She shakes her head.

”There’s got to be something I’m not getting. Your pal Deskyl is literally magical. Why shouldn’t computers be alive too, where you come from?”

“I’d rather risk being wrong about you being a person, than risk being wrong about you not being one.”

Deskyl shifts and signs, just once.

    "Deskyl says she felt the same way, at first."

She’s a prisoner of war. She’s deep in enemy territory, surrounded by by a dragon’s most dangerous thralls, in a tiny room with two people she only met a handful of degrees ago...

Why does she suddenly feel so at home?

DZ dips her head in a way reminiscent of a shy smile.

And Deskyl signs again.

    "She wasn't going to ask, Ma'am, but - if you're comfortable with it - if she reads your mind while she's sleeping, there's much less of a chance that she'll mistake you for an enemy. If she does it for too long, there's a chance she won't be able to stop, but a few degrees should be fine."

She considers this.

Her tentative mission here is to get Deskyl to change her mind about the war between humans and dragons.

She's not planning to tell any lies in service to that end. She's a pretty terrible liar, and she knows it.

Ergo, having her mind read can only possibly improve her position.

"Go ahead."

    "Thank you, Ma'am."

She goes back to meditating. It takes nearly the remainder of the degree, and the later stages are a little concerning to watch, as she repeatedly shows strong negative emotions - fear, anger, sadness - and works through them and back to a calm state. "I've never actually seen her do this before," DZ explains, "but it makes sense that it would work this way. All of her most powerful magic depends on her emotions."

It doesn't take much longer, after that, before she settles into calmness one last time, and offers Devika a ball of watery blue light.

Devika takes it.

Her hand goes through it, but as soon as she touches it, there's a full-body sensation like being immersed in flowing water, and every ache, every bit of tiredness, every lingering reminder of age or old hurts, fades, all at once.

Deskyl holds it for another moment, and shudders as the light disappears. She curls up on the bed, looking uncharacteristically small, but nonetheless satisfied.

She starts to state her gratitude but then realizes Deskyl--currently reading her mind--already knows.

    "You're welcome, Ma'am."

DZ rubs Deskyl's shoulder for a moment and then helps her get under the covers.

The memories are there, just the same as they would be for anyone else.

Deskyl, on the other hand, is already asleep the next time she looks over.

A decacycle ago, just before she completed her training at the academy, she received brain surgery that finally restored her ability to consolidate and preserve memories. After a dozen previous partially successful procedures, that last one set things right for good. That's what the doctors told her.

Now, a magical stranger has claimed she can restore what came before?

She tries to believe. She tries to tug at the threads until the fog of her childhood becomes tangible between her fingers.

For half a degree, the pursuit of clarity thwarts her. But then, suddenly, she can remember everything.

(And for an endless moment following the revelation, she craves a return to the fog.)

She remembers... bewildering things.

Strange machines. Weightless hallways. Her own voice in someone else's mouth. Moving images playing out on flickering screens. Infants growing in tubes. Flight simulations. SLAYER carcasses. Breathlessness. Betrayal. Being told who to blame for her pain. Not believing at first. But eventually, yes, believing...

She knows so much about what she's supposed to remember. A childhood in outpost 2. An early apprenticeship to the pilot academy. Exceptional marks, a lasting friendship with her roommate, a traumatic experience when the two of them were nearly snatched away by a traitor pilot--someone they'd trusted. There. There's something she can hold onto. The betrayal. The terror of asphyxiating alone in the dark. That matches. That happened.

Nothing makes sense. Vulnerable. Helpless. She feels like her whole sense of history and context are eroding away... and all that's left underneath is Threat.

Deskyl sleeps quietly, but not well, tensing and twitching as Devika works through her memories. And when she falls into threatenedness, sparks begin forming around the Sith, little arcs of lightning, at her hands, her shoulders, along her torso, leaving scorch marks on the sheets. DZ goes to wake her, spends a helpless moment trying to find some safe place to touch her.

The makeshift lock outside the room disengages, then the door opens.

Instruments detected a localized electromagnetic surge, as though the prisoner had battered open a wall conduit. This needs to be investigated right away, before nearby vassals--or Saru's guests--are put in danger...

There is a Jedi, there is a Jedi in her space, there is a Jedi in her space, threatening her friend, her friend is so scared -

She jumps up, still sparking, and leaps past the droid, hand already on her lightsaber, the blow landing before she's even properly awake.