Padawan Perils (For Mr AZ)
 

Eldton Bro walks swiftly through the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, his attention primarily focused on locating a specific person amid the inhabitants of the entire building. He had recently been assigned to train a young padawan learner, though he is still adjusting to the responsibility. Truth be told, he was never much of a people person, and taking command of another is a bit more involvement that he'd expected. However, the Council's will is rarely questioned, so he accepted the appointment, despite his own reservations about being ready for the task. The Council apparently feels that he is ready, or at least believes that the experience will bring out the best in him.


Now, walking out onto the grand courtyard, his eyes dart to and fro through the crowd of students gathered outside for rest between teachings. He knows that she would likely be among their number, but locating her is never an easy task, at the best of times.


“Where could that girl be, this time?”

Roni was a brunnete messy haired and green eyed ini…no, not she was not longer an initiate, she was now a padawan, she guessed she had to be more than grateful to the counceil and to the Master that had taken her, if he had not taken her maybe no one else would have and they would have sent her to the coorps, bringing shame into her for being rejected from the Jedi temple, her name would just be added to the large list of failures of the Jedi.

The Masters tried to make it sound like an oportunity to help others, but everyone knew that no matter the reason, if you got sent there you became a living failure, never to develop to anything more than a servant.

The girl sighed and looked down, clases would resume after the break and everyone was chitchatting here and there, she prefered to be appart of them, remain mostly hidden in one of the courtyard’s corners, one she was rather shy, and two, well, she was different from them, for one reason or another, from her thoughts on the force and it’s sides to her questions about the code, so to not to raise any trouble she mostly isolated herself and was terribly quiet, she prefered to stay on the right side of people, when she was younger she had commited the stupidity to try to talk to others, well, they began to suspect of her and she ended being vigilated to see if she was falling into forbidden emotions, she had learned to not to do that again.

At the end she just leaned back and tried to relax, they had just had a rather exhausting exam, but at least what was next was good; they had saber practice.

She was unaware of her Master looking for her, even since she had been picked by him it had become awkward, she didn’t know how to act around him, other than respectfully, or what did he expect of her, other than obedience.

As they had yet to bond as Master and padawan she could not really be aware of his presence unless she was willing herself to locate him with all her might, but this wasn’t that situation, since she had understood that she was to see him until the end of the lessons.

She rubbed her right eye, under the which scars met on the skin of her cheek, she had many scars on her body, overall on her arms and back, but wasn’t that sure of their origin now, as the Jedi forbid initiates from really remembering their origins, their family and such, those who held too much to them had been tried to be helped with a minor memory erase lately, as many had had to be sent away to the coorps for holding grudges and hatred.

Pausing to think, Eldton knows that padawan and master are never paired randomly. They are either complete opposites, intended to complement each other, or so similar that it's scary. Given the brief meetings that he's had with her, he knows that it must surely be the latter option. Using this knowledge, he looks for the most isolated corner of the courtyard, knowing that he would seek solitude if he found himself in a situation similar to her own. As he expected, he sees the girl sitting off by herself, so he steps up to her silently before catching her attention.


“Roni, is your head in the clouds, or is enough of your conscious mind present that I may have its time?”


He stands above her, watching the girl with his dark brown eyes, which match the color of his short mess of hair perfectly. His only facial adornment is a neatly trimmed beard that frames his mouth. Otherwise, the rest of his body is kept out of sight underneath a pair of pitch black tunic and breeches. At his belt, the silver and black casing of his lightsaber hangs freely, ready for trouble even here in the secure confines of the temple.

The girl was indeed looking up and trying to distract herself, if well she welcomed breaks, overall after hard exams, she mostly didn't have anything to do on then more than try to relax. Truth to be told she never heard, nor felt the Master closing on her, until she heard his voice.

She snapped to attention and got up immediatly, feeling rather stupid for not having noticed him.

"S...sorry Master, I didn't see you coming" She apologized once she stood up and bowed lightly to him in a sign of respect, her green eyes not meeting his dark brown ones. She tended to avoid eye contact, both a sign of respect and something that had sticked with her, even although she didn't know since when. The young padawan stood still then, awaiting for his orders or to see in what she could be useful to him.

Eldton finds amusement in how quickly the girl snaps to attention, as if she were his soldier, instead of his student. It was a behavior that many of the padawans exhibited towards their masters, and it sometimes disturbed him. However, there would be plenty of time to break her of the habit later.


“Do not apologize, child. Many great things were conceived by those who have been lost in thought. If you attention is always focused around you, and never inward, then you will never know more than what you see.”


It was a lesson that was once taught to him by Master Yoda, though Eldton's version has much better diction.


“Your afternoon lessons will have to wait, Roni. You and I are... Child, lift your face to mine. You should be looking at me when I'm talking, not the floor.”


He doesn't mean to scold her, but he finds her refusal to look directly at him to be annoying, at best. If someone is truly listening to him, then he believes that their eyes will show it.

Roni reacts as she thinks she must, then again she's new to this and her isolation from other padawans has really left her with only guesses and what she has heard here and there about how to react towards one's Master, respect was a must as was obedience and all the basics, but that was all she knew.

Well, ok, not like she would need anything else, she was to obey and respect him, she understands that.

She listens to him while looking down and just nods respectfully, trying to make a bit more of sense of the phrase, it is logical in a sense, still she feels quite stupid that, being now a padawan, she didn't noticed her own Master.

As he continues speaking she feels a bit surprised that she will miss the rest of her lessons, but knows that that is bound to happen, so she says nothing, however, what really surprised her was the Master's request.

To evade eye contact was something she always did and she was used that it got her good results, the fact that it unerved her Master was rather strange, but she guessed she would have to adapt.

It helped a lot since some Masters could take it as a near challenge to have a continuous eye contact, and it also unerved some people, like padawans or teachers, and, as mentioned before, she would rather avoid any confrontation with her companions or those above her, to prevent any other suspicion coming onto her.

Nevertheless she tried to obey immediatly, lifting her face to his, her green eyes contacting his. She wasn't used to this so she almost lowered her eyes again, but she force herself to try to not to do so, since it would mean a direct dissobedience.

"S...sorry, sir" She apologized gently.

“That's okay, Roni. Just try to pay better attention when someone is speaking to you. It's polite to give them your complete attention and not be looking around at everything. Give the daydreaming a break for a few minutes, if you could.”


Eldton gently puts his hand underneath the girl's chin, holding it up so she has an easier time of resisting the urge to look away. Because he doesn't know her actual reasons for avoiding eye contact, his first assumption is that she has issues with her self-esteem, which he feels obligated to help her work on. It would have to wait, though, as he has more important matters to discuss with her at the moment.


“We have been called to the Council Chamber by the Masters. We are to be there in one hour, so I wanted to find you so you can quickly prepare and we can appear before them on time. Let's go to our quarters, and I want you to spend some time meditating to clear your mind. The Council are judgmental old coots, so appearances are everything.”


That is how Eldton sees them, anyway, even if that's not really an accurate description. He has always felt judged by them when he is before them, particularly since he knows that his heart isn't as pure as the Jedi strive to achieve.

The padawan muttered an apology as her Master finished talking, she wasn’t trying to daydream but if he considered it like that she could see what he wasn’t amused, she wouldn’t correct him and instead she took note to try to never avoid his eyes again, it wasn’t normal for her so it would be difficult, but she would have to manage.

It was strange because some of the Masters did not like it, others took it as if you had not learnt your lesson, if they were scolding you for example, and you looked up at them (She had forced herself to do that at times, to see if it transmited that she had learned and was sorry) they seemed to think you were defying them or that you still were questioning them. With other apprentices, even if she avoided contact with them, it worked to prevent light bullying and questioning, so because of all this she had never tried to remove her habit of not seeing people in the eyes, she really didn’t know why it was, she tended to see the person, look at them a bit and then lower her gaze, she would have to correct it now.

It wouldn’t easy.

Yet the touch of her Master’s hand wasn’t expected, still she was still and tried not to show any sign of surprise, teachers and others usually didn’t touch initiates, well, except when you had an attitude not worthy of a Jedi hopeful... and in those ocassions it wasn’t a nice touch.

She tried to hide a wince at the mention of the Counceil, she had been in front of them twice, one more time than many of the apprentices, the first, to have the counceil admit her as a hopeful, just like it happened with all Force sensitives, and the second, when she was judged because of the way she seemed to distance herself from lightside teachings, or so they said, she had been very, VERY close to be sent to the Coorps that day, in her young life she had never felt so judged or frowned upon, or at least not that she remembered.

She had managed to hide the bit of anger that came later that day, she had felt judged by a bunch of old strangers and proclaimed unworthy, and she didn’t even fully understand why. Yet, as they were thaught, they had to see the counceil as nearly gods, so she erased that from her mind soon enough, telling herself that the counceil was wise and that if she was judged it was because she had done something very wrong.

The next phrase of her Master made her look fully at him, she would have thought that she was the only one who had ever thought something like that, it was strange yet welcomed that the Master wasn’t that different from her. She hid a light smile and nodded.

“I’ll do so immediatly, sir” She assured seriously and waited for him to guide the way, after all she was to be always one step behind him, as the teachings said.

Eldton releases the girl's chin, instead patting Roni's shoulder enthusiastically to show that he's pleased with her. He has known padawans who saw the Council almost as gods, and they'd bend over backwards to please them. For Eldton, it is more about getting them off of his back, instead.


“Good girl. I knew that you'd be up for the challenge. Now, let's go get ourselves ready, and then we'll meet with the Council to see what's crawled up their asses, today.”


Slipping his hand around the girl's shoulders, he pulls her up to his side as he starts to walk back through the throngs of young students on their afternoon break. Such closeness is often frowned upon because of Jedi teachings, but he feels that he should be quite familiar with anyone that he should have to trust to watch his back when trouble is about. For this reason, he often prefers to work alone, so he doesn't have to put that much trust in anyone. However, with a padawan under him, he isn't afforded that luxury. Therefore, he intends to earn her trust and respect, so that she would in turn work to earn his.


“The teachers have been telling me that your studies are coming along nicely, but that there are portions that you're struggling with. Why have you not come to me with these problems? As your master, I have the time to dedicate to you that the other teachers do not.”

Roni is really not used to the touch nor to the demostration of anything, much less to the praise, so it indeed takes her a bit, well, more like quite by aback. She focuses a bit on the thought of meeting the counceil instead, to try and not to show this as she believes that it’s her Master’s personality so she has nothing to say at that, the thought of being around the grand Masters one is not a nice one yet but she knows there’s no way around it so she will do her best, and pray the Force that they find her normal as anyother student this time.

The young brunette padawan let out a soft exalation, a silent chuckle at his words, yet immediatly resumed her serious stance, the Master is allowed to mock them if he wishes, he’s the Master after all, she’s just a student, so she’s not supposed to do that.

She noticed a couple of weird looks here and there amont the students they past, even some frowns, so she immediatly shifted her gaze to the ground, to frown back meant trouble for later, to glare back would mean the same, she doesn’t want that right now, overall since getting in any kind of trouble is not acceptable anymore now that she has a Master.

Roni is not used to the closeness so she is tensed, yet accepts it since it’s her Master who is doing it.

As he talked she did her best to try to at least be glancing at his face. When he finished talking she looked down then, cringing a bit, she hadn’t expected that those problems would be reported to him so soon, she had been trying hard to solve them.

“S...sorry sir” She apologized honestly. “I...I didn’t think they were important enough as to bother you and... and I was trying to fix them” She had been doing that, she had been studying even harder to try and not to stain the name of her new Master, she had heard that Master’s were at times judged for their padawan’s actions, so if a padawan was failing, or not doing greatly in a subjet it came as a stain to the Master’s pride, so she had been trying to avoid that.

“I’ll try harder, sir” She assured softly.