No Harm To Any Religion. It’s Just A Lamp Ads By An Australian Company. However, It’s Funny!

Gentrification creates a stifling homogeneity in urban areas that makes it less suited for the everyday lives of the lower class and more suited towards the leisure and tourism of those with expendable income.

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.

Imagine if someone totally renovated your house and turned it into a mini theme park - they took away your sleeping space, where you prepare food, where you clean yourself and get ready for your day, and replaced it with things that will please people who are visiting, who have their own homes they can go back to, who are here not for their entire life but just as a distraction from their otherwise mundane existence. It’s not that you hate theme parks, it’s not like you’ve never been to a theme park and vow to never visit one again. It’s just that you need to live! To survive! And the leisure of those who have more than you should not invalidate your existence.

After months of research and development and market testing and perfecting the first item I feel confident selling online, I have realized... that it is an incredibly niche item that only a specific subset of absolute nerds would want to buy, and I will have to do a ton of explaining the basic idea over and over again before people generally get what it is I'm even selling. RIP me

THE PLANTYFLUTESIZER

You know those anime meta posts along the lines of “I was born with pink hair. The doctors told my parents I was a Main Character and ever since my life has not known peace from demons/spirits/sports competitions/harems who find me”

Well I see that, and I raise you this:

An anime boy whose appearance is, by absolutely anyone’s account, completely and utterly average. Mundane hair. Mundane eyes. Not even glasses to set him the tiniest bit apart. A simple, unmemorable, unrecognizable civilian among a backdrop of millions.

And he has a lot of passions, and a lot of ambitions, which he hones every chance he gets. He’s dabbled in sports and archery and cooking and just about anything you could wrap a competition around. And he’s competed in many of these. Every chance he gets. With all of his passion and all of his might.

He’s crushed by the competition every single time.

Until one day–one day something clicks for him. Something that should have seemed obvious from the start and yet never was–as though everyone, including himself, was unwittingly blind to it. It clicks, when he realizes every kid who’s beaten him in competition, every kid who’s gone on to fame and glory and acclaim, has been some candy-haired gel-spiked ridiculously-dressed fucker. 

There’s some trend there that this Main Character boy can’t explain and can’t understand but he decides, this one time, fuck it. He’ll play along too. He’s got a model train competition in four days, and he’s got nothing more to lose. He hits up the department store, buys the pinkest, noxious-est, fruitiest hair dye he can find, the spikiest hair gel available, and the gaudiest clothes on the thrift rack. He enters the model train competition looking like a bubble gum gijinka.

And he wins.

Suddenly, the other candy-haired contestants notice him. They talk to him. They pledge rivalries. Girls notice him. Judges applaud him. Acclaimed model train aficionados offer him internships across the world. He’s hit on something. 

The main cast expands to cover just about every candy-hair cliche in the book: from the mostly-normal-looking demure school girl with the blue hair to the Naruto-est, yelling-est boy with the red-and-green spiked hair. The cool megane senpais, the purple haired tsunderes, suddenly everyone is interested in him. They’re prodigies and upstarts and underdogs and they truly believe that this main character boy is one of them.

So the main character boy maintains his ruse. He touches up his roots at dawn every morning and carefully attends to his gelled spikes and tells absolutely no one about this great, uncanny, unfathomable secret he’s stumbled upon. He wins his competitions left and right. He racks up the acclaim. He’s hailed as a prodigy of all trades, just now bursting onto the scene, and boils to the top of all his candy-haired peers.

He’s rising up, his every dream within his grasp. Until one day he gets a note under his door, taped to an old picture of his Normal Boring self from middle school, that says “You don’t belong”

Your church-going, God-worshipping sister adopted a small child and you’re excited to see them. But when you do, the child is a menace. They’re throwing things everywhere, setting furniture on fire with seemingly nothing, chanting in Latin to summon demons, but the weirdest thing is that your sister doesn’t seem to mind.

Omg a de-aged Obi-Wan/Jon fic. They both were de-aged to like, 14-15 and don't have their memories past that. They're trapped in a Sith Temple with Very Stressed Cody, a Confused and Concerned Rex, and Low-key Entertained and Terrified Ahsoka. Chaos, emotional pain/bonding, and stress screaming occurs

Rex feels a little like he got run over by a bantha.

“Easy, Rex,” Ahsoka says from somewhere close, and then there's a hand on his shoulder, helping as he struggles up. Rex appreciates the assistance; he feels as if his head got rung like a bell, and his body right along with it. There's no ringing in his ears, though, none of the shakiness that a concussion grenade would have left him with, and when he pries his eyes open Ahsoka looks rattled, but entirely unharmed.

“What the kriff was that?” Rex asks, putting a hand to his head. A few paces away, Cody is stirring on the stone floor, sprawled out uncomfortably, and Rex pushes up, lets Ahsoka grab his arm and steady him as he staggers over to Cody's side.

“Some old Sith trap,” she says disgustedly, and drops to her knees next to Cody, gently pulling him over onto his back. Rex crouches down as well, pulling his helmet off, and when Cody's dazed eyes flutter open, he gives him a crooked grin.

“Come on, vod,” he says. “I know your head’s hard enough to survive that.”

“Go away, Rex,” Cody says with a groan, and Rex scoffs. Before he can say anything, though, Cody's eyes fly open again, and he jerks up. “The general!”

Ahsoka turns, pointing towards the huge, heavy stone door that stands tightly shut. “Master Obi-Wan and Master Antilles threw us clear when the trap went off,” she says. “I tried to get the door open, but it won't move.”

Cody blinks for a moment, staring at the door. Then, carefully, he squints at Ahsoka, and says, “I thought Jon Antilles died on Queyta, getting the swamp gas antidote.”

Well, Rex thinks wryly. That definitely puts a new spin on Obi-Wan’s surprise when he dropped out of the rafters and sliced apart one of the half-mad native beasts that was chasing them.

Ahsoka grins. “It’s like a Temple game,” she says. “Whatever record-keeper is on duty when one of Master Antilles’s death reports comes in has to buy the rest drinks that night. I think it’s happened twelve times in the last three years.”

Jetii, Rex thinks, and rolls his eyes. Cody just looks pained.

“They're trapped in there?” he asks, climbing gingerly to his feet. “We need to get them out.”

That, Rex thinks, is an understatement. They're deep in the bowels of a Sith temple, with several dozen dangerous creatures, Sith ghosts, and a whole trap-filled maze between them and the exit. And Anakin is lost somewhere in here with them, separated early on but probably neck-deep in trouble if Rex knows anything at all about his general. They’ve got no comms, no backup, and no way out except right through the most dangerous parts of the temple.

Just another Centaxday, Rex thinks, and wonders if Fox will be willing to recommend some good ulcer medicine when the stress invariably gives him one. Or several.

“I already tried the door,” Ahsoka says, as she and Rex follow him up. “There's some kind of shield over it—I can't cut through—”

As if in response to her words, the doors shudder, creak. They bow towards Rex, Cody, and Ahsoka, like something is pushing from the inside and straining against the lock, and Cody shout a warning. He falls back, dragging Rex with him, and Rex would be offended about getting manhandled like a shiny if he wasn’t more concerned with grabbing Ahsoka and pulling her along. She eels out of his grip, though, darts in front of them and drops into a ready stance, drawing her lightsaber. The green blade ignites with a hiss just as the doors snap back to flat—

With a yelp, a flail, a flurry of cloth, two bodies pass right through the stone like it’s an illusion, tumbling out onto the floor. Behind them, something slams into the door with enough force to rattle it in its frame, and the figures scramble up, untangling themselves quickly.

Rex thinks, with a distinct sinking feeling, that he would know that red hair anywhere.

“What was that?” the teenage boy—probably sixteen at most—with Obi-Wan’s hair and accent demands. He grabs the arm of the other boy, just about the same age but completely enveloped in an oversized cloak that’s closer to green-grey than standard Jedi brown, and they scramble backwards, right into Ahsoka. She yelps, dropping her lightsaber, and all three of them go down in a tangle of curses.

Rex doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t.

“What the heck,” Cody breathes.

“Master Obi-Wan!” Ahsoka complains. “Ow, ow, you're on my lek, get off—”

Antilles scrambles up, leaping back like he just got stung, and he jerks around—

Rex catches his arm. “Sir, just wait—”

There's a wrench, a sharp, startled sound, and suddenly Rex is airborne. He yelps, hitting the ground on his back, and wheezes as all the air is knocked from his lungs. Someone hisses, and Ahsoka cries out angrily, and Cody takes a half-step forward in alarm.

And then, before anything can happen, Obi-Wan shoves himself between Antilles and the rest of them, herding the other boy back a step. “Wait!” he says loudly, and Antilles twitches, ducks his head, but doesn’t move out from behind Obi-Wan.

“Wait,” Obi-Wan says again, raising his hands, and Rex pushes up on one elbow just to take in the sheer weirdness that is Obi-Wan baby-faced and beardless, padawan braid trailing down behind his ear. “You just startled him, that’s all. He saved me from the beasts in there, he isn't an enemy. And I'm not, either.”

Ahsoka glances back at Rex as she straightens, and her expression is caught between pure bewilderment and rising horror. “Master Obi-Wan?” she asks warily. “Do you recognize me?”

“Master,” Obi-Wan repeats, bemused. “I'm sorry, you must be mistaken. I'm a padawan. I haven’t even made Knight yet, let alone Master.”

Behind him, Antilles shifts, and Rex thinks he sees him swallow. He steps forward, and when Obi-Wan turns to him in alarm, he half-raises a hand, almost touching Obi-Wan’s arm, before he hesitates and drops it.

“If you need a Knight,” he says, “I'm Knight Jon Antilles.”

Rex blinks, exchanging glances with Cody, who looks equally confused. After a moment, Rex just shrugs. He hasn’t heard of Jedi making Knight so young, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Ahsoka looks far less at ease with this information. “You're a Knight?” she demands. “But you're fifteen—”

“Sixteen,” Jon mutters, sort of shrinking back under his hood.

“—sixteen,” Ahsoka corrects without missing a beat, “and most Human Jedi don’t make Knight until they're at least twenty!”

There's a moment as Obi-Wan blinks at Ahsoka, and then he looks from her to the dropped lightsaber. “You're a Jedi,” he says in surprise. “I don’t recognize you from the crèche, though. Are you not from the Coruscant Temple?”

“Of course I'm from the Coruscant Temple,” Ahsoka says. She holds out a hand, calling her lightsaber to her, and studies Jon and Obi-Wan for a moment. “Do you…remember anything about the war?”

“War?” Jon asks, quietly alarmed. He steps forward—

Obi-Wan catches his arm, pulling Jon back to his side, and says, “Which war? Were we called out to negotiate? But why would two padawans be sent?”

“My Master is somewhere in this place,” Ahsoka says, and it’s a sidestep worthy of Obi-Wan. “We need to find him, but the only way back up to the main part is through that door.”

Jon and Obi-Wan glance back at it just as something hits it from the inside again, making it shudder. Obi-Wan’s expression firms into bloody stubbornness and he reaches for the lightsaber on his belt, but before he can draw it, Jon catches his arm.

“Have you tried communicating with them?” he asks softly, glancing at the doors. They shake again, and he hesitates, then says, “They have minds, beneath the rage and darkness. I can feel it.”

“They were a little too busy trying to eat us for us to try that,” Ahsoka says, watching him. “You think you can manage it? Even with how angry they are?”

“He can if we help him,” Obi-Wan says, hope rising in his tone. “The three of us together should be strong enough to influence them.” A smile breaking across his face, he turns his hand, catching Jon's arm, and says, “Let us help, Jon.”

Jon stares at him for a long moment, eyes wide beneath the shadow of his hood, and then very deliberately ducks his head so it hides him completely. He doesn’t answer, just jerks his head in a quick nod, but Rex can practically feel the rising heat of a blush. And, judging by the way Ahsoka's brows are rising, that’s not the only thing to feel.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, wow. Mas—Obi-Wan? He’s your type? But everyone in the Archives always talks about how you and Jango Fett—”

“What,” Jon says blankly.

“What,” Cody says, at twice his normal volume.

“I'm everyone’s type,” Obi-Wan says, miffed. “And I certainly don’t know anything about Jango Fett, but whoever he is—”

“Wait, wait,” Rex says, more plea than anything, and raises his hands. If this goes on for much longer, Jon is going to dissolve into a puddle of sheer embarrassment behind Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, and since he’s got an idea how to get them out of here, Rex has a vested interest in not letting that happen. “We need to focus. Sir—Knight Antilles, can you really get those animals to let us through?”

“Yes,” Jon says, apparently relieved to escape the previous topic. “I—”

“We’re helping,” Obi-Wan says firmly, and tugs Jon a step closer to him. Jon looks a little like a deer in the lights of an oncoming transport, but he allows it without flipping Obi-Wan over his shoulder and slamming him into the ground. Not that Rex is annoyed about that. Much.

“Okay,” Jon says, almost soundless, and when Obi-Wan smiles at him he twitches like he wants to bolt.

Cody rubs a hand over his eyes and mutters to himself, which is the equivalent of anyone else beating their head against a wall while swearing. “We need to find General Skywalker as soon as possible,” he says. “Ahsoka—”

Ahsoka rolls her eyes, but heads for Obi-Wan and Jon, grabbing them both by the neck of their robes. “I'm the same age as my Grandmaster and I'm stuck in an old Sith temple with my Master missing, a legendary Jedi Master tripping over his own feet whenever my Grandmaster smiles at him, and no good way out. This is fine.”

Ahsoka, Rex reflects, has been learning far, far too much from Anakin. It’s mildly horrifying.

Jon makes a low, offended sound, but lets her steer him. “You're like Knol,” he says, as if this is some damning indictment of her character.

“Master Ven’nari?” Ahsoka says, suddenly far more interested. “Can't she breathe fire?”

Jon pauses, clearly caught off guard by this unexpected response, and gives her a wary look. He doesn’t answer, which is probably for the better. At least as far as Rex's stress levels are concerned.

“Beasts,” Rex says firmly. Ahsoka doesn’t need the ability to breathe fire. Rex doesn’t need Ahsoka with the ability to breathe fire. Not in the least.

“Who even are you?” Obi-Wan asks, cuttingly polite as he eyes them. “Planetary officials?”

“Soldiers,” Cody says. “Your soldiers. We serve the Jedi.”

Another traded glance between Jon and Obi-Wan, this time bewildered.

“Oh,” Jon says, soft. “You're not twins, you're clones.”

Cody very clearly makes the decision not to ask how he knows. “We are,” he agrees. “It’s our duty to get you out of here safely—”

From the look on Obi-Wan’s face, incredibly unimpressed and vaguely offended, this goes over with his general at sixteen about as well as it does at thirty-six. Jon doesn’t look all that much more convinced, either.

Ahsoka snickers, because she’s terrible. “We’ll get them out, too,” she tells Obi-Wan soothingly, and Obi-Wan snorts softly.

“We’d better,” he says, and turns, giving Jon a bright smile. “Are you ready, Jon?”

Jon stares at him for a moment, and then very carefully, very deliberately, he slides his hands out of the enveloping shadow of his cloak and offers them up. He’s not wearing the gloves he had on as an adult, and Rex can see Obi-Wan’s eyes lingering on the scarred skin for an instant before he reaches out, wrapping his fingers around Jon's.

“And what am I? Bantha fodder?” Ahsoka asks, unimpressed, and drops a hand on top of theirs, making them both startle.

“Ah, young love,” Rex murmurs, trying not to grin, and Cody groans.

“Can you knock me out again?” he asks.

Rex would, but the doors are opening, the Jedi are doing something, and there’s a big, ugly feline with long teeth bearing down on them, so he has slightly more important things to worry about at the moment.

[On AO3]

إنسانية 🕊️

‏نزعت الخطاف من فم احد القروش وعند مشاهدة القروش الاخرى لذلك صارت القروش تأتي لنفس المكان لنزع الخطاف من فمها علما ان هذه القروش لا تحب ان يلمسها احد.

هذا في البهاما والغواصة ،خلال الـ 15 سنة الماضية ، أزالت 250 خطاف.

How cute :D

for the first of my new audios, @reparo-live-soul​ sent me this comic by @dakt37​, from an AU where Obi-wan has somehow been de-aged to younger than he was in TPM

keep the requests coming! I wouldn’t want these new audios to be in short supply!

Can you imagine how many people. Jedi and Vode, who'd be drawing up plans to hunt down Dark Woman if Jon got de-aged (sans older memories, at least at first)? Like, this tiny terrified 8-10 (tiny for his age of course) year old who ALREADY HAS SOME OF HIS WORSE SCARS and /flinches/ but tries to puff himself up like a cornered kitten, and he doesn't kno who any of these people are and there's Jedi but they aren't anything like his Master and people keep slipping him bits of food?

“Cody,” Obi-Wan says, and there's a note of contained panic in his voice that has never boded well for Cody's steady increase in grey hairs. “How far out are you?”

Kriff. There’s no good reason for that question, especially when Obi-Wan was just supposed to be on an exploratory mission in the forest here. Something about the Force, and resonance, and Ventress vanishing into this place and not being seen since, but—Cody will admit some of the more Force-related things went right over his head when Anakin and Obi-Wan were talking about it.

“Five minutes, sir,” he promises, and jerks his head at Waxer. With a grimace, Waxer waves the rest of the squad on faster, then gets on the comm, probably to Anakin or Rex.

“Oh, good.” Obi-Wan sounds exhausted, and worry prickles down Cody's spine. “If I could ask it of you, Commander, try not to look…alarming when you approach.”

Well, Cody thinks with a sinking feeling. He’s probably being held hostage. Or he tripped over some previously undiscovered natives and is trying to broker a peace deal with them despite a language barrier and having grievously offended their queen. That’s just about how this day—how Obi-Wan’s life—is going.

“Sir?” Waxer asks, and Cody makes a couple of rapid calculations and tips his head.

“You're with me,” he says, because Waxer is one of the nicest people he knows, and that carries through in his mannerisms. And…well. Cody doesn’t particularly want to include Shank, but if Obi-Wan is hurt, they’ll need him. “Grab Shank. And Boil.” Because Boil at least won't let anything happen to Waxer, and Shank can take care of himself, which leaves Cody to protect Obi-Wan if things go south. When things go south.

“Oh no,” Waxer says, with rather more good humor than Cody is capable of. “What did the general get himself into now?”

What hasn’t the general gotten himself into, Cody thinks is the better question. He sighs a little, and Waxer laughs at him, then gestures for the rest of the unit to hang back as they approach a moss-covered bank. A moment later, Boil and Shank are both pushing through the ranks, falling in behind them, and Cody pauses just long enough to give them both a look.

“General said to come in as non-threatening as we can,” he warns. Shank probably makes a face at him. He knows Boil rolls his eyes, because Waxer elbows him like he’s a shiny and not Cody's second-in-command. But—that’s their dynamic. Cody's keeping his nose out of it.

“Come on,” he says, resigned, and shoulders his blaster, climbing up the soft bank and over the lip of it. Narrow, leaning trees form a natural arch, and Cody steps through it, then down a rough, green-filmed set of stone steps into a small hollow. He catches sight of his general immediately; Obi-Wan is seated on a fallen log that’s sprouting ferns, facing away from them. His head is ducked, and Cody can hear his voice, pitched low and soothing. A new pathetic lifeform acquired, to paraphrase Anakin, Cody assumes with a flicker of relief that bleeds into amusement.

“General Kenobi?” he asks, and Obi-Wan lifts his head. Glances back, his own relief filling his face, and then rises to his feet with far more care than normal. Cody can practically hear Shank come to attention, but before he can bull his way forward and demand to see to the general’s health, Obi-Wan turns.

There's a child with him.

Cody doesn’t quite falter, but it’s a near thing. The general has a little boy with him, Human or near-Human, with dark hair and pale eyes and a wide scar across one cheek. He’s wrapped in a robe that’s too dark to be Obi-Wan’s, and he’s small. Cody's got a skewed sense of ages, given how quickly the clones age, but this kid can't be more than eight.

He’s also not clinging to Obi-Wan, which is strange. Any other kid, seeing four big, armed men in faceless armor approaching, would hide behind the nearest familiar adult. This one doesn’t, though; his eyes dart to them, widen, but he holds himself stock-still, one polite step away from Obi-Wan, without even trying to touch.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan says, and he’s more relieved to see Cody now than he usually is in the middle of a firefight. Cody raises a brow, but comes to a halt and nods.

“General,” he says. “Having fun, sir?”

The curl of Obi-Wan’s mouth is rueful. “Always, Cody. But I believe I figured out what happened to Ventress, given that it almost happened to me.”

“Sir?” Cody asks, alarmed, and Obi-Wan quickly raises his hands. The kid flinches, immediate and instinctive, and then freezes, and Obi-Wan does too. He eyes the kid sidelong, then takes a strained breath, lowers his hands, and gives Cody a strained smile.

“I'm fine,” he says, and unlike in most cases, Cody is almost inclined to believe him this time. “Master Antilles saved me before the—the beings here could take exception to my poking around.”

Cody blinks. He wasn’t aware of any other Jedi in the area, and that’s generally the kind of information that crosses his desk. “Antilles?” he asks. If there's a general by that name, he’s never encountered a reference to them before.

With a faint grimace, Obi-Wan takes a step back, then slowly, deliberately drops a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Jedi Master Jon Antilles,” he says formally, and then his mouth twists. “Or, well. He was. I believe this is the initiate version.”

“Padawan,” the kid says, so soft it’s hardly even audible. When Obi-Wan glances at him, he ducks his head and says, “Sorry, Master.”

“That’s quite all right, Jon,” Obi-Wan says gently, though Cody can see a trace of something in his face that means things are wrong here and he doesn’t like them. “Thank you for correcting me.”

Jon doesn’t so much as lift his head. If anything, he ducks it further, practically sinking into his massively oversized robe, and doesn’t say anything.

There's a look on his face, though, something Cody recognizes. Just a flicker of it, but—

It’s strange, to see a brother’s expression of a Jedi.

Slowly, deliberately, Cody sinks down to one knee in front of the kid, reaching up to catch his helmet. He pulls it off, then rests it on the ground beside him, and gives the boy his best smile. “Hey,” he says. “I'm Cody. Jon's not your name, is it?”

Quickly, the kid shakes his head, and Cody can hear Obi-Wan’s breath catch in alarm. He doesn’t look up, doesn’t waver, just watches the kid’s eyes trace over his own scar, his armor, his lax hand where it rests on his knee.

“No, sir,” the kid finally says. “I don’t have a name. If I had one, I’d own myself, and Jedi don’t own anything.”

Obi-Wan is a good diplomat, with hardly any tells, but over the months of the war Cody has learned to read him. He can see the faint tensing of his shoulders, can hear the indrawn breath, the way his fingers twitch with barely-contained anger. Not a normal Jedi thing, then.

“That makes sense,” Cody says evenly, and it does, in a terrible kind of way. It’s looking at names the way a clone does, but denying a sense of self rather than embracing it. “Is it all right if we call you Jon, though?”

The kid pauses, like he’s weighing his response, and then nods solemnly. Cody smiles at him, holding out a hand like he would with another clone, and when Jon gives it a curious glance, Cody says, “It’s a Mandalorian greeting. You clasp my wrist, and I clasp yours, and that means we’re allies.”

“Oh,” Jon says, and carefully, tentatively slides a hand out of the pile of robe around him. There are more scars on his arm, pale but not yet faded, and Cody breathes in, keeps his emotions as steady as possible and buries the flicker of rage deep down. He takes Jon's hand instead, gripping his thin wrist, and then rises to his feet.

“It’s a long walk back to the camp,” he says, and when Jon looks up at him, ghost-pale eyes in the gloom, he gives him a grin. “Want to hitch a ride with me, Jon?”

Jon's gaze flickers from Cody to Obi-Wan and then over to Waxer, Boil, and Shank, still waiting at the top of the hill. “I can walk,” he says carefully.

“I know,” Cody says without hesitation. “But I’d like to carry you, if you're okay with that.”

It takes another moment of consideration, another wary glance, but Jon finally nods. Cody leans down, and says, “Thank you. All right, put your arms around my neck.”

Jon does so, still cautious, and Cody gently wraps an arm around his thighs, hauls him up, and he’s small and light and completely swallowed by the robe he must have worn as an adult. As soon as Cody has a solid grip on him, he buries his face in Cody's neck, and there's a fine tremor running through him, a whispered mantra that Cody can only just hear. A Jedi mantra, and his heart kicks behind his ribs as he curls a hand over Jon's back, holding him firmly.

“Hey,” he says softly. “It’s okay. We’re allies now, right? Nothing will happen to you with us. General Kenobi looks out for the people around him.”

There's a long pause, and then a breath. “Master says I need to not be afraid,” Jon says miserably.

“Jon,” Obi-Wan says, then picks up Cody's helmet and steps around him to face Jon squarely. There's a smile on his face, and he reaches out, tugs the oversized hood up and over Jon's head. “Your Master is a well-respected woman, but she is in seclusion right now, so I’ll be taking over your training. At least for the time being. Is that all right?”

There's no sound, no visible reaction, but Cody can feel something like relief ease through Jon. “Okay, Master Kenobi,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

“No, Jon. Thank you,” Obi-Wan says, and puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You may not remember it, but you saved my life.”

Jon ducks his head again, hiding under his hood, but this seems like it’s more embarrassment than uncertainty, so Cody chuckles. He hitches Jon up a little higher, then says, “Ready to head back when you are, sir.”

“Thank you, Cody.” The truth of it is in Obi-Wan’s eyes, relief and chagrin. “I believe I need to comm the council as soon as we return. This place is…certainly unique. And they’ll need to know that the reports of Jon Antilles’s death was incorrect. Again.”

There’s definitely a story there. Cody snorts, but trails his general up the hill, to where Shank is practically vibrating and Waxer is speaking into his comm, every line of his body looking deeply concerned.

“Waxer?” Cody asks, that sinking sensation deciding to reassert itself.

“Sorry, sir,” Waxer says, chagrined. “But…Captain Rex says General Agen Kolar just showed up at camp with Ventress. But she’s a padawan. A Jedi padawan.”

Oh.

Cody slants a glance at Obi-Wan, who looks very, very tired. “I will most definitely comm the council,” he says ruefully. “All right, off we go.”

The head resting against his throat turns, just a little, and Cody breathes out, presses a hand to his back. “Just a little further,” he tells Jon, and tips his head at Shank. Shank’s not exactly good with kids, but he’ll figure out what to do. “Then we’ll get you checked over and find some clothes that fit you, all right, Jon?”

“Okay,” Jon says quietly, and small fingers curl against Cody's armor. “Can—can I call you Cody?”

“Of course you can,” Cody says firmly, and follows his general out of the hollow, Jedi padawan on his hip.

[On AO3]