A terrible sight met Eirtaé's eyes as she crossed the last laser boundary.  Master Qui-Gon Jinn's body sprawled on the floor, still alive but contorted with pain.  The black-robed Sith was between her and the dying man.  And Obi-Wan was nowhere in sight.

The Sith's back was to Eirtaé but she knew he was aware of her arrival.  "Where is Obi-Wan?" she demanded, leveling her blaster at the Sith's back.  "What have you done with him?"

The Sith turned slowly and comprehended her in a heartbeat.  Eirtaé felt naked under the startling brilliance of his eyes.  Seeming to accept her as a new player in the scene, the Sith answered her question.  "Alive and unharmed."  He had the manner of one who alleviates fears.

"Where?" she demanded, becoming even more frightened as she wondered if he was referring to another dimension.

He tilted his head a little sideways and down, to indicate the pit.

Down there, fallen down that yawning void-- no, it was not possible!  Avoiding the Sith, Eirtaé ran around the rim and looked down.  There indeed was her lover, holding on to a protruding sensor.  She was relieved to see him alive, then terrified again at his peril.  Gravity was dragging at him.  The fall was calling to him.

Seeing her, Obi-Wan yelled, "Eirtaé!"

The Sith moved toward her, and Eirtaé raised the blaster to level it on him.  But when her hand had completed the movement, the blaster continued the arc.  It flew to the Sith's outstretched left hand.  Eirtaé gasped, looking at her empty hands, clasping them together.

"Just what I needed," the Sith said.  His voice was mellow, cultured.  He spoke quietly, as though there were no fight, no stress.  Eirtaé found the sound of it hideous, an offense, and yet couldn't resist its strangely soothing quality.

He could use the blaster to shoot Obi-Wan.  It would be more convenient than dropping his saber where Obi-Wan might grab it, and he had no other options to knock him off that outcropping.  Eirtaé sprang at him, trying to retrieve her weapon, but a casual pass of the black-gauntleted hand knocked her to the floor without even needing to touch her.

The Force.  She had no knowledge of it and no power to control it.  During those enchanted hours alone on the Royal Starship, Obi-Wan had explained how it worked and done tricks that she couldn't duplicate.

There was Master Qui-Gon's lightsaber fallen at his side.  Eirtaé snatched it up and ignited it.  She was startled by how difficult it was to control.  It seemed to move in her hands as though it had a mind of its own.  But there was no time to worry about that.  She gripped it tightly in both hands and faced the Sith.  She didn't rush him; she knew he could kill her in a heartbeat.  She sought only to distract him, to allow time to pass until help could arrive.

What help?

Some help.  There must be some.

The Sith raised his saber to a half-defensive position, not taking her seriously.

"You leave him alone!" she bellowed, attempting control by sheer volume.  "You've won!  He's no threat to you now.  Go away!"

The Sith was not obeying her, but he was listening.  He suddenly grinned, a blood-chilling effect.  "What is this boy to you?"

"Everything," she said honestly.  "He can't die or I will too.  I love him."

"Then throw yourself in.  Share his fate," the Sith invited.

"I want him to live and I want to live," Eirtaé said.

"You ask mercy from the wrong man."

It was working.  He was distracted.  She saw that he was indeed conscious of the completeness of his victory, as she had told him, and that the sudden gift of a Queen's Handmaiden to share the moment pleased him.  He waited for Eirtaé's rejoinder.

"Not mercy, but a better deal," she said. "You need a hostage for your safe passage.  I would make a good hostage."

The Sith was amused at that.  "I need no such!  But, you are right that the boy's usefulness has ended.  I will take you for him."

"Eirtaé, no!"  Obi-Wan shouted.  "Don't trust him!  Don't go with him!"

Eirtaé saw, would allow herself to see, nothing about this deal but that it was a chance to get herself and this enemy out of this place.  When Obi-Wan was left alone, he would surely be able to find a way to get out of the pit.  She said quickly, "Very well, I agree."

"Your honor for his life?"

Honor...

Anything but that, said her aristocratic upbringing.  The fate worse than death.

There were so many things that could go wrong, that would, that must go wrong, before that could happen to her.  Help would come.  "Yes," she said impatiently.

"Come then.  We go."  It was as easy as that.  The Sith turned toward the laser barrier.  Eirtaé powered down the lightsaber she had picked up, and followed him.  Obi-Wan yelled something at her, but Eirtaé resolutely tuned him out.  She didn't want to be dissuaded.

Eirtaé ran with her enemy back through the laser barriers.  In the main generator the Sith flung Eirtaé's blaster out across the void.  She heard the faint sound when it hit, many levels down.  He demanded with a gesture that she throw away the lightsaber too, and she did so, but with a reluctant final clutch that gave the weapon a wobbling spin as it fell away.

On the way out of the palace Eirtaé saw her companions from a distance.  They looked horrified to see her walking by the side of the mysterious assassin.  They had not known where she was going when she left the group, although she thought that, knowing her love for Obi-Wan, they should be able to guess her purpose.  She made a hand sign to show them that she was a prisoner.

It was better to be out in the sunshine.  Eirtaé found the Sith's presence enervating.  He had seemed to be draining her spirit.  The fresh air brought some life back to her.  And her gamble had paid off-- surely by now Obi-Wan had used his Force power to vault up out of the pit, or else he must wait to be rescued.

Then they came to the secluded plaza where a wicked-looking spacecraft materialized before Eirtaé's eyes.  She instinctively backed away a few paces, as in the manner of friends bidding farewell to one of their number.  The black-robed Sith swooped after her, grabbing her arm in one of his powerful gloved hands, and dragged her toward the ramp.

She gasped, "You're safe enough away now!  You have no need of a hostage!"

"I never did need a hostage," he said scornfully.  "But I do need someone to help me celebrate.  I will enjoy the display of willingness that your honor will compel from you."  He held her body in his hands, either ignoring or enjoying her struggles, as he brought her up a lift, then forced her ungently into a chair and strapped her snugly into it.  "Stay there until I return."

When he was gone she immediately tried to free herself, but what seemed like a simple harness turned out to be have been designed to double as a restraint.  There was a coded lock on the buckle, and the strap resisted all her efforts to undo it.  She couldn't squirm out of it, either.  She was forced to stay seated, with the belt across her lap, looking as peaceful as the world on the outside, but inside bursting apart with rage and fear.

The Sith was gone almost long enough for Eirtaé's resistance to turn to panic-- but not quite.  She still managed a glare as he came out of the lift and went to the pilot's chair, but he ignored her and went about a few quick systems checks.

That meant that he was in no fear of pursuit.

"What have you done?" she asked.  That sounded so rhetorical that she clarified, "Have you killed anyone else?"

"The boy is alive.  I know that's what you're asking.  You can be happy about that.  It seems he needs you.  It seems the tender feelings are mutual.  It seems you are necessary for his happiness.  If he would have forgotten you before, he surely won't after this."

Eirtaé found the seat straps choking her, making her nauseous.  She wanted to jump up and run.  But the spacecraft had already lifted to hover above the rooftop level, in a moment it would streak away out of Naboo's atmosphere.  "You wish to dishonor the Jedi through me?"

"My master is pleased with this day's outcome," the Sith said, half his mind on the conversation, the other half, for the moment, on piloting.

Eirtaé sat frozen, her mind working furiously.  It was right, what he said.  There had not been any promises between her and Obi-Wan, not even of the next night, but Obi-Wan would be powerfully humiliated if she were raped.

When the ship was stabilized the Sith rose from his chair.

Eirtaé said quickly, "You do not intend to kill me?"

"No," he said.

That was what she feared.  And that had been a bad attempt at diplomacy.  Asking whether he would let her go was just as self-defeating.  She tried again, "What is our destination?"

"It doesn't matter to you."  He sat on his heels before her, lightly balanced as the fighter he was.  "We will do this quickly."

This enemy had already announced his purpose, but Eirtaé could still attempt to reason with him just as she would do with a human man of her acquaintance.  The Sith stopped that now, simply with a look.  He made her look deep into his burning orange eyes, to face the horror and hatred of the jagged red and black stripes on his skin, and made his look of contempt and warning sink not only into her vision, but deep down into her consciousness.

"Be afraid," he said.

She was.  She was mightily.  But what a strange thing to--

He leaned over and kissed her.

His lips were hot and dry, as if feverish.  He had removed his gauntlets, and the skin of his hands was hot also.  Eirtaé shuddered at the contact, but she couldn't pull away, there was nowhere to go.  She held his wrists and closed her eyes, and felt herself drowning in his presence.

The most horrifying thing about that kiss was that it was unhurried.  He made no attempt to invade her mouth.  Touched nothing but her face.

Then he pulled back and smiled.  The Sith smiled at her.

"No, no!"  she whispered, unable to find her voice.

"You've agreed already.  Will you break your word?"

"I agreed-- I agreed--"

"You knew what I meant, and you agreed to it."  He touched her face, this time allowing her plenty of time to get used to the heat of his hands, the slight scrape of his blunt claw-tips on her soft cheek.  Claws-- that made Eirtaé shudder.

"You do not need to kiss me," she said.  It sounded peevish even to her own ears, and it made the Sith smile even more.

"If you only wanted be thrown over a chair and brutalized then you should have clarified that before agreeing."  Then he ceased to smile.  "We may do that later if you remember to ask for it.  Meanwhile I will have what the Jedi brat had.  Everything the Jedi brat had."

He moved toward her, not with any grim purpose or even savagery, but gently, as a lover would, as Obi-Wan had, and Eirtaé cried out with one last protest before he silenced her mouth.

He pushed his fingers into her hair, using both hands to hold her head as he kissed her.  This time he wet his lips and hers.  He licked her mouth until she opened it for him.  Eirtaé pried uselessly at his fingers, gagging in resistance to the intimate contact.

Until he pulled away.  Then she felt suddenly cold and abandoned, and for a moment, she looked at him with a new fear.

Only for a moment.

He looked at her cool blue eyes with his fiery golden ones, then practically climbed in her lap to kiss her more, sliding his hands down over her shoulders, wedging his knee between her thighs.  Eirtaé struggled up, managing in the process to spread her legs so that the Sith's leg ground against her most intimate place.  No, she thought to herself, no, I couldn't be made to betray Obi-Wan as easily as that, could I?  This enemy frightens me, disgusts me, and he no sooner touches me than I begin to desire him...

Force power.  That must be what it is.  He has that mysterious power, and unlike Obi-Wan and the Jedi, he would not hesitate to use it for such a low-down purpose.

The Sith broke away from her mouth, but kept his face directly against her so that she felt his breath on her face as he spoke: "If only it were that easy."

Eirtaé hadn't thought of him reading her mind.  It took her a moment to relate his statement to her previous thoughts.  Then she shuddered, trying again to pull away, to shrink further back into the seat.

The Sith used his black-patterned hand to stroke her cheek, urging her back to contemplation of his eyes.

She didn't want that, though the glory of them stirred her down to her soul.  She wanted him to kiss her some more. Her poor body wanted more of his touch.  She thought it, and he knew it, and she shouted in denial, "No!"

"That word begins to be tiresome," the Sith growled.  "I am disappointed in you.  Evidently the word of you noble people is not as good as you claim."

"I keep my promises," Eirtaé ground out.  She had to gasp for breath.  Her body was not in the mood for talking.  She was truly on fire, had become on fire and had not noticed. She must get some control.

"You promised me your honor, and yet you're trying to keep it yourself. To merely permit yourself to be violated is not giving up honor."

"You can't be suggesting...!"

"What small price you've paid for the Jedi brat's life.  Perhaps I should go back and kill him."

"No..."

"Then I want... your... honor!"

"It's not fair," Eirtaé moaned, capitulating, and both of them knew it; the black-robed enemy reached down beside her body and released the catch on the seat belt.

Feeling her freedom, Eirtaé instinctively moved away from the seat, thereby straight into her captor's arms.  He held her in a comfortable, un-self-conscious way, like a family member.  Eirtaé cried out at last, "At least you swear to release me when you're finished with me?"

"Of course," he said. "What else would I do with you?" then chuckled, "No, not kill you.  That would defeat the purpose."

"Yes," Eirtaé said bitterly, "I understand.  But no more than a day--?"

He nodded.  The motion drew Eirtaé's eyes to the jagged horns around his skull, and she shuddered.  She thought of demanding a spoken oath, but the horns served to remind her of the extreme differences between them.  Either she could trust him or she couldn't.

His hand swirled around her breast and she shuddered in a different way.  It took all her willpower not to slap his hands away.

She evaded him and stood up.  "Very well," she said briskly, her voice trembling, "Will it be here, or-- do you have a bunk?"

"Let's get it over with?" the Sith asked laughingly.

"Good idea," Eirtaé agreed.

"No," he said. "This is a victory celebration, remember?  You and I each have something to celebrate.  My side has gained some advantage.  Yours has also.  How often can two people from different sides celebrate together?  On the personal level, you've saved a life, and I've gained a beautiful victim who thinks she's going to grit her teeth and think about her homeland-- doesn't she?"

His hands were on Eirtaé's body as he spoke, and her thoughts were anywhere but on Naboo.  She was trying not to lean into him.  And trying not to wonder why it had not been like this with Obi-Wan.

She submitted to the removal of her clothing, one layer at a time. Her small hands fluttered at the Sith's robes, but reminded herself continually of what the limit of honor was.  Cooperation... not enthusiasm.  But what was that taking over her mind?

He noticed what she was doing, and that she wouldn't allow herself to do it.  He took her hands under his, guiding them, with his palms over her hands she undid the knot of his belt.  It seemed to fall apart magically under her touch, leaving her with a length of belt in her hands and unaware of what she should do with it.

"Drop it," he murmured, and with a convulsive jerk she did so.  Then he guided her hands between and through the remainder of his robes.  When her sensitive hands touched the burning skin over his ribs she bit her lip and started to cry.  For just a moment she stood there, clad in only her white slip and undergarments and her boots, not attempting to pull her arms out of where they were buried in an enemy's battle dress, weeping great scalding tears. That enemy lowered his mouth to lap her tears from her cheeks, and the not-unpleasant shock of that stopped any more from falling.  She leaned into him, accepting his arms around her, and turned her face to kiss him.

He made short work of the rest of her clothes and knelt to pull off her boots.  She kept her hand on his shoulder as he did so.  When he stood up he proceeded to strip before her eyes, and she watched in what she told herself was horrified fascination.

Fascination, anyway... was true.  His body, fluidly muscled and wildly patterned even down to his proudly jutting manhood, was a thing to inspire perhaps awe, perhaps fear, but not horror.  She had never seen a man so beautiful.

Eirtaé covered her eyes and hesitated, feeling her bare skin and helplessness acutely.  She had been a virgin not long ago.  Perhaps she still was one.

She cried out when the Sith-- but she could hardly think of him as an enemy, now that he was naked-- lifted her, and holding her in his arms, began a stately, sensuous dance around the small space of the ship's interior.  Eirtaé made no attempt at all to find her feet.  He was carrying her, as easily as if she was a child.  She closed her eyes and felt the strength of his body, his arms holding her, the contact of their skin scalding her modesty away.  And the stiff erection rubbing against her belly.  Even with no other stimulation, she found herself longing for it.

It was only to fulfill her promise, of course.  In the interest of 'doing it and getting it over with'... she wished he would hurry.  She wanted him to lay her down on his fallen robes and, as an act of mercy, put her out of her misery.

"Want it?" he whispered. "Do you want me now?"

As if he didn't know.  As if he hadn't plucked the thought right out of her mind.  "Not fair..."  Eirtaé mumbled.

"Say it."

"Do it!"  she countered.

"Do what... take you?"

"Yes," she moaned, now actively struggling against him, since he had stopped moving.

"Lay you down..."

"Yes."

"And remove the memory of that Jedi from your body... as well as your mind?"

Though gone wild beyond her own recognition, she was still truthful.  She couldn't agree, but meowed some wordless plea, hoping beyond hope that further consent wasn't required.

It wasn't.

He laid her down, moved her body with her cooperation, and buried himself up to the hilt in her.

Eirtaé screamed.  She writhed, allowing him to sink even deeper, then writhed again as the movement produced such unbelievable pleasure.

It could have taken a long time.  Eirtaé sensed that although she was a political pawn, a victim of a game being played out by cruel men, at this moment there would have been patience if she had required it.  She didn't need time.  She wanted him fast and hard and that's what she got.

He bucked and thrust into her frantically, whipping her up to more of a senseless frenzy at each moment, while he bit her lips and tangled his claws into her hair.  Eirtaé didn't attempt to get away from the slight pain, but welcomed it.  The pressure within her was turning into bottomless longing, then to something like a cord stretched too tight.

Then he clawed her...

Perhaps it was an accident.  She sensed no malice, only a convulsive clutch, though it produced painful scrapes on her skin.

It was an accident.  He was lost in passion just like she was--

The over-stretched cord snapped and she fell into bottomless ecstasy.

His mouth was in contact with hers the whole time.  It wasn't kissing, so much as speaking words to each other that the other did not understand, simple sharing of breath.  Eirtaé found her head reeling with the conflict between what she formerly knew and what she now felt.

This was more like love than it had been with Obi-Wan.

There was a pause while the universe righted itself--

Her mind resurfaced suddenly, with a cold blast of Where have I been and What was I doing there.  She struggled up from the tangle of the Sith's robes, covering her breasts with her hands.  She felt bruised and sullied. The warm glow that her mind had become, she denied, she instantly put it out of her consciousness.  Denial was everything:  she had done her duty, that was all.

A strange duty, a strange arrangement. Had it not been her duty to try to escape before it could come to this?  She hadn't escaped, but then, she hadn't tried.

Had she wanted to?

Reaction started to set in.  With the Sith watching her with his golden eyes, seeming almost to purr like a predatory cat that has eaten its fill.  While Eirtaé watched, he leaned his head sideways to rub his face on his hand.  As a cat would stroke and clean its whiskers after feeding.

She gathered up her clothes with one hand and proceeded to dress herself, almost dying of embarrassment that her enemy and violator had to stay still and watch her.

When her clothes and boots were on she felt powerful again.  Except for her hair falling down her back, she looked very much as she had when she came on board.

But she was not the same.

"Will I be allowed to go now?" she inquired civilly, seating herself with the manner of a passenger on a scheduled transport.

He was at her feet.  Instead of answering, he moved over to sit, still naked, next to her boots and leaned his horned head on her thigh, rubbing gently against the tough cloth of her pants.

Eirtaé didn't know what to do with her hands.  Through indecision she kept them poised in midair.  Half of her mind, and all of her body, longed to touch the horns, to see whether they would be warm or cool to the touch, soft like her fingernails or brittle, whether the skin at the bases was sensitive.  He sighed and moved away, just when Eirtaé could barely longer restrain her hands and was about to touch him.

He went, still naked, to the pilot's seat and studied the flight computer. Eirtaé looked at the upholstery of the seat next to hers and tried to feel nothing at all.

* * *

The ship came out of lightspeed with only a slight tremor. Eirtaé's head snapped up from her sleepy reverie to find herself alone, but only alone for a moment. The Sith came up the lift, fully dressed in his black robes, looking as he had when she first saw him. "Come," he said, in a businesslike way.  "Here you go to another ship.  You'll be returned home."

That was what she wanted to hear, wasn't it?  Of course it was.

The Sith's ship docked in the hangar of another ship.  When Eirtaé walked down the ramp, she wasn't too surprised to see Neimoidians, but she felt herself blushing crimson as she looked at the situation through their eyes.

However, their eyes were different, and their culture different.  It was clear from their manner that they thought nothing of it.  They were confused as to why Eirtaé was there.  That gave her a little comfort.

The Sith was abrupt with them.  He brought Eirtaé to a lifepod and opened the hatch for her, ignoring the flustered Neimoidians loitering.

She paused before getting in.

"Don't do that," the Sith warned, seeing her.  "Don't say goodbye to me."

"I forgive you," she said.

"Don't forgive me either."

She felt tears springing to her eyes.  She wanted to climb into the lifepod to hide.  She would hide her face all the way down to wherever she was going.  But this was one of those moments in time.  She was young, but a brave girl, and she had seized a few moments already.

She put her arms on the Sith's shoulders, ignoring his scowl-- he didn't push her away-- and kissed him.

You are insane, she thought to herself.  Crazy to feel this.  Stupid to want it.  Dishonorable to give in to it.

He permitted her caress without responding, and when she was shamed into ceasing and had climbed into the lifepod, he stood by with his hand on the controls.  At the last moment he threw a data cube into her lap.  "To remember me by," he said, in a not-very-pleasant tone of voice.

The hatch closed and he was cut off from her sight. Eirtaé had the sensation of a smothering black mantle being lifted from her soul-- leaving it naked and cold.

I don't know his name, she thought.  He never said it.  Why would he say it?  We weren't getting acquainted.

She wondered if he knew her name.  If he had studied his targets at all, he knew her name.

The lifepod bumped alarmingly as it left the clamps.  Obi-Wan, she thought.  She must think about Obi-Wan.  Soon she would see him again.

A re-entry in a lifepod was an unsettling experience.  Her stomach felt it the worst but her brain felt the danger too.  To distract herself from the bumpy ride, she turned on the tiny holoviewer on top of the datacube.

It was a recording of her encounter with the Sith, in beautiful three-dimensional color and complete with her-- oh, surely not her.  She distanced herself that quickly from the truth before her eyes-- the voice of that soulless whore in the video begging him to take her.

Eirtaé felt like she would faint.  She hadn't eaten for many hours now and she was suddenly glad of that.

* * *

The planet where she found herself was Naboo.  It took her a few minutes to accept the truth that the landmarks she saw were her home planet.  Not only that but, by some strange coincidence, it was the valley of her own family home.  The rescue party who came to find the lifepod consisted of people she knew by sight.

She had time to bury the datacube.  She knew there would be more copies.  Her destiny had become one of embarrassment.  The Sith's whole plan had been simply to use the woman conveniently provided by destiny to complete his strike against the Jedi.  Eirtaé thought seriously of killing herself, but she hadn't the means to make it clean and wouldn't incur the further shame of a messy attempt.

She was taken to her father's hall and fussed over by her family.  They had heard what happened.  Everyone had heard what happened, and were surprised that she was alive.

He never meant to kill me, Eirtaé thought.  What he meant to do, he did, only you all haven't seen the results just yet.

Her mother's maids bathed her, dressed her and made up her face, while crying over her and talking in hushed whispers among themselves.  It felt good to have maids again instead of being one.  It felt awful to be treated like an outcast from society, for that was what these girls were clearly saying to her, underneath all the courtesy and kindness.

She left as soon as possible, without even speaking to her parents.  She wanted to go back to Theed and see what had transpired in her absence.  She doubted that she would be able to hire a ship so soon after the end of the war.  There would be too much confusion, and ships would be needed for more important missions--

But yes, there would be a lot of confusion!  That could work to her advantage.  She, the Royal Handmaiden Eirtaé, might not like being reduced to begging a ride or stowing away, but that was better than staying to be publicly embarrassed.  If she could get away without seeing anyone--

Vain hope.  She realized that very shortly after arriving in Theed.  Obi-Wan must have used his Force powers to track her, or perhaps even sensed her as soon as she was in the city, for he found her very quickly.  She was in a public square at the time, far from Theed Palace, among a welter of Republic ships and foreigners.  "Eirtaé!" he shouted, and she turned.  He ran up and would have embraced her, but he didn't fail to notice her stiffening and the fact that she didn't throw herself into his arms.  He burst into confused questions:  "How are you?  Did he let you go?  How did you get here?  What's happening?"

"He let me go when he was finished with me," she said coldly.   Evidently, the holovid had not yet been sent, if Obi-Wan hadn't seen it.  She wondered whether it would be delivered to the Queen on Naboo or to the Jedi Council on Coruscant.

"Eirtaé..."  he said, then stopped, lost for words.

"It's all right.  Just help me leave again," she said.

"You saved my life.  I can't let you run away.  I know it might be difficult-- it might be--"

"It's even worse than that."  Suddenly she didn't even want to talk to him.  She wasn't sure why, but she had no use for him.  She didn't even want to stand there and explain herself to him.  She didn't care whether he understood or not.

No, that wasn't true.  She was sure why.

And really, when she stopped to think about it-- and she suddenly stopped to think about it, right there in the middle of a sunny square, with the hubbub going on around her and Obi-Wan looking at her strangely.  There was nothing to be embarrassed about.  She hadn't needed to bury that data cube.  It wasn't her humiliation, it was, as the Sith meant, Obi-Wan's.  Eirtaé wasn't a victim.  She hadn't been charmed or tricked.  She had made a deal, and had then responded to the enemy the way she had simply because the friendly forces no longer mattered to her.

And where was the disgrace in that?

She started to smile.  She was not going to hide-- there was no disgrace-- and yet she was not going to dig up the data cube and put the video on the public access channel!

But she would still look for a ship.  Since she doubted she still had a job in the Royal Palace and besides that... Naboo was wearisome.  She had never noticed before, but it was there.  Intensely.  She wanted to leave-- right now.

"Why are you smiling?" Obi-Wan asked.  His voice had changed.  His stance had changed.  Or else revealed what it had been all along.

"Sunny day," she said, and walked away.

He ran after her.  She thought she would feel his hand on her arm, pulling her around to face him, and she braced herself to resist.

It wasn't necessary.  A pilot came from nowhere and managed to get right in his path.  Eirtaé heard the pilot apologize.  She saw the two service droids trundling towards a ship-- she had been vaguely aware of them all along.  Now they were directly in Obi-Wan's path.  And hoses that snaked along the ground seemed to be under and around his feet.  And newly-freed civilians milled about in the sunshine just for the joy of it-- and got in his way.

When she looked back she couldn't even find him.  She had walked only a few steps, but somehow it seemed that she had ended up far away.

Away from everything.  Away from the present and the past.

"Sith?" she spoke distinctly.

The street was quiet around her, and empty of people, though she was aware there were still people all around her and much noise.  She seemed to be alone in the crowd, alone with--

She listened as hard as she could.

She walked up onto some stranger's patio, and up the steps to the roof.  "Sith!" she shouted in exultation.  Her words were blown away on the wind.  Nobody in the street below her even turned their heads.  And she didn't see Obi-Wan anywhere.

The ship hovered down to her.  She couldn't see the hull but she felt the immense rush of power from its repulsors, and the crackling energy from the cloaking device.  It was an eerie feeling to be suddenly presented with a landing ramp where empty air had been before.  Perhaps a trick, a visual illusion, to lure her to step off the building and fall to her death?

It wasn't far enough down to the street.  She would survive a fall like that, if she did it right.  It was worth the risk.

She stepped onto the ramp, and found it real.  The ship began to move away from the building as soon as she was on it, and the hatch closed itself behind her as soon as she was inside.  "You had to come back?" she spoke into the emptiness.  The Sith was above.  Eirtaé went up the lift, laughing to herself all the way.

By the time the lift opened to the upper level, they were out of Naboo's atmosphere.

"I didn't have to come back," the Sith corrected her.  "I made a mistake to return you to them at all.  It wasn't necessary.  The video will be enough."

"I think so," she said, laughing with delight.  "I think it will be more than enough."

He got up from the pilot's seat and took her in his arms.  The regal hairdo that the maids had given her went the way of the previous tie, and her hair cascaded over her back.  The Sith used it to hold her head back.  He buried his face in her neck.

"I like the way you smell," he said.  "I've decided to keep you."

END