Archive: master_apprentice, and anyone else who wants it! Just
let me know where!
Category: Alternate-Universe, Non Q/O
Rating: G
Warnings:None
Spoilers: None
Summary: An Initiate's thoughts as he approaches his 13th
birthday.
Feedback: Yes, please, but be gentle; I don't handle negative
comments very well.
He was working, as he often did, in the Initiates' garden.
He'd discovered early on he felt a strong tie to the Living
Force, and enjoyed working with plants and animals. He looked
forward to turning 13 so he could join the Agri-Corps.
Not that he considered being a Knight or a Healer less
important; he simply wanted to work with plants and animals,
and the best place to do that was the Agri-Corp.
"Beautiful, this place," a well-known and highly respected
voice said. "Restful as well. Good work you do. Strong you are
in the Force." Yoda scrutinized the Initiate. "Needed you will
be, and not to tend plants."
He was crestfallen. "But -- but -- Master Yoda, it's all I've
ever wanted to do." He was nearly in tears. Not join the
Agri-Corp? It would be like losing a limb. Being away from the
gardens was bad enough; being sent into space -- he'd
experienced it once, as a special "treat" -- was the ultimate
horror. At first he thought he'd lost his ability to sense the
Force, and panicked until he realized he could still feel the
energies of his yearmates. But when he reached out to feel the
Living Force which had always been comfortably around him, he
felt . . . nothing. As far as he was concerned, space was a
cold, empty place, and he wanted nothing to do with it.
"Watched you, I have," the wizened master continued. "Good
with plants you are. Also with animals -- know I do of your
strays." The Initiate gasped -- Yoda knew about the menagerie
he kept in an out-of-the-way part of the garden!? The master
nodded as if reading his thoughts. "Yes, know of it I do. Much
of you I know. Best in swordwork among your yearmates you are
also, and best in schoolwork. Wasted in Agri-Corp you would be.
Padawan you should be, yes."
"But I'm not yet 13," the Initiate said.
"Bah! Lack of years matters not!" Yoda told him. "Ready you
are now to be trained. My padawan you will be, yes?"
He couldn't believe his ears. "You want ME as your padawan?"
He suddenly frowned. "Would I have to go into space?"
"Go into space you must," Yoda said. "Learn to tolerate it you
will."
The Initiate had no doubt he would, if he became Yoda's
padawan.
"You accept?" Yoda prompted.
"I accept," Qui-Gon said solemnly, turning away from his
dreams of the Agri-Corp and following the diminutive master to
be registered as his padawan. But when he made his first
lightsaber, and with every succeeding one, he used crystals
that made the blade green.
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