Archive of Our Own ^beta

There's a dog that hangs around the Young, begging for their meager scraps and access to the catacombs the Young have claimed as their base on especially cold nights. She’s nicer than most of the strays that run loose on the streets of Melida/Dann, letting the Young pet her if they approach slowly. She’s some kind of working dog, medium sized with a short brindle patterned coat. Some enterprising children had cautiously identified her as an Alderaanian Nerf-Hound, and another had named her “Tuber” for the way she was always covered in dirt or mud like the starchy vegetable. At first Cerasi, Nield, and the other kids pushed for Tuber to be driven off despite the protests of the youngest of the Young, she took up more resources than they could really afford. Then she alerted them to a Melida patrol before anyone could be hurt, another time Tuber sought out a trio of the young that had gotten lost in the tunnels and led them back to the others. Over and over again Tuber demonstrated the value of keeping her around and the Young slowly learned the signals and commands her old owner had taught her - a spacer or a bounty hunter that had accidentally left her behind by the looks of it.

By the time Obi-Wan Kenobi arrives on Melida/Dann and joins the Young’s crusade for peace Tuber is a vital and longstanding member of their child army. The Nerf-Hound latches onto him near instantly and the rest of the Young are quick to teach him the commands Tuber responds to and the best spots to scratch her (behind the ears and under her chin). Obi-Wan is just as quick as the Young to pick up the commands and signals for Tuber and starts training her for other tasks as well. They’re a useful patrol and scouting pair, with Obi-Wan's force abilities and Tubers hearing and sense of smell they can find supplies that a whole squad of the Young would have missed.

A few months after Qui-Gon Jinn left his padawan behind rather than face what he believed to be an unwinnable war the Young obtain their ceasefire. All the weapons have been confiscated from both the Young and the Elders with the exception of small personal defense knives and Obi-Wan patrols regularly with Tuber and the security patrol which he had been appointed leader of to ensure things stay peaceful. The civil war that has plagued Melida/Daan is practically over - the people of the planet only waiting for a Republic representative to help them form and document a lasting peace and establish their new government.

Obi-Wan and Tuber are on their way back from a solo patrol when they run into unexpected trouble. The two of them are rounding the collapsed pillar that acts as the landmark to the end of their route when Tuber boofs quietly from where she trots beside him. It's the danger signal that she's been trained to use - alerting her handler that there's something nearby that may be a threat. He’s instantly on alert, crouching in the scant cover provided by the crumbled duracrete pillar. Tuber joins him and hunkers down - it's the best cover to be had in this part of Zehava. She boofs again and then starts a low rumbly growl. Obi-Wan tracks where she's looking even as he gestures in the nonverbal signal that tells Tuber to be silent. The other Young security patrol he’d planned isn’t due in this area for another hour or two and the silhouettes he sees against the late-afternoon sun are far too large to belong to children regardless. This part of Zehava is supposed to be uninhabited now that the Young have mostly moved out of the tunnel system they used during the war and into the many abandoned buildings and homes in the less battered parts of the city.

Whoever the silhouettes against the horizon are, they went to a lot of trouble to keep their meeting from being noticed. The spot they’re loitering in is partially sheltered by the rubble and Obi-Wan knows he wouldn’t have noticed them at all if Tuber hadn’t alerted him to their presence. It’s clear that he needs to get close enough to identify who these people are and what they’re meeting for.

Tuber follows him as he slowly picks his way through the rubble. Obi-Wan is glad of the company and grateful that Tuber is there to watch his back. Still, he and Tuber are getting too close to where the adults have set up camp and he doesn’t want to risk her getting caught if the long afternoon shadows and her neutral colored coat aren’t enough camouflage in this last stretch of open ground.

Obi-Wan clicks his tongue twice, quietly drawing Tuber’s attention to him and signals with his hand open and his palm facing her letting her know to stay. Whatever spacer lost her on this planet trained her well and the Young were quick to capitalize upon that. She lays flat to the ground the moment she sees the gesture and Obi-Wan takes the opportunity to tighten the dust grey scarf that he wears on these patrol missions to cover his distinctive red hair - as deadly a giveaway as a flare in the nearly monochrome cityscape.

It’s easy to keep creeping through the shadows. All of the Young, Obi-Wan included, have developed the ability to pass unseen and unheard out of necessity. The looming dusk and the low chatter the adults are keeping up makes it far too easy to close in on the group, human eyes aren’t meant to operate in half light and Obi-Wan is confident in his ability to keep creeping forward without being seen. Moving quick and quiet Obi-Wan scampers along the outside of the low wall the adults are using as a boundary for their small camp and peaks his head out past the bottom edge and has to stifle a gasp. Upon first seeing the group he had assumed that they were all adults and therefore members of the Elders that were planning on reviving hostilities but now that he’s right on the edge of their meeting place Obi-Wan can see children in the group as well.

Mawat, leader of the Scavenger Young, is distributing weapons to the group of Elders, both Melida and Daan, as he outlines a plan to shatter the tentative peace that the Young had spent months bleeding and dying for. Obi-Wan wants to scream in rage or burst out of cover to stop this plot before it can even start, but he’s only one person and has no hope of winning this fight right now - it's more important that he gets the information he now has back to Cerasi, Nield, and his security team so they can plan how to stop it.

He stays still in the growing shadows as Mawat and his group of instigators plan their attack making sure to note all the particulars of the plan - when, where, and how - and then slips away into the night before he can be caught and they capture or kill him and alter their plan. He has a war to stop - again.