Laying Low for Beginners, Thursday, Period 1

[uncertain_dume]

The kid at the front of the room today, for better or for worse, was definitely the teacher of this class, yes. He was a bit on the short side, being only fifteen and not having quite hit a growth spurt just yet, with a brown robe over his too-practical-to-be-fashionable tunic and pants, all of which were in shades of white, black, or brown.

Oh, and he had the same stupid hair as Anakin. It was a whole thing.

He probably felt about as out of place as he looked, if that was any consolation.

"Uh, hi," he said, awkwardly. "I'm Caleb. And I guess I'm a teacher today." It would be good practice for when he was a Master himself, someday. Right? "I'm supposed to be teaching about laying low, but that's a little bit out of my area of expertise, but I think I've figured out a lesson that can benefit everyone in the room anyway. It's actually pretty simple. The whole lesson? Ask questions."

If Master Kenobi or Master Windu had been in the room to hear him tell that to a whole class full of students, they probably would have groaned and buried their faces in their hands. Caleb had a bit of a reputation at the Temple as the one who did entirely too much of that.

"The thing is, you can't really lay low unless you know what kind of situation you're in and what you can use to your advantage. And maybe you'll find yourself on a planet you don't know, or in a situation you haven't encountered before, and simply observing might not be enough. But maybe somebody else will know that one thing you need that can get you through." He ran a hand through his hair, embracing that awkward tell he'd mentioned he once had in a class he couldn't remember teaching, now. "You do need to be careful about who you're talking to and what questions you're asking, I think. I mean, if you ask the wrong person something that immediately identifies you as someone that should be in a lot of trouble, at best they'll try to distance themselves from you, and at worst they'll try to kill you. But if you ask the right questions, if you work your way toward the answer you're trying to get to maybe a little sideways, so that they answer it without even realizing that's what you were looking for, then that's even better, right?"

Yeah, he needed a lot of work before he could ever even think of teaching a Padawan of his own someday. This was way too awkward.

"So, today, we're going to ask questions. That's the whole assignment. There's this game that's entirely about doing that, where one person asks questions and the person answering them can only say yes or no. The one asking the question gets twenty attempts, and if they can't guess what the first person is thinking about in those twenty turns, they lose. So, everybody team up. One of you pick something on the island that your partner is likely to be at least sort of familiar with, and give that a try."

Yes, Caleb was assigning a game of Twenty Questions today. Which was probably at least slightly more fun than Kanan's planned lesson of self-evaluation and trying to figure out your own weaknesses, so enjoy this, guys. This, and snickering at his hair.

[OOC: Have at!]

Comments

Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

He really has no idea why he's here doing this. But at least he was game to try?

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"I bet you didn't think you'd be doing this today," Sabine said.

The name thing was interesting, but as someone whose surname was on her records and she still hadn't introduced herself with it because she didn't want to answer questions... she got it.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

"Not even a little bit," Caleb confirmed, looking up at the -- Mandalorian! -- girl and giving her a tiny smile. "It's strange... I feel like I should be more worried about why I'm here. I have no idea, you know? But it isn't... bad?"

He'd probably needed the break anyway. Mygeeto had been rough.

"You're Sabine, right? The TA?"

He had no idea what TA meant. But it was in the notes that he'd apparently left for himself.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"That's me," she confirmed. "Here for all your helper needs."

And then she thought to ask, "Seriously, do you need help with anything?"

Because he was probably around her age but he was still a baby.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

"I... have no idea," Caleb admitted, grimacing for a moment before gesturing to where he'd been standing when addressing the class. "... How bad was it?"

The lesson. He'd never done anything quite like it before.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"You did good," Sabine said, barely holding back a "kid." Because she didn't want Kanan saying anything about it later.

Didn't matter that she was maybe like a month older than him.

"I'd tell you if you didn't."

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

For what it was worth, whatever her reason for holding back that 'kid,' Caleb appreciated it!

"Oh, good," he replied, and visibly slumped a little in relief. "I didn't really have time to come up with anything, but questions, I'm good at."

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Apparently. And you can add improvising to your list of skills," she said.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

"Not a bad thing for a future Knight to have," Caleb agreed, his expression brightening a little. "Not, uh, not that I don't have a long way to go there, of course."

He was still new. So new.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"How long do you think that'll take you?" As of right now, it was hard to picture.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

"That depends on how long the war goes on," Caleb admitted after a pause. "My training's been kind of put on hold because of it. I learn a lot in battle, but there are a lot of things to cover that we can't, while camping out with clones in the middle of nowhere."

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Well, the good news was it probably wouldn't go on too much longer. The bad news was...

Also this wasn't her first conversation the last couple days about the clones, and she figured she should stay away from that fit now.

"Do you at least use downtime for training?"

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

"What little downtime we have," Caleb agreed, nodding. "If we're not on assignment, we're healing up, you know?"

He'd basically tripped out of a bacta tank into a transport to Mygeeto, not long ago. There wasn't much downtime when you were floating half-naked in a tube full of goo.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[intotheout]

"So Caleb," Tip said, managing not to put too much extra emphasis on that name. "Bet you're going to be the only padawan at the temple with a story like this to tell, huh."

It was super weird knowing that this was Kanan pre-war. She'd honestly pictured him a lot younger doing all that (probably because her own Thing happened when she was a preteen). But she wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to learn more about the Jedi's weird cultish ways from an insider.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

Awww, he wasn't pastrami today! Kanan was going to remember that while she was giving him shit for this later, and be kind of touched at the fact that she'd remembered.

"Definitely the only Padawan with a story like this," he agreed, only scrunching his nose a little at that extra emphasis. A teeny bit. "Most of us come back from a battle and spend our downtime healing or meditating or training. I come back and I find myself teaching in another galaxy."

So, not pre-war. Mid-war. And compartmentalizing very much, thank you.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[intotheout]

Yeah, Tip noticed that. She made a mental note to tread carefully.

"Maybe this is a special sort of different training?" she suggested. "Super secret advanced padawan training."

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

That actually got a bit of a laugh out of Caleb, there.

"I doubt that," he replied, still grinning a little. "I'm definitely not a super advanced Padawan. And my Master is on the Council. I don't think there's much I can learn doing this here that she can't teach me better, herself."

He had a lot of faith in Depa Billaba.

Rightly so.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[intotheout]

"Do you ever study with any of the other masters?" Tip asked. She was used to school involving lots of different teachers -- just having one for everything seemed pretty weird. "Like, trade off for the day to learn a different meditation technique or something?"

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

"I used to," Caleb offered, shrugging. "When I was an initiate, before I was taken as Master Billaba's Padawan, the Masters would all be responsible for our education. Lightsaber techniques, meditation, history..."

He smiled a little.

"Not as much now. My Master will teach me everything I need to learn that they haven't taught me already."

And gleefully snark about half of the rest of it. Seriously, she was great.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[intotheout]

"Huh," Tip said. "So it really is like an old-timey apprenticeship. Do you follow your master around on jobs and stuff to see how she does things? Or -- okay, battles, I guess."

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

Caleb nodded his confirmation to that.

"Yeah," he replied. "I've come with her to Kardoa and to Mygeeto, now. It's been..." He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to come up with the words for it. "It's been educational."

Yeah. That.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[intotheout]

"You can say it sucked," Tip told him. "I won't tell anyone."

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

"But it didn't... suck?" That was an interesting word. Caleb was filing that one away for later. "... Not at first, anyway. At first it was just... good. I had a place, and the battles were going well. I made friends with the troopers, and we tore through a bunch of clankers, and even getting shot wasn't so bad."

... Okay, no, that part had sucked. A lot.

"I mean, I'm still here. And I'm fine. The bacta did its job, you know? And I learned a lot on Kardoa, and..."

And then Mygeeto had happened. Caleb pulled in a little breath and looked down at his feet.

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[intotheout]

Tip just opened a giant can of worms, didn't she. She grimaced sympathetically.

"You don't have to talk about it at all if you don't want," she offered. "Though -- if 'clankers' is a slur for droids I'm going to have to judge you."

Re: Talk to Caleb!

[uncertain_dume]

Caleb blinked up and tilted his head at her at that. It was confusing, but it was better than the direction the conversation had been headed otherwise.

"... Only for the ones the Separatists are trying to kill us with. It's something the clones say."

Yeah, it wasn't great. His whole galaxy had a pretty bad track record when it came to droids, overall. And clones, for that matter.