"Master Offee?!" Ani exclaimed, using her arms to try and push her away from the faintly smiling Jedi Master. "Why are you here?" The tattooed Jedi Knight sighed and motioned for her to come closer.

"Why am I here? I hoped to get some peace and quiet," Barriss said quietly, running her fingers through her long blue hair. She grinned at the gaping young apprentice. "But, unfortunately when you stumbled on through, bleeding from every place possible, my meditation was disrupted." Concerned, she reached for Ani, grabbed her arm, and hugged her close to her own body. "What's wrong, Ani?" she asked, brushing the yellow hair out of her pale face.

"Nothing." Ani said, trying to pull away, but Barriss' grip remained true.

"Youngling, I should know what's happening; I am after all a Healer. Tell me why a healthy, normal teenager should be going into the most secretive rooms at the dead of night, bleeding profusely and sobbing. Why, Ani?" Ani stared back at her, insolently.

"Why is an esteemed Jedi Knight here? Besides for the meditation."

"Weeeeelllll, it's also because I wanted to try and solve an argument that I have with my former Master." Ani's eyes opened wide, obviously in adoration, no matter how hard she'd tried to hide it.

"The flexible, one-of-a-kind Master Luminara Unduli?" she asked.

"The one and only," Barriss said, stifling a sigh. Surprisingly, she felt the young girl extinguish her emotions and lay her head down on the grass.

"Tell me about it," she heard Ani say. Barriss, wondering whether or not this could help her or not, began to tell her about the argument that was threatening her relationship with her former Master

Previously

Barriss was looking out, as far as she could see, over the city-planet of Coruscant from one of the porches there as she half-heard Master Luminara Unduli, one of the greatest swordswomen in the Order, ask her about what she'd do now that she was no longer a Padawan.

"Well," she said, pausing to sniff at some orchids full in bloom, "I think I'm going to choose a Padawan, perhaps one of the kids that had come from the Underworld. I really liked what I saw in that Teevanian girl, Julii. She's smart, strong, athletic, and, like all other Teevanians, has flexible arms." She saw Luminara's eyes widen, and an eyebrow go up. Oh no, she thought, mentally bracing herself. Here it comes, another stern lecture. Come on, I'm barely a Knight for two days, and she has to give me a lecture?!

"Barriss," her former Master began, "I don't think that you are quite ready to have a Padawan yet."

"Luminara," Barriss resounded, "no disrespect meant here, but I feel the Force guiding me to take a Padawan. I feel it…calling me. I must act on my feelings, like you and other Jedi Masters have taught me. I must do this." Then, on an impulse, she added, "Why don't you take on another Padawan, Master Unduli." The elder's eyes glinted dangerously as Barriss, knowing of the danger ahead, continued her banter. "I think you'd pair up well with Ani, you know: the half-Mirialan half-human girl. I can just feel the Force connecting you two, and – "

"Shut up, Barriss," Luminara hissed, now close to overboiling. "I do not want another Padawan. I do not care for another Padawan. I don't care if it takes the Council to match me up with one, I will not take another Padawan." Barriss sighed.

"So even if others sense that you are near to Ani, you still won't take her?" she asked quietly. She saw Luminara struggle to hold her anger in, and took that as a challenge. "I know that Master Pollo is thinking on taking her on," she responded quietly. The thunder flashed as Luminara Unduli stormed on inside the Temple, to her own quarters.

Back to Present

Barriss managed to keep a smooth mask on her emotions as she concluded the tale. "After she went inside, I tried to apologize to her, but she said frostily, 'If you are truly sorry, you won't speak of Ani again.' I don't know, Ani; what should I do?" She turned to Ani, who stared up at the ceiling. "For one," she began as she got up, "you should apologize to her for what you said, even if it was true. Secondly, don't speak of me to her again," here she went to the edge, pulled back the thorns and peeked out, starting to go on through, "for I already have a Master." She smiled sadly, and before Barriss could call her back, she had disappeared into the darkness.