A teenage boy with black-and-white hair cringes. 

"I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."

She doesn't hear him, exactly; insofar as she does, she doesn't understand him, but of course she wouldn't, she hasn't been able to understand spoken words for months.

She pitches forward, then back again as she catches herself with the Force to avoid falling onto him; the robot, still behind her, catches her and helps her find her balance. It's only then that she opens her eyes.

Carlos notices that the woman almost fainted, and is therefore not very likely to attack him, although she could possibly be playing dumb. It is then that he notices the robot. "Holy-- what's THAT? Are you from the Other Place?"

She signs to the droid, who asks a question in an unfamiliar language.

"Oh, right, the Other Place probably doesn't speak Common." Carlos mutters a few words in an ancient tongue and waves his hands in a complicated, fluid motion. Sparks dance between his fingers. "Hi, I'm Carlos. You startled me. Are you from the Other Place?"

The woman tenses up and takes a step back when he begins casting, falling into a defensive stance but otherwise only glaring.

"This is Deskyl, and I'm DZ-12Q; I'm afraid I don't know what other place you mean."

"The place with the machines," Carlos says. "I don't know what it's called. Some of their stuff washes up on the beach sometimes, from shipwrecks, and I tinker with it and try to make it work. But there's an-- anti-machine field or something on the Island, machines don't work anywhere but here."

"I've never heard of anything like that. But machines are common where we're from, yes."

"Please take me there," Carlos says, "please, I can't stay here any longer, I-- I don't have any money or anything but I'll be your slave if you show me how to get there."

"I don't know if we can get back. Sith can't usually teleport. What's the matter?"

"My mother is Cruella DeVil," he says, as if that explains everything. 

"I've never heard of her, I'm sorry. I think we might be from very far away."

Deskyl steps aside, turning so that the droid can see her hands and vice versa, and signs. What's happening?

    I'm finding out, DZ signs back. He needs help; I don't know what kind yet.

Hurry; I need to sleep.

    Yes, Ma'am.

"You need to sleep?" Carlos says. "I can get you to a bed. Well, not a bed exactly."

"That would be very good, thank you, Sir."

He can understand your sign language, she relays. He has someplace you can sleep.

How do you know this language?

"I cast an understand-all-languages spell," Carlos said. "Do they not have those in the Other Place?"

    "I don't think so. And it wouldn't work on droids, if someone invented one. This is very confusing." He made a Force effect to know languages, she signs.

Not a Force-user, Deskyl replies.

"You don't use force magic to understand languages," Carlos says, confused. "You use mind magic to understand languages. And I do too know lots of force magic." He lets lightning spark between his fingers to demonstrate.

Deskyl steps between him and DZ again. Stop that.

Carlos had been growing increasingly comfortable, but at her words he tenses up as if preparing for a blow. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry, I'm-- I'll do what you want, please don't hurt me."

She relaxes, marginally, and steps back to where she and DZ can talk. Update, she signs, please.

    What he's doing doesn't work like the Force. He's confused; so am I. He was trying to demonstrate it.

Shouldn't threaten you.

    I'm not sure he knows about Sith.

Shouldn't threaten you, she repeats.

Carlos has a look of horror on his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to threaten anyone, it's an accident, please don't hurt me."

DZ relays this; Deskyl doesn't sign back, but inclines her head in acknowledgement. "She's not going to hurt you," the droid reassures.

Carlos looks skeptical, but decides that if he questions her he is more likely to be hurt than if he pretends to believe her. "Your friend needs a place to rest," he says. "I can let her sleep in my closet, but I'm not sure that I can get you there-- I can't teleport, and the anti-machine field will notice you if you walk there. Maybe I can bring some of my mother's furs here so she at least has a soft place to sleep?"

DZ signs along as he talks.

Anti-machine field? Deskyl asks.

    He mentioned it before. Things are very strange here.

You stay with me, then. And to Carlos: We'll stay here.

An hour later, Carlos returns bearing several furs that are as large as he is. One of them shimmers in the light. "These aren't my mother's favorite," he says, "she probably won't even notice that they're gone. I hope."

Deskyl is dozing in the corner when he gets back; she opens her eyes when he comes into the room.

I can protect you. Tell me about her?

"She's a powerful witch," Carlos says. "She kills nonhumans for their fur. She had me so she could have a servant to clean her windows and massage her feet and cook her three-course dinners every night, and she beats me whenever I disobey or make a mistake-- if I'm lucky. I have friends now, they want to keep me safe, but she's powerful enough they can't stand up to her. At least she keeps me safe from"-- he shudders-- "Dogs."

Any reason not to kill her?

Carlos's brow wrinkles as if he's thinking about it. "She might kill you first," he offers.

Sith, she signs, as if that answers the question. Tactical report?

    "She wants to know - what she's capable of, what defenses she has, things like that," DZ clarifies.

"She can shapeshift, she can turn people into animals, she's completely invulnerable," Carlos said, "she can transmute simple kinds of matter, she can cut her furs into coats with a thought... she doesn't have allies, though, everyone hates her. You just have to sever her soul from her body somehow. Mal's working on it."

The Force should be able to do that. I'll think about how. Sleep first.

    "That's the Force, it's not the same as your magic, sir."

Carlos looks uncomfortable. "You shouldn't call me sir."

"All right."

Deskyl yawns, and gestures at the furs to float them over. You're sure? she signs to DZ, and the droid nods back. All right. Wake me if you need me. And then she curls up in the fur pile and goes to sleep.

    "I'll need to recharge, sometime in the next few days. Deskyl can probably make a charger out of what you have here, if you have a power source for it to draw from."

"Oh sure," Carlos said, "I fixed this up from what washed up on the beaches from the Other Place." He shows DZ to an electrical circuit which, upon closer examination, is a perpetual motion machine.

"That should work nicely. Is this kind of thing normal, here?"

"Not at all, like I said there's some kind of anti-machine field or something."

"I meant the part where it goes forever; that's supposed to be impossible, where we're from."

Carlos looks baffled. "Why would that be impossible?'

"I don't know, I'm sorry."

"If perpetual motion machines are considered impossible in the Other Place, why was one of them washing up on the beach?"

"I think we're from farther away than that."

"Huh. I didn't know there was such a thing as farther away than the Other Place."

"It sounds like that's on this planet, and we're definitely from farther away than that, but I wouldn't expect a perpetual motion machine to work anywhere in the galaxy; physics is more consistent than that. So we're very far from where we were."

Carlos looks contemplative. "I don't think physics is consistent here?"

She nods. "I'm not sure that 'how far' is the right question, really. But we're here now, that's what matters."

"Do you need anything else, or should I head back home before my mother notices I'm gone?"

"If you have any books, I can get started on learning your language. But only if it's no trouble; it doesn't sound like it's urgent."

"I don't even know where I would get a book."

"All right. I can learn from listening to people talk, it'll just take longer."

Carlos leaves! In the morning, he returns with a limp and a friend. 

Deskyl is asleep, still or again; DZ's eyes flicker on and she gets up to offer him an arm to lean on. "Are you all right?"

"My mother noticed her furs were gone."

"Oh dear."

"Wow, that is a machine-person," the friend says.

    "Yes; I'm DZ-12Q, you can call me DZ." She gets Carlos to a seat, and goes to wake Deskyl: she shakes her, very gently, by the shoulder, and she comes awake immediately, obviously irritated at being woken.

What do you need?

    The boy is hurt. Can you do a partial healing?

Deskyl sighs, and closes her eyes for a moment. Not even slightly, she reports. All or nothing.

"You don't have to heal me," Carlos says, "I've had worse."

"Say," the friend says, "do you kill people's villainous parents in general, or just the ones that need killing?"

Sith, she signs again.

    "It's more idiosyncratic than that," DZ explains. "Sith for the most part do just as they like; she'd need to know more to know if she was interested. And it should probably wait until she's more recovered, in any case." She signs along as she speaks, for all but the last sentence.

"Oh, are you guys fae?" the friend said with interest. "Carlos said you were from farther away from the Other Place. I didn't know the fae had machines, though."

(She goes back to signing, keeping Deskyl appraised of the conversation.)

"I expect we're not, sir; I'm not sure what that is."

"Anyway, you should definitely kill Cruella," the friend says, as if discussing the weather, "but please don't kill my dad. I know he's an evil vizier and all, but the king is kind of, uh. Bad at his job. --My name's Jay, by the way."

Deskyl makes a face.

    "She doesn't promise anything," DZ translates.

"Yeah, I know," Jay says, "heroism and all that, if someone's creepily mind-controlling the king you gotta kill him even if he's creepily mind-controlling the king into setting reasonable tax policy."

This gets another face.

    "They really don't know about Sith, Ma'am."

Deskyl huffs lightly and rolls her eyes.

   "Not many people would call a Sith a hero," DZ tells Jay. "And for good reason; they generally very much aren't."

While she's talking, Deskyl gets up and joins them at the table.

"You said they were heroes," Jay says to Carlos. 

"I thought they were!"

"She's dressed in black."

"They were nice to me! They wanted to kill my mother!"

"Deskyl isn't a very typical Sith. I don't want to speak for her, though."

Not a hero, she reiterates. Just don't like seeing people suffer.

"Everyone wants to kill your mother, Carlos."

    "Understandably."

"Trust me, we are going to do all we can to help with that. Which reminds me why I came. Books." He snaps his fingers and six or seven volumes appear. "Is that enough to start with?"

"Yes, thank you sir."

"I think we should leave them to rest now."

Charger, Deskyl signs, and DZ nods.

    "She should make a charger for me now, since she's awake anyway. And I don't need to sleep. If you want to ask questions, this would be a good time."

"You can ask questions too if you want, you're the ones who are from very far away, and from what Carlos told me you're stuck here."

"I still don't understand why villains would be nice to me. --Other than you guys," he says, noticing Jay's look. 

Not everyone is a hero or a villain. She levitates some likely-looking scrap over and begins examining it.

"I mean, there are peasants, but you aren't peasants, you can levitate things."

Definitely not.

    "What about the king? Is he a villain?"

"No, he's a good guy, because he's the rightful king. You can tell because he has magic healing powers and there aren't horrible droughts and famines like when the rightful king isn't on the throne."

Like a fairy tale.

It's more complicated where we're from.

"It's complicated here too. Turns out having come from the right set of genitals does not necessarily give you the ability to make good policy."

And being a villain doesn't stop you. She seems amused.

Sith are villains, but I'm not a very typical Sith.

"It happens. Dad's not a very typical evil vizier."

She nods. But Sith generally make good leaders. We're trained for it. Not my specialty, but I'm competent.

She's examined a few machines, so far not removing anything but the cases; now she starts disassembling one of them.

Carlos has an unhappy expression on his face but doesn't say anything. 

Jay notices. "Hey, I'm sure she's going to put them back as they were when she's done."

Deskyl's hands are too busy for her to reply.

"I need to recharge in the next day or so, sir; that's a very high priority for her. I'm sure she'll do as little damage as she can."

The machines Deskyl is looking at make no physical sense whatsoever. In fact, they seem to be designed by a moviemaker who primarily cared about whether the machines look cool and who left every scientifically literate person in the audience facepalming. In spite of this, they all seem to function perfectly.

She'd noticed that; she's definitely in the facepalming contingent. But - if this is a fairy tale - maybe something that looks like a charger will work like one. It's worth a shot, at least, and if it doesn't, she can argue with the local physics about it some more.

If she tries to use anything that basically looks like a charger on DZ, it will successfully charge her, although with a perhaps superfluous amount of beeping and bright flashing lights. If you have bright flashing lights, you see, it is Sciencey.

Her aesthetic doesn't run to flashing lights or beeping; instead she takes out her 'saber and starts disassembling it to get at the crystal. (DZ looks alarmed at this development.)

"Are you going to try to take over now that you're here?"

If it needs it. I'm not really the sort, though. I'm an engineer, not a fighter.

"Don't bother, you're probably not a rightful king and then we've got famines and droughts and volcanoes all over the place. I don't know why so many people want to take over the world, it's going to suck as soon as you do."

Carlos is tinkering alongside Deskyl. He looks curiously at the lightsaber, obviously wanting to examine it, but not daring to ask.

She moves the 'saber over to the other side of her workspace, away from him, without comment, and finishes preparing a spot for the crystal before signing back.

I'm a Sith, I bet I could make it work if I had to.

"...Thaaat's what people say immediately before taking over the world and plunging all the peasants into a famine."

"Sometimes they don't think about the peasants at all."

"Not true! If they never thought about the peasants how would they know whether their swords were sharp?" Jay's voice is light and joking in a way that manages to convey that he absolutely does not find this funny.

My sword is always sharp. But I meant it when I said 'if I have to'. I don't want to. Ruling well is hard work.

"Good. I would suggest definitely killing Carlos's mom and definitely not taking over anywhere, unless you suddenly appeared here because you're a rightful princess."

That's the plan, yep.

She signs don't touch to Carlos, and opens her 'saber to transfer the crystal to the charger. After another few seconds of poking at it, she offers the cord to DZ, who plugs it into a port hidden behind a movable plate on her side.

Works okay?

    Yes, Ma'am.