"...Other than Knight Chion, they seem to be working out well, and Knight Chion is...being less that, so hopefully we'll finish the work amicably.  Interpersonally I can't say that I've particular opinions as of yet.  ...Except for Knight Chion."

"I'm actually hoping she comes to breakfast, I think. It's going to be interesting to meet her."

"Yes, it might be, now that she's gotten some of all that out of her system.  Until now, though, I don't think she'd've spit on me if I was on fire."  She settles in to eat.

"I'm going to want to talk to you about that at some point - not right now, things seem stable enough and we don't have time for a conversation as long as it might be."

"Mm - yes, it does rather seem a short time for anything serious.  Anything I should know?"

She shrugs, careful not to jostle Kalbetis too much with it as she still hasn't unsnuggled. "We have different approaches to dealing with other people, is all."

"Ah.  Quite possibly, yes.  How did that...?"  She stares off into the middle distance, looking, and takes another bite.

"...It is important that people know where my lines are drawn, because my lines are the lines drawn, by proxy, around more people than the average sapient mind can truly contemplate.  You...  Don't have that problem."

"I do like people to know when they're going to have a problem with me, it makes them less likely to do it. I think the problem is more - for a few different reasons I choose to tolerate people just having emotions, as long as they're not taking actions about them that I don't like."

"...I rather prefer to - defuse or, hmm, controlledly detonate - particularly hostile responses before they blow up in my face at the worst possible time."

She nods. "I think as a sensory specialist I have that problem less. And it's - not even harder, more or less impossible, to keep emotions from me. If it wasn't for my biology sense I'd barely notice if people were expressing what they're feeling or not, most of the time."

"Mmmm.  Perhaps so, whereas - I have to read the people, rather than read the bodies.  Whether or not they're expressing their feelings...  It's almost mooted in an equal and opposite way, is the thing.  Sometimes someone yelling in your face is a good sign that they're not going to do anything truly stupid at this moment."

"People are like pressure-vessels - stuff too much away, and they explode."

"Sure." She shrugs again. "But it's not my job to manage that for them. I wouldn't do a very good job of it, anyway."

She nods.  "I am an inveterate meddler.  Though it seems you've done well enough with me."

"Mmhmm. Letting people feel how they feel almost always works well enough to get by, that's kind of the point. And then we happen to get along on top of that." She leans a little closer for a moment.

And she leans closer too.  "Mmm.  ...Pressure vessel.  I still...  was one.  And you still...  Poked a hole in it."

"Ah. Well. In that specific case I was pretty sure I could handle it regardless." Snuggles: yes.

Snuggles: very yes.

"...when it comes to diverting the harm threatened unto those I care about -"

She can't find the words.

"...Elcie, help, please.  I'm certain I'd fuck up the words if I tried right now."

"...Mistress, you know what it is.  You'd rather take the harm and the hostility unto yourself than leave someone else exposed to it any longer than you absolutely must.  Is that what you're trying to say?"

She nods.  "I think so, at least.  I think that's what it is."

"Yeah, I get that. -" You need to eat, by the way, she switches to sign to encourage this. But yeah. It's one of the few decent things about being a Sith, that you get so used to it that it barely hurts, taking a metaphorical blaster shot like that for someone. But it's still... she sighs. You have a pretty good handle on how my sensory effects work, by now. But you probably haven't thought about what it means that I developed most of that while I was living with Grauzatis. It's been made very, very clear to me that there's more suffering out there than I can take under any circumstances whatsoever, and past a certain point trying doesn't even help.

Oh, Force.

She eats.  It is delicious, but the taste is far beneath her notice.

I had not thought about that.

It takes a minute before she can muster enough thoughts that aren't sheer horror to say something new.

Still...

I have to try.

Because if I never try I can't succeed and if I can't succeed then what's the point?

Admittedly that rhetoric is usually given from the opposite perspective, but...  I have to try.  Because there's so much I can do with this power.  And I would betray myself, if I did not do all I could with it.

Pradnakt shifts around to give her a squeeze. And I'm not going to try to talk you out of that, I can see how important it is. Just, I have a different perspective, and if this is going to work that's going to need to be respected at least sometimes. Like, don't invite your friend to my party with instructions to maybe pick a fight with one of my guests, that kind of thing.

...This is going to seem like an incredibly anemic assurance, she signs, with a seriousness that belies the humor - but I, we, do understand what you're doing by hosting this breakfast, and that sort of attempted lightning-rodding won't happen in a diplomatic rapport-building context unless the question has already long since become who is going to deal with an attempted stabbing.  ...Elcie is very good at surviving stabbings, where even I might have trouble despite my advantages, so - while as far as I can tell the future does not hold such a thing from these Jedi, I would - ask that you consider that we have to do a lot of things like these in the course of existing as ourselves, and...well, hopefully have good reasons for our choices.  Though I'll admit, we did...  Overshoot, the initial line, in retrospect.  We could have been softer - they aren't our enemies, not here, even if some of them will never be friends.

This droid can concur that should she have been tasked to stay for this event it would have been utilizing particularly non-confrontational manners if she remained visible.  You have a plan and it is usually quite unwise to get in the way of a Force-sensitive with one of those.