Obi-wan Kenobi was not pleased. The thirteen-year-old Jedi tailed his Master sullenly, with his eyes to the ground and his feet shuffling. He bowed politely to the many people who wished the pair congratulations on the mission that they had recently completed.

Qui-gon Jinn looked back at his Padawan after the third or fourth of these gloomy greetings. A light eyebrow raised on his face, and he led Obi-wan into the nearest free room.

"What's troubling you, Padawan?" He asked, once the door was closed.

"Nothing, Master," Obi-wan replied, kicking at a small dustball on the ground.

"Oh really? Then I suppose you've been avoiding talking about our mission because you're just that humble. How silly I must have been to overlook that," Qui-gon suggested with the slightest of smiles.

"Please, Master..." Obi-wan mumbled, without looking up.

"What is it, then?"

"It's only...I did so little on our mission, Master. I want so badly to better earn the praise that everyone keeps giving me."

"That's all?" Qui-gon smiled. "Are you sure?"

Obi-wan blinked a few times. "I don't understand."

"I sense a longing for glory in you, my young Padawan," said Qui-gon, kneeling next to him. "You want to have your chance at the spotlight, to do something special on your own. Am I correct?" Qui-gon asked gently.

"Well...I mean, I..."

"It's okay," Qui-gon assured him, putting a hand on the young boy's shoulder. "You are growing, Obi-wan. In fact, I'd be worried if you weren't starting to want to do things on your own."

"Really? It's okay?" Obi-wan asked. "Then I want to do my own missions. I do want to, Master. But I didn't want to seem selfish."

Qui-gon chuckled. "If that's what you want, Obi-wan. I'll find a job for you to do."

0-0-0-0-0

"Mmaah!" A young Nerf trotted up to where Obi-wan stood, curious about this new stranger. She butted her head against his leg. Obi-wan shook her away with an annoyed grunt, inwardly thankful that she hadn't yet grown horns.

When he said that he wanted his own mission, this was not what he'd had in mind.

The boy was standing in the hot summer sun of Alderaan, surrounded by loud, smelly, dirty creatures, and already covered with sweat and muck himself. There wasn't even anyone around to keep him company. He was supposed to keep the entire nerf pack in order all by himself.

"Well you wanted a mission to take alone, didn't you?" Qui-gon had asked, barely hiding a grin under his beard. "Go on then, chop chop."

"MAAAH!" The little female charged, bowling Obi-wan over. She stood over him, taking a good look, before licking his hair and trotting away, evidently very pleased with herself.

"Eugh..." Obi-wan grimaced as he wiped the spit off of his head, and the fresh mud off his robes. He sighed. He'd been out here with the animals for over an hour already, and he had several left to go. Lucky for him, nerfs usually minded their own business, and weren't too likely to run away on him.

Still though, he wished he'd at least brought a holocron, or a game, or something to do.

0-0-0-0-0

The sun kept climbing as the day wore on. Obi-wan had just begun to drift off to sleep, with his robes pulled over his face to block the smell, when the hoof beats and bleats started to multiply and grow even louder than before.

He stood up drowsily, only to be shocked into wakefulness by the sight of several nerf galloping towards him.

"Whoa! Whoa there, stop, STOP!" He scrambled out of the way just in time—the beasts were not inclined to listen to this new young herder. Obi-wan was about to reach out with the Force to influence them to go back, when the panicked bleating of his little female friend reached his ears.

He turned around to see three manka cats creeping toward the pack. As they too heard the cry, they broke into a run.
"No! No, no no no, oh no," Obi-wan muttered, as he ran over to where the cats had stopped, and begun to fight. He had to push his way past fleeing nerfs left and right, once running straight into the backside of a confused creature. "Hey! Hey, stop it! Go on, shoo!"

One of the cats looked up. He turned his bored eyes to Obi-wan, and didn't seem to judge him a threat. The manka went back to its companions, who had begun to circle the little female nerf.

Obi-wan wasted no more time. He unclipped his lightsabre from his belt and ignited it, brandishing the blue blade in front of the face of the nearest cat. He snarled, backing away with his tail high in the air.

"That's it! Get out of here!" The cats obeyed, slinking away moodily with hungry glances over their shoulders. The nerf galloped forward, joyfully licking Obi-wan's face, and stepping on his toes.

"Alright, that's enough..." he tried to push her away, but she simply bleated more loudly and pushed back against him. They continued like this for a moment before she hit him hard in the stomach, sending him flat on his back for the second time that day. She then skipped away in the direction of a tasty-looking flower.

Obi-wan got up, not wanting to think too hard about exactly what he had fallen into.

0-0-0-0-0

The sun was brushing the tips of the Alderaan mountains, and Obi-wan had started to feel more confident. Nothing had happened for at least a few hours.

Then the sound of hurried hooves grew again, and he chided himself for thinking too quickly.

Where one or two nerfs had attempted escape through the nearby mountain trail during the day, now seemingly half the herd had decided to take a go at it. Luckily for Obi-wan, they had bottlenecked, all trying to push each other out of the way to get to the trail.

"No you don't! Come back!" He ran forward to the jam, preparing to pull the creatures apart. They were less than cooperative, though. When he reached the herd, the closest nerf turned to snort right in his face. "Oh come on, you can't go there..." Obi-wan squeezed his way through the animals, plugging his nose as he went with two fingers. Finally reaching the end of the bottleneck, he took as deep a breath as he could muster and started to push on the stuck nerfs.

The nerfs were not happy about the move. They resisted, they ran into each other, they snorted and bit. The right sleeve of Obi-wan's robe was torn clean off by the horn of one of the largest males. Presented with this additional blockage, the nerfs at the back started to bleat and whinny, adding to the multitude of sensations assaulting Obi-wan's senses. He tried to ignore them, still pushing on the fat animal blocking the path, who was squished between two other large specimens.

Of course, as soon as he finally freed the nerf...

"No! NO! Wait up! Hold on! Stop it! Come back here! Ah!"

...all of the blocked animals charged for the free space, knocking Obi-wan onto his back on the side of the trail.

"No! Stop it!" He called hopelessly, as he watched nearly half of the herd run off into the distance, losing themselves in the foliage. He stood motionless and silent.

"...Qui-gon is going to kill me."

A lone nerf came up from behind him; the young female. She nuzzled her head against his hand, before rearing up onto her hind legs and kicking him back to the ground. He could hear her bleating happily as she went away again. This time, he didn't even bother trying to get up.

"I give up. That's it. I give up."

0-0-0-0-0

"Obi-wan? Obi-wan, wake up." The boy groaned as he felt a hand shaking his shoulder, and heard the voice calling him. He rolled over to see Qui-gon kneeling over him. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, Master." Obi-wan sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Where did they all go?"

"They...er, well..."

"Padawan? What happened?" Qui-gon asked in a slightly threatening tone.

"I lost them, Master." The boy hung his head. "They ran off, I couldn't keep track of them all."

"I see." Qui-gon stood up, patting the head of the female nerf—one of the few remaining in the field. "I thought that something like this would happen."

"I'm sorry, Master," Obi-wan mumbled. "I suppose I wasn't ready for my own mission, after all."

Qui-gon clapped his student on the shoulder. "Wonderful! I'm very proud of you, Obi-wan." He smiled warmly.

Obi-wan looked back at him, confused. "You're proud that I lost all of the nerfs?"

"No, no. I'm proud that you learned the lesson that I wanted to teach you," Qui-gon explained. "You were so anxious to work on your own, you'd never have listened if I told you that you weren't ready. Believe me, I understand. I was much the same, when I was your age. And my Master gave me a task a lot like this one, that he knew I couldn't handle on my own." He held out his hand; Obi-wan took it to stand himself up. "Sometimes, we need to fail spectacularly in order to learn how little we know."

Obi-wan scratched the nerf behind her ears, to get her to stop ramming her soft head into his leg. "I think I understand, Master."

"Good." Qui-gon patted his apprentice on the back. "Let's go then, we'll need to reimburse the herder for his lost animals before we go back to Coruscant."

With the little creature still trotting behind him, Obi-wan walked off with his Master, dirty, smelly, and much more humble for his time spent.