Darth Kalbetis is outside their door in minutes.

Daisy lets her in; Pradnakt is in the lounge, looking much less concerning but maybe a touch frazzled. "Good morning."

"Let us hope it is one, yes.  You wanted to see me...?"

"Yes." She gestures to one of the seats, "you can sit, if you'd like," and putters over to the kitchenette to start a kettle of tea, herself. "I hear we'll need to worry about the Jedi being... polite... to our assistants, which is a bit of a problem, if I'm going to be Light-aligned around them."

"...Yes.  It is.  Elcie has...made her own plans to stick out, as was, should they be needed - but Jedi, as a rule, don't often give the words of those they do not perceive in the Force much weight.  Something about not being able to mind-trick droids like they'd mind-trick fleshy people has led them to the exact wrong conclusion about droid sapience.  And while you know, and I know, that Daisy most certainly has a soul...

"I'm not sure that the Jedi will notice.  The Force isn't as obvious as it is around fleshy people.

"I do have some thoughts, but the primary line of argument going, is to threaten them with me if they disrespect you," she nods to Daisy, "and...Well, I don't want to trample over your," Lord Pradnakt's, "boundaries while trying to defend them by implying some sort of proprietary interest in your wellbeing that strictly speaking I've no right to."

"Mm. I'm inclined to believe at this point that you'll make a distinction between what you want to do and what you have a right to do."

She nods.

"I would, I have, I will, yes.

"...That doesn't quite answer the question of whether you and-or Daisy would like me to threaten the Jedi with myself on your behalves, which...  They'll break hyperspace two days from now, I believe, if you'd rather think on it first."

"The question of that," she says, pouring the tea into two mugs, "is what it would mean." She brings them over and offers Kalbetis one. "I don't get the impression that you would want it to just be - defending a resource - and I suspect that wouldn't work well for me, either."

She takes a moment to simply sip the tea she's been handed.

"I don't want it to be defending - a resource, Force, no.  Not least because that would play into the Jedi's preconceptions and also because people aren't inanimate and interchangeable objects like the word implies.  I would like to defend someone who is - a valued ally, at least.  But the question of what it would mean..."

She sips her tea, drawing out the moment as long as she reasonably can in order to hopefully find the words.

"It might imply one thing or another, but it means what we agree it should mean, no more, no less."

Pradnakt takes a sip of the tea and spends a moment warming her hands on the mug.

"Yesterday, you quoted something, and I said I'd want to know about it later - what was that?"

"I...can't rightly say it's anything beyond something that I've tended to say in...  Situations like that one.  Often enough to myself, really.  If I heard it from somewhere beforehand, it's clearly slipped beyond my knowing."

"It reminded me of a line in - the poem I'd quoted just before that - which is personally significant, is why I ask."

"...Huh.  I'm not much of a reader of poetry; there's so little time.  Though the little piece you have in your spare room is an admirable aspiration."

"It did seem apt. You can have it, if you want; Daisy's a calligrapher so we have quite a few like that."

"...I rather think I would like to, if I might."

"...Certainly I cannot display it as it deserves, but it will, at least, perhaps bring something sorely needed to my chambers."

"I'd be honored, ma'am."

"And I as well.  ...Shall I now, or...?"

"You don't have to," she offers.

The question, though, is if she needs to, and the answer is a very sharp maybe.  She doesn't need to abort, not by a long shot, but she might need a minute to regroup, to catch her breath.

"I'll split the difference, shall I, and call a courier over."  Mouse droids are a wonderful distraction.

"Sounds good." She can sip her tea in silence while they wait, it shouldn't be long.

She can also do this.  The storm of nerves that spiked pretty much exactly when she broached the subject of what defending Pradnakt would mean slowly gets smoothed out as they wait the few minutes necessary, and Darth Kalbetis fetches the calligraphy.

"...So.

"I hate to be blunt, but I'm not sure either of us are going to get the answers we want without some bluntness.

"When I said that my defending you would mean what we wanted it to mean...  I kind of need to know what you're hoping it might mean, because I know I have my hopes for - a friend - but I cannot actively pursue them, given the existing social dynamics."

"I'm not sure I've ever had a friend who wasn't," she nods indicatively at Daisy, "closer to found family; I'm not quite sure how that works. And I think it's going to take more than a couple days to figure it out without some hints."

She nods.  "I'm not sure I've yet had a friend I haven't made, which is...  Rather disastrous in its own right.  That said, I think I might be able to try to explain the principles."