"Yeah. Water, juice, tea..."

"And I guess I can actually properly explain stuff that's going on."

"Juice would be good, thanks."

Juice! In a bottle with a sipper tip. It's at least cool.

The girl also gets up and turns up some lamps so there's more light in the room as she gets Ellaita her juice. "So, uh, you asked how I knew she was coming earlier - I can actually explain that if you want to hear the answer? Or I could talk about my Master some, but... I don't know there's much to say that isn't private."

"How about the former?"

She nods and starts making herself tea while she talks. "So the Force isn't this weird mystical thing. We don't know a ton about it, but there's a lot of stuff about the universe we don't know yet. That just means we need to keep studying."

"It's hard to build machines that can sense it, though, and really hard to make anything inorganic interact with it, so that also keeps it from being really - in the common consciousness? Except as a religion thing. Like, humans can't sense electromagnetic fields either, but everyone can use magnets, so anyone with an education knows how magnets work."

"Feeling things in the Force and doing things with it isn't weird mystic mumbo-jumbo, either, though some people like to dress it up or are making things up because they don't really understand what they're doing. It's pretty much an energy field, though none of the books I have or that Master Anakin's ever read had mathematical models for it. It's really diffuse, and it's everywhere, even in a vacuum - some writers talk about it being stronger in some places, but I don't know if that's exactly the thing. There's definitely different qualities it can have, which can make it hard to feel sometimes."

"Some people can sense the Force, though usually only really weakly, and some people can manipulate it. Like those species that can see and interact with electromagnetic fields. Or like us - lots of species can't hear things. Sensing the Force isn't usually a species thing, though, or - almost all species have some ability to sense it, and how much you can feel it varies between individuals. And training can make you better at using the abilities you have, and can maybe also increase them."

"I'm one of the people who can affect things with the Force, and so's Master Anakin. People feel a certain way in the Force, like how they look and sound a certain way, and it's possible to recognize individuals - and some people resemble each other. Usually family members do a bit. Sometimes I guess you get weird coincidences? Like I feel almost exactly like someone Master Anakin used to know, minus the types of things that change over your life, even though we don't think I'm genetically related to him. It's possible how you feel in the Force is related to your personality or how you tend to think, but we're not sure of that. But because of the Force signatures, I can tell where Master Anakin is, roughly, especially if she's close or I'm focusing on her."

"And because the Force isn't limited to line of sight or anything, one of the things you can do if you can manipulate it is send messages to people. It's harder to send messages to just one person, but you don't have to actually interact with the conventional space between two points in the Force if you know what you're doing. So if you're careful, you can change the Force just around one person, and you can make a sort of resonance between two people - called a bond - which makes keeping an eye on and talking to each other easier."

"...A more coherent explanation than I was expecting."

"When we decide it's time to leave Jakku I'm going to join a university or something as a Force physicist. Or whatever we decide the correct term is for someone doing science to it."

"That'll turn some heads."

She laughs. "Might help me get funding. Or I might have to face down the ridicule of my colleagues with the power of a firm faith in the scientific method."

"Most likely that last, I have to be honest with you."

"I'll win them over eventually. Or just show them up."

"Bet you will."

She giggles a little. "Do you wanna know anything else?"

"How long have you been learning about this?"

"About a decade. So probably since I was like three or four? Though we're not sure how old I was when Master Anakin found me."

"But 'cause I was a kid for most of that I haven't been learning very efficiently. Had to learn to read and stuff before I could study the texts Master Anakin found, and I'm studying everything, not just the Force - only a really tiny handful of my books are about it, though that's also because Master Anakin had trouble finding a lot of the ones she's ever read..."

"Jakku isn't exactly a center of learning."

"Yeah. It's sometimes easier to feel small things in the Force when you're not around a lot of people - even people who aren't very Force sensitive can make, like, noise in it. But it'd be nice to be somewhere quiet with a big library."

"Master Anakin says we're not ready to leave just yet, though, so I'm also learning about patience."

"Right."

She drinks the rest of her juice.

"...Think I'm ready to see her again."

She nods. "I'll let her know."

And then her gaze goes distant a bit, her expression focused like she's listening to something very faint and far away.

And the Force ghost manifests again - farther away from Ellaita this time, posture still wary and unsure.

"...Good morning," she says.

Her voice doesn't sound a lot like what you'd expect Darth Vader to sound like. Smoother, more pleasant, more quiet.

"Is it morning? I'm a bit disconnected from the local diurnal rhythm."

"More or less, though we'll tip over into the afternoon soon enough."

"Good morning to you, then."

She nods, slowly. "What's your name?"

"Ellaita Dameron."