FLAWED 4/43 PG-13: Anakin, Obi-Wan, Siri, Ferus, Others
Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction. But I am having a ridiculously good time writing it.
Feedback: why, yes, I'd love some! *grin*
CHAPTER FOUR
On board a passenger liner bound for Borsana Prime -- where the Jedi teams would split up to Borsana Terce and Sexto -- Obi-Wan glanced to his right, where Ryn was curled in one of the chairs in their small compartment with a datapad, seemingly intent on whatever she was reading. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that the holounit in the corner was displaying a grainy image of her slightly younger self, straddling the seat of a stripped-down Podracer, one hand stroking the throttle stick in a decidedly suggestive gesture while the other fell languidly between her parted thighs, anchoring the hem of her brief skirt so the breeze ruffling her waves of hair wouldn’t flutter it from barely-there to barely-legal. If one didn’t know better, it would be easy to think she was indifferent to the voice of the HoloNet reporter, explaining how the girl who took the Podracing crowds by storm last year had just entered the public eye again as an operative of the Jedi Council and an anti-slavery activist.
If you knew her, you could see that though she kept thumbing her datapad over to the next page, she hadn’t read a word in the last chapter, because her whole being was riveted on Anakin, waiting for his reaction.
Obi-Wan doubted whether anything she found there was in improving her day. Anakin’s initial shock upon seeing the series of provocative images had already transmuted into horror and was rapidly sliding toward disgust. Obi-Wan wanted to tell his Padawan that if he couldn’t get control of his emotions, he might at least try to moderate their expression, but of course Ryn could feel Anakin’s reaction whether it showed on his face or not. And drawing attention to Anakin’s obvious distaste was only likely to make things more unpleasant for everyone.
The reporter was finishing off her voice-over with an image of Ryn during the Senate hearings: "Calls to the Jedi Temple over the last twelve hours have met with the response that the diplomatic attachée is currently on assignment, assisting the Council in a sensitive matter, and cannot be reached for comment at this time."
“A sensitive matter!” Anakin exploded, snapping off the comm. “What, was there an emergency in someone’s pants?”
Ryn lowered her datapad. “Are you calling for backup?”
Obi-Wan, who’d been about to intervene on Ryn’s behalf -- and teach Anakin some much-needed manners -- froze, forgetting what he’d been about to say.
Anakin’s eyes blazed. “How can you laugh about this?”
“Do you hear me laughing?”
“This isn’t a joke!” Anakin spat. “You have to take this seriously.”
“Tell me what this is and I’ll try.”
“You --” Anakin’s voice dropped in something like anguish and Obi-Wan looked back at him, startled “--you took off your clothes for money.”
“I did no such thing.” Ryn said. “I’m wearing clothes in all those holos, and I never made a credit off of any of them. The only person alive who’s ever seen me naked is you.”
Obi-Wan gaped. Siri sat up and looked interested. Ryn gave Obi-Wan an apologetic glance and added, “When he carried me to the showers after I was poisoned.”
Oh. Well, that made sense. Siri looked considerably less interested.
Anakin’s pained cry broke through Obi-Wan’s attempt to decide whether his encounter with a naked--but also poisoned--girl was as innocent as she made it sound. “It doesn’t matter!” he exclaimed bitterly, in defiance of his previous statement. “I know what those places are like, what goes on there, what happens to girls your age, you can’t dress that way, you can’t act like that, you’re inviting it, you’ll get hurt ...”
Obi-Wan felt lost in Anakin’s argument, but Ryn seemed to follow the thread of it. She held up a hand to stem the flow of raging words and said, “Hold on, Anakin. Just ... hold on.” She glanced at Ferus, who had the sense to realize they were intruding on a private conversation and the presence of mind to do something about it.
While the two Knights were still trying to recover from their own helplessness, he rose to his feet and stretched. “Masters, it must be getting close to dinnertime. Maybe we should go check out the mess?”
Siri recovered first, rising gracefully to her feet. “Good idea, Ferus.” She glanced meaningfully at Obi-Wan. “You coming?”
And after a moment’s indecision, he did.
*~*~*
Ryn got up and locked the door. She stood there, looking down, and Anakin thought she was about to speak. But at the last second she changed her mind and said nothing. She lifted her head and met his eyes, and to his surprise her own were bright with tears. I did it again. I hurt her. When will I learn? Then she took one long step away from the door and wrapped her arms around his waist.
At first Anakin was too startled to resist; he just stood there, not responding. Then he felt Ryn’s sadness, and everything he’d been about to say about those awful, provocative images evaporated like mist and his hands moved automatically to her shoulders.
He pushed her gently away so he could see her face. “Ryn? What’s wrong?” He brushed away tears with his thumbs on her cheeks. “Did -- did someone hurt you?”
Ryn shook her head, very slightly. “No. I’m fine.” She gave him a tremulous smile, framed by his hands. “I’m not such easy prey, you know.”
Oh. Right. The combat training. Anakin had a brief memory of Ryn, somersaulting through the air with a blaster in each hand.
She looked up at him through her tears with her sad eyes that saw too much. “Did someone else get hurt? Someone you knew?” She put her hand over his on her cheek, and her voice softened to a husky thrum, gentle against his senses. “Your mother?”
Anakin felt himself shaking, unable to contain all the rage and fear, all the pain. “No!” he choked. Not Mom, not Mom, not --
Shmi, crying in the pit after the race, and there’d been a bruise on her cheek .. She’d told him it was nothing, but how did he knew what had really happened?
After all those years a female slave, what were the chances that she had escaped? Did he really think she had been spared when so many were crying?
Images crowded in, slaves of all ages ... he pushed them away. “Not Mom,” he insisted again. “She was so careful, she never dressed ... like that ...” He looked at the now-inactive holodisplay.
Ryn frowned at him, clearly not sure how to handle his latest emotional crisis. “I don’t think the way you dress has much to do with it,” she said slowly. “I think that’s something criminals use to try and put the responsibility on their victims. A way to avoid the blame.”
“Not Mom,” Anakin insisted again, and saw doubt shade Ryn’s eyes as she tried to decide whether to believe him.
“Okay,” she said cautiously, “someone else?”
Anakin couldn’t stop a hard shudder from running through him.
Ryn put a hand on his arm. “Who was it, Anakin?”
Anakin shook his head. “I --” Faces slid past his memory. He hadn’t even known half of them. Ryn would never understand. It wasn’t the who, it was the what: the choking taint of fear that lingered in the back of your mouth because you were never safe, because evil was always lurking in the shadows. “No one. It’s fine.”
Ryn drew back. “It’s not fine. You’re upset. I can feel it.”
Ryn drew a deep breath. She tightened her shields, too, but Anakin could see the hurt in her eyes. “All right. I’ll be in my bunk, if you decide you want to talk. or if you just want some company.” She turned to go, then hesitated, looking back at him. “Just so you know: I love you, no matter what.”
*~*~*
“Where’s Ryn?” Obi-Wan asked, glancing around the interior of the small suite.
Anakin shrugged, several shades too casual for Obi-Wan’s taste. “In her bunk.”
But his Padawan wasn’t quite meeting his eyes, and Obi-Wan felt his mouth tighten. Oh, Anakin, what have you done?
He walked to the back of the compartment and tapped on Ryn’s sealed bunk. “Ryn?”
The tiny door slid back and Ryn’s prone form appeared. There wasn’t room in the bunk to sit up, but Ryn rolled over to face him. “Yes?”
Well, this was a bit awkward. “I ... ah ... thought perhaps you might want to talk.”
“About?”
This is it. “I know Anakin said some unkind things earlier.”
“So he did.”
She wasn’t making this easy. Obi-Wan tried again. “I understand that after an unpleasant confrontation, some people -- adolescent girls, especially -- find it helpful to talk. They find a -- er -- catharsis in discussing the particulars of the situation.”
That got a smile. “Are you offering to have a girl talk, Obi-Wan?” I’d probably do better than Siri, Obi-Wan thought, but Ryn shook her head. “I’m more worried about Anakin. He seems to be suffering from some sort of irrational fear that I will become a victim of rape. I’m not sure why the holoreport triggered this reaction, but it’s eating him alive, and he won’t talk to me.”
Obi-Wan thought. Of course not. It’s Anakin. “So you’re not ... ah ... upset? About ...” He waved his hand vaguely: my Padawan practically calling you a whore?
Ryn gave him an impatient scowl. “Haven’t you been listening? Of course I’m upset. But I have other priorities right now. Don’t you?” Her gaze turned piercing. "Aren’t you supposed to be taking a Masterly interest in your Padawan’s emotional health?”
“There is no emotion; there is peace,” Obi-Wan reminded her. “Anakin must --”
He realized abruptly that Ryn was looking rather wild. “No emotion?” she repeated incredulously. “Have you talked to Anakin lately?” She drew an unsteady breath -- and regrouped. “Look, I’m no Jedi. But I’m pretty sure you don’t learn mastery of your emotions by pretending they don’t exist.”
Obi-wan sighed and rested one hand on the bulkhead. “I don’t know what you expect me to do, Ryn. He doesn’t talk to me, either. He’s very self-sufficient.” He didn’t need to be a Jedi to see what Ryn thought of that. He fought the urge to sigh, again. “I can’t force him to confide in me, you know. He has to choose to trust me.”
Ryn let out a sigh of her own and lay back, staring at the ceiling of her bunk. “I know the feeling,” she agreed dolefully.
Feedback: why, yes, I'd love some! *grin*
CHAPTER FOUR
On board a passenger liner bound for Borsana Prime -- where the Jedi teams would split up to Borsana Terce and Sexto -- Obi-Wan glanced to his right, where Ryn was curled in one of the chairs in their small compartment with a datapad, seemingly intent on whatever she was reading. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that the holounit in the corner was displaying a grainy image of her slightly younger self, straddling the seat of a stripped-down Podracer, one hand stroking the throttle stick in a decidedly suggestive gesture while the other fell languidly between her parted thighs, anchoring the hem of her brief skirt so the breeze ruffling her waves of hair wouldn’t flutter it from barely-there to barely-legal. If one didn’t know better, it would be easy to think she was indifferent to the voice of the HoloNet reporter, explaining how the girl who took the Podracing crowds by storm last year had just entered the public eye again as an operative of the Jedi Council and an anti-slavery activist.
If you knew her, you could see that though she kept thumbing her datapad over to the next page, she hadn’t read a word in the last chapter, because her whole being was riveted on Anakin, waiting for his reaction.
Obi-Wan doubted whether anything she found there was in improving her day. Anakin’s initial shock upon seeing the series of provocative images had already transmuted into horror and was rapidly sliding toward disgust. Obi-Wan wanted to tell his Padawan that if he couldn’t get control of his emotions, he might at least try to moderate their expression, but of course Ryn could feel Anakin’s reaction whether it showed on his face or not. And drawing attention to Anakin’s obvious distaste was only likely to make things more unpleasant for everyone.
The reporter was finishing off her voice-over with an image of Ryn during the Senate hearings: "Calls to the Jedi Temple over the last twelve hours have met with the response that the diplomatic attachée is currently on assignment, assisting the Council in a sensitive matter, and cannot be reached for comment at this time."
“A sensitive matter!” Anakin exploded, snapping off the comm. “What, was there an emergency in someone’s pants?”
Ryn lowered her datapad. “Are you calling for backup?”
Obi-Wan, who’d been about to intervene on Ryn’s behalf -- and teach Anakin some much-needed manners -- froze, forgetting what he’d been about to say.
Anakin’s eyes blazed. “How can you laugh about this?”
“Do you hear me laughing?”
“This isn’t a joke!” Anakin spat. “You have to take this seriously.”
“Tell me what this is and I’ll try.”
“You --” Anakin’s voice dropped in something like anguish and Obi-Wan looked back at him, startled “--you took off your clothes for money.”
“I did no such thing.” Ryn said. “I’m wearing clothes in all those holos, and I never made a credit off of any of them. The only person alive who’s ever seen me naked is you.”
Obi-Wan gaped. Siri sat up and looked interested. Ryn gave Obi-Wan an apologetic glance and added, “When he carried me to the showers after I was poisoned.”
Oh. Well, that made sense. Siri looked considerably less interested.
Anakin’s pained cry broke through Obi-Wan’s attempt to decide whether his encounter with a naked--but also poisoned--girl was as innocent as she made it sound. “It doesn’t matter!” he exclaimed bitterly, in defiance of his previous statement. “I know what those places are like, what goes on there, what happens to girls your age, you can’t dress that way, you can’t act like that, you’re inviting it, you’ll get hurt ...”
Obi-Wan felt lost in Anakin’s argument, but Ryn seemed to follow the thread of it. She held up a hand to stem the flow of raging words and said, “Hold on, Anakin. Just ... hold on.” She glanced at Ferus, who had the sense to realize they were intruding on a private conversation and the presence of mind to do something about it.
While the two Knights were still trying to recover from their own helplessness, he rose to his feet and stretched. “Masters, it must be getting close to dinnertime. Maybe we should go check out the mess?”
Siri recovered first, rising gracefully to her feet. “Good idea, Ferus.” She glanced meaningfully at Obi-Wan. “You coming?”
And after a moment’s indecision, he did.
*~*~*
Ryn got up and locked the door. She stood there, looking down, and Anakin thought she was about to speak. But at the last second she changed her mind and said nothing. She lifted her head and met his eyes, and to his surprise her own were bright with tears. I did it again. I hurt her. When will I learn? Then she took one long step away from the door and wrapped her arms around his waist.
At first Anakin was too startled to resist; he just stood there, not responding. Then he felt Ryn’s sadness, and everything he’d been about to say about those awful, provocative images evaporated like mist and his hands moved automatically to her shoulders.
He pushed her gently away so he could see her face. “Ryn? What’s wrong?” He brushed away tears with his thumbs on her cheeks. “Did -- did someone hurt you?”
Ryn shook her head, very slightly. “No. I’m fine.” She gave him a tremulous smile, framed by his hands. “I’m not such easy prey, you know.”
Oh. Right. The combat training. Anakin had a brief memory of Ryn, somersaulting through the air with a blaster in each hand.
She looked up at him through her tears with her sad eyes that saw too much. “Did someone else get hurt? Someone you knew?” She put her hand over his on her cheek, and her voice softened to a husky thrum, gentle against his senses. “Your mother?”
Anakin felt himself shaking, unable to contain all the rage and fear, all the pain. “No!” he choked. Not Mom, not Mom, not --
Shmi, crying in the pit after the race, and there’d been a bruise on her cheek .. She’d told him it was nothing, but how did he knew what had really happened?
After all those years a female slave, what were the chances that she had escaped? Did he really think she had been spared when so many were crying?
Images crowded in, slaves of all ages ... he pushed them away. “Not Mom,” he insisted again. “She was so careful, she never dressed ... like that ...” He looked at the now-inactive holodisplay.
Ryn frowned at him, clearly not sure how to handle his latest emotional crisis. “I don’t think the way you dress has much to do with it,” she said slowly. “I think that’s something criminals use to try and put the responsibility on their victims. A way to avoid the blame.”
“Not Mom,” Anakin insisted again, and saw doubt shade Ryn’s eyes as she tried to decide whether to believe him.
“Okay,” she said cautiously, “someone else?”
Anakin couldn’t stop a hard shudder from running through him.
Ryn put a hand on his arm. “Who was it, Anakin?”
Anakin shook his head. “I --” Faces slid past his memory. He hadn’t even known half of them. Ryn would never understand. It wasn’t the who, it was the what: the choking taint of fear that lingered in the back of your mouth because you were never safe, because evil was always lurking in the shadows. “No one. It’s fine.”
Ryn drew back. “It’s not fine. You’re upset. I can feel it.”
Ryn drew a deep breath. She tightened her shields, too, but Anakin could see the hurt in her eyes. “All right. I’ll be in my bunk, if you decide you want to talk. or if you just want some company.” She turned to go, then hesitated, looking back at him. “Just so you know: I love you, no matter what.”
*~*~*
“Where’s Ryn?” Obi-Wan asked, glancing around the interior of the small suite.
Anakin shrugged, several shades too casual for Obi-Wan’s taste. “In her bunk.”
But his Padawan wasn’t quite meeting his eyes, and Obi-Wan felt his mouth tighten. Oh, Anakin, what have you done?
He walked to the back of the compartment and tapped on Ryn’s sealed bunk. “Ryn?”
The tiny door slid back and Ryn’s prone form appeared. There wasn’t room in the bunk to sit up, but Ryn rolled over to face him. “Yes?”
Well, this was a bit awkward. “I ... ah ... thought perhaps you might want to talk.”
“About?”
This is it. “I know Anakin said some unkind things earlier.”
“So he did.”
She wasn’t making this easy. Obi-Wan tried again. “I understand that after an unpleasant confrontation, some people -- adolescent girls, especially -- find it helpful to talk. They find a -- er -- catharsis in discussing the particulars of the situation.”
That got a smile. “Are you offering to have a girl talk, Obi-Wan?” I’d probably do better than Siri, Obi-Wan thought, but Ryn shook her head. “I’m more worried about Anakin. He seems to be suffering from some sort of irrational fear that I will become a victim of rape. I’m not sure why the holoreport triggered this reaction, but it’s eating him alive, and he won’t talk to me.”
Obi-Wan thought. Of course not. It’s Anakin. “So you’re not ... ah ... upset? About ...” He waved his hand vaguely: my Padawan practically calling you a whore?
Ryn gave him an impatient scowl. “Haven’t you been listening? Of course I’m upset. But I have other priorities right now. Don’t you?” Her gaze turned piercing. "Aren’t you supposed to be taking a Masterly interest in your Padawan’s emotional health?”
“There is no emotion; there is peace,” Obi-Wan reminded her. “Anakin must --”
He realized abruptly that Ryn was looking rather wild. “No emotion?” she repeated incredulously. “Have you talked to Anakin lately?” She drew an unsteady breath -- and regrouped. “Look, I’m no Jedi. But I’m pretty sure you don’t learn mastery of your emotions by pretending they don’t exist.”
Obi-wan sighed and rested one hand on the bulkhead. “I don’t know what you expect me to do, Ryn. He doesn’t talk to me, either. He’s very self-sufficient.” He didn’t need to be a Jedi to see what Ryn thought of that. He fought the urge to sigh, again. “I can’t force him to confide in me, you know. He has to choose to trust me.”
Ryn let out a sigh of her own and lay back, staring at the ceiling of her bunk. “I know the feeling,” she agreed dolefully.