Qui-Gon Jinn was in danger. Surrounded by the enemy he overwhelmed and outnumbered, his partner had already fallen beneath an onslaught of their deadly foes--and his bootlaces were tied together. Again.

"Mace!" he bellowed as another attacker battered at his knees, this time sending him sprawling to the ground as he lost his balance and tripped over his tangled laces. His attacker launched himself onto his chest with a squeal of glee, tiny elbows and knees digging into Qui-Gon's stomach as the small body tried to climb up his knees.

Mace's head popped out of a crowd of tiny children, wincing as he tried to get the tiny boy in his arms to disentangle his small fist from his Padawan tail. "Yes, Qui-Gon?"

Qui-Gon didn't have a chance to respond. The small girl who was trying to climb him slipped as she got one foot on his knee, falling back onto his stomach with an excited exclamation and a giggle. Qui-Gon let out a startled curse and caught the child, reaching down with the Force to untangle his bootlaces.

"Tell me again why I agree to be your friend," Qui-Gon grated out, setting the small girl aside and reaching down to fix his bootlaces. "If it weren't for you and your foolish games, I'd be doing something more productive with my time than acting as a punching bag for the excitable initiates. I'm sick of getting punished alongside you for your idiotic pranks. Without you, I'd be a lot closer to being a Knight by now!"

"And you'd be boring," Mace responded with a grin, reaching up a hand to try to coax the little fist tangled in his hair away. "Shawn, /please/--Mace doesn't like it when you pull his hair."

The little boy didn't seem overly impressed with Mace's rhetoric, continuing to blithely suck his thumb and tug on Mace's hair.

Qui-Gon snickered, casting Mace a smug grin. "Serves you right," Qui-Gon said, reaching out without looking to snag the little toddler trying to wander away on her still wobbly legs. "Stay here, Siona," Qui-Gon said to the little girl, dragging her back into the tangle of children and depositing her safely within reach.

"I swear to you, Qui-Gon--" Mace's face was a mask of comic dismay, and Qui-Gon had a difficult time stifling a laugh. "The minute I pass the trials, it's gone. All of it. When my Master cuts my braid off, he's taking /all/ of the rest of my hair with it." Little Shawn still had his tiny fist wrapped around Mace's ponytail, and had decided to forgoe thumb-sucking for the pleasure of tugging on Mace's braid instead.

"If you didn't hold him all the time, he wouldn't get a chance to pull your hair so much," Qui-Gon responded, grinning slightly. "And you've still at least five years before you can even /think/ about the Trials--so I'd think of some other means of defense if I were you."

Mace let out a long suffering sigh--but Qui-Gon noticed that he made no move to put the small boy down. Hiding a smile, Qui-Gon turned back to the children surrounding him. Mace had a soft spot in his heart for young Shawn--chances were that he would take the boy as his Padawan if he became a Knight in time.

Qui-Gon's arm shot out again, catching little Siona as she once again toddled away from the other children. He did it out of instinct now, having spent more than one afternoon with baby-sitting duty as punishment. Of all of two, three, and four year olds, Siona was without doubt the most independent. While the others were content to climb on the older Padawans, pull their hair, and tie their shoes together, Siona was never happy unless she was moving--preferably in a direction she wasn't supposed to be going.

"Stay with us, Siona," Qui-Gon admonished, pulling the toddler into his lap and ignoring her squirming. Siona looked up at Qui-Gon with her huge eyes, tears starting to form.

"Leggo," she commanded shortly, glaring up at Qui-Gon.

"Stay with me, Siona," Qui-Gon repeated, trying to settle the small child back into his lap more comfortably.

"No." Although Siona's vocabulary was limited, she had long ago mastered that simple word, usually spoken with a trembling lower lip and tear-filled eyes. If Qui-Gon hadn't known better, he could have sworn that she was maliciously manipulating him.

But she was three years old. She couldn't do that, could she?

"Oooooachh-DAMN!"

Qui-Gon spun away from Siona to look at his friend, and choked back laughter at the sight of one of the toddlers scrambling up Mace's back, using his ponytail as a handhold.

"No, get down Lioth," Mace begged, trying to free his arms from Shawn to disentangle the child from his hair. Shawn glared at the interloper, grabbing on to the top of Mace's ponytail and starting to pull, trying to get his favorite toy away from the challenger.

Siona took advantage of Qui-Gon's distraction and scrambled out of his lap, running away as quickly as she could on wobbly legs. Qui-Gon turned just in time to see her running towards the small fountain, and let out a strangled curse as he freed himself from the other children to lurch to his feet.

Too late, of course. Siona crawled into the shallow fountain, jumping and screaming in triumph as she splashed enthusiastically.

"Qui-Gon--" Mace started warningly, but it was too late. Seeing Siona's apparent fun, the little ones started stampeding as a whole towards the fountain. Qui-Gon started running, his longer legs getting him to the fountain long before the children. Wading in, he scooped up Siona and started wading towards the edge, hoping to head off the hoard of children.

He forgot that they were Jedi-Trainees. Although there was little that they had learned at such a young age, they already understood the concept of mass attack--they'd proved that earlier today.

Mace laughed as Qui-Gon went down under a wave of children, all of whom started climbing immediately over the large man, using him as a diving board for enthusiastic belly flops into the water. Coughing and sputtering, Qui-Gon tried to fight his way up only to have one of the trainee's leap onto his chest, forcing him back into the water again.

"Funny, you think this is?" a voice behind Mace asked. The young man froze, knowing the voice of the esteemed Jedi Master as well as he knew the voice of his own Master.

"No, Master Yoda," Mace replied, spinning promptly to bow before Qui-Gon's Master.

"My Padawan, you should help," Yoda pointed out, raising his gimmer stick to gesture to the fountain, where Qui-Gon was still struggling to emerge from the tangle of screaming children.

"Of course, Master," Mace replied, still kneeling and staring at the ground.

The sensation of being lifted was distinctly odd, and Mace fought the urge to struggle as he floated over the intervening space between the Master and the fountain.

The children stopped climbing on Qui-Gon long enough to point and cry out at this new form of entertainment. Lifting his head, Qui-Gon forced back a laugh at the sight of Mace, eyes wild, floating towards the fountain.

Yoda waved his hand slightly and Mace went tumbling down, landing with a curse and a resounding splash.

"MAAAACEEE!" Little Shawn, appalled that he had deserted his favorite playtoy for so long went hurting through the water to land on Mace's chest, happily splashing water at the Padawan's face.

"Children, with me you should now come!" No sooner had the words left Yoda's mouth then all of the children with the exception of Shawn, who was still busy climbing on Mace, were climbing obediently from the pool and trotting over to the small Master.

Qui-Gon spent a moment marveling. He had spent the last two hours coaxing and pleading with the children, and yet with once sentence his Master got instant obedience. How in the name of the Force did he do it?

::I give them candy, my Padawan. That is why they come to me.::

Qui-Gon choked as Yoda winked at him before turning and leading the assembled children away. His Master gave them /candy/?

His Master knew how to /wink/?

Qui-Gon pulled himself out of the fountain, heading back to his rooms with his proverbial tail tucked between his legs. Okay, so he was seventeen and he couldn't even handle a few toddlers. His Master was feeding the trainee's candy. His Master had a sense of humor.

It certainly had been a day for discoveries, it seemed. Settling down to take a long, hot, shower, Qui-Gon decided it was definatly time to invest in some candy.