Orion stood at the edge of the training field, watching the older Jedi spar. His heart raced as he noticed a boy approaching, a confident smile on his face. “Hey, kid. Want to learn a few tricks?”
“Um… sure,” he shrugged, drawing a small cylindrical hilt from his belt. The lightsaber hummed with a soft blue glow, the most common color of lightsabers apart from green. He had wanted red, but Qui Gon had given him a firm no, saying they were ‘out of stock’. He seemed a bit stricter about it than Orion would have liked.
The boy pulled out his own lightsaber, which looked quite similar, but his looked a bit more newer. As the boy took the first move, striking Orion’s saber with his, Orion asked, “Are you the newest Padawan learner from the outer rim?”
”That’s right,” the boy answered, patting his dirty blonde hair as he blocked a strong shot from Orion. “but Master Qui Gon told me I’m really powerful.”
”I’m Orion Parsec. What’s your name?”
”Anakin…” he said with a grunt, pushing his newfound friend’s saber backward. “Anakin Skywalker.”
“How old are you?”
”I’m nine. You?”
”Oh, I’m still eight. But we’re still on the same level! Maybe I have more Force than you.” Orion beamed with pride. “Still, you’re good competition, Anakin.”
”Thanks, the Council said I have a lot mini-chlorine in my cells.” he answered, finally prevailing over Orion, who fell to the ground with a soft thud as he corrected Anakin - the word was ‘midi-chlorians’.
”Ow…” he groaned, rubbing his knee. “I’m okay though.” Anakin gave him a helping hand up, which he gladly took.
“Be careful, Orion. Anyway, I win.” Anakin boasted. He smiled at him, who simply smiled back. “Good game, buddy. Can we be friends?”
”Good game to you too, Ani. We’re friends now then!” Orion answered, clapping his new friend’s back encouragingly. It was official. Anakin and Orion had now become best friends.
Meanwhile, from the distance, a figure watched them train, a smile gracing his centuries-old, wrinkled features. Even with his stubby, short stature his presence had a sort of distinct grace, which made all the Padawans bow once they saw him, each whispering to the next something about ‘Master Yoda’.
“Training over is, Padawans. To lunch you must go.” he announced in his squeaky yet commanding voice. The ‘Yoda Grammar’ was simple enough to grasp - they had learned from the older Padawans how to translate it to normal English.
Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi walked in shortly after, standing tall and upright, his auburn hair combed neatly. He nodded in respect to Master Yoda, before calling out a second announcement. “After lunch, all Padawans must report to their respective Masters for their individual training sessions.”
”Those are always the best,” Orion whispered to Anakin. “My master is Master Solara. She’s probably in her classroom now. Who’s yours?”
“Master Kenobi. He’s really fun. Yesterday I had my first proper class with him.” Anakin answered back, tightening his belt a bit. “He’s really strong, and a good mentor.”
”Wow, that’s so cool.”
”If you think that’s cool, wait till you hear all the adventures I had with him, and Qui Gon and all. Qui Gon even freed me from Watto,” Anakin explained. “I was living my best life on Tatooine… well, kind of. We were slaves to this greedy guy called Watto, until Qui Gon and Queen Amidala from Naboo came to our planet. They helped free me, because I won a pod race.” He trailed off about everything that had happened, as far as he knew, at least. Orion listened with great interest, impressed by his friend’s impressive backstory. In Orion’s words, his own backstory of living on Coruscant as an ordinary human would have wet its pants.
Anakin laughed at the joke. “Man, you’re fun. Come on, lunch awaits! You gotta tell me more about this temple. It’s like a maze.”
And so, the two boys walked off together with the crowd of hungry Padawans, unaware that this was the start of something beautiful for the two of them.
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