Chapter Text
Dirt crunched under the feet of men in white outfits. Shouting. There was so much shouting. Thunder shook the world and she tumbled to the ground. A man lay with her in the dirt, helmet askew. He must have been asleep because he did not stir when she called out to him. Perhaps he couldn't hear her over all the noise. She crawled over and reached out her hand.
—
Obi-Wan awoke to a scream. He looked around but the fellow younglings in his youngling clan were still asleep in their bunks carved into the wall of their circular clan room. Had he imagined it? He ran a hand through his shaved brown hair and an odd noise sounded from below him. He stuck his head over the railing on his bunk to look down at his Pantoran bunkmate who was shivering in her cream sheets.
"Mindi?" he whispered—blue eyes crinkled in concern.
She looked up at him. Tears filled her yellow eyes. Her cool blue hair was stuck up in a funny angle and her powdery blue hands were quivering. "Can I sit with you?" He nodded with a yawn and she began to climb up the ladder to his bed, blanket wrapped around her shoulders. He propped up his pillow against the wall for them to lean on.
"Why did you scream?" His whisper still felt too loud for the youngling nursery.
"Nightmare,"she yawned. "It was so loud and," tears began to form again and her mouth twisted into a frown, "there was a man who, who wouldn't wake up. And when I touched him, there was nothing inside." She wrapped her light blue fingers around Obi-Wan's tanned hand and held it in front of his face. "You are full. That man was empty." Obi-Wan shuddered thinking about this empty man. He'd never seen her be scared of anything before. Where was his friend who always leapt into their lessons on the force without fear or restraint? She was still holding his hand. He took it away so he could lay down but she grabbed it again. "Please?" she asked and a tear streamed through one of the three tiny golden squares that ran across the top of her cheeks on both sides of her face.
"Mindi, I need to sleep. We have training tomorrow." She let go of his hand but did not move from her position on his bed.
"What if the nightmare comes back?"
Obi-Wan scooted over towards the wall and patted the space beside him. She gave him a small smile, wiped her tears, and laid down next to him.
They slept with pleasant dreams for the rest of the night.
—
When Yoda came to awake the younglings the following morning he was distressed to find one of them missing. He would have called for help had he not scanned the room once more. There, in Obi-Wan's bunk above him lay two younglings: Obi-Wan and the missing youngling, Mindi. Yoda jumped onto the ladder and observed the peculiar scenario. Being only six, they were just small enough to fit comfortably, each wrapped up in their own blanket. Though he would not hesitate to inquire after this behavior, he knew that when they awoke he would not have the heart to scold them.
He reached a clawed hand to Mindi's shoulder and patted it. "Get you down to your bed we must. Plant ideas in others' heads we cannot." She came down without a fuss and sat on her bed with a sleepy smile. "Walk with me, will you?" She discarded her blanket with a yawn and padded after him into the hallway.
As they strolled in the direction of the gardens he turned to the pale Pantoran beside him. He had been the one to retrieve her from her family. While Pantoran was not the most common species to produce a Jedi, she was not the only one in the order. Hopefully one of them would be available to take her as their padawan when the time comes. Because of the family facial markings they receive as infants, Pantoran Jedi can find their family. It's impossible for the Jedi to find the children before the tattoos are in place since they get them so young. They found Mindi when she was one years old and she already had three mini squares tattooed on each side of her face with a rectangular strip running across the bridge of her nose to match her mother's. Normally, he quickly forgot the parents of the younglings he retrieved, but he could not forget hers. Not after watching her father hold his wife back and tell Yoda to run with their baby. The look on the mother's face would never leave him. And every time he saw Mindi, he was reminded of it. He pulled himself out of that terrible memory and back into the present. As they stepped into the lush gardens he could feel a sense of peace settle in Mindi. He took a moment to appreciate all of the beautiful plants that came from across the galaxy. Bright green bushes and trees, blue mushrooms, meiloorun trees, large flowers that bloomed in every color, rolling grassy lands and a small river that ran through it all. The sun filtered through the glass ceiling creating a small rainbow in the mist from the little waterfall in this part of the creek. The youngling ran from plant to plant, touching their petals and smelling the blossoms.
"Mindi, why were you in Obi-Wan's bed, I wonder," he called, making his way to a grassy spot far enough away from the river to hear themselves.
"I had a bad dream," she responded while sniffing a bush of flowers.
"Tell me?" He sat down on the grass and she followed suit.
Her brows furrowed. She seemed to be having trouble maintaining eye contact with him. Eventually she whispered, "It was so loud. There was so much yelling from all the men in white outfits. Then I fell." She looked down and began to twirl blades of grass between her pale fingers.
"Hurt, it did?" he said, placing a comforting claw on her shoulder.
"No, but there was a man." She began to twirl the grass faster. "He was empty." Yoda knew he should say something but his almost nine hundred years had not prepared him to explain how death feels through the force to a six year old.
"Scary, that is. Sorry I am, little one."
"I stayed with Obi-Wan because he was full and it made me feel better."
"Full of what?"
"Light."