Or as Leia put it, Aren't you a little short to be a storm-trooper?

"You're my chance?" the Nesak woman said.

He did not know how to interpret her tone, except that there was nothing positive in it. He said, steadily, "I am Erien, Ward of Monitum and envoy to Leige Nersal."

"Ward of ... Monitum."

He nodded. Her vivid green eyes closed and she shuddered slightly, whispering something he did not catch, a prayer, perhaps.

She braced herself. "What do you want?"

"I am here to take you away, if that is your wish. I have spoken to the Zer-sis; he knows."

Her mouth twisted. "Leave, with you. You are not even Nesak! Monatese! Surely I do not deserve this of him." She wrapped her arms around herself, her eyes glistening. "I have not done anything so very shameful."

He was suddenly afraid he realised what the immediate difficulty was. "I am not here as a mate. I am an envoy acting under Leige Nersal's orders."

She looked at him, warily. "And what about yourself. Will you not want - "

"Rewarded?" Erien picked up, sourly. "Not in the way I think you mean. I am acting under the Leige Admiral's orders."

She frowned. "Are you flawed?"

He felt himself flush, since she was by no means the first woman who had asked that, but was saved from thoroughly embarrassing them both by her abrupt, "You have a - speech impediment."

Not what he was thinking, and so he corrected her ... "No. I lived seven years on Rire. That is an accent."

... maybe unwisely. "Rire!"
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