Chapter Text
Manda'yaim, 14ArS
Plo was excited about this trip to Mandalore. He hadn't been to the planet in a half a decade, and he was excited to see how the plant had further transformed under Master Kenobi's guidance. Also, his padawan, Ahsoka, had never visited the planet. Though she was of the first generation of padawans to spend even part of their initiate familiar with the presence of Mandalorian Guards in the temple, she hadn't visited the homeworld of the clones that the younger initiates called "ori'vode."
And Plo had a few friends here too. With the Mandalorians focused on their war with the Hutts over the last few years, he'd had precious few opportunities to see them. Plo crinkled his eyes to show his happiness at finding Wolffe among the Mandalorians awaiting their arrival at the spaceport. as Mace and a few other Jedi approached Master Kenobi for a (presumably) more formal greeting, Plo led Ahsoka to the side to meet Wolffe instead.
"Master Plo," Wolffe said in greeting, tugging his buy'ce off so Plo could see his smile. "Nice to see you again."
"And you as well, Wolffe," Plo aid warmly. He gestured to Ahsoka, who was standing close to his side, eyes wide and curious as she took in the Keldabe spaceport. "This is my padawan, Ahsoka Tano. Ahsoka, this is General Wolffe."
Wolffe barked a laugh as he nodded a greeting to Ahsoka. "War's over sir," he said. "I'm not a general anymore.
Plo was about to ask Wolffe how peacetime was treating him, when he felt Ahsoka's hungry-sheepish nudge in the Force. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Wolffe, I don't suppose we could impose on you to guide us to a good place to find mid-meal?"
Wolffe noticed the hand on Ahsoka's shoulder, and smiled. "'Course, what did you have in mind?"
Plo nudged Ahsoka. "Roasted shatual?" she said hopefully. "Warden Ponds talks about it a lot."
Wolffe's smile quirked at Ponds's title, but he nodded easily. "I just so happen to know the best roasted shatual stand in the city," he said, and led them on into Keldabe.
Plo found the Mand'alor's ceremony to be fascinating. He'd been to his fair share of political events throughout his career, and even a dozen or so that he'd classify as "coronation"-type events, like this one. This wasn't the strangest, nor the most boring. He (and all the Jedi near him) perked to attention when the darksaber was ignited, and he wondered if there was a way to examine the blade more closely, or even spar against it, without inciting a political incident. He couldn't help but feel warmed at the outpouring of support for Jango Fett that he felt in the audience, especially remembering the strange and somewhat fraught origin the clones in the crowd had with Fett.
As Fett gave up the stage, conceding to the chanting Mandalorians ("Mand'alor te Buir!" they continued to chant, even as Fett and Master Kenobi and Jaster Mereel had already left), the Jedi in attendance started shuffling, waiting to file out of the stadium.
"What were they saying?" Depa's young padawan, Caleb, asked Mace.
"Mand'alor the Father," Mace replied.
Depa grinned. "Seems appropriate," she admitted.
There was a roar from above, and the Jedi all looked up to see a teenager descend with his jetpack, landing only slightly clumsily in front of them.
"Hello, Boba," Mace greeted. Boba Fett, Plo remembered, Jango's first son.
"Hey. Buir says you're invited to the feast, if you want," he said, sounding more bored than anything. Plo absently spared a moment of dread for the day when Ahsoka reached that age of burdensome apathy that all adolescents seemed to go through.
Mace shot a look at a few of the gatherd Jedi, who nodded back to him, then he nodded back to Boba. "We'll be honored to be there," he replied.
"Okay," Boba responded. He must not have cut off his external comm right away, because as he started lifting off again, Plo heard him say, "Well, tell Skywalker to wait before-"
Someone, probably Master Kenobi, must have spoken to Mace about the feast, as he led their group of confidently through the city. All of Keldabe was expected to celebrate long into the night. Of the hundreds of Jedi that Jaster Mereel had invited to the event, Mace had allowed only a couple dozen to attend. Those who already had friends in the city had made their own plans, leaving perhaps a dozen to attend the Manda'lor's feast - Mace, Depa, Caleb, Plo, Ahsoka, Ki Adi Mundi, and a handful of younger knights, some with padawans of their own. Mace had brought them along because their training or backgrounds made them likely to be taking many missions in the territory of the new Mandalorian Federation, so he'd wanted them to get some more direct familiarity with Mandalorians themselves.
Soon enough, they were entering a large stone hall, only a few blocks away from the recruitment office that Plo was familiar with.
"Mace!" Jaster Mereel called, arms open in greeting. "You found us”! He walked up to the entrance and ushered the Jedi inside, smile warm. "Come in, everyone's still making their way over, but they'll have food out soon. How's everyone's spice level, are we excited?" Plo shoved aside the spark of amusement at Ki Adi Mundi's pinched expression, instead focusing on Ahsoka's own excited one. "And welcome ad'ike, welcome padawans," he said, focusing on the youngest members of the group. “Come with me.” Jaster led them over to one of the long tables set up in the hall, currently occupied by younger Mandalorians (many of them clones, who looked somewhat disgruntled.) “We thought you'd have more fun if you didn't have to put up with the boring old people all night."
"Welcome to the kids table," said one boy drily. Plo spared him a second glance - he didn't appear Mandalorian, no armor or clan colors, and he shone like supernova in the Force.
"Shut up, Skywalker, you belong here," Boba snapped.
Ah, so this was Anakin Skywalker. Plo had heard about him from Qui-Gon and Aayla. (Speaking of Aayla, Plo saw her across the hall already sitting with a few Mandalorians, one of the doubtless the Agricorps corpsman she visited on Tatooine.)
While Boba and Anakin continued bickering (the slightly older clone between them looked resigned) Plo was distracted by a commotion as several of the younger padawans recognized Guard Seventeen also sitting at the table. With Caleb in the lead, they rushed to get the closest seats to him, already peppering him with questions about his latest mission.
“Is Qui-Gon here?” Ki Adi Mundi asked, looking around.
“He’s already at your table,” Jaster said, and started leading the Jedi further into the hall.
Plo turned to Ahsoka. “Will you be alright here?” He asked. She was a bit older than the other padawans, and he worried that she’d feel left out.
“Come over here, jet’ika,” one of the clones sitting near to Skywalker called, waiving Ahsoka over. “We want to see if Ponds and the others are teaching you lot to handle your spice.”
Ahsoka grinned, showing off her predator’s sharp canines. “I’ll be just fine, master,” she said sweetly, then sat down at the table, eying the plate of relished peppers sitting in the middle of the group.
Chuckling, Plo caught up with his group, and soon found himself sitting at table with Depa on one side, and Duke Kryze on the other.
The Jedi commissary had started offering Mandaloran dishes on occasion, in deference to the number of Mandalorian guards based in the temple, and so Plo was already familiar with several of the offerings. Not all Jedi had taken advantage of the opportunity for early testing, though, and so Plo was delighted to witness Ki Adi Mundi's first experience with Mandalorian spices. The Cerean's face as he tried the spoonful of tiingilar wore his typical aloof expression, which instantly transformed to alarmed pain. When the dignified (sometimes overly so, Plo though) Jedi impulsively bent his head forward and let the food fall back out of his mouth to land back in the bowl, Qui Gon and Depa laughed. Plo mostly got away with a chuckle that he quickly transformed into a cough.
Ki Adi looked rightfully embarrassed, and turned to Duke Kryze (the closest Mandalorian to his seat). "My apologies, your Grace," he said, bowing his head. "I did not take the warnings seriously enough."
The Duke smiled broadly, but kindly, and reassured the Jedi that his response was not as uncommon for first-timers as he might think. The Duke then smoothly turned the conversation to a discussion of the ways Mandalorian culture and spice impacted each other. When he mentioned that daring friends to spicy peppers was a common activity among the young at feasts, Plo (and several of the other Jedi) craned their heads to get a view of their padawans at the "kid's table."
"Don't worry, the older ones won't let things get out of hand," Duke Kryze assured them. Plo saw Ahsoka leaning over the table, a fierce and determined grin on her face, as she held up a skinny red pepper tauntingly in front of Skywalker's face, before popping the whole thing into her mouth with an exaggerated bite. The clones next to Skywalker cheered.
A ways down the long table, Caleb was frantically gulping blue milk as Seventeen shook his head. Plot noted that Seventeen was entirely surrounded by Jedi padawans. Padawan Amarant leaned across Caleb, waiving his own pepper towards Seventeen, clearly seeking approval. The clone just looked mildly confused and overwhelmed.
Qui-Gon chuckled, then got up from the table and walked across the hall. He leaned down to speak to the Mandalorian closest to Seveneen, who grinned and nodded, before getting up and giving Qui-Gon his seat. The Mandalorian (as he drew closer, Plo recognized him as another clone), came up to their table, and sat down in Qui-Gon's abandoned seat.
"Hi," he said brightly. "Master Jinn said the kid's table looked like more fun. What are we talking about?"
Duke Kryze sighed, but was still smiling. "Everyone, may I introduce you to Maze Fett, of Clan Mereel? I'll warn you, no matter whatever we were talking about, we'll be talking about politics very soon."
Maze waived the Duke off, laughing, but was quickly drawn into a conversation with the knight next to him, whom Plo knew worked in the Senate Relations office.
The conversation continued to flow from there. Over the course of the next hour or two, as people finished eating, they started mingling among the tables more. By the time some of the younger Mandalorians started dragging empty tables away from the center of the room (to make way for duels, apparently), Duke Kryze had been replaced by his daughter Satine and Master Kenobi, Maze and a few of the knights had shifted to another table, heads bent close in what had become a rather intense political debate, and a few former Jedi Guards had joined the table, catching up on how knights they'd known and worked with were doing.
Satine Kryze was discussing the challenges she'd run into with one of her relief programs, focused on refugees on the former Hutt planets now under Mandalorian protection, when she caught site of something across the hall. She was looking over Plo’s shoulder, so he didn't know what she'd seen, but there was a spark of fury in her Force signatrue, before she plastered a polite smile on her face. "Excuse me," she said to the table. "There's a matter I must see to." Master Kenobi's eyes tracked across the hall, and widened slightly.
"I must admit, Master Kenobi-“ Depa started, before the Agricorps master waived her away.
"I insist you call me Obi-Wan," he said. "At this point, we've shared nearly a full bottle of papuur'gal, it turns out that your padawan hangs on the every word of a man who - while he's refused our offers of adoption - still has his packages delivered to our house, and your master is currently off getting drunk with my father-in-law. We are friends." Plo looked around, and suddenly noticed that Mace was no longer at the table. How long ago had he left? What was in that papuur'gal?
"Alright, Obi-Wan," Depa responded. “I was hoping Knight Tarak-“
Ki Adi mumbled something about Laranth Tarak being a former knight, but Depa ignored him.
“-would be here tonight. I’d love to pick her brain about the way she’s been training the Force sensitive Mandalorians.” Plo perked up, also interested in the Force sensitive clones, but watched Obi-Wan carefully to see if the topic made him uncomfortable. The Agricorps master just smiled, and seemed wholly calm in the Force.
“One of the things I noticed when I ran into a squad of them last year was their teamwork. It occurs to me that Tarak may be actually training them to use the Force in tandem, unlike the Jedi order which focuses on individual action.” She nodded to Obi-Wan grinning, “Excepting the Agricorps, of course, which makes fine use of tandem Force use.” Obi-Wan nodded in acceptance, chuckling.
“She’s not at this feast, no,” Obi-Wan said. “She’s hosting her own party back at the academy, actually, for some of the students and their families who travelled here from outside Keldabe.”
A crowd cheered behind them. Plo turned in his chair to see that two Mandalorians in a sparring circle had taken their helmets off and were now… kissing?
“The first marriage of the night,” Obi-Wan said, somewhat long-suffering. “I’ll warn you,” he said to Depa and Plo, “that things will only get more rowdy from here. Jaster ordered enough alcohol to flood the building, and more and more of the duels will either turn into more serious fights, or marriage proposals.
Plo blinked.
“Perhaps we should send the padawans back to the ships for the night…” Depa suggested, craning her head around to find Caleb.
“You could ask Seventeen to lead them back,” Obi-Wan suggested, smiling mischievously. “Then, if you’re interested, I could take you out to the academy, you could speak with Laranth there?”
Behind them, the next fight tumbled into a nearby table, knocking over a chair. There was another cheer, and Plo could hear many young padawan voices among them. A few of the younger knights had stopped listening to the conversation, becoming more and more interested in the fights.
“That sounds like a good plan to me,” he said. Depa nodded in agreement.
Ki Adi held up a hand. “I don’t believe I’ll join you,” he said. “I think I will return to the ships with the padawans, and meditate before bed.”
Most of the padawans were engrossed in the duels and soaking up the attention from Seventeen (who, Plo noted to himself, had had plenty of opportunities to leave the padawans behind tonight, and yet was still sitting at the table with them, even letting Qui-Gon egg them on), but it was nearing midnight, and he saw several of them trying to hide yawns. So when Ki Adi told them that he would be escorting them back to the ships to get some sleep, there weren’t as many protests as Plo might have expected.
Except for his own padawan, that was. Ahsoka was holding the hand of a blonde clone across the table from her, an intense look on her face.
“What are you doing?” Plo asked her curiously, leaving Depa and Ki Ade to round up the younger padawans.
“It’s a thumb wrestling competition, master,” Ahsoka said, angling her hand at the same time the clone went to twist his in the opposite direction. Now that she mentioned it, Plo noticed that each of their thumbs were free, and were moving about wildly (to try and “catch” the other’s thumb?)
“We’ve already done arm wrestling,” Ahsoka continued, bending to the left - for all that the contest was between two small digits, Ahsoka and her opponent kept instinctively moving their shoulders and torsos to shadow the match in a way that was amusing to watch. And Plo was apparently not alone in this, as there was a crowd of other clones (and Skywalker) gathered around to watch - “and we ate all the hot peppers. And I’m not old enough for a drinking competition-“
“That’s right, you’re not,” the blond clone agreed quickly, then jerked forward as his thumb made an attempt to pin Ahsoka’s, but she twisted to avoid it.
“-so now it’s thumb wrestling.”
“And what do you hope to prove?” Plo asked.
“Well,” Ahsoka said, never taking her eyes off the the thumbs, angling around like praying mantises, “Rex already beat Sky-guy over here in their thumb wrestle. So if I beat Rex, then I’ll be the champ. Just like Rex was the arm wrestling and pepper-eating champ.”
Skywalker scowled.
“Don’t worry,” Boba crooned from over Anakin’s shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll find something you can win. Building sandcastles maybe?”
Skywalker snarled, and twisted to face Boba, but Cody beat him to it, leaning over to flick Boba on the ear like a misbehaving massiff.
“Be nice,” Cody said firmly, then his attention was pulled away by Obi-Wan.
“I’d like to see you try and make a sand-castle,” Skywalker said to Boba. “You’d probably suck at it.”
“No claws, Ahsoka,” Rex snapped, bringing Plo’s attention back to them.
“I don’t have claws, sleemo,” Ahsoka growled, leaning forward to give herself better leverage.
“Don’t be snippy, padawan,” Plo said, well aware of how Ahsoka got when there was a competition on the line. Skywalker barked a laugh, muttering “snippy” under his breath.
“Master Ki Adi is taking the younger padawans back to the ship for the night,” Plo said, hoping that Ahsoka would at least give him some attention. “And Master Depa and I are leaving with Master Obi-Wan to visit the Force academy outside the city.”
“Can I stay here with Master Mace?” Ahsoka asked, still focusing on the thumb wrestle.
“Master Mace already left with Ser Mereel,” Plo said. Ahsoka blinked, surprised, and that was all Rex needed. He twisted his hand and jerked it quickly, catching Ahsoka’s thumb under his. Another clone to Rex’s right jumped up, surprised, and dramatically counted out “Solas! T’ad! Ehn!” and then waived his hand to indicate the match was over.
Ahsoka slumped, defeated, while Rex raised his arms in triumph, cheered on by the surrounding clones.
Ahsoka picked her head up and turned to Skywalker. “What is he bad at?” she asked plaintively.
“Padawan,” Plo said, gently insistent. She turned around in her seat to face him.
“Master, can I stay longer? Even just until the other knights leave?” Plo followed her gaze to see that a few of the younger knights had now fully joined the rings of Mandalorians watching the duels, cheering enthusiastically.
“We can make sure she gets back to the ship okay, sir,” Rex said, done gloating his victory. “I’m already in charge of getting Skywalker to bed soon enough to be up at dawn with O’buir for farm chores anyway,” he added, grinning at the frustrated Skywalker.
Plo was remembering who Rex was, now. This was the Mandalorian with the Agricorps on Tatooine who had spear-headed the slave revolt there. Perhaps a bit impulsive, but then he was quite young. When Master Sulca had reported to the High Council on the matter, though, she’d only had good things to say about him.
“Definitely no alcohol,” he said to Ahsoka firmly. She nodded her head in agreement, Rex and Skywalker right along with her. He thought for a moment. No warnings from the Force (though the Force rarely got involved in curfew negotiations.) “Very well. I’m trusting you to show good judgment,” he said to Ahsoka, who nodded solemnly, before grinning and hugging Plo in thanks.
Plo made his way back over to Depa and Obi-Wan. Ki Adi had gathered up the padawans, who had reluctantly been separated from Seventeen (who was making a beeline for the table with the alcohol, one of the Mandalorians in the sparring circles calling him over. Qui-Gon offered to help chaperone the padawans through the city before turning in at his own accomodations.
“Alright Cody, I’m leaving-” Obi-Wan was saying.
“Can you take Din with you?” Cody asked. He nudged the young boy (about Caleb’s age) sitting next to him. “I think it’s getting a bit rowdy for him, and at some point I’m going to have to go start dealing with those fights if they don’t start calming down.”
Din looked like me might protest, but cracked out a huge yawn instead. Obi-Wan smiled.
“Of course. You can come with me, while I show our friends the way to Laranth’s school, and then you can come home with me, and we’ll get some sleep. How’s that sound?” Din nodded, and climbed out of the bench and went over to Obi-Wan.
“Alright, then Cody, you’re in charge.” A few of the clones at the table, who appeared a year or so older than Cody, rolled their eyes but didn’t protest.
“Isn’t Prime, the literal Mand’alor, still here?” one of the clones asked drily.
As if summoned, Jango Fett appeared over Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “Are you leaving?” he asked his husband.
“Yes, you know I’m not much one for the dueling parts of these parties,” Obi-Wan said, grinning. “I’m going to take Depa and Master Koon over to Laranth’s school, then Din and I will head home.”
“Take me with you,” Fett said, a bit desperately. “I do not want to deal with Vizsla’s drama, and if I stay here, I will end up having to deal with it.”
Obi-Wan nodded easily, then turned back to Cody. “So, as I said, you’re in charge.” Cody rolled his eyes, but nodded. Then Obi-Wan held up a threatening finger. “No family marriages. I mean it Cody, if I find out tomorrow that one of my children got married in the middle of a drunken duel, and I wasn’t even here to see it, I will be very upset.” Cody nodded, eyes a bit wide. He shot a look to the clone next to him, who scrambled from the table and quickly made his way across the hall towards one of the sparring rings. Obi-Wan turned to Fett. “Anything else?”
Fett thought for a moment, then added. “No fires.” Cody nodded, slowly. “Oh, and don’t let Vizsla actually kill anyone.”
“Right,” Cody muttered, looking more and more put-upon. “Would you like me to arrange for a snowstorm on Tatooine while I’m at it?”
“Master Sulca could probably do that,” Skywalker said, walking past while carrying a stool. Plo watched him, and saw that Skywalker, Rex, and Ahsoka had found three stools, and were climbing up on them, balancing on one leg each. The next contest must be one of balance (which Plo felt confident Ahsoka would win.)
Instructions imparted, Plo and Depa followed Obi-Wan, Jango Fett, and Din out of the hall. After hours of feasting, drinking, and sparring, Plo hadn’t realized how warm the hall had gotten, and the cool night breeze outside was refreshing.
“Alright, this way to the Force academy,” Obi-Wan said, leading them towards the nearest train station.
“I told you we wouldn’t be able to just drop them off and leave,” Jango said. He had his right arm wrapped around Din's shoulder (Din was half asleep by now), his left hand tangled with Obi-Wan's. It was many hours later. In fact, Jango squinted at the eastern horizon, noting the sky was getting a bit lighter over there. Nearly dawn.
"Yes, yes, you were right," Obi-Wan said with a smile. Though the intention had been to return home immediately, they'd wound up spending a few hours at Laranth's party. And then on the train back to Keldabe they'd run into Fox, who was on his way back to his clan's party after leaving briefly to "putting a couple dikutla kids in their place". Fox insisted that they stop by, say hello to Vhonte, and so they spent another hour with Clan Tervho.
That had landed them pretty close to Clan Kelborn's compound. Hoddit heard from Three-Five - who must have joined the Clan Kelborn party some time earlier, and who'd seen Din's location ping on his com when he came in range - that they were down the street, and he too insisted that they stop by to say hello, and to let Clan Kelborn toast the new Mand'alor. After Three-Five had told Obi-Wan - unprompted - that everything at the feast had gone Totally Fine, and there was Nothing Happening, and Obi-Wan didn't have to worry about it At All (which would have gotten more of Obi-Wan's attention if it wasn't 4 in the morning), they decided it was finally time to go home.
They were only a dozen or so blocks away from home, and the city was finally quieting down, and Jango had been made Mand'alor that day, so they decided to walk, soaking up a bit of peace.
"Today went well," Obi-Wan said.
Jango nodded. "Yeah, that could have gone way worse. I didn't get booed out of the city or anything."
Obi-Wan scoffed softly. "Oh please." He squeezed Jango's hand. "They named you Mand'alor the Father." Jango ducked his head to hide his smile, playing it off by peering at Din's sleepy face to see if his eyes were still open. They were. Barely. "You're just going to have to accept it, cyare," Obi-Wan continued. "I think they've largely forgiven you."
Jango sighed, big and dramatic. "Whatever will I do with my time now?" he asked, smirking.
"Oh, I don't know. There are some chores on the farm I could use your help with."
Obi-Wan and Jango grinned at each other. They'd accepted when Jango agreed to Jaster's request to take on the title of Mand'alor, giving Cody a few more years of peace, that it meant their own peace would be delayed again. After years of Jango leading Jaster's armies to war, they'd been looking foward to settling back in to their (active, always, with the responsibilities they had to Manda'yaim, and to Jaster, and to the clones, and to the Jedi) simpler peacetime routine.
Obi-Wan squeezed Jango's hand again. "It'll be fine," he said softly. "If Manda'yaim proves to be too much to handle, you can always hand the darksaber off to Din'ika," he suggested, voice louder.
Din groaned sleepily.
Jango's comm chimed. He was unwilling to release his riduur or bu'ad to check it. Rolling his eyes, Obi-Wan reached over with his other hand and pulled the comm off Jango's belt.
"Who's it from? If the Federation needs me, they just might have to wait until I've slept a few hours," Jango said, face turned up to the night sky with a sigh.
"It's from Cody," Obi-Wan said.
Din perked up at the mention of his buir.
"He says. 'Whatever you'e heard, it's fine, I have it under control.'"
Jango sighed again.
Jaster kept a hand on Mace's shoulder to guide him across the street. It was nearly dawn, and there were no speeders, but buir instinct still had him looking both ways just in case.
Mace had insisted that the could sober up and walk back to his ship unattended, thank you very much. However, Jaster had seen Obi-Wan sober himself up with the Force once. It had looked... very unpleasant. Jaster was actually pretty proud of himself for wearing the proud Jedi down, and convincing him to accept the company on his walk.
"Karking Mandalorians and their karking tihaar," Mace was muttering as they approached the large transport ship that had brought the Jedi to Keldabe.
"Yes, yes, it's all our fault," Jaster agreed as Mace slapped the button to open the lift doors on the ship.
Mace followed him in, just to be sure Mace would be able to find his bunk without issue. However, he was distracted by the Kel Dor sitting in a meditation pose in the main galley.
Mace walked past him and towards the hall leading to the bunks, lazily waiving a hand over his shoulder as a goodbye. Jaster watched the Kel Dor for a moment. The Jedi took a deep breath, then angled his face up to Jaster.
"Hello," Jaster greeted, hoping his voice was quiet enough (it was hard to tell, after the loud parties all night.)
"Hello, Ser Mereel," the Jedi said, standing up. "Did Mace survive the night?"
Jaster chuckled. "He did indeed. And how did you enjoy your night, Master..." he trailed off, embarrassed that he'd forgotten the Jedi's name.
"Plo Koon," the Kel Dor said. "My evening was quite nice. We returned from Laranth Tarak's academy party a couple hours ago." Jaster wondered what a party full of Force sensitives was like. "And I decided to medidtate while I waited for my padawan to return."
Jaster scrunched his eyebrow a bit at that. "Your padawan's missing?"
"Not missing," Plo said calmly. "Just not here. I left her in the company of Rex and Anakin Skywalker."
"Ah." That was... probably fine. Rex was one of his more responsible bu'ade. Except for that time he started a planetary revolt on an impulse. It was a good impulse. "You're... not worried?" he checked. The last thing he needed was some accusation about a kidnapped jet'ika.
Plo shook his head. "I'm not worried. Our bond in the Force is strong, and she's not in distress. However, it is getting quite late. I suspect it's time that I go to her."
Jaster tilted his head. "Do you want company?"
Plo nodded graciously. "I would appreciate it," he admitted. "I'm not all that familiar with Keldabe, I'd be just as likely to find Ahsoka and lose the ship in the process."
Jaster chuckled, and led the Jedi back out of the ship. Already the sky was a shade lighter than it had been when he'd entered the ship a few minutes ago. "Any idea where we should start looking?"
"I believe we should head towards the eastern side of the city," he said. The spaceport that the Jedi had landed in was in the southeast quadrant of the city, so that wasn't too bad.
The two walked down the empty Keldabe streets in a comfortable silence. Every few blocks Plo would direct them left or right, but for the most part they seemed to be making their way coser to the edge of the city. Jaster was just starting to worry about Rex and Anakin actually taking Ahsoka outside the city, which would have been a terrible idea, when there was the unmistakable flash and boom of a fiery explosion several blocks ahead of them. It looked like it was coming from...
"Does your padawan feel distressed now?" Jaster asked, keeping his voice calm.
Plo sighed. "Now? Guilty. And embarrassed."
"Great," Jaster replied, deadpan.
They continued down the street, towards whatever was on fire.