#I think I lost them to my brilliant failure to collect my possessions after moving out of university residence

[yasbxxgie]

Satire and Subversion in Ishmael Reed’s “Conjugating Hindi”

Back in the 1800s, South Asian men arrived in the United States as peddlers or seamen. According to historian Vivek Bald in Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, they were single, and instead of creating enclaves of their own, they assimilated and married into Black and Puerto Rican communities in areas like Harlem and New Orleans. The fluidity between Black American and South Asian American communities didn’t disappear, but continued into the Jim Crow era, when some Black Americans put on turbans and pretended to be Indian to avoid harassment. Some used exotica to sell the illusion, and at that time of pre-yoga, when people knew even less about South Asians than they know now, the ruse worked. People could not tell the difference between Black people and the people identified as “Hindoos.”

Due to the United States’s immigration laws and policies, over the last several decades, professional Indians have become much more visible to the mainstream than working-class South Asian immigrants had previously been. Their collective economic success in the United States has been used to produce the harmful model minority myth, a myth that aggressively omits the numerous structural factors that have conferred advantages on members of this group: caste, class privilege, Brahmin and other upper-caste networks in America, India’s affirmative action laws, socialism built into India’s constitution, and learning English due to India’s prior status as a British colony. Although many Indian Americans subscribe to the model minority myth, Indian Americans as a bloc have been reliable Democratic voters for decades, and there are notable Democratic politicians with South Asian ancestry such as Kamala Harris and Pramila Jayapal. But more recently, several Indian Americans have risen to prominence under an anti-Black, anti-immigrant, far-right agenda (much to the mortification and embarrassment of their progressive counterparts who have set up a Desi Wall of Shame): Dinesh D’Souza, Nikki Haley, Ajit Pai, Raj Shah, Seema Verma, Dimple Shah, and Shalli Kumar.

The history of affinities and tensions between Black and Indian communities in America, as well as how White conservatives and liberals have exploited Indian immigrants over the last few decades to justify and produce further discrimination against Black communities, sets the foundation for Ishmael Reed’s ingenious, razor-sharp, seriocomic novel Conjugating Hindi, published by Dalkey Archive Press. Like other Reed novels, Conjugating Hindi is not only a novel, but is also a graphic novel, heavily illustrated with provocative hand-drawn cartoons. In the novel, you can see the aforementioned history upended and satirized for the Trump era.

***

“California is still the world’s biggest hideout,” the novel begins. Peter Bowman, or “Boa,” is a Black professional who is fleeing something from his past. He moves to North Oakland, where he teaches at a community college and explores the gentrified city. After taking an early retirement, Boa becomes a public intellectual and is invited to debate with a right-wing Hindu “intellectual” egomaniac Shashi Paramara on the subject of “Was Slavery All That Bad?” The Columbia Speakers Bureau tells him: “There’s an opportunity for you to make some more money. You’ll be able to break out of the Black History Month ghetto.” Boa mentally notes that the event, like Oakland, was being “gentrified” by non-Black people. Facing a tax audit, Boa needs the money offered for the debates, and reluctantly participates. Shashi argues that slavery wasn’t that bad, and is received with open arms and adulation by self-serving White right-wingers. Boa argues the opposite, standing in as a kind of straw man, and is ignored by Shashi, as well as the rest of the audience.

Shashi has a radical sister, Kala, a professor of Post-Colonialist Studies, with ink-black skin and who doesn’t fit in with her Brahmin family. She believes English is an imperialist language and demands that only Hindi be spoken in India. Boa is immediately intrigued, but his young Black chauffeur warns him off: “Indians can be as racist toward Black people as Whites. Some have called them the most racist people in the world. Not only do they hate Blacks but they have problems with the darker members of their own families. You got mobs beating African students…”

Boa worries, “A new bunch of racists coming into the country adding to the ones who are already here?” The chauffeur tells him that to Shashi and his Brahmin entourage, “[Y]ou’re a Dalit. An Untouchable.” Boa assumes this is ridiculous, citing Gandhi, but this gets him thinking, and he goes down the rabbit hole of learning Hindi (hence, the title) and exploring literature about South Asia.

Political tensions escalate. Eventually during one debate, the moderator announces that India just shot down an American passenger plane. The conservatives who had been nodding along with Shashi call him an Indian N-word and try to beat him up. He’s rescued by security. Meanwhile, Boa is rescued by Kala, who pulls up on a Harley and drives him home before heading off to her host’s home in the Berkeley Hills (her host is a Black woman whose best-selling memoir is entitled My Triple Oppression). Before she leaves, Boa asks how the mob missed her, and she responds that White Americans are always mixing her up with a Black person, that being Black doesn’t work in India, but in the United States it comes in handy for her. Boa is baffled.

The plane incident triggers all-too-believable xenophobic and racist mayhem. Indians wearing traditional clothing are dragged off BART. Indians bus from Silicon Valley to the San Jose airport and face racist insults. Mobs start hunting Indians. A Fugitive Indian Law is debated in Congress. Shashi comes to Boa, asking to hide out in his place, dressed like a “hip-hopper” in order to avoid being harassed. Boa agrees to let him stay, a shrewd callback to how South Asian peddlers sought and received refuge with Black and Puerto Rican communities in the 19th century.

The novel goes heavy into informal debate at this juncture, with Boa eventually confronting Shashi on his anti-Blackness (which Boa comes to recognize also as a kind of self-loathing and determined refusal to face facts regarding the British Empire). In his satirical rendition of the informal debates between Shashi and Boa, Reed nails the Dinesh D’Souzian failure to comprehend basic historical facts about both America and India. He sketches Shashi as both a naïve innocent and opportunist. The novel turns at points into a graphic sex comedy, with sex itself as another kind of border crossing — for really, how else could Boa communicate deeply with someone as obtuse as Shashi? The debates and sex comedy give rise to action, and then to tragic climax. The denouement genuinely satisfies.

In a reprisal of Reed’s Blues City: A Walk in Oakland, former mayor Jerry Brown is given a tongue-lashing in Conjugating Hindi for the “ethnic cleansing” and gentrification of Oakland that he believes has transformed it into a “hipster playground.” This serves as a symbol for the gentrification of Black History Month as well. The novel is more descriptive than Mumbo Jumbo, not only of Oakland scenes, but also of Boa’s internal landscape, which is shaped by academic texts and movies. Blended into factual material are fictions — the president at the time of the novel is “Kleiner Fuhrer,” for instance. In the kind of self-referential and darkly hilarious note also found in brilliant novelist Percival Everett’s work, Ishmael Reed himself makes appearances as a character throughout the novel. Also appearing is Chappie Puttbutt — Reed’s fictional Black literary critic who sides with whomever he can to get tenure in Reed’s 1993 novel Japanese by Spring (one of Chappie’s books is entitled What If I Prefer Beethoven Over Coltrane?).

***

Conjugating Hindi is a further exploration of Reed’s alternative Black aesthetic of Neo-HooDoo, informed by bricolage and jazz improvisation. It is not quite as poetic or gnostic as Reed’s 1972 masterpiece Mumbo Jumbo, but it is brilliant — the same sort of experimental brilliance observable in the fiction of Thomas Pynchon or the cut-up technique of William S. Burroughs — and more accessible. It hews to the satiric register of Reed’s Japanese By Spring and Juice.

The novel is what some academics have dubbed a trickster text, a text informed by the mischievous, shape-shifting, slippery figure of the trickster, found in folklore throughout the world. Implicit in Reed’s formal style, as well as his content, is the trickster disregard for caste of any kind. Heedless of boundaries and resistant to being pinned down or hemmed in, the novel is driven almost entirely by Reed’s deep, free-wheeling curiosity about why things are the way they are in regard to the use of the model minority myth against Black communities.

Reed’s incorporation of caste into the fictional debate between Boa and Shashi is fascinating and insightful — he understands the rigidity and cruelty of the caste system far better than many American writers and critics, who assume caste is a relic of the past or synonymous with class, rather than something far more insidious. This remains a set identity that a Hindu possesses from birth, describing his degree of “purity” or “pollution,” and consequently his entitlement to respect, as well as a script for social relations, including arranged marriages. There are moments where Reed brings his exploration of caste and race together in a way that felt a touch too pat, binding together a little too neatly anti-Blackness with the Brahmin identity of Indian immigrants assimilating into the far right. Hinduism can be fairly described as heterogeneous and protean and it does have trickster-like figures such as Krishna or the mohini, but the Brahminical mindset is a strongly anti-trickster perspective, and so those with this mindset could find equally appealing certain strains of center-left thought that push rigid identity, scripted social relations, and endogamy. In any case, by novel’s end, Reed’s novel surprises and delights and for the most part, he takes every opportunity to be artistically more subversive, more slant, more true.

The most famous Dalit intellectual of all time, B. R. Ambedkar wrote in The Untouchables,

It must be recognized that the selfish interest of a person or of the class to which he belongs always acts as an internal limitation which regulates the direction of his intellect. […] A Voltaire among the Brahmins would be a positive danger to the maintenance of a civilisation which is contrived to maintain Brahmanic supremacy. […] If any non-Brahmin were to make such an attempt the Brahmin scholars would engage in a conspiracy of silence, take no notice of him, condemn him outright on some flimsy grounds or dub his work useless.

This is an observation that holds true in the Indian-American diaspora, too. So far, nobody in the United States is publishing any Voltaire-like satires of caste and race by a Dalit American or a non-Brahmin Indian American, but this bold and memorable novel by a brilliant Black author is the next best thing.

Conjugating Hindi is a firebrand’s novel, the crackling, overflowing, pugnacious novel of someone who doesn’t care about genre boundaries any more than he cares about historical boundaries, but who does care deeply about innovating. In an interview with Callaloo that was conducted in 1988 at Reed’s home, Reed commented:

Well, Afro-American artists have always had to struggle against the middle-class. […] I mean when you write the truth, sometimes the black middle class complains or the white right wing will complain or the left wing will complain. […] I think most Afro-American artists catch it from all sides. I think most ethnic artists catch it from all sides.

As the United States’s ideals come under increasing attack, we need more flame-throwers like septuagenarian Ishmael Reed — more fighters, more tricksters, more eagle-eyed observers with an incendiary spirit, more dazzlingly original artist-writers — willing to defy what is permissible to say, willing to catch it on all sides, and willing to run over boundaries of all kinds into genuinely new or neglected territory.

[rodmilla-tremaine-blog]

Your Obedient Servant || Lyonsmaine

A/N: After Taka is informed that Nala is digging through hospital records, he panics and seeks advice from Milla Tremaine. 

@takalyons

Further Reading: The Investigation Begins – Copper and Taka Liars and Loopholes – Taka and Rodmilla A Helpful Interrogation – Copper and Nala Truth is in the Eye of the Beholder – Simba and Taka Rock Bottom - Sweet and Nala 

[Dated July 17]

TAKA: Nala was digging. The news had come to him about a day ago and in an unholy rage he had broken a good deal of his own possessions. After that rage had subsided, he thought. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't go to Milla. Not then, at least. It had been late and he was well aware that he was not on her good side. But he had gotten out of some trouble, blaming Ed had been a stroke of genius. He told law enforcement he wouldn't be pressing charges. Ed was like his son, after all, and he was just misguided and confused by his condition. Ed played the part perfectly.

But now this. Nala, sticking her nose in places it didn't belong. Had she found anything? Had she gone back to Copper? He needed to plan, needed to figure something out. But he had to wait until he was able to get to Rodmilla.

Which happened to be the next day, after her lunch. He had called as soon as the firm had opened to make the appointment. Had told her secretary that it was of the utmost importance.

He arrived promptly, suit ironed and pressed, looking so well put together no one would have known he was seconds away from a breakdown. Milla would, of course, she always had been able to see when he was unravelling. When he was allowed into her office, he entered with a smile and his usual confidence. “Good afternoon, Milla. I hope your lunch was satisfactory.”

MILLA:

Milla did not want to take Taka’s call. When it had come and her secretary had told her who was on the other line, she’d wanted to be ruthless and petty-- drop the call, make up some excuse, just like she was back in her uni days dodging the calls of anxious, no-good boys who thought they deserved her time, and never did. Once, Taka deserved her time. But not anymore.

The case was not closing. InterPride’s scandal was loud enough to have a good amount of the town talking, the press ready to sink their teeth in when given enough to go on. And Milla had no idea what they were going to find, but she knew they were going to find something.

A few years ago, maybe she’d work harder at this point to come up with a solution, in fear of her mistakes coming to light. But she saw that as a rather naive move now. Taka had tricked her into all this in the first place. She’d not signed up for murder, for drugs. Milla’s strategy did not lay in the papers.

She was done with the man himself.

Deciding that had made her unimaginably calm, like a storm had been waging inside her for longer than she realized and now, finally, it had cleared. She told her secretary to schedule an appointment. And this time, when Taka walked in, Milla sat with her hands in her lap, completely unreadable. No soft smile to greet him. No game to play.

“Thank you Taka, it was,” she said and motioned to the chair. “Take a seat.”

TAKA:

Milla looked…. Different. When he had walked in the room she hadn't greeted him as usual. Instead she had stayed at her desk, looking as put together as he did but different. For once, Taka was unable to tell the manor of her mood. There was no cross fierceness. No coy smile. Nothing. Just a blank slate of features. It caused the already overworked muscle in his head to go into overdrive.

What exactly was this meeting going to entail? He knew just from walking into the room it would not be about what he needed it to be about. It wasn't going to end with happy platitudes and friendly reminders. And that was what worried him. Which it shouldn't have because Milla was as entangled with this as he was. She couldn't deny that. If he went down then so did she. It had been a stroke of genius, really.

Still he remained calm and collected on the outside as he sat in the chair opposite her desk. He could nearly recall every time he had perched there, seeking counsel in his less than legal dealings. And this was the second biggest of them all. The uncover of a crime that had remained hidden for three years. If Taka had been smart he would have stayed in London, wouldn't have gotten cocky.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty.

“Nala Calame has been digging around. Pressing that pristine nose in places it does not belong,” he sighed. No point in putting it off with idle chatter. This needed to be dealt with promptly. He was sure Milla understood that. “I have no idea if she has presented anything to our lovely sheriff. Oddly enough my own informant have been unable to procure many details at all. We need a plan. If they do come looking.” The Lyons man (child) pinched the bridge of his nose before looking at Milla. “Think of it as one last favor, yes? After all this I believe a walk towards the straight and narrow is in order. At least until this all dies down.”

MILLA:

Milla-- laughed.

She actually laughed. It was a tiny chuckle, but it was indeed a chuckle, one that had her shoulders shaking. She shook her head at Taka too, her hands followed on her desk. She couldn’t believe this man.

Well, she supposed he could. The past year and a half had been more paranoid than the previous three. He’d been heading toward this inevitable crest for some time no matter how hard Milla had tried to herd him.

No more. She would not be responsible for another cover up. She even like young, bright, focused Nala. She’d been an excellent role model for Zella and she had the kind of fierce ambition that Milla had wanted for her own daughters. It didn’t surprise her that Nala had caught a whiff of a scandal and was working to uncover it.

Should she be worried? Should she care? Maybe more than she did right now-- but every woman for herself, Milla thought. She wasn't going to help Taka go after Nala. No.

If necessary, if she thought Nala was in danger (because she knew what Taka was capable of), she’d alert the police herself.

Now her laughter faded and she looked at Taka with her sharp eyes. “Listen to yourself. Always one more favour-- your promises mean nothing to me, Taka. We both know you’re incapable of the so-called straight and narrow after this childish pursuit of Fey’s Gold. You had everything, Mr. Lyons, you had the power of an international conglomerate, the respect of your peers, more money than you could use in one lifetime-- an entire kingdom at your feet-- and you risked it for drugs.”

She felt like she was lecturing a child, but Taka deserved it.

“I’ve accepted this meeting if only to alert you that I’m severing our professional relationship,” she informed him. “I am unable to continue such a relationship while InterPride gathers scandal after scandal. Tremaine and Partners does not condone the behavior of its CEO nor will it be associated with it.” A beat, and Milla lifted her chin. “You can see yourself out.”

TAKA:

“Excuse me?” He was incredulous. There was no reason for such a rash decision to be made. Though, if he were thinking properly he would know that everything Rodmilla did was thought out and deliberated carefully. It was the only way she operated. She was not some weak willed girl.

But still she was ending their arrangement. The words stuck in his mind as he looked on at Rodmilla. Was she not aware that she was implicated in this too? If she did not help him out of this she would be ruined as well? Had she lost her mind? There was no way she could sever ties with him. It was a bluff. It had to be. She was testing him. Seeing if he would offer something else, something more valuable. He would, of course he would. He did not want to go down for this. Would do whatever it was that she wanted to fix this.

“If you do that you will ruin yourself as well. How will you recover? Your business will suffer as well,” he tried to explain. He did not want to come across as desperate. Taka Lyons was not a desperate man. If she didn’t want to see reason he would leave. But he had to try first. Try and make her see reason. “If they uncover what happened that night you will be implicated as an accomplice. How do you think that is going to go over with your firm?” He raised an eyebrow at her, leaning forward in his seat. “You. Will. Be. Ruined. There is no doubt about it. We have always been in this together, Milla. Help me this one last time and I will give you whatever it is you desire. You have my word.”

MILLA:

She saw the surprise, the desperation, the panic. Once it had annoyed her because it had been her job to clean it up, like a mother might wipe drool off her toddler’s chin. She’d done it though. She had cleaned up Taka, she had cleaned up his messes, she had held his hand and pat his shoulder, and cooed in his ear. Why couldn’t she do it again just one last time, she wondered idly to herself. Why couldn’t she do that and take the man up on his offer? Whatever she desired was quite the large bargaining chip. In a way, isn’t it exactly what she had wanted all along-- to be here, in the seat of power, and have Taka simpering at her feet?

She had wanted that once. She’d wanted Tremaine and Partners to be excellent; she’d achieved that. She wanted her girls to be brilliant-- at least Ana would be, so that was only half a failure-- though…

Though secretly, deep down, she admired Zella for sticking up to her. It’s something that not even the great Taka Lyons could do. Look at him now.

She had gotten, then, everything she had ever wanted. This was the final victory and when faced with it, when given the chance to have Taka under her thumb for the rest of his life… she didn’t want it anymore.

She just wanted her husband back. And the baby she lost. And for her girls to be healthy, happy, and safe. You know who wasn’t safe? Taka. He was not a safe man. He deserved to end up in bars.

“I’m afraid it’s not up to me, Taka,” she went on with a tiny shake of her head. “Tremaine and Partners is ruled by a board like any other, and we’ve had several of our clients express concerns and even threaten to leave our firm because of InterPride. If you had settled this manner earlier, perhaps there would be some way to salvage our relationship, but the board has spoken. We are terminating your contract, effective immediately. I’m sorry that I can no longer be of any service to you.”

TAKA:

She really was terminating their contract. There were no words to express how he felt. And as he sat there staring at her…. He felt each emotion rush over him. This shouldn’t be happening. This should not be happening. Rodmilla had been his confidant, his partner for so long. She shouldn’t be severing ties while he held so much damning information on her as well.

It was easy, then, to focus on his anger. It coursed through him like a tidal wave. It was all encompassing as he sat there, staring her down. How dare she? She had absolutely no right. InterPride was not a risk, he was not a risk. This was a blip. A minor setback. If she would help him, he could get out of it and then it would be smooth sailing. He’d stay on the straight and narrow, just as he had told her. There was an image to uphold and repair. He’d have to bring InterPride back to it’s former glory, show the world that while mishaps did happen, the company was still good. He’d even do away with that godforsaken rent increase. That would put him in many people’s good side.

“You will regret this, Mrs. Tremaine. We are on the same ship and it is sinking, more now that you and your partners have decided to sever ties.” He spoke calmly, doing his best to keep his anger in check. It would not do to have another lawsuit. “If I go down, so will you. Are you ready for that, Rodmilla?”

As he spoke, he rose from his chair, eyes narrowed at the woman. She would regret this. He would make sure of it before the end of this investigation. She would realize the graveness of her decision. Nobody crossed Taka Lyons without repercussions. “I suppose I will be seeing myself out, Mrs. Tremaine. Good day.”

[sanerontheinside]

Can I prompt you for a clean ficlet? Sith Obi-Wan or Sith Qui-Gon, moral dilemma, learning more about their code, or flouting their code, if you have the time. Thank you in advance! Good luck with your studies.

@poplitealqueen u wanted to see more Sith!Qui in the world :D

Okay, sooooooo…… *nervous laughter* this one still treads a little close to the Mirror ‘Verse by @norcumi, @dogmatix, and @deadcatwithaflamethrower, even for my comfort. But I honestly … don’t know what else to do with it? sorry? *squeaks and hides under couch*Dooku has been training Qui-Gon as a Sith since the beginning, and Qui-Gon always thought something was not quite right, but this was his Master, how could he question him? (Probably should list warning for mention/hint of emotional abuse.) Most obvious point of divergence is after his Knighting somewhere. And a slightly different take on the historic conflict between Mandalorians and Jedi, at that. Sith Temple concept close to @letslipthehounds’, actually. also tagging @obaewankenope, @eclipsemidnight, @lilyrose225writes, @maawi, @meabhair, and @kyberpunk

For a long time, the Temple had been near dormant. Honest to gods, it was patently bored. The labyrinthine innards found new permutations to rearrange themselves and wrought havoc with indigenous rodents’ routes. The little monsters found their way anyhow - the smartest ones even knew where their tunnels changed the least. The Temple amused itself that way, at least once with every new generation, but it wasn’t enough.

The dust at the entrance had sat undisturbed for many years before he arrived - a lost child searching for guidance, when his previous mentor had betrayed him. Had spent years betraying him, in fact.

The Temple knew and loved its own. It recognised this one, wanted to claim him. He’d been manipulated by a hand that worked the Dark Side crudely, but he’d kept something good and warm and precious alive, even through the pain and hate. And so the Temple wrapped him in its welcoming voices, nudged him along to its very heart, lighting the way for the bright little flame.

The visions were never a pleasant thing. They were designed for the purpose of facing one’s greatest demons and perceived failures. But the lost child fared well, and bit by bit the Temple worked to unravel the web of deceit that had been laid in his mind.

In truth, that might have taken years to achieve, and one’s greatest fears are never faced in a Darkened cavern. Reality is where real Darkness reigns, and must truly be faced, but a half-sentient mass of moving stone is hardly the best instructor. So, eventually, the Temple let him turn and go, whispering the need for another student in his ear and hoping that someday he would return with a worthy successor.

Until then, the Temple would be content to sleep again. After all, it had finally found what had long been missing - there was still someone in the universe who felt like the Old Ones. The Temple missed its Masters.

“Well, well. What have we here?”

The voice was quiet, a little dust-choked - was he imagining it, or did the man sound tired? Obi-Wan didn’t know. He couldn’t muster more than a vague sluggish thought anyway, and thought that he must have hit his head - again. He didn’t want to go to the Healers, not after last time -

But then he remembered that he wasn’t at the Temple. There were no Healers on Bandomeer, not for the miners, certainly not for the ones with slave collars clasped around their throats. Obi-Wan squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to whimper, not to think about what the owner of that voice would do when he found him lying here among the rubble.

Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this - not the gentle touch that lifted him up from the ground, the warm arm wrapping around his shoulders and keeping him upright. A polite Force probe checked for broken bones, and, he supposed, a concussion.

“Hello there, little one,” that voice rumbled near Obi-Wan’s ear, and he looked up, wide-eyed, at the man who had found him.

The gold eyes - Sith eyes - had him trying to scramble back immediately, spurred by the nightmarish stories he’d been told in the créche. Those were the eyes that haunted the Jedi in their nightmares, those were the eyes of the enemy.

He didn’t scoot back very far, almost toppling over but for the strange man’s careful hold on his shoulders. His grip wasn’t hard at all, and tightened only fractionally when the world tipped. Obi-Wan stopped struggling, dragged his eyes back up with some effort to watch the man carefully, and reconsidered his attempt at flight. It wasn’t as though he could run, or fight off this Wookie of a man on his own, not when he was queasy and the world swam sickeningly.

He still flinched, though, when gentle fingers brushed lightly over the slave collar. The man froze, a sharp catch in his breath.

“That must be unpleasant,” he murmured, letting his hand fall away. Obi-Wan tracked every motion, or tried to, through the fog in his mind. “Who put that on you?”

Obi-Wan said nothing. He wasn’t fool enough to trust those golden eyes, gentle as they seemed. He could just taste a smokey honey-amber sweetness in the Force that played around the man, a particular tang that belonged to the Dark. Xanatos had felt colder, crueler, but - Dark was Dark. Wasn’t it?

The man sighed, eyes moving to the collar again, as if he already knew the answer. “I can’t take that off you here. It’s explosive, at best I could buy you enough time to move a safe distance away and shield from it. Where is your Master?”

Obi-Wan recoiled as much as he was able - a large hand instantly shot out to stop him, as if the man with the Sith-gold eyes had been afraid he would fall. “I have no Master.”

Those eyes flared like stars - a sudden, quickly stamped-out flash of anger - and settled into a look of concern. “What do you mean?” He even seemed to be holding his breath.

Obi-Wan dropped his gaze with the barest head-shake, ashamed. “I am - I was - an Initiate. I’ve aged out. I’m thirteen next month -”

“Last I heard they kept Initiates until they turned thirteen, and didn’t throw them out to a dustball like Bandomeer to cut their teeth in a slave mine,” the Sith interrupted, almost gently.

“They didn’t want me,” Obi-Wan said.

His words were met with a crackling sound and the air filled with the scent of ozone. Startled, Obi-Wan glanced up, watching in fascination as the man’s anger practically coalesced in the air around them, manifesting in wild sparks. Then it receded - as if he kept it controlled, apart from that quick flare of energy. When those frightening eyes sought his again, he quelled a shudder and only shrugged, turning his head away.

“They said I was too angry. That I could not control my temper. That I’d beaten one of my agemates,” he added bitterly, unable to hold the frustration back any longer, “when all I did was defend myself from his attack. He went to the Healers and told them I’d beaten him, and the Masters didn’t question it.”

A light finger traced the outside edge of a dark bruise on his cheek, hovering millimetres away, but he could still sense it there. It left a pulse of prickling heat - healing - in its wake. “And why didn’t you go to the Healers?” the man asked, voice soft.

Obi-Wan couldn’t suppress a shiver this time, feeling like something small caught in a predator’s grasp. “I don’t - I didn’t want to -”

“You didn’t want your crèchemate to get in trouble,” the man filled in.

There was something sympathetic in that tone, something that felt like an ache they might have shared. Obi-Wan hunched into himself, completely out of his depth. What was he supposed to do with sympathy from a Sith? Or - Fallen?

“What am I going to do with you?” The man sighed, voice musing and soft - another incongruity. “Certainly can’t leave you here.”

Before Obi-Wan got even an inkling of his intentions, he’d been lifted it up into strong arms and cradled to a broad chest, wrapped securely in a comforting hold half physical half Force-grip. He wanted to struggle against it and break free, he wanted to run. He didn’t want to feel like he was sinking into a cocoon of warmth and safety, here in the arms of a Sith who could as easily snap him in half if he chose.

But the Force around this man whispered of warmth and spiced tea and gentleness, and a certain degree of possessive protectiveness - I found him, he’s mine to care for and no one else’s. And in a moment, Obi-Wan realised he could barely keep his eyes open. He curled into the large frame and clung to dark tunics, hiding his face in the man’s shoulder.

“You may call me Qui-Gon, by the way,” he heard as his eyes slipped shut. “What shall I call you?”

“Obi-Wan,” he half-whispered. A few gently rocking steps more, and he was forced to finally concede his fight against exhaustion. The last thing he heard, before he fell asleep, was a long, rumbling sigh.

When he realised the boy had fallen asleep on his shoulder, Qui-Gon shook his head slightly. Dooku would have had plenty to say on his habit of ‘picking up strays’. Compassion had always been accessory in his former Master’s eyes - though perhaps this was exactly the reason that Qui-Gon never stopped collecting his strays. All manner of creatures, from the most helpless to the half-terrifying, had flocked to him for help over the years, and he’d almost always been able to pick up how to treat their injuries without much thought. It was a way of holding on to what he knew beyond all doubt was a gift entirely his own.

What was another youngling cradled in his arms, shivering cold and in need of assurance that he was wanted, cared for, precious? The Force all but screamed it, but the boy in Qui-Gon’s arms seemed unable to hear that note in particular. He was strong, this one, a light so brilliant it damn near burned Qui-Gon when he reached out to touch it, and yet he had been permitted to come close enough to carry him out of the tunnel’s wreckage. Qui-Gon wondered how long he’d been the only one who’d dared to approach. The thought cut deep, somehow, baring his already protective anger.

He had to be trained, Qui-Gon felt the Force ringing with that certainty - it was practically audible, whispering in his ears, almost tangible in the way the resonance passed from the small body into his arms, turning his muscles tense. He held the small form like a precious thing he was afraid to drop.

Yet just as he was certain that the boy must be trained, Qui-Gon knew he could not be the one to train him. How was he to return Obi-Wan to the Temple, when the boy had already once been sent away? Perhaps, he thought, he might convince Tahl to adopt a new Padawan. Or Micah. But he hadn’t seen them or written word in years, and for all they knew he’d been lost to his grief when Xan ‘Fell’. Maybe they’d taken Padawans since. He wouldn’t know about it.

Xan was another problem. Qui-Gon had instantly recognised the nasty piece of work around Obi-Wan’s neck. Unlike most of the miners’ slave collars, this one also had a Force suppressor. Not quite an Inhibitor - even Xan didn’t quite have the resources for that - but enough to weaken. Reaching for the Force for any reason would be a consistent drain on Obi-Wan’s strength. It would also likely hit quite hard when Qui-Gon finally made an attempt to remove the thing. He wasn’t particularly keen to try, at the moment - he wanted to heal those injuries first.

Picking his way through the tunnel, Qui-Gon made for less stagnant air. The ground angled subtly upwards underfoot, leaving him with some hope for their eventual exit from mines, but the Force held a low hum of danger here. By itself, that wasn’t much of an indication - the Force warned of danger everywhere, almost always, and Bandomeer was among the least pleasant holes on the arse end of the Outer Rim. But with Xanatos likely here, and an exhausted child resting in his arms, Qui-Gon at least took care to mind how he went. He didn’t dart out into streaming light the moment he saw it, but edged around the corner carefully until he was certain he sensed nothing there.

When he finally made it out to fresh air, a cold wet wind backed him into the tunnel again, just inside the mouth of it and out of the spray. They’d come out on the coastal side, then. Qui-Gon set a semi-conscious Obi-Wan down, then eased back against the wall with a sigh and gently squeezed a thin shoulder. Obi-Wan roused immediately, looking a bit lost for a moment before he took in the sight of the Sith in front of him again, but to his credit he didn’t bolt - just tensed slightly, then made a creditable effort to let it go. Qui-Gon noted, with great approval, that he still remained on his guard, at least as much as he was able.

It was high time to be doing something about that, he decided.

“Have you tried healing your injuries?”

Obi-Wan shook his head, swallowing with a dry click. “The Force, I can’t -”

The boy hung his head in obvious shame. That immediate reaction puzzled Qui-Gon, but he shoved aside his bemusement for now. It bore returning to later, though, this child of the créche accepting blame for something that was not his fault, entirely without logic or question, or even a hint of recrimination. This sort of broken spirit was painful to see.

“It’s alright. It’s not a failure of any kind, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon reached for one of the small, cold and shaking hands and enfolded it in his own. “There’s a Force-suppressor worked into the collar.” The boy’s eyes went wide, expression sickened, but he said nothing. “It is possible to work around suppressors and inhibitors, but if you try it now, it will likely exhaust you. Will you let me help?”

For a long moment, Obi-Wan simply stared at him, probably wondering why anyone might want to help him. Qui-Gon met the wary confusion with his own steady, questioning gaze, doing everything in his power to seem less a threat. Then Obi-wan nodded faintly, and he began to slowly uncoil from his contained crouch, making certain the child could track his every moment and read his intentions.

Aside from the concussion, most of the damage had been limited to bruising, but it took more effort to heal than Qui-Gon was happy with. With a sigh, he settled himself beside the boy, leaving a polite distance between them. Obi-Wan tensed, not surprisingly, but then eased back against the stone anyway, alert eyes watching the whipping wind and water at the mouth of the tunnel rather than fixed on Qui-Gon’s frame. That was somewhat heartening, that the boy didn’t feel the need to watch him every moment for signs of any kind of threat.

Obi-Wan was thinking hard about something, turning a problem over and over in his head. Let him think, Qui-Gon decided. He himself had had to think a long time about the things he’d been told about the Sith as a crècheling, and the truth he’d ultimately discovered for himself, somewhere between Dooku’s tutelage and the texts his old Master had dismissed as insignificant.

Qui-Gon had spent the years after his Knighting searching for some sort of truth he’d missed, for something to balance the hatred and fear Dooku had taught him to cultivate and harness. He’d found it, ultimately, in discarded manuscripts and an ancient Temple that had claimed him as something of its own to protect. Voices of ancient, long-dead Masters had whispered from the walls, slowly sent tendrils of warmth curling into places in his mind that had been so cold for so very long - too bright, too gentle, too much like comfort. When his shields finally gave under that pressure, it was like a fire had torn through him - not burning, but thawing.

The voices went with him when he left the Temple, then the planet. It was, Qui-Gon realised then, just another part of the Force that he’d been unaware of before. It had been enough to help Qui-Gon clear his mind - enough to allow him to return to Coruscant; even take a Padawan, as was expected of him. Now, as he watched the boy beside him, they whispered strange things, strange ideas - protect this one, take him with you, teach him what you know. Gods all, he wanted to protect this boy, but it was all he could do to keep himself from shaking his head at those urgent whispers. I will not take another Padawan to corrupt, he told them savagely.

Not for the first time in the last few years, the response in his mind was one of nebulous, tolerant laughter, like an elder who saw the inevitability of Qui-Gon changing his mind. It sent a cold prickle down his spine. He didn’t like these moments when the Force and all the ancient spirits of the Temple seemed to laugh at him.

Nevertheless, he did want to see how far Obi-Wan might venture along his own train of thought. It might be an opportunity to open the boy’s eyes to more of the world than Padawans were ever shown, and would serve him well in the future, no matter what his fate.

Thus the first question Obi-Wan asked actually surprised Qui-Gon a good deal, even if he didn’t show it.

“What happened in the tunnels?”

Qui-Gon sighed. “They’re old and unstable, presumably. Theories range from seismic activity to rupturing fuel lines, to subterranean aquifers getting their way. There have been some accusations of sabotage, as well.”

“You’re not here to do geological surveys.”

Qui-Gon was pleased to hear a faint scoff in Obi-Wan’s voice. Not so afraid of me, then.

“No,” he shook his head with a tight smile. “I’m here as a consultant for a company interested in the mining product and agricultural potential of Bandomeer. They were attempting to come to an agreement with Offworld or Arcona - whoever would present them with the better deal, you see. Someone let fly an accusation of sabotage, and as their mediator, I decided to investigate.”

Obi-Wan stared up at him, blinked a couple times, then nodded. “Oh,” seemed just about all he had to say on the matter.

It wasn’t, surprisingly, all that different from what Qui-Gon would do if he’d stayed with the Jedi. The difference was, he was on near permanent retainer with a company of his choice, and they paid him enough to afford him some leeway while he scoured the galaxy for his lost Padawan. Xanatos may have cracked in the head - and Qui-Gon might even have had a hand in that, as an unwelcome inner voice reminded him sharply - but he was still Xan. Qui-Gon wasn’t giving up without a fight.

Even if he did end up forcibly dragging the boy to the Sith Temple.

Obi-Wan stirred with a faint sound, bringing Qui-Gon’s attention back to the child at his side. “Are you alright, Little One?” he asked softly. Then, still more gently, with a lurking suspicion, “Are you cold?”

The boy had clenched his teeth and twisted his hands together. In his tattered tunics, without the robe, he certainly must have been. After a few seconds teetering between braving the cold and shaking and admitting to his discomfort, Obi-Wan finally conceded the fight and nodded. There were no Masters here for him to conform to their stringent expectations. Instead there was a Sith and the Sith was acting strangely, healing his injuries, carrying him out of a damaged and still-crumbling tunnel.

“Oh, Obi-Wan,” the man sighed, and raised an arm in invitation. “Or, if you wish,” he said after a brief moment when Obi-Wan simply stared at him, “I could give you my robe, but you will be warmer this way.”

Obi-Wan shook his head as much as he was able, then pushed himself over and sat against his side. Qui-Gon wrapped the robe around him and rested an arm gently across the boy’s shoulders, careful not to confine him. In seconds, Obi-Wan was out again, and Qui-Gon let out a slow breath, staring out at the rain and letting himself fall into a trance. A few moments later there was movement at his side again, and Obi-Wan snuggled closer, small hands burrowing into warm folds of cloth. Qui-Gon couldn’t help a soft chuckle that escaped him, and his hold momentarily tightened around the boy.

“Steady there, Little One,” he said softly. “We’ll get you back to your Temple yet.”

How had no one chosen this fierce bright flame? The heat of him all but licked at Qui-Gon’s fingers when he reached out to that presence in the Force, and it was still suppressor-muffled. Were the Jedi truly as blind as that?

Had his Master been right, all those times he’d recited blasphemies about the failings of the Order? Even then, Master Dooku’s words had had at the very least an inkling of truth in the Force. These days, when Qui-Gon cared to repeat the memorised lectures to himself - which was almost never - each time, they rang more convincing.

It sent a shiver down his spine now, to see so brilliant a child denied what was surely the Force’s path for him.

He needed to contact Tahl, or Micah - needed to tell them about this boy, needed -

Healing Obi-Wan had taken up much of his energy, far more than he’d realised. Qui-Gon sighed, re-wrapping his arms and cloak securely about the child, and gave in to the press of exhaustion on his mind.

Waking up in chains was becoming a more common occurrence in his life. Obi-Wan wasn’t particularly pleased with that thought, but he had entrusted himself to a Sith, what had he -?

Oh, he thought muzzily, staring at his companion, likewise chained beside him. Qui-Gon, however, had no collar about his neck as far as Obi-Wan could see, but he wasn’t certain there were no suppressors in the shackles. He was at least sitting, though, while Obi-Wan was curled on the ground beside them. The Sith didn’t even look his way - he was staring ahead of him, features set in a furious glower.

“Ah, he’s awake!”

At the sound of that voice, Obi-Wan went cold and jerked his head off the ground, feeling bones grind painfully at the base of his neck.

“So good of you to join us,” said the smiling, sharp-toothed Xanatos du Crion. Obi-Wan bared his teeth, defiant even like this, but Xanatos only smiled indulgently. “What a lovely little pet you’ve acquired, Master Jinn. Do you know, the Jedi tossed him out to Bandomeer merely a month to his thirteenth birthday?”

Obi-Wan blinked, confused. Master Jinn? He looked over at the man again, seeing that the glower had been wiped away into a near-expressionless mask, save for the slight tensing of the jaw.

“You know I am no longer with the Order, Xan.”

Xanatos paid that statement no mind, which did nothing for Obi-Wan’s confusion.

“He’s angry, this one,” Xan went on instead, amused look lingering on the Initiate, who flushed with shame and grit his teeth in defiance. “Fierce little flame. He’ll be a good challenge for you,” but his cold laugh belied whatever pleasant sentiment the words might have held.

“Xan -”

“You would know all about anger, wouldn’t you, Master?”

Qui-Gon fell silent, watching his former Padawan with something that, Obi-Wan realised, looked a bit like worry. He thought maybe there was confusion in that look, as well, and something deeply pained.

Obi-Wan couldn’t have known that when Qui-Gon looked at Xanatos now, he still saw the child he’d brought to the crèche. He saw the bright little boy with a mischievous streak a parsec wide that didn’t always make him kind, but not quite evil either. He saw the child he’d nursed through fevers, the boy he’d trained, the mind he’d watched unfold and sharpen.

But when Obi-Wan snuck a quick glance at their captor again he was struck with the image of something else, as if the world had slid out of focus for a second and Obi-Wan saw - not a monster, but a Padawan, braid just barely visible under the long fall of his dark hair, laughing deep-blue eyes in a younger, happier face. He jerked in the bindings, shocked, and the illusion melted away to a hard glare of eyes that burned gold. The look of them was sickly, cold and caustic - nothing like Qui-Gon’s heated amber, which, Obi-Wan now thought, could almost have been kind in comparison.

Panic tore through Obi-Wan when he saw Xanatos’ eyes narrow sharply, and he didn’t get the chance to move or scream when Xan suddenly reached for him. He was pulled sharply almost off the ground and onto his knees, too close, too close to that face, that glare, the searing heat of Xan’s hand on his neck -

“Interesting.” He drew out the word with cloying sweetness, and instantly loosened his clasp on him. Obi-Wan just barely kept himself from sprawling gracelessly on the ground again. “So you’ve already replaced me, Master? Very fast, and I must say, very efficient. Temple rejects must make such fine apprentices for Sith,” he snarled.

“You don’t seem to have suffered for being Temple-raised,” Qui-Gon pointed out, surprisingly neutral. Obi-Wan thought he imagined an almost reluctant, predatory wariness in the man’s stillness.

Xanatos stiffened. “I’ve only had one Master,” he said softly, dangerously, “and my Master had betrayed and abandoned me.”

Qui-Gon shook his head incrementally. “Xan, stop this. Your actions on Telos were entirely your own choice, no one forced your hand.”

A smile, full of teeth and ghastly and wide, spread over Xanatos’ face. “Oh, were they, Master Jinn? Or didn’t Yoda insist my Trials be held on Telos? You made me choose between the Order and my father, and you never believed in the Order to begin with.” He reached out and easily dragged Obi-Wan to his feet, pulling the boy’s shaking frame against him and resting a finger gently on the smooth collar. “So what is your choice now, Qui-Gon? The miners, or the boy?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes went wide at the softly threatening words.

“What,” Qui-Gon snapped.

“Simple,” Xanatos replied, enunciating every word carefully as though he were speaking to a child, “either I trigger the collar, or you kneel before me and beg me for your new Padawan’s life,” he smirked darkly, “and I start the countdown for the charges in the mines.”

Qui-Gon shook his head. “You would not survive standing where you are now.”

Above Obi-Wan’s head, Xanatos arched an eyebrow and gave him that twisted grin again. “Oh, my Master, none of us would.”

There was something wild to those deep-blue eyes, something Qui-Gon ached to see. Not for the first time, he keenly regretted not having taught Xanatos more, not having shown him more of the Force than what lay within the limitations the Code had imposed. In the last decade, he’d become more and more aware of the Order’s layered history. If he’d known then, if he’d realised that the things he’d discovered on his own were less blasphemy and more forgotten truths, he might have done many things differently with Xanatos.

“Obi-Wan,” he said, quiet and calm, and waited for large frightened eyes to meet his. “Close your eyes, Little One.”

Obi-Wan managed the barest nod, and obeyed.

He hadn’t been lying about the explosives - not in the collar, not in the mines. If it hadn’t been for Obi-Wan’s help, Qui-Gon would never have found them in time - and certainly he hadn’t the time to disarm the bomb, either. The ionite was another bit of the boy’s quick thinking for which Qui-Gon would forever be grateful. 

He’d had enough of Bandomeer. It was time to take this little Jedi back to the Temple, Qui-Gon decided, so he asked Obi-Wan to follow him. The boy didn’t even ask where, strangely enough.

“Does that explain the seismic disturbances?” he asked, after a few moments.

“Tests for the explosives, in small amounts?” Qui-Gon looked down at him curiously.

“Tests for strategic placement,” Obi-Wan explained.

Qui-Gon nodded sharply. “You’re probably right.”

Obi-Wan still hadn’t asked where they were going by the time they made it to Qui-Gon’s shuttle - sleek, light, and very well camouflaged against the barren grey of Bandomeer’s surface. Qui-Gon stopped before the boarding ramp and let the boy decide if he’d go any further. Obi-Wan contemplated his choices for only a moment before he nodded and made his way up into the ship.

Once inside, he only asked where they were going. “To Coruscant,” Qui-Gon told him, programming the coordinates into the computer. “We’re getting you home.” He didn’t notice the stricken look on the boy’s face. If he had, he would have put it to surprise rather than apprehension. Then he turned around and indicated that Obi-Wan should sit down while he rummaged about his ‘fresher for a spare medkit - his own had been lost with his modest travelpack on Bandomeer. He came back and crouched down beside the boy and started tending to various scrapes and bruises.

“You’re - a Sith,” Obi-Wan said after a few moments, sounding dubious. Something in his tone hinted that he didn’t believe his own words. Qui-Gon supposed it was only reasonable to be confused.

“For a given definition of Sith, yes, I suppose I must be,” Qui-Gon answered with amusement. He got a dark look for his humour and chuckled at the sight of it. “Obi-Wan, in certain cultures - in Mandalorian culture, for example - there is no word for ‘Sith’. There is simply ‘not Jedi’.

“As Jedi are jeti or jetiise, so Sith are dar’jeti. Not Jedi. The reason for this is rooted in their history. Mandalorians considered the Jedi an oppressive force. They are very protective of their clan and of their children - it is rooted in their Resol’nare, the central code by which Mandalorians lead their lives. Thus it is easy to see how they might have been resistant to the Jedi taking children from their families at an early age.”

Obi-Wan’s expressive eyes dropped to the floor as he considered this. “So you are - dar’jeti. Then you are Mandalorian?” he asked at last.

Qui-Gon opened his mouth to speak, then froze for a moment, considering. The Temple had always whispered of family, of connection, of raising children as warriors and scholars, but he - for as long as he could remember, he’d had no family apart from his Padawans. (Qui-gon did not even wish to consider his former Master in that context).

“I - no,” he said at last. “I have no clan, Obi-Wan.” The voices in his mind seemed to disagree, rising in a displeased susurrus, but he did not retract his words.

Obi-Wan gave him a rather curious look. “But you were a Jedi,” he said.

Qui-Gon winced. “I’m not sure I ever was, at that. My Master was - not quite a Jedi. He hid well. But he did not teach me the Jedi way and I, I thought -”

He broke himself off there, and sighed heavily, looking away from that painfully open, honest face. Obi-Wan watched him for a moment, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. The bond between them was warm and comforting, but the jumble of feelings on Qui-Gon’s side was decidedly a thorny mass of squirming, dark, unfriendly things that tried desperately to reach out and overtake him. Obi-Wan decided he could risk this, at least: he shuffled forward, laid a hand on Qui-Gon’s arm, then snuggled under it as though he belonged at this man’s side. There was something strangely right about that thought.

The tension in Qui-Gon’s frame eased as Obi-Wan pressed close to him. He raised his arm and gently brushed his fingers through the short ginger hair, staring ahead absently.

“It took too long to see it. I should have realised, but even then - whom would I have told? Who could have believed that my Master, a Councilmaster, was a Sith?” Qui-Gon shook his head.

Obi-Wan shivered hard against his side, and looked up to meet Qui-Gon’s curious gaze. “Master Dooku,” the boy said, with an oddly closed-off expression.

“Really,” Qui-Gon muttered, reaching out to brush some of the soot and dust from Obi-Wan’s cheek. “And why do you say that?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes danced away from Qui-Gon’s intense focus, but he did answer, quietly. “He felt - cold. In the Force. Even when no one else would take me as a Padawan, I was glad that he was away on a mission. It was the one good thing about being sent away a month before my birthday.”

The Sith’s eyebrows rose a fraction, and he reached to gently take hold of Obi-Wan’s chin and turn his face back to him. “I would have thought,” he hummed contemplatively, carefully examining the scratches on the boy’s face and healing them with a light brush of fingers, “that he would not have returned to the Temple. Not after Galidraan.”

“What happened on Galidraan?”

“A disaster of a mission,” Qui-Gon replied instantly, with no little venom in his voice. “He orchestrated the downfall of the True Mandalorians. It was a tense situation to begin with, and it ended with the near-extinction of an entire way of life. But he also implicated the Jedi. I was there,” he added, more softly, as he cleaned a particularly nasty gash on Obi-Wan’s brow. “I made him swear not to return to the Temple. He even seemed agreeable. I heard, a few months later, he’d taken over his family holdings on Serenno. Hold still.”

Obi-Wan almost couldn’t obey that last order. His frame went rigid in sudden terror.

“Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan! What is it?”

He blinked furiously, shipboard lights suddenly far too bright in his eyes, and dimly heard Qui-Gon snap out a command - Lights, twenty percent! - which the computer executed immediately.

“Little One, what’s wrong? Talk to me, Obi-Wan.”

“Don’t take me back.”

His voice didn’t come out as much more than a squeak, but Qui-Gon immediately froze in place.

“Please?”

“Oh, Little One,” he sighed, and drew the shaking child into his arms, lifting him to sit across his lap. “Obi-Wan, you are strong in the Force. You must be trained. And, I think, you know it, too.”

Yes, of course. The Force had been whispering at him, Jedi, Jedi, Jedi, for as long as he could remember. But at this precise moment, held in a warm and comforting grasp, Obi-Wan felt safer than he had since the crèche, and far more right.

“You could train me,” he said quickly.

Qui-Gon coughed sharply. “No - absolutely not,” and set Obi-Wan easily back on the deck plating.

“But -”

“No!” The air sparked and snapped angrily, and a sudden blast of Dark - this time not dissipated - battered against the Initiate’s shields. “I cannot teach you this, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon spoke harshly, almost snarling, barely holding back still more Darkness that pushed against his grasp. “I’d never do to anyone what my Master did to me, and the last time I tried to train a Jedi, Xanatos suffered for it. Do not ask this of me.”

The sudden roar should have at least startled him, but Obi-Wan’s only reaction was to widen his eyes. He was staring at the crackling energy in the air around them. He reached up, caught one of the sparking threads and twined it around one finger.

“There’s more to you than anger,” he said quietly - very bravely, Qui-Gon thought with equal parts fondness and dismay. The anger receded, guttering out to a warm glow and resting in the background, though no longer as tightly shielded as before.

“The Temple is not safe, and neither is Bandomeer. And we worked well together,” Obi-Wan added quickly.

“You do not know what you’re asking.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Master Dooku is on the Council,” he said quietly. “When my yearmate attacked me in the training arena, then told the Healers that I had cornered him while he was unarmed, no one defended me. There is was surveillance droid in the arena, I know there was. They didn’t even look. Bandomeer is tearing itself apart.”

He shuddered - the taunts and jeers he’d attracted with his few stuttered, accented words alone still echoed in his ears. That marked Coruscanti inflection had set him apart and given someone the idea that a small frightened child could somehow be haughty, think himself better than his fellow slaves.

Not all the bruises on him were from the rockfall in the caves. He’d been competition to them, and something to vent their frustration on - just as he had been for Bruck at the Temple. Only here he was competition for a far more vital thing, like food, and survival. Alongside that, frankly, the Agricorps no longer seemed so dire an outcome.

Qui-Gon was watching him intently, and Obi-Wan wasn’t certain he hadn’t let something slip past his shields. But he stood his ground, determined, somehow certain the Force was not done with him yet.

Finally the Sith sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Computer, calculate optimal route to Mandalore and reprogram flight pattern accordingly.”

Calculating, came the quiet response in binary. Obi-Wan tipped his head to one side, curious.

“There’s an old Temple on Mandalore,” Qui-Gon explained. “I ask that you wait until we arrive, until you’ve at least stood at the gates. Only then, I think, will you really know what it is you’re about to commit yourself to. Until then, I will not give you an answer.”

Obi-Wan’s shoulders dropped as if he’d been holding his breath. But, he thought, that’s not a no, surely. All he had to do was face the Temple - the Sith Temple, he reminded himself, but even so. He’d already been to Illum. That had been one of the worst visions he’d ever experienced.

“I accept your judgement in this matter,” Master, he said, greatly daring.

A corner of Qui-Gon’s mouth twitched upwards in a tiny amused smile. “Imp,” he said, and Obi-Wan almost laughed, scooting over and burrowing under his arm again. Gods, but he was tired.

“Sleep, Little One,” Qui-Gon’s voice rumbled in his ear, and fall asleep he did.

Qui-Gon gently prodded at the bond between them, wincing a little at the muted sense of guilt that crept through him at the sight of it. It was a pretty thing, a golden twining connection that shimmered brightly. It had been there before they’d even removed the collar, though they’d both been too tired to notice at first. Now the gravity of the situation was rather quickly catching up to him. They had a bond - a bond between this boy who should have been given every chance to become a Jedi, and himself - a Sith.

Xanatos had seen it before them, and tried to use it.

Qui-Gon sighed. Quiet, affection-starved child - Obi-Wan had curled up against his side and fallen asleep again.

He couldn’t even find it within himself to muster a warning, caught off-guard by the swell of adoration for this bright flame in the Force. He was doomed, that was for certain. He’d been doomed since the moment he’d found this ‘pathetic lifeform’ in the rubble. He gathered up the too-thin body once more and held the boy close, wrapping his cloak around them both.