Welcome to Silent Measures, a collection of scenes and scenarios set around the events of The Silent Song. Present here will also be AU scenarios, at times, reaching as far forward as the Clone Wars. Requests are welcome. This first post will be a double-post, with the second chapter posted immediately after the first one.

Measure (musical): A segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats; measures make part of a song.

Silent Measures

Eirian Erisdar

Culinary Instinct

Set between Chapters 8 and 9 of The Silent Song (between arcs 1 and 2)

"No, Obi-Wan, the scry-mint comes after the hwotha-berries!"

There is a sharp echo as cooking implements clatter to the floor, and the Force flares with panic–

–before subsiding into a gentle swell.

Qui-Gon Jinn halts, hand outstretched. The pot of half-completed rycrit stew hovers at the edge of the stovetop. A small tidal wave of stew is flash-frozen in the air, paused at the crest of its climb up over the lip of the pot.

Qui-Gon spares his young apprentice a glance as he maneuvers both stew and pot back into its proper place with a flick of the Force.

Thirteen-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi, junior Padawan – and soon-to-be failed cook, apparently – hides his cooking-spoon behind his back and studies the floor. Intently. His apron is rather too large for him; it hovers a mere handspan from the tips of his bare toes.

The older Jedi heaves a sigh as he waves the induction plates to a mild simmer. "Padawan," he says, "I believe you may be slightly more nervous than you previously implied."

Up comes Obi-Wan's russet-haired head. He shakes his head vehemently in denial.

Qui-Gon raises an eyebrow. "Am I to understand you are not nervous, then, and two almost-shattered mixing bowls, three ruined cooking-cloths, and one half-burnt stew-spoon are all victims of some other reason for your clumsiness?"

Obi-Wan wisely decides to regard that question as rhetorical.

Sentinel to this strange event, The Pot bubbles merrily beside them. The Pot is exactly what it is – a steel cooking vessel, dented at the base from too many years of being slammed into countertops in Qui-Gon and Tahl's respective kitchens. It has also carried food between their two Temple apartments for the past two decades, once a week, without fail save for missions and subsequent trips to the Temple healers.

It is The Pot, much-worn and very, very precious.

Now a month into his apprenticeship, Obi-Wan finds himself tasked with producing a dish for this weekly meal. It should not be difficult; Qui-Gon himself had demonstrated it on the first day of the apprenticeship.

It would be all well and good - but it would also appear that Obi-Wan does not have a knack for culinary instinct.

Qui-Gon's face is very composed as he watches Obi-Wan, thank you very much - though he forces down the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose when his apprentice's gangly elbow nearly upends the pitcher of bantha cream set beside the stovetop.

It is astonishing, really, how hands so steady and quick on a lightsaber in the training halls can turn into bumbling fingers slipping dangerously off the handle of a vegetable knife.

Adolescents. No different around the galaxy, Jedi or not.

Obi-Wan's ears are scarlet as he corrects his grip on the small blade and brings it down on the stickli-root with a determined thunk. It takes a good long while, but eventually the roots are sliced. Qui-Gon notes blandly that the slices are nearly all exactly the same size and dimension. A month of mastership to a perfectionist does away with surprise about things like this.

"Good," he says quietly, fighting back a grin at the startled jolt of small shoulders. "Put that in The Pot, cover it, and monitor the heat. Add that pinch of scry-mint with bantha milk in ten minutes."

The short braid sticking out of Obi-Wan's frazzled head of spiky hair bobs as he nods. He wipes his hands carefully on his apron, pulls over a barstool, and settles down to watching the liquid bubble with an intensity usually only reserved for Krayt dragons stalking their prey.

Across the living area and through the open balcony doors, Coruscant Prime sinks below the kaleidoscopic, jagged horizon of Coruscant's Temple district, turning the towers of the city-planet into silver-edged sundial markers. Huge bars of alternating golden light and cool shadow move languidly across the kitchen floor.

Qui-Gon glances at the chrono on the wall and wonders if Tahl would be amenable to having dinner a full hour past their customary agreement. With that in mind, he moves away from the kitchen for a moment, pulling out his comlink.

"Qui." Tahl Uvain's voice is wry with amusement, as always. The greeting itself holds a wealth of unsaid humour.

Aquiline features half-hidden in the unlit shadows of the short hallway, Qui-Gon grins. "Tahl. I hope you're not hungry yet. We might be a while coming."

"Oh, the poor dear. What does he look like, right now?"

Qui-Gon lowers his comm for a moment and leans subtly out of the doorway.

Obi-Wan is still there, sat ramrod-straight on the barstool, hands folded in his lap as he stares down the pot of stew with something akin to fiery resolve flickering in his clear blue eyes.

Qui-Gon ducks back into the shadows. "Focusing enough to construct a lightsaber."

"That bad?"

"As though the lightsaber were the last hope of the Jedi against an impossibly resurrected Sith, even."

Tahl's laugh cascades over him. Qui-Gon's grin widens further.

"I'll survive until two hours after evening bell."

"We'll be done by then, Force-wills," Qui-Gon murmurs into the comlink. "…Though perhaps you should consider having a backup source of nourishment."

"I have faith that between the two of you, you can cook a semi-decent meal, Qui. I survived your attempt at Corellian tea-cake that one Republic Day – I can consume about anything, at this point."

"You've wounded me in the heart."

"Save your inanities for table conversation. I'll see you two in an hour."

Pocketing his comlink, Qui-Gon allows himself a moment to lean against the doorway and watch daylight seep between the buildings on the horizon. It is as though the light is pooling directly between the cracks in the planet surface, tumbling bright and unimpeded down the durasteel seams of the underlevels to blend into the neon lights of lower city.

A sharp, sickly-sweet smell reaches his nose.

He pivots on a heel and stares at the kitchen. Oh no.

Obi-Wan is stood before the stove, one hand still grasping the lid of The Pot, and in the other–

An empty bottle of scry-mint.

Obi-Wan looks from his master to the container in his hand to the steaming pot and to Qui-Gon again. The look in the young Jedi's eyes has long gone past panic and morphed into something like calm resignation. He holds out the pot lid to Qui-Gon, and the tall Jedi moves forward to take it.

Qui-Gon winces as he spies the contents of The Pot. The entire concoction is now a very lurid green.

Obi-Wan sets down the empty container in his other hand with poise and pulls flimsy and stylus from his belt. Qui-Gon accepts the note with equally controlled composure.

I didn't know the openings in the container were so large. I'm sorry, Master. What do we do now?

"What we do now," Qui-Gon says as he reaches over to flick Obi-Wan's braid, "is cheat."

Obi-Wan makes a half-hearted attempt to duck away from the teasing braid-flick. He is unsuccessful, though he watches his master's next move with a sharply observant gaze.

Qui-Gon reaches into the cabinet above Obi-Wan's head, pushes aside a few plastoid boxes, and removes a packet of unidentifiable orange powder.

Obi-Wan leans forward and squints at it for a moment, before rearing back, eyes narrowing in accusation.

"Yes, this is artificial flavouring," Qui-Gon says, unaffectedly. "And yes, specifically monosodium glutamate, that lovely compound invented so many millennia ago that somehow still works on humanoid taste-buds as it did then. Finally, and most importantly, it is the only thing which can save your disaster of a rycrit stew."

Obi-Wan folds his arms and raises an eyebrow.

Qui-Gon is not finished. "Master Uvain will be sampling your concoction."

The packet is snatched out of Qui-Gon's fingers by an invisible pull and emptied into the pot before the Jedi master can say another word.

Obi-Wan gives the new mixture several enthusiastic stirs with a long wooden spoon, and carefully sticks his tongue out to sample it.

He blinks.

Qui-Gon watches him, warily.

Obi-Wan shrugs, as if to say, Not bad.

Qui-Gon reaches past him to turn off the heat. "Shall we conclude this first chapter of your culinary efforts by committing it to be your last, my very young padawan?"

Obi-Wan's answering bow is very deep and meaningful, indeed.

If they are both hiding smiles as they set The Pot down in Tahl's rooms a few minutes later, the Noorian Jedi wisely chooses not to comment on it.

A/N: This story is an effort to get me finishing the next chapter The Silent Song, since I've been too busy to write much except for oneshots lately. As I said, this will be a double post. I'll have the second chapter (already published on my tumblr under Silent Laughter) up in about five minutes. It's a what-if scenario if Obi-Wan made it all the way to the Clone Wars sill without being able to speak; Ahsoka meets Anakin and Obi-Wan, and has a few thoughts of her own. Reviews are appreciated, and requests are welcome, for any character. For more updates, find me on tumblr at (eirianerisdar tumblr com). I also post short fic there.

Note: For an explanation as to why there is so far an absence of sign language, have a look at the end of chapter 16 of The Silent Song. Conversely, you can read the explanation from my fanfic masterlist on my blog.