Raven might have been wondering whether Kaden would ever sit again but in Kade's opinion, the answer to that question was simple: no! In fact, had anyone asked Kade, he would probably have restated his earlier fears that he was never going to sit down again. The boy huffed at the floor as he was positioned over Drex's lap; he absolutely detested it when Drex did that. As if submitting to the discipline was not horrifying in and of itself, Drex had to adjust him to his liking. He grunted his displeasure as his hand skidded forward. His pride was taking a battering here.

Drex had laid the hairbrush aside at first. He knew full well how much his padawan hated being positioned, which only served to add to his punishment. Drex spanked hard from the outset, but at moderate speed, which allowed him to scold Kaden in between swats. This technique meant that the sting was going to build up more slowly. Kaden was not going to get off his lap in a hurry.

"When we are on duty, I expect you to behave like a Jedi, not like a spoilt child seeking entertainment," he told his hapless padawan while he spanked. "You needlessly disrupted our work, and that is entirely unacceptable. It is also unacceptable to sneak off, to explore rooms that are locked for a reason and to draw your saber in a place where it does not belong. And if you mess up, I expect you to take responsibility and own up to it. Your behaviour tonight reflected poorly on the Order. I never want to see you act like this again, or I will keep your saber for a lot longer than a week."

While he talked, he spanked and spanked and spanked, putting considerable force behind the blows.

"AHhhh! YES! Owwuch! MASter!" the boy whined between swats, unshed tears welling in his eyes at the lecture. Drex was right: they had been on duty and he'd acted like a child. Well, he was being repaid in kind, not that he was thinking along these lines at the moment. It didn't take long before Kade was wriggling and struggling to be let up. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, the action sending tears that were brimming there streaking into his hairline.

Only when Kaden was starting to show signs of distress did Drex cease his spanks, but only to pick up the hairbrush.

"Give me your hands," he ordered.

How the man knew when Kade was about to lose his shit, the padawan didn't know, but it was at that precise moment that Drex stopped. To ask for his hands…

"No! Please! Please, no! You don't have to hold me down!" Kade begged. He hated being held down as it really did strip the last bit of control he had over the situation.

As far as Drex was concerned, Kade had forfeited his right to have any control over the situation. He was not pleased with the boy's response.

"You want to receive the belt on top of what you have already earned?" he asked. "Well, you can have it. Now give me your hands."

"NO, WAIT, MASTER, NO! I DON'T!" Kade blurted urgently. He didn't want the belt! That had hurt worse than anything he'd ever experienced and there was no way he wanted it again. Thus, he shifted his weight back a little so he could remove his arms without falling on his head, then reluctantly put them at his back where Drex could easily take them in his hand. He didn't want to go through this, not again, and before his master had landed a single smack with the brush, Kaden hung his head and began sniffling in anticipation.

Drex gripped Kaden's hands with his left and started swinging the brush with his right. He was not going easy on his padawan; the room practically reverberated with the stinging swats. In light of that fact, Drex dispensed with the lecturing. It was unlikely that Kaden would hear a word of it anyway. Drex focussed on delivering a sound spanking, with long enough intervals in between swat to allow his padawan to fully appreciate the effects of each impact before the brush landed the next time.

Given that he was already crying, when Drex actually started spanking his backside with that brush the boy didn't have far to go before losing his shit. And lose it he did! He wailed, kicked, bucked and squirmed all to no avail. This was the problem with having his hands pinned and why the boy hated it so much; he was forced to take every smack without interruption, exactly where his master decided to put it, it was unbearable!

Unperturbed by Kaden's struggles, Drex continued to spank. He did not bother distributing the swats any longer; he simply targeted the undercurve of the boy's bottom and brought the brush down on it again and again and again. It was large enough to cover the bigger part of both cheeks, after all.

Unable to waste a breath on pleas, the boy bellowed loudly at each swat, only pausing long enough to hiccough, bawl or draw a ragged breath between. His backside hurt something fierce! After another few panicked struggles that earned him no reprieve, Kade buckled at the knees, went limp and began howling in earnest. Anyone listening would think the boy was being murdered and if you asked him at that moment, he'd probably have agreed.

It was at this point that Drex finally decided to put the hairbrush down. Not letting go of Kaden's hands, however, he started opening the clasp of his belt with his right. His padawan would need to learn not to question his instructions during a punishment.

The only reason Kade knew Drex had stopped tanning his backside with that horrid brush was because he could no longer hear it! As far as his ass was concerned, it was still every body part for itself… When he tried to push himself up and couldn't, he knew that couldn't be good, and when Drex went for his belt, the boy started struggling. "N-no NO! Master! NO!" he hiccoughed. At this moment he would do anything to remove himself from the man's lap.

"Padawan, you need to learn to follow my instructions," Drex said calmly, but very firmly. "When I tell you to give me your hands, I expect you to do just that. I thought that would have been abundantly clear after your last run-in with my hairbrush, but obviously the lesson hasn't sunk in. Well, I have no qualms about repeating it."

"Wait, WAIT! It has! IT HAS SUNK IN!" Kaden wailed, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Drex let the utilities that were attached to his belt slide to the floor, doubled it over and brought it down onto Kaden's bottom thrice in quick succession. Then he dropped it and released his hold on his padawan's hands.

The first two cracks of the belt were met with panicked struggles and a wail that would have been heard four corridors away. By the third smack, Kade had gone limp and simply lay bawling into the man's trouser leg. His hands were of no use now anyway as he wasn't going to try rubbing, it hurt too much. He let his arms fall loosely to the floor for a minute while doing his best to get his shit together. Yeah, that wasn't happening any time soon, so he started pushing himself up. Still bawling.

Drex helped Kaden up and offered him a hug. He knew that the boy usually shunned open displays of affection, considering them childish or unmanly, but this had been quite an ordeal for him. Drex was ready to provide comfort in case his padawan wanted it, but he was not going to force him to accept it.

Kade pushed away from the offered comfort as, despite knowing he had earned every lick, he was not ready to forgive his master for punishing him so harshly. Still openly sobbing, the boy found his trousers which had been kicked off at some stage and carefully pulled them up. His undershorts were not going anywhere near his ass so he tucked them into his pocket and turned for his room.

Drex let Kaden be. He merely said: "Be back here in fifteen minutes, padawan." It was getting late, and Drex wanted to provide the boy with some pain relief and meditate with him before he went to bed.

Kade managed to choke out something that Drex would recognise as compliance on his part, then walked stiffly into his bedroom where he closed the door. A second later he was in the refresher, ass under the shower. "Oww," he grizzled, quite certain he'd never seen that shade of red in the natural universe! Drex had really let him have it.

He spent a good portion of the fifteen minutes 'licking his wounds,' then slipped on a loose pair of soft cotton sleep pants, towelled off his hair, and lay on his bed for a couple of minutes to release some of his emotions into the Force. He wasn't angry with his master, not really, but like many boys his age he found it difficult to accept he'd made a mistake, that he had been wrong, and as a consequence he deserved to have his backside tanned.

When the quarter hour was up, Kade got to his feet and, with his head down, padded back into their common room where Drex was seated on the couch waiting for him. There was no way he wanted to sit, so he knelt opposite the man and waited.

Drex leaned forward, supporting his elbows on his thighs.

"Any idea why I came down on you so hard, padawan?" he asked quietly.

Despite the fact that Drex was blind, Kade was more comfortable looking at the carpet as he answered: "Because I was dishonest, accessed a room I had no business entering, and used my weapon without permission, and instead of accepting correction, I got mad. I was disrespectful and lost control of my emotions, and I didn't meditate when you told me to. I, umm," the boy sniffled, but quickly swiped a sleeve across his nose to stifle it. "I disobeyed when you asked for my hands," he managed to get out. Somehow restating the lengthy list of misdeeds seemed to put things in perspective for him; if any padawan of his did all of that, he would come down on them hard, too, he thought.

"All of that is true," Drex said. "And yet, it was a harsh punishment, and I want you to understand why. We went to the Senate today because we had a job to do. That means that during our entire time in the Senate, you were on duty, and your actions had the potential to affect not only yourself and your peers, but also the outcome of our work and the reputation of the Jedi Order. That is why any Jedi master will always punish misbehaviour that occurs during a mission or an official function much more harshly than misbehaviour that occurs in class, during your free time or your training. Our dealings with the Senate are serious, and you are expected to take them seriously, not to wait for Eeth and me to get it over with like a child would. Do you understand?"

Kade hadn't understood, but he did now. He nodded, then, remembering that Drex couldn't see gestures, he added: "Yes, Master."

"Good," Drex said much more gently. "It takes some getting used to, I know. You like to claim that you are not a child anymore, but the truth is, you have not had to carry any real responsibilities so far. Now that you are a padawan, that is changing, and you will have to act accordingly."

He stroked Kade's hair, briefly enough not to embarrass his would-be grown-up padawan, then said: "I would like to meditate with you now. After that, I'm going to give you some bacta, and then it's off to bed with you."

Drex's words hit the boy like a tonne of bricks. During the last year of crèche, Kaden had been the oldest initiate in his group, and until this moment, it had not really occurred to him that becoming a padawan bumped him from the top of the food chain in crèche to the very bottom as a padawan. Sure, he knew in theory, but he had never really thought about what that meant until now; Drex was right, he really was a child, not only in years but also by the amount of times he had been in this position.

Drex's comforting gesture was welcomed, and Kade smiled despite the pain in his backside.

Kade chose to remain kneeling. There was no way he was sitting, and lying down was not usually conducive to maintaining his concentration. They meditated for half an hour during which the padawan shared his thoughts and released his remaining frustration. By the time they were done, the boy was feeling much better, at least emotionally. He got to his feet and stretched tall, shaking out his legs and arching his back. "Were you serious about the bacta?" he asked. He could still feel the heat radiating from the skin through his sleep pants and it hurt!

"Yes, I was," Drex said, giving him a small smile. "I want you to be able to sleep." He rose and put a hand on Kaden's shoulder.

"Try to learn from this," he said softly. "Your punishment could have been less harsh if you had submitted to it without the fuss. I'm not punishing you merely in order to make you miserable, you know."

"But, it's hard to submit to something that you really don't want," Kade admitted. "Did your master punish you like that and expect you to submit and learn from it?" he wanted to know. He wasn't being sarcastic or obtuse, just honest.

Drex laughed. "Yes, more often than I care to remember," he replied. "Master Devno could be quite strict. I had a tendency to try to argue my way out of punishments, but she wouldn't have any of it."

Kade looked the tall Hrakian up and down, and then he chuckled. "I just can't imagine anyone ever spanking you," he stated while trying to purge the mental picture before it burned its way into his mind forever.

Drex chuckled, too. "Well, I used to be smaller fifty or sixty years ago," he pointed out, ruffling Kaden's hair. Kade held out his hand as Drex squeezed a small amount of bacta onto his palm and made short work of applying it. The relief was almost instant. Sure, it stung for a second or two but after that it was bliss in comparison.

Ten minutes later, the boy was ready for bed. He climbed in without being told and stretched out on his side.

When Drex entered Kaden's bedroom and found him already in bed, he pulled the blanket up around the boy. "Goodnight, padawan," he said affectionately and switched off the light.

A/N: Thats the end of this story. If you'd like to continue following Kaden's and Drex's story, check out the sequel: Patience.