Before - Legends The Meridi Deception; Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Yoda, OC's; Post 2 of 2, 12/5

This was written for the Super Spiffy (official) ridiculously specific challenge. i don't venture into before very often, so this is a new thing for me.

Title: The Meridi Deception
Author: Rogue Pilot 2347
Characters: Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Danku, Tul, a few other minor OC's
Timeframe: Obi-Wan is sixteen. You do the math.
Disclaimer: i own Meridi and its inhabitants; George Lucas owns everything else. Thanks for letting me use it.
Notes: The hotel is based on an actual hotel in Southern India. The description is the one I usually use to tell people about it.
____________________

THE MERIDI DECEPTION
_____________________________


?Here?s my math homework, Master,? Obi-Wan said.

Qui-Gon quirked an eyebrow. ?Math only, Obi-Wan?? It seems to me you brought your vocabulary, as well.?

Obi-Wan lowered his head sheepishly. ?I?m having some trouble with that.?

Qui-Gon smiled ruefully, recalling his own days of impossible homework assignments. ?I?ll help you. What are your words??

?Silver, which I know; epiphany, which I also know; alliteration??

?A sentence, or series of sentences in which most of the words begin with the same sound. Usually a consonant,? Qui-Gon supplied.

?Oh!" Obi-Wan exclaimed. ?You mean like a tongue twister!?

?Exactly. There is one more word, yes??

?Mm-hm. This is the hard one. Adumbration.?

?Adum-what??

They had to look it up. It turned out to mean a vague foreshadowing of some sort. The rest of Obi-Wan?s assignment required him to use each word in a sentence before he got back to the temple.

?But sleep now,? Qui-Gon told him.

Obi-Wan glanced around the cheap hotel room. It was the best in the hotel -solely because it had a leaky, albeit ?normal? toilet in the ?fresher, as opposed to the mere holes that were the common facility in this section of Meridi. The shower consisted of a faucet, two buckets, and a cup. The place was crawling with bugs, from bedbiters to flitnats. The window had been open when they arrived. Obi-Wan had wanted to shut it, to keep anything else from getting in, but Qui-Gon told him not to bother, pointing out the series of three holes in each wall. Even as Obi-Wan glanced at them, a three inch long lizard crawled through one of them and scuttled quickly across the ceiling toward the primitive fan mounted in the center. ?Sleep,? Obi-Wan grumbled. ?Right?I have an adumbration that we?re not going to get much sleep tonight.? He glanced slyly at Qui-Gon. ?Does that count??

?No.?
_______________

He dreamed.

It took him a few minutes to figure out where he was. Beyond a doubt, it was Coruscant. Then he noticed the flashing, neon green letters of the café beside him: ?City Slickers.? Even as he realized this, a feminine voice called out his name. ?Qui-Gon!?

He turned. ?Danku?? It?d been years since he?d seen Danku, the black-haired, blue-eyed merchant?s daughter who had captured Qui-Gon?s heart when he was young, and the idea of a forbidden romance still appealed to him.

Danku looked past him though - to a thirteen-year-old boy with mousy brown hair and a slim padawan?s braid tucked behind his right ear. Qui-Gon realized it was himself, twenty years ago.

Danku enveloped the younger Qui-Gon in an impulsive hug. ?Qui-Gon, it?s been so long!?

Young Qui-Gon did not return the embrace, but stood awkwardly in Danku?s arms until the girl backed up, confused. ?What? wrong Qui-Gon? It?s been almost three weeks since we?ve seen each other. I thought I?d never get away from aunt Simone!?

?Danku?? he looked straight into her blue eyes, wishing he did not have to do this. ?I have to stop seeing you.? There. He?d spit it out. The older Qui-Gon held his breath, waiting for the response he knew was imminent.

?What? Why? Did your master find out about us?? Danku?s eyes grew wide, making her all the more stunning.

Young Qui-Gon fiddled with his padawan braid, a habit he gave in to whenever he was ill at ease. ?No?Master Dooku doesn?t know as far as I can tell.?

?What, then??

?I - we - they?relationship

 

I enjoyed it!

The beginning was lovely. (A great way of fitting in those words! Poor Obi-Wan with the vocabulary...but at least he doesn't have any French words. They're hard to spell, espcecially when you can't pronounce them!) Very funny, though things quickly took a morbid turn.

I think I know Tul's "boss's" true identity...but we'll see. (I, too, think I like his rougish smile. *Giggle*)

And the hotel. An interesting setting. Bedbugs.

Thanks again for participating! Looking forward to the next post!

 

Very interesting! I think you've done a good job portraying Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan accurately and I like your original characters already (the mysterious lady especially).

?Right?I have an adumbration that we?re not going to get much sleep tonight.? He glanced slyly at Qui-Gon. ?Does that count??

?No.?

Poor Obi!

An enjoyable blend of humor, angst, and suspense. I can't wait for more!

 

Very intriguing beginning. I loved how you worked in Adumbration - very clever!!

I'm looking forward to more

 

Healer Leona: We shall see...

KELIA: thanks. I had to look it up to figure out what it means, so I figured it'd be any sixteen-year-old's nightmare vocab. word.

Nienna_Narmolanya: Thanks!

Fluff-Slayer: Thanks. Bedbugs are very interesting. I reread my journal entries about that hotel: Camping indoors.

Hopefully, the next post will be done son. Typing it is taking longer than expected.

 

Great start! I can't wait for more!

 

Here, at long last, is the second post. Enjoy!!

_________________________

The next time the Jedi went to the caves, they towed half a dozen former prisoners. It had been a hard decision whether or not to rescue them. In the end, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had contacted the Jedi Council and, on the advice of Master Windu, they went ahead carefully.

The woman?s smirk might never have left her face, for all Qui-Gon could tell. ?Well done, Master Jedi,? she said. ?Tul, take these men and debrief them.?

When the boy was gone, Qui-Gon said, ?Now will you tell us who you are??

?I said ?well done.? I never said I trusted you. There?s still one more test.?

?But -? Obi-Wan began, and a hand of Qui-Gon?s, raised in warning, stopped him.

?What more would you have us do?? The older Jedi asked.

The smirk grew into a cold smile, which sent shivers of warning down Qui-Gon?s spine?or was it the Force? ?Give me your lightsabers.?

Warning klaxons blared inside Qui-Gon?s head. It no longer mattered if the woman trusted them. They needed to get out of here.

Obi-Wan caught on at the same time. The identical hum of two lightsabers snapped into existence almost at the same moment. The room was bathed at once in orange light from the torches, and blue, and green light from the lightsabers. The deepened shadows danced about the granite walls, possessed with lives of their own.

As quickly as the lightsabers were ignited, twenty or thirty soldiers poured into the cavern, armed with blasters and stunsticks.

Qui-Gon?s warning to his padawan proved only too accurate, for as quickly as either Jedi cut down the soldiers of this ragtag army, more came to take their places. It was a slaughter, that could only result in the Jedi being killed or captured.

For the merest fraction of a second, Qui-Gon?s and Obi-Wan?s eyes met across the room. The boy was near one of the doors out of the cavern, and through the Force, Qui-Gon ordered him to run and get help. Obi-Wan held Qui-Gon?s gaze for a moment longer, and upon an almost imperceptible nod from his master, fought his way to the door and disappeared.

Some of the soldiers started after the padawan, but the woman?s voice rang out over the din of the room. ?Let him go. He?ll never find his way out, and he?s not the one I want, anyway. Focus your attention on the task at hand!?

It was the last thing Qui-Gon heard before an unexpected blow from behind caused the world to go black and silent.
_____________________

Obi-Wan woke to a sound that reminded him of his friend, Siri?s, singing - a loud, raucous croak. The sound came from a nearby tree, where a grey-furred monkil hung by one hand, and its long, prehensile tail, grinning stupidly as it ?sung?.

In a moment, the events of the previous day came flooding back to him. Qui-Gon! Obi-Wan reached out with the Force in search of his master. Nothing. Panic overwhelmed him. What if - no. Anything could have happened. Even if it were the worst, he would still bring Qui-Gon?s remains back to Coruscant. The question was: how?

He started by going back to the hotel room. It had been searched. Trashed, actually. The two Jedi?s belongings had been strewn about the room. Worse, the hyperlink had been destroyed. The only hyperlink Obi-Wan could hope to use. He was on his own for this one.

?Help!? The cry brought Obi-Wan running out into the hotel yard. ?Help! Help? He looked up. On the roof was the ginger-and-white-furred Shiri?anun hotel owner. Since coming to Meridi three weeks ago, Obi-Wan had consistently impressed with the grace, beauty, and sheer power of the fiercely proud, felinoid aliens - with the exception of Borst Kiv?anun, their landlord.

Borst was rather overweight, from sampling too many of his own culinary creatons, and clumsy.

As soon as he caught sight of Obi-Wan, he waved, and grinned. ?Jeedee Boy!? He exclaimed, using the obnoxious nickname with which he had christened Obi-Wan. ?Where Jeedee Man? -? Qui-Gon - ?I?s could use some little helps, yah??

Obi-Wan took a deep breath, and let it o

 

Tul!

Well-spun! Things turned out more or less the way I expected--but in a way they didn't. Danku's killing herself was pretty shocking.

Poor Qui-Gon.

But Tul!

Ah, I like that OC. Will we ever see any more of him?

A beautiful challenge response! Don't forget to come visit us again.

Ta!