---Victor’s perspective---

  I stride out onto the windswept clifftop, my arms bare in spite of the freezing wind.

  I’m wearing a set of black boots, tight trousers and a shirt that wouldn’t look out of place in a movie about ninjas.

  Two metal cylinders hang from my belt, each about 25cm long and 3cm in diameter.

  I’ve got contact lenses in and warpaint around my eyes.

  My face is wearing a furious snarling scowl and my hair’s done up in a manbun at the back of my head.

  I wheel to face the woman sitting at the cliff edge with her back to me, her ears dipped, her legs folded and her four hands laid across her lap in a meditation pose.

  “Tynnara Kaldaris!” I roar at her “I have waited LONG enough! We were destined by the Force to be together! This is your last chance to willingly join me on the Dark Side! Join me and we can rule the galaxy together as man and wife! Refuse and I shall take you by FORCE!”

  In a single fluid motion, the woman stands and turns to face me, appraising me neutrally with a pair of glowing white eyes.

  ---Tuun’s perspective---

  “Darth Vastus…” I say, emotionlessly “…I must disagree with you… It hasn’t been long enough since our last meeting… As to my answer; I could never be with a man who wooed me so roughly as you, regardless of my vows to the Order… I will not join you.”

  The absolutely gorgeous man scrunches his face, widens his dark painted eyelids in thrilling rage at my refusal and draws the two handles from his belt.

  I answer by drawing the four from mine.

  “Fine!” he spits “If you will not be my queen, Tynnara, then I will make you my slave! I would have taught you how to wield power, now I will teach you only how to obey it! You will come to rue this day, my love! You will regret spurning the hand I offered you!”

  In unison, six blades are ignited into being.

  In my hands, I hold two blue and two green (I know though I can’t see the colours).

  My foe is illuminated by the (ditto) blood red glow of his two.

  They don’t roar like plasmaswords, they hum with quiet menace…

  We both strike poses, mine defensive, his aggressive.

  He surges towards me, not fast (by Don standards) but overwhelmingly powerfully with his (well above average) Human bulk!

  Even if he is only acting, the bestial way my opponent thunders towards me is genuinely terrifying!

  Every now and then, people of every species do something to make you aware that, however civilised they are, they’re just animals that think well… and the way this laserswordsman roars as he winds up both his blades over his shoulder right now reminds me that Humans are just lanky, Terran great apes(!)… With all the ferocity that entails!

  His left sword hits the inside of my right ones I was guarding with, batting them out to my side with the transfer of momentum.

  The blades screamed (much closer to the volume of a real plasmasword) for the brief moment they were in contact and flashes of flame erupted where they touched.

  He doesn’t give me a moment to think of counter attacks before his right arm follows his left.

  With how tightly this outfit constricts my chest, I’m only just able to get my left blades between my body and his swing and use the combined transfer of momentum to spin my entire body clockwise, striking down on his right side with my right swords as I come around!

  He’s matched me, spinning himself the opposite way to block my strikes with his left blade.

  My two arms pushing together don’t have half of the strength they’d need to overcome his one pushing alone!

  He throws my hands out and swipes for my feet in the same motion.

  I jump the blade and swing down on him with my right swords as I sail over his head.

  They glance off the right blade he’s raised in an upward guard.

  I combat roll over the stoney ground, turning my glowing blades outward to keep from rolling over them as I do, stand back up and wheel around.

  He’s already on me!

  As much faster as I am, as much more dexterous, as much as I should be able to leverage my greater temporal resolution to outstrategise him and as much as the two extra hands and two extra blades I have should give me every advantage in this fight, there’s simply no overcoming this Dark Lord’s ferocity, his fury, his strength!

  I might have a chance if he was giving me the odd moment to collect myself but he hasn’t relented for a single instant so far!

  I feel my fast twitch muscles beginning to run out of energy and decide that the time has come for me to start losing.

  I subtly misposition my lower right blade so that the tip of his comes just below its base at the choke.

  The emitter detaches in a shower of sparks.

  I cast the handle away and immediately transfer that hand to my upper right hilt, finding it a lot easier to manipulate with two hands.

  His two blades and my remaining three continue to clash and squeal as the two of us acrobatically wheel and spin around one another for a few moments more before my lower left blade suffers the same fate as the right.

  With both of us dualwielding and my stamina mostly gone, I’m at a severe disadvantage as the raging man pushes me backwards with one brutal strike after another.

  I’m genuinely surprised by the way behind me being blocked by a solid wall of rock that I failed to keep track of during the fight.

  My enemy takes advantage of that moment of distraction to destroy my left blade.

  I immediately dart my dominant hand across myself to replace my lower right but, backed against the wall and fighting with only one blade in my upper hands, I’m able to last just three more hits before a scissor strike of both his blades leaves me unarmed and defeated.

  ---Victor’s perspective---

  I watch as the robed woman I’ve cornered against a rock pants for breath and looks at me with a terrified expression on her face.

  I extinguish my left blade and gruffly holster the handle back at my belt.

  Reaching deep down to drag up the kind of anguish I need to play a man trying to fill up an ocean’s worth of emptiness inside him but only equipped with a sieve, I scream and charge into her, seizing her by the throat and hoisting her up the rock by her jaw with my left hand.

  “ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS LOVE ME!… WHY COULDN’T YOU JUST LOVE ME!? I COULD HAVE GIVEN YOU THE GALAXY, TYNNARA!!! I COULD HAVE GIVEN YOU ANYTHING YOU WANTED!!!” I howl, bringing the humming bar of red light between our faces.

  Exaggerating her choking, she answers “It…*ghk*… would never be…*kkh*…enough!… While the…*hhk*… Dark Side clouds your mind…*grrm*…you will know no peace!” her eyes flickering for the briefest moment, pupils glowing yellow from her pleasure at having my hand around her throat.

  “Grrah!” I snarl as I drop her and allow her to crumple to the ground.

  She rubs her neck and looks up at me from her hands and knees.

  Pacing back and forth like a caged wild animal as I speak, I recite “Peace is a LIE, Tynnara! There is only PASSION!”

  My sabre (which isn’t curved and therefore isn’t a sabre but I guess it just sounds better than ‘lightépée’(!)) hums as I wildly flail it through the air.

  “Through passion I gain strength! Through strength I gain victory! Through victory my chains are BROKEN!!!” I let my voice crack as I jab my blade in her direction and strangle out “Did that night in your quarters mean nothing to you, Tynnara?” as if about to break into tears.

  She looks away, shame on her face as she answers “We should not have done what we did… I should have foreseen that you wouldn’t be capable of keeping yourself separate from attachment… I should have known the dark path I would start you along… What we did was a mistake.”

  I answer with a bitter laugh and incredulously demand “A mistake?!… No, Tynnara! That was the first thing I ever did in my life that wasn’t a mistake!!!… It was the first time I saw through the Order’s corruption and lies!… Saw for the first time the way we had been indoctrinated from infancy!!!… SAW the perverse nature of a religion that must rip children from their families to sustain itself! That will not allow anyone old enough to question what they are being taught to enter its ranks!? One that teaches selfdenial and apathy!… Nooooo, Tynnara… what we did that night was no mistake!… The only mistake was when you chose to deny what we had felt! Deny what it had meant!!!… You were too cowardly to take my hand and run away from the place we’d been enslaved and, since you have proven you prefer slavery to freedom, I shall oblige you!”

  Shakely, she gets back to her feet and, her voice desolate, says “Valdev…”

  “THAT NAME NO LONGER HAS ANY MEANING FOR ME!!!” I rage.

  She straightens up, looks into my scowling yellow eyes and defies “Your name is Valdev Danicol… You were once a Knight of the Order just as I am a Knightess!”

  “MY NAME IS Darth VASTUS!!!” I scream “And, soon, I shall be Emperor of the galaxy!… I shall reshape it in my image and all shall KNEEL before me!!!”

  “You once fought for justice, Val!… We fought for justice together!… There is no justice in what you’re doing… When you’ve shackled every being in the galaxy, then will you finally be satisfied that your own chains are broken!?” the knightess objects.

  “*heh*!” sneers my Dark Lord before cruelly saying “Well… we’ll just see how free I feel once I’ve shackled you, Tynnara!… Once I’ve taken the love you’ve so foolishly denied me, we’ll just see how much more I need to feel satisfied!”

  ---Tuun’s perspective---

  The fallen man flies towards me and strikes me across the chest with his still ignited blade.

  I scream as it slices through my robes.

  They’re immediately engulfed in flames. However, they’re reduced away to ash so fast and at such a cool temperature that I’m in little risk of being burned from it.

  I’m left dressed in the parts of my ensemble that weren’t made of trick fabric; a pair of scifi boots, a pair of tight fitting trousers and a strapless but otherwise conservative looking boob binder that dramatically reduces the volume of my chest, all of which my trichromatic husband assured me are ‘beige’ coloured to the Human eye.

  Despite this being less skin than I had on display for my bachelorette party the other night, I somehow feel more indecent for the combination of freezing temperature so far North and having been denuded when not behind closed doors!

  The man extinguishes his blade from being and swoops down on me, pinning me to the ground.

  I sob happy sobs that I pretend are miserable ones as he withdraws some sturdy geometric bangles from a belt pouch and wrestles them over my hands.

  Once each one is at my wrist and their diameter constricted in a way that makes them impossible for me to remove, he roughly rolls me over beneath him and locks the elbow joint of each of my four arms in turn.

  As the metal cuffs around my wrists draw within around 10cm of eachother, they magnetically snap together in a way I don’t have anywhere near the strength I’d need to resist.

  My arms restrained, the villain hauls me back to my feet.

  Standing up once again, he releases me and steps away by a pace and a half before redrawing his sabre, igniting it and pointing it at the back of my head.

  “Walk, Tynnara!” he snarls.

  Still sobbing (and absolutely exhilarated for what’s coming) I begin walking to the top of the ramp, down into the clifftop honeymoon suite.

  ---Victor’s perspective---

  It’s just the tiniest bit of an immersion break to walk directly in from the clifftop where we had our epic duel and philosophical showdown into an absolutely gorgeously modern and luxurious accommodation to get to the stage for the next part(!)

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  We did discuss renting a transport but both agreed it’d be ridiculous to get in, fly around in a circle and get out!

  Canonically, this walk is representing a space flight from the planet where I duelled her to the planet with Darth Vastus’s palace… where I’ll seduce her to the Dark Side.

  Though, as I walk past the mirror on the back wall, opposite the windows, I do get a rather nice opportunity to admire the yellow irises that my character’s evil ways have given him.

  The contacts I’m wearing are only for my own benefit as my captive’s lack of colour vision means she can’t tell the difference between yellow eyes and my natural greens.

  With her obviously knowing the way to go, I don’t have to say anything as she turns left and starts walking down the ramp.

  The sloped hall is lit only by the red glow of the bar of light I’m holding to the blue skin of the nape of her neck and the bright light streaming in from the chamber at its bottom.

  We emerge onto the rolling dunes of a sunsbaked desert world.

  This half of the chamber sits at more than 50°C (which wouldn’t be survivable for long if we somehow got trapped in it and it wasn’t responding to our requests to reduce the temperature!)

  I march my prisoner over the 25m that separate us from a giant metal textured door in a looming sandstone textured wall.

  As we approach, the door begins dramatically rising out of our way.

  I march my defeated captive across the threshold of my slave palace (in which she is the first and only slave(!))

  The gigantic door slowly ratchets back down behind us, coming to a close with a heavy *boom* sound effect.

  It’s dim but there’s easily enough light for even my Human eyes to see by.

  It’s still warm in here but it’s a much more tolerable 28°C… perfect temperature for a naked Human but still a little too hot for a Don… unless they’re a masochist(!)

  With no need to train my weapon on her now that her escape is cut off, I press the switch and the beam of red light shrinks into the hilt for the final time with a *fwiiiiIP*.

  “Follow me, slave…” I growl at the woman I’ve taken, striding past her into the subterranean looking hall “…it’s time for you to learn your place!”

  I hear her snivelling as she shuffles along behind me and need to push down the part of myself that wants to turn around and comfort her and tell her what a good girl she’s being for me.

  That’s not the character I am right now!… Right now, I’m an evil bastard!

  We emerge into a wide room with a low ceiling.

  Thankfully, the rancour pit does not feature in this fantasy(!)

  There is, though, a large sandstone plinth that would comfortably fit a giant, disgusting Slug monster as he watched the enslaved, humanoid dancing girls it would make absolutely no sense for one of his bodyplan to find at all attractive!

  Canonically, my character has taken this palace over from one of that species of crime lords who he recently killed… but that’s just background worldbuilding and not a particularly relevant detail for right now(!)

  Standing on a chest high pedestal, in the middle of the room, is one of the few objects in here that isn’t made of microbot matrix.

  It’s a gleaming gold colour and made of actual real metal.

  It has a cylindrical top with a neck diameter opening.

  Its base is flared out to conform to a pair of shoulders it doesn’t currently contain.

  On it’s front is a dull jewel.

  At it’s bottom, it swoops to a point that would make it completely incapable of standing up on its own.

  “Kneel!” I bark at the woman following me without turning to face her.

  I hear her getting down on her knees.

  I step up to the pedestal and take the golden slave gorget collar from the 3D scan of a beautiful, shapely bust sitting supporting it… before turning around to the real thing.

  I unhinge the device in my hands and step forward to the woman kneeling on the ground.

  I reach out and place the front against her throat.

  I close the back and hear the *thunk* of it locking closed against her neck.

  The dull jewel at her clavicle lights up in an evil red.

  ---Tuun’s perspective---

  My hands still cuffed behind me and still kneeling on the ground in the middle of this cavernous, sandstone cave grotto, the Dark Lord steps back from me and sneers “Do you understand what I’ve just put on you, slave?” as the bust and pedestal melt into the floor behind him.

  “I do.” I whimper.

  “Do you understand that the only way it’s ever coming off is if your head comes off first?”

  “Yes.”

  “And… do you understand what it will do to you if I say the word?” he demands, eyes sparkling with gleeful malice.

  “I understand.”

  He pretends to think for a moment before taunting “Hmmm… Perhaps a demonstration, just to be sure!… PAIN!”

  I gasp as the nervejacked slave collar fills my body with just the right amount of agony to be thrilling!

  I collapse to the ground, shaking and crying while the man causing me this torture stands over me, looking down with cruel contempt.

  I feel the layers between my eyelids and eyes reacting to the masochistic pleasure I’m taking in this suffering.

  “Release.” he lazily commands.

  The pain ceases.

  He bends down to bring his face to me, giving me a close look at his eyes, painted with dark, evil patterns around them.

  “Now… do you understand what will happen if you ever defy me again, slave?” he murmurs, sensuously.

  “Yes.”

  “Goooood… Now say. my. name…”

  “Valdev Dan-”

  “Pain!”

  I shriek and writhe from the renewed agony.

  “What’s my NAME, Tynnara!?” he roars down at me without releasing me from my agony.

  “vAlDeV-”

  “PAIN!”

  My galvanic agony redoubles!

  “This will go on until you get it RIGHT, slave!” he howls “NOW SAY. MY. NAAAAAME!!!”

  “Daaaaarth… Vaaaaastus!” I scream.

  “Release!” he commands.

  My pain is gone in an instant.

  “That’s right, slave… My name is Darth Vastus… but, to you… my name is Master Vastus… and if you ever resent me for it, just remember what I offered you… You could have been my apprentice! My lover!! My QUEEN!!!… But it’s too late for that… Even if you pledge yourself to my teachings now, you shall still never be more than my pet!… Now stand up!”

  I feel my cuffs demagnetise, releasing my hands, and quickly heave myself to my feet, masochism satiated for the moment and not looking to incur another dose of my Master’s wrath.

  He imperiously points behind him at a small section of the room that sits on the far side of a privacy screen.

  “Go and change into the clothes you’ll be serving me in for every moment of the rest of your life I permit you to be dressed, slave!” he snarls “Do not keep me waiting!”

  “Yes… Master Vastus…” I say quietly, casting my eyes to the floor in defeated submission.

  He goes to take a seat on the edge of the gigantic, sandstone throne plinth and I hurriedly make my way to go and see one of the only aspects of this fantasy that will be a surprise to me.

  I slip into the narrow gap between the screen and the wall, finding a stack of neatly folded fabric sitting on a shelf at the back.

  Portions of metal gleam through it.

  I reach out to pick up one piece by the metal section.

  I find it’s actually two lengths of insubstantial fabric hanging down from a hinged metal hoop that’s the perfect shape to enclose my waist.

  These will be the lowers.

  I look to see what’s left.

  It’s just a single, narrow length of thin fabric, each end having a boob shaped cup in it and terminating in a thin, discorectangular ring of metal.

  There is no footwear.

  There are also no panties because, of course, ‘there’s no underwear in space’(!)

  As pleased as I am by this interpretation of the iconic dancing slave girl outfit… how exactly am I supposed to put this top on?

  I undo my binder (feeling relief that my girls are finally free(!)) and begin to experiment.

  I wind the narrow section around my back, between my upper and lower shoulderblades, and bring the cups to my breasts.

  OK… now what?

  The rings are solid and don’t look like they can latch into eachother?

  Even if they could, if I attach them in front of my chest, there’d be nothing holding them up and they’d just fall down to my midriff… which I doubt is the point?

  I don’t need to try it to see that they’d never reach all the way behind my neck and I don’t think he’d want the gorgeous slave collar covered up by them, would he!

  It’s almost like they’re supposed to…?

  Oh! Wait!

  I dig a claw under the bottom right side of the gorget.

  Aha!

  ---Victor’s perspective---

  I spy my slave’s blue skinned feet making their way out under the privacy screen.

  I clap my hands twice, cuing some sexy desert dancing music.

  Instead of coming out enthusiastically dancing along to it, she nervously walks into the middle of the room, stands right where the pedestal was, turns to face me and stares at the floor.

  I take a moment to admire my handiwork in reinterpreting the iconic outfit.

  I know the original scene is supposed to have been every scifi nerd’s sexual awakening for seven and a half centuries but, truth is, I was so young when I saw those films (and found the character’s personality so offputting) that it was like seeing my stern nurseryschool teacher in a golden bikini and loincloth… Not sexy at all!

  It was really only in my mid twenties that I was able to look at that scene and find it at all arousing… at least for the brief moments the giant disgusting Slug monster wasn’t on screen(!)

  Personally, I prefer my redesign; metal hoop belt, vibrant red pelvic curtain at the front with a wider one at the back, enough of her hips showing to make clear she’s not wearing any panties and the matching chestwrap hooked into the bottom of her collar, cupping and cradling her large breasts but not leaving much of them to the imagination!

  It’s gorgeous work on a gorgeous woman(!)

  Forcing myself to finish patting myself on the back, I command “Dance for me, slave.”

  Without objection, she begins to dance.

  She steps uncertainly at first, uneasily rocking her body out of rhythm with the music.

  Before long though, she’s fully into it, closing her eyes as she spins enough to tantalisingly raise her skirts, shaking her torso to make her tits sway alluringly, using all four of her arms to shape herself into erotic poses for her Master to enjoy.

  The more lost in her dance she gets, the more I notice her four hands stroking breasts, stomach, thighs and other erogenous zones… briefly at first but getting more blatant as time wears on.

  Finally, I decide she’s tempted me enough.

  It’s time for her to be seduced to the Dark Side(!)

  I reach over the edge of my plinth and retrieve a long, twisted metal cable during a particularly intense section of the music where she has her eyes closed for a prolonged period.

  Lazily, I throw it out onto the dance floor, activating it as I do.

  The end I tossed darts between her hands and magnetises onto the front of her gorget, becoming a lead.

  Her eyes snap open and she offers a token resistance as I coil in the cord to draw her towards me.

  I give her a hard yank to bring her to her knees at my feet.

  “I’ve decided, pet…” I growl in my best seductively evil voice, reaching a hand out to caress her chin “…it’s time we joined our flesh once more… as we did all those years ago in the Temple… It’s time you saw, first hand, the power the Dark Side has given me…”

  Looking almost entranced, my slavegirl answers “Yes, Master Vastus…”

  I smirk “Good… Follow me…”

  ---Tuun’s perspective---

  My Master, still holding my leash, leads me down a hallway.

  We arrive at a door which slides aside for him.

  He steps through and pulls me in behind him.

  At the back of the room is a large, round, soft bed in the same absolutely jet dark colour as he’s dressed in.

  The leash drops from my collar and he commands “Stand by the bed, slave.”

  I obey, walking to stand directly between him and it and turning around to face him, awaiting my next instruction.

  Instead of giving it to me, the man who owns my body, heart and soul, walks to join me.

  He reaches to my chest, grasping my chestwrap just inside my left breast.

  I feel the pressure increase as he lifts it upward under my collar, unhooking the stadial ring from the notch it’s hooked onto.

  Bringing it back down, my Master exposes my left breast before slowly circling behind me, unwinding the wrap as he goes, returning to my right and unhooking that side as well, fully baring my chest.

  With one simple action, he fully denudes me, reaching out to my left hip and unclasping my metal belt which falls to the floor with the last of my modesty.

  The final thing he does is reach up to the back of my head and release my tight bun.

  My hair cascades down my back, tickling me pleasantly.

  The beautiful monster steps back to admire the look of my body, only clad in restraint cuffs and an obedience collar.

  Once he’s apparently satisfied, he holds out his arms and commands “Undress me, pet… Undress me like you did that night… Undress me and finally become mine…”

  ---Victor’s perspective---

  My captive’s eyes briefly flash in yellow and red as she steps to my front and reaches out to my sleeveless top.

  Digging her claws beneath it, she opens it to the sides and pushes it over my arms.

  She unclips my utility belt and it falls to the floor with a metallic *clunk* from my lasersword hilts hooked into it.

  The naked woman next bends all the way down.

  Understanding her position as my slave, she doesn’t tell me to lift my feet, she simply waits until I deign to before pulling off my jet black ankleboots and leaving me barefoot.

  She draws back up and brings all four hands to my hips to push my skintight leggings down my legs.

  There is no underwear in space (regardless of gender(!)) so my cock springs forwards to hit her in the face as she draws my lowers low enough to release it.

  She’s momentarily entranced by it but manages to collect herself enough to remember to finish undressing me, holding the black fabric down for me to step out of it, one foot at a time.

  “Rise.” I command.

  She comes back to full height.

  “Kneel on the bed.” I instruct, pointing behind her.

  She climbs up onto the soft platform and walks to the middle before turning back around and kneeling.

  I follow her, kneeling down facing her, a matter of centimetres separating us.

  Rather than (as a dark lord would see it) wasting time on kissing and heavy petting, I simply push her knees apart, slide mine into the space between them, align my hard cock with her wet pussy and thrust upwards to plunge inside her.

  Immediately, she’s gasping and moaning erratically (and erotically) from the disorienting sensation.

  Her hands fly out to four different points on my body, gripping to steady herself.

  The colour of her eyes flickers a few times.

  I begin flexing my core to draw my length out of her before pushing it back in.

  She’s a panting, gibbering mess in very short order, her pupils strobing from glowing white to glowing yellow and her scleras strobing from obsidian black to blood red.

  Finally (and with me nowhere close) the love of my life screams a strangled cry of ecstasy, throwing her head back and turning her face to the ceiling.

  There’s a moment of stillness.

  When she finally meets my eyes again, her natural eye colour is replaced by the red and yellow of her orgasm sensitive contacts.

  “You’re fulfilling your destiny, Tynnara…” I growl in my best villain voice “…Become my apprentice. Learn to use the Dark Side of the Force.”

  “I will do whatever you…*hfff*…ask!…*huh*… I pledge myself…*huh-hfff*… to your teachings!” she pants back in stupefied bliss.

  “Goooooooood!” I rumble back “Henceforth, you shall be known as Darth… Taetra!”

  “Thank you… my Master.” she answers, taking on a sinister lilt to her own voice.

  ---Tuun’s perspective---

  “I don’t believe you!” I giggle into my husbands face, still lying on the bed in his slave palace and some time into our aftercare “There is no single tweak that would have rescued those movies! You’re delusional!”

  “It’d need changes to a few different scenes and I don’t think it’d save everything but, without completely throwin’ all three out and startin’ from scratch, I think this’s as good as you’re doin’!” he grins back earnestly.

  “Alright!… Go on then!… What ‘one weird trick’ would’ve saved the Prequels(?)” I invite, mirthfully.

  “Simple!… He shouldn’t’ve been the oldest ever to start his trainin’… He should’ve been the youngest! Make it so the council want him to come of age before he starts and it’s only the prophecy that gets ’em to grudgin’ly agree to start early!!!” he explains, enthusiastically.

  I frown “Wouldn’t that… immediately destroy any tension about whether he gets trained at all? If he’s already too old, waiting a few years will make the problem worse where, if he’s just a few years too young, the worst that would happen is he has to wait a few years… At that point, why not just write it so he’s exactly the right age now and accepted immediately with no issue at all?”

  “The tension’s already destroyed if you watch ’em in order of release! We know he get’s trained because that’s explained as the first part of the beat about him falling to the Dark Side!… And YEAH! You’re RIGHT! If he’s too young, you could just wait a few years to start fulfillin’ the prophecy… and that’s the tragedy in this version! They’d’ve been fine if they’d just sent him to a boardin’ school and come back when he turned… let’s say 19, like his son! They’d done that, he’d’ve fulfilled the prophecy no problem because he’d’ve had the emotional maturity to make a decision about whether he actually wanted to join a loveless, passionless, religious cult for the rest of his life to fulfil some prophecy! Just ’cause they were so desperate to get it fulfilled now, they ended up unfulfillin’ it!… Plus it’d close the weird plothole created by them training the dad when he was 9 and already too old, him turnin’ to the Dark Side (on account of that and the whole ‘bein’ in a lovin’ relationship thing’), then goin’ ‘Well we broke the rules once and created a Dark Lord who destroyed our entire order (’cept us two), conquered the galaxy, turned it into an empire and ruled it as the ironfisted enforcer of his master, the emperor… You know what I think the problem was?! Obviously, we didn’t break the rules enough! Let’s wait till his son’s 19 ’stead of 9… and let’s not tell him ’bout the no love rule at all. Let him get into a weird flirty situationship that has him snoggin’ his twin sister! That’ll be a laugh!’(!)… Makin’ him the youngest fixes that plothole, is consistent with him turnin’ evil (bein’ a child soldier ain’t great for the psyche to my understandin’(!)) and makes the Order not look like a bunch of absolute WANKERS who only recruit infants into their religious death cult(!)…HATE to say the villain’s got a point but I don’t exactly see ‘the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy’ when I look at the Order in the Prequels!”

  I frown, trying to poke any hole in his reasoning but finding none to poke.

  “Huh… That actually would be a huge improvement… Too bad you can’t hop in your time machine and go back to suggest it to the creator(!)” I say, rolling over to retrieve my holo from the stand where I left it before the start of the fantasy, to begin scrolling the suite’s breakfast options.

  “Sure he’d tell me I just ‘lacked vision’ or somethin’ if I could do that(!)” he quips.

  I scroll down the menu before my eyes alight on a section that makes me exclaim “Tórr’s hammer!”

  “What?” he asks, rolling to look over my shoulder.

  I hold my holo screen to him and say “Look at how many different kinds of pancakes they have here, Victor!”