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Predictably, Mace's presentation of his new horde to the rest of the Council causes chaos. They're several hours into debating the possibility of time travel and the very existence of the children in front of them, instead of just asking them. Mace sits back and watches, interjecting with another mad theory every so often just to stir up trouble. He's had his turn being the sensible one, it's about time the others get a taste of what he has to deal with.
The children are all sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the chamber. They'd looked attentive for much longer than Mace thought the children's attention spans should be. But now, half of them are napping. Only Cody is still sitting up straight, face adorably serious. And... floating an inch above the floor.
Mace looks over at Initiate Kenobi, who's got his tongue stuck out in concentration, eyes screwed shut, force presence alight with mischief.
"Gen'ika!" One of the children whispers, Mace is going to have to get all their names at some point, "do me next!"
Cody drops with a rough thump, and no change in his expression, and the next child wobbles into the air. That's it. Mace is keeping all of them.
The council continue arguing, sorry, debating, and all the while various children, one at a time, rise an inch or so into the air and float there. Just over half of them keep a straight face, which is incredibly impressive, they're going to be a credit to his theater class, the rest snicker quietly. Some of the sleeping children don't even notice as they float into the air.
Plo meets his eye across the chamber, force presence bright with amusement.
Eventually, one of the children leans over and pokes Cody, pointing at Initiate Kenobi. Cody nods seriously, then stands, Kenobi scrambling up to stand with him.
"Sirs." Cody says, and the Council fall silent. "Gen'ika needs to eat."
Kenobi scowls and turns a betrayed look on Cody. Cody remains utterly impassive. He's going to be a gem. Kenobi sighs dramatically, and looks at Yoda.
"I see tings dat haven't happened yet." He says in the voice of someone pointing out something obvious. "The force tewls them to me. My Ghosts not even dec- denan- dewanbed-" Kenobi scowls, "not made yet. Force made dem small an bwort dem bakwads. We fix it. Afore it gows all dark an icky an bad. Afore I'm nonly one left." The matter of fact tone the Initiate says this in is deeply eerie. The other children all make comforting noises and shuffle closer, reaching out. "We gowing to late meal now." Kenobi states, rather than asks, and Mace releases a flare of amusement into the force "den Artr'ika will check us, or he kill everywone later, den we having big sleepowver." With that, he turns and tries to shepherd the other children out, completely ignoring the bewildered council members. The children mill about a bit in confusion, before Cody sighs and grabs Kenobi's arm, dragging him towards the doors, the other children shuffling into some sort of predetermined order behind them.
"Excuse me, Masters." Mace says with a nod as he gets up and follows them, taking this perfect opportunity to escape. Plo will fill him in on all the gossip later.
"Mace." Master Jinn greets him in the queue at the refectory, raising an eyebrow at his horde. "I thought I was the one with a reputation for picking up pathetic lifeforms."
His children go stony in the force, and Initiate Kenobi flares with protective rage which he releases into the force with remarkable skill. What's left twists into something calculated and cunning. He bows, perfectly polite.
"Master Jim."
At the name, Cody goes still.
"Your dar'buir?" He asks, and Mace doesn't recognise the language. The stonyness vanishes from the force, replaced by the sense of lots of tiny predators, stalking their prey. A vicious stillness. A weighing.
"Dmamda." One whispers.
"Demgoga." Another adds.
Cody takes his eyes off Jinn and turns to the others, chubby fingers forming clumsy handsign. The secrecy of the communication is somewhat undermined by one of the children murmuring the translation under their breath.
"Stelf, attack, polonged mnoover, diswupt, hawwy, take, lightsaber"
Mace releases a flash of amusement into the force. He will fight anyone who tries to take his new murder children from him. His new murder children who are all radiating vicious glee and a sense of plotting.
Cody, he notices, is looking speculatively between Initiate Kenobi, Master Jinn, and Mace. A few of the others follow his gaze, and, from the looks they share with each other, his thoughts.
Mace's new murder children are devious.
"Genal Jim?" One of the children asks, radiating innocent mischief, "how awe naborn tubies made?"
The force lights up in delighted glee, the children completely unable to smother their giggles. Even Cody loses his composure, grinning, sharp and proud.
"I'm sorry?" Jinn asks, utterly lost.
"Boil'ika wants to know where babies come fwom, Master Jim." Initiate Kenobi informs him, with utter innocence and a spectacular set of tooka eyes. Mace's theatre group is going to be a triumph.
Master Jinn splutters, and it's the most discomposed Mace has ever seen him, all the tiny children staring up at him expectantly.
"Ah, well, you see, um, why don't you ask Master Windu?"
Mace half expects all the expectant faces to turn to him, as Jinn clearly intended, but they don't.
"You don't know, Sir?" One asks innocently.
"Maybee dey don't teach it in jetii school?"
"Maybe he missed the class?"
"I fort jetii didn't make tubies?"
"Course jetii make tubies, wise where did Gen'ika come fwom?"
"Ori'rex's Genral's sentor had tubies inside her."
"Ewwww!"
"That's icky, wod."
Mace makes a note. Cunning and vicious and sly, but they've still got quite short attention spans. Easily distracted. Hopefully that will come with age.
"Ah, Padwan, there you are." Jinn sounds very relieved by his Padwan joining them.
Initiate Kenobi releases an instinctual flash of fear into the force, then steps forwards, suddenly five times cuter than he was before.
"Nantos!" He chirps cheerfully "hewwo!"
A shatter point suddenly grows over Padwan Du Crion, and Mace groans, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Tiny hands pat his knees, trying to offer comfort. His heart melts.
"Why do you all look the same?" The Padwan asks.
"Whyd you all looks different?" One of the children sasses back.
"Ciss'ika!" Another whispers "We're been aborable!"
"Oh," the sassy child says, "sowwy." And stares up at Du Crion with enormous tooka eyes.
Du Crion looks utterly baffled, and then his lip begins to curl.
"If you being a big meanie, you fall into the acid." Kenobi tells him, still with maximum cuteness. "Lots of acid. Eats you up. Force says so." He tilts his head.
"You're creepy." Du Crion tells him.
Kenobi just nods his head enthusiastically with a happy grin "mmhmm."
Du Crion smirks, and the shatter point breaks.
"I like you." Mace hears through the sudden rush of pain.
"Uh oh." One of the children near him says, and more tiny hands start patting at his knees. "Master Wimdu!" "Arty!"
"Move shebs. Out of way. Sit." Fingers jab viciously into the back of his knees. "Sit!" The tiny child commands, and Mace goes with it, folding himself onto the floor. Tiny hands press against his forehead. "Stewpid jetii force powers." They grumble. "Need kit."
"Gen'ika!" Cody says from somewhere, "take Boil'ika an Wax'ika an Wool'ika to the medbay, bwing back medkit for Artr'ika."
"Es, Mander." Kenobi calls, and tiny feet patter away.
"Evone will be quiet." The child closest to him says, in a decidedly threatening manner for such a tiny child, and silence falls. There's a tug at his obi, then the fabric is being pulled free and wrapped around his eyes as a blindfold, blocking out the worst of the light. Behind him, warm hands start rubbing at the stiffness in the back of his neck.
The patter of tiny feet come back, slightly out of breath, then there's a rustling and the distinct sound of pills being shaken out of a bottle. They're pressed into his hand.
Mace grits his teeth and queries the force, not entirely sure how wise it is to take pills given to him by a tiny child. The force whispers safety to him, so he swallows them back, following them with the glass of water that is also pressed into his hand.
The force presences around him all glow softly with care and comfort, and it's been years since anyone has looked after Mace during a Migraine.
"Sowwy, Master Wimdu." Initiate Kenobi says softly, climbing into his lap, and curling up against him.
Mace chuckles, and manages to carefully card a hand blindly through the Initiate's hair.
"If it saves Padwan Du Crion from being eaten by acid, then it's worth it."
Other small bodies begin to lean against him. It's nice.
"It'll happen a lot." Cody says gravely, from where he's pressed against Mace's knee. "With us here."
"It sounds like it's something that needs to happen." Mace tells them. "A headache is hardly the worst price to pay. Especially with you all here with me. I appreciate the care you've taken of me."
Small hands reach out to pat whatever part of him they can reach.
"We look after our jetii." One of them says.
"Too stewpid to suwviwe wiout us." Another mumbles, and there's a wash of gentle amusement and soft giggles in the force.
In his lap, Kenobi huffs with the annoyance of someone who has lost this argument a hundred times.
Mace will do anything and everything to protect his new younglings.