Morning, and breakfast.

    "Good morning, ma'am. Master Deskyl says 'how did the exercises go?'."

"The most I can confidently say is that they went, but I do think they went well.  Or well enough.

"What would you look for, when attempting to judge progress...?"

    "She says that at this point the goal is for you to build the habit of paying attention to what you want, and for you to become comfortable with the emotions that your wants evoke, ma'am; she says that these exercises should also help with identifying a range of touchstone concepts that you can use to evoke various emotions in yourself, and with learning to use them in a wider variety of situations, but that's secondary. She doesn't expect much if any progress on any of those yet, though; she says that you're still putting together the basic concepts. You may want to try drawing on your emotions while sparring or otherwise using the Force today, though, she says; many Force-sensitives find it intuitive, and it will be a good measure of your progress over time."

"...What does that do to the basic stuff?  I've spent a while getting some down to reflex, I don't want to mess all that up."

    "She says that since you're not Dark, it should just empower it, ma'am, and not interfere with your existing habits."

"Huh.  Well, some of that will require adjustment, but it's practice I should do anyway...I'm going to need more space than just the cargo hold as it is now..."

...Well, she can practice her telekinesis, then!  There's nothing that's that fragile that a bump will break it down there...

Deskyl turns out to be able to produce a standing telekinetic field effect that slows anything that comes into range of it, which is quite helpful for not bumping things in the first place.

Oh, well, that gets her a thankful grin from Diana as it saves her poor spaceship from a dented wall!

Hee.

    "She says 'more than you were expecting?', ma'am."

"Just a bit!  Really neat trick, actually...huh, I wonder..."

Say, if she does this and that and those and then hooks them all together...

After quite a bit of fiddly Force-work, she drops a wrench into the reengineered technique, which seems to slow its fall to nothing with its own redirected momentum, then plucks it out again.  "...haha, yes!  It works!  I'd been trying to get that to work properly for years but the way I instinctively attempted to construct it tended to explode when subjected to high force; this should've broken it if I was testing my normal variant but the way you did the anchor just works to stabilize the entire design!  It's got a pretty complicated grounding in tutaminis theory, but I think it's actually practicable if you want to try?  I feel like I should be teaching you at least something after all of this!"

    "She says it should probably wait until after lunch when she's fresh, but she'd like that, ma'am."

"Then I'll certainly do so!"

    "Master Deskyl says 'thank you', ma,am. And that you're doing well so far, but there's another exercise that you should do soon that the Sith version of can't quite be repurposed for: You need to be able to evoke emotions that you can draw on during all kinds of battle scenarios. She says that Sith handle this by practicing with the emotions that occur naturally during them, but there's a risk of falling to the Dark if you do that; she thinks that your best option is to think of other emotions that you would find easy to access during various parts of battle, and then practice evoking those."

"I see.  That does seem like it could go some very dark places, indeed.  I'll have to work something out.  Thank you for the warning."

Deskyl nods.

    "She says that she'll be ready to spar with you soon, ma'am, and that her emotion projection effect is also useful for practice if you'd like."

"I...yes, I think so.  As long as...you're confident in making sure I don't explode or...something, I think.  I want to take this as carefully as I can."

    "You won't, she says, ma'am. Even most Sith don't actually fall."

"...huh.  Well, then.  I suppose, whenever you're ready," she trips over a missing word, "Deskyl?"

    "After dinner, she says, if you'd like, ma'am. And her title is Xaari, if you'd like to use it."

"Yes, I quite would."  The faint blush she has is not mentioned.  "Xaari Deskyl.  ...It suits you.  The sound of it.  ...Does it mean something specific?"

    "It's a Sith title, ma'am. The common ones are Kissai, Xaari, Jari, and Urvaz, usually translated as acolyte, apprentice, lord, and Darth."

"So I would be Kissai Diana?"  ...oh Force why this.  Why oh why those syllables!

"...How in the sea of stars did Urvaz get translated as a different nonword, anyway?"  Look, a distraction!  She's curious!

    "Darth was originally a loanword into Basic from the Atex language, ma'am, where it's a similar title. And Jedi converts start at Xaari rank - being accepted by a master grants it, and that's required for converting Jedi."

"Huh, that's really quite interesting."  Her voice is kind of strangely...floaty?  Like she's relieved, but there's hardly much to be relieved about.  Unless of course you're paying attention to the way a certain emotion has just vanished.

R4 breebles smugly.

"Lost parts.  Tubes."

"Ahem.  So I'd be Xaari Diana, then?  Assuming we even keep the whole...edifice.  I'm not sure if I think either Jedi or Sith do learning in a particularly good fashion."

    "Yes ma'am. And Master Deskyl agrees; she's certainly not giving you traditional Sith training, even if what she's teaching you borrows heavily from it."

Deskyl pulls the spare chair around next to hers and pats it, giving Diana a questioning look.