Hug.

It's probably not worth it to try to get any of them out.

I don't remember how many he had or what condition they were in. But I can look once we're there.

--I meant the other apprentices, getting the one's victims out would be much less risky.

Oh.

She snuggles, while she considers that.

I don't think so. The one - she was good to me, once. But - loyal to the Empire, in the end, pretty sure. And the others not at all.

Yeah.

It's kind of hard to imagine why anyone would be loyal to the Empire. Plausibly most of them were recruited less--antagonistically--than I was, but...

 I get it, kind of? People like to have a place and it gives them one. And for lots of people it gets hard to think of being someplace else. You don't need that, you have a place already.

That makes sense.

Nod.

My place is me, there's only so far I'll let someone tell me what I am. But most people aren't as good at that.

I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't noticed the Force when I was little. It would have been different if they had tried to make me be a Sith, instead of me deciding that by myself.

Even if I had realized that I was Force-sensitive and not just--lucky and perceptive--I wouldn't have decided to be a Sith or a Jedi or anything. Maybe if I had realized I could use it to do something like what I am doing, but probably not, I'd feel worse about using the Empire's resources for a personal project and then fucking off if I had volunteered for this instead of being coerced into it.

Yeah, I was little and dumb and didn't realize there were things I could do besides be a Sith or try to hide. And I wanted to learn, I didn't know what it would be like.

May have helped me there that I had such a strong cultural concept of--the powerful people are not your friends.

Yeah. I liked the idea of being powerful. Still do, but not like that.

Nod. There's kinds and kinds of powerful. There's powerful like the Skywalker and the Mighty One are powerful, and there's powerful like the masters are powerful, and the Sith are the latter. 

Yeah. Hug.

I like - figuring people out, seeing what they want and what they need, and helping them get it. Being able to help them get it. That's more like the first thing even when it was Sith and lightsabers, I think. Just helping the wrong people.

Well, for what it's worth, it helped me too.

"Hmm?"

I use a lightsaber too, and more importantly, I wouldn't have found you otherwise.

You aren't a Sith.

They don't know that!

Yeah. Sometimes people do the right thing by accident.

Yeah.

I did find you through you lightsaber work, by the way. I noticed there hadn't been anything new for a while, and...

Oh. That makes sense.

You're brilliant, by the way.

Yeah.

It's coming back, a little more. Whatever this sleep thing is I feel like I'm almost done with it, too.

I'm glad.