Saga - OT Meanwhile, on the Other Side of Atollon...| (Rebels, humor)

Title: Meanwhile, on the Other Side of Atollon...
Author: Raissa Baiard
Timeframe: Saga OT, sometime during Rebels Season 3
Genre: Humor
Characters: Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, Bendu, Dudu the Wise (OC)
Synopsis: Kanan and Ezra search for a mysterious sage, with surprising results

Note: This one's for @Ewok Poet, who's having a tough day She quoted this post from DamnYouAutoCorrect, and I thought that Dudu the Wise sounded like a great name for a SW character. The rest is...well, it's something, anyway!
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The sun beat down on the coral mesas of Atollon, hot and pitiless. A convor circled lazily overhead as two figures made their way across the arid landscape. “Why are we out here, again?” Ezra Bridger asked, as he paused to wipe the sweat off his forehead. He was beginning to think this was another of his master’s exercises in building character via deprivation and misery. Why adults thought that trekking across barren wastelands developed anything besides headaches was beyond him.

Kanan looked over his shoulder at his padawan. “I finally was able to find some information on this planet in my holocron. It seems that there’s a immortal sage living here that the ancient people of this sector would consult in times of crisis.”

“Yeah, we knew that already. Bendu—remember? Big, weird, hairy guy with antlers? Likes to hang out with giant spiders, and make booming proclamations about how he’s THE ONE IN THE MIDDLE?”

“That’s the thing, it’s definitely not Bendu. The holocron specifically mentions that this sage is named ‘Dudu the Wise’.”

“Dudu?!?” Ezra gave a very un-Jedi-like snort before he could help himself, earning the predictable Not Amused, Young Man look from Kanan.

“DID I HEAR SOMEONE SAY DUDU THE WISE?!?!” The whole mesa shook as a nearby coral tree rumbled upwards, resolving itself into the imposing crown of horns atop the head of a massive creature. Bendu scowled down at the Jedi, and if Ezra had thought Kanan was a master of The Look of Disapproval, well, his scowl was practically a gentle smile compared to Bendu’s craggy features.

“Bendu.” Kanan inclined his head to the irate being. “I came across a mention of this Dudu the Wise, and I thought that if anyone would know about him, it would be you. You’ve heard of him, I take it?”

“Heard of him?” The giant being’s mouth twisted into sneer. “Oh, indeed I have heard of him… Wise? Pah! He is no respecter of the balance of things! He has none of the emotional detachment necessary to be truly wise!” Bendu snorted; the resulting gust nearly blew the the two Jedi off their feet. “Alas, that I ever heard the name Dudu!”

Kanan straightened, smoothing his mussed hair back into its queue. “Can you tell us where we might find this—“

“Find him? FIND HIM?!?!” Bendu thumped a fist against the ground, knocking down a small coral formation. A nearby pair of krykna jumped, startled, and scuttled off into the wilderness, crashing into each other as they went. “YOU MUST NOT SEARCH FOR DUDU!!!”

Ezra couldn’t contain his snickers any longer. “Guess we shouldn’t go in the ‘fresher then?” he asked, grinning. Some beings would have been crushed by the weight of Bendu’s unyielding stare; Ezra Bridger was not that being...at least not when he had a ready supply of bad ‘fresher puns. “I guess you think he really stinks, huh? And if we found Dudu, we’d really step in it…”

Bendu leaned forward and set a huge finger in the center of Ezra’s chest. “You laugh, now,” he said, his voice low and menacing. “But if you find Dudu, you will surely regret what follows.” The young man gulped. Perhaps this wasn’t the time for fresher humor after all.

“Thank you, Wise Bendu.” Kanan steered Ezra away before he could say anything stupid—anything else stupid. “We’ll take your words into consideration.”

To be continued....

 

HIS NAME IS REALLY DUDU? No, you'd BETTER NOT BE DRINKING OR EATING A THING while reading this hilarity!!!

for the author and for @Ewok Poet -- who is the only other author who could write something this funny and unique

 

Excellent! He sounds so much like my OC Lens when training with Zekk! Love it.

I can hear Bendu here. Nice.

And, of course, fresher jokes. They never get old.

 

Oh yes! This story is so much fun! And of course, as soon as I saw the name Dudu the Wise, I knew that the poop jokes were about to hit the fan.

Yeah....I just did that.

 

Yep, that really is his name! (What was his mother thinking, anyway?) Thanks so much, glad you're enjoying this! I think @Ewok Poet 's absurdity has rubbed off on me

There is a certain species of adult who thinks this way. This is the same Jedi who taught his padawan how to use a lightsaber by throwing rocks at him.

That's one of the coolest things about Rebels--even the supporting characters are well-developed and have their own unique voices. And, yes, 'fresher jokes are always in style, especially with teenaged boys.

Aw, thanks! You know, I always wondered if we were actually meant to like Bendu, because I found him completely insufferable. Of course Ezra can't resist, he's a boy, and well, he's Ezra, 'nuff said. And of course Kanan is Not Amused, because he's Kanan and he has such a wonderfully expressive repertoire of Not Amused faces. As always, I have to say that the artists and writers on the show deserve major kudos for creating such a well-developed cast of characters, even the mystico-pompous Force moose.

Ezra applauds you for adding to the 'fresher jokes. Kanan is Not Amused, but what else is new?

 

Thanks to @Findswoman for beta-reading
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Ezra could hardly believe that his master had decided to go looking for this Dudu the Wise—he still snickered, at least inwardly, every time he heard the name. Didn’t stodgy Jedi types like Kanan and Bendu always stick together about what things were and were not Wise Choices, Galactically Speaking? But in spite of all Bendu’s dire warnings that they MUST NOT SEARCH FOR DUDU (another mental snicker),—or maybe because of them: “if there’s something here that can upset Bendu that much, I want to find it before it finds us,” Kanan had said— here they were, meditating in the Phantom’s cargo area, the way they had when they’d found the Jedi temple on Lothal.

“This is it.” Kanan looked up. “Do you feel it, too?”

“Yeah.” Ezra opened his eyes, his brow wrinkling. He felt something, anyway. Not the overwhelming awe he’d experienced at the temple, or the imperious aura that radiated from Bendu, but something that made him want to exclaim “whoa, duuuuude…” Which was odd to say the least. But if Kanan said it was connected to the mysterious Dudu, who was he to argue?

They landed in the wilderness—were these mystical guru sorts contractually obligated to live in the middle of nowhere?—on a mesa that, like Bendu’s plateau, was dotted with plated tree corals, though the ones here were taller, with rounder plate-branches that shimmered faintly in the setting sun, swirling multi-colored patterns that somehow reminded Ezra of...tie-dyed tesh-tunics? “You’re sure this is the place?”

“I’m certain,” Kanan said, but he frowned slightly, as if he, too, was having a hard time believing it. “It’s strange, but there’s definitely something here, and according to the coordinates from the Phantom’s navicomputer, we’re on the far side of Atollon, exactly opposite the spot where Bendu…”

“BENDU?! AWW, MAN!” The nearest coral tree stirred upwards slightly to reveal a pair of large brown eyes underneath shaggy brows. “I came all the way out here just to get away from…” The eyes blinked once, then widened. “Whoa! Jedi! Haven’t seen any of you guys in...like, fifty, maybe a hundred years now!” The tree rose slowly, as the massive being it was attached to sat up...a being that looked suspiciously familiar, only friendly. His brown eyes twinkled and their corners crinkled with laugh lines; small chimes tinkled among the beads in his braided beard. “Yo guys...nice to meet you! I’m Dudu. Some people call me ‘the wise’, but y’know, whatever.”

“Hey, you’re the same species as Bendu!” Ezra exclaimed. “I always thought he was the only one!”

The being rolled his eyes as he leaned back, propping himself on an enormous elbow as he reclined across the mesa. “Oh, he’d like it if he was, I’m sure. Thanks, bro. Love you, too…”

“Bendu is…. your...brother?” Kanan looked as bewildered as Ezra had ever seen him. Not that he could blame his master. This Dudu wasn’t exactly what he’d expected from a mystical, immortal sage either—not that that was a bad thing. The pompous, cryptic pronouncements were a bit overdone, really.

“My twin, yeah. My younger twin, whatever he says.” Dudu snorted, softly, so he wouldn’t disturb the pink-shelled dokma that was inching its way across his hand. “Little Benny, oh yeah, he was always a pompous ass with that ‘I am the one who stands in middle’ thing...and don’t even get me started on the giant spiders…”

Kanan opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and said “…”

“I know, right? What’s the deal with the spiders, anyway?” Ezra had tried his best to connect with the krykna, but they’d always rejected his overtures, even when he’d emptied his mind and sought the balance and made himself quiet and all that other mystical jargon Bendu spouted. And whatever your problem, Bendu’s solution was sure to involve spiders somehow. Teaching a blind Jedi how to use his senses? Reach out to the giant spiders! Reconciling an estranged master and padawan ? Send ’em into a cave full of giant spiders! Need to guard a Sith holocron? Giant spiders to the rescue! Ezra decided he liked this Dudu guy. Anyone who considered Bendu a pompous ass and had a healthy dislike of krykna couldn’t be all bad.

After opening and closing his mouth a couple more times, Kanan finally found his voice. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you and Bendu seem...very different…for twins.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re named ‘Dudu’ you kind of have to have a good sense of humor.” His affable smile drooped and the chimes in his beard pealed mournfully as he sighed. “You would not believe the number of ’fresher jokes beings have made about my name over the millennia.”

“Oh… whoa...really…?” The sun must have beat down harder on this side of Atollon, because Ezra suddenly felt uncomfortably warm. He adjusted the collar of his jacket. “Wow...I mean, who’d be that immature…?”

One of Dudu’s shaggy eyebrows crept upwards. He tilted his massive, antler-crowned head towards Kanan. “He made the jokes, didn’t he?”

“Of course he did.”

Dudu sighed gustily and shrugged, the coral plates on his shoulders rubbing together like the wings of an enormous grass-bounder. “’S okay, little Jedi, I understand. I was your age once, too.” He patted Ezra on the head—and for a moment Ezra thought he knew what a bug felt like just before it was squashed—and then shifted to loll against a nearby coral tree. “So anyway, you two seem like a couple of nice Jedi—what can I do you for? Predictions? Advice? Crushing enemies?”

“Crushing enemies?” Kanan was now beyond bewildered and past perplexed, into well-and-truly flummoxed. “Wouldn’t that destroy the balance of the Force here on Atollon?"

“Did Benny tell you that?” Dudu rolled his eyes and looked skyward. “Dear Force, he’s such a nerf’s backside. I mean, balance is great and all, but sometimes you have to take action, y’know? ’Cuz when good guys do nothing, evil wins—and how is that balance, huh? But I think you guys get that. That was Benny’s whole problem…he never wanted to get involved. He could never make up his mind.” He shook his head; a small flock of convorees that had been perched in his coral-plate antlers took flight. “Gah...and they named a day after him…”

“Actually,” Ezra offered. “We came out here to find you because Benny, uh, Bendu told us not to.”

“Right on!” Dudu chuckled, and a grin full of very large, very white, very even teeth split his beard. “That’s an attitude I can get behind. There’s gotta be something I can do for you, since you came all way out here and everything. How ’bout it, little Jedi? You have a question?”

Of course Ezra had questions; Kanan was always getting on him about how many—well, Kanan never really came out and said “stupid”, but the tiny, eloquent pause before the word implied it—questions he asked. But hey, how was he supposed to find the answer if he didn’t ask the question, huh? And he had good questions, too—lots of the them, like... “Um, okay… our friend, Ahsoka Tano..is she still alive? Are we ever going to see her again?”

“Hmmm, okay…” Dudu twirled a finger in his beard, closed his eyes and intoned nasally, “Tanoooooo, Tanoooooo….Ahsooookaaa Taaaaanoooooo….” When the last echo of his mantra died away, he open his eyes and blinked once to clear them of whatever mystical ether he’d been gazing into. “Yes.”

Ezra waited. There had to be more. There was always more. The catch. The qualifier. The caveat that turned “yes” into “maybe” into “who knows”. These Force-attuned sagacious guru-types never seemed capable of giving a straight answer; Kanan certainly couldn’t. But there wasn’t any more. Dudu just sat there, scratching his nose in a not-very-sagacious manner. “That’s it? Yes?”

Scratch scratch scratch. “Yup.”

“No mystical mumbo jumbo about balance and knowing too much? No telling us the future is always in motion? Just...yes?”

“Did you want me to do all that stuff?” Dudu stopped scratching his nose and leaned forward, peering at Ezra. ‘‘’Cuz if so, you really should have gone to see Benny…”

“Well, no, but…”

“Okay, then.” That settled, Dudu sat back, and somehow began to sink slowly into the ground, as if he was sitting on quicksand instead of hard rock. “Been nice chatting with you. Come back and see me any time you’ve got more questions...oh, and tell Benny I said ‘hi’ next time you see him.”

“Wait…” That was all? Just “yes”? “Yes” didn’t really tell them anything! He might as well have given them some annoyingly vague non-answer. “Where is she?” Ezra shouted as Dudu slowly vanished into the stone. “Where can we find her?

One merry brown eye winked before it, too, disappeared, leaving nothing but any ordinary plated coral tree in the spot. Its plates scintillated in a tie-dyed rainbow of colors and Dudu’s voice wafted on the evening breeze, “Later, Jedi dude, little Jedi!”

Ezra stared at the coral tree. “Well, that was bizarre.” Just when he thought the Galaxy couldn’t possibly get any stranger, they’d find a mountain that turned into a Jedi Temple or hyperspace enabled squid-whales, or...whatever the heck that had just been.

“Yes. Yes, it was,” Kanan said, frowning. He sighed and turned towards the dusty path towards their ship. “We should get back to the Phantom so we can make it to Chopper Base by nightfall.” As he headed off, Ezra heard him mutter, “I should have known someone named ‘Dudu the Wise’ would be full of it.”

Wait...what? Ezra stopped in his tracks. Had his master, Kanan “Very Serious, This Is My Excited Face” Jarrus, just made a ’fresher joke? No. No...if the Galaxy had gone that crazy, he might as well just give up now. He was just going to pretend he’d never heard that and pretend that nothing weird had happened here. Just another ordinary day in the life of a Jedi.

Right.

Ezra shook his head and ran to catch up with Kanan.

 

Too fun! Kanan and Ezra both are frustrated... Yes, and? !!

 

Why am I not surprised that Dudu The Wise sounds like a weed smoking hippie?

And Very Serious Kanan made a fresher joke? I think we need to applaud Ezra for not completely losing his **** over that one.

 

This fanfic has a Monty Python touch to it. I love it.