Interest! I would like to try that as well, he agrees. I have attempted glowing as a form of code before, he adds, I could reply to her signs in that way, though I have never used it for more than the simplest of communications - it is not particularly suited to conversation. 

He's interested too, she relays. He's used the glow that way before, but it doesn't work well - I'm not sure if the limitation is on his end or just biologicals being bad at that.

It was mostly used as an emergency signal if I sensed anyone approaching. I suppose I could have used my wielder's senses to see and hear what anyone I spoke to using the method was saying. It just never occurred to us. 

Makes sense. What languages do you know?

...That is a difficult question to answer. I can understand any language put before my wielder which they also understand, but independent of that... I know a number of pre-seal human languages and elven languages as well, and a few dwarven ones. However I haven't had a strong enough connection with any wielder since the seal fell to learn much of the languages currently in use.

Since I have been connected to you I have been able to understand any languages you do as I would with a bond. 

Okay, she sends, and then signs: I think the first thing to try is teaching us how to send Basic in binary; I'm not sure he'll be able to access that exactly but if he can it'll be faster than getting you two a common language the long way, he doesn't know the local ones.

    Yes ma'am.

To Ilek: This won't be very interesting, probably, if you want to go to bed.

"Mm," he nods, and sets his harp back down on the end table. 

He removes the same things as he did the night before, along with his arm and leg wraps. He watches for a bit, after he gets in bed, but eventually falls asleep.

Stormsinger's memory is such that it only takes one time for him to gain an excellent grasp the alphabet. They can trade signs made of the lightning in her hands for glowing in code! Unfortunately, once Deskyl has gone to sleep, he loses her languages, which makes chatting with DZ much more difficult. 

Difficult, with him only having the vocabulary they've used up to that point, but not impossible; she's perfectly content to spend the rest of the night building on that to teach him more words.

So is he. It's a pleasant way to pass the time while the others are asleep. 

Something interrupts these plans, however. In the earliest hours of the morning, the minuscule, immaterial wisps of mana which had been slowly collecting within Deskyl's body suddenly reach a critical point. Just under her diaphragm, a small cluster of cells are harmlessly shoved out of the way to make room for something else.  

And then, it begins to grow. 

Deskyl doesn't notice immediately, but it doesn't take long: she gasps awake, springing out of bed and pulling her 'saber to herself before she's entirely oriented, then squinting in shock. What, she sends to Stormsinger, signing a fairly superfluous stand down to DZ at the same time.

Stormsinger turns his attention to her in alarm when she wakes, taking in the change she had noticed with confusion and then surprise. 

...That is a mana core. He tells her, bewildered. A very small one. But it is growing. 

Ilek also wakes, automatically reaching for his sword, hanging from the bedpost, and scanning the room for threats. Not finding any, he turns to blink at her.

"Deskyl?"

Situation unclear, she signs, reverting to some of  the simplest signs in the language, ones that any Sith would know. Stand down. She's still on alert, though, trying not very successfully to collect herself; after a second, she brings her hand to her chest, above the new organ, as though touch will clarify what her other senses haven't. It doesn't, but the touch grounds her a little, letting her think of what else she should be doing, and she spends the next moment looking over her body with her biology sense, making sure everything else is working as expected. Healthy, she reports to Stormsinger, and then signs mana core.

He stands down, slowly letting go of his sword's sheath. 

"...You didn't have one of those, I thought."

At least there is that, Stormsinger agrees, relieved, before focusing on her sense of the area. The core is very small, perhaps containing enough mana at the moment to freecast a single short effect of the very simplest kind. To create a few sparks, or stir a drink, perhaps. It is there, however, and growing very slowly. By morning she might be able to cast a low-first tier spell, once she knows how to colour her unrefined mana. 

But how? He goes over all he knows of mana theory, looking for some explanation. 

...There is mana in everything, in this world, he sends after a moment, thoughtful. In the air, in the food, in the water. You have been taking mana in since the first moment you arrived. Very, very small amounts. Most living beings' mana comes from the connection to the soul. But, perhaps, it was enough to create a connection to the Void, somehow. 

He is not sure why this would happen. But it clearly has.

He considers. This suggests either there is unattached soul mana in the Void, or a version of you already existed within it. Interesting. 

I did not, she signs distractedly, watching Stormsinger think.

Your scientists are going to have a field day.

"You grew one?" He asks, even more bewildered. "...I'd never heard of someone without a core before, but that's..." He shakes his head. He doesn't really know enough about mana theory to make guesses. 

"You could bond with Stormsinger through mana, now," he points out, though, after a moment of thought. 

...It would perhaps be best to wait to bond through mana until you have more, Stormsinger tells her in response to Ilek's suggestion. The bond uses up enough that it would drain your core as it is at this moment, which is not particularly pleasant. Though it may not cause you nausea as it does many, given that your body must be unused to its presence. And she could likely suppress it if it did, with the Force. 

Could, she signs in acknowledgement, but she only half listens to Stormsinger, trying not to panic at the idea.

Noting this, he offers newly alarmed concern and reassurance, We do not need to. Mana bonds require consent on both sides, they do not just happen. He would never push her on the topic, either. 

I think I just need time - it's - she pushes a portion of her thoughts at him, not bothering to detangle them into coherent sentences. The fact of this being done to her, without her consent and in some meaningful sense against her will; not that she wouldn't have agreed to it but that she didn't. The shock of it; the instinct to figure out how to protect herself and the terrifying knowledge that there's not anything she could have done - that it's not a failure to be remedied or a weakness to be overcome but a fact of the world, something she can't fight. Without the option to reject it, she struggles to accept it, even with the full knowledge that there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the situation, that if she did have the option she wouldn't consider it at all.

Oh, he sends. Yes, I should have- he sends reassurance again, and sympathy, and the sensation of a hug - taken from the memory of Ilek hugging her, specifically. I am moving far too quickly, I apologise, he sends, regretful that he had not considered how this would effect her.

"...Are you ok?" Ilek asks tentatively, shifting closer to the side of the bed she is standing near. He's confused, and worried, and admittedly still about three-quarters asleep, despite the alarming awakening.