CHAPTER 1

MY TRUE FEELINGS, MASTER

"Do you think Master Obi-Wan would mind if we went somewhere today?" Maya a girl from Korun asked stretching her arms to relieve the strain from a pratice lightsaber fight. "Or do you think he would?"

"I think he would," the now sixteen year old Esore said, looking out one of the tall windows in the hall where she and her friends were standing. "You know how he is."

"Then we won't tell him," Jasmin another one of Esore's friends stated. "We don't tell him, he won't find out."

"C'mon guys," Esore said turning her violet eyes in her friends direction. "That is not a good idea."

"Lighten up Esore," Maya said folding her arms and frowning at the dark purple haired girl. "Why are you like that all the time? You are not fun."

"I am too," Esore insisted. "But let me ask you this: What is more important? Becoming a Jedi or shopping for shoes?"

The two girls stared at her. Esore read something in their eyes. They were talking about her without using words. "Esore," Jasmin said shaking her head. "We figured you wouldn't understand."

"What is that suppost to mean?" the girl asked, staring at her soon to be ex-friends.

"It's simple," Maya said closing her eyes and raising her index finger. "We all know you were raised by Master Yoda since you were a baby."

What does that have to do with anything. "And?" Esore challenged. Insult him and you'll answer to me.

"Jasmin, Rie, the other girls and I figured out that since you were raised by him you are way too into this Jedi buisness and don't care about having fun anymore," was Maya's answer.

"That's not true," Esore protested keeping her anger in check. "You girls are Padawans why don't you act like it? You and the others act like silly school girls at a picnic. The boys are more into this than you!"

Jasmin and Maya looked at each other. They talked with their eyes again. Then without a word they walked away and thus ended their friendship with her.

Esore didn't even bother calling them back.

It's not like they would have looked back anyway, she thought a few minutess later when she was in the rose garden.

The rose garden had always been her favorite spot in the entire Temple. Master Yoda had told her many times that that had been the place where he'd found her. I guess that's why I like this place so much...

"Hello, Esore," said a voice behind her.

Esore stood up from the bent position she'd been in. She did not turn around though. She knew who it was. Dorian. Dorian was the biggest egoistic flirt in the Temple. How he'd been taken into the Order was a mystery to her. Now what does he want?

"Esore," he said again.

She sensed him coming toward her. She knew what he wanted to do. No way was she going to let him put his fat slimmy fingers on her shoulders. She quickly turned around and glared at him. "What do you want?" she asked in a voice close to a hiss.

Dorian grinned and made a move toward her, she backed away. "I was wondering if you wanted to come into the city with me...," he said grinning. "I heard they re-built Obi-Wab's favorite diner. Wanna go there?"

"No," she said flatly. "I can't."

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because I have more important things to do," she replied calmly.

Dorian walked closer to her now. "I don't think that's the real reason," he said putting his hands on her shoulders. "I have a feeling you're avoiding me."

One thing I love doing. "So what if I am?" she asked glaring at him harder. "I don't even like you."

"Of course you do," he said grinning.

Oh no I don't. Esore pushed his hands away. "Leave me alone, Dorian," she said. "I have important things to do."

"What?" he demanded. "Is your Jedi lightsaber practice more important than a date with me. Or..." Here his expression changed to a poisonous stare. "Do you have a thing for Master Yoda?"

She blanched at that. How dare he say that! "Dorian, how could you think like that!" she said trying to control her rising anger. "Master Yoda raised me since I was a baby! He's over nine hunred years old! He's like a father to me!"

"Me and most of the other guys don't believe that," Dorina said pushing his Padawan braid out of his face. "You spend a lot of time with him."

"Of course I do," she growled. "I live in the same apartment. I'm his Padawan! He's my Master as well as my guardian and adoptive father!"

"Esore..."

She turned away from him and put her hand on the rose bush her Master had found her in. That bush was special to her. It was part of the reason she was there and the source of her name. Esore. Rose spelled backward.

"Are you sure that's it?" Dorian asked, refusing to drop the topic till he got what he wanted. "I see the way he looks at you..."

Esore turned around sharply. "That's fatherly love!" she cut him off. "He spent all his life training Jedi like us! If I'm looked at differently it's probably because I'm the first person he's ever raised since infancy!"

Dorian crossed his arms. His brown eyes were cold. "I don't believe that," he said flatly.

"I don't care what you believe," she told his walking past him and heading to the elevator. "Believe what you want but everything you think is wrong."

She sensed he wanted to keep going but she wouldn't be able to take it. "Just leave me alone," she said using the Force to make the elevator come to her faster. "You and the others don't know what you're talking about."
"Esore..."

The door opened and she stepped inside. She saw him still staring at her as the door closed and took her up to the floor her apartment was on.

Master Yoda could sense Esore's emotions and presense even before she came into the room. Usually it would have been rude to interrupt him when he wanted to be alone but he'd learned to tolerate her coming and going. Infact he's even learned to ignore her altogether.

He would have done so today if he hadn't felt how bad her emotions were twisted today. He knew something was wrong but strangly it wasn't just her. He sense a dark presense close by but also in the distance and it was growing. Not rapidly but growing none the less and it wasn't in or around her which to him was a relieve.

But still. The darkness was there growing larger and stronger corrupting someone's mind body and spirit...and he'd sensed it before.

Right before Darth Sidious had taken over the already corrupt Republic.

Were those long dead Jedi trying to warn him? A shiver ran down his spine. He'd been dreaming of them a lot recently strangly enough Mace Windu's voice was never added to the others.

Death. They all had died. He knew how it felt. He'd gone through it himself. Even though it had been peaceful at first things had changed very quickly. As if everyone he'd fought in his long life were finally getting their revenge. He didn't like the feeling. He dreaded ever going back.

Motallity was a gift very few people wanted to cling to for very long. He'd been lucky to live as long as he had. But now... he was living it again.

Confusing life is... Trials. Struggles. Loss. Death... Pointless it seems to go through it again...

Even so... he still clung to it. It was his. New purpose gave his life meaning again. He'd been waiting for it for way too long.

Now... He had other things to think about. Well one thing. And in she came.

Master Yoda noticed that Esore seemed very upset. More upset than usual. Hmmm? "Something's bothering you I see," he said.

Esore looked up at him slightly surprised that he'd even paid any attention to her presense. She quickly regain her normal attitude but by then it was too late. She knew he could read her like a book.

No sense hiding it. "It was Dorina," she said simply.

"Padawan Dorina?" How could he upset her?

She nodded.

"Talk about it would you?"

She couldn't hide it from him for very long anyway. She sat down on the pod seat in front of him. She hesitated a little. Should she tell him. He'd find out anyway.

She took a deep breath and spilled it out. "He's accusing you of something."

She noticed he didn't reply or change his expression. It was like he could read her mind but she couldn't read his. Maybe it was his eyes. They always seemed to see through everyone. He wants me to tell him...

"Dorian believes that we are more than we let on," she said slowly, gritting her teeth, wishing she wasn't saying this. "He thinks we are in love."

Master Yoda's face never changed but his eyes darkened slightly. She knew he was offended. She was too. He was thinking. How dare Dorian think that!

The small Jedi Master quickly calmed himself. He didn't want Esore to know he's gotten angry. She'd never seen him get mad. Frustrated maybe but not mad."Think this thing why?" Yoda asked her. "True is it?"

Esore knew he was testing her. She always said the right things. She never held anything from him. Yes, she did love him but she wasn't in love with him. Those two catagories were different.

Esore crossed her legs and let her pale hands rest in her lap. Instantly she noticed her hands. Soft, pale skin, long, delicate fingernails, a perfectly formed hand with no sign of crookedness. The hand, in her mind, was just...too perfect. It was a stranger to her. She didn't own it. It was someone elses. Somebody important's.

Yoda noticed how she stared at her own hands, like they weren't even a part of her. He knew why she looked at them so intently. They, to her, were strangers, Strangers that were facinating. This was her escape. Her escape from everything wrong in the world.

He couldn't let her escape. Not this time and not today. Her time of escaping was over. It was time for her to return.

"True, is it?" he presisted.

Esore looked up. Her violet eyes met his hazel ones for a moment. She seemed to be challenging him.

Then the thought reached his mind as if she'd screamed it. I do love you master... But... I am not in love with you. That would be wrong and against everything you taught me.

So there it was. He sighed and turned away from her. "About Dorian do not worry yourself," he told her quietly, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. "Young he is. Much to learn he has. Much to learn. Just like you."

She seemed to want to say something then changed her mind.

"Leave me please," he said closing his eyes.

"Yes, Master," she said. Did I do something wrong?

He gave her no answer so she stood up and headed to the door.

Then she was gone.

When he couldn't hear her footsteps anymore he went back to thinking. This time it centered on what she'd told him. Needs to be talked to Dorian does, he thought, folding his arms. Perverted thoughts he is thinking. Talk about me that way he should not!

A/N I changed the ending of this chapter a bit. Umm if any of you have any thoughts or something that could help me out later I'd love to hear them.