"A great friend your cousin is," Yoda said with a toothy smile, "but unaware I was that he had had such a skilled negotiatior in the family."
It was hard to tell from this height, but she seemed to be blushing slightly. Of course, it could have been the lights of the passing transports.
After all, he had never had a date with a neck that was longer than his entire body. To make things more interesting, Yarlin Pouf was small for her race.
"You flatter me unnecessarily, Master Yoda," she said in a reedy voice. "I only do my duty in the Senate, as you must in your own arena."
He nodded understandingly. "Many there are who do not care for that."
"Many there are who do not care for the minds they've been given," she rejoined with a laugh.
"A wise person you are," he commended. "Why chosen have you to retire this year?"
"I wish to spend more time with my family," she explained. "We just welcomed our first great-great-great-granddaughter and time seems to be passing me by too quickly."
"Young you are yet," he teased. "When eight hundred fifty-seven years you reach, look as good..."
He shook his head before correcting himself. "Look much better you will."
"Master Yoda," she chided, raising her water glass out of his line of sight, "you flatter me too much."
"Flattery it is not," he harrumphed. "Flattery is deception, while truth this is."
The waterglass reappeared, then came to rest on the tablecloth just before she extended one long-fingered hand to him.
"Would you like to dance?" "This was a great idea," Obi-Wan enthused. "No one else was brave enough for the weather, so we've got the theater to ourselves."
"Much better than worrying about the usual idiots wanting to test how many sticky substances they can get in my hair," Carmyn agreed. "Ever since it got past my knees, boys of all ages have seemed to have a fascination with that pasttime."
He nodded sympathetically. "It's like the initiates' fascination with Padawan braids," he lamented. "I once was in danger of having it removed just because I got between a six-year-old and a tube of paste."
She giggled, then clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle the sound, but he didn't feel offended in the slightest by her mirth. "What happened?"
"They waited until it dried, then chiseled what they could off," he explained. "The rest they left on until I could wash it out with the most abrasive shampoo known to sentient beings."
The laugh escaped her again, this time unrestrained and beautiful and he found himself wanting to hear it again.
Stop it! You're a Jedi! A Jedi shall not know love!
This isn't love. This is a service to an enjoyable human being.
Isn't that the same thing?