Author's Notes: visual aids for the characters *grin*
QG: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Garden/3917/nee7.jpg
V: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/ screen/9644/pictures.html
(if you can get it to work, bottom picture on the page -- Terence Stamp, very young -- major hunk *grin*)
DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc and 20th Century Fox. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
"I see you're letting your hair grow out," said a voice behind him.
The young Jedi turned to see who had addressed him. It was a man he didn't know, but recognized -- the deputy Third Minister, scion of a famous family. He thought for a moment about an appropriate response to this observation, nodded politely, said "Yes," and turned back toward the front of the line.
The politician didn't want to be put off. "I used to wonder how you avoided stepping on Councillor Yoda."
Was this man being deliberately offensive? Initiates were taught that there would be people who'd try to pick a fight, just to see if they could take a Jedi-- but a government lunchroom in the heart of Coruscant wasn't supposed to be one of the places where it was likely to happen.
The Jedi turned and looked at his interlocutor more steadily, with the hint of a frown between his eyes. The other man noticed; his posture hardened slightly, and there was a moment when each took the other's measure.
One was a freshly knighted Jedi, young, rawboned, still filling out his big form but already powerfully built. He had a smooth young face, sharp eyes under a sloping brow, and a distinctively broken nose -- a curiosity, since it was the smallest of medical procedures to restore such a break to its original form. His brown hair stood straight out from his scalp in all directions, not yet quite long enough to fall flat from its own weight. He seemed to have started a beard and mustache, but they were filling in slowly at best, since large patches of smooth chin still showed.
The other was a successful young politician, nearly as tall as the Jedi but rail thin, with a thin, classically handsome face. He was dressed sleekly in a severe black tunic and trousers that served to set off his vivid blue eyes, fair skin and glossy black hair. One of his eyebrows had a sharp natural arch, a trademark of his lineage. He carried himself with the slight rigidity of military bearing, and something of the same disciplined quality could be seen in the set of his face, despite his casual way of talking..
"I'm trying to strike up a conversation."
The politician deliberately relaxed his stance, leaning one hip against the counter where they were both waiting to get a bowl of the traditional Senate bean soup. He crossed one leg in front of the other and opened his hands. "I'm sorry I don't know your name, but I don't think I ever heard it. And I have no idea what one says to a Jedi socially."
The Jedi continued to simply look at him.
The politician scratched his neck. "Well... how 'bout those rimball scores? Tried flying one of those slick little Z-88's? Hear the one about the pirate and the nerf-herder's daughter?"
The Jedi couldn't help being amused. "Most people find 'hello' to be sufficient. My name is Qui-Gon Jinn."
"Hello, Qui-Gon Jinn," said the deputy minister. "My name is Finis--"
"Valorum," finished the Jedi. "I remember you."
Valorum twisted his mouth wryly. "Okay, what does one say when one has been socially humiliated by a Jedi? -- Mind you, 'goodbye' is not an acceptable response." Both men were now getting their soup.
"There is no humiliation here," Jinn said steadily. 'Goodbye' was indeed what he wanted to say.
"Are you always this serious?" //I bet he is.// Looking around the room, the deputy minister spotted a free table. "Come on, sit down with me for a few minutes. Ask me why I want to talk to you."
Once they were seated, the Jedi echoed obediently, "why do you wish to talk with me?"
"Because I don't know any Jedi personally, and I'd like to."
Jinn nodded. "Then any Jedi will serve your need," he said calmly. "If you'll excuse me." He started to rise--
"Not so fast, young Qui-Gon," said Valorum, raising a hand which happened to have a soup spoon in it. "Catch 'em early, is what I'm thinking." The Jedi subsided back into his chair.
The politician's face lost some of its artifice. "Look, you're just starting. The buzz about you was very hot -- Yoda himself took you on, people noticed that from Chancellor Keek on down. The story hasn't changed since then -- you're pretty young to be a full knight, aren't you?"
Qui-Gon was reflecting on the depth of the wrongness of what he was hearing. He hid both his amusement and his dismay, since he had no intention of sharing his personal beliefs as to why Yoda had taken him as an apprentice. Besides, his confidence in those beliefs was sketchy at best. Nor was he sure why Yoda had sent him to the trials when he had. With Master Yoda, anything could be true.
He gave the politician a purely courteous smile and said nothing.
Valorum continued despite the lack of encouragement. "It would be -- well, interesting -- and useful to really know a Jedi. No one I know, or know of, in the government does. As far as I know, which ain't much, you're at roughly the same stage in your career -- uh, if that's the right word -- as I am in mine. I would like to know what you learn as you go along -- and maybe how you learn it. And, if you were interested, I'd share the same things about myself. Do you know what I mean?"
"No," said the Jedi politely. He was contemplating how far his duty to serve extended in this situation.
The thin, intense deputy minister stared hard at him. "We all live inside the Force," he said, to Qui-Gon's surprise. "But you Jedi -- I don't know, feel it somehow, even hear it somehow. Whatever it is, you'll have a different relationship with it all your life than I will."
Valorum was gesturing with the hand that held the soup spoon, and the young Jedi was allowing himself to be mildly distracted by the fact that the spoon hadn't yet dared to mar the perfection of the deputy's clothing by dripping. But he was also beginning to be interested by what Valorum was saying.
"...Somehow the Force is what makes the Republic work, or at least it helps. And I want to know everything I can about everything that makes the Republic work. Even though you Jedi are Force-trained, for some reason, it's my job, not yours, to govern. I want to know why."
The Jedi stirred in his seat; Valorum waved his hand sharply to forestall the obvious answer.
//Still no drip.// Qui-Gon would have suspected him of using the Force, but knew it was impossible.
"I've read the books. I know what the philosophy is supposed to be. But I want to hear it from a living person as it happens." He followed the line of Qui-Gon's gaze to the spoon and frowned.
"Can you read my mind?" Qui-Gon's eyes shifted to meet Valorum's, but the Jedi offered no response. "Well, just in case you can, here's my stunning display of candor: if you turn out to be as good as they say you are, the Supreme Chancellor will be working with you. And if I turn out to be as good as those very same 'they' say I am, then I may be that Supreme Chancellor."
He shook his head. "That sounds slick, but I'm serious. I don't want to drag the Jedi, or any one Jedi, into the position of ruling rather than serving, but it would serve me to watch how a Jedi develops, maybe learn how he thinks." Valorum grinned. "Like right now, for example, I certainly don't have the slightest idea what you're thinking or why."
The Jedi sat quietly.
"I saw that bush ahead of me in line and thought, that's either Councillor Yoda's padawan or the tallest stickleburr in the galaxy. He'd be just the guy to talk to. So I'll ask him."
More silence.
The politician's intensity slackened abruptly. He dropped the still dripless spoon into his bowl, leaned back in his chair and sighed. "I almost never do anything I know as little about as what I just did."
There was finally a response: the big young Jedi frowned. "You did well enough," he said thoughtfully. The politician waited expectantly for a long minute, but no further words were forthcoming.
"You're not making this hard on purpose, are you?" he said warily.
The Jedi's thin smile reappeared, and he shook his head slightly. "No."
Valorum tugged on one ear. "I can hardly wait for your next syllable," he remarked.
"Yes?" It should have been a joke, but the Jedi seemed perfectly straight-faced and sincere.
"Bet they don't teach practical rhetoric and eloquence at the Jedi Temple, eh?" said the young minister.
Another polite smile, another syllable. "No."
Valorum laughed. "So is there a special class in stony-faced brevity?"
The smile widened slightly. "No."
"Inscrutable frowning?"
"No."
Valorum snapped his fingers. "I got it -- the class is called 'how to make non-Force-sensitive beings think you're deep in spiritual contemplation when you're actually thinking how much you wish some nosy bureaucrat would shut up and let you eat your lunch in peace.'"
"No-o," Qui-Gon said calmly, "but the potential value of such a class is becoming apparent."
The politician did a take, then laughed out loud. "Damn, Jinn, I was starting to think you didn't have a sense of humor. Can't imagine how anyone could stick out twelve years with Yoda without a pretty damn good sense of humor."
The young Jedi gave him a real smile for the first time. It was lopsided, crinkled the corners of his eyes, and was rather charming. "Difficult it would be," he agreed.
//I'll be squicked, maybe this will happen,// thought Valorum. What he said was, "I stayed aware of which direction it was tilting."
Qui-Gon raised his eyebrows at the non-sequitur.
"The spoon," Finis said gently. "It's an old debater's trick. Keeps 'em from listening when the opposition's talking. You get some viscous food on a stick or a spoon, or start a slow fire on smoking materials and let the ash get really, really long... the audience tunes out what the other guy is saying and sits there waiting for the ash to drop."
He picked the spoon up again, with a gob of thick, cold soup clinging to it. "And you do it by feel, so all the time you're not looking at it, and the audience is wondering when the stuff is going to fall in your lap." He smiled. "But in your case, you were actually mostly listening to me, so you didn't notice me running the soup up and down the spoon."
"Clever," said the Jedi.
"That wasn't meant to sound like an insult, right?" joked Valorum. "It just accidentally came across that way?"
The Jedi smiled politely. Valorum shook his head. //I don't care what he says, I think they get Inscrutability lessons.// He took a spoonful of soup, found it unpalatable, and put his spoon down again.
"How come you knew my name? We haven't met, I tend to remember stuff like that." He looked at the serene young Jedi, and amended, in a more serious voice, "To be honest, I remember everyone, always. You and I both sat in the outer office and waited once while former Chancellor Keek and Councillor Yoda had a private conversation, a little over ten years ago. Since then, we've passed each other in the halls occasionally. That's it."
"You have the look of the Valorum," Qui-Gon said, then he too enlarged his answer, adding dryly, "and you have a reputation."
"Ah." Valorum grinned. It was true: the full, pursed mouth and piercingly blue eyes under arched brows with black hair were family trademarks. The slight frame was also, though Finis was unusually tall for his family.
The Inner Worlds had nine or ten great political clans -- the Antilles of Corellia, the Organas of Alderaan, the Veniin of Brakka, but of them all, the Valorums were the oldest and perhaps most famous. One legend said the family was so old it actually was native to Coruscant. At least eighty generations of Valorums had served the Republic in one guise or another; one had even been Supreme Chancellor, many years ago. Each member of each generation of that family was scrutinized by the public, as well as by the rest of the family, for a winning blend of savvy, natural authority, poise, and desire to serve.
It was also true that this particular Valorum had gotten an early start on being famous... or infamous. He was a regular in Coruscant's high-profile social scene, and no club was fully launched until he'd been there -- and, in some cases, been thrown out of it.
"I was serious, you know," Finis said softly. "I want to learn as much as I can from as many different sources as I can."
Qui-Gon nodded and leaned forward on the table. He folded his hands together and seemed to study them for a long minute. "We have that in common," he said, equally softly.
"And you have that one teacher I don't, one I'm very curious about -- the Force, you have a direct experience of the Force. What's that like?"
Another long minute went by before Qui-Gon spoke. Fragments of expressions crossed the Jedi's face -- thoughtful, curious, wry, intense -- but every other part of him was completely still; Valorum couldn't even see him breathing.
"Like air. Like water. But not as things, as processes, almost events." He frowned and opened his hands as if letting something go. "Yet not like a wind or a river or a flame."
Valorum was awestruck, but swallowed his awe in a joke. "Well, that clears that right up."
The Jedi glanced up at him. "It's a start, anyway," said Qui-Gon.
"Good start," Finis said sincerely. "The best kind, one where you don't know how it'll end." He shrugged. "After all, I'm asking you to describe blue to a being with no eyes." The Jedi met his eyes again briefly, but the politician had no clue what the look meant.
"Jinn, my time's up, I gotta get back." Valorum stood up. "You gonna eat this?" He gestured at the soup.
"Yes."
"Really?" It seemed half-congealed by now. "It's my fault it's gone cold; let me get you another one."
"That won't be necessary," Qui-Gon said politely. As Valorum began to dig into his tunic anyway, he added, "please don't."
The deputy minister stopped digging for credits. "Well, okay," he said dubiously. "Personally, I'm going to pass. But thanks for joining me."
"The pleasure was mine," the Jedi responded. The words were a formula, but they didn't sound perfunctory. Valorum darted a glance at Jinn's eyes, and found what looked to him like a friendly expression there.
"Well, see you around," Valorum said.
"Yes," said the Jedi.
