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

[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.

[usual_suspects]

"Unfortunate," Darth Vowrawn said. "Although now I'll have to try this 'coffee'."

And possibly send Kanan a care package of the Empire's best caf, just because. Maybe he could get Lana to deliver it and tell him about the reaction. Or even take a holo.

[uncertain_dume]

It would probably sit on the shelf next to Hondo's regret caf. Forever.

Mistrusted.

"The Perk would be the place to go for that," Kanan supplied. "I could make some here, but it would be instant."

And even instant caf was sub-par, so.

[usual_suspects]

"Perhaps I'll try that, then." Not that he was making any move to leave just yet. He'd asked his questions, he could go, but he was enjoying his tea.

"Tell me, is there a reason everything here is in High Galactic?"

Yep, it was time for smalltalk. It was this or the weather, Kanan.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan... was now making smalltalk with the Sith.

Okay. He could do this.

Why the hell had he offered the man tea?

"The world isn't in our galaxy," he replied. "Apparently Aurebesh doesn't exist here at all. There are plenty of other written and spoken languages I've never heard of, but for some reason, Basic and High Galactic have some crossover."

[usual_suspects]

"Intriguing," Darth Vowrawn said. "I wonder why those and not the more common script. Tell me, what other similarities are there? Lana says they don't even have common space travel yet, and they're exclusively human. Do they have their own Force-users?"

[uncertain_dume]

"None that I'm aware of," Kanan replied, "though they have legends and stories of magic that can resemble the Force, at times, right down to terminology like 'white' and 'black' magic."

Really, if that wasn't meant to be a parallel to the Light and the Dark, Kanan would be shocked.

[usual_suspects]

"Do they really?" Darth Vowrawn asked. "Perhaps I'll have Lana send me some of these stories."

He'd get the whole Dark Council hooked on American Horror Story, just watch. Or Charmed.

[uncertain_dume]

Or Passions.

"It's entertaining enough, I suppose," Kanan noted, and now he was reaching for his tea again. Taking a few moments every now and then to keep Vowrawn's posh Inner Rim accent from slipping into his own speech patterns. Not that a Coruscanti accent was entirely similar; Vowrawn really liked to roll those Resh sounds. Still, it was a bit... much. "And not difficult to get one's hands on, even if the internet here is much, much smaller than the holonet back home."

[usual_suspects]

"Excellent. I'll have Miss Beniko keep an eye out for me, then."

They'd all end up following Stance on Instagram.

Darth Vowrawn regrettably finished his tea and looked into the cup with a faint sigh.

[uncertain_dume]

Good call. His Instagram followers had way less drama than his Twitter ones did.

"I have no doubt she's up to the task."

Who had two thumbs and was absolutely not offering the Sith Lord more tea?

Yup. This guy.

[usual_suspects]

But the drama was at least half the fun!

Darth Vowrawn reached out and set his empty mug on Kanan's desk. "Well, I shouldn't take up any more of your time, I suppose. There are undoubtedly others that will also seek it."

He stood and smoothed his robes. "Thank you for the conversation, Jedi Jarrus. It has been most interesting."

A spark of mischief lit his eyes, and he held out his hand, mostly to see what Kanan would do.

[uncertain_dume]

Kanan saw that spark, damn you Vowrawn, and reached his own hand out to clasp it in a handshake. A politely firm handshake.

Because he was a kriffing professional.

Who was going to crawl out of his skin and die at any moment.

"It's been a fascinating talk," he replied. "It's almost a shame this sort of thing doesn't happen more often."

Almost.

Almost.

[usual_suspects]

"Almost," Darth Vowrawn agreed. "Perhaps I'll write so you can keep me apprised of Miss Beniko's progress."