"I think they will like that you're just a person who - rolled twelve dice and got all sixes, rather than being created by someone with power to be a person with power. Obviously they'll like the freedom and democracy. Are there things that people should do, people who can't use the Force, which help with using the Force safely?

Lei hurts people but I don't think that having democracy would make them hurt people less, just different people at different times."

He nods. "Children of Jedi can usually become Jedi, too, but Jedi very rarely have children. We're not supposed to know about where we come from, so I don't know if I started from a Jedi or from someone else, but it doesn't matter, nobody did anything differently with me because of it."

"The most important thing for using the Force safely is that I should spend some time alone every day, or at least most days, to think about what I've been doing and make sure I'm not making any mistakes and to practice the ways of thinking that help me with it." That seems safe enough to share; 'also I shouldn't use the Force when angry' seems less wise, with Tomas in particular. "It's not really something that other people can help with but it's good to have a quiet place for it."

So like how the children of dons are sometimes forbidden from becoming dons themselves. He's not sure whether taking children away from their parents is bad or good...

"Does it help if other people do quiet thinking too, and tell children to do it, so that if one of them rolls twelve sixes they already know how to do quiet thinking when they are young?"

"I'm not sure - at home we have a way to tell if people can see the Force without using magic, and they use it on most of the new children, so usually we start with the Jedi right away, and I don't know if anything helps or hurts without that. I'm not sure if I know enough to teach someone to be a Jedi safely, either. But it probably doesn't matter - even on the kind of planet I'm used to at home, where the planet spins so people can use the whole thing and there are not-magic things to let a lot more people live on each part of it, there's only one person born on the whole planet who can see the Force in the whole time it takes for a human to grow old. There might not be any people like that here at all besides me, and if there are I might not ever meet them, or it might not be a good idea to teach them anything."

"Is there something we can do to make teaching the next person a good idea? If not quiet thinking, some other skill, or something that's not a skill?"

"Mm, some of the ways it's important for a Jedi to be aren't good ways for everyone to be. But having practice at thinking quietly won't do anything bad."

"Hm. Be alone, think about what you've been doing, and practice ways of thinking that help... What ways of thinking?"

Mirana finds them and stands quietly nearby.

"I don't have words for all of it. Thinking about it calmly is part of it and some other parts need the Force."

"...Thank you, sir." Hrm. He'll ask again when Rafiik knows more Elvish and/or Sotalese.

"The nearest apple trees in Lei are nine hours by equartier back the way we came. Remember when we looked out the window and went in a room that went down a long time? The top of that mountain has apples.

The countries in the other side of this part of the FD - Sient, Koy, the Frozen City, Nosimasna, and Sota - all say that they don't have apples. I don't know if that's true or not."

Eighteen hours on equartier-back is a lot to ask of the two of them for dubious benefit even if the apples are people somehow. "Okay. We can ask the FD if they have apples and if they don't I might want to come back later to look. Is there anything else either of you want to do here before we go?"

Huh FD's answer to that will be interesting either way...

"I'm ready."

"Sotalese while we walk, sir? They don't like it when people speak Elvish, but they'll understand you."

"Sure, thanks. - actually, how much do you think they know about me? I thought that since someone from the FD tried to talk to me they had to know something, but now I think they might not."

"They haven't said anything to Lei about you."

The hallway to the border zigzags and the floor has speed bumps. It's dark and empty; a catfolk walks with them.

At the end, their escort leads them onto a perpendicular hallway, where regularly-spaced bored werewolves lounge against the stone. Some of them have a small bag and keep one hand inside it.

The passage to the FD appears entirely unguarded on the Lei side. The escort stays back, but the path is straight and smooth and there's light on the far end.

The FD side looks the same except that they all wear yellow with black embroidery and no sash. An elderly catfolk greets them excitedly, even Mirana (after a startled look at her uniform). "Welcome to freedom and democracy! What is your business?" (Speaking Elvish.)

The undine is curious too.

Rafiik was kind of kicking himself, earlier, for forgetting that they wouldn't have communication tech here, but the long walk has given him time to think about his approach and he's calm and collected now; he was a bit nervous about approaching a possible war zone and is pleasantly surprised at the reception, albeit uncertain whether the catfolk has some idea of who he is or if the FD is friendly to Lei expats in general. It's definitely strange, that these two places are supposedly at war and their border is like this rather than being defended in any meaningful way, even if they were expecting him. (Did they think he'd be offended by a military presence? It's plausible. He's starting to understand why Jedi don't live among force-insensitive people unless they're under cover, this is getting tedious to worry about.)

"Hello! I'm looking to leave the Lei; I don't know yet if I'm going to want to stay in freedom and democracy or go on, but I have some questions about the war and things that I want to ask while I'm here."

The undine thinks those thoughts are astonishing, especially when backed up by Tomas and Mirana's thoughts. Not an immediate threat, though.

The catfolk nods. "Of course. You're welcome to stay or leave as you wish. What is your relationship with the Lei butler? I can answer some questions; people with better answers are over that way and then up."

He has to puzzle out how to say 'it's a long story' with the vocabulary he has; the undine will get a pretty good sense of how he got here as he considers approaches to it. "I would have to tell you a lot about myself for you to really understand why she's here, but the short way of saying it is that the Lei want me to hear what they say about things and not just what you say, and she's here to say that." Also he's not sure that's not an excuse to get out of the Lei, she may have been lying when she said she'd be safe there. "If you want to have someone with her to make sure she doesn't hurt anything here that's all right with me as long as they don't do anything bad to her if she doesn't." Tomas probably doesn't need special monitoring above and beyond being a random unvetted person, even if he is pretty unpleasant; if the FD wants him, or for that matter Rafiik, to also be accompanied, that seems pretty reasonable, but he's not going to suggest it.

The catfolk's ears droop. "It is currently against the law to hurt anyone who isn't a criminal, a spy, your child, your patient, or your opponent in a duel. As you just described her, she is a spy. Would you please correct my misunderstanding? Or, if I am mistaken about that misunderstanding, please send her back to Lei, possibly with instructions to wait for you, in Lei, or perhaps she could travel through the Frozen City to Sient and wait for you in Piht-Tac."

The undine doesn't have a procedure for this - normally the cases are 'ordinary refugee, write down anything interesting', 'spy, kill them', and 'distraction, send guards elsewhere'. She scrambles to manipulate the unnatural system of 'language'... "No! He's important."

The whisshopper (because of course there's a whisshopper hiding the rest of the guards) relays this to the catfolk.

"...Er, actually it appears that this is a complicated situation. I don't know how the law will apply to you. Please wait a few minutes."

"I'm sorry, I don't know the word 'spy', I only started learning this language a few cycles ago. I think it would be good for her to stay with me and I think it would be good for someone to stay with her. We can wait."

It'd be a hell of a diplomatic incident if he were to take responsibility for her and then she pulled something, which he doesn't think she's specifically here for but it's very possible she'd take an opportunity that was presented to her. He can't even volunteer to do it himself; even leaving aside the part where he has to sleep sometime, he doesn't have the cultural understanding to be sure he'd catch everything she shouldn't be doing, the mention of disiniuria earlier made that perfectly clear.

"A spy is a person who collects information, or says or does things, for a country we are fighting."

There is a bench and a pitcher of water... but only a minute later, the catfolk perks up. "She can stay with you if she swears - says to an undine - that she will not say or do anything as long as Lei or its allies exist, except as permitted by you, or any elected official of the Freedom Democracy, or any werewolf don or housechief in a neutral country, but in no case enter Lei or its allies, or seek to communicate with them. I will now permit her to eat and breathe and groom and so on, and to accompany you, and to do work of kinds which most werewolves are capable of."