Halcyon 🪐⋆｡°✩ Paul Arteides ✩⋆｡°🪐 / A Star Wars Story

3.

Master Obi-wan held a small smile as he entered the living space. The bearded man with floppy hair seated himself next to the Togruta to be directly opposite his own Padawan. In the meantime, Sidra and Ahsoka worked on appearing casual at the Jedi Master's entrance.

'Arrakis' desert is harsh, and the sandworms are certainly an obstacle, but people do reside there,' Obi-wan explained, his elbows resting on the circular dining table. 'Planets, like Tatooine, are near inhabitable outside of the cities, but people have survived on Arrakis for thousands of years.'

'I think it's more the sand aspect, Master,' Ahsoka pipped up.

Sidra peeked through her eyelashes to see her Master looking confused at Ahsoka. She tried to busy herself with the vambraces around her wrists, and glanced up without moving her head when she heard silence.

Obi-wan knew about Anakin's dislike for his home planet, but the details of his recent return were amiss to the Order. But from a slip up from Senator Padme Amidala, who was present on the detoured trip to Tatooine, Ahsoka knew about her Master's hatred for the desert ball. And when Ahsoka knew something, Sidra usually was aware of it, as well.

The subject dwindled and the Padawans fell into more talk about Arrakis. Obi-wan sat quietly while he listened and fell into game of looking back and forth between the two young women. Eventually, his attentive gaze fell on his Padawan, who had a glow in her skin and eyes full of enthusiasm when she recited all she knew.

Sidra never ceased to amaze her Master. After Anakin became a Jedi Knight, Obi-wan hadn't thought about taking on another Padawan. Most Masters in their right mind would be put off from taking on new learners after teaching the infamously stubborn, brash and unpredictable Anakin Skywalker.

But when the quiet girl with black hair clipped out of her face was presented to the Jedi Council, Obi-wan Kenobi was intrigued. He sensed great wisdom in Sidra Chihari, and perhaps a more academically-inclined Padawan would do Obi-wan some good.

The clone wars made it difficult to teach the young girl in the structured way of the Order, but Sidra and Obi-wan had learnt so much together. They were never short of missions on all kinds of planets, and Obi-wan's negotiations were much more successful with Sidra by his side. She was knowledgable on so many languages, traditions, and cultural aspects, that the Chihari became sought after for potentially complicated missions.

And after several months of teaching her, Obi-wan had never needed to fish Sidra out of sunken traps, or had to settle arguments between her and tribe leaders or government officials. Unlike Anakin, Sidra Chihari was level-headed, respectful, and progressive in her training under Master Obi-wan Kenobi.

Much was to say about Anakin and Padawan Ahsoka Tano, but that was a can of rotworms that didn't need to be opened.

'With the Atreides gone, and the Harkonnen back in power, there's no telling what will happen with the Spice trade. Especially when we're...' Sidra shifted her dark eyes from Ahsoka to Master Obi-wan with her pause. '... helping them with find the Fremen?'

Sidra purposely finished with the tone of a question. With her words lingering in the living space, Ahsoka also turned to the man beside her. They reached the segment of Arrakis' history that concerned the Jedi Order, and Sidra wasn't sure if she intentionally stirred the conversation to this point. Without a base to continue, the Padawans now looked to Master Obi-wan for Council's reasoning for their mission.

The hum of the engines dulled the silence, but Obi-wan sensed the inquisition in the air. He hoped that one of the clones would appear and say that they had entered the planet in question's atmosphere. This would save him from a confusing, and frankly, uninformed conversation.