Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction (although I am deriving an unseemly amount of enjoyment from it ...).

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Master Tachi's advice on feminine wiles and seduction made Ryn wonder just what the hard-eyed Jedi had been doing during her years on the outside. She kept a straight face and listened intently, filing it all away to laugh with Anakin later, until the embarrassment faded into humor.

He was never going to recover from "don't be afraid to let your breast brush his arm, but not too often" or "don't meet his eyes directly: look up at him through your lashes."

That was the mission; Siri wound up her minilecture by dabbing cosmetics on Ryn's still face and saying, "I am given to understand that you are out of sorts. Some sort of female problem. Want to talk about it?"

Ryn managed not to say: with you? and stopped goggling, only to repeat stupidly, "A female problem?"

"Something to do with your Lorethan hormones." Tachi frowned thoughtfully. "It must be some sort of genetic mutation. Due to a limited gene pool, perhaps."

Ryn concentrated, but there was no evidence that the Jedi had any idea that she was being offensive. And one of the reasons Ryn had been deemed especially suited for the mission to Coruscant was that she could pass for fully human without breaking a sweat. So instead of explaining, she cleared her throat and said, "It certainly sounds plausible."

Siri gave her a sharp look then, so there must have been something in her tone - kriff it, I'm too tired to get tangled up in this intrigue - but all Ryn's medical records said human: female, and the only person who might conceivably know her well enough to give them the lie was Anakin, and so far he wasn't asking. So Ryn met Tachi's eyes with the same blank stare she had turned on Vokara Che's questions and let her think whatever she wanted, because the first thing she had learned on Coruscant was that the best way to misdirect people was to let them draw their own wrong conclusions and say nothing.

When Siri was tired of waiting for Ryn to jump in and incriminate herself, she said, "Is it ... your cycle? Because there are meditative exercises ..."

"It's not that." Ryn forced a tight smile. "Thanks anyway."

The older woman took a deep breath, closed her steely blue eyes briefly, and refocused them on Ryn as she breathed out. "Is it ... do you feel hot, irritable, tense? Especially around ... a young man?"

What? Ryn squinted at her, trying to decide what she was hearing. When she thought she had it worked out, she shook her head in disbelief. "Are you trying to ask me if I am sexually frustrated?" She couldn't keep her voice from rising at the end, and she felt twin jolts of surprise on the other side of the wall that had to be Anakin and Ferus.

Tachi looked both startled and embarrassed - join the club, Ryn thought - and the combination made her look somehow younger. Ryn felt an unexpected stab of pity for her. Obi-Wan had plainly put her up to this, and Tachi was doing her best with it, even though she had the mothering skills of a gundark with a toothache and she wasn't much more at ease with the current line of questioning than Ryn was.

"Look," Ryn said, groping for a nicer way to say mind your own business. "I appreciate the effort, but this is not a good time." And it's never going to be. "I need to focus on taking care of the Prime Minister and his son and cabinet. Everything else will just have to wait."

That was a an argument that Siri could accept. She headed for the door, relief in her eyes. "That's a good point. If you, uh, ever need to talk about these thing ... you know, not as a Jedi ..."

"I'll remember," Ryn said quickly. And stay the hell away. "Thank you. Really." She pulled her wrist chrono out of her cleavage, where Obi-Wan had made her hide it (while Anakin politely pretended not to notice that she had cleavage) and checked it before tucking it away again. Imram's groundcar should be arriving for her any minute. "We'd better go."

[]

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Anakin said to his master as they watched the groundcar pull away, with Ryn in its backseat - accompanied by Imram, who apparently had been so eager to see her that he had come himself, rather than waiting for her to be delivered. The brief glimpse Anakin had of him looked nervous but happy, and Anakin couldn't avoid the thought that this was what boys his age all across the galaxy were doing tonight, although probably most of them did it without the expensively modded groundcar and chauffeur.

"Ryn can handle herself," Obi-Wan said. "Don't let your personal feelings cloud your judgment."

This was, after all, why the Jedi taught that attachments were to be avoided: caring about Ryn made it harder to see her walk into a volatile situation, even if the good of the mission demanded it. Anakin flinched away from the thought that Ryn could be hurt tonight, even killed.

Siri Tachi put one hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. "Ryn was a fighter on her homeworld, right? And the Force is strong with her. She'll be fine."

It didn't seem like a good time to point out that Ryn might as well be Force-blind, for all she used it in ways the Jedi would recognize as useful. Ryn had no truck with precognition, and she viewed telekinesis with the kind of suspicion orthodox Jedi generally reserved for things like passion. And even if she hadn't, she was still really bad at it.

Anakin said, "I think maybe Ryn is more of a Healer." And that was true; Anakin had known it the day they had been walking in one of the Temple gardens and he had commented that it was a shame the aravechu was only in bud, and he would have to miss the days of bloom on a mission with Obi-Wan.

Ryn had said nothing, just leaned into the aravechu bushes to stroke the stems of one plant, singing softly.

Wherever her hands touched, the aravechu's large white flowers bloomed.

Then she had held out her open hand and waited, until one perfect blossom fell free and settled gently in her outstretched palm.

She had said something to the plant in her native language and turned to ease the flower into Anakin's cupped hands. "Now the aravechu can come with you."

Anakin had been startled by her perfect execution, a use of the Force so minimal he could barely sense it: only a Healer's touch would be so delicate.

Ryn had laughed at the stunned look on his face. "Don't worry," she'd said. "Master Yoda knows. He's trying to learn."

Back in the present, his fellow Jedi were watching him curiously as they beat their way to the exhibit, taking a shortcut and almost jogging so Ryn and Imram wouldn't get there far ahead of them. "What?"

"What makes you think Ryn would be a Healer?" Ferus asked him, and Anakin was about to bridle when he realized the older Padawan was genuinely curious, not challenging.

"She can talk to flowers," Anakin said.

Ferus just looked confused, but Anakin didn't feel like explaining, even if he'd known how.

Siri said, "You can ask her about it. Later."

Right. The mission.