I woke up to feel the warm sunlight caressing my skin.  I couldn't understand why at first, then I remembered and sat up with a start.  I found myself alone in Darth Vader's garden, surrounded by beauty but filled with dread. I quickly found my clothes and rushed inside.  I could smell food as I neared the dining room, but I hurried past while trying not to think about it.
 
The halls were longer this morning than they had been last night.  I began to think about how good the food smelled, how hungry I really was, and how I really shouldn't deprive the child I carried.  I slowed my steps gradually, then stopped.  I wouldn't make any difference in suspicions if I ran out now or if I stayed long enough to satisfy my hunger.  I hesitated a moment longer and then turned around and began walking back.  The smell of sweet breads and spiced meats prompted me to walk quickly.
 
I turned the corner to see small samples of exotic foods placed before the seat I had been in last night. There were small cubes of sweet fruit, a bitter yet sweet fruit juice that cut the sweetness down just enough, and other items of delectable food from all over the Republic.  I ate eagerly, finishing with a hot, dark brown beverage that was rich and sweet and better than anything I had ever had before.  I felt Vader's presence approach from behind me before I heard his footfalls or respirator.
 
"Your Master was looking for you."
 
"What?!?"
 
"He called here a moment ago."
 
"Master Yoda called here?  Looking for me?  What did you say?"
 
"I cut him off and told him never to call here under any circumstances."
 
I closed my eyes and wondered how Yoda would have known where I was.  Oh yeah, the party.  A lot of people, including council members, must have seen me with Vader as we walked to his room.  I knew for a fact that Yoda himself had been passed out cold in a back room at the time, but I knew I was a fool of the worst sort if I thought that this wouldn't get back to him if I gave anyone an excuse to remember what had happened.  "I'm doomed."
 
"You have no idea how annoying I find that phrase...."
 
"What?"
 
"Nothing."  He noted that I was done eating and gestured for me to follow him.  The only thing I could pick up from his mind before he shut me out was an image of a protocol droid announcing, "We're doomed" and a small workbench in a hovel where the same droid had been, regretfully, assembled.  I
was confused by the image so I just ignored it as I followed him down a new hall.
 
He opened a door to a bedroom filled with flowers of all descriptions.  The bed was large and looked soft and inviting.  It was a tall bed, the perfect height for--
 
"I have to go back."  I turned away and willed my legs to walk, not run, down the hall.
 
His hand on my shoulder pulled me back.  "Tam, be my apprentice and all that will be yours.  You need
not return to the Academy where people will be tracking you day and night.  No one here but me would
dare tell you what to do ever again.  No one would sit in judgment of your every move.  You will have the power to make them leave you alone."
 
"I'm not ready for this," I shouted at him.
 
"You were ready last night."
 
I wanted to scream at him for that, but all I did was pull away and run.  I don't remember how, but I found myself in an aircar headed back to the Temple with the worst headache of my life.  Everyone could sense it and I was thankfully left alone for a while.  Safely locked in my room I found the words to another poem spring into my turbulent mind.
 
Flicking flame that draws me,
The light and heat that dance,
Candle-lit the radiant room,
That draws me to a trance.
 
Burning flame that mocks me,
The shadows on the wall
Tower high over my form
With seductive silent call.
 
Blinding flame that shuns me
It offers no respite
Absorbing itself within it
So all I see is night.
 
************************************************************************************
 
See, I'm still alive and writing!  And there will be more after this!  Hopefully it won't take me this long to write the next few parts...including her confrontation with Yoda.
 
Stay tuned.  :)
 
Tam Chronin
 
"You do not even know if we are sexually compatible--"
"The hell I don't.  I can see fingers and a tongue from here;
     anything else is gravy."
Mary Callahan to Mickey Finn
--The Blacksmith's Tale  by Spider Robinson