowledge. You are indeed wise and enlightened.
I foresee you will be a great Knight, Barri. Now help me put
Yoda into his travel kennel. You know how feisty he gets during
interstellar travel.
Yes, master.
With a sigh, Barri hefted the spritely Jedi master from his
perch atop the drum set, prying the microphone out of his
clutches. The little green gnome gave it up reluctantly, making
whining noises, then started squirming when Amber tried to
stuff him through the door of a bright pink pet crate with his
name emblazoned in glittery purple along the sides.
"Unhand me you will! Undignified this is! Deluxe model with wet
bar and hot tub I requested! Bite you I will!"
In a sudden flash of inspiration, Barri rooted around in her
voluminous robes and resurfaced with a slightly linty jerky
treat. She waved it in front of their adversary, letting him
pick up the scent.
"Oooh, rootleaf I smell. Give it to me you must!"
Barri tossed it into the crate and watched as Yoda skittered
inside after it. Amber slammed the door shut triumphantly and
turned the lock. Padawan smirked at master as they hefted the
box and hurried back out into the temple proper to catch their
transport offworld.
Back in the Jedi Council Den O' Love, Master Mace Windu roused
himself from a drug-induced stupor long enough to hear faint
cries coming from the hall, quickly diminishing in volume as
the source moved away. He swore it sounded like little fists
were pounding on the side of a container. "Tricked me you did!
Twenty demerits you will get, padawan...!" He vaguely wondered
where Yoda had disappeared to -- had he just been stood up?
Well goshdarnit, that troll was going to pay when he got his
hands on him. But for now, he felt too good to stay mad.
Shrugging, Mace wandered off to find a new partner. After all,
the evening was still young and there was much more communing
to do with the Force.
Being half-naked and suspended seven feet in the air in a
gilded cage, Elayna resolved, was only fun if you were a Vegas
showgirl or a pet cockatoo. Of course, she could only make a
completely unfounded guess as to the latter. And, she
considered further, she probably wasn't getting the full
experience here without the little wooden perchy thingo. She
probably wouldn't have minded all this nearly as much if she
was getting paid an entertainer's union wages for her time.
Unfortunately, the Promethazinians seemed quite intent on not
only holding her against her will and depriving her of her
comfy Eddie Bauer edition Polarfleece (tm) Jedi cloak, but also
completely ignoring her requests for less drafty lodgings,
temporary though they might be.
In fact, Elayna realized rather insultedly, they hadn't paid
her much attention at all, despite the fact that they had
considered her some sort of great menace to their planetary
security. After capturing her, they'd just tossed her in front
of some large overweight alien with a speech impediment who,
from years of experience with various assorted cultures, she
immediately assumed was their elected official of high ranking.
From the few barely intelligible phrases that it had uttered,
she postulated that something in her interplanetary travel logs
had not passed their sanction, so now they considered her a spy
or saboteur of some sort.
Either that, or he was giving her a really kickass recipe for
flarn.
It had then announced to its court as a whole that she would be
made an example of in some sort of arena deathmatch during the
divertisment portion of the evening's official activities. Then
they'd taken her weapon and garments, given her some sort of
harem girl outfit complete with metal bikini top, and tossed
her into this cage.
And so there she'd sat for the last five hours, trying to pass
the time doing meditations and glaring with what she hoped was
an intimidating scowl in the general direction of the entrance
into the ceremonial chamber. To her surprise, the next time she
woke up from her "there is no passion; but well-rationalized
ardor is okay" meditation, she found a guard had been stationed
near her. Probably in anticipation of the coming events, she
reasoned. Then she noticed what he was holding in his paws. She
glowered. He was apparently having a ball of a time playing
Solitaire on her handy-dandy short-range Jedi communicator/
electric razor/convertible Bothan army knife/CD
player/midichlorian analysis kit/Palm Pilot thingamabob. This
would not do at all -- the battery packs for those gadgets had
been hard to come by since a major earthquake had taken down
most of the mass producers in Neimodia. This was downright
unacceptable. Rather irately, she grabbed her communicator with
the Force, smacked the alien upside the head with it, then sent
it flying into her hand.
After examining the device to her satisfaction, she idly
flicked through the local comm channels, scanning for a
frequency she recognized. She wasn't harboring any hopes --
this was a relatively unfrequented backwater region of space.
To her surprise, though, her transmitter picked up the signals
of another Jedi team only two planets away. With renewed hope,
she sent off a quick SOS to them. She was as good as free. In a
celebratory sort of mood, she decided to fire up a game of
Solitaire.
Sadly, her game only lasted a few short seconds before she
heard a loud rumbling coming from directly below her. Looking
downwards, she saw the polished wooden floor of the ceremonial
chambers slide away. At the same time, the walls around her
receded, replaced by stands upon stands packed with cheering
aliens, many pointing and laughing at her. She stumbled
backwards as the chain on her cage was suddenly jerked upwards,
then the pulley it was attached to slowly started to lower its
cargo. The door to the cage swung open, its locking mechanism
undone, but she found herself not feeling particularly eager to
rush out. Looking back down, she saw, to her dismay, she was
fast approaching a huge pit of wobbling purple goo. A Very Very
Bad Feeling indeed, she asserted. Very Bad.
Jedi Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi cracked open one bleary hazel eye
to aid his wayward fumbling hand in seeking out and destroying
the bothersome comm unit that was disturbing his happy slumber.
A second later, his other hand joined in the search while the
rest of him struggled against the offensive concept of
regaining consciousness. Where the heck was that blasted
contraption? Shaking his head and spitting out a lock of long
silvered brown hair as he sat up, he realized it wasn't his
comm unit after all. It was the ship's computer. It was the
emergency line of the ship's computer. Definitely time to wake
up. Giving the hulking wall of well-muscled flesh he had been
sleeping next to a gentle rise- and-shine shove, he padded over
to the console to see what all the fuss was about.
"Mrrgggh?" Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn rolled over, stretching out
one ridiculously long arm in the general direction of the warm
spot his padawan had just abandoned. Not finding any convenient
apprentice- shaped object in its designated location, he
reluctantly pulled himself upright and raised a querying
eyebrow at Obi-Wan.
"Master, there appears to be some sort of situation developing
on the nearby planet of Promethazinia... Master Elayna seems to
be in quite a bit of distress. We're apparently the only other
operatives in the area. I've already reset our coordinates and
expect arrival in less than an hour."
"How reliably efficient of you, padawan. Now won't you come
back and keep your poor old master warm for just a bit longer?
You know how chilly space travel can be."
"But master, don't you think we should be briefing ourselves on
the culture and behaviours of the locale we're about to visit?"
Qui-Gon frowned and flopped back into bed. "We just got back
from a very long, very difficult mission, Obi-Wan. Pardon me if
I'm feeling less than enthusiastic about being flung into yet
another hazardous life-or-death predicament when I had been
expecting a restful voyage back to Coruscant."
Obi-Wan smirked, sauntering back towards the bed. "'Restful'?
Is that what you called last night? Or earlier this morning?"
His master grinned back and patted the mattress space next to
him. "As I recall, eloquent speech wasn't high on your list of
priorities last night, either, padawan. Not that the sounds you
made weren't quite charming in their own right."
Something sounding suspiciously like a purr came from Obi-Wan's
direction as he slunk under the covers and twined himself
around his master's leg. Qui-Gon blinked, his train of thought
quite effectively derailed and lying in a smoking heap of
charred metal. He lifted up a corner of the sheet and peeked
under to see what his ever-inventive student was up to. The
artfully placed nibbles and playful growls coming from the
lower regions of the bed quickly cleared up any doubts there
might have been. Yes, Qui-Gon decided, he was quite awake now.
Amber sneezed loudly into her cloak, then huddled deeper into
her seat. Trust the Force, she thought wryly, to decide that
today was the day she would develop an allergy to chickens. Of
course, she hadn't had much occasion to test such an allergy
prior to today, so she supposed it could have been a latent
propensity. All the same, chickens it was. And those were
definitely chickens -- or some other closely related variety of
fowl native to this solar system -- sitting on the roost
directly across from her, watching her curiously with their
beady little eyes.
"If you think that poultry is bad, try switching seats with
me," came Barri's muffled voice from somewhere behind the
Lemurian cattle enclosures. She wrinkled her nose as she caught
another whiff of that down-home barnyard aroma, then started
yanking at the pieces of hay stuck in her braid.
"Your generosity if overwhelming, padawan. I am quite fine
where I am, though my histamine count would probably suggest
otherwise. How much longer until we land?"
"Ten, fifteen more minutes, maybe. We were slightly delayed by
that detour to the Corellian system. Who'dve guessed that
Coruscant's much-loathed granite slugs are an expensive
delicacy to the Drall? After talking to the pilot, I'm half
convinced I should buy some shares in interplanetary livestock
transport."
"I'm glad you managed to gain something from this experience,
my resourceful apprentice. It almost makes the fact that we're
on a freighter carrying farm animals bearable. Nevertheless,
the Council will be hearing an earful once I get back --
forgetting to get Yoda's distemper shots renewed is just plain
irresponsible. Finding a transport is just about impossible
without decent papers."
"CoruscantAir really takes its health regulations seriously,
doesn't it? They used to allow just about anything with a pulse
to buy a ticket, and now they've passed a 'no pets' ordinance?"
Barri made a 'tsk tsk' sound, shaking her head. "That
disqualifies nearly half the Council, with their penchant for
black leather collars and all."
"Indeed it does. It almost makes me consider breaking my vow to
not use the mind whammy in vain. Such privileges are already
abused to the point where Toydarians are becoming prized
employees in just about any customer-service oriented job,"
Amber glanced out a nearby portal. "Better get your things
together and stow Yoda somewhere safe -- we're docking in a
minute."
Barri leaned over to the kennel beside her and knocked gently
on its side. "Master Yoda? We'll be landing shortly. How are
you feeling?"
A cranky whine came from the box. "Talk too loudly you do.
Hangover I have. Leave me alone you will."
The padawan nodded to her master. "He appears to have regained
sobriety, though he doesn't seem too happy about it."
"That's about the best we can hope for, then," Amber
acknowledged. She clutched her seat as the freighter made a
bumpy touchdown directly in front of the Promethazinian
imperial palace. "Time to get to work."
Hefting the bright pastel carrying case, Barri trailed after
her master at a clip.
Flailing to the surface of the enormous pit of purple
gelatinous glop, Elayna gasped for fresh air. She wiped the
stuff out of her eyes, trying to orient herself as she bobbed
in the oddly viscous substance. She grimaced slightly at the
aftertaste... eww, grape. And not only was it an offending
flavor, but it was sugar free. You'd have thought that for an
event of this magnitude, they would at least have splurged and
gotten the good stuff. Then again, none of the palace
requisitioners probably planned on swimming in a pool of it.
Cheap bastards. This was going to do murder to her hair.
Far on the other side of the pool, she heard something
distinctly larger than herself land in the Jell-O with a loud
plop. A second later, a large ripple wave of goop came
roiling her way. She dog-paddled backwards, to no avail, then
caught a deep breath and dove back under the surface to wait
for the mini-tsunami to dissipate. That small nagging part of
her mind pointed out that something had to be awfully large to
make that big of an impact on this thick a substance. She took
a few strokes forward then surfaced, noting that the jello
still seemed a bit choppy. However, the creature they had
thrown in was nowhere in sight. She did a 360 degree scan to no
avail, then paddled to the nearest wall and hung on to one of
the convenient bumps that seemed to be protruding at various
random points along its surface.
It was when the wall began to rumble and move that she realized
she'd found her monster after all.
Meanwhile, a planet away and fast approaching, a sleek silver
spacecraft zipped through the void. The inhabitants within,
though, were of a much more sluggish persuasion.
"Msssstrr?"
"Yes, my Obi poppet?"
"Yrrvryyhvyy."
"Oh, sorry." A few hundred pounds of Jedi Master shifted
position on the much-abused bed long enough for a
slightly-compressed-but- none-the-worse-for-the-wear Jedi
padawan to crawl out from under them. Obi-Wan shook himself
out, did a few leg stretches and backflips for good measure,
then hopped back in bed and snuggled up next to his master.
"That was wonderful, master." Propping his cute little chin on
one of Qui-Gon's more-than-ample biceps, Obi-Wan beamed him a
dimpled smile that would have given half the population of
Onelistia triple coronaries.
He earned a rumble of approval and was pulled close to that
broad chest. A whisper in his ear. "Better than that time on
the desert island?"
Obi-Wan cocked his head to one side, musing. "Yes, though that
could have been due to my allergic reaction to the coconut oil
afterwards."
Qui-Gon made a coughing sound. "Better than that time on
Illyria 4 with the fertility rites?"
Obi-Wan furrowed his eyebrows. "Well, kind of. The tauntaun
pelt you had on really chafed, and my braid kept getting caught
in those ridiculous antlers you insisted on wearing."
Qui-Gon made a choking sound. "Better than that time during the
covert mission on Carida when we had to hide in the broom
closet for five hours?"
Obi-Wan shrugged lamely. "I get cramps really easy."
Qui-Gon shuffled mentally through other memories. "Then what
about the mission when you were my slave?"
"You bought me for a measly twenty dinaari!!"
"Dellaltian hot springs? The waterfall?"
"Your hands were all pruney by the time we got out. It reminded
me too much of Master Yoda."
"My bout of vampirism on Ryloth?"
Obi-Wan paused with a fond smile. "That was fun. But explaining
all those hickeys to the other padawans wasn't."
"Virgin sacrifice at dawn on Rafa 5?"
"Performance anxiety."
"That time when I bumped my head and had amnesia, was
accidentally slipped a monster dose of aphrodisiacs, then
turned to the Dark Side and demanded you be my apprentice after
I revealed myself to you?"
Obi-Wan's eyes lit up. "Oooh."
Qui-Gon gave him a smug look.
"But this time was okay too. That's all I'm saying."
"I never had any doubts that it would be, padawan."
"Good, I'd hate for you to think that the magic was gone or
anything."
"Never, in any way, for all time. Well...at least not until the
suns of Tattooine burn out, Alderaan is blasted into
smithereens, or some whiny slacker twit spawned by a scary
little Aryan brat becomes the only shining hope of the
universe."
Obi-Wan shook off the weird nagging feeling that suddenly
popped up in the back of him mind, then favored his master with
another radiant smile. The other half of Onelistia promptly
fell over and died.
It was big. Really big. And it had fangs. Lots of them. And
horns. And spikes and spines and armored plates. And bumps,
lots of bumps. And claws and talons and poisonous stingers on
the tips of its whip-like tentacles, too. It was just about
anything and everything that was fearsome rolled into one, with
a few other bits that were beyond classification stuck in for
good measure. It was the biggest, scariest, ickiest thing that
ever lived, Elayna was certain. And it was covered in purple
sugar-free Jell-O and splashing aside large globs trying to get
to her.
She paddled as fast as she could to the other side of the pool,
looking vainly for any crevices in the smooth tile walls that
she could grab onto, any crack or outjutting piece of mortar
that would allow her some sort of purchase along the slick
barrier -- from there, she could Force-propel herself over the
rim and out of sight, leaving the big bad beastie thoroughly
bewildered. However, the wall didn't seem to be cooperating
with her plan -- not a hint of variation along the whole
perimeter.
Well, then. So that was how it was going to be. In all her time
as a Jedi Master, she had never dreamed she would end her days
in a pit of Jell-O battling Satan's genetically engineered
radioactively mutated elder brother. Then again, she tried to
console herself philosophically, no-one got to choose their
fates. Unless they had enough funds to invest in a cloning
plant or two. Since that was out of the question, she would
face her demise with all the dignity and bravery her years of
training and service were worth. Her new resolve was like a
breath of fresh air. She turned to encounter the beast, a cloak
of calm acceptance pulled tightly around her. She was ready to
give it her all in one final confrontation.
The monstrosity loomed before her, frothing at the mouth. Well,
at one of its mouths. The other ones on the ends of the
tentacles were doing more of a
snappity-snap-I'm-going-to-eat-you thing. Elayna steadfastly
ignored them. Pushing off from the wall with all her might and
quite a healthy dollop of Force, she propelled herself forward
and upwards, executed a double somersault to slow her down in
mid-air, then gave the beast a swift but severe dropkick in the
region she took to be a chest. The leviathan went flying
backwards, hitting the other wall with a dull thud before
plopping back into the goop. It didn't resurface.
Elayna blinked. She knew she was good, but not that good.
Someone had been helping her. Someone who had known what she
was going to do and boosted her attack at the vital moment.
Someone with a masterly command of the Force. Someone who, she
thought wryly, even after several hundred years of Hooked On
Phonics lessons, still couldn't formulate a grammatically
correct sentence if his life depended on it. As if on cue, she
heard that familiar high-pitched voice vehemently yelling at
someone from the viewing platforms above, causing quite a
ruckus amongst the natives. A second later, she was being
lifted out of the pool by invisible tendrils of Force.
Upon touching solid ground, Elayna shook off as much of the
glop as she could, then turned and bowed her thanks to her
rescuers. Master Yoda, who had noticeably dark circles under
his bloodshot eyes, nodded back at her. She knelt to his level
as he shuffled forward to meet her.
"Knighted you are not, these people claim. Justified they think
they were, using you as beastie bait. Come to rectify this
oversight I have." The little green troll turned to give the
Promethazinian officials a pointed look, as if daring them to
defy him, then gestured to one of the cloaked figures behind
him. It strode forth and handed the elderly Jedi Master his
gimmer stick. As it backed away, the cowl slid back far enough
for Elayna to see the face of her padawan, Amber, trying to
stifle a grin at her master's rather unorthodox appearance.
Yoda thumped his stick on the ground to call for attention,
then slowly lifted it over Elayna's lowered head. He brought it
down gently on one shoulder, then the other, reciting some
ancient undecipherable dialect in the process. He thumped the
ground again, then took three steps back and beckoned for
Elayna to stand. "Both a Jedi Knight and Master you are.
Official, now it is."
The crowd broke out in cheers, the officials shrugged at
eachother, and the two Jedi who had accompanied Yoda beamed as
they put down their cowls. Elayna strode forward to hug her
padawan and grand-padawan, curious as to how they had managed
to get to her as quickly as they had. She was also curious to
know why Amber was covered in feathers and Barri smelled like
ripe fertilizer. She stopped in midstep, though, upon seeing
Yoda nearly fall over as he attempted to shuffle to meet them.
The elderly gnome wobbled a bit as his hangover struck him with
renewed vigor. Everyone held their breath as he steadied
himself and turned back towards them. "Stop looking at me like
that you will!" He shouted shrilly at the people in the stands,
waving his stick. "Continue the celebration you may. Get me a
drink you will," he added as an afterthought.
Before anyone could comment, though, a commotion came from the
back of the ceremonial chambers. All eyes turned to the doors
as a pair of cloaked figures made a rather spectacular
entrance, flipping and leaping around in a set of complicated
maneuvers, twirling their lit lightsabers and leaving a wake of
terrified guards.
Tumbling to an abrupt stop in front of the other group of Jedi,
the new- comers looked a bit on the confused side. The shorter
one was the first to speak. "Master," he addressed the larger
man, "I think we arrived a tad too late."
Then, a wicked gleam crept into the elder Jedi's eyes. Turning
to Elayna, he announced, "Present to you, I do, as your
congratulatory promotional gift, Qui-Gon Jinn and his
apprentice, young Kenobi." He winked at Elayna. "Take advantage
of this, I recommend." Yoda scuffled past the two men, headed
towards the wine spritzers. He gave Obi-Wan a pat on the behind
with his gimmer stick in passing, causing the padawan to yelp.
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