"Well, we found him in the town of em-rrdet-bon in the Valley of Shadow. He was singing while people hammered metal. He didn't know you were here but was excited to meet you when we told him.

Hmm... I heard that once he told everyone in a town to leave because there was going to be a lot of water soon."

That's plausible, at least. Weird, taking an interest in primitive crafts, but plausible - maybe the guy also appeared here out of nowhere and is trying to build the tech base up? But why singing, then?

Well, he has a different angle to try, maybe it'll turn up something more useful. "How did you find him to tell him?"

A realistic answer here would be that they sent messengers to all the towns in Lei, but unfortunately the timeline doesn't work out, so the story has to rely on a bit of luck. "One of my friends had heard from her sister that he had been seen in another town in the Valley of Shadow, so when you asked, I knew that he was near there, and that we could find him by sending messengers to check all the possible towns."

It's not at all implausible that the Force is arranging for them to meet up, and it's most likely a good sign - if their Jedi is a Sith, or fallen, or something, the Force wouldn't steer them right into each other like this. "The Force might do that," he nods. "That tells me something good, if it did. Do you know if your Jedi has anything like my music, or used to? - do you know where he started, as a baby?"

"The Force might do what?

They say he sings very well. Maybe he has music like you, or used to, but if you don't know about music like that, the story sounds like it can't be correct, so people who heard the one story later said only that he sings very well.

I don't know where he was born."

"The Force might have brought him there, and made your friend's sister hear about him. It wouldn't do that if it was bad for me to see him, I think. People who can see the Force are... I don't have the word..." He gets a handful of dice and demonstrates that if he wants high rolls he'll tend to get them, not every time or even often enough to be obvious but more often than chance, if you're paying attention, even if Mirana is the one rolling.

He literally has luck on his side? They're doomed.

Less-plausible lies are actually better? "Neat!"

..."What if two people who can both see the Force are playing a dice game?"

"The one who feels more about it might do better, or the one who's stronger in the Force. Or the one who uses the Force better, maybe, if the first two are about the same."

Ah, so people who can see the Force are the same as people who can use the Force; that's what she thought but it's good to have confirmation.

"What does it mean to use the Force 'better'? Like a werewolf moving the least amount of stone, in the fastest path - taking the stone from a place near to where it needs to go?"

"I mean using the Force better the way you can play an instrument better, to make better music even if it's the same music. I don't know if that matters for dice but it might."

"Ohh, 'singing with' the Force to make better music!"

He nods. "It's not exactly that but it's a good way to think about it."

"Mm. ...So. You probably want to know more about the plant. So. On this planet, there is is more than one big group of people who work together, more than one country. Sometimes countries try to hurt each other. That is currently happening. The group here is the Lei and there is another big group trying to hurt us called the FD."

She refers to the Freedom Democracy by a common Elvish nickname akin to an acronym, and so avoids explaining the full name, which includes the words 'freedom' (sounds good but it's actually bad) and 'democracy' (sounds bad but he might think it's a tool for the Force, like a divination game). "Someone from the FD wanted to get your attention."

"...ah. I'll need to talk to your Jedi about that. And we will probably want to talk to the person, so if you get them, please don't do anything bad to them."

Nod. "I will tell that to everyone." Presumably the spy has already been executed...

"So, sometimes people go into the drybright and look at old stone things. There's a story about a hero who did that a long time ago. People like her a lot. Sometimes people go look in the drybright themselves hoping that they will find something useful or interesting. They really want to find something good, so if they don't, they might say they found something good, because if they say they didn't find anything they'll feel bad.

A few years ago, someone in the FD went into the drybright and found an old stone saying that somebody was bad because the apples they grew - the next part isn't readable but presumably they tasted bad or something. The person who found this told everyone about it, and told everyone that a good person in the past said not to eat apples.

And people in FD stopped eating apples. Okay, they can eat what they like.

Then they tried to hurt us, tried to hurt people who were growing apples here."

He's really glad he paid attention in diplomacy class because otherwise this would sound absurd. "Do you have people who are talking to the FD about it?"

"Diplomats from FD visit. Sometimes they sleep in this exact room! And messengers go between here and there.

What are you thinking they would talk about? If they only wanted us to stop eating apples, we would stop if they gave us seeds of another fruit to grow instead, plus, say, use of the Sunuul aqueduct for ten years.

But now, they have done lots of bad things. They hurt people first, they hurt people" with disiniuria which is mostly about species magic so not mentioning that "in particular bad ways first, they say they will do something and then do something else. That's why they visit here, but we can't visit there. We do what we say.

So we talk, but how does that do anything good? When they say something, who cares? And they did bad things that we need to fix, but they don't want us to fix them."

He nods. "But if you don't talk to them at all you have no way to make them stop. Jedi do diplomacy sometimes, I was learning it at home, and I might be able to help with it a little, but I need to talk to your Jedi first."

Well if he's a reasonable person who isn't going to kill them all for being made by the Sith, and doesn't end up deciding that the FD are correct and killing them all for being Lei, that sounds great. "Thank you!"

Also that's the second time he asked in the last minute and she gets the point. "Is there more you want to talk with me about, or shall I check on the status of the other Jedi?"

"I think that was everything. If he's not here yet I'd like to go see an apple plant next. - oh, and I'm curious how you were telling people things without going to them earlier."

So he did notice when the butler knocked. "I wasn't? Oh, people listen through holes so they know when you need things. When you asked to talk with me alone, the musicians would have told them not to listen. It's normal to want privacy sometimes.

I don't know of any apple trees nearby but I'll ask..."

She pops out the door for a minute.

....."Is there anything else like that, with people doing things about me that I can't see?" It does make some sense as a way of doing things if you don't have droids, but it's still creepy.

"No one is watching you or smelling you or anything? But doing things about you, yes... Getting food when it's time, thinking about foods based on what you liked before. Finding an undyed tunic and putting it in the soakroom so you would have something appropriate to wear. Thinking about how your clothes should be washed if you ask for that. Getting transportation ready for you - speaking of which: The other Jedi is almost here. If you want to meet him as soon as possible, there's a place to wait outside near the station and we should leave now. Also, the nearest apple trees will take a few hours to get to."

"Those are fine; I'll know after I meet your Jedi whether I'm going to want my clothes to be washed." If he's going to be leaving the planet in a few days anyway he'll wait rather than risk the fabric to whatever pre-electric process they have. "It's better to him to wait for him to get here and do any small things he wants to do before meeting me."