Star Wars - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Especially Jedi ❯ 5/6 ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: pronker

"Just sleep right on," Edna gently urged. "I often sleep for hours on hot afternoons in this very spot."
"How did you come here?" Obi-Wan demanded, sitting up, startled.
"I hunted you," she confessed with a joyful little laugh. "I'm so pleased you're awake at last and don't want to sleep more. I felt just sure your eyes were blue. And they are!"
Her delight at this fact was so obvious that he felt uneasy.
"You see, I listened outside the window while Aunt Randii told Aunts Georgette and Dolpha all about you," she went on, leaning closer in confidence. "Aunt Georgette and Aunt Dolpha were for comming the constable anyhow, but Aunt Randii likes you. So do I!"
"Oh!" said the astonished young man. For one of the few times in his life, conversation failed him.
"Of course," said the girl simply. "Well, I waited until they lay down for their after lunch naps, and climbed out my window so as not to disturb them. They do enjoy their naps so much, you know. Aunt Randii is nearlyfiftyStandard." On this day, the birds tweeted and the frogs jugarumped and the small furry creature scampered even higher in its tree to catch sight of them in their hidden glen. It chirruped and squeaked as it swayed back and forth in the topmost branch.
Obi-Wan and Edna could not picture themselves at fifty Standard in such a vernal setting, and indeed, Obi-Wan thought, they should not even try. He sank deeper into Edna's honest gaze and forgot many things about his training.Nowwhat could he say? With any other girl he could have found the answer, but this one had him flummoxed.
"But you look ever so much nicer when you are awake," she further informed him, her eyes clear with straightforwardness that was worse than disconcerting. In desperation, he answered, with her own frankness, that she was nice looking herself. He meant it, too.
"I'm glad you think so," she sighed. "I just knew we should like each other as soon as I saw you lying there asleep."
It was he who blushed, not the girl.
Edna partly raised up to recapture her fern frond, and when she sat down again her shoulder remained lightly touching Obi-Wan's arm. A thrill ran through him and tingled out his fingertips like the Sith lightning he had read about, but he never moved a muscle. She looked up at him in peaceful happiness and he somehow felt very mean and unworthy. Her eyes made him uncomfortable. The whole trouble was that she was so honest; she had never been taught to conceal her thoughts by the thousand and one spoken and unspoken lies of ordinary social discourse. She was neither bold nor timid, but merely natural, with no suspicion that propriety demanded a man and a woman to leave a mutual liking unconfessed to the other upon such short acquaintance. It was rough on the young man. He was unused to having the truth fly about in such reckless fashion in conversations. It bothered him.
"I'm not a bit afraid of you," Edna presently told him. "I knew all the time that Aunt Randii was wrong. She told me that all men were dreadful, and that the first thing they did was to, to kiss a girl they liked."
"She knowsnothingabout it." Obi-Wan did not know why, but he felt cross, angry with himself and with her. This was Master Qui-Gon's home world, and these people were nothing like him. The galaxy felt out of joint.
"Indeed, she doesn't," she agreed, eying him thoughtfully. Presently she added: "I do not believe, though, that I should have minded it so much if she had been right."
Obi-Wan looked down at the tempting curve of her unpainted lips, round and full and soft as the petals of a rose. There was a pucker in them, then a quiver, then he tore his gaze away. His heart pounded up to his throat and then back down, and he trembled as he had not done since his first attack of attraction at age fourteen. His breath came and went with a painful flutter and even though he used Jedi centering techniques, calm eluded him. He couldn't do it, he thought, even though she was begging him to, with every glance sheprojectednearly as strongly as a Jedi. It would be bad manners to pretend he did not understand her intent.
"I should like to kiss you, Edna," he admitted with an echo of her frankness, "but I shall not. Under the circumstances, it would not be right."
"There, didn't I say so! I told Aunt Randii that there certainly must besomegood men in this world!"
She snuggled up closely to him, by and by, unsuspicious, and just talked and talked and talked. It was pleasant to have her there at his side, babbling innocently away in that sweet, musical voice. How pretty she was, how artless and trusting and how honest, a quality he admired enough to want more of it for himself. It came to him that his friends had for a long time been urging him that he ought to 'branch out more,' as they put it, 'get his nose out of a text,' and other things less polite. How delightful it would be to stay on forever in this grove with her, if the mission report were not to be done. If Master were not waiting for his return. If the galaxy were not sliding with the inevitability of gravity towards some great event of which his dreams showed only a dark shadow. He presently found himself saying these things to Edna, as confiding in her as she was in him, though he had not intended such words to pass his lips. She took the wish as a matter of course. She had confidently expected him to feel that way about it, and if he felt that way, to say so. He decided to kiss her, because she wanted it so much, and because he Sensed she was not ready for anything more. For that matter, neither was he. If the world should change, and the galaxy evert itself, then he might be, but not now. Now, he set out to enjoy a sweet kiss and secondarily, to bestow upon this girl her first one. It would be so easy.
The small furry creature lost its grip on the bending branch over their bower and fell on Edna's shoulder. It panicked, bounced off the shoulder and onto Obi-Wan's hair and then sprang for the grass, making a wake through the blades. Obi-Wan and Edna let out peals of laughter, rolling onto their backs and kicking their heels and when they stopped, their hands entwined.
"Edna Egglim!"
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TBC