"It really is none of their business, yes."

"Mmn. Any other constraints on our ultimate goals here? We have some preferences but I think we're flexible enough for almost anything reasonable."

"I can't think of anything in particular that I haven't already mentioned, but I do rather have a habit of getting so far into my own head that I forget the rest of the universe isn't in here with me."

"I would like to be somewhere where I don't have to pretend to have a restraining bolt," Nine puts in.

"I hate those things.  There are certainly options."

"Thank you."

"...We hate those things.  It's not any less slavery when the mind you're forcing to follow your orders is silicon and circuitry rather than meat and chemicals."

"Absolutely. The first thing I did when he joined us was take it out. - the planet we were on, biological slavery is illegal but all class four droids are required to have a restraining bolt, fortunately nobody ever tried to bother us about it."

"...Quite.  I would probably draw weapons on someone who was... Insistent, about trying to do that to Elcie, and I know they can't do anything to her, on both hardware and software levels."

"I'd be interested in hearing more about that, some other time - I'm not bad with hardware but I've never gotten into software, and I don't know enough about droids in particular to be comfortable making functional modifications on my own."

"You'll probably want to direct that to Elcie, actually.  I wouldn't trust me to do brain surgery on a droid that already exists.  Elcie, on the other hand, translates skillpacks as a preferred downtime activity."

"It is honestly more a matter of simply excising some rather obvious malicious code, but it is true that my mistress has approached her experiences with droid software from entirely the wrong direction to know where it all would be."

"Better to defer to the expert, yes. So where were we, before we got sidetracked - deciding on preparations before we get in touch with the Jedi, I think?"

"Yes, we were doing that.  Deciding on - if, and what kind of, groundwork it would be appropriate to lay as evidence of our nonmaliciousness."

She nods. "You'd know better than I would what sorts of things the Jedi might find compelling, there."

"...Do you wish to be a healer?  It would be compelling, but presenting you that way would rather place expectations."

"Mmm. In theory, maybe? I can't do a blended state, in order to heal I have to switch to Light entirely, and it's... a lot. Maybe it'd be more sustainable with training. The healing itself -" she gestures vaguely. "The reputation prodigies have for getting skills that suit them is accurate at least for me."

"...Depending upon how it troubles you, we may have advice."

"I imagine Jedi are trained to keep hold of... themselves, in the face of all that? And I haven't gotten that training."

"...Hm."

"In what way does it overwhelm you?"

"I don't know that overwhelming is the right word. The way I know how to do it... it's not something I figured out, it came to me all at once, I assume it's the way that's most natural to the Force - I have to let go of everything, or almost everything, to reach that state. I don't want things. I'm just a conduit."

"Ah."

"...Unfortunately, the Jedi are not quite going to recognize that problem as as much of a problem as it should be considered, but...

"Hm.

"I might have something, nonetheless.  Not...  So much a particular technique, as a way of thinking about the same thing differently.

"...You are part of the Force, as much as it is part of you.  It cannot be the universe entire if its will excludes yours.  It cannot be part of you if you are not part of it - and it is part of you as it flows through you.

"...I'll see if I can compile something more useful on Light meditations, but I hope that that might help somewhat."

"-huh. I could see that working, yes."

She nods, and - seems, insofar as her presence reveals, uncomplicatedly glad of having been of help.

"...There is some small part of me that aspires, someday, to teach, if I do not mistake my feelings in this moment," she muses, distantly.  "I never could take an apprentice, before.  The sort of person I wanted for an apprentice, I couldn't have risked associating with myself, in either direction."

"Though, that is not a matter for now, I don't think.  Just...  A thought."

"I'd want to offer an apprentice more stability than we have right now, yes. But if we're going to be a new kind of Sith, it'd be a shame for that to die with us."