Chapter 8: The Unexpected Witness
The afterglow of their psychic gardening debacle was cut short by the palpable frailty of the woman leaning against Rey. Kilea Vex felt like a sun-bleached scrap of parchment, her form solid but her energy utterly spent. Her few hours of borrowed freedom were already ticking away, each second a visible drain on her newfound substance.
“We need a stronger ritual,” Bultar stated flatly, the usual competitive fire in her eyes replaced by determined practicality.“One that sticks.”
“Acknowledged,” Barriss said, already moving. She snatched up the remote from the corridor floor, then gathered their discarded robes and the podracer shorts. “The training salle on level twelve.The one with the reflective walls. Its ambient Force energy is amplified; it’s used for telekinetic precision drills. It will bolster the… output.”
“The embarrassment output?” Rey asked, helping Kilea take a shaky step forward.
“The psychic resonance output,” Barriss corrected, though a faint, weary smile touched her lips. “But yes, presumably that too.”
They moved as a unit, a bizarre procession of three half-dressed Jedi Knights supporting a time-lost, robed ghost-woman through the Temple’s sterile upper halls.They encountered no one; the hour was late, the corridors humming with a quiet expectancy.
The training salle was a vault of obsidian. The walls, floor, and high ceiling were panels of flawless, dark mirror, reflecting infinite iterations of their small, disheveled group. The only light came from soft, recessed strips along the floor, making the room feel both immense and intimate, a private cosmos of their own making.They deposited Kilea gently against one non-reflective support column. She sank down, breathing slowly.“The amplifiers here… they’ll help,” she whispered. “You’ll need them.The next binding layer is thicker. It’s woven with my master’s disapproval. His… sternness.”
Bultar cracked her knuckles, the sound sharp in the vast space.“So we need to be extra annoying. Got it.” She picked up the remote.“Okay, what’s the scenario this time?Spa day gone wrong? Library cart mishap?”
Before Kilea could answer, Barriss, ever the pragmatist, began laying out items on a low bench as if preparing for surgery.The remote. A flexible training crop, left behind by some meticulous duelist.A spool of resilient lashing-cord used for moving equipment.
Rey picked up the crop, testing its weight. It swished through the air with a satisfying, innocent thwip. “So we’re not just imagining this one?”
“I do not believe imagination alone will suffice,” Barriss said, her gaze fixed on the tools. “We require a tangible… framework.A scenario with clear rules and physical consequences. The reflection will multiply the effect.” She gestured at the endless mirrors. “Every angle witnessed.”
Bultar grinned, a wild light returning to her eyes.“I like it. More fun when it’s real.” She dropped her robe, standing again in just her underwear. “Let’s set the scene.”
The scene, as they hastily devised it, was a “disciplinary review” for the “hedge-trimming incident.” Rey, as the one who modified her shear, was to be the primary offender. Barriss, as the ranking analyst, would conduct the review. Bultar, as an “independent observer,” would enforce the rulings.It was flimsy and absurd.That was the point.
Rey, feeling a mix of giddy fear and warm solidarity, bent over the low bench, gripping the far edge.The cool polished obsidian felt shockingly real against her front. Her robes were pooled around her waist.Barriss picked up the training crop, her expression one of academic focus.
“For unauthorized tool modification,” Barriss announced, her voice echoing in the mirrored chamber, “five strokes. Try to hold position.”
Bultar, watching from the side with folded arms, nodded in solemn approval.
The first stroke landed with a crisp, loud snap. It wasn’t brutal, but it wasn’t gentle. It was a genuine, stinging smack that made Rey gasp and her knuckles whiten on the bench.The sound multiplied in the mirrors, coming at her from all directions.
“One,” Barriss counted, her voice steady.The second stroke landed a fraction lower. Rey jerked, a small “yip” escaping her. The sting was bright and sharp, a clean punctuation in the silent room. She saw herself reflected a thousand times in the wall before her: bent, exposed, face flushed with a startled, intense awareness.
Bultar’s reflection showed a smirk.“Form’s good, Offee.”
The third stroke. Rey’s breath hitched.It hurt, but in a clear, defined way. The anticipation between strokes was almost worse—the cool air on heated skin, the infinite reflections of her own submission. This was different from the zero-g joy.This was sharper, more visceral, more real.
“Okay,” Rey breathed after the fourth stroke, her voice tight. “That’s… that’s definitely tangible.”
“One more,” Barriss said, and her fifth stroke had the slightest hint of flourish.Crack.
“Assessment complete,” Barriss stated, placing the crop down. She sounded perfectly calm, but Rey, straightening up and seeing the myriad reflections of Barriss’s face, caught the faintest tremor in her lower lip, the high color on her green cheeks. She was feeling it, too.“My turn,” Bultar declared, stepping forward. Her role as enforcer meant administering the “corrective alignment.” This, they’d decided, involved the lashing-cord. Not for tying, but for a very specific, very childish purpose.
“Bultar, no,” Rey said, backing away, rubbing her sore backside. Her protest was half-hearted, a required part of the play.
“You think you get off that easy, Scavenger?” Bultar advanced, the resilient cord stretched between her hands.“You blew my jumpsuit open. Payback’s a galactic constant.”
What happened next was a blur of speed and ignominy. Rey tried to dodge, but Bultar was faster. She caught Rey’s wrist, spun her, and in one smooth, practiced motion, looped the cord around the waistband of Rey’s underwear.A sharp, upward yank.The resulting wedgie was phenomenal. The tough material of the lashing-cord provided a brutal, unyielding leverage. Rey was hauled onto her toes with a choked squeal, the fabric invading a desperate, intimate ascent. She danced on the spot, trying to lessen the pressure, which only made her look more foolish in the endless mirrors.
Barriss watched, one hand covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
It was at this exact moment, with Rey teetering on her toes, Bultar triumphantly maintaining tension on the cord, and Barriss in a state of mortified amusement, that the main door to the training salle slid open with a soft hiss.
Master Luminara Unduli stood in the doorway.
She was a statue of Mirialan composure, her deep green skin and elaborate facial tattoos rendered even more striking by the room’s dark mirrors. Her hands were tucked into the sleeves of her grey robes.Her expression was unreadable.Time stopped.
Rey froze, her predicament crystallizing into pure, unadulterated horror. A thousand reflections showed her: bent forward, underwear seared into a devastating wedgie by the cord in Bultar’s grip, her backside still visibly pink from the crop.
Bultar, caught in mid-victory, slowly turned her head.Her face went pale.The cord went slack.
Barriss simply closed her eyes, as if wishing the planet would swallow her whole.
Luminara’s gaze swept the room: the discarded robes, the training crop on the bench, the ancient woman slumped by the column, the scene of ridiculous, juvenile correction frozen before her. Her eyes took in Rey’s position, Bultar’s guilty hold on the cord, Barriss’s pained avoidance.
A profound, awful silence descended, broken only by the hum of the floor lights.
Then, Luminara Unduli’s stern expression softened.Not into a smile, but into something knowing. A single, elegant eyebrow arched.
“I see the… stress relief protocols are still in effect,” she said, her voice calm and clear, echoing softly around them.Barriss finally opened her eyes. “Master, I can explain—”
“Can you?” Luminara interrupted, gliding into the room.The door shut behind her, sealing them in.“It appears self-evident. Corrective discipline for a rule infraction. Though the tools are… unconventional.” She eyed the lashing-cord. “And the intensity seems somewhat enthusiastic for a minor infraction, Knight Swan.”
Bultar dropped the cord as if it were a venomous eel. “It’s not… we were just…”
“Helping,” Rey blurted out, finally struggling to right her underwear. Her face was on fire.“It’s for Kilea.The ghost.The bindings. We have to do the ritual.”
Luminara’s gaze shifted to the exhausted woman by the column. She studied Kilea for a long moment, and something in her posture shifted, a recognition deep in her eyes.“Ah,” she said simply.She walked over to Kilea and knelt. They exchanged no words, but Luminara placed a hand on the ancient Jedi’s shoulder. A faint, sympathetic energy passed between them.Luminara nodded once, slowly, and stood.
Turning back to the three mortified knights, her demeanor was different. The sternness was gone, replaced by a weary, almost nostalgic acceptance. “During the Clone Wars,” she began, her voice lower, “the strain was immense.We sought… outlets. Moments of levity to remind ourselves we were still beings of flesh, not just instruments of war. Some of those outlets involved… similar games of command and consequence.To release tension. To feel something simple and real.”
Barriss stared at her Master, her analytical mind clearly struggling to compute this information. “You… participated?”
A faint, dry smile touched Luminara’s lips.“I supervised. It was my duty to ensure such activities remained contained, safe, and did not spill over into genuine cruelty. A spanking delivered in genuine anger is a violation. One delivered in the spirit of… exasperated camaraderie… can be a release.” Her eyes settled on Bultar. “For all parties.”
Bultar looked at the floor, her earlier bravado completely evaporated.Luminara addressed them all. “You are attempting to break an antiquated, repressive binding by embodying its antithesis: consensual, playful physicality.It is a valid, if unorthodox, technique. However, your execution lacks structure. It lacks a true, authoritative framework.”
She stepped toward the bench and picked up the training crop.She tested its bend, much as Rey had. The thwip sounded more definitive in her hand.
“If you are to succeed,” Luminara continued, her gaze sweeping over them, “you require proper supervision. An experienced hand to guide the intensity, to monitor the emotional currents, to ensure the ritual achieves its purpose and does not simply devolve into chaotic horseplay.”
She looked from Rey, to Barriss, to Bultar, her expression serene and utterly firm.“Therefore, I will supervise. And for the next scene,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument, “I will serve as the disciplinarian.You will set the scenario. And you will receive the consequences as I deem them necessary to fracture the binding.”
The silence this time was thick with shock, with a strange, nervous thrill. The Master had not only forgiven them; she was joining them.The rules had just changed entirely.
Bultar was the first to break it, a slow grin spreading across her face. It was the grin of a competitor who’d just been offered a match against a grand master.“Okay,” she said.“Okay, yeah. Let’s do it.”
Rey met Barriss’s eyes in the mirror. Barriss gave a tiny, incredulous shrug, a glint of her old mischief returning. Rey took a deep breath.The pain from the crop was already fading to a warm, tingling memory. The embarrassment was being swallowed by a new, electric anticipation.
Luminara stood in the center of the infinite reflections, the crop held lightly at her side, waiting. “Well?” she prompted, her voice echoing softly in the obsidian universe. “What is the transgression?”
Rey’s mind raced, scrambling for a plausible fiction. The infinite reflections seemed to mock her.“Um,” she began, the syllable bouncing around the obsidian room. “Unauthorized… use of the training remote.For personal amusement.During quiet hours.”
It was weak. It was perfect.Bultar snorted.“Personal amusement? Is that what we’re calling it?”
“It distracted others,” Barriss added smoothly, slipping into her role with practiced ease. Her voice was a cool, clinical counterpoint.“Created a public nuisance. The giggles were… disruptive.”
Luminara nodded, absorbing the premise.“A failure of decorum. And who,” she asked, her gaze like a targeting scanner, “were the principal offenders?”
Bultar pointed at Rey. “She had the remote.”
Rey pointed at Bultar. “She did the squealing.”
Luminara’s lips twitched.“A joint culpability, then. A coordinated lapse in judgment.” She gestured with the crop toward the center of the room, away from the bench. “Stand there.Facing each other.”
They obeyed, moving into position. The polished floor felt cold under Rey’s feet. A thousand copies of her and Bultar stood in a vast, silent army of anticipation.
“The traditional penalty for such juvenile disruptions,” Luminara announced, her voice assuming a formal, lecturing tone that somehow made it all more real, “is a public correction. You will each administer the other’s.Ten strokes. I will count.”
Bultar’s eyebrows shot up.Rey felt a strange thrill mix with her dread.This was different. This was mutual.Luminara handed the crop to Bultar first.“Knight Swan. You will correct Knight Skywalker.”
Bultar took the crop, a familiar gleam returning to her eyes.This was territory she understood. Rey turned, presenting her still-warm backside to her friend.The mirrors showed her resignation, Bultar’s focus.
“Make it good, Scavenger,” Bultar muttered, not unkindly.
The first stroke cracked, sharper than Barriss’s.Rey gasped, her knees buckling slightly. The sting was immediate, a bright line of fire.“One,” Luminara counted, her voice serene.Stroke two landed lower, overlapping. Rey hissed, gripping her own elbows.It hurt, but there was a bizarre honesty to it. No pretend framework, just the action and the consequence, multiplied to infinity around them.
“Two.”
By stroke five, a rhythm had been established. The crack of the crop, Rey’s sharp intake of breath, Luminara’s calm number echoing. The pain was a climbing heat, a tangible testament to their ridiculous situation.It felt profoundly, stupidly real.“Five. Switch.”
They changed places.Rey’s palm was sweaty on the crop’s handle. Bultar bent over, bracing her hands on her knees, her expression one of intense concentration.
“Don’t you dare go easy,” Bultar growled.Rey didn’t. The first swing felt awkward, then purposeful.Thwip-crack! Bultar flinched, a sharp “Hah!” escaping her.“Six.”
Rey found a stride. Each stroke was an answer—to the wedgie, to the zero-g humiliation, to Bultar’s constant, infuriating, wonderful competition.The sounds were crisp and clean in the silent room. Bultar took them with gritted teeth, her shoulders tensing, a low grunt following each impact.“Nine.”
The final stroke was the hardest. Rey put her body into it, a final punctuation.CRACK. Bultar lurched forward a step, then straightened, blowing out a long, shaky breath.Her backside was a uniform, fierce pink.“Ten. Correction administered.”
Luminara took the crop back. Her calm was a stark contrast to their heaving chests and heated skin. “Now, the more persistent aspect of the nuisance.” She looked at the lashing-cord on the floor.“The lingering offense.”
Rey’s heart sank. Bultar actually grinned, though it was a bit strained.
“You will assist each other once more,” Luminara instructed.“A full, seated wedgie.The material must breach the clothing. I want to see the strain.”
It was a command so specific, so juvenile, it broke the last of Rey’s dignity.She almost laughed. Bultar did laugh, a short, pained bark.They faced each other again.There was no grace in it. Bultar turned, presenting the back of her sensible grey underwear. Rey grabbed the waistband, took a breath, and yanked upwards with all her strength, twisting as she pulled. The fabric vanished into the cleft of Bultar’s buttocks, riding up her back in a stark, taut line. Bultar rose onto her toes with a choked gasp, her hands flying back instinctively.
“Good,” Luminara observed, as if evaluating a lightsaber form. “Hold it.”
Bultar, now impersonating a startled stork, wobbled.Her face was a masterpiece of pained amusement.
Then it was her turn. Rey felt Bultar’s fingers hook into the waistband of her podracer shorts.There was a moment of tension, then a ruthless, surgical pull. The world telescoped into a single, brutal upward pressure. The shorts became a punishing thong, the seam digging in with impossible intimacy. Rey squealed, a high, undignified sound, and was hauled off balance, hopping on one foot.“Excellent,” Luminara said. Her voice had changed.It was lower, warmer. A mirror-Rey caught the look on the Master’s face: not disapproval, but a deep, focused appreciation. A flush had crept up her neck, tingeing her green skin a deeper hue.She was enjoying this.Immensely.
“Observe,” Luminara said, her gaze holding theirs. “This is the consequence of unchecked foolishness.The tangible result.”
She stepped closer to them, a sovereign inspecting her work. She reached out and lightly tugged on the cord of fabric riding up Bultar’s back, then traced a finger along the desperate, stretched seam of Rey’s shorts. The touch was clinical, yet it carried a possessive weight that made Rey shiver.
“Now,” Luminara murmured, almost to herself. “For the final object lesson.”
Her hands went to the fastenings of her own grey outer robes.With deliberate, slow movements, she untied the belt. She let the heavy garment slide from her shoulders, pooling at her feet on the dark floor. Underneath, she wore only a simple, sleeveless linen undertunic that reached her mid-thigh.
The room held its breath.She turned her back to them, to the infinite mirrors. Her hands gathered the hem of the undertunic, lifting it slowly, revealing the backs of her legs, the curve of her hips.
Exposed were her pale green buttocks, clad in a pair of stark, utilitarian white briefs.The fabric was simple, high-waisted, entirely functional. They were, unquestionably, granny panties.The humiliating normalcy of them was somehow more shocking than any lace. Here was the revered Master Luminara Unduli, in her most private, unadorned state.
“Barriss,” Luminara said, her voice thick with an emotion Rey couldn’t name. “Come here.”
Barriss, who had been a silent, wide-eyed witness, seemed to move in a trance.She obeyed, walking slowly to stand behind her Master.
“Kiss it,” Luminara commanded softly, tilting her hips forward slightly. “A token of your understanding.Of the order of things.”
Barriss sank to her knees. There was no hesitation, only a profound, graceful submission. She leaned forward and placed a single, reverent kiss on the center of the plain white cotton covering Luminara’s left buttock.
The Master sighed, a contented, powerful sound. She was lost in the moment, in the heady feeling of absolute, ritualized control.The mirrors showed her closed eyes, her slightly parted lips.
She didn’t see Bultar and Rey share a glance over her bared backside. A glance that shifted from shock to a swift, silent understanding.A pact.
She didn’t hear the soft scuff of bare feet on polished stone as they moved.
Luminara only realized the shift when two sets of hands seized her arms, pinning them firmly behind her back. She gasped, eyes flying open, just as they propelled her forward, pressing her face and chest against the cool, reflective wall.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, but the authority was frayed, choked by surprise.
“Change of plans, Master,” Bultar said, her voice hot in Luminara’s ear.Rey snatched up the forgotten training crop. She didn’t hesitate.She brought it down in a swift, hard stroke across the white cotton. THWACK! Luminara cried out, a sharp, authentic yelp of pain, her body jerking against their hold.
“For the soap,” Rey said, and brought the crop down again on the other side.Luminara flinched, a blush of deeper green blooming under the fabric.
“And for the hedge clippers,” Bultar added, pinning her Master’s wrists tighter.Barriss rose from her knees. She walked, calm as a medic, to the bench where the Faithful soap bar still lay.She picked it up and brought it over.
“Open,” Barriss said, her voice devoid of its usual dryness.It was a simple instruction.
Luminara clenched her jaw, resisting for a second. Rey tapped the crop lightly against the already-striped cotton.With a grunt of pure frustration, Luminara opened her mouth.
Barriss worked the soap bar inside, scrubbing it firmly over her Master’s tongue and teeth.Luminara gagged, a brutal, undignified sound, her eyes watering. The clean, bland scent of the soap filled the immediate air.
When Barriss withdrew it, Luminara spat, coughing.“Now,” Rey said, her own heart hammering. “For the main event.”
Bultar shifted her grip, using one hand to keep both of Luminara’s wrists locked, while her other hand pulled the waistband of those white briefs away from her Master’s skin.
Barriss, with precise aim, slid the damp soap bar inside, lodging it firmly between Luminara’s clenched buttocks.
The Master shuddered, a full-body tremor of outrage and shock.They released her arms and stepped back. Luminara sagged against the wall for a moment before pushing herself to turn and face them, her face a storm of indignation and something else—a thrilling, terrified recognition.
Barriss had already retrieved the portable whiteboard and marker from a supply niche.She placed it on the floor against the wall.
“Your task,” Barriss announced, sounding more like her old self now. “Write out your naughtiest desire on the board. With your tongue.”
Luminara stared, soap in her mouth, soap between her cheeks, her backside throbbing. “This is… insubordination,” she managed, the words soggy and futile.
“You taught us about tangible consequences,” Rey said, hefting the crop.“This is one.Write. Or we add to the count.”
Bultar grinned, wild and free. “And if you drop the soap,” she added, pointing to the bar clenched precariously in its intimate spot, “you get the crop.Across your buns. Again.”
Luminara’s shoulders slumped. The fight bled out of her, replaced by a grumpy, utterly defeated acquiescence.She missed being in charge.Terribly. But the ritual, she realized with a jolt, demanded this flip. The binding required the full cycle of power and surrender.
With a look of profound irritation, she lowered herself stiffly onto her hands and knees before the whiteboard. She extended her tongue, the soapy taste still overwhelming, and began to awkwardly lick a wet, glistening line on the smooth surface.
The marker strokes would later show a shaky, chaotic scrawl, but the word eventually emerged from the slippery, tongue-painted mess: