Chapter Text
It had been almost six months since he had become a Padawan and so far he had loved every minute of it. There was one thing he would like to change. He hadn’t been able to see Jaster in person since his adventure at the senate.
He did understand why and was grateful that he was still able to have regular comm calls with the Mand’alor, but it wasn’t quite the same. Jaster nearly always made time to just chat to him on top of their Mando’a lessons. There were occasions where the Mand’alor had to cancel their lessons. Jaster always made it up to him later though, either with extra calls or even on a couple of occasions sending care packages of shig and Uj'alayi. Defeating Death Watch was taking longer than predicted, although Jaster was still happy with his commando’s progress. At the moment it was still deemed too dangerous for Obi-Wan to go visit. The force hadn’t given Obi-Wan any more warnings so he wasn't worried about Jaster.
Even now the force wasn’t giving him any bad feelings despite his current position. In fact, it had an almost playful feel to it, defiantly happy and encouraging. Obi-Wan wasn’t exactly sure how he had managed to find himself in his current situation. It wasn’t quite as bad as being lost in the lower levels of Coruscant in the middle of the night, but still not exactly how he wanted to spend his afternoon.
Quinlan had collared him shortly after their lessons has finished, dragging him through the temple to keep a look out of the laundry rooms. Master Si had council meetings for most of the day, so it wasn't like he had to rush back to their quarters but he was still unclear as to just why the two of them were sneaking through the temple.
At the start of his Padawanship he had been slightly worried that he wouldn’t be able to see his friends as much as he used to now that he had moved out of the crèche. It didn’t seem to be the case though, as Master Si was happy for him to have lunch and sometimes dinner with them, he even let him sleep over in the crèche now and again. It defiantly helped when both Master Si and Master Dooku had council meetings or missions which over ran.
His friendship with Quinlan had been a bit of a surprise, the Kiffar was irritating, boisterous, loud and quoting Master Dooku, ‘a complete and utter nuisance’. And yet Obi-Wan continuously found himself spending more and more time with him, and enjoying it too.
Obi-Wan was sure Master Dooku’s dislike of the boy was mostly for show, he’d spotted the slight twitch of a smile last time he had caught them both sneaking into the kitchens for extra deserts. Quinlan had panicked out a stuttered apology and scampered off as soon as Master Dooku had let him. Leaving Obi-Wan with Master Dooku, who was trying hard not to smile. Obi-Wan was pleasantly surprised when, instead of being reprimanded, Master Dooku had shown him the best way to get in and out of the kitchens unnoticed. The pair had shared their stolen cookies with Master Si and Komari later on.
“Quin, we really shouldn’t be doing this.” Obi-Wan whispered, shifting to try and get slightly comfier in the small cupboard they were hiding in.
“It’ll be fine Obes, were not doing anything bad. Yet. All we need to do is find out the schedule of the people working.”
“It’s the ‘yet’ which worries me.” Obi-Wan muttered, only to be shushed by Quinlan as a couple of knights walked past their hiding spot. Quinlan wrapped his force presence around himself, Obi-Wan attempted to copy him. It was something Quinlan had picked up recently and had gladly taught Obi-Wan. The pair spent a good few hours sat in their small hiding spot, watching and taking note of who came and went and when they did so.
Eventually Quinlan spoke up, “Right, I think it’s is enough information, come on. Let’s find somewhere less cramped to plan.”
“Plan what? You haven’t explained anything yet!”
“Shhhh, come on.”
Obi-Wan sighed and followed Quinlan to a very quiet corner of the room of a thousand fountains. “I don’t know why I’m letting you drag me into this.”
“’Coz you love me, that’s why.”
“Sure,” Obi-Wan said sarcastically, “Now tell me what it is you’re up to.”
“It’s not ‘what I’m up to’ its ‘what we’re up to’.”
“I reserve my right to back out until you tell me what the plan is.”
“Fine. So, I found out the other day, all the everyone's laundry is done in a big lot all together, right? Well what better way to cause a little bit of chaos around here than, say, dying all the robes red. Or blue. Or any colour really. Think of it like practice for future missions! Sneaking around and all!”
Obi-Wan gave Quinlan a hard look. Quinlan just pouted.
Obi-Wan finally sighed, “Alright, but we better not get caught, and if we do. It’s all your fault.”
“Deal! Now, we just need to ‘borrow’ some of the dyes. The quartermasters should have some. I checked them out the other day, they have a couple of options. And Quartermaster Darron nearly always leaves early the last day of the week. So, we should be able to get in and out before lights out. We will then have to wait a few days, let the heat die down in case our little break in is noticed. Which coincides nicely with the laundry’s day off. We can get in when its closed, hide the dye in a couple of batches of clothes, that should be enough to get the majority of the clothes for most of the masters and knights!”
“You’ve thought this through pretty well.”
“Of course I have! I’m offended you thought I’d half arse this Obes.”
“Alright, when are we doing this? I’ll ask Master Si if I can stay over in the crèche on that day, then I won’t have to sneak out of either his or Dooku’s quarters.”
“Perfect!”
“Obi-Wan, Initiate Vos.” Both jumped at their names being said, turning to find Master Dooku walking towards them. “I hope you’re not roping my Obi-Wan into anything nefarious Vos?”
“M-me? Never Master Dooku. I’ve just remembered I’ve got galactic navigation work to finish. I’ll see you later Obes.” Obi-Wan couldn’t help but roll his eyes at Quinlan making a quick retreat.
Master Dooku turned to Obi-Wan. “I do hope he hasn’t gotten you into any trouble.”
“No Master, he hasn’t.” Obi-Wan decided it wasn’t a complete lie, he hadn’t gotten into any trouble just yet.
“Very well. Si sent me a message; his council meeting is running late. I wondered if you would join myself and Komari for dinner?”
“That would be good Master. Could we pick up a plate for Master Si too?” Obi-Wan asked, well aware of Master Dooku’s skills, or lack of, in the kitchen. They would be collecting dinner from one of the refectories.
“A good idea, I doubt Si will want to cook once he finishes with the council.” The pair started walking though the temple, in the months since he had become a padawan it seemed like the majority of the temple had slowly gotten use to seeing Master Dooku stalking down the corridors with Obi-Wan trotting beside him. That didn’t mean the stares had stopped completely but they had dwindled down. There was one memorable moment when a senior Padawan was so shocked by the sight that he had walked right into a wall.
“I have learnt a lot in my travels around the galaxy.” Master Dooku said as they walked, Obi-Wan waited for him to continue, the Master often took time to phrase what he was going to say. “Did you know, Naboo is famous for its colourful fabrics and clothes?”
“I- I didn’t know that.” Obi-Wan felt slightly worried, hoping it was a coincidence that Master Dooku was bringing up clothes dyes and that he hadn’t caught him and Quinlan planning.
“Indeed. In fact, they have the strongest and brightest colour dyes, at least commonly available in the republic, once used its practically impossible to remove the colour.”
“R-really?”
“I believe I still have a ceremonial robe which was gifted to me several years ago now. Would you be interest in seeing it?”
Obi-Wan was not sure if this was some sort of trap or not. The force didn’t seem to be concerned though, just relaxed and happy.
“That would be interesting. O-out of curiosity, you said its practically impossible to remove the dye. Is there a way?”
“Yes, there is a chemical, an anti-dye if you will, again only made on Naboo, it counters the dye. The only thing which gets rid of the colours.”
Master Dooku let them both into his quarters, “I guess the anti-dye is pretty hard to get hold of?”
“Not as hard as you’d expect, if you know the right people, its often used alongside the clothes to create patterns.” He explained as he looked through his wardrobe. “Ah, here it is.” He pulled out an elaborate robe, dark greys running into bright reds near the base. “They toned down the colours due to my role as a Jedi. I have had these many years now, and still the colours have not faded. Now, enough talk of this, we should collect dinner before Komari gets back, she is always ravenous after her saber classes.”
Komari was indeed hungry on her return, and barely spoke as she wolfed down her dinner. Only slowing once she had polished off the majority of her plate. “Padawan, I was wondering if you remembered our mission to that small mining moon several years ago.” Obi-Wan perked up, Master Dooku and Komari often told him tales of their previous missions over meals, it was always interesting, and Obi-Wan couldn’t wait to go on his first mission.
“The one with like three different leaders all trying to gain power over the government?”
“Indeed, that is the one.”
Komari turned to Obi-Wan, “You won’t believe what happened. It was a couple of years ago now. Master Dooku was letting me take the lead on the mission seen as it was classed as an ‘easy’ one. That was until two of the leaders got poisoned!”
“They poisoned their opponents while they had Jedi there to mediate?” Obi-Wan asked confused. “That seems a bit silly.”
“That’s what I thought too! It was this slow acting poison and we did find out that it wasn’t fatal, but still. Of course the one not poisoned got arrested, it seemed obvious that he was the culprit. But Master Dooku didn’t think it was that simple.”
“It very rarely is Padawan.” The master agreed.
“What happened next?” Obi-Wan asked, invested in the story.
“Right, so. Master Dooku goes to question the leader who’s been arrested and asks me to sneak around the other leaders’ quarters. And you’ll never guess what?!”
“What?”
“The one who was arrested was innocent! I found the poison in one of the other leaders’ rooms.”
“But I thought you said the other two had been poisoned? Did he poison himself?”
“Yeah. I was confused at that too. But as Master Dooku explained at the time, what better way to pass the blame for it then poison yourself and not someone else. The blame went straight to the only one not poisoned. If Master Dooku wasn't there he would have got away with it too."
Obi-Wan spent the night trying to decide if Master Dooku knew about Quins plan. If he did Obi-Wan was almost completely sure that he would have quickly put a stop to their plan and both him and Quinlan would be in trouble, he probably didn’t know. He hoped.
Three days later Obi-Wan had managed to have a stroke of luck. Both Master Dooku and Ko had been called away on a mission for a few days and Master Si was going to be in council meetings until the evening, with the very real possibility of it running over. Again.
Master Si had been very apologetic; a lot of the more recent council meetings had been much longer than before. He had told Obi-Wan it was nothing to worry about, his master even seemed slightly excited about the meetings which was strange. Slightly suspicious but not wanting to question his good luck Obi-Wan was happy to stay over in the crèche. Quinlan was ecstatic when Obi-Wan had told him, it lined up perfectly with their plans!
Sneaking into the quartermaster’s store was almost worryingly easy. Although to be fair, it wasn’t like they would expect any Jedi to break in and if a civilian had got in this far without anyone noticing there would be a major problem.
The dark storage room was a bit creepy but they didn’t want to risk turning on the lights. It was a bit difficult to find their way through in the dark, the emergency floor lights definitely helped.
“I think it’s this way.” Quinlan whispered
“’Think’? you don’t know?” Obi-Wan hissed, peaking at the near by shelves to see if he noticed any dyes.
“I haven’t exactly been in here before Obes, the Quartermasters never let anyone in.”
Obi-Wan sighed, “Hurry up then, we don’t want to be caught.”
A couple of shelf units later Quinlan let out a quiet “Yes!”
“You found them?”
“Yeah, there’s several, which colour do you want?”
Obi-Wan peaked over Quinlan’s shoulder to see the options, to his surprised, there was a fair number of dyes.
“Why do we even need all of these colours? It’s not like Jedi were bright colours like these.” Obi-Wan muttered
“Who knows, now hurry and pick. Green, blue or… is that pink?” Quinlan pulled out a box of dye, the colour code on the outside symbolising a bright pink colour.
“Wait, is that a dye from Naboo?” the label had Theed as its source, he was pretty sure that was the capitol of Naboo.
“Looks like it. Why? Is it special or something?”
“I think so,” Obi-Wan rummaged around the shelf until he found the anti-dye. “Lets do the pink, we can take this too.”
“We’re trying to dye the clothes, not un-dye them!”
“We can sneak back into the laundry a few days after and un-dye the clothes, leave this so that they can fix the rest.”
Quinan pouted, “Aww that’s no fun.”
"We're pranking Quin, not trying to actually cause huge problems." At Obi-Wans explanation and glare he sighed and agreed, the pair quickly rearranging the shelf to make it look like they hadn’t been there before making their way back out and to the creche.
They were both slightly tense the next few days, waiting to see if their dye heist had been noticed. When no one was talking about items been stolen from the quartermasters they relaxed. Jedi we’re notorious gossips, at least within the temple, and any news nearly always spread like wild fire. If their little break in had been detected they would have probably heard about it the next day.
The only thing keeping Obi-Wan on edge was the force, and partly Master Si. But mostly the force. There had been a slowly building excitement in the force, similar to just before his adventure in the senate. This paired with Master Si’s exceedingly good mood when he came out of his last council meeting made Obi-Wan slightly nervous. Nervous enough to ask his Master about it one evening.
“Did the council meeting go ok today master? It’s the first time you’ve managed to come back on time in a while.” He didn’t mention it was also weird for him to be so happy after council meetins.
“Oh yes, very well. It couldn’t have gone better!” Master Si said as he bumbled around the kitchen making dinner for the two of them.
“That’s good, what was it about?”
Master Si chuckled, “Nothing for you to worry about at the moment. Let’s just leave it as a surprise.”
“I’m not sure I like surprises.” Obi-Wan muttered under his breath before continuing out loud. “Is it ok for me to stay in the crèche tomorrow night? There’s a test in galactic history soon and we were all going to study after our lessons.” Obi-wan hoped he’d be allowed, technically none of it was a lie it just wasn’t the full truth. He did have a test coming up, and he was going to study with Bant Garen and Quinlan. But he could very easily come back to his own quarters for the night after.
“Yan and Komari should be getting back tomorrow; I was thinking about having a meal all together. They’re not quite sure on what time they’ll return, and I guess they’ll probably be exhausted. We can have the meal the day after. So I don’t see why not.”
Obi-Wan tried not to look relieved, he was sure that it was going to be a no when he heard that Master Yan was due back. Not that he wanted to skip out on the meal, he’d rather do that then sneak around the temple. But it would mean having to re plan for another day with Quin.
“Thank you Master….. are you sure you can’t tell me what happened in the council meetings?” he asked again.
“I promise you it’s nothing bad little one, now go set the table. Dinners almost ready.”