****************
Title:
The Importance of Having Candy (1/1)
Author:
Darth Diebin
****************
Catagory:
First Apprentice Series--Humor
(Other
FA stories: http://www.geocities.com/mistressdiebin/fanfic.html)
Setting:
Siona is 3, Qui-Gon is 17 (I finally worked the ages out, I’ll go
back
and fix them in other stories later.)
Rating:
Mace says ‘Damn.’ That’s as racey as it gets.
Archive:
Take it. It’s silly, I don’t want it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Qui-Gon
Jinn was in danger. Surrounded by the enemy he overwhelmed and
outnumbered,
his partner had already fallen beneath an onslaught of their
deadly
foes--and his bootlaces were tied together. Again.
“Mace!”
he bellowed as another attacker battered at his knees, this time
sending
him sprawling to the ground as he lost his balance and tripped over
his
tangled laces. His attacker launched himself onto his chest with a
squeal
of glee, tiny elbows and knees digging into Qui-Gon’s stomach as the
small
body tried to climb up his knees.
Mace’s head
popped out of a crowd of tiny children, wincing as he tried to
get the
tiny boy in his arms to disentangle his small fist from his Padawan
tail.
“Yes, Qui-Gon?”
Qui-Gon
didn’t have a chance to respond. The small girl who was trying to
climb him
slipped as she got one foot on his knee, falling back onto his
stomach
with an excited exclamation and a giggle. Qui-Gon let out a startled
curse
and caught the child, reaching down with the Force to untangle his
bootlaces.
“Tell
me again why I agree to be your friend,” Qui-Gon grated out, setting
the
small girl aside and reaching down to fix his bootlaces. “If it weren’t
for you
and your foolish games, I’d be doing something more productive with
my time
than acting as a punching bag for the excitable initiates. I’m sick
of
getting punished alongside you for your idiotic pranks. Without you, I’d
be a
lot closer to being a Knight by now!”
“And
you’d be boring,” Mace responded with a grin, reaching up a hand to try
to coax
the little fist tangled in his hair away. “Shawn, /please/--Mace
doesn’t
like it when you pull his hair.”
The
little boy didn’t seem overly impressed with Mace’s rhetoric, continuing
to
blithely suck his thumb and tug on Mace’s hair.
Qui-Gon
snickered, casting Mace a smug grin. “Serves you right,” Qui-Gon
said,
reaching out without looking to snag the little toddler trying to
wander
away on her still wobbly legs. “Stay here, Siona,” Qui-Gon said to
the
little girl, dragging her back into the tangle of children and
depositing
her safely within reach.
“I
swear to you, Qui-Gon--” Mace’s face was a mask of comic dismay, and
Qui-Gon
had a difficult time stifling a laugh.
“The minute I pass the
trials,
it’s gone. All of it. When my Master cuts my braid off, he’s taking
/all/
of the rest of my hair with it.” Little Shawn still had his tiny fist
wrapped
around Mace’s ponytail, and had decided to forgoe thumb-sucking for
the
pleasure of tugging on Mace’s braid instead.
“If you
didn’t hold him all the time, he wouldn’t get a chance to pull your
hair so
much,” Qui-Gon responded, grinning slightly. “And you’ve still at
least
five years before you can even /think/ about the Trials--so I’d think
of some
other means of defense if I were you.”
Mace
let out a long suffering sigh--but Qui-Gon noticed that he made no move
to put
the small boy down. Hiding a smile, Qui-Gon turned back to the
children
surrounding him. Mace had a soft spot in his heart for young
Shawn--chances
were that he would take the boy as his Padawan if he became a
Knight
in time.
Qui-Gon’s
arm shot out again, catching little Siona as she once again
toddled
away from the other children. He did it out of instinct now, having
spent
more than one afternoon with baby-sitting duty as punishment. Of all
of two,
three, and four year olds, Siona was without doubt the most
independent.
While the others were content to climb on the older Padawans,
pull
their hair, and tie their shoes together, Siona was never happy unless
she was
moving--preferably in a direction she wasn’t supposed to be going.
“Stay
with us, Siona,” Qui-Gon admonished, pulling the toddler into his lap
and
ignoring her squirming. Siona looked up at Qui-Gon with her huge eyes,
tears
starting to form.
“Leggo,”
she commanded shortly, glaring up at Qui-Gon.
“Stay
with me, Siona,” Qui-Gon repeated, trying to settle the small child
back
into his lap more comfortably.
“No.”
Although Siona’s vocabulary was limited, she had long ago mastered
that
simple word, usually spoken with a trembling lower lip and tear-filled
eyes.
If Qui-Gon hadn’t known better, he could have sworn that she was
maliciously
manipulating him.
But she
was three years old. She couldn’t do that, could she?
“Oooooachh-DAMN!”
Qui-Gon
spun away from Siona to look at his friend, and choked back laughter
at the
sight of one of the toddlers scrambling up Mace’s back, using his
ponytail
as a handhold.
“No,
get down Lioth,” Mace begged, trying to free his arms from Shawn to
disentangle
the child from his hair. Shawn glared at the interloper,
grabbing
on to the top of Mace’s ponytail and starting to pull, trying to
get his
favorite toy away from the challenger.
Siona
took advantage of Qui-Gon’s distraction and scrambled out of his lap,
running
away as quickly as she could on wobbly legs. Qui-Gon turned just in
time to
see her running towards the small fountain, and let out a strangled
curse
as he freed himself from the other children to lurch to his feet.
Too
late, of course. Siona crawled into the shallow fountain, jumping and
screaming
in triumph as she splashed enthusiastically.
“Qui-Gon--”
Mace started warningly, but it was too late. Seeing Siona’s
apparent
fun, the little ones started stampeding as a whole towards the
fountain.
Qui-Gon started running, his longer legs getting him to the
fountain
long before the children. Wading in, he scooped up Siona and
started
wading towards the edge, hoping to head off the hoard of children.
He
forgot that they were Jedi-Trainees. Although there was little that they
had
learned at such a young age, they already understood the concept of mass
attack--they’d
proved that earlier today.
Mace
laughed as Qui-Gon went down under a wave of children, all of whom
started
climbing immediately over the large man, using him as a diving board
for
enthusiastic belly flops into the water. Coughing and sputtering,
Qui-Gon
tried to fight his way up only to have one of the trainee’s leap
onto his
chest, forcing him back into the water again.
“Funny,
you think this is?” a voice behind Mace asked. The young man froze,
knowing
the voice of the esteemed Jedi Master as well as he knew the voice
of his
own Master.
“No,
Master Yoda,” Mace replied, spinning promptly to bow before Qui-Gon’s
Master.
“My
Padawan, you should help,” Yoda pointed out, raising his gimmer stick to
gesture
to the fountain, where Qui-Gon was still struggling to emerge from
the
tangle of screaming children.
“Of
course, Master,” Mace replied, still kneeling and staring at the ground.
The
sensation of being lifted was distinctly odd, and Mace fought the urge
to
struggle as he floated over the intervening space between the Master and
the
fountain.
The children
stopped climbing on Qui-Gon long enough to point and cry out at
this
new form of entertainment. Lifting his head, Qui-Gon forced back a
laugh
at the sight of Mace, eyes wild, floating towards the fountain.
Yoda
waved his hand slightly and Mace went tumbling down, landing with a
curse
and a resounding splash.
“MAAAACEEE!”
Little Shawn, appalled that he had deserted his favorite
playtoy
for so long went hurting through the water to land on Mace’s chest,
happily
splashing water at the Padawan’s face.
“Children,
with me you should now come!” No sooner had the words left Yoda’s
mouth
then all of the children with the exception of Shawn, who was still
busy
climbing on Mace, were climbing obediently from the pool and trotting
over to
the small Master.
Qui-Gon
spent a moment marveling. He had spent the last two hours coaxing
and
pleading with the children, and yet with once sentence his Master got
instant
obedience. How in the name of the Force did he do it?
::I
give them candy, my Padawan. That is why they come to me.::
Qui-Gon
choked as Yoda winked at him before turning and leading the
assembled
children away. His Master gave them /candy/?
His
Master knew how to /wink/?
Qui-Gon
pulled himself out of the fountain, heading back to his rooms with
his
proverbial tail tucked between his legs. Okay, so he was seventeen and
he
couldn’t even handle a few toddlers. His Master was feeding the trainee’s
candy.
His Master had a sense of humor.
It
certainly had been a day for discoveries, it seemed. Settling down to
take a
long, hot, shower, Qui-Gon decided it was definatly time to invest in
some
candy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silly,
huh?
Feedback?
I'll take it. Or anyone who wants to just e-mail me and say, 'Hey,
you're
cool!'
*Diebin
kicks Darth RealLife, who has been abusing her royally lately.*