"Its lost!" a voice cried, the sound an awful wave of horror that made Winter's heart spasm with a most exquisite shock as she looked up from her data pad.
     A young lieutenant was running toward her from the other side of the small warehouse that had been a temporary base for the rebel cell at Averam.
     His face was rigid and starkly pale as he gazed around with eyes that were blind with a terrible bewilderment.  "Its lost!" he repeated as more heads turned in surprise.
     "What, Mekan?!" General Ranus said, reaching out to snag the lieutenant by the arm as he passed.  Mekan spun in the base commander's grasp, and would have been sent sprawling to the floor had Ranus not been there to steady him.
     "Thonn continent," Mekan gasped, his eyes bulging as though he had just seen Darth Vader himself.  "The oro
woods. . .  The glimmerfish. . .  Everything. . .  Its all gone!"
     "Gone?!" Ranus demanded, giving the young man a shake.  "What do you mean gone?!"
     "The Empire. . ." Mekan breathed, "the Death Star. . .  They. . .  They. . ."
     "WHAT!" Ranus barked.
     "Alderaan has been destroyed," Mekan said, his voice hollow.
     The warehouse that had been bustling just seconds before fell eerily silent.
     "That can't be," Winter said, her mind deaf to the words even as she felt them leave her lips.  That had been the first time. . .  the only time. . .  that Winter had ever forgotten anything.
     But that day, as she saw the General look that trembling lieutenant in the eye the instant before stalking off to the communications section. . .  Winter had indeed forgotten where she was and what she was doing.
     That day was over eight years ago.  And yet, for the woman whose code name on that day had been Targeter. . .  the woman whose place was at the side of Princess Leia Organa Solo. . .  the memory was as clear eight years later, as it was eight seconds after it happened.
     "Winter," a most familiar voice said from behind her.
     Shaking herself from the mists of her perfect memory, the silver haired woman turned away from her view of Coruscant's Manarai Mountains.
     "Yes, Your Highness?" she said, choking back the emotion flooding her heart.  She had half expected to find two people standing behind her. . .
     "I wanted to review the guest list for the Silver Flow reception," Leia Organa Solo said mildly, her eyes studying Winter's face with sympathetic concern.
     "Of course," Winter replied quickly, eager to distract the princess from her worrisome observations.  "I have it right here."
     She moved to the data pad on the desk just inside the open terrace doors.  Yet even as her fingers called the information from the computer, Winter could feel the princess's brown eyes still watching and worrying.  Leia knew well how hard this day was for her aide.  More than discomfort, it was a pain shared by all Alderaanians left homeless and grief-stricken by the destruction of the world that had been theirs.
     The princess knew the pain well because she to was Alderaanian, and had personally witnessed the planet's obliteration by the order of Grand Moff Tarkin.
     She knew the pain well yet, in a way, she would never know.
     "Are you all right?" Leia asked quietly.
     "I'm fine, Your Highness," Winter assured her with a smile as she handed the princess her data pad.  It was a question she had come to expect around this time of year.  "Just a little tired from all the preparations."
     It was a useless deception.  Princess Leia was now a full Jedi and was watching, Winter knew, with more than merely her eyes.  Hers was a vision that could not easily be deceived.
     "Well, I would certainly be lost without you," Leia said, holding the data pad behind her back and walking to Winter's side.  "With three children, a husband, and a Wookie to keep in line, I need all the help I can get," she added wryly.
     The two women chuckled.  "Thank you, Your Highness," Winter said.  "Will there be anything else?"
     "No," Leia replied, "no, I think everything has pretty well been taken care of.  I just have to head back now and make sure the children are getting ready."
     "I'll come and assist you," Winter said quickly.
     "I know how much you like to make my life easier," the princess admonished playfully, "but there are some challenges I must face alone."
     "If you are certain?" Winter asked.
     "I am," Leia said firmly.  "Besides, you're going to have to take time for yourself if you are going to upstage me again this year."
     "I mean no disrespect, Your Grace," Winter said, her face blushing slightly with embarrassment.
     "I'm just kidding," Leia chided gently.  "You never upstage me," she said with an exaggerated sigh.
     The two women chuckled again.
     "I should go," Leia said finally.  "The children have probably tied Han to a chair by now.  See you tonight."
     "Good bye, Your Highness," Winter said as Leia left.  The door to her office opened, and then closed. . .  and Winter was once again alone.  And again, the weight of memory crushed down upon her with equal parts of sadness, of longing. . .  and of a very private guilt.
     The princess had always respected her servant enough never to pry into those aspects of Winter's life that were so very personal.  It was a characteristic that made her the leader she was.  That integrity was only one of the many character traits that made Winter proud and honored to be at the princess's side all these years.  And although their relationship had always remained very formal, Winter knew well that the princess considered her to be a close friend.
     And yet, behind the trust, the courtesy, the loyalty, and the service, there was Winter's hidden secret betrayal.
     Her cheek twitched as Winter turned back toward the mountains, framed in the open terrace door.  She had hoped the princess would need her help with the children.  She wanted so much to be asked for her assistance.  It would have been the perfect distraction against the torment of the demons now laughing in her mind.
     And her mind drifted back in time to the four years she spent as caretaker of the Solo children.  It was just after the New Republic had beaten back the Empire during the Katana Fleet crisis that Han Solo and Princess Leia had made the
heart-rendering decision to hide their newborn children during their earliest, most vulnerable, years.  And when they came to Winter and asked that she be the one to perform so important a task, there was no way Winter could have refused.  Her station as Princess Leia's personal aide aside, the fact that Winter would be trusted with the duty was an accolade beyond any she had ever hoped for.
     It was difficult, of course, to be away from civilization for so long a time.  For security reasons Winter and the children lived in near total isolation on the distant world of Anoth.  Far from the politics and conflicts of Republics and Empires, Winter set herself into the routines and responsibilities that came with caring for two infants.
     And as time went on Winter found that she had little time to dwell on the dark past she remembered so clearly.  She found peace on Anoth.  A peace she'd not had since before Alderaan was destroyed.  And Winter believed firmly that it was her duty as the children's nanny that had given her that peace.
     It tore her heart out the day she brought the twins back to Coruscant.  Back to their rightful place with their parents.  It was even harder when the time came to leave them and return to Anoth.  But the children belonged with their parents, and Winter's tenure as nanny had been extended with the birth of their brother, Anakin, one year earlier.
     And when Anakin finally came home permanently, Winter returned as well.  Back to Coruscant, back to her life, back to her role.
     If only it were that easy.
     A fresh pang of that private guilt welled up in Winter's chest.  She had hidden it well, but things had changed by the time Winter brought Anakin home.  She had been so quick to accept the sacred responsibility as caretaker. . .  so eager to validate the princess's faith in her servant. . .  the emotional consequences to Winter were--
     But these children. . .  however long they were with her, and however deeply she cared for them. . .  were not hers.  They were the children and heirs to what was very possibly the last Alderaanian Royal Line.
     And she was the servant.  Whose place it was to serve.
     She was still very much a part of the Solo family, almost on a daily basis.  But the closeness she had experienced between herself and the children on Anoth was missing.
     Winter had no right to feel what she felt, and no one to express those feelings to.
     And again she felt alone. . .
     "You are not alone. . ."
     "What?!" Winter exclaimed, spinning around and reaching for the blaster hidden under her skirt.  But she turned to find no one there.  The room was as Princess Leia had left it.  The warm glow of afternoon spilled into the office as a soft breeze flowed through the open terrace door.  The current of air carried with it that fresh sweetness it always gained later in the day as it toyed with her hair and whispered in her ear.
     For the second time today Winter would have sworn someone had--
     The breeze felt cool against the skin of her exposed thigh as Winter stood with on foot perched on her desk chair, her hand not leaving the grip of the blaster still holstered at her leg.  Facing the only entrance like this, she could target the door without the need to telegraph the motion of drawing the weapon.
     Was it just the breeze she heard?
     Twice?
     With eyes far cooler than the breeze Winter scanned the room.  Nothing.  Her imagination was running away with her.  Slowly, her hand moved away from the blaster.  In their sweep for the nonexistent intruder, her eyes fell upon the clock.
     And a new concern asserted itself.  She had indeed better start tending to herself if she was going to be attending the reception.
     Quickly Winter closed the terrace doors and went for a fast shower.  But all the while she could not shake the feeling that someone or something was watching.
     Watching. . .  and calling to her.

     The destruction of Alderaan had been one of the Empire's worst miscalculations.  The act was designed to be a lesson to the galaxy of the consequences of defying the New Order.  It was believed that the fear of the Empire's ability to destroy an entire planet with a single weapon would be enough to quell any resistance to Imperial rule.
     But the effect had been just the opposite.
     Outrage at the unspeakable act of genocide polarized the resistance, and the Rebel Alliance gained a tremendous momentum as a result.  When the Empire was finally brought low and the Rebel Alliance became the New Republic, it was decided that the planet which paid so terrible a price should be honored and remembered for the place it held in galactic history.
     The annual Silver Flow Reception was one such memorial.  Held at the time of year that would have been the Alderaanian spring, dignitaries from all over the New Republic gathered to celebrate and toast the world that had been viewed by many as the cultural gem of the galaxy.
     But, as grand as the festivities were, tonight only reminded Winter of that which was lost forever.
     "Not lost," someone said, "only more difficult to see."
     Winter flinched, her eyes flashing around her as they searched for whoever had spoken.
     "Winter," a voice said quietly at her side, "is everything all right?"
     Winter blinked in an instant of confusion as she looked off to her side.  "I'm fine," she repeated for the second time today.  "Caught daydreaming, I guess."
     Lando Calrissian made a hissing sound between his teeth as he sent her one of those charming looks of his.  "You look absolutely beautiful," he said.  "You truly belong among the upper class."
     "Thank you," Winter replied, trying hard to keep the sarcasm from her voice.  That was almost the exact line he apparently used on Princess Leia at Cloud City.
     Except this version didn't come off quite as well.
     "Why is it," he said smoothly, moving his glass aside and leaning on his elbows toward her, "that we never got together?"
     "I don't think Mara Jade would have approved," Winter smiled back, matching his flirtatious tone.
     "Excellent point," Lando conceded through a grimace.
     His well known reputation aside, Lando Calrissian's reaction to Winter's appearance was not precisely unexpected.  Which was by no means to say it was encouraged.  It was a simple matter that at an elegant event like this, especially one with words like "silver flow" attached to it, a woman with hair such as hers could expect the sort of attention she was getting now.
     Every year proved a challenge for her.  A struggle between dressing and acting appropriately for an event like this, and not taking the spotlight from the one whom she served.
     Ordinarily, Winter would solve the problem by simply dressing down.  But the Silver Flow Reception was such an important event, not looking her absolute best could be viewed by many as not only inappropriate, but disrespectful.  This year she had chosen a black strapless dress to compliment her hair, which she decided to wear up for a change.  The dress hung to her ankles but had a slit down the right side to allow her quick and easy access to the blaster hidden in the garter at her thigh.  It was a back up, a precautionary measure, in case she couldn't get to the one in her purse fast enough.  It was an act of blatant paranoia, even to Winter's mind.  But past experience had taught her that one was either safe. . .  or very, very sorry.
     Her eyes were darkened with just enough shadow, her cheeks colored with carefully applied blush, and her lips were glossy wet with just enough lipstick.  Normally Winter never bothered with makeup.  A throwback to her days as a Rebel, she supposed. Back to when she had not the time or the need to fuss with such things.  Now. . .  well, one could not hold the role Winter held without being mindful of such things.
     She and Lando went back and forth with the playful banter for awhile, but on this night nothing would lift the darkness residing in her soul.  She looked around the huge room, decorated with images the planet in whose honor tonight's events were held.
     Lining the walls were holographic screens of varying shapes and sizes.  Images of creatures and places and things that distinguished Alderaan from all the galaxy's other wonders.  On the wall across from her and to the left, Winter studied a portrait of a cairoka bird.  It's graceful ivory colored wings spread in flight as it swept through the air.  Her eyes drifted to the next image, set closer toward her on the right.  A depiction of a herd of Alderaanian deer.  Their thin coats of scarlet hair shone as the stripes of gold that ran across the animals' sleek torsos reflected the warm summer sunlight.  And then Winter's vision focused on a third portrait.
     A portrait of a thratas.
     With it's huge rounded body and large head, the docile thratas appeared to be neither sleek nor graceful.  But despite it's lumbering size and shape, the creature framed there was in fact no less graceful than the deer the cairoka bird.  For the thratas were able to float through the air as surely as glimmerfish swam in water.
     And as she looked around the room, decorated so exquisitely with icons of her lost world, Winter found herself feeling bitter at the illusion the event was attempting to create.
     No holographic image of a planet could equal it's actual presence, nor could it truly hold the flavor that was the real Silver Flow.  Had this been the actual day, on the actual planet, they would have been outdoors.  Watching the spectacle of thousands of newly born glimmerfish as they began the competition that was life from the shore of the island Aldera, the capital city of Alderaan.
     The endless school of fish would flash and sparkle like a continuous charge of electricity as they instinctively went about their yearly migratory route.  Sometimes, if the skies were clear enough, the schools could be seen from ships entering and leaving orbit.  The air was pleasantly moist with the smells of the lake as the people ate and drank and celebrated what was life on so magnificent a world.
     A magnificence no one would ever be part of again.
     "Forever will it be a part of you. . ."
     This time there was no covering it, Winter's face betrayed every hint of her discomfort.
     "Winter," Lando asked, more insistent this time as he took her hand, "what is it?"
     "I really don't know," Winter replied absently.  Her eyes caught Princess Leia's.
     She was sensing something now to.  And then Winter saw her exchange glances with Luke Skywalker, and he to started looking in her direction.  "I'm just not feeling well," she said, pulling away from Lando and getting to her feet slowly to avoid attracting attention.  "Please make my apologies to Her Highness."
     Lando tried to whisper something, but Winter was away from the table before he could stop her.  She tried to move quickly yet casually to create as little of a distraction as possible.  Even so, she could feel the air tingle with the curiosity of the crowd over the unexpected event.
     And when she had heard one of the children loudly say her name--
     Being the personal assistant to a member of the Royal Court meant an absolute understanding of one simple rule: one never ever did anything to publicly embarrass or upstage any member of the Royal Family.
     Yet twenty-eight times Winter had been publicly mistaken for Princess Leia.  They were never intentional, and the princess had accepted them as such.
     But this act may have carried with it. . .  repercussions.
     "Understand she will.  Better than you know. . ."
     Winter's head twitched with the sound only she could hear.
     Was she losing her mind?!
     In moments that felt more like years, she was in a transport headed for the Imperial Palace.  Perhaps a two-one-bee medic droid could give her some excuse to offer the princess.

     Winter stepped quickly into her quarters, and just as quickly locked the door.  She had intended to go directly to the medical center, but came here instead.  She had wanted to alert palace security about a possible breach, both before leaving the palace and especially upon returning to it, but didn't.
     Her eyes flicked over her comboard.  She had messages.  Probably the princess, Winter thought shamefully.  Telling her that if this were the Empire, she would be shot.
     No, the princess would not say that.  She would want to know if there were anything she could do to help. . .  anything at all.
     And Winter had not an answer to give her.
     She really should check her messages.  She really should turn on the light.  She really should. . .  go out onto the terrace.
     Framed in the darkness Winter could see the shape of the door on the other side of her office.  Had she forgotten to close her office door before leaving? Had she really forgotten something for the first time in. . .?
     The breeze, alive with the energy of the vast Imperial City, rushed at her face as Winter pushed open the terrace door.  It was cooler now that the sun was down, but the most spectacular quality of the metropolis sprawled before her was the way the billions of lights that gave the city it's renowned brilliance also lit the night sky.
     Above, she could see the shadows of clouds.  Her eyes could just barely see their varying forms and textures as the lights of the city below played against the sky and it's stars.  The way some of the larger clouds just hung there reminded her of the way the thratas would. . .
     "A wondrous evening it is!"
     In a motion faster than a lightning strike Winter reached into the slit of her dress and snapped up her mini blaster, spinning around to face her target.
     And she did have a target this time.  A very small one with long pointed ears and a wizened face that looked almost grand-fatherly.  His skin appeared to be green, although it was hard to tell with the radiant blue glow of energy tracing it's form.  And it's reaction to Winter's move was most unexpected.
     "Why are you laughing?" Winter demanded, taking the blaster two handed as she backed toward the terrace railing.
     "Reminds me of the past, this does," the creature said, it's voice echoing as if it were speaking to Winter from within a distant corridor.
     "What are you?" Winter asked brusquely, wondering why that had not been her first question.
     The creature's ears twitched as it tilted it's wrinkled head thoughtfully to one side.  "A mentor. . .  a mystery. . .  a memory. . .  all things am I."
     "What do you want?" Winter demanded.
     Her intruder seemed to reflect on that.  "Stew," it answered after an instant.  "Like it, I do.  Yes! A long time I have not eaten stew."
     "Why not," Winter asked off the top of her head. . .  why would she ask that?
     "Dead, I am!" the creature exclaimed.  And for the first time Winter realized that she could see the back of the lounge chair the creature was sitting in through it's torso.  "Do not need food when one is dead."
     Winter really needed to see that medic droid. . .
     "See beyond your eyes," the creature urged, his face suddenly focused with an air of competence Winter had never seen on any Royal or dignitary.  "See with that mind you have that is so powerful.  Feel me," he continued, his eyes sparkling with passion.  "Feel my presence as surely as the weapon your hand now holds."
     "I don't understand," Winter breathed as she felt herself feeling less threatened by her strange visitor.
     "Not something easily understood is it," the creature explained.  "Yet most basic it's nature is.  The most difficult lesson to learn that one is."
     And then, somewhere in the back of her mind, the connection was made.  "The voice I've been hearing," Winter said, only vaguely aware that she had dropped her aim.  "It has been you?"
     The creature simply nodded slowly in response.
     "Why?" Winter asked, puzzled.
     "Ask the same question of you, I would," her visitor replied.  "But not near as often as you ask yourself."
     "I don't understand," Winter repeated.
     "No," the small vision said firmly, stabbing the bottom of the chair with the stick he held.  "Understand this well you do.  Deny that you cannot.  Exist in the past you do.  Trapped there by a remarkable mind that won't allow you to forget, yet with eyes too sad for you to see."
     "See what?" Winter asked.
     "That," her visitor replied, pointing behind her with a long fingernail.
     Winter half turned, cautiously looking in that
direction. . .  At the Manarai Mountains, silhouetted in the darkness behind the lights of Imperial City.
     "What?" Winter asked again, turning back to the creature.
     "Them," it said, pointing the same way again with that same assuredness to it's face and voice.
     "What?" Winter repeated as she turned around completely and gestured at the shadows towering in the distance.  "What am I supposed to see?" she asked, impatience creeping into her tone.
     "That which has past," the vision said from behind, "and which is still there."
     Another connection. . .  "Who are you?" Winter asked quickly, half turning to face her visitor as a sudden fright caught her heart.
     "One who has seen, felt, and done more than even your memory could hold," the strange mentor replied.  "One who has known the pain you feel, and sees what you cannot."
     "What are you talking about?" Winter demanded.
     "Reach beyond the anger, you must.  Face down the pain and drive it from your soul.  That you must do before you can see the truth before you."
     "What do you mean?" Winter asked, her voice almost pleading.
     "Turn to the mountains," her visitor said.  "And close your eyes as you fill your lungs with breath."
     Winter hesitated, her eyes skeptical.
     "If not real am I," the vision said into her uncertainty, "than no harm can I do.  The same to, if dead I am.  And if imagining this you are, comfort you should take that there is no one here to mock you for the act."
     "What will it accomplish?" Winter asked finally.
     "Only as much as you believe," her visitor answered simply.  "Already know you that which I am and of that which I speak.  An act of faith this is.  Courage you must have."
     They gaze at each other for a moment.  The woman with the perfect memory, and the teacher from days long past.  The look in the visions eyes. . .  one of knowledge, wisdom, and reason, was a look she had seen so many times before in the eyes
of. . .
     She turns, her eyes sweeping around in a panoramic view of the world beyond her terrace, until they fall back on the enigmatic mountains that hold the wonder of so very many.
     "Close your eyes," the voice behind her said.
     Slowly, feeling the warm air as it caressed her face, Winter did as instructed.  Against the dark backdrop of her closed eyelids, brightly colored shapes began to form.  Afterimages, she knew, of what she looked at just before closing her eyes.
     "Breathe deeply," the scratchy voice said to her, and Winter did as she was told.  All the while still unsure why she was agreeing to do this at all.
     But she suspected. . .
     "Turn your thoughts inward," her visitor said, perhaps sensing what she was thinking.  And as she tried to do what she could only guess he wanted, her thoughts shifted to the vision itself.  In her mind's eye Winter pictured him sitting there, surrounded by that bright blue glow that seemed so warm.
     In that picture, he had his eyes closed just like here's.
     "Good," his voice said, "so clear your mind is.  So sharp are it's images.  Now, let it flow like the breeze."
     The picture of her visitor faded but remained as another formed over it.  Formed from the shapes and shades of those afterimages. . .
     "Yes!" the vision's voice called again.  "Finding them you are.  Let them come.  Let them come forth from where they are, back to where they were."
     In her heart Winter sighed in amazement, awestruck by the miracle playing out before her.
     "Good," the voice said, "hold back the tidal wave and all it's distracting power.  See only the image.  Color it, build on it.  Free your mind to explore it."
     She was there, she saw them. . .  all of them, standing in the middle of a vast prairie. . .  and they were all alive, and at peace.
     And they saw her. . .  and one of their number. . .  one of so very many stepped closer to her.  His posture straight, his face proud, his demeanor. . .  regal.
     He was Bail Organa.  The last Viceroy of Alderaan.
     Winter wanted to bow but dared not move for fear of losing the image.  The Viceroy smiled, and his lips moved with words she could not hear but heard nonetheless.
     "Open your eyes. . ."
     With only the slightest hint of reluctance Winter willed her shadowed eyelids to lift. . .  and her eyes looked again in the direction of the mountains. . .  and the sight they saw made her entire body tremble.
     They were everywhere, hundreds...  maybe thousands of people.  All suspended in midair as securely as Winter was standing on the terrace.
     All traced in that same kind of energy the like of which Winter had never seen except for. . .
     "I-I don't believe it!" she gasped.
     "You must believe it," her visitor replied, now sitting on the back of a large thratas as it hovered over all her thousands of other. . .  visitors. . .? "This would not be possible if you didn't."
     Winter looked up to the mysterious vision that had apparently started all this, her gray eyes tearing with a thousand questions.
     "Nothing is ever truly lost when it can longer be seen just with our eyes or touched with only our hands," her visitor said placidly.  "A thing that ceases to exist in that which most beings call reality continues to exist elsewhere.  Death is a transformation, not an end."
     "All these people and things I see before me," Winter breathed, "are. . ."
     "Here," her visitor finished the sentence.  "Right where they were.  Where they never left. . .  and will never be again."
     "I don't understand," Winter said.
     "You will in time," the Viceroy said, his voice echoing like that of Winter's small visitor as he stepped toward her.  "That is your ability. . .  and your gift. . ."
     Bail Organa's voice became grave, ". . .  And your responsibility.  You grew up in service to me through your service to my daughter.  A daughter who was not mine, but mine nonetheless.  I knew you were special from the day I saw you.  I knew you were special even before I came to know the power of your mind.  But I could not have known until my. . .  passing, the true reason why you are so special."
     "Your role it is," her visitor continued, as if taking a cue from the Viceroy, "to remember.  To chronicle.  And to tell others of that which has past.  To give hope to those who have not seen all that has been revealed to you.  That is you role, and your place, in the way of things."
     "How do I begin to do that," Winter asked.
     "By putting aside the pain of things you cannot change," the Viceroy said.  "Remember us.  Our people, our planet, our culture not for whom and what we were, but for whom and what we are.  The wounds of old are deep.  Help those around you heal them by celebrating and remembering with them."
     "And through those acts, heal yourself, you will," her visitor said.  "And now go.  Already approaching your door someone  is."
     "Who?" Winter asked, glancing back into her apartment through the open terrace doors.
     "Those who can help you explore what you have learned tonight," the Viceroy said.  "Leave your grief and anger behind, child.  The dark emotions will only hamper your work.  And know, as you go about that work, that you carry us with you.  And will continue to carry us from now, until the day you join us. . .  and beyond."
     The hail chime sounded from across her apartment, and Winter glanced back in that direction for just an instant. . .  and when she looked back at the Manarai Mountains--
     The vision. . .  the thousands of visions, were gone.
     Gone, but not gone.
     The chime sounded again.  "Come in," she called as she stepped in from the terrace.  Already she knew who it was at her door.
     The door opened slowly, and Winter could just make out the two figures standing there.  "May we come in?" the voice of a friend said.
     "Of course, Your Highness," Winter said as she stepped forward in greeting.  "Commander," she greeted the man behind Princess Leia.
     "Winter," Luke Skywalker said, inclining his head to her.
     "We really do need to talk," the princess said.
     "I agree," Winter said, brushing a tear from her face.  "I have to confess though that I'm not sure where to begin."
     "Well, Luke and I have a pretty good idea what has happened," the princess said, handing Winter a tissue and sitting her down.  "But Luke has more experience in this area, so I asked him to join us."
     "I've had many visitations," Luke said, "they can often be confusing."
     "Tell me about the master who taught you," Winter said.  "Tell me about. . ."
     "Yoda. . ." a familiar voice echoed through her mind.
     ". . .  Yoda," Winter said, smiling at the current of warmth that came with the voice as it traveled through the shadows of memory--
     And the corridors of time.