Jedi Academy

There was one more round of younglings that was set to go out. And, hopefully, one more set of senior students to guide them.

"What do you think they're gonna feed us?"
"I heard that they got doughnuts!"
"I heard that they got ice cream!"
"If we're out long enough, maybe they'll feed us twice. You can get a doughnut and ice cream!"
"Maybe we're gonna get to pick! I wonder if you can get a doughnut with ice cream on it?"

Taime had heard that help was needed with babysitting and, in his new quest to work on balance further, he decided to attempt it.

He desperately hoped this wasn't a mistake as he walked into the room.

Ares confidently walked into the room, radiating an aura of gentle menace. "Hello younglings." He greeted them in a way appropriate to a Jedi (read: severely)

After an entirely uneventful outing the previous day, Eir was more than happy to go out again with the kids.

After a bit of whispering among themselves, a young devaronian lad stepped forward.

"Excuse me, senior students." He said politely. "We wanted to know if we're going to have doughnuts or ice cream?"

Eir chuckled, "well, how about we give you a choice?" She paused expectantly, a cheeky grin on her face, "we'll do a vote, no shouting, I want everyone to listen to my instructions. Now, if you want ice cream today, go stand over by T'ame. If you want doughnuts," she indicated to her more stern co-babysitter, "stand next to Ares there. But," another pregnant pause, "if you want deep fried ice cream, come stand with me." The battered and fried treat was almost an exact fusion of doughnuts and ice cream, if you liked your doughnuts sugared instead of frosted.

"We do get to choose!"

...

It only took a few moments. The promise of combining doughnut and ice-cream won a lot of support. Eir found herself surrounded by five of the children. Only one, a Mon Calamari girl, went to stand over by Ares. Taime was all alone.

Ares blinked. That was quick. He looked down at his protege. "Not a fan of ice cream then?"

She looked up at him, large eyes blinking. "I don't like cold things." She said.

Eir looked at Ares and nodded deliberately as if to say we can work with that. “You guys know the rules, right? You have to be really good if you want treats. Kids who are only sorta good only get a cake pop.”

The Devaronian boy nodded. "Yeah, we know. Colette explained how it works to us." He nodded again. "We talk to each other a lot, the ones who are about the same age. But I guess you probably remember that from when you were our age."

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking down. "So... ummm... we hear stuff, sometimes."

Eir didn't need to hunker down to be face-to-face with the kids, she was barely inches taller than them as it was, "and what did you hear?" she prompted gently, looking to Taime for support, he was the charming one, after all.

"Ummmm..." He bit his lip nervously. Looking around, though, and seeing that his fellows seemed encouraging, he went on. "It's about Reg." He bit his lip nervously again.

Eir didn't let her expression change, this is serious. She'd been passed some information about the missing youngling, but she hadn't reviewed it in detail yet. "Are you worried about him?"

Wordlessly, the Devaronian nodded, his eyes downcast. There were a few scattered nods of agreement. The Mon Calamari girl mostly looked surprised.

"He's going to be okay," the girl reached out and gestured for the kids to gather closer, "but we understand why we should never run off into danger like that, don't we?" Eir was solemn and sincere, trying to hug all of them at once.

Taime, having zero knowledge of children other than himself and Eir, was somewhat frozen. But at least Eir seemed to know what she was doing. The children did seem worried though. He'd heard a thing here or there about Reg but he didn't know enough to be terribly comforting...

Trying to distract the crew, he piped up. "What else have you been doing with your other babysitters? That way, we don't repeat something today."

The prospect of a group hug drew in all the students. After a glance up at Ares, the Mon Calamari went over to join them. There was a bit of giggling as they surrounded Eir, trying to all fit. After all, she wasn't that big.

"Ice cream. Doughnuts." Came a muffled voice from inside the hug circle. "But it's okay to repeat those!"

Ares slowly and awkwardly moved closer to the group hug, and tentatively joined in. He had no idea what else to do.

"Okay, we can do those. Anything else you would like to see that you haven't?"

Almost disappearing under a pile of kids, “I know somewhere we can go, if you guys aren’t sure.”