choose a path 7

It was really late at night. This part of the palace complex was often really quiet this time of night, everyone was either asleep or they are out partying somewhere. There was always a ‘function’ going on somewhere, and people, here loved to schmooze, I guess it made them feel important and being next to other even more important people helped. I didn’t particularly want to know about that sort of thing, I had never really felt that way although, I had seen a lot of that go on at Jabba’s. It had not interested me then, either.
Maybe that was why people could never really figure me out, I didn’t want fame and fortune, I didn’t know what I wanted but I did know the whole be famous or important thing was not it. I had danced because I had loved to move and the only place you could find decent teachers were the ones who worked for Jabba the Hutt. It was not as if Tatooine had a grand ballet school or anything even close to it.
My dance teacher had discovered I was good enough to make serious money and she had gotten me a job, my first job outside of working at my father’s docking bay, she had taken a cut of my pay and my tips until I felt I had paid her back for the time spent teaching, this was not a good moment for either of us and I didn’t much like to talk about it, but sometimes you have to stand your ground. After that day, she avoided me like crazy and it was about this time that the rumours about my weirding ways started up. In the end, I don’t think that anyone really believed them, much, but still it was enough to give me an advantage.

I must admit, I didn’t mind, anything that got me out of that palace and into something more suitable. I had learned the fine art of basic ship mechanics at a really young age. My father owned his own space port by then so I got to play there and the guys who had worked there thought it was great fun to teach the Boss’s kid about how ship’s worked. I ended up loving it enough to get certified and worked there, (this had been before the dance thing, which had not really lasted that long, something my father was grateful for). When I left the palace for an ‘office’ job at Hutt Imports and Exports I was able to combine the mechanic work I had learned with everything else and I suppose, in essence, I became a sort of Jawa-of-all-trades. I had taken some of night courses on business management and had generally tried to make my self useful while staying under the radar.Of course if someone was jealous of you, you never stayed under their radar and if they were mean enough they would find a way to get back at you. I had learnt this first hand, it is how I ended up working for the Empire.

I had managed, with the help of the protocol droid, to sort out everything in the office. My predecessor had left a big mess, I suspect he didn’t actually do much in the way of work, but rather he seemed to spend a lot of time on the data console browsing the singles dating archives. I was still not all that clear on what happened to him and the protocol droid would not discuss it, kept going on about how it was all ‘most traumatic…’ and then would leave the room in a huff. I stopped asking. That was the big thing around here, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’

Keeping secrets is a way of life. I doubt though, that what had happened earlier on this evening will stay a secret and I suspected that I was in big bantha poodoo.

I have a temper. It didn’t come out all that often because I had it under control most of the time. You had to really work to get me angry. Unfortunately some of the twits around here just didn’t know when to stop.I had decided to go to the little café that was not too far away from the office. It was usually a quiet little place with only a few people there at that time of night but this particular time was the exception, this time there happened to be a group from the HR office there. They met there, apparently, once a month but I had not known that, not a surprise. I did not ask sit with them, I was not invited to sit with them. I wasn’t wearing the right clothes. So I sat at one of the small tables by the window and tried to enjoy my snack and drink in peace.

*sigh* You know that when you walk in a room and everyone suddenly stops talking and avoid looking at you that they have been talking about you. That’s what happened this time too. I tried to ignore that sort of thing, you know, it happened everywhere, office politics and always someone was on the wrong end of the gossip, but they didn’t stop at shutting up. One of the girls started to talk about ‘my smell’ loudly enough that I could hear it. So juvenile, I had showered so I knew I don’t smell. But it was one of those things people liked to say to get someone going, another started up on how shabby my clothes looked, and a third began on my unfashionable hair. Okay enough was enough and I had gotten up and walked over to their table and asked them point blank what their problem was. Perhaps they could recommend a decent soap, a good clothes shop and a hairdresser for me?

The little one who had been in my office the other day smirked, brave, now she was with a group that would back her up, animals in a pack were almost always braver, and had said something to the effect that Outer Rim trash should just stay home, and they had all giggled. I could handle that too, Tatooine was not the center of the galaxy, but I just could not handle it well when someone insulted my family, which had been their next step. I must have had that look on my face, you know the one that said ‘okay you crossed the line, you hit the right button and now I am mad’. They smelled blood and they went for the throat, stupid, stupid, stupid.

See, that was always the problem with city dwellers, they had no idea what a backed into the corner, angry animal will do, they didn’t know the warning signs and they ignored the danger. So more insults were fired out at me and something snapped. I mean, it had been an incredibly stressful time for me, a new job, a relocation to a planet I hated, a deeply disturbing new boss and I didn’t know about the rest of the galaxy but there was only so much one person could take. I had reached my limit. I took a really deep breath and let the anger I had been feeling become a visceral thing, its tendrils wound their way through my entire being and with a little flick of my hand I made each and every one of their drinks and their plates full of food, flip up and splat on their faces and laps.

There was a stunned silence before what had just happened sunk in and then the oldest, meanest one, with the spitey face, looked up at me and said.“You are so going to regret that.”

I looked at her and gave her my best ‘I hate you face’ and said “Why you going to get me fired?”

But instead of coming back with some smart retort she just smiled really nastily and said. “Fired, No. killed, yes.”

“Oh, you and whose army?”

“Oh I don’t need an army, I just send a report to the Emperor’s office and let them know we have a force sensitive working for us. He likes force sensitive girls, he makes concubines out of them. They don't last long."

This was supposed to scare me but it didn’t. I had not ever seen, or met or even come close to the Emperor so, I figured what I didn’t know didn’t worry me too much. I had just shrugged.“What ever.” I said, and I walked away and didn’t look back.

However, I worried about this action afterwards. I imagined that pissing Lord Vader off was not a good thing to do and me throwing a hissy fit because I could not take a little teasing might just tick him off, or at the very least it made his office staff look bad and I supposed that reflected upon him. I guessed that I would find out soon enough. He had left in the morning for some important mission, but was supposed to return in a day or so.I hated that stupid HR bunch and I felt this hatred the way other people feel a punch in the gut it as though it were sand-fire alcohol, the really strong kind that the Sand People brew up, running through my blood. Hot, heady and vicious.

I had read some of the Journal my father had given me, to see if there were any insights and I saw that I was not the only one who has ever felt this. This was not a good thing.

-The ways of the force are many and varied, but the true paths to understanding those paths are either light or dark. The path dictated by the light side is long and difficult. It takes years of patience and dedication to learn the ways of this mysterious power. The path dictated by the Dark side is easier and seductive, destroying the lightness of the soul. - I am learning the ways of the force, it is hard and although my Mistress teaches me patience and inner peace, it is easier for me to use my anger and frustration. I can hurt my enemies more easily when I focus using my anger. Anger is a tool. I have learned this but Yhan'nimae does not know yet. I am afraid that when she finds out I have been practicing using the forbidden ways she will no longer wish to teach me and there is no one else.-

I sat in my bedroom, unable to sleep and I had a very bad feeling about it all. I had avoided being one of Jabba’s ‘girls’ I sure as heck didn’t want to end up one of the Emperor’s. Why oh why could I not I keep my temper in check?