Office #3, Friday

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan didn't spend much time in his office, these days. He supposed he ought to, but most students who needed him tended to be able to find him, either at the diner or on Fridays while he was training with his lightsaber.

This Friday... he was not going to be training with his lightsaber, no, and he'd messaged all the usual Friday suspects to tell them as much. If they needed him for anything besides, he was going to be in his office at the school, with a kettle of hot water on for tea, because... yeah, he was still not going to share his caf.

There was a bit of tidying to do, since he hadn't held office hours in roughly forever, so he busied himself with that while he waited for what he was sure was potentially impending disaster. He'd had to leave his blaster at home. His lightsaber was, of course, still in its component parts on his belt, because there was no way on Malachor he was going without after that one year where Vader had arrived on the island.

Ever.

Nope.

He hated Parents Weekend so much.

[OOC: Open!]

Comments

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan damn near knocked over the kettle at that, turning on his heel to look at the--

Pureblood Sith. There was something he'd never encountered before. They were a race long, long gone by his time, bred out by human Sith looking to create children who were stronger in the Force. He swallowed, reeled in his shock hard, and then lifted his chin and looked at the Sith with an expression a little too calm.

So, that answered roughly where in the timeline Lana could have come from, right there.

"Jedi Jarrus, yes," he replied, not offering up the fact that he was a Padawan, no. No way. "I take it you're Lana's guest?"

Wild guess.

[usual_suspects]

"I am indeed." Darth Vowrawn's amusement wasn't going anywhere, though he respected the politeness in return. "Darth Vowrawn, head of the Sphere of Logistics. I understand you're one of Miss Beniko's instructors. I suppose I should ask how she's doing?"

Even if he was less interested in the answer for what it said of Lana - he'd make up his own mind on that - than for what it said of Kanan.

[uncertain_dume]

Darth.

Kanan made certain to pull in slow, even breaths. To look at Vowrawn, keep his eyes on the Sith, but not look... challenging?

Vader had taken little interest in him, when he'd been here. Vowrawn had greeted him by name.

"She's an interesting student," he said, evenly. "Eager to learn, but not afraid to share her opinions. She has a keen mind." He lifted his chin a little. "I have to respect that in a student. There's something to be said for a student who actively seeks to understand even those things that they might consider anathema."

[usual_suspects]

"Good, good." He meant that, too. "I confess, when she mentioned that one of her instructors was a Jedi, I was curious as to how that might work. Our relationship with your people has been one...well, nearly as contentious as our relationship with our own," he said cheerfully.

[uncertain_dume]

"It was a bit of a shock when Lana arrived on the island," Kanan said, lifting a shoulder slightly. He clenched his hands for a moment anxiously. He'd gone shock-still otherwise. "I have to say, she's the first Sith I've taught. Not the first Imperial, mind."

Not even the first Imperial to be visited by a Sith Lord on one of these weekends.

...

"Tea?"

It would give him something to occupy himself with. That was good, right?

[usual_suspects]

"Tea would be lovely, thank you," Darth Vowrawn answered, smiling. "I do so adore pleasantries. Far too few people appreciate them."

Congratulations, Kanan. The Sith Lord was now beaming at you.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan had no clue what to do with that, and so he busied himself with putting the water on to boil instead.

"Manners I picked up from a Master I once knew," he supplied, a touch vaguely, setting teabags into the mugs he'd stolen from the teachers' lounge for the occasion. "I've been working on improving my own for these events, at least."

And also, if he was drinking tea, he wasn't screaming. Win/win.

[usual_suspects]

"Don't think the effort isn't appreciated," Darth Vowrawn said as if confiding a secret.

He took a seat, arranging his robes neatly. "Lana tells me you're from some other time or version of our galaxy. You're not bound by the Treaty of Coruscant, then?"

[uncertain_dume]

Deep breath.

"I'm not," Kanan confirmed. "In my time, there's no such treaty."

In his time, there wasn't much of anything he wouldn't have minded, so much. He stared hard at the kettle, quietly willing it to boil faster. Or to take its time. He wasn't sure which he wanted right then.

He glanced back toward Vowrawn, brows furrowed a little.

"Fandom's still neutral ground," he noted. "There are stronger forces than treaties at play here. I respect those."

There was an unspoken undercurrent of, 'as should you,' to that.

[usual_suspects]

Vowrawn nodded. "And yet it can't be usual for you, getting along with a Sith. Teaching one."

[uncertain_dume]

"It'd be a first," Kanan agreed.

Likely not for the reasons Vowrawn was thinking, granted.

The kettle came to a boil and then clicked off. Kanan poured the water into the mugs.

[usual_suspects]

"And will you do your best by her?" Darth Vowrawn asked. "Regardless of what it is you're teaching - it's her own choice to take that - will you offer her your best instruction and support?"

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan walked over to Vowrawn on legs that rather felt like they were made of electric gelatin, and held one of the mugs out toward him.

By some miracle, his hand wasn't shaking.

"I'm a teacher," he said, simply. "She's my student. If she wants to learn, I teach."

It really was that simple.

[usual_suspects]

Darth Vowrawn took the mug with a nod of thanks. "I'm pleased to hear it."

He took a sip and smiled. "And your tea is excellent. I am impressed."

[uncertain_dume]

"A friend of mine made this blend," Kanan replied, bowing his head slightly in adknowledgment. "She has an excellent sense for it."

And he'd done enough odd jobs over the years that he knew how to make a good cup of tea, damn it.

"I am Jedi," he added, leaning back against his desk with his own mug in hand, "but at this school, that fact is irrelevant. I'm there to teach. Lana is there to learn. Our respective teachings within the Force don't have any bearing on our ability to do either. I found myself... pleasantly surprised to find that was the case. I won't deny I had my concerns, at first."

[usual_suspects]

"Nor would you be the only one," Darth Vowrawn answered. "I'm not entirely sanguine about your possible teachings and influence. But Miss Beniko is strong in her own convictions and I believe she'll make the right decisions."

And he was practical enough to know that any education they could get about the Jedi, even from one of them, could only help.

[uncertain_dume]

In ways that neither of them could begin to guess at, in fact!

"I hardly think I'll have her reciting 'there is no emotion,' any time soon," Kanan replied, a wry smile twisting at the corners of his mouth. "There's plenty of room for passion within the scope of what she's learning here, too."

He sipped his tea.

... Hey, that was pretty good. He'd have to let Iris know that her blend had impressed one of the most quietly terrifying people he'd ever met in his life.

[usual_suspects]

"There is room for passion within the scope of everything in life," Darth Vowrawn said. "I will never understand that about Jedi." He shook his head. "Life without passion must be very dull."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan was silent for a moment before he spoke, piecing together a reply while he took another sip of his tea.

There will be loss. Inevitable loss, painful loss. But that must not prevent the true Jedi from taking risks, from surrendering oneself to a higher purpose.

He lowered his mug, set it on the desk, and shook his head.

"Even if it was so simple, it isn't about us." He shrugged. "We feel, but what we feel comes after the will of the Light Side of the Force."

[usual_suspects]

Darth Vowrawn dismissed that with a shake of his head. "How any of you manage to have children is beyond me. I should hate to marry a Jedi. Fortunately," he added with a laugh, "there's little chance of that."

[uncertain_dume]

"Yuuup," Kanan said, just barely resisting the urge to really pop that 'p' sound at the end. "Not big on marriage, us Jedi."

Was it too late yet for him to turn himself inside-out in an attempt to cancel himself out of reality entirely or something?

"And not big on us Jedi, you Sith."

[usual_suspects]

"That depends on the Jedi, from what I hear," Darth Vowrawn answered. "The marriages, that is. We don't tend to be too 'big on' those that hunted us to near-extinction, no. Still, at least you make a good cup of tea."

He took another sip. "There's a lot to be said for a good cup of tea."

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan fell silent again. This time, he didn't reach for his cup to mask his silence.

There was guilt, there, gnawing at him from inside, for the crimes of an order that had fallen four thousand years before his time. It was the guilt of a man who knew exactly what that felt like. He wasn't so certain that the one standing in front of him now really did, centuries as he was after the purges, himself.

"I'm more a caf person, admittedly."

Why. Why, mouth. Why were you like this. Why, after that, were those the first six words you managed to scrape together?

[usual_suspects]

Darth Vowrawn laughed loudly. "Good, good - don't agree with me, I'm probably terrible. Besides, conflict is the spice of life. One of them, anyway. What's the caf like around here?"

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan huffed out a little breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.

"Terrible," he replied. "Until recently, anyway. This world has coffee that comes close, but it isn't quite right."

So, not only was he a dirty caf drinker, he was, in fact, a caf snob.