Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandoms:
Relationships:
Characters:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of Jedi Antics
Stats:
Published:
2020-10-16
Words:
1,410
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
17
Kudos:
378
Bookmarks:
49
Hits:
2,966

A Guide to Jedi Antics by Captain Rex of the 501st battalion

Summary:

Anakin gets his first foundling, aka stumbled upon a Force-sensitive child in the middle of battle.
Rex is tired.

Notes:

So here is this, because I am a sucker for little bits of Jedi culture and I just want them to be happy. Poor Rex though, he's a bit tired of them.
The concept of foundling is not mine, and to be honest I have no idea whether it's canon or not.
Also, English is not my first language and it is my first time writing something (well, story-like, not essay-like). So I'd be happy if you have constructive criticism on my work !
Anyway enjoy ;)

Work Text:

Everything is fine.

 

Rex had been repeating this same sentence for the last several hours. In a sense, it wasn’t untrue. Their last battle on Ryloth – what was it with the Separatists and the Twi’lek’s home planet? – had suffered very little casualties, it was a crushing victory, and they were now peacefully on their way back to Coruscant.

Everything was perfectly fine, indeed.

Except, perhaps, for the little blue Twi’lek – Minx, the General said her name was Minx – who was currently seated on the General’s shoulders and babbling incoherently – in Rex’s opinion, who did not speak a word of the Twi’lek’s native language.

 

When they had first stumbled upon the child, who must have been something around the human equivalent of three, they were in the middle of battle. The kid had been curled in the corner of a destroyed house, and it wasn’t hard to see what had happened to her parents. When some troopers were dispatched to put her to safety among the rest of the civilians, her plushie was left behind. Then, to Rex’s limited experience with children, she had fit the worst tantrum he had ever witnessed, crying and screaming and desperately trying to escape the trooper’s grasp to recover her doll. Which was in a crumbling house. In the middle of battle. With explosions all around.

Children really were completely thoughtless.

And then, when she had seemed about to slither out of the trooper’s arms, the plushie simply found itself propelled in the child’s hands. Just like that.

Of course General Skywalker had to see that. Of course he had. And of course, he had to divert his attention from the battle at hand, and of course, he had to run excitedly towards the child, exclaiming in delight that she was Force-sensitive. So of course, Rex had to take the job of covering his back as if he didn’t have enough to do right now, because might he remind everyone that they were. In. The. Middle. Of. Battle?

Afterwards, the General had refused to be separated from the child, under the pretext she absolutely had to be brought to the Temple for training.

When Rex made the mistake of suggesting another Jedi could come back and retrieve her later, when they were not fighting for their lives – so a perfectly decent suggestion in his opinion –, the General had made such an offended expression Rex could have announced him he was defecting from the GAR to become a ballerina or something, and he would literally have made the same face.

“Are you kidding, Rex? She’s my foundling! My first foundling! I’m not letting another Jedi take her back!”

That. Had been his answer. Because for some reason this was important. But you know. Jedi.

Thus, the kid – the kid! – had spent the rest of battle protected by the General and that was how she had found herself perched on his shoulders, absolutely fascinated by his hair, while their cruiser was about to arrive to Coruscant.

Everything is fine.

 

Then the General started to speak, and everything was not fine.

“Alright Minx, I have a report to make to some officials in the Senate, so we’ll have to stop there before the Temple. I need you to behave veeeery well and not make a noise. Understood?”

When the child only answered with an interrogative chirp, he paused thoughtfully, brow furrowed, and produced what had to be an approximative translation of his words in Twi’leki. To this, the kid only nodded happily, and started chewing on a strand of the General’s hair curiously.

Rex was livid under his helmet.

“Er, General, surely you do not expect the child to come with you to the Senate? To a war meeting?” a trooper asked, a shiny who had joined the 501st only recently. Poor thing. He had still so little experience with the Jedi. He was still so innocent. Oh, today was probably the time he would realise the Jedi’s utter craziness. If Rex had very little experience of social norms, having been engineered and trained to battle since birth and all that, he was entirely certain the Jedi were just as clueless. Or perhaps they were not – after all from what he understood of their training they were supposed to be able to handle delicate diplomatic situations – and they simply didn’t care.

The General had an utterly blissed look on his face, and barely seemed to register the shiny’s intervention. He didn’t even look in his direction and waved dismissively.

“Nah don’t worry, it’ll be fine!”

Rex took a big breath, and released it slowly. Cody had said it was a technic General Kenobi had taught them in order to handle strong emotions. The Captain wasn’t entirely convinced, but still repeated the process several times.

Everything. Is perfectly fine.

 

So, when the ship reached its destination, and the boarding ramp descended, General Skywalker happily made his way to the Senate, his head adorned with a child thoroughly sucking strands of his hair. And Rex, as his Captain – oh how he wished someone would take his place – dutifully followed him while pretending not to see the puzzled glances that were directed their way.

The debrief was… something. Another Jedi whom Rex didn’t know was there, and upon seeing General Skywalker and his Twi’lek, had smiled knowingly.

“Congratulations on your first foundling, Knight Skywalker,” they had whispered right before the meeting started.

The smile that plastered the General’s face at their words didn’t leave him for the entirety of the meeting.

At some point, when the kid pulled experimentally on the strands a bit too hard and the General winced painfully, an officer opened his mouth to ask a question. Then he slowly closed it, and proceeded to just ignore the blue being that had entitled herself to playing with General Skywalker’s head. Wise course.

Upon seeing the officer, if Rex hadn’t repeatedly found himself in the same situation at the Jedi’s side, he would have snickered. But now, he simply settled with a mocking smile, which no one could see anyway because he still had his helmet on. Jedi antics could be annoying, but they did give a certain amount of contentment when stuffy bureaucrats were the victims of that.

 

The briefing in itself was not very long, and soon they found themselves in the public transport on their way to the Jedi Temple. Some people tried and failed to discreetly take holographs of the Hero With No Fear and the rare apparition of a child on his shoulders, but a glare from Rex dissuaded most.

Once arrived at the Temple, Commander Tano was waiting for them upon the stairs. Seeing that, General Skywalker rushed ahead, the kid on his shoulders laughing happily at the speed of the run and not minding the discomfort of it and seemed about to fall at every new bump. Rex was not picking her up. He followed at a more appropriate pace, ignoring the glances sent in their direction. They were, after all, something of the norm when you frequented the Jedi.

He arrived just in time to hear the General exclaim:

“Look, Snips, I’ve got a foundling! She’s Minx!” to whom the Commander proceeded to coo and tickle, entirely forgetting to greet Rex. Well. That part was new.

Understanding that the following conversation would only consist of excitedly talking about and to the new acquisition of the Jedi, Rex felt no remorse when he promptly disconnected himself from all that was being said.

And that is how he found himself abandoned on the stairs to the Temple, Skywalker and Tano making their way inside, something about bringing the kid to the crèche being said, and his presence entirely forgotten. Of course, everything was still perfectly fine. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Except it was. Usually, they at least bothered with a goodbye.

“Well. I guess that means I’m dismissed.”

 

With one last frustrated glance towards the now empty entry, Rex started to make his way back to his men. In the hovertrain, he tried to remind himself to ask Cody what the kark that was all about. You needed a collaborative input of knowledge in order to make sense of those Jedi.

And he prayed, to whatever god would care, that General Skywalker never stumbled on a “foundling” ever again while Rex would be in his service.

Who knows, perhaps the Force would even listen.

But anyway. You know. Jedi antics.

Series this work belongs to: