Someone dropped the following note in my tumblr inbox and I accidentally ficced:

i love the way u write jocasta nu she's like jedi professor mcgonagall. i can totally see her saying "have a biscuit, anakin."

There's nothing explicit in this fic, but there are a lot of implications of slavery and child abuse, so be safe.

Biscuits in the Library

Anakin knew better than to cry. It didn't ever help. It just made his eyes sting, and if the Masters saw him they would be angry. Masters didn't like to see you cry. It was probably bad for business.

Or...bad for meditation, anyway. Bad for communing with the Force, maybe. Anakin wasn't really sure. He never seemed to know the right words to say here.

So it was better not to let the issue come up.

Anyway, Master Obi-Wan was busy right now. Maybe he would be angry later, after Master Tiin told him what Anakin had done, but that was later. So Anakin would have some time to prepare himself, to come up with the best possible apology. Masters liked apologies, as long as you got them exactly right. And Master Obi-Wan was much easier to apologize to than Master Tiin. Usually, he just told Anakin to meditate. That wasn't so bad. He could think about whatever he wanted, and no one would ever know the difference.

So he would apologize to Master Obi-Wan later. If he said just the right thing, maybe Master Obi-Wan would even smooth things over with Master Tiin. He had last week.

The massive entry of the Temple Archives loomed suddenly before him, and Anakin almost forgot about apologies. He stopped and stared up at the towering door. He couldn't help it. It was huge and ancient and inside there was more knowledge than he'd ever imagined could be in one place. And Master Obi-Wan had said he could go there whenever he had free time. He didn't even have to ask.

But Anakin knew better than to seem too excited. Masters noticed that kind of thing. And if they noticed, they could take it away.

So he made himself look down. He hunched his shoulders and scuffed his feet, the way he'd seen other kids – younglings, they were called younglings here – do when they were bored. Most of the others seemed to think the Archives were boring. But maybe they were just trying to keep their excitement a secret, too.

Anakin shuffled his way into the Archives and over to a terminal. Then he waited a moment, furtively glancing around. There was no one else nearby.

The Aurebesh keys on the typing pad were still a bit strange to him. He got them mixed up, sometimes, especially the grek and the usk. Master Obi-Wan said he would get the hang of it in time, and he'd been surprisingly patient so far, but Anakin knew he needed to learn faster. None of the other ki– younglings had any trouble with their letters.

There were over three hundred entries in the database for "dragon." Anakin frowned. There hadn't been anything in the database for tukratta, but of course there wouldn't be. The Jedi didn't know about the secret language.

But there wasn't anything under tukras either. Maybe he was spelling it wrong? He wasn't sure how Tukrasken words would be spelled in Aurebesh.

Except it wasn't Tukrasken in Basic, was it? Of course not. It was Tusken.

Only one entry appeared in the database for "Tusken." It was very short. It said only, "See Sand People of Tatooine."

Anakin chewed his lip. He followed the link, but there wasn't anything about dragons there, either. And anyway the database was wrong about Tusken greetings. Everybody knew that if a Tusken offered you water first, it was an insult.

"Can I help you find something, young man?" a stern, age-roughened voice said just above his left ear.

Anakin jumped. He jumped so much that the chair fell over beneath him. It made a horrible metallic clang as it struck the floor, and Anakin winced. Master Obi-Wan said he was always supposed to be very quiet in the Archives.

An old woman was peering severely down at him. Her eyes were sharp and bright in her lined face and there was just the barest hint of mischief there, enough so that Anakin was startled out of his crouch. She was wearing sand-colored robes and the scrolling pattern on them looked almost but not quite like a design his mother had drawn once.

"Sorry," Anakin whispered. "I didn't mean to make any trouble, Grandmother."

The old woman blinked. "What did you call me?" she snapped.

Anakin paled. Oh no. He'd really messed up this time. Of course she wasn't a Grandmother.

"S – sorry, Master," he stammered, his hands twisting in the soft fabric of his robes. "I – I didn't – "

The old woman's eyes narrowed briefly, and then she sighed, and a half-smile tugged at her lips. "Never mind that, young one," she said. One hand reached out toward his shoulder, and Anakin flinched away. The old woman frowned and pulled her hand back.

"Hmm. Well," she muttered. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Jocasta Nu. I'm the head archivist here."

Anakin blinked up at her. "Uh. Yes Master?" He wasn't quite sure what response she expected from him, but that was usually a safe bet.

Jocasta Nu huffed. "And you, young one? What's your name?"

"Oh!" Anakin said. He shuffled his feet. "Um. I'm Anakin. Anakin Skywalker. Master Obi-Wan said I – "

"Ah," said Jocasta Nu with a marked sniff. "You're young Kenobi's new padawan. Well. I certainly hope you have more respect for the sanctity of the Archives than your master!"

Anakin didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything.

Jocasta Nu eyed him for a moment. Then she looked over his shoulder at the terminal he'd been using. "Hmm," she said. "Sand people, is it?"

"I was looking for the dragons," Anakin blurted, then added hastily, "Master."

"Oh, you mean krayt dragons," Jocasta Nu said.

Anakin blinked. "What? That's silly. Why would you call it a dragon dragon?"

Jocasta Nu's mouth twitched, and Anakin tensed. Why had he said something like that? He'd practically told her she was wrong, and now she –

She was laughing. It was a soft sound (they were, after all, still in the Archives), and surprisingly warm, and her eyes crinkled at the corners with it. She looked almost like a Grandmother again. Something in Anakin ached horribly.

"You're right," said Jocasta Nu, smiling widely at him. "It is silly. But most people in the Republic don't speak Huttese."

"Oh," said Anakin. He probably should have thought of that. But Jocasta Nu was still looking at him warmly, so he didn't mind looking stupid too much.

"Well," she said, reaching for his shoulder again. This time Anakin didn't move, and her fingers curled softly around him and squeezed once. It was a little like the way his mother or Jira would touch him sometimes, offering comfort. "If it's information on dragons you want, you'll find much more in our database of galactic wildlife."

Anakin could feel himself beaming. He tried not to – it was never good to let the Masters see you excited about something – but Jocasta Nu was still smiling at him and there was that spark of mischief in her eyes again and –

"I…I don't know," Anakin muttered, shuffling his feet and looking up at her from beneath his lashes. "I think I should probably get back to Master Tiin…"

Jocasta Nu pursed her lips. "Don't be ridiculous," she snapped, but not at him. "Master Tiin hasn't darkened the doorway of the Archives in nearly forty years. It would be a terrible shame to leave a bright young one like you to his influence."

She looked very serious as she said this, but Anakin could tell that she was laughing secretly. Her eyes were all bright and dancing, just like his mom's when she laughed.

"Come along then," said Jocasta Nu, taking his hand. "We have very important research to conduct. This wa– "

To Anakin's horror, his stomach chose that moment to remind him that he hadn't eaten anything since very early that morning. The sound was horrifyingly loud in the echoing silence of the Archives.

But Jocasta Nu didn't swat him, or snap at him to be quiet, or even reprimand him at all. Instead, she looked from side to side in an exaggeratedly clandestine motion and, when she found no one nearby, she reached into the pouch at her waist and drew out a small covered package. Inside there were several warm, spicy-smelling mounds of dough.

"Have a biscuit, Anakin," Jocasta Nu said with another of those secret smiles. Anakin reached forward hesitantly and took the smallest one. Jocasta Nu snorted and shoved two more into his hand, before finally selecting one herself.

"It's best to eat up," she said, nodding sagely down at him. "Research is hungry work."