Barriss was being dragged along by Ahsoka to introduce her to some friends around the Senate she and her master had; Barriss had never even heard of some of them, but given how utterly massive the Republic was and how little she paid attention to politics that didn't directly affect her or the ongoing war that was hardly a surprise. The pace was difficult to keep up with though, and she wasn't unhealthy by any means. Ahsoka was always the bouncier and more energetic of the two though, and somehow always managed to drag her into trouble too. Did her friends have to have offices this far apart? She could have lied and said she had research to do, not that that would have stopped her younger Togruta friend: when Ahsoka wanted something, she did it or got it, no matter what, and damned be the consequences. She was definitely Skywalker's pupil. Oh well, networking was basically a requirement for Jedi anyway, and Barriss was always so slow to come out of her shell that she appreciated the icebreaker, even if she wouldn't admit it. Most of the Senators Ahsoka introduced her to were surprisingly nice: Onaconda Farr, Mon Mothma, Bail Organa, and Padmé Amidala in particular were quite humble given their offices, and their… offices, most of which were quite elaborately decorated. Senator Mothma's even had a large sitting room specifically for guests! Padmé especially seemed so warm and welcoming. After they were out of earshot though, Ahsoka joked, "Want to hear a rumor?"

"Not particularly, but I doubt that'll stop you."

"I heard that Anakin and Padmé used to be a thing."

"Pffft, as if! Your master may break all sorts of rules but there's no way he'd outright shatter the Code like that!"

"I don't know…" Ahsoka replied with a sly side-eye, "You haven't seen how they look at each other."

Barriss rolled her eyes, "Alright, alright. So, who else are we going to annoy today?"

"You know Senator Chuchi?"

"As per usual, nope, never even heard of him."

"Welp, here's her office!" Ahsoka declared before loudly and semi-obnoxiously knocking on the door.

"Ahsoka!" Barriss attempted to chastise, "You don't know what she could be doing in there, she could be right in the middle of a very important meeting!"

Senator Chuchi was not in the middle of a very important meeting, unless one could consider a meeting between her desk and her snoring face "important." She hadn't slept in almost an entire day and finally had a few hours to rest. Her sleep schedule was going to be kriffed from this but at this point she didn't care, dreaming of wandering a pet store and buying a fish. Why was the clerk in a taco costume? When did fish smoke cigars? Why was she questioning it? This is totally normal attire for totally normal people to normally wear, and a totally normal activity for fish. Jerked awake from the knocking on her door, she fell back into the floor from her chair. Quickly getting up and seeing that nobody saw that, except for her intern Cha who was clearly struggling to hold back a grin, but he hardly counted, she walked over to the door and straightened herself out in the mirror a few moments before opening it. "Ahsoka!" the Senator exclaimed before embracing her friend.

"Riyo!" Ahsoka replied, returning the hug.

"How are you?"

"I'm doing great! Got a break from the battlefield for a few weeks. It's always nice when there's a truce declared to celebrate shared holidays."

"Always helps to put everyone at ease."

"Have I ever introduced you to my friend Barriss Offee?"

"No, I don't believe so," Riyo turned to look at the Mirialan Padawan learner.

Barriss was completely dumbstruck, having to blink a few times before bowing, "Padawan Learner, Barriss Offee, at your service," she introduced herself robotically, as she had always been taught, and as she had introduced herself to all the other Senators. Instinct and muscle memory guiding her actions.

"Senator Riyo Chuchi, at yours. Any friend of Ahsoka is a friend of mine."

Barriss nodded, but her mind was running a million parsecs a minute, she was suddenly a lot more interested in politicians. She was so young! Or at least looked young. Her lavender hair, shimmering amber eyes, petite shoulders draped in her burgundy blouse. That accent dripped from her voice like honey! "No! Stupid Barriss! Stupid Barriss! Stop it!" she thought to herself, "You are a Jedi! You should not be having thoughts like this! Especially about someone as esteemed as a Senator! Bad Barriss! BAD!"

They stuck around Senator Chuchi's office for a few hours, the trio having a warm mint tea popular on Pantora, with Ahsoka chattering enough for the both of them, sharing about how they had almost died at their first meeting on Geonosis and the Senator showed them a clip from a recent PR stunt her team made her do, some stupid dancing competition where it was arranged she would be eliminated the first round of auditions. While Barriss was tight-lipped, more-so than usual, Ahsoka laughed hysterically at Riyo's dancing, commenting on how she moved like a stripper and completely ignored her incompetent partner until the Padawan's commlink went off, "Ugh, Anakin's probably injured himself tweaking the Twilight again and needs me to fly him to the hospital. I'll see you later!"

"See you later Ahsoka! Have a nice night! You too Barriss!" Senator Chuchi waved them off.

"You as well Senator," Barriss quietly replied with another bow.

As the door swished closed behind the pair of Jedi, Riyo looked over at Cha, who was no longer bothering to contain his laughter. "What?" she demanded.

"You were totally checking out that Mirialan chick."

"I was not!"

"Don't lie, despite being a politician, you're bad at it. Just like you're bad at hiding when you think a girl's hot."

"Shut up or it's no letter of recommendation for you!"

"Just saying, pretty sure even Ahsoka noticed you staring at her friend."

"Ahsoka is completely oblivious to everything around her if it isn't a battlefield."

"Yeah, and even she could follow your eyes to her friend's thighs."

"I believe I threatened you."

"Whatever, just saying you might want to tone it down. If that had gone on another ten minutes pretty sure you'd start drooling."

"Shut up! And I wasn't checking out her thighs!" Chuchi paused for a moment, before quietly muttering "I was checking out her calves… she does a lot of running."

As Ahsoka had predicted, Anakin had smashed his hand, thankfully his cybernetic one this time, so they only had to run down to the robotics market to buy replacement parts. Barriss opted to not join them and instead headed towards her dormitory, taking the longer route to try and clear her head. She hated that she had the feelings she had. Jedi weren't supposed to have feelings at all and Mirialans especially weren't supposed to have those feelings. Shutting the door behind her before her master could see her, she flopped face-down onto her mat, silent tears coming from her eyes.

"Mirialans aren't gay. Mirialans aren't gay!" she quietly muttered. Though she didn't dare utter the words, she couldn't stop them from crossing her mind, "So why am I?" She felt dirty for thinking that, but no matter how much she denied it, for both her culture and the Order, she was attracted to women. She had tried everything, meditation, avoiding beautiful women, self-imposing electroshock therapy (that one was particularly counter-productive), even trying to force herself to fall in love with a few different men and working her way to non-feeling from there, from a normal point, nothing worked. For days, she tried to avoid thinking about the Pantoran Senator, ignoring her on the holonet news reports, rejecting Ahsoka's invitation to have lunch with them, pouring everything into her meditation, her studies, and her lightsaber, unintentionally impressing Master Unduli into commenting how she would be knighted soon enough if she kept it up. None of it helped for long. All that worked when her thoughts were in a mad scramble was writing in her poem/song journal. Taking the small black book out of the loose panel in her ceiling she used to hide it from her master, who would doubtless read it and proceed to lecture her, scream at her, drag her in front of the Council and, move for her expulsion. She couldn't do that. She couldn't allow that to happen. All she had ever known was the Jedi Order and the thought of being tossed onto the street like the trash she was? Terrifying. Double-checking to make sure she was alone in the dorm, she closed her door and locked it before taking out her pen to write. Her thoughts were a scrambled mess. She didn't know if she would rant, rhyme or reason her way through and in tears her pen scribbled across the pages. She was only half conscious of what she was even doing, trying to avoid a complete breakdown.

Living Force, surround me

I do my best to be a rightful knight,

Of this matter I am justly proud,

Living Force, embrace me,

I do all I can to help the begging crowd,

Then tell me, Past Jedi,

Why I see her standing there,

Why her amber eyes must scorch my soul?

I see her,

I feel her,

The light caught in her purple hair,

Is blazing in me out of all control!

Like fire,

Hellfire,

This fire of my sin,

This burning,

Desire,

Is killing me within.

It's all my fault.

I'm born a freak.

This Senator her beauty makes me weak.

It's all my fault!

Why in the Plan,

Must temptation be so much stronger than I am?

Be with me past Jedi,

Help me pass this hurdling stone,

Don't let her fire sear my flesh and bone.

Annihilate me,

And let me taste the fires of Hell!

Or else let me be hers and hers alone.

Hellfire!

Desire.

It drains my strength within.

I dream of,

My pyre.

Aid me or I will burn!

Hearing the door swish open as Luminara entered their dorm, Barriss quickly stowed away her book, and unlocked her door, getting into a kneeling position to pretend she had been meditating. As Luminara checked on her padawan she couldn't help but smile, "Dutiful as always, aren't we Barriss?"

"Yes Master."

"Although, I couldn't help but sense something troubling you," her Master commented, "Is there anything we need to discuss?"

"No Master," Barriss replied. There was no possible way she could ever mention something like this, especially not to her of all people. Raising her mental shields, she would just lie like she did every time her sexuality was in question, "I'm just having a particularly rough period this month."

"Ow," Luminara sympathized, not even bothering to try to get a read on whether Barriss was being honest or not, what reason could she possibly have to lie? "Think you might need to talk to a doctor?"

"No, at least, not yet. If it's bad next month or the next then maybe."

"Alright, let me know if you need anything."

"Yes Master, thank you. Would you mind shutting the door back?"

Luminara smiled, "Of course."

As the door swished shut, Barriss listened for her Master's footfalls to fade. Standing up from her kneeling position Barriss looked out her window. Her room had a nice view of the Senate building, it used to be one of the few pleasures she had in her life as a Jedi, now it was just another torture. Laying down on her mat, she decided to take a nap. She already told her master she was having a difficult cycle, so she would probably understand if she walked in to find her padawan passed out. Making the windows opaque, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She opened those eyes to the sight of a black, knee-high boot planted firmly in front of her face. Following it up to cobalt-blue thigh, attached to a pretty Pantoran Senator in pink leather holding a riding crop. The Senator giggled at the padawan, "Having dirty thoughts about me?" she asked before smacking the crop into her hand, "You're such a bad girl, Barriss!" Puckering her purple lips, she cooed, "I'm going to have to punish you for that…"

Startling awake with a panicked yell, Barriss was nearly strangled in her blanket as she threw herself off of her bed. "Okay! No more sleep! That's fine! I can live off of caffeine for the rest of my life! Not going to sleep again! Nope!" She was trying to avoid lusting after the Pantoran Senator, and women in general, but especially the Senator, and dreaming about her as a sexy, lavender-haired, dominatrix was most certainly not helping that endeavor. She had to talk to somebody, but who? There was no way in the seven Corellian Hells she could ever mention this to her Master, she'd be homeless in a second, and Ahsoka would just tease her relentlessly and not be of any help, if Barriss was lucky, but even she might be creeped out by the friend she regularly stayed around being gay and turn her in. She could try going to a more… unorthodox Jedi though. She remembered what Ahsoka had told her, about there being a rumor Anakin had once been dating the Naboo Senator. Nodding she quickly changed out of her sweat-soaked clothes and left the dorm she shared with her master. She was going to talk with Anakin Skywalker.

Luminara laughed at Obi-Wan's story, "I'm sorry, Skywalker did what exactly?"

"To be quite honest, I'm still not entirely sure, and I was there! How he thought saying that would be at all helpful in the situation I can't imagine."

Barriss speed-walked past them, "Excuse me, masters! Bit of a rush, took a nap and overslept!" and like a flash she was gone.

Both Jedi Masters smiled, Luminara in pride and Obi-Wan in amusement. Kenobi looked over at his companion, "Have you ever taken the 'masters bet' with her by any chance?"

Unduli rolled her eyes, "Are you really bringing that childish game into this?"

He shrugged, "I'm just saying every master does it at some point. Qui-Gon was utterly convinced I was gay for years. He ended up cleaning the communal showers for a month when Dooku won it."

"How did Dooku win that bet anyway?"

"Uhm…" Kenobi remembered back to his padawan days, sitting in his tent on Concordia snogging Satine with the young duchess sitting in his lap when Qui-Gon walked in on them, "I asked him for advice on a girl, and how to reject the feelings I was developing for her."

"Mmhmm," Luminara hummed, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"What about your master?"

"He knew I was bi from the start, with no need to make such ridiculous bets… the Padawan he took after me though…" she inhaled sharply, "he seemed to really like animals…"

"Eww."

"Yeah."

"So what do you think about Barriss?"

"I doubt she even has a sex drive. The only time she isn't studying, meditating, or practicing her lightsaber forms, is when she's either on the battlefield or Tano drags her off somewhere. She paused, "Why? What were you thinking?"

"Oh she's absolutely gay."

Unduli rolled her eyes again, "Only in her classmates' fantasies."

"I don't know, speaking of classmates, you know Fynn?"

"The Twi'lek girl just a year Barriss's junior?"

"I may have seen them casting a few side eyes at one another."

"Oh please."

Obi-Wan threw up his hands, "Just a hunch."

"Alright Mr. Hunch, what do you say the winner of this stupid bet gets?"

Kenobi hummed for a moment, stroking his beard, "I'd take a free dinner."

"Alright then, you're on," Luminara replied smugly, knowing full well she'd never have to actually pay that bet, clarifying, "If she says nothing in five years' time, I'll count that as a win."

"And if she does come out of the closet, I'm holding you to it."

"Fine by me," Replied Master Unduli.