I'm Safe Inside Your Head

5. Home

"You're skilled," Knight Ahsoka 'don't call me a knight' Tano complimented, circling for the start of her and Petra's eighth sparring match. So far, it was six-two to Knight 'I'm not a knight' Tano. "I can see why Obi-Wan picked you."

Petra's gaze remained focussed, turning to keep Knight 'I never officially came back to the Order' Tano in her sights. "He didn't pick me because I can fight."

"I'm sure it didn't hurt."

Ahsoka was a dual-wielder, her two white lightsabers (Petra had never seen a white saber before, a fact made clear by her wide eyes the day she first saw) held in a reverse grip that left them following the line of her arms rather than sticking out. There weren't many Jedi who used the style so it was good for Petra to have a go sparring against it.

"If he didn't snap you up from a tournament, where did he find you?"

Now wasn't that a question? "The refectory, three different lifts, a few corridors, one of the Crèche clanrooms-"

"You were intent on being his padawan then?"

If Petra could snort, she'd be snorting, Obi-Wan could feel it. Instead, her shoulders shook lightly. Of course, that was when Knight 'even bounty hunter is more accurate than knight these days' Tano attacked. "The Force kept pushing us together," Petra explained once there was more distance between them again.

Chuckling to himself at the memories of seemingly finding Petra wherever he went for two days straight, Obi-Wan nodded from the sidelines. "It was quite insistent. We couldn't avoid each other."

"The Force finally got so annoyed that you weren't teaching despite loving teaching that She took matters into Her own hands then, Grandmaster?" Knight 'Obi-Wan, seriously, not a knight' Tano asked. Funny how she didn't consider herself a Jedi knight but still called him by the title meant for one's master's master.

Petra took Ahsoka's brief moment of distraction as an opportunity for a sharp flurry of attacks.

The two of them didn't stop until spar number eighteen, Petra succeeding more and more often as Ahsoka succumbed to tiredness at a faster rate. By the end, they were 11-7 to Ahsoka.

Obi-Wan sighed, watching Petra bound out of the room like she could go another eighteen rounds without issue (and she could, he was almost certain). Oh to be young again, he thought, his bones creaking when he stood.

"She's a good kid," Ahsoka said, smiling as she watched the very same thing Obi-Wan was. "You are an odd pairing though."

Ahsoka was far from the first person to point that out and Obi-Wan wasn't above agreeing, despite how some thought that alone should've been enough to keep him and Petra from being paired at all. "Even when the diplomats we meet with refuse her speech, she finds ways to be heard, and she's cutting when she does."

Ahsoka's grin showed far too many teeth. "Oh really?"

Fond, Obi-Wan chuckled. "She researches a great deal, to the point where she can predict arguments to a degree. I've seen her lay down counterarguments in front of diplomats that she wrote days in advance."

"Pretty impressive," Ahsoka agreed.

"It does seem a shame sometimes. She's so insightful, skilled at seeing things from different perspectives, but she's so often forced to make points through me and— despite my attempts— few ever give her recognition."

"They think you're just humouring her."

Obi-Wan truly wished it weren't so. Alas, this had been too many of their missions.

"Does she have any skill towards illusions?"

He blinked, glancing the way Petra went. "I wouldn't know," he admitted. Using the Force to produce illusions was a very old skill, barely taught anymore, he could think of one, maybe two, Jedi he'd heard of in connection to the skill in the last century.