march 15 – medical center
Dooku considers himself a man of patience and considerable work ethic among the chaos that is his peers in comparison. He was remarkable enough to have Yoda for his Master, after all; he still knows the honour of that. While the majority of his remaining age group are still preparing for their trials, he is a full-fledged Knight with a Padawan of his own. Dooku is twenty-three.
Dooku is only now realising how young he is. How much he doesn’t know, how much knowledge is nothing without experience. Wisdom, the beginnings of, his old Master would have said.
As he hurries down the corridors of the Healers’ portion of the Temple, Dooku cannot help but think that all the stress Qui-Gon brings could not possibly be let to the Force, lest it crack and collapse under the strain.
“Qui-Gon Jinn!”
The boy himself looked utterly unrepentant. He grins up at Dooku from the starch-white bed, limbs languid. Thirteen years old and so unlike Dooku he might as well be a Hutt. (But no; Qui-Gon lacks the ability to think it through – or at all – but he is kind and too attached to his plants and always willing to try again.) “Morning, Master. Did you really have to return so soon?”
Dooku sighs. Pinches the bridge of his nose. Considers that he is too young to go grey. “Sometimes I wonder about how you get into these scrapes.” But he draws up a chair with tired grace and sits at Qui-Gon’s side anyway.