I started a month or so ago (as in, wrote about three paragraphs and then set it aside), and finished because I was bored out of my skull during work training over the past couple of days. Bits and pieces of ideas were gleaned from the "Jedi Quest: Special Edition" by Jude Watson, in which Anakin fashions his lightsaber, as well as "Last of the Jedi #2", where Ferus Olin recalls his own visit to the Caves of Ilum. Also, Greg Bear's "Rogue Planet", for detailing Anakin's propensity for leaving spare droids everywhere. (Please note: previous knowledge of any/all of these is totally not necessary for full story comprehension, I promise.)

Summary: Anakin makes a present for his Master's birthday. Could possibly be considered Obi-Wan/Anakin pre-slash, if you want to swing it that way. Almost complete and total fluff; rated PG, tops.

Slouching Towards Tradition

He'd been so wrapped up in what he was doing that the knocking on the other side of his door didn't register until it was accompanied by a muffled voice calling to him. "Anakin!" it rang out. "Anakin, are you in there?"

Thirteen-year-old Anakin Skywalker snapped out of his reverie. "Yes, Master!" he called back, looking at the scattered semi-circle of mechanical parts and other odds-and-ends that had formed around him. He'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor for what must have been several hours at this point (he often lost track of time when his mind got set on building something), and his muscles groaned as he quickly hauled himself up. "Just a moment, Master," he panted, beginning to shove the miscellaneous droid parts underneath his bed and into the corners of his small room. To the casual observer, the metal scraps were just that, but Anakin didn't want to take any chances on his Master figuring out what he was up to. It was, after all, meant to be a surprise.

"Anakin," Obi-Wan Kenobi called again, sounding a tad more aggrieved this time. Anakin hurriedly shoved the last piece of his project out of the way and flung open the door, red-faced and chest heaving a little. "What's wrong?" his Master queried, looking both bemused and concerned at what Anakin figured was a rather haphazard appearance.

The boy smiled disarmingly. "Nothing, Master," he assured him, stepping out into the hallway. Obi-Wan peered briefly inside his room and, apparently seeing nothing out of the ordinary, shut the door gently behind them.

Anakin grinned at him. "What's up? A mission?" he asked hopefully.

Obi-Wan smiled and ruffled his hair affectionately. He worried at times about his Padawan's thirst for adventure and excitement, knowing as inherently as he did his own name that a Jedi did not recklessly seek out such things. The mentor in him cautioned of this; the young boy that had never quite gotten a chance to grow up before his Master was plucked from him, however, empathized with Anakin. Thus, he often found it difficult to chastise the boy for being so willing and eager to practice doing what he'd been groomed for for four years, now.

Since his mysterious conception actually, Obi-Wan privately thought, but kept these opinions to himself. Everyone else seemed intent on relating everything back to Anakin's Chosen One status. It made Obi-Wan vow all the more to give his apprentice as normal a life as possible.

"We've a meeting with the Council," he told Anakin. "I'm not certain as to the nature." He had some ideas, of course, but didn't want to rile his Padawan up for nothing.

Anakin nodded in light assent, swinging his arms gaily as he matched his Master's brisk stride. He couldn't recall anything monumentally un-Jedi-like that he'd done in the past few days, especially nothing that would warrant reprimand from the Council. Ergo, he was sure whatever they were summoning he and his Master for was good.

The elevator leading up to the Council chambers was empty when they boarded, and Anakin braced himself against the edge as it rose higher and higher. He resisted the urge to prop himself on his hands against the metal hold-bar and swing his legs, knowing his Master found the action juvenile and unimpressive. He treasured Obi-Wan more than anything, but sometimes he secretly felt the older man was a little too serious.

The Council was already gathered by the time Obi-Wan and Anakin arrived. Obi-Wan's robes swept the floor gracefully as he bowed, and Anakin mimicked the movement, albeit a tad more awkwardly.

"Thank you for coming." As usual, Mace Windu wasted no time with preliminaries. "As you know, Anakin, the advent of a Padawan learner's thirteenth birthday is very significant in the eyes of the Order. The Jedi believe that once one of their own becomes a teenager, they are ready to take on a number of adulthood responsibilities. They are, in effect, young men and women." Mace's fingers steepled as he talked, his voice rich and just the slightest bit condescending. Anakin supposed it was his right to be, but it had always galled him somewhat.

However, Master Windu's next words pushed all other thoughts out of his mind. "One of these responsibilities is, of course, building one's own lightsaber," Mace said.

Anakin's heart thudded with excitement. His own lightsaber! Finally! He felt Obi-Wan looking at him and glanced up, shifting from one foot to the other, biting back a grin. Obi-Wan's gaze was gentle, slightly amused. Surely even he had had a similar reaction to getting to make his own lightsaber!

Anakin turned his attention dutifully back to Master Windu, who wasn't fooled for an instant by his purported calm. "You will be granted permission to start work on your lightsaber hilt in-between your regular studies at the Temple," he continued. "When it is finished, and when your Master and the Council duly feel the time is right, you'll make a trip to the Caves of Ilum to find your crystals."

Anakin squirmed happily. Ilum! All Padawan learners dreamed of taking the fated trip into those caves. There were numerous stories passed about in hushed whispers, of the bravest apprentices who'd reportedly cowered when faced with their deepest fears. Anakin's rival at the Temple and one of its brightest students, Ferus Olin, had apparently curled into a ball and cried during his own visit, which shouldn't have delighted Anakin, but it did. Because really, what did Perfect Padawan Olin have to be afraid of, he'd thought snidely at the time. Low exam marks?

Anakin was eager to prove himself worthy of his own gossip, hushed whispers about how the Chosen One had faced down his demons without even flinching. He was used to Temple rumors, both flattering and otherwise. It seemed an inevitable part of his adolescence, and as long as that was so, he would prefer to control its changing tides as much as possible.

He hardly heard the rest of the meeting, stirring restlessly at Obi-Wan's side until they were finally excused. He was sure that the Council would fault him for this later on, naming it as a sign of his impatience and self-mindedness, but at that moment, he didn't care. A real lightsaber! He was finally going to have his very own!

Anakin found himself unable to settle down that night. This in itself was not entirely disconcerting; he had often had nightmares and a general restlessness in the evenings, and coupled with newfound excitement over his lightsaber, he had a lot of excess energy to burn.

As per usual, he found himself up much later than most of the other Padawans, tinkering with droid parts. This particular droid was unique, however - or at least, it would be when it was finished.

He'd built a protocol droid for his mother before he'd left it for her on Tatooine, slightly unfinished, disappointed that neither it nor his mother had been able to come with him. He'd always been fascinated by droids, the hybrid of humanoid interaction, coupled with the ability to control and modify their behavior as he pleased. Powerless as a slave - and perhaps even more so as a Jedi, though he wouldn't admit it to himself - Anakin had always appreciated having control over something.

Even after arriving on Coruscant, droids were a hobby he'd never given up. And in fact, amongst other things, Anakin Skywalker was infamous for leaving his creations lying about, turning them loose on a whim. This particular droid would be for his Master. He knew Obi-Wan didn't actually need his own personal protocol droid, but Anakin didn't have the means to purchase anything else. He would have to make do with what he could build with his own two hands.

Not that he minded, or that Obi-Wan expected any such thing, of course. Whereas thirteen was considered a milestone birthday for Padawans, commemorated by their Masters gifting them with a small, meaningful present, ensuing birthdays generally went unacknowledged, or at the most, meditated on and then let go. It had taken Anakin the better part of a year just to figure out when his Master's birthday was, and even then, it was only because he'd heard another Master mention it in passing.

For Anakin's own thirteenth birthday, Obi-Wan had given him his most valued possession: his river stone, given to him by Qui-Gon on his own thirteenth birthday. Anakin had hesitated to accept it; he'd seen how much Obi-Wan cherished this last remnant of his late Master, how he would take it out of his tunic and press it against his heart in his quiet, reflective moments when he thought nobody was watching. "Master, this is yours," Anakin had said, wide-eyed.

But Obi-Wan had just smiled kindly at him, placing his hand atop the warm, black-and-red stone lying in Anakin's upturned palm. "It has brought me great comfort over the years," he'd murmured. "My hope is that it will do the same for you." Anakin had nodded in acquiescence, admiring his new possession. The stone had glowed even brighter, almost beaming at its new owner's admiration.

Ever since, Anakin had kept it on his person, only setting it aside on his bed table when he slept. Often, he would watch the thing grow from red to black and back again, and allow it to comfort and lull him to sleep. Right now, it sat safely nestled inside the hidden pocket of his tunic. The droid was already bipedal and mostly finished, save for the verbobrain Anakin had found in a scrap-pile and some spare accoutrements that he intended to add tonight.

The verbobrain slid into place with an audible click. Biting his lip in concentration, Anakin flipped a switch near the back of the droid's neck; lights flashing in its eyes indicated that this had worked. "Hello, sir," it greeted; slightly tinny, Anakin decided, but it would work. "My name is T490. How are you today? Is there anything I can do for you?" it continued. "Make you some tea? Are there any garments you need laundered, Sir?"

Anakin broke out into a broad grin. 'Perfect'.

He knew his Master had a private meeting with the Council the morning of his birthday. Anakin sat impatiently through his first couple of classes, waiting anxiously until his break that would coincide with the time that Obi-Wan would definitely be out of his quarters.

His Master's rooms were configured to grant Anakin access whenever he wished, and he palmed open the front door, T490 in tow. He shut it again quietly; almost immediately, T490 began chattering in a surprisingly conversational tone. "Oh, I say! What a lovely room! What should I do first?" It buzzed about, picking up pillows and books, scattering them as it wheeled around the small apartment.

Anakin chased after it. "No, Teefour, no," he told it. "You're supposed to help Obi-Wan clean up, not make his place a mess!" He lunged for the droid as it went to pick up one of the small, potted plants on Obi-Wan's bookshelf; it wheeled out of the way at the last second, however, and Anakin stumbled and crashed to the ground just after the plant did.

"I guess I should have checked you for bugs before I brought you here," he groaned. He climbed to his knees, about to rush the droid in a hopefully surprise attack, when the door slid open anew. "Poodoo," Anakin muttered a little breathlessly.

Obi-Wan looked rather surprised at the sight that greeted him: a red-faced Anakin on his hands and knees, and what looked like one of his apprentice's favored side projects, which was currently ripping pages from a magazine he'd purchased recently and had yet to actually read. "Padawan?" he asked in vague amusement. "Do I want to know?"

Anakin sighed, embarrassed when his Master strode over and simply switched the droid off, and then crouched down to help him get back on his feet. "It was s'posed to be your present," he grumbled. "But I don't think it's working quite right yet."

Obi-Wan stopped brushing Anakin's tunic off and looked up, brow pinched in light confusion. "My present?" he queried.

Anakin nodded. "For your birthday."

Obi-Wan blinked a couple of times, and suddenly something in his face changed, softened, a smile turning up his mouth a little. "You certainly weren't required to make me a present, Anakin," he told the boy.

Anakin put his lower lip out stubbornly. "You gave me Master Qui-Gon's river rock," he protested. "And you're helping me prepare to fashion my lightsaber. I wanted to give you something special, too. Something that worked, I mean," he sighed again. "It was supposed to clean and do laundry and dishes."

Obi-Wan chuckled kindly. "Well, it doesn't appear to have destroyed anything terribly important," he conceded. "And I'm certain I'll find a way to put it to work once you get all the bugs worked out," he said. Anakin brightened, and then, impulsively, threw his arms around Obi-Wan's neck. "Thank you," he assented, rubbing the boy's back.

"Happy birthday, Master," Anakin smiled when he pulled away. He set to work reaffixing everything T490 had knocked over into on atop its proper place.

Obi-Wan watched him fondly, an expansive warmth settling pleasantly in his chest. He cherished this boy as much as he'd treasured his Master, loved him like he would a son or younger brother. He worried often that such feelings conflicted with the Jedi Code, that he was becoming too attached. Hadn't he already been punished once for loving somebody too much by being forced to watch Qui-Gon die, he wondered?

In his heart of hearts, Obi-Wan knew he'd have to let Anakin go one day. He knew that as well as he knew the boy who showered him now with adoration and love, who took special pains to find out extraneous facts like his birth date so he could indulge him in thoughtful presents, would one day wake up and walk away, onto the divergent path that led to his own life, apart from his Master's. He would, in time, realize that such a thing would be necessary in order to fulfill his much prophesized destiny, no matter how Obi-Wan tried to shield him from it.

But, Obi-Wan thought as Anakin finished picking up the fallen plant, not now. Not today.