Listen Closely, Ben.

(See it from the Ben's Point of View, here.)

“Erifia, I’m tired of trying to get through to you. I’m not opposing you. You are more like Anakin then I care to admit. You both believe strongly in what you feel,” he pulled his hands out of mine, “Nothing I say will change that. But be careful what ya’ll work for.”

“However, I have some degree of wisdom behind mine, Anakin is young yet. Ben,” I said, “did Master Yoda ever tell you why he made me a master?”

“I would suppose because you deserve it. But I suspect it has something to do with Barriss.”

I hushed, and I looked at him. I pressed my lips together, but didn’t speak. My eyes looked into his. There was a secret on my lips, but I wasn’t going to say it.

“I won’t push you to talk about it,” he said.

“Maybe I need to, but don’t want to, and perhaps we should go somewhere other than here.”

“If you think you would be more comfortable somewhere else, we can go,” he smiled, “Where would ya’ll feel more comfortable talking?”

“Someplace alone? My room maybe? Someplace where no-one would go.”

“That’s fine, after ya’ll.”

I walked through the temple slowly, heading towards my small temple quarters. I walked softly, trying to let him stay even with me. I wondered, honestly, if he was watching my thighs as I moved, or my hips, perhaps. Both were places of bare skin. My lekkus wiggled at such a thought.

I opened the door to my room, and I sat on my bed, pulling a chair with my foot over, so he could sit. I set the picture of my mother face down on the side table, and I looked at him.

“Okay, we are alone, talk to me.”

“The real reason Master Yoda made me a master is…” I began to stutter on the s in is, and the t in the next would I was trying to say.

He tried to enourage me, “Go on.”

“Th—Tha—Tha- I- I – I almost gave into the dark side, and… And--- and only the fact that I was able to feel my emotions- it—it got me through it… He- he—“ I closed my eyes and my mouth, why was it so hard to say?

“I had no idea, Erifia. I wasn’t told about that. I knew something was going on…” he spoke, “Go on.”

“It was all because I was trying to bottle up my emotions. Trying to qualm them… But it didn’t work… Did you ever hear of Darth Inferna? She was I… Only for a short time. I finally, after releasing my emotions and feeling them, did I come back to being jedi… And you started it all,” I said softly.

“I started- whatever do ya’ll mean? I don’t understand,” He was in shock.

“Ben, remember this above anything else I ever tell you. You cannot stop love, you cannot push it away, you cannot hide it. When you do. That’s when you give into the dark side.”