Not getting a say in the matter is bad. Something being bad doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

There's a sound like a thousand pages being ripped in half as space itself opens up, and a young man staggers through at a run. He's already screaming as he hits the ground, angry at the spatial jump, the ground, the sweat stinging his eyes, and frankly a lot of other things as well. He pops back up to his feet in and instant but he's weaving and unsteady. Even still the first thing he does is swing a wild fist at the space he just passed through. 

It's only after he tried the punch that he realizes there's nothing there. That stops him taking another punch and stops him yelling, but it doesn't stop the way he's wobbling.

The alfalfa, for all that it is not a consensual participant in these events, is unperturbed. It sways in the breeze.

There are four suns in the sky, and six green-and-blue moons, and faraway banks of clouds between them.

Sure, sure, but what around him is about to try and kill him? That doesn't look like alfalfa that secretly hides rows of teeth or the sort of breeze that's going to suddenly whip sharp stones through the air, but you never can tell can you?

If nothing at all tries to kill him for the next ten seconds, he might relax the rigid combat stance- which here means "the weary staggering collapses to the ground in a heap." If nothing tries to kill him for the next ten minutes he's going to try and find a more comfortable patch of ground to flop on. If nothing tries to kill him for ten hours that might be a new record of some kind.

Nothing at all tries to kill him, nor objects to him flopping to the ground in a heap. A bird calls in the distance. After he's been lying there for nearly half an hour, he can hear someone singing to himself and approaching on an orthogonal trajectory. They might not see him, if they don't happen to be looking?

Sleep would feel better but he does, now that he's had some time to feel just how tired and hungry he is he realizes he doesn't know if he can eat whatever plants these are. Maybe this person isn't friendly, but they must know something about the local planet. Maybe they'll let something slip. 

So he picks himself up, wipes as much dirt as he can out off of his face with his equally filthy robe, and tries to look like someone who isn't afraid.

"Hale!" He waves with as much authority as a half-starved teenager can. "Where are you headed traveler?"

The person looks over, evidently finds something about Briseadh's appearance alarming, and replies in a foreign language.

Well that's a problem. Not impossible to solve, but a problem. 

He tries Basic of course. How about Bocce? No, that didn't seem right either. The only other language he knows is Mando'a, but revealing that isn't always the best move. On the other hand that becomes a fight at worst, and he can handle a fight better than he can handle being this confused and lost.

(That is completely wrong of course. In this state the only part of a fight he could handle would be losing, and he's never been emotionally good at losing but those emotions might be more useful than the emotion of "Tired.")

And if none of those work he'll fall back to miming eating and sleeping and see what that gets him.

None of those work but the person nods at the miming and motions him thisaway through the field.

Great. He'll follow, keeping his eyes as open as he can. He considers trying to mime "what's your name?" or "where am I?" but that sounds exhausting so how about later.

Thisaway is a farmhouse in a little village. There are a few people in the village, assorted adult ages but all oddly pretty for those ages except the guy with a burn scar on his face, and they're all singing together in six-part harmony while some of them spin and others do laundry (manually, in a little stream that runs through the village; there's a quaint footbridge across it).

Weird. 

Is the tune easy to pick up? Does his guide start singing? He's willing to sing for his supper if that's what it takes.

For the first time since failed punch after arriving, he reaches out to the force. What do they expect, is there some hostile intent? Sensing has never been easy for him - surrender is always hard - but he's so tired and maybe that helps.

The tune is not easy to pick up at all, though he can maybe catch the soprano refrain if he's musical. They are not, so far as he can discern, hostile.

He can chant. Chanting is like music, isn't it?

. . . No, it's not. He's just going to mime food again and hope they aren't offended he's not singing.

His escort from the alfalfa field, who has seamlessly joined the song, steps into one of the little houses and pops out with a bread roll to offer him.

Food.

He tears into it for the first bite, ripping a great chunk off with his teeth and only remembering to chew after he's swallowed a great lump that sticks in his throat. That makes it feel real somehow and he can slow down. He nods his thanks to his escort. 

Food and no dangers nearby. Now he needs to figure out what he needs to do to keep this situation. And that. . . that's going to take language. 

Point. "Bread." Questioning look?

His escort drops out of the song and says a Foreign Word that might, optimistically, mean "bread", or "roll", or "food".

Hrm. Point at ground. "Ground." Point at house. "House." If that works, point at himself. "Briseadh."

He can get words for all those things, or things that one might think are indicated by those pointings, and also a name for his interlocutor! "Najzei."

Nouns are good. Lets try verbs. "Walk." He takes a few steps back and forth. "Walk." Lies down on the ground and closes his eyes. "Sleep." Takes a bite of bread. "Eat."

He'll give a good pause, seeing if there's any words they'd like to offer.

Najzei is looking like he doesn't super see the point of this exercise. "Najzei, Briseadh walk?" he asks, pointing in a direction and using Briseadh's provided word for "walk".

Now there's a conundrum. How do you describe yes or no? Sure, he'll walk, following Nijzei.

Great. Najzei will take him along on a walk out of the village and onto a dirt road.

Sure. It's not like he can't find this place again if he needs to.

It's going to be about twenty minutes of walking through fields under the strange sky. Najzei hums a bit.

Briseadh walks along, sometimes pointing at plants or stones and asking for the words. Knowledge is power.

Najzei can identify all the plants but not all of the stones; he'll produce commentary on the shapes and colors of the rocks if Briseadh wants though.

Eventually they come into view of a town with more to it than the farming village whence they came. It's bustling with pretty people - adults, not one single child anywhere - but it's still quite low-tech and low-density as towns go for all that it must be ten times the size of the village.

Najzei starts stopping random people to ask them questions in the local langauge.

Study time. How much can he understand the local language yet?

Probably not much. He has a vocabulary that mostly consists of plants and simple verbs. But he can stand there and look helpful or not that hard to feed.

Pretty soon he's going to have to figure out how to survive here as more than a pitiable guest.

After the fourth time Najzei talks to a random townie, they are led by the fourth random townie to a house! Random townie knocks on the door of the house, introduces Najzei to the household member, and fucks off. Najzei and the household member have a conversation. They are not talking slowly to be understood by Briseadh and are also mostly not discussing rocks and plants.

What he needs is to know what these people expect from him. He can't get that from "walk" and "maize." That leaves him feeling indebted and in need of help, both things which make him angry. 

He's too tired to feel angry.

For now he waits and watches and draws on the force to keep himself standing upright. He is going to look around the place for evidence there's some task he could help with. Broken data ports maybe, or wood that needs split.

Nothing about his surroundings suggest that data ports exist. There is actually a pile of firewood he could maybe make progress on, but before he can get underway at that or even mime that he'd like to,

there coalesces, out of thin air, a young woman - maybe a mature looking fifteen? - and the person in the house hands her a dress, because she appeared naked, and she puts that on over her head and then turns and smiles at Briseadh and says in perfect Basic, "Hi! What brings you here?"

. . . Nope, he's got no ideas how that works. He's heard of objects being passed through the force but never a whole person. The spatial rend that brought him here was a lot noisier than that and  much less targeted. He's understood intent, but not been able to speak a new language. 

Why is he always playing catchup?

"I came here seeking a place to recover and regain my strength, and perhaps grow stronger. I didn't know I was coming here, only that I would be somewhere other than where I was."

Then comes the part that hurts to say.

"I lost a fight, and needed an escape."

That's over with. Is now the time to say the other part, the one that makes people mad? Maybe later.

"Where am I?"

"The town's Oatsfield and the round is called Papertree. How'd you travel?" says the new person. "You're - Briseadh? I'm Shimyamei."

"I tried to do a hyperspace jump without a starship, just the hyperdrive and the force. I don't think anyone's ever tried that and survived to tell about it but I was out of better ideas. I was on Mustafar before I jumped."

The hyperdrive didn't even come with him, so it's not like he can do that again. 

"Yes, I'm Briseadh. Do you use titles, or do I just call you Shimyamei?"

"Just Shimyamei is fine. Shimyamei the third if you're being formal. I don't know what you mean by a starship; is that like a sail? Is Mustafar another round? I also don't know what a hyperdrive is, or the force as opposed to a force."

They may have more than language differences going on. He must have wound up in some really backwater planet in the outer rim if they don't even know what starships are. That's going to make getting off planet really hard.

"A starship is a vehicle that's all closed up so the air doesn't leak out, and has ways to push against air so it can fly. The hyperdrive is a part of the ship that pushes against space so you can travel really far in a short amount of time. Mustafar is- it's a planet, is that what you mean by a round? A planet is a rock in space that goes around a star, big enough that you can stand on it and people live there. I think we're standing on one now but I don't know the name."

Now for the big one.

"The force is an energy field that connects every living thing in the universe. It responds to will, and you can use it to do things like levitate objects or get glimpses of the future. Some people are better at using it than others, and they have titles like Padawan or Master. I'm a force user. My formal title would be Darth Jurious." Well, it was, and maybe will be again. Sith traditions on promotions or expelling people from the order are a bit unspecified, but it is well established that if you try and fail to kill your apprentice then the apprentice keeps whatever title they want as long as they manage to kill you back someday. 

"I'm a stranger here and don't know how your society is organized. Am I expected to give Najzei something to trade for the food they gave me? Where did you come from and how do you know how to speak my language?"

"Does it go... underwater?... Planet sounds like it might mean a round but it might be too big to be a round and also rounds don't go around stars. We're on a round right now. I don't recognize any of what you just said but I can try to translate it to my maker and see if he recognizes it and just made a mistake or something making me...? I don't think you owe Najzei anything for the food. I was made just now a bit earlier than planned with your language thrown in."

"Most starships can go underwater but that's not the important part. Space is like underwater in that I can't breath there."

"I have no idea how big a round is. Planets vary in size but I've never been on one that I could walk across in less than a few months."

"Can you explain a little more about how you were made? When was it planned and how was my language thrown in? What's your relationship with your maker?" If it's that of a slave to their master he's about to start a revolution right here and now and damn the consequences, he's not so tired he can't get angry over that.

"Oh. I don't think we have space that isn't underwater. It definitely doesn't take months to walk all the way around any round. I've been planned for almost two centiwakes, ever since Shimyamei the Second died - the local language has pronouns for this but you don't seem to - everybody's been making sure my maker over there remembered as much as possible about her, so I'd come out as close as possible to their friend again. Most people around here are remakings, or at least attempts at them, sometimes it's hard to be sure how well it worked."

"I was made somewhat half like my mother and half like my father. I wasn't exactly what they wanted so they made a clone of me that was more like what my mother was hoping for. But I didn't have any languages when I was born, I had to learn them slowly. It sounds like your maker made you knowing a language they themselves didn't know?"

"How did Shimyamei the Second die? How was Shimyamei the First made?"

"...I don't know what mother and father mean. I'm also not sure about clone but it sounds sort of like my relationship to the past Shimyameis maybe? I wasn't born, animals do that, not people. But yes, languages are pretty easy to add to a new person even if you don't know them, it's personality and memories that are harder. Shimyamei the Second died in her sleep of old age. Shimyamei the First settled on this round from Old Spinning."

"Mother and father are- two people who work together to make a third person, for my species they're usually different kinds of people. Fathers are usually a little bigger for instance."

"How much information do you need to add a language? Do you just need like, the name of the language or something? Can you make people with other skills you don't have?" Like how to make a hyperdrive capable starship from scratch, that'd be useful.

"You mostly look like the same species as us? But we can't collaborate on a person, only one of us can make one at a time. I think the name of the language work but I don't believe anyone else is ready to make a new person now. Languages are easier than most things in that way."

"Yeah, you look like the same species as me too but there's a lot of aliens that look mostly human." Pause. "I call my species humans. What do you call yourselves?"

What does it take to make a person? I don't think I need anyone to do that but I don't know how this works. It seems a really impressive ability."

"Well, uh, in our language siuzat, but I would have said, speaking Basic, that we were humans. I guess I could just be wrong about that.

"Everyone can make people but please don't try it just to check, then you'd have a person, it takes a lot of forethought to do it well."

"Yeah, I'm not going to try that just to see if it works. I don't even know how."

Seems like he should just keep asking questions.

"Is there something special about the singing? Should I be doing that too, or is it also like making people and it's important to do right?"

"Singing's just - nice, and free, and also not that hard to make people good at. Nothing very important will happen if you sing badly, but it'll be sort of annoying."

"Huh."

"What I want is to sleep, then try and figure out how to get off this planet once I've recovered. What do you want?"

"Oh, I want to go reintroduce myself to all my friends. How long do you sleep?"

"It depends. About eight hours if I can?"

"...wow. That's a long time but it's still short enough that you can have my bed if you want, I won't need to sleep in that time."

"I can sleep maybe half that if I need to." Less if he draws on the force.

"It's fine, I won't need to sleep for the next twenty hours, you can use my bed. It's just unusual." She waves him in to show him where her bed, presumably once belonging to Shimyamei the Second, is in a little closet of a room beside a few other similar rooms.

. . . sleep?

There's important questions about the universe and also he's been running off anger for so long now.

Sleep.

A sleep broken by dreams of fire and pain, lightsabers pressed so close to skin it begins to scorch, and the overriding humiliation of being surrounded by a living force that won't stop pretending his clone is the better him-

He wakes with shouts, but he'll put himself back to sleep after.

He alarms everybody else in the house with the shouting but they will leave him alone if he waves them off and goes back to sleep.

Then eventually morning comes, or at least his wakefulness. He'll take a little longer to sleep if nobody interrupts him then roll out of bed after nine hours.

He's going to seek out food, then something useful to do, in that order.

Shimyamei's in the house by then, sitting in the common room - it's got a fireplace and a food prep table and it looks like people maybe eat off their laps sitting at the various chairs and couches in the room - with a woman who's old enough to be going grey. Shimyamei looks up at Briseadh. "Feeling better?" she asks.

"Yeah."

He's cleaned some of the dirt off his face and the dark circles under his eyes have shrunk some. The bruises have actually grown larger and multi-coloured and one of the cuts has some concerning fluid, but he's standing fully upright which is new.

He looks at the new person. "Hello. I'm Briseadh, what's your name?"

"- Briseadh, I'm the only person around who speaks Basic, she can't understand you."

He points at himself. "Briseadh." Points at Shimyamei. "Shimyamei." Points at the third person and makes a confused expression.

To Shimyamei: "I'm planning to learn your language soon, I don't know how much you're willing to be a translator."

"Zay," says the older woman.

"It's pretty hard to learn if you don't start knowing it but I certainly hope you'll pick some things up. Do you have a plan for making a living?"

"Nice to meet you Zay." He knows they don't speak Basic but hopefully the sentiment comes through.

"I don't have a plan to make a living yet but I agree it's important. What kinds of things do people do for a living around here?"

"Well, this is mostly a farm round, but here in town we sometimes have sails docking and then there's money to be made trading for their cargo and selling them things people want on other rounds - this round's known for paper, though a lot of the paper is made in Treehills and there's another sail dock there so we mostly don't produce or sell paper here in Oatsfield - or people have restaurants or shops, or weave or sew or make furniture or look after old folks or make sure the roads are all in good shape..."

Well, he can be a farm hand, but he doesn't expect to be unusually good at it or happy about it.

"I can fix machines, but it sounds like you don't need much of that. How does someone get a farm? I can work for someone else but I'd rather not do that if it's a long term plan." Specifically the only times he's worked for someone else and been happy about it, the way you got promoted was by murdering your boss. Briseadh has only ever had one boss who was happy about that promotion plan, albeit in a way where they tried to opportunistically betray and murder Briseadh first. Something something it's nice to have open and honest communication at work. 

"For the paper- that comes from trees, right? Is cutting and hauling lumber a way to make a living?" If these people still weave by hand they probably don't have better cutting implements than sharp pieces of rock, maybe metal. "Or. . . uh, what do people do if they have a problem with each other?" That's about as tactful a way to ask if Assassin is a job on offer as Briseadh can come up with.

"There's lumber work in Treehills and you could sell firewood here, sure. If you've got a problem you go to the wise folks and they'll sort it out and if you don't like it you leave town or hop a sail."

"Then I'll try lumber work in Treehills unless something better comes up. If you have advice on what would be better I'm interested in hearing it, and I'd owe you a favour if you let me learn some of the local language from you."

That sounds like a conflict resolution system that doesn't involve hired assassins. Or she doesn't want to tell him about that option and he'll have to find it out from whatever passes for a seedy underworld this place has.

"Sure, let's figure out what phrases you'll need -" Numbers, colors, a few kinds of tree, "timber", "here" and "there" and "cut" and "let this one stand"...

Briseadh has much more positive feelings about learning a language when they outnumber him hundreds to one and also he's the one who came here. It's also his third or fourth language and this is the thing that gets easier with repetition. He's still not going to be fluent by the end of a few hours, so he's asking a lot of questions about grammar that are going to be hard to figure out later and he makes sure to get "what is the word for-" and "I'm sorry I'm still learning this language."

At some point he asks if there's something he can use to take notes. Is a dozen sheets of paper and a pencil an expensive ask?

Not so much that they won't let him have it but perhaps it'd be polite to pay the household back one day.

The language is ferociously complicated, like no one ever has to learn it ever, not even native born children. She's not even trying to teach him to read.

Well he might wind up working for papermaking organizations so maybe this specific thing he'll be especially able to pay back in kind.

Basic is easy and Mando'a is kinda hard but it's not like he has a great sense of what the range is like here. It's at least pronounceable with a human mouth and throat, so this is going better than his abortive attempt to learn Xaczik. He'll keep at it with little natural aptitude which he makes up for with the kind of work ethic you get when the Sith Lord was only your third harshest teacher.

Apart from words for trees and the cutting thereof, are there words for important social concepts he's missing? The whole thing around spawning new people for instance, or whatever role the Wise Folks have.

Sure, he can learn the word for the wise folks, and also the local timekeeping (it's by "wakes"; they are on twenty-four-hour cycles, though not all the same one as there is no night and they all sleep less than he does), and the words for being made and for one's maker and the persons one has made (on average this is only slightly more than one person per person, though it's not evenly distributed).

Then he will diligently keep learning words and trying to have conversations in the local language (what's it called anyway?) until Shimyamei gives some indication of wanting to do something else.

Shimyamei will gamely put up with this for hours, working on knitting a sock while she talks - and Zay will get both of them bread, though she doesn't give Briseadh any honey and cheese to go with it and Shimyamei gets some of both. But eventually it is Shimyamei's bedtime.

And Briseadh will add another piece of bread to the tally of what he owes these people.

By the time Shimyamei goes to bed he's probably still not good enough to have a good conversation but he's got a decent stack of vocabulary and at least the normal word orders. He also doesn't have a bed, especially since Shimyamei presumably wants hers. Time to. . . try having a conversation with Zay?

"Greeting. I want practice and learn about you. You want that or want me go away?"

Zay snorts. "Learn what?" she asks, slow and exaggerated.

See, normally he'd be mad at people treating him like an idiot but slow and exaggerated is helpful right now.

"What job you do. Why you live Oatsfield not Treehills or other place. Other people you like you guess I like like me?"

"I was made here. It is a good place to live. I have no reason to go. I do not know who might like you."

Well that's the most appalling lack of ambition since the last time he talked to someone who wasn't a Sith.

"How long you live here? If you not like me" just a guess but it seems a good guess "why offer bread?"

"I was made thirteen thousand wakes ago. I do not want you to be dead in my house."

He can appreciate the honesty! Did Shimyamei go over whatever they do for trade around here, credits or barter or cowrie shells or something?

"How much would you want for bread I eat be fair? I have nothing now but later."

They've got coins! Mostly wooden coins, some metal ones for higher denominations. She pulled some out to demonstrate some number words.

"Five a loaf."

nod

But the offer to pay her back seems to mollify her somewhat and she fetches him another hunk of bread.

"How much bread cost at baker building?" He has ever played the game of getting charged wildly high prices. It's not like she can't lie about it but it'll be one more thing to be mad about later if she's lying.

Probably one step forward two steps back as far as mollifying her.

"Bakery does five. We do not buy at the bakery."

Seems fine then. He takes the offered extra bread, trying to nod acceptance. 

"I will make effort pay you for bread later. Now I go talk stranger who want talk me since that not you, maybe they pay me for something. I back talk Shimyamei later."

"If she asks I will tell her."

"Thank you!"

And he'll wander out to practice language with strangers, because this is the best plan he can come up with at the moment.

Is there like. . . a meeting place people are just hanging around at looking approachable? 

Not really. This is a town more than a village, but it's a small town. Everyone not only knows each other but has known each other for several incarnations in most cases.

Well that's going to be a frustrating problem. Do these people all socialize in their private houses? 

He's going to let that frustrating build for a moment, then reach out in the force to feel for anyone else isolated and alone. If that doesn't work (it might not) he's going to wander around watching people at work so he can get a sense of the faces and the jobs around here.

Another day or two of this and he's going to have enough language to start asking for work.

There's a old guy over there in his vegetable garden!

"Hi my name Briseadh. You want help weed garden? I want practice speak."

"You can turn the compost," says the old guy, pointing at the heap. "Where'd you come from, then?"

"Recently Mustafar. Long travel."

He can turn compost, especially if there's a pitchfork provided.

"You live here long?"

There's a pitchfork, one of the wooden kind that's grown into shape. "All my life this time around. Where's Mustafar?"

"Outer rim of the galaxy, Atravis sector." That answer is going to be useless but the guy did ask. "What about last time?"

"You said you were going to practice speaking, use real words. Last time I came in on a sail. It was long ago, I don't remember it too well."

He might not believe himself either.

"Why did you come on the sail?"

"Papertree was empty, full of stuff that people'd want, space for us to live on forever."

Empty huh? Sure it was.

"So place you came from was crowded and used up? What you do when this place crowded and used up?"

Compost compost compost.

"Oh, no, I came from Horizon. You can see it from the other side of Papertree, not this one, but it's still in sight. People live there. But they didn't like reincarnations there so anyone who wanted to reincarnate came here."

"Why not like reincarnate? What they do about it?"

He's starting to have more questions about rounds, sails, and distances, but doesn't know how to ask.

"They just mourn dead people and make new people, they don't even try to get them back. They think it's too hard and it's not worth it to try, not even to save someone's life."

"What do they do about you since they don't like you do it?"

Somebody on this planet has to be angry about something.

"Oh, they let us do it here. They wanted somebody to grow things and make paper here and we'll do that."

"They make new people grow things and make paper here?"

He's probably done with the compost at this point, and will look at the old guy for any indication of what to do next.

The guy doesn't complain when he puts the pitchfork down. "You haven't got gardening gloves," he points out. "Some of these weeds are spiky. Anyway, they could've made new people for Papertree but then we'd still be around having religious differences. Simpler to shove us off here."

"They could have made people who liked them?" There are problems with obedient clone armies but Briseadh has never been exactly sure what the problems are if you're the one making the army and not, you know, the people the clones have been secretly trained to betray at a critical moment.

"They were obnoxious, but they weren't murderers."

Somebody on this planet has to be angry about something.

"Why not make people do what maker say? I not from anywhere near here. Not know how works."

"Oh, some people do that. We do reincarnations instead. We weren't made to be the kind who'd want to lord it over our creations."

That sure seems like the kind of thing that would be hard to stop once it got started though.

"Anyone make themselves?"

It's what he'd do if he could. 

Maybe that'd be the one person who wouldn't betray him Well that's a stupid thought, obviously he'd betray himself if he ever saw an advantage from it.

"Sometimes someone tries. I think it turns out worse, and of course it's funny to have two of someone around, and you can't always be too sure when you're really right about to die."

"How people die here?" 

It's obviously not war or famine.

"Old age usually. Sometimes accident, sometimes a disease."

Briseadh has always assumed he was going to die of Murder. Some people probably died quietly in their beds but he didn't really meet that sort of person, at least not for long.

"I am here now. I want practice talk and learn job, maybe cut tree. What you do if you me?"

Besides die of boredom.

"Practicing talking and learning to do a job sounds good to me."

"Thank you. Know anybody want help cut tree, want teach cut tree?" 

Jokes on these people, Briseadh plans to use some tools they almost certainly haven't seen. Which leaves another good question.

"Who tell everyone what do here? All just buy sell and help or someone tell what do?"

Even trade planets have a general inspector with some hired muscle.

"We don't have a ton of spare trees on this part of the round. You want Treehills for that. The wise folks tell people what to do sometimes."

"Which way Treehills? Number of sleeps I walk?"

Telling people what to do just works, no hired muscle? These wise folks sound more than a little suspicious.

"What then if people not do what wise folks tell?"

"Treehills is that way. I don't think you'd have to sleep to get there. We don't re-make people if they're trouble so anyone who wants to be reincarnated had better keep their nose clean."

Briseadh barely manages to take that as something other than a threat. Barely. 

"I thank. What else I help you before I go? What else stranger not know but good for stranger to know?" Wouldn't want to look like trouble this early.

"You can wash your hands at the pump over there and then put the laundry from the clothesline in the basket. If you don't like it on this round, you can see about hopping a ship to another one."

"I not dislike, I not know what work I best at. I think cut tree. I cut well and hold heavy thing." That is a sentence that is going to sound weird coming from a chronically underfed teenage, however wiry his frame. Oh well. "How much coin hop ship?"

Briseadh will wash his hands and start taking down some laundry, in the process getting a look at what passes for local garb. He doesn't want to give up his robe and leathers but it might be nice to cover it with something.

"I dunno how much. You might be able to work your passage."

They favor tunic-length shirts and have invented both of pants and buttons but neither elastic nor zippers.

Do they sew in kneepads though, because that's a surprisingly useful selling point for him.

"What job they lots want work passage?" He guesses that cutting things is not a useful skill on a sail but maybe he's wrong. 

They do not have kneepads sewn into the pants, though some of them are patched there.

"Cleaning the hull, working in the galley, hauling water and waste? You don't seem likely to know how to work the sails."

"I do not know how work sails. I can clean and haul." There's a bit of back and forth to get an idea of what a galley is, and then the laundry is folded and he's ready to move on. Has it been long enough he's sleepy or that Shimyamei might be awake yet?

Not likely, he had two not-very-long conversations. Locals are short sleepers but not that short.

How about those wise guys?

He'll ask about directions to where he might find one. If they're so wise maybe they'll have advice. Then he's going to try and scout for one while staying as far away as he can thank you. "Wise person who can tell people things and have dissent just stop happening" sounds like someone is abusing Jedi mind tricks. Maybe that's going to mean they have a fight about it if they sense him. He can at least make it hard for them, he's been keeping his temper in check and barely drawing on the force since he woke up.

Does he get directions? Can he spot one of these people before they spot him?

There are only two wise folks in Oatsfield. They live in that house over that way together. At least one of them is usually awake.

Thanks old guy! Briseadh will be polite and as unsuspicious as he can at this point.

Anywhere he can be somewhat concealed as he starts a stakeout observing the house until someone leaves?

Opening himself up to the force is a double edged vibrosword. If he can sense them they can almost certainly sense him. So instead he'll just go with good old eyesight and hope.

He could climb a tree? He could hide behind a bean trellis? The houses around here don't have a ton of windows. There's no smoke coming out of their chimney right now. A cat sleeps on their front walk.

This doesn't look like a town where loitering for a couple hours will go unnoticed.

Does the bean trellis have a backside that's well concealed, or is he going to be obvious to anyone walking down from the other side of the street? What he'd love is a good bush. A tree might work if it's got enough leaves and stuff to cover him from the ground.

There's a few rows of bean trellises. He could be seen from the end of the row, but not from behind. The trees are in leaf and he can climb a maple and be pretty hidden if he would like, though someone might see him climb it.

Maple tree then. He reckons he can climb quickly and pass it off as goofing around if he needs to.

He takes a look around to make sure no one is watching, then risks one quick pull on the force to get started with a powerful leap. It's easy to start, hard to stop, the anger coming quickly when he lets himself think about the smug arrogant Jedi in their clean robes, 'wise persons' dispensing advice nobody questions, the Force gives them the right but it doesn't make it right-

He has to breathe slowly for a few minutes once he's up in the tree, and most of it isn't exertion.

If he watches the wise folks' house for a while he can eventually see an old man come out to give the cat a fish head.

Hrm. That's not very useful and Briseadh maybe hasn't thought this all the way through.

Does the old man perchance wear a tan robe with a metal cylinder on his belt? If Briseadh touches the force briefly and softly, does he feel an aura of (nauseating, external, unwanted) peace and serenity from the guy?

Nope, the old man is wearing yellowish-green trimmed in brown with big wooden buttons and has no unusual Force signature.

Briseadh is out of ideas then. Why is listening to these people sufficient that they don't have hired muscle?

He'll hang around the tree until the man goes back inside or wanders away, then checks for the coast to be clear and drops back down the trunk. If the man went back into the house he'll go knock and see what kind of rulers these wise people are.

The man did go back inside, and answers the door, too. Smells like he's got fish in the pot on the fireplace. "Hello, who might you be?"

"Hi. I name Briseadh. I new in area, not know language well, not know place or rules. I from far away. I told you wise person, people ask if problem? My plan practice language, get work, maybe find way back. I think good plan but maybe I not see flaw."

The obvious flaw is that he can't build a hyperdrive or starship out of rocks and trees, but until someone admits to knowing what a starship is he doesn't have any better ideas.

"What round are you from, how'd you get here?"

"I don't know what 'round' is really. Was on Mustafar, a planet. Used hyperdrive badly, wound up over that way." He points vaguely the way he remembers coming from. They don't have a word for hyperdrive so he's just saying that and planet in Basic.

"I never heard the word 'planet' or 'hyperdrive'. Rounds in this area are -" He can list about twenty of them before he trails off at the lack of recognition.

Briseadh continues to know about no rounds other than the tree one people keep mentioning, and that because people have mentioned it.

"...none of those? Are you from a sail?"

"I have not yet seen a sail."

The man squints up at the sky. "I can just barely see one there in front of that cloudbank." He points.

Briseadh squints, looking into the distance. Does that look kinda like a smudged dot? He's not going to give very useful information off of a smudged dot. 

"I'm from somewhere very far away. I got here by way I can't explain yet. Language not good."

"Has someone already made a person with your language?"

"Yes, her name Shimyamei. She not recognize way I got here."

"Then I guess we don't know about it. What does it do?"

"What does what do? Way I got here, hyperdrive?"

"Yes, that."

Oh boy.

"It takes you to a place where distance is short, you go in that place, it takes you back. Use with starship, a kind of sail. I didn't with starship which like. . . can get here but not back. Used The Force. The Force is energy connect living things and let some people do special things."

"Special things like what?" he says skeptically.

Entirely fair. 

"Sense where people are. Lift objects with no touch. See not sure future. Leave presence after death. More things, is hard to list all."

Choke people. Scar them with painful electric burns. Cloud their minds until they agree with your words.

"Sounds pretty farfetched."

It sure would. Briseadh grew up in a world where the Force was at least heard of as something someone's husband's brother's friend had seen, and he was impressed when someone used it in front of him. It's also easy to fix, and he likes using the force. Now that it looks like these wise elders aren't going to suddenly sense his presence and carve him up anyway.

He needs to be a little angry for this, but anger is never far from Briseadh's mind. Stupid old man, who isn't answering questions with anything useful. What kind of backwards planet hasn't heard of hyperdrives and calls anyone wise? These people are pointless wastes of time, maybe he should make them pay attention for once-

and with that line of thought, an uplifted hand half-clenched in a claw, and the startings of a snarl on Briseadh's face he'll pick a stone to the side of the porch and start hauling it up into the air to float between him and the old man at around chest height. There is effort showing on Briseadh's face but it's more emotional than pure exertion. 

"...that's not a living thing," objects the old man, after a minute to process his bafflement. "You said it connected living things. What living thing are you connecting to?"

Why are you questioning me old-

Briseadh makes an abrupt sideways swipe with his arm and the rock is flung to land in the yard. He takes a deep breath, forcing the anger back into its cage.

"It connects me, you, the grass, the trees. That connect makes- ropes, knots, connecting, can't see it. I can see it and pull on the rope to move rock even if rock does not have rope tied to it, because it is between other things that do have ropes."

He wants the word "web" but that didn't come up, so he does the best he can.

"So it wouldn't work if you were on a sail by yourself?"

That sounds like a question you'd ask if you were trying to figure out how to get the weird newcomer with dangerous powers into a place where their powers wouldn't work so you could murder them.

"Works less in the void between the stars but works some. If I was on a sail by myself and there were no rounds anywhere and no other people on other sails, I the last living thing, then it not work I think? And it work badly if I and you only living things and rock not close to either of us. Am I between any two rounds anywhere is the question."

It works just fine in the void between the stars actually, and if they try to get Briseadh on a sail in the middle of nowhere to kill them then they can just get a surprise. He doesn't know why it still works even if you go out to the galactic rim but it does, he assumed there are other galaxies out there and the force can work through that. Also as far as he knows it doesn't have to be actually a straight line between the two points, it's more of an emanation throughout the background of the galaxy but he's not telling them that.

and he's not totally sure to be honest 

"It doesn't matter how far apart they are?"

"A little maybe? Not much."

"Goodness. Well, you'd be right handy on a sail, then."

"Why is that?"

"It's annoying to move things around there, especially in the galley, because there's no down."

. . . they have ships that move outside gravity wells, but no hyperdrives or artificial gravity?

"Up and down don't matter to the force. No down maybe makes it easier. I thought lumber because heavy trees but it sounds like I'll be on a sail to get there?"

"No, there's lumber harvesting here on this round, you can walk there."

"Which way, what name town?"

"Treehills, that way." Point.

Everyone is keeping their stories straight.

"Thank you. Any other advice for newcomer?"

"You should tell people how to make people who can do your thing."

You would be dead or enslaved in two weeks if your planet is as disarmed as it looks old man.

"I'll think about it. What do people need to know to make people with my thing?"

"- well, how were you made with it?"

"Born with it. I not made the way people here made. Do you ever do thing mother and father make small person?"

"...people don't do that."

"That how I made!"

"So you're some kind of animal with magic powers?"

"What exactly 'animal' mean?"

"A creature that isn't a human."

"I call myself human. Other people where I from call me human. What make me not human?"

"That you grew in another animal. That's how we get more goats or cows or sheep. Not people."

This is not even the weirdest form of speciesism Briseadh has encountered. "Do not people different from people if I talk? It okay to lie to me or steal from me or like that?"

"You're probably just wrong or lying," shrugs the elder. "Are you claiming to be an animal, is more the question."

"I claim to be human. I cannot prove I was made by two people. I not remember anything for first few years anyway. But I remember being smaller than I am now."

He shrugs.

"It not matter to me? I claim human, you seem happy talk to me like I human, it does not change what I do I think."

"Maybe you were made a child. Sometimes people do that."

"Maybe!"

Seems about the limit of useful information. Is it worth it to kill this guy to cover up the 'animal' thing? Seems not worth killing this guy.

"If no other advice I go try to make money, pay back person feed me first night, then go Treehills."

"How're you planning to make money?"

"Eventually, trees or sails. Today I do not have good plan better than ask for heavy chores. Do you have idea? I speak little this language, I have sense of sails and wise person and how money work, this not bad for second day."

"I don't know how long it normally takes former children to learn a language but it's not good enough for any job that wants much talking. You could haul water from the well for someone, perhaps, or pull rocks out of a field."

"I agree. Know anyone need hauled water or pulled rocks?"

"I'd take a bucket of water. Bucket's over there, well's down thataway."

"How much you want to pay bucket of water?"

Briseadh only has one useful piece of information on prices around here- the price of a loaf of bread- but he'll take a second datapoint.

And then unless it's something wildly out of line with the scale implied by the bread, he'll haul the man's water and go looking for more manual labor jobs. Maybe this old guy knows neighbors who also need water from the well. And maybe these idiots will crown Briseadh king when he shows them the wonders of indoor plumbing.

He offers one-fifth of the price of a loaf of bread, which is as small as the coin denominations go, and he seems to think that's pretty generous for one bucket of water. Most people are fine at getting their own water, though he could maybe get another coin for doing several buckets for that one house.

Yeah, that does actually sound kind of generous. Which is weird. Is. . . nobody going to try and cheat the stranger? That's weird enough Briseadh is suspicious. 

Hauling buckets of water is the kind of thing Briseadh can do all day. If the buckets have handles he might scavenge a stick to make himself an improvised yoke. As he's starting the nascent water hauling business he'll ask if there's other manual labor to be done, he'd like to pay off his host before he sleeps again if he can.

They have handles, and he can get another coin holding a cart steady while someone else fixes its wheel.

Sure, he'll do that. Which leaves him at less than half a chunk of bread. Not terrible for asking random people to do household chores for them though. 

He should be doing something more important than this.

Can he chore his way into bread money? If not he'll try asking if they eat animals, and if so it any of it is hunted. He's trying to work out what to offer people this insanely low tech.

Yeah, they eat pheasants and rabbits and squirrels and wild ducks.

Briseadh does not know what any of those creatures look like but if someone can draw him a half decent picture in the dirt (or point at one, if there's a dead but unbutchered one in eyesight?) he'll finish this round of water and wheel fixing, then ask if there's a less populated area where the wild things might be and if it's owned so nobody else should hunt there.

How do people usually hunt? Sharp sticks?

They've got bows and arrows, and traps.

Then after his current round of water hauling and wheel fixing Briseadh is going to go force choke a few rabbits. It's a lot easier than bows and arrows; you can't miss, with the force, and all he needs is line of sight. This is the kind of stupid work he could avoid if this planet wasn't insanely low tech, the villagers must be laughing at each other how the newcomer will do their chores for a pittance, he should go back and choke that old man until they give him food-

Another advantage of this is the hunting area presumably has a lot fewer people around, so he can scream at the forest without as many weird looks. By the time he comes back into town he's calmed down a little bit, though he's still scowling. He's got a brace of rabbits carried in his cloak, which he's taken off and used like a bag. Underneath he's wearing closely fitted black clothes with a few pouches and a metal cylinder a little under a foot long on his belt. He'll head back to the house he slept at last night and see about cooking these animals.

Rabbits go for more than bread and he can get a tidy sum for his meat, if he wants to sell them.

Is this better sold as rabbit or as meat after butchering and cooking or smoking it?

He's going to take the straightforward approach to eating one rabbit, then selling the others to pay back the bread and whatever it cost to rent sleeping space. Depending on how much is left over he'll buy a couple loaves and. . . waterskins and leather sacks? Is that the best way to carry water and food on a journey by foot?

None of this is bringing him closer to going back to Mustafar and throwing his former teacher in a volcano, but he does finally feel like he has his feet mostly under him.

(There are no external wounds on the rabbits, but every sign of pain and fear that could show up in the meat is present.)

Skinning it himself will make people willing to pay more (for the meat and skin both; they're both valuable) but butchering it any further beyond that won't. They seem to be assuming he trapped and strangled them, they're not doing rabbit autopsies. He can get a bed for the next time he sleeps and have some left over.

Bottle gourds are popular but waterskins can also be had.

Sure, two bottle gourds and a sack. Oh, and paper, he forgot paper.

How's Shimyamei doing? Does she want a piece of rabbit for more language lessons?

Now that even the Wise People apparently aren't unusually force sensitive, he's going to keep his senses open for anyone who is. If these people actually have no force users then-

-then he doesn't know what that means. The force is everywhere.

There's no force sensitives on this round.

Shimyamei is doing fine and will take a half-rabbit to teach him more words and correct his grammar!

It is not the case that a Sith left unopposed on a small, backwards planet invariably takes the place over and rules as a tyrant. Sometimes Sith manage to get themselves killed by their own hubris, or the local kingpins prove unexpectedly resourceful. It's still common enough that the Jedi spent a lot of effort opposing suspiciously fortunate rising tyrants.

Half a rabbit, huh? What makes you think you're entitled to that half a rabbit for fulfilling the role you were created to serve? Briseadh is being kind enough to condescend to learn some of your language instead of making you all learn Basic like you should. 

"You don't want half a rabbit. You want to do a good deed for a stranger."

He pushes out through the force, pressing a weight down on her willfullness, her impulse to fight back, it's easier not to haggle and to just do what someone else wants. If she wanted it badly enough she could always fight back.

"All right, all right," she says, folding without much resistance at all.

-okay, maybe he is going to wind up ruling this planet with an iron fist.

At the end of the lesson he smiles, thanks her, and asks what her plans for the next few weeks (in the local time idiom) would be.

Also, was Zay around and did they notice anything weird with the mind trick?

Zay wasn't around but another person Shimyamei lives with was. It's not obvious if he noticed anything. Shimaymei's going to catch up with all her friends and do the work she needs to do to help support her household. There's also probably going to be a party for her soon, though since she's early it's not prepared yet and she's not sure when it will wind up being.

Ah, one of those useful people that's enmeshed in a whole social web. Those are trickier to abduct. 

"I'm happy house let me stay two night. I can hunt rabbit, is this kind of thing house happy have me stay longer learn language or house not want me as long time guest?"

Hunt rabbits, learn the local language, and worm his way into people's heads isn't a terrible routine to be in for a little while. He's very conscious of being on a timer, here, but a pervasive language barrier is a pain to work around and it doesn't sound like he's missing out on a spaceport somewhere nearby. 

So the plan to beat is to aggressively learn the local tongue now that he's not burning resources other than time every day, then travel widely.

"I thought you were keeping the rabbit after all?"

"I paid Zay for bread, they want I contribute something for using bed? Rabbit hunt means I am useful to somebody, not just taking time and bread."

Hrm.

"I not understand- who and why people live in household live here. What relationship to each other." It's not a boardinghouse, but these people don't have blood families.

"We're friends," she says. "I'm not sure you have a word in Basic more specific than that... 'household members', but that's not really informative..."