Star Wars - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Spring Fever ❯ Chapter 1

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Title: Spring Fever
Author: pronker
Era: Intertrilogy; Fess Ilee (Ferus Olin) is forty-one and Leia is turning sixteen.
Rating: T
A/N: I wrote 'The End' to "Song of Myself." And then I thought of a small series to extend the circumstances of Ferus Olin's and Leia Organa's relationship, an unusual one in Star Wars, perhaps not so much Master/Padawan as Mentor/Student. But a little bit Master/Padawan. Anyway, this is part one of a continuance. Concrit welcome.

Summary: One year later, Ferus or Fess, Leia doesn't like anything about her botany tutor.

IOIOIOIOIO

"They're plants."

Stars and galaxies, was this girl completely dense to the Force? She couldn't be, not Anakin's child. Even a commoner with no Force-sensitivity at all had something inside the soul to quicken in springtime. Ferus took Leia's hand and brushed its slender fingers against the lumigrass etching. Her hand was as unexpectedly soft as Anakin's had been. It unnerved Ferus. "Uh, close your eyes and feel the patterns." The sensory motivation was there in the beginning and perhaps a bit of the Force would seep into her in this lesson. She wouldn't realize it, but it was a start. Obi-Wan had said to let her choose her own path, but sometimes Force-sensitivity needed guiding. Obi-Wan's experience teaching Anakin had devastated the man; Ferus had had no Padawan to wrench his heart. He pressed Leia's finger's against the viridian moss shadings of the border. "Squeeze this gently for me, Princess --- no, that's too rough, you'll crush it --- "

Leia yanked her hand back. Ferus felt Fess' facade slip a little as a small amount of Jedi sternness crept in.

"Botany is a science. You need a control and an experiment. I am your control."

"No one controls me," Leia snorted.

Ferus had regained his balance. "On the contrary, Your Highness. Your father does, your environment does, and at this moment, if you wish a better grade in botany class, I do." He smiled Fess' smarmy smile at her, calculated to make her explode. I'm certain I can divert her anger into a passion for study. In the end, it doesn't really matter what she thinks of me.

Leia withdrew, nearly hissing. She glanced through the doorway of their small sitting room into the next room. Except for the first grass etching, the duffel bag on his bed was as yet unpacked. He had come from his home to help her. He was not the enemy. "So you grew these? They're all right."

Was that a compliment after years of scorn? Ferus knew better than to cling to it. "That's right, entirely right! Alderaan's grass paintings inspired these tiny etchings when I first arrived onplanet. It was a part of my initial study, when I wasn't herding nerfs, to understand symbiotic relationships, you see." They were gone, his stubborn nerfs, released to other rural neighbors after he had moved into a suburb of Aldera. He hadn't had much patience with the creatures after the first few harrowing months of his guardianship. Having responsibility for twenty non-sentient lives had steadied him immensely then. Now he wanted only the responsibility of guiding Leia along the path to adulthood. Ferus truly did not know if a better Force connection would help him in his task; he'd overheard parents and they seemed clueless at times, too.

Leia, for all her education, tended to focus laser-sharp on what she was interested in and gloss over the rest. For instance, Ferus remained quite sure that going to a man's home --- and this was his temporary home in the palace --- to look at his etchings had not the suggestive cachet that Ferus had heard of even as a Padawan. "These pieces are what I did when I first came to Alderaan," he babbled, as would Fess. "They are simple, haha, you know me, but if you don't like them, perhaps you can at least learn from them." Alderaanian artists painted broad sweeping meadows of windcast seeds, using the gusts to dab and daub splashes of wild colors. Ferus' efforts stuck to frames a half-meter square which had sustained themselves with minimal care for fifteen years now. He allowed himself pride in their endurance. It reminded him of his own.

The grass etchings formed the background, but that was not all there was to the piece: the foreground moved. There was a multi-legged thing crawling on the etching. Leia squinted. "Your idea?"

"Yes. Something mobile, for interest." Another thing joined it. There was a certain tang in the Force that Ferus had almost forgotten about. "These frinker beetles live on the grass, subsisting on its molds. See how they cooperate in feeding each other, male and female." Ferus was being heavyhanded and knew it. "These beetle pairs reject others of their kind; they are all in all to each other." The beetles finished their repast, faced each other and then circled, first one way, then the other. Oh, stang.

"What are they doing?"

This was turning into another sort of lesson and Ferus scrambled to regain control of his curriculum. "They are practicing foreplay." They would do this now, of all times. He Suggested to them that they postpone their activities, but they listened about as much as any sentient would.

"They're good at it. It's working."

"Yes." Their feelers intermingled, their bodies aligned. What followed would last for hours. Ferus needed to redirect Leia or she would miss her own party.

"Look! What are they doing now?"

"What many species do in the springtime."

"Oh. Oh!" Leia stared. Ferus became embarrassed and protective and a host of other things he couldn't identify. This etching would have pleased his art instructor in the Temple, but as Leia's guardian, he flushed beneath his beard. Surely Bail hadn't been too busy to give Leia the Talk?

"Princess, back to the lesson." Bold, she was as bold as when she was eight and decided to explore the marketplace alone at night. He drew on Fess' skills, not Ferus', to salvage this session.

"I know what they're doing. I'm not stupid."

"Definitely not. You knew when to ask for help in your studies, not the mark of a stupid person." There, she was distracted. The glare could have blistered paint off the walls. "Now, botany includes pteridology and palynology, lichenology, the study of mosses --- "

"They're soft, mosses are." Without his prompting, Leia's fingers brushed the mossy bits in the etching.

Ferus fanned the flame. "Yes, and nutritious and useful for mattresses when you're out in the wild." Siri had taught him the art of survival on so many planets he'd lost track. Maybe he would dream about her tonight. It wouldn't be the first time he'd dreamt of her, of a one-on-one relationship rather than the myriad clots of conversations he'd be called upon to join tonight. Maybe he'd Suggest it to himself right before he fell asleep, and have a dream worth keeping. He'd better curb his drinking tonight.

"Is that why you love it, botany, I mean?"

"I --- Princess, 'love' is an extraordinary word for it. I appreciate all life" --- wait, that sounds too cosmic, too Jedi -- "as part of my personal philosophy" --- worse, Olin, worse! --- "erm, I mean that I had to study something, so I picked botany." A sentiment that a student could identify with. It marked him as the sort of person who was noncommittal, pragmatic, an Ilee who fit her previous opinion of him. He added a self-deprecating giggle as Fess would. Sure enough, the spark of interest died in her eyes. "This is not what I'm like!" he shouted mentally. Aloud, he said, "Back to business, if you're ready, Your Highness."

Dull, dull, dull. He could hear the words, almost see them shooting from her frontal lobes in his direction. Erm, no, they would be from the emotional center in her limbic system? He wasn't sure. It was as well that he had stuck with stoic, boring botany. Sap and phloem, stamens and pistils were more understandable. "Now, Princess, the lumigrass subsides on the statihydroponic nutrient layer and when combined with plentiful exposure to solar full-range radiation ... "

One hour later, Leia's eyes glazed over and Ferus stopped. "You're needing to leave, right you are, the party begins at eighth hour." He put away the final etching. "See you there." Leia's aura flared, dull green cycling through to flaming saffron. Was saffron the hue of Leia's spice? By no stretch of the imagination could she be called completely sweet.

"Oh, you're invited, that's right, um, yes. I will see you at some point. I suppose." Leia smiled at the mention of her party, but not for him. "I'm going." She was out the door then with echoes of Anakin's speed. "Thank you for the lesson!" she tossed over her shoulder. Ferus put on the exquisitely tailored robes that Bail had dispatched to his suite. They snugged him around his middle this time and it looked like he would need to go in for a new fitting. He sighed at the prospect and prepared himself for yet another noisy get-together.

IOIOIOIOIO

Leia's 'fresher mirror showed a young lady with no expression at all. Leia stared at herself, criticizing one thing after another, approving of few things. What she wanted was to appear sophisticated, which the white floor-length septsilk gown accessorized. Leia knew that Winter would have looked less tomboyish in it. Winter was slender and as elegant as lace and just slightly enough senior to Leia to have lost her baby fat. Leia sucked in her cheeks to see how she would look in a few short years, resisting the urge to look cross-eyed down her nose. Her nose would stay its unsatisfactory shape forever. "Don't worry, you'll grow into your adult figure in just a little while," Father had said when she had modeled this gown in front of him. "Don't scowl, that's my baby girl." Mother would not have said that, Leia was fairly certain. Suddenly, she ached for Winter to talk to. The scramball away tournament would have to be this week, and Winter's smashing on-goal delivery was crucial to the team.

Leia surveyed her shape. Slender enough for anyone's taste. Arms akimbo, she practiced her fierce look, then her seductive look, then her contemptuous look, the kind she could not keep from her face when Fess did or said one of his usual ungainly things. Eh, it was time to go.

IOIOIOIOIO

At Leia's Sweet Sixteen Standard party ...

Ferus edged closer to the group loosely gathered around the party girl. Leia and the one who had captured her attention leaned in conspiratorially and Ferus had to use the Force to amplify their words.

"Charming gown, Highness." Toric oozed. Ferus had said the precise three words earlier in the evening to no effect; to Toric, Leia smiled gravely, offering her hand as he led her to the dance floor. The crowd switched its attention to Ferus and he mumbled something about good food always made for a good day. He could hardly follow the Princess out dancing, he chafed. The couple swirled away from his view.

Senator Girn Toric showed warped to Ferus in the Force. A malaise consisting of boredom and cupiscence sickened the man's aura. His urbane outward appearance would appeal to anyone, male or female. In fact, he reeked of sophistication with a soft, genteel voice, caring looks, a half-smile at all times. Ferus did not like him.

But Leia did. Earlier in the evening, she spoke with him somberly of the situation on Spanos Prime, the plight of the plague victims on Boffix and when he betrayed an interest in pittins she beamed. And now it was time for pointless conversations about anything but the subject of the party herself. A dowager captured Ferus and pressed him about where he procured his fancy robes. Bail provided them, he didn't know Bail's tailor personally, he had little interest in robes, save that they were clean.

"Ooh, but aren't they difficult to drape?" The lady's fingers worked their way up his forearm and he nearly slapped them down.

"It's all right, they're fine. Not a problem, no more than yours are."

"I simply must know the manufacturer of this fabric. Perhaps I can get some from the same bolt of cloth, don't you think we would make a fine pair in matching outfits?" She pinched his cheek and Ferus cursed old ladies, a raucous string of epithets in a tongue he knew she couldn't understand. Siri had taught the curse to him. He smiled as his words dripped sweetness contrary to their meaning. The entire court knew he was not from Alderaan and they would assume this was his native language.

"Madame, you and I? I am nowhere in your league. And don't tell him so, but your husband ought to look out for competition. I see him watching us, no, don't look!" But the old lady persevered, talking whether she received a reply or not. By the time Ferus looked up again, a small disturbance at the other side of the banquet hall had subsided and then dispersed. Leia and Toric had disappeared. It was easy to find a cozy, private niche in the vast palace.

A bow, a kiss to a wrinkled knuckle, and Ferus was free to shoot towards the door. She is my Princess, thought Ferus, amazed. I've been an Alderaanian citizen for so many long years that I feel loyal to the throne. He redoubled his pace towards the receding spark that was Leia. Protect. Protect. My guestroom is near Toric's. If the major-domo had assigned him to somewhere farther off, I might not Sense a situation developing. The Force must be moving on it. It's clear that she needs protecting tonight.

He Called Leia’s name instinctively, foolishly, but he couldn’t help himself. This evening felt ripe for the Force to shift focus for him, for Leia, or maybe just for their vague vicinity, for anyone, including Bail. The fuzzy Force connection Ferus had put up with for years now bothered him more than usual. Kriff. Ferus slammed one hand into the other as he puffed down the corridor. His two hands stung, the pain splintering like his callout to Leia. I want a better Force connection and I’m not getting one. What do I have to do?

IOIOIOIOIO

There was a planet called Alderaan whose people knew the value of politicking and living a life of public service to the full. There was a palace on Alderaan which rocked night and day with parties and receptions. And one fine evening in the midst of her Sweet Sixteen Standard banquet, the palace's resident princess waited near the closed 'fresher door of one of the palace's innumerable guest suites.

Leia Organa perched primly on an elegant loveseat, trying not to picture the unclad man within the 'fresher. She was ready for this step in her coming of age. Everyone said so, particularly her favorite aunt. "You're sixteen today," she'd said. "It's almost an Alderaanian ritual. Time you spread your wings." Leia was unsure if she wanted this power, but she had it, so why not use it? It seemed to be part of the arsenal of life in an unforgiving Empire. Winter said that it would come like a thunderbolt over a mountain peak one day, the realization of power over the opposite sex. Today was that day. Leia frowned as she tapped her fingers on her new reticule, a gift from her father. Some strategy here? Go for the jugular? No, too overwhelming; this was to be a delicate battlefield. The experience should hone her diplomatic negotiating skills. Again, Leia wished that Winter were not away so that they could compare notes on each other's evening. Of course, Winter's memory of her experiences would be clear as transparisteel and Leia's colored by yearning, but that was all right: they were true friends and meshed in all the important ways.

Leia felt on the verge of a discovery of a principle in some major area of life. The sight of underclothes spilling out of untidy drawers, the array of colognes on the dresser's waxed veneer, everything in the room spoke of masculinity. Winter, she couldn't stop thinking of Winter and their comm last night. Winter always seemed to know the things that Leia only guessed about. So anyone could satisfy me, it would not matter who he was as long as he was male. It could even be F--- No. Not ever. Never him. It would kill all the romance in her soul to allow someone like Fess Ilee to place his pudgy hands --- and as for herself, never could she do those things with Ilee that she and Winter giggled over. The touching, the rubbing, just no. Leia shifted in her seat. Step back, step back out of particulars and live in the moment, someone whispered through her hair ... imagine being the picture of your imaginings. Or was it picture being the image of your imaginings? Leia laughed and ducked her head. She really ought to gain control over these rhapsodies or reveries or whatever they were, she realized, straightening her posture. Now she was daydreaming about a wise man with a flowing mane of tangled hair and twinkling blue eyes, the very image of counsel. I'm in over my head with this. I need to leave. I need to think.

"Senator, I'll comm you tomorrow --- " she said to the closed door and gathered her reticule.

Senator Girn Toric of the Vorzyd Sector, the man of a certain age divesting himself of his wardrobe inside the 'fresher was nice, Leia decided. He danced divinely, he was not too tall to dwarf her, and he smelled like her father. She could do this with him without sacrificing any of her standards. That felt good.

The 'fresher door slid open. "There. Rid myself of those beastly trousers." He posed in the doorway, backlit by the soft lumapanel. Leia approved of his trim, toned figure. He didn't resemble that Ilee person at all. When he approached the sofa, she smiled hesitantly up at him, playing with her gown's scooped neckline.

"I hope the stain comes out of them, Senator. I apologize." A few sips of Nabooan blossom wine had gone directly to her head; she had been too nervous to eat much before or during the banquet. The spill had been entirely her fault.

"Pishtosh, my own clumsiness, dear Leia. Now then. On to more pleasant topics." The leisure suit fit the man's suave persona, down to the heavy wrought-aurodium chain with its fist-sized pendant. The suit was an intense mauve with sun-yellow piping. Its nap looked soft to the touch. "You wanted privacy to make a request?"

Leia caught herself from reaching out. Well, of course his suit was soft! The finest denier of veda cloth always was. She braced herself for the big question. "I'd like to be your intern, Senator. My goal is to be elected to the Senate and if a few months can be arranged for me on your schedule, that is, well, what I'm hoping for ... " She had rehearsed this before the mirror. She had. The sips of wine certainly couldn't be causing this dizziness, could they? It must be the headiness of ambition.

The man moved like a well-oiled speeder and before she knew it, he was sitting beside her on the loveseat, uncomfortably near. Leia leaned away, then back into the plush, tempting cushions. Relax, relax. He is a nice man.

"Ah, you are a sweet young lady, and my name is Girn, Leia."

"Senator, I'll comm your people tomorrow --- "

"Why? You and I can discuss your internship and its full requirements here, where there aren't interrup--- " Toric leaned closer and his pendant slid off his suit's open neckline, its aurodium spikes tangling in Leia's unbound loops of hair. She pulled back even further and the movement ensnared some strands in the trinket.

The snick of an unlocking door snapped them to attention. Like a tornado, Fess Ilee whirled in, stopping short as he took in Toric looming over Ferus' princess. Ferus unraveled the snarl of hair from the pendant without trouble.

The atmosphere in the room bloated with desires, thought Ferus, sharply focused on one side, blurry and undefined on the other, both as yet unfulfilled. From the gawkiness of this morning's botany lesson to the sharp danger of this moment, Leia had matured from a girl to a young woman and if Ferus had been a moment later, a mere moment...

"Princess Leia! Your father wants to see you."

Leia looked up with guilt and with annoyance, then only annoyance. "I'm not ready to leave yet." She put her reticule down beside her to make her point.

"He wants you now." Leia flashed him a look and then subsided, brow creased. She blinked, glanced at her surroundings and then stood.

"Senator, we'll talk later? Please?"

"Get away from her, Senator. We’re leaving." Laylay, don’t fight me on this issue. It’s far greater than your botany grade.

The commanding tone in Fess' voice was unlike anything Leia had ever heard from him. She shivered as she retreated as far as her pride would let her.

"Fess, isn't it?" Toric's eyes darkened to cold-pressed duranium and his silver moustache bristled. "Fess, don't you have errands to run for His Highness?"

"They're done. Layl--- erm, Leia, come with me." 'Laylay', he'd nearly said 'Laylay.'

“Senator, please! I’ll comm you tomorrow.”

Disgusted, Ferus left without waiting to hear Toric’s answer. To his surprise, the door cycled open and a glance backwards showed Leia following him down the corridor towards safety. He couldn’t speak to her just yet. He needed to find his center first, to remember that he was Jedi. It was easier some days than others. His thoughts cascaded as quick as his steps.

And how was what Toric was after any different than what Ferus himself wanted? Knowing her better, influencing her personal growth, shaping her to his needs and wants. Ferus heard the slap-slap of her soft boots behind him and slowed his pace.

"Your mother would have warned you not to go into strange men's rooms alone."

"We didn't do anything wrong. He was nice, not strange. I like nice men."

"They're all nice, Princess, until things get out of control." What a difference twenty minutes could have made. Leia's aura would have been soiled by the very intimation of closeness with that worm. A 'sleemo,' Anakin would have called him. Anakin could never be called passionless, except for that brief time in the Zone of Self-Containment. The Zone hadn't suited him, really, though Ferus was sure that Anakin wished it had.

"There's that word again. Control."

She was going to dislike him more for this, but he didn't care. He spun on his heel. He advanced a pace and a wall hanging blocked her retreat. She took an involuntary step backwards as her intricate hairstyle pressed onto a brocade image of a blonde maiden with flowing locks and plain peasant's gown. For a moment it looked like Leia's face was superimposed upon the simple country lass. In the same fashion as Toric, Ferus leaned his much greater height over her. "I'm saying this for your own good," he growled. For this he was the no-nonsense Padawan again, forgetting to add Fess' twinkling simper. "Don't do that again. I might not be around next time."

"I don't need you to tell me what to do. I'll tell my father if you think you have authority over me." And what was he doing on this level of her home? Oh, right, his regular room was nearby.

There, that spark again, not of interest in knowing him better, but of anger. It was Anakin's quickwhip anger, but he had handled Anakin once or twice. "I won't let you get hurt, Princess." That was as bald as he could put it and he wondered if his cover were blown. "Bail would be devastated." For a second on her face there shone the love she had for her father. Hadn't she thought of her precious relationship with Bail, an only child to a widower? Probably not. Or perhaps she was doing that right now.

Ferus knew when silence was best and now was that time. They padded through the empty corridors as the palace lay draped in jollity in its faraway party wing, as joyous as it should be for its Princess' special day. Bail would be worried when Ferus told him about Leia's daring. And where had Bail been? He didn't have the Force to warn him of whispery danger through the echoing corridors of his palace like Ferus did, but he was her father and should have --- no. Not fair. He would not berate his friend over this. Omniscient, no one is, Yoda would say.

As they neared the primary banquet hall, Leia broke the silence. "You're wrong, you know." From her reticule, Leia withdrew a small cylinder which she flourished under Ferus' nose. "Scabrous Spray. If he'd tried something, the welts would last for days." She sounded as fierce as Obi-Wan's description of Senator Amidala.

"That's if you remembered to use it and if he didn't wrestle it away from you. No, Princess, you were lucky --- " Ferus let Fess speak. "Oh, well, it's over with and you know about him now --- "

"Know what about him? Fess, I think you mean well, but this is something I've studied for my whole life. I'm doing it."

With a jolt, Ferus realized that he faced letting Leia go with Toric for months at a time, unless by some manifestation of the Force, Toric's entourage required a botanist. I'll ask Bail to forbid her, it's too far from us, she'll need me. She doesn't realize the temptation she presents to Toric. "We'll see," he said. It was a delaying tactic that worked for parents.

At sixteen, Leia did not listen to it anymore. "No, I'll see. And here we are." She opened the double doors leading to the crowded banquet hall. A wave of conversations and hot air muffled her last words to him. "The buffet table is that way."

IOIOIOIOIO

Near dawn, Ferus peeled off his undergarments, sticking only his head into the holoemitter’s range. He pulled on his sleep pants, tying their strings in a sloppy bow.

“So she’s safe for now. I don’t know, O-Siri, I just don’t know.”

Obi-Wan looked fresh as a haffa-blossom. “It’s raining here.”

He wanted to discuss the weather? “I’m happy you’re happy. But back to the problem --- “

“It’s raining here, and we take our happiness when we can, in small pieces. It has not rained here since I can’t remember when. There are special rain festivals in town and I may attend today.” The blue apparition that was his friend smiled that annoying impish smile. “If I’m lucky, the citizens may gift me with something. For good fortune, as they say.”

“You’re their resident crazy old hermit. Why would they give you anything?”

“They have superstitions about mentals. They won’t hurt me, I think, but it’s good for my cover to appear now and then. If I ever became ill, I shouldn’t like to be forgotten totally.”

Great. Now he would have to worry about Obi-Wan, too. “Are you feeling all right?”

“The aches and pains of age. The desert heat helps those quite a bit, I’m told.” Another smile, softer this time. “I am tolerably well, Feri-Wan. No need to concern yourself.”

“Then back to Laylay --- “

“You did well. She is right on schedule with her schoolwork, is she not?”

“Now she is. I’m taking them on a field trip in a week or so to solidify their academics in botany.”

“Them?”

“The whole class, fifteen of them. All girls.”

“Now that would be a gift. They are on the cusp of adulthood and you will have a great influence on their future.”

“Go on with you.” Ferus scratched an itch off-range. “Laylay’s the only one I care about. Turmeric wants her and I won’t be around. I’m afraid for her. She’s beautiful and I’m not sure she knows about men.”

Obi-Wan’s tone was wistful. “We can’t protect them from everything.”

“How is Wormie, by the way?” I can read you, too.

"Wormie? Why, he has been absolutely delightful."

Obi-Wan, sarcastic? "What has he done?" The same as with a few other communiqués through the past decade, there was the sense of someone just off-range with whom Obi-Wan shared a rueful look and a shrug.

"He's crashed the family speeder again."

"I thought you said that he was an excellent pilot!"

"He will be. He's not there yet, particularly when there are distractions of the female variety."

Ferus heard the exasperation in Obi-Wan's voice. "That's a natural thing, O-Siri. The boy can't be blamed."

Obi-Wan’s hand made a swirling gesture under the holoemitter and Ferus heard the tinkle of ice in a drink, though where Obi-Wan procured the impossibly precious commodity Ferus didn’t know. The Jedi Master looked down thoughtfully, then sighed. "There is no blame. His adversarial relationship with Larzinsky the Elder is typical for the age and it's only going to worsen in the next few years. The boy has a great deal of his father in him."

"And the Minor?"

"She tolerates. She knows her influence on the boy is nearing its natural end."

"Any fireworks?"

"He stayed out all night with Gruesome. When he stumbled in at doubledawn, there was a commotion. I felt it in the Force." 'Gruesome,' the girl with big bones who had a strange laugh, or so Obi-Wan claimed. If Ferus didn't know better, he'd say that Obi-Wan wanted Luke to share Obi-Wan's own austerity towards romantic involvements. Ferus had seen a great deal of life outside the Order, for all of Obi-Wan's longer span of years. And it's a different galaxy now, Ferus thought, for commoners and Jedi alike.

"Was he hurt?"

"Only emotionally. She was as vicious as her name." Her true name was Elma May. Innocuous sounding, but ... girls could slice and dice hearts with the best of them. "She dumped him, he reacted as you'd think anyone would, and the speeder went into reverse. Chipped its left thruster guard." A chipped left thruster guard might skew the guidance of the craft; Owen and Beru had his sympathy. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, was he still thinking of the Temple's grandiose resources regarding such mishaps? Such damage was not trivial to a Tatooine moisture farmer.

“Well, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m practicing a moving meditation. I’m going to repair the eastside vaporator before I go into town.”

“Misfiring again, eh?”

“I don’t know what gets into it these days. I don’t know what gets into Wormie, either.” Obi-Wan sounded off-kilter, but at least he seemed aware of it. Ferus didn’t know what to feel about tonight. Something ghastly could have happened and now he would have weeks upon weeks to be concerned about Leia’s safety when she was with Toric. Although, now that he thought about it, for someone from a planet with no armies, Leia had been quick on the trigger with that Scabrous Spray. She was not a little girl any more. Was that the problem?

From a faraway place, he heard Obi-Wan’s clinking and clanking with tools. “Over and out.”

IOIOIOIOIO

The bed was sumptuous as ever. That couldn’t be why sleep eluded him. Leia’s face before him, Ferus tossed in his fine sheets, losing his center, finding it, losing it once more. The situation was maddening. Toric would try again, Leia was vulnerable and would be on her own. Had Bail seen her awakening? Yes, he must have; Ferus had known about it and he wasn’t even her father. But could that be precisely the reason that he had seen it? The Force was silent. Ferus cursed, got a drink of water and returned to bed. He would have to talk to Bail about this. He wasn’t looking forward to it. As he slid towards sleep, Leia’s face and ripened figure flashed in a vision. Something grotesque, something monstrous, threatened her, had subjugated her in a disturbing way. There were chains involved and a sick, heaving sense of unsure footing as the floor surged beneath her. Somehow Ferus was there with her, unable to do anything more than send encouragement through their connection. Her clothing was barely there and wait a moment, they had a connection?

Ferus shot up in bed, fully awake. Leia was not his Padawan, any more than Trever had been. There was no connection between them. Panting, he analyzed his vision. Toric was the monstrous thing, the chains were Leia’s devotion to duty, which she would feel intensely on her first internship. The change in wardrobe was, um, the many functions she would be required to attend in stylish, revealing attire as Toric’s protégée and oh, certainly her youth and inexperience would be taken into consideration by the couturiers? She should never dress in a way so tempting to men. A man would have to be in a coma not to be affected. Oh, oh, oh. And the botany field trip with Leia's study group was coming up. Ferus swallowed hard. He'd be surrounded by youth, by balmy skies, by giggles. And in the midst of them, Leia's spice. Oh, oh, oh.

IOIOIOIOIO

Breha. The tarla woods drifted fragrant yellow pollen through the open window and Ferus breathed in its aroma as he looked up at Aldera Royal Palace nearly five kilometers away. He thought of Bail's wife, the way she had welcomed Ferus' protection of her new daughter. Breha, I'm doing my best.

"You lived way out here?" Leia approached him as the rest of the class sorted backpacks, water bottles and lip protection. The wind was picking up this morning, though the sun warmed the view out Ferus' home's bay window. It was cold inside the one-story lodge, the heat turned off for years. With Jedi-like parsimony, Ferus refrained from turning it on for his botany study group's brief time here this morning.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I needed a place to live and work both." At need, he could have Force-sprinted to his speeder and been at House Organa's aid in minutes. He supposed he could still Force-sprint.

"Living in the mountains is more, um, aesthetically pleasing."

She probably thought she was being subtle. "Princess, the grasslands that I originally studied are nearby. They were my focus."

"I see. But it's so flat around here."

Leia would not give up. Sometimes Ferus disliked her for that. "It is not all flat, Princess. See that rise? There are zaela trees and more tarla woods and a little stream on the other side. My nerfs watered there each morning and night." When Leia's range of motion was limited to trips to sunny playyards with ample supervision, Ferus could relax, make his etchings, tend to his nerf herd. Little by little, he had regained a smattering of peace. Roan's memory did not burn so much as glow and the nights became easier. Sometimes he slept all the way through the darkness until dawn. Onward. "Breha and Bail brought you here sometimes," Ferus burst out. "We played sabacc three-handed and you had guards to boss around." It was an awkward statement, something Fess would say to be funny. "Your mother nearly always won."

Leia considered, saying nothing. Fess and her mother and father, all friends and having sedate adult fun. Even then, Fess had been a third wheel, a hanger-on. Her mother and father were one example of love, but now that she had thought more on the subject, she knew there were many types. Why not try love with someone older for the first time? The young men in her age group played with toys, though they called them 'speeders' and 'swoops.' Someone older could converse with her and explain what he was doing, like a tutor or mentor would. Leia jerked her attention back to her surroundings. It is all so confusing. Politics will be easier to understand than this subject. I'm still a student and I need to be humble, but I don't like the taste of it on my tongue.

Ferus wished he knew Leia's thoughts as she swiped a finger along the windowsill. Sunlight turned the raised dust to a sparkling cloud. Leia shone through it. Ferus looked away. "Ready, ladies?" From all corners of his abandoned home they gathered, filled with potential, ready for his teaching. "We're hiking to that large hill," he said, pointing out the bay window, "which is the limit of my property, down to the stream at its base for aquaculture study. We'll picnic there and take another route back here. Stay together." What else? "Did everyone bring a datapad?" They all had. "Good. Take notes or record the day. I'll quiz you all at the end of the day and update your datapads with my grade and that's that. When your regular instructor comes back here with the transport this evening, he'll notate your records and we'll return to the palace by nightfall."

"Can we light a bonfire here before we leave?"

"And toast malla petal puffies?"

"And sing?"

"And go back after nightfall? I never get to do that!"

They were far too sheltered. They spent hours in Madame Vesta's deportment class and mere minutes outside each day, except for physical training. He could see why they had next to no knowledge of the Living Force. Padawans of their age would have hiked mountains, snorkeled seas and body-surfed in rivers. Suddenly the responsibility of leadership hit hard as a meteor strike and he knew what he had to do. He had to delay. "We'll see," he said. "Let's go now, all together, you leave first and I'll lock up." They trooped out the door. As he closed the ablative windows, they turned opaque, the alarm light turned green and Ferus let his home of years turn to memory once more as he followed the group. Their outing resembled a Master/Padawan training in mutual trust exercise on Ragoon-6, but he would not allow the girls to lead him at any point. He would lead them. He felt up to the task in a way he hadn't before. Maybe it was seeing his old home again, he thought. Maybe it was the thought of Siri's survival lessons bearing fruit in this group of younglings.

As they hiked along, the day showed them cavorting frinker beetles by the swarm and tumblebunnies chasing each other with definite gleams in their eyes. Ferus wearied of explaining various mating biologies. At odds with the cheery morning sun, his thoughts turned to Leia's retreat before his dominating step towards her in the corridor one week ago. This, this was the ridiculous part --- he enjoyed feeling dangerous to her. He enjoyed it! It was as if he had to protect her and she had to accept it. She had to know him as someone who could be dangerous, dangerous enough to protect her. It was the most ridiculous and the most alive he'd felt in some time. It brought him back to Roan, laughing at Ferus' naivete, and it was a very good thing that Obi-Wan was parsecs away or he would have given Ferus one of those looks. Obi-Wan doesn't belong in our world, not mine and Leia's. I can't help it if he's alone in his hut. I can't help it if he doesn't see rampant love affairs at the palace everywhere he looks. I'm just not that ascetic.

Flitterbugs flitted by, locked in mating clumps, and when their delight robbed them of the power to fly anymore, they sputtered to the ground. Ferus cursed. Was every single species he and the girls encountered going to be like this? He was glad he was teaching botany, quiet, subtle botany. At least pollens floating on the breeze had a small grandeur to them, vital as they were to the ecology of these lands. When he had lived here, the seasons ran together, the nerfs took up his time and their life cycles made little impression on him. Nerfs. There were some now, nibbling spring greens in a vale. Ferus cringed. The herd followed a bellwether ewe with not a ram in sight. Good.

The nerfs had younglings, though, bouncing and stotting in their youthful way. Twenty of them bounded over a log, reversed and bounded back, wave upon wave of fleecy, bleating creatures. Ferus should have known the duchesses and countesses and ladies and the princess would find them attractive. Everyone dragged out her vidcam.

"Ooooooh, cute!"

"Adorable!"

"See the lone black one!"

"There's a runt, look!"

"Awwww!"

The sound of so much untramelled girlhood broke his unquiet thoughts and he smiled. "Come along, everyone."

IOIOIOIOIO

After their picnic, Ferus gave a demonstration of living off the land as he sat tailor-fashion on their throw. "Suck it out, like this." He flattened his tongue and nursed up a white drop of nectar from the bottom of the cloudflower stamen. The patch of white blooms had the largest stamens he had ever seen. "Mmmmm, good." The blob stuck to his palate, dispensing its dulcet flavor slowly, like a lingering pallie.

"Like this?" Leia stabbed her tongue directly into the slot at the tip of the stamen.

"No, watch me, Princess." Ferus played the tutor, drawing out the lesson, his eyes on hers. "Slowly. The stamen will give you sustenance if you are lost in these woods."

"Lost?"

Ferus broke off his attention when he saw Leia's tongue act as it should. "Hypothetically lost, Beka. We are exactly where we should be."

Beka bit off a piece of stamen, smacking her lips. Ferus winced at the sight. "No teeth, Beka. It won't give up its sweetness that way."

"Oh."

It hurt to sit like this too long. Lately, everything pouched out to his front when he was seated. Ferus sucked in his gut, adding a Force-strengthening of diaphragmatic muscles. His belt fit better. "Students, you are in the midst of a vernal equinoctial tarla deciduous forest. It is typified by a low canopy of thirty meters with a parklike appearance in the ground story. Today is" --- a Force-drenched day --- "a remarkably clement day." And it was. The sky was perfect, there was a light breeze to cool their skins in the midday heat. The girls removed light morning jackets and were clad only in their unisuits and boots. Notes were taken, stamens suckled tenderly and when it was time to hike back to his lodge, there was a bit of chatter interspersed with observant, respectful silence for minutes at a time. The day lengthened.

As he stopped to blow at the crest of the large hill, Ferus surveyed the pulchritude meandering down the slope ahead of him. If he were a shaak stud, he would have whinnied at his herd. None of them were out of breath. Morail straggled, Limn squatted beside a tumblebunny's burrow and Leia glowed somewhere in the middle of the group. They formed a charming troupe, all strong, all bright, their auras various complementary hues. The girls noticed the clouds on the horizon before he did.

A constellation of feminity came towards him and he could reach out and pinch each little star, but Leia stepped out from behind a taller classmate and she was the moon, rich and bright in the Force even though she did not know it. Full moon beautiful, Trever would have said. "Survival training," Ferus told them as they regrouped around him, ponchos already donned over their jackets. "Remember how it goes?"

"If there's lightning, get close to the ground."

"Don't seek shelter under a tree if there's lightning."

"Follow a stream downhill until it joins another if you're lost. And watch out for lightning."

"Keep your trousers inside your boots to ward off sucking parasites."

That would be Janis, slightly askew as to her surroundings and distrustful of insects. Ferus smiled. "More to the point, Janis, is to stay with the group. Don't let yourself get separated."

The growing wind blew Iyova's chic hat away and she scrambled for it until Leia grabbed her arm. Their pleasant breeze turned into a gale and they gasped like babies against it. Leia traded glances with Ferus. "How serious?" her glance asked.

Ferus called on the years he'd spent in the hinterlands surrounding Aldera. Thundersprites whirled up from nowhere, raged for an hour and blew themselves into oblivion. He met Leia's gaze squarely. "Not serious," his glance replied. She quirked her lips and he spent a moment wondering if she heard his words through any connection between them before he said aloud, "Everyone stay together and we'll be fine. Just a little wet." It would be un-Jedi-like of him to disparage Alderaan's lack of weather control, unlike Coruscant's timed showers and muted storms. Alderaan did its best to be completely natural, open to all things, priding itself on its peaceful strength. It was pride, not arrogance, he was certain.

The girls' hair flapped about them, braids unkinked, chignons unravelled. Fashion be damned, did they all have to wear long hair? They huddled until the rain began. Grimacing at the deluge, soaked within one minute, Ferus called on the Force, listening with all his might. He opened his eyes. "There! Past the redthorn bushes! Go!" Halfway down the hill, a smaller tarla tree unfolded, its pale brown ring of dry dirt their target amid the sticky burnt umber mud. Sliding in the mire, sixteen grateful beings pressed together underneath the tarla tree, its low stature making it a natural umbrella. Pressing tightly against Leia, Ferus laughed along with his charges.

"Princess, this won't last long."

"I know."

Feeling like a Padawan again himself, temptation grew to reach out and touch the softness of youth that he wanted to mold, to deny the difference in their years, to throw away all that he and Obi-Wan had done for the Order, for the galaxy, and he couldn't help himself. In three lingering strokes, he caressed the underside of Leia's arm. The wet cascaded from them both, she turned to him, her questioning look turning to a knowing one. She moved away and the moment was gone. Her unnoticing friends clustered about her, squealing and giggling in the tepid downpour, unisuits doused to the skin, budding figures outlined. Ferus gasped. He knew what Anakin had done. Anakin had thrown everything in his life away, all for this feeling. Ferus understood now. This is the difference between us, he thought, I'll never give in to the feeling, beyond this one touch. As the girls crowded under the umbrella of the stately tree, he backed out from under its shelter, heading blindly for another ten meters away. When he could see again, Leia had blended in with her coterie of friends, no longer special, at least any more special than another precious manifestation of the Force, at least for today. It was better that way. He would thank himself later.

He wants me, thought Leia, in that way, and it’s not a bad thing, it’s not, it’s just new. She felt Winter’s hand in hers, pulling her further beneath the canopy of the tree. She yielded to the tug, glancing sideways at her friend, but to Winter, this was simply another part of study to which she acquiesced, the way she did learning security and bodyguard tactics from Sabe. Winter’s pale hair in strings, the others of the group similarly doused, what a bedraggled bunch they were. Leia laughed, put her arms around as many of her friends as she could, swaying them all back and forth, happy for learning about herself this day. Such an unexpected lesson, and from Fess, of all people. Leia controlled who she let get close to Leia and for the moment, Leia wanted only girls around Leia. Later on she would venture out to joust in male and female relationships, but in this moment under the tarla tree, the galaxy was simple.

IOIOIOIOIO

"Speak up. I can't hear you."

Obi-Wan looked intractable. "I don't wish to. Turn up your gain."

Ferus grumped to himself as he adjusted the dial. "There. As I was saying, the fieldtrip nearly got rained out, but we made it back to the lodge all right. We even had some pleasant moments together, Laylay and I." And that was all he was going to say about it.

Still speaking unnaturally low, Obi-Wan asked, "Did something happen?" Through the parsecs, Obi-Wan's glance skewered Ferus.

"No." But something could have, perhaps even should have. The time had passed. Ferus met the Jedi Master's gaze steadfastly. "How's Wormie?" he waffled. The tarla blossoms had added to his mood. Spring and nerflings bawling and birds winging and bees humming and myrmins nesting, agh, it had infected his brain and this season in the Force enhanced his five senses and even his Force sense. Leia was like an unplucked flower, he thought, and wondered who would pluck her. In another life it might have been him.

"Wormie and I saw each other at a rain festival last week. He looks fine. But back to Laylay, you are certain she fares well?"

Ferus bulled his way through. "Yes, I said so, didn't I?" He would not give in to Obi-Wan's prodding.

"Mmm. Wormie's more sober now. It seems that breaking up with Gruesome matured him."

"Laylay seems the same to me," Ferus said defiantly. "She's as beautiful, as young, as pristine --- "

Obi-Wan almost laughed a real laugh, then clapped a hand over his mouth. "Of course she is!" he went on, still in muted tones. "She has you to protect her!"

Ferus couldn't smile back. "Protect her. Yes, I can do that." Something was off in Obi-Wan's usual backdrop to his communiques. Ferus leaned forward to see better.

"When does she leave with Turmeric?"

"In three weeks, directly after Empire Day." Ferus changed the subject. "What's that white thing behind you?" It looked like a thin lawn shift drying on a line stretched across Obi-Wan's plain sitting room.

"It rained again this morning. I had to dash out to the eopie pen unexpectedly to drive the foolish beast into cover."

"So something got wet with you, too."

Obi-Wan kept facing the holoemitter but snaked a hand behind him. There was a snap! and the white thing, along with its drying cord, tumbled out of range, to the floor, Ferus supposed. "You didn't need to do that. I lived with you for a while, remember. I've seen everything you own."

Obi-Wan sniffed. "Not everything. It was a gift from a kind citizen from the back alleys of Tosspot Station at the rain festival. She said I changed her luck."

"I thought you went all the way in to Mossy Esplanade last week."

"I stopped off at Tosspot, Wormie was there with his friends, I stayed in the background, listening and, and observing. I don't often get close to him, as you do with Laylay." Ferus knew that Obi-Wan didn't mean to sound pathetic.

"And this mystery lady in the alley gave you this as part of Toonie's customs? Why?"

Obi-Wan had always kept his Masterly dignity. "I sheltered her with my robe back to her dwelling. The storm had become a downpour."

"Her dwelling was in an alley?" This was intriguing.

"I've seen her at the station a few times before and yes, an alley. She is a simple, kind soul. She said I looked like I had only one suitable outfit to wear, night and day."

"Don't you?"

Over the spacelanes came that look to subdue a roomful of Padawans and sometimes even Anakin. "Witty comments aside, this was a gift and I am using it every night. It's pleasant to be thought of, even in this misbegotten ... place."

Their circumstances couldn't have been more different, even if their missions were the same. "Someday, O-Siri, someday --- "

Obi-Wan shrugged. "It is as the Power wills, Feri-Wan. I have no major complaints." Then, briskly, darting a glance towards the left, "If there is nothing else --- "

"There isn't." Ferus waited for Obi-Wan to disconnect.

Obi-Wan looked over Ferus' shoulder, avoiding Ferus' eyes. "Feri-Wan, we are alone and yet not. I would share anything important with you, you know that."

"Of course. The same with me."

Obi-Wan harrumphed. "Yes. Quite so. Well then."

"Well then," Ferus echoed, amused.

"Then goodbye."

IOIOIOIOIO
IOIOIOIOIO

Years later, in the midst of a planetwide explosion of botanical growth, Han lay on his stomach beside Leia in a hut on the outskirts of the Ewok village, listening to the diminishing sounds of the victory party and the hiss of embers being doused. The fuzzballs gave the structure a wide berth. Han supposed his intentions were obvious even without speaking their language. On this night, there was all the time in the galaxy.

The majesty of the forests of Endor in spring reached Leia’s soul like no lesson of Ilee’s could, though he had paved the way. She fingered the arm that Fess had smoothed so long ago, healed now by the Ewok shaman with a smelly decoction of roots and leaves. There would be a scar, but she could live with that. She thought of the uses of botany and told Han the story of the field trip. Han brushed aside her unbound hair, nuzzling her ear. Leia felt a tingle.

"Was he your first?" Han rumbled. He sounded only curious.

"Him? No. But that time in the thundersprite, I looked at him, really looked at him and it was like, I don't know, there was a larger world and I knew my place in it. I didn't have to be so particular about who I let inside my gates."

Han rolled onto his side, face on the crook of his elbow. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Your Worshipfulness."

"Now you know that I don't mean you." The tingle turned into a sliding burn.

"No, I don't. Show me."

Leia did.

THE END OF THE FIRST SERIES.