"You are afraid. Afraid of loss, afraid of not being in control, afraid of change. You sit and you grasp and you hoard- for what? You scrabble at power seeking security. You will never find it. Not like that."

That cuts -

She doesn't let herself flinch (not visibly). She wants to lash out. She doesn't let herself (not yet).

"Then how will I find it?"

"Stop lying to yourself. Stop hiding from your fears. Take control, rather than allowing them to control you."

"I don't know how to do that."

"That is one thing the training is for."

"Regardless of what fears I may or may not have - I'm part of a royal house. Those connections will be useful, and I'm reluctant to give them up until I'm - more confident you know what you're doing."

"Mm."

"There are things I must retrieve here. Follow." She passes Palpatine out into the corridor.

She follows. 

And starts asking questions about the facility - the items - she's clearly educated in history and the Sith, as much as is possible with the censorship she bitterly acknowledges her home planet pushes unusually far, and she'd just as clearly spent a very long while in the complex before waking Sicaria, thoughts and speculation and questions boiling under her skin. 

The history has been garbled over time, even beyond the censorship. Sicaria offers corrections incidentally, as they come up- but Palpatine has managed to think things through well enough that often her suppositions are close to the truth. She is less accurate when it comes to specifics of Force discipline, but that information has been much more thoroughly suppressed. The items in the facility are mostly historical curiosities. Enough to fuel a dissertation, but not truly upend a field nor lure looters.

Sicaria collects from various rooms three small wooden rods, a glossy obsidian tablet, and a carved stone stylus. From a different wing she retrieves a harness with six metal knives and puts it on. From the way it hugs the curves of her body without needing adjustment, placing each hilt within easy reach by a different motion, it was obviously designed for her specifically. Over this, she dons a voluminous black over-robe, stowing the other objects in its many pockets.

"What are those for?" she asks, of the rods, tablet, and stylus. "Something seemed odd about them."

(She's relaxed fairly significantly in Sicaria's presence over the course of the history lesson.)

"They are ritual objects. Anchors."

"For what ritual?"

"Most recently? The one that hid me."

" - I was wondering why no one else found this place. It took me a few years still, but - it seemed weird no one else had followed that trail, or even just stumbled on the place."

"You were searching for years?"

"Yes. I found a reference from before the fall of the Brotherhood to some lost documents, and some power hidden away. I started digging, but couldn't find anything at first, and it looked like anyone who got curious started getting incurious pretty quickly."

"What got me suspicious about this area specifically was some patterns in movement of ships from some anti-piracy reports. People were avoiding this area, apparently without realizing. I'd found a note in a survey from a few hundred years ago reporting on this system a bit earlier and that it had what might be an old temple - they were using droids to survey, so I thought there might be something keeping organics away."

"This place hasn't even been accessed by passerby, which is unusual. Sith temples don't always get as thoroughly looted as other places - but the hermetic seal was still intact. A lot of the materials would've had different oxidization patterns if that door had been opened since the place was sealed, even if no one poked their head in enough to loot or leave a skeleton. The lock was difficult to slice, but not outrageously so, and archaeological teams or looters who know what they're doing could've gotten through it."

"You put enough thought into this to know it was dangerous. Yet proceeded alone regardless. Why?"

"I wouldn't trust any of my connections who would have relevant skills that far, and I didn't want it known I was coming here."

Hum.

"Perhaps... you are less foolish than I initially assumed."

"I take risks. That doesn't mean I don't look before I leap."

"Recklessness is a different flaw."

"I know what my priorities are, and I know what the risks are."

"All you have to lose is your life?"

"There's worse outcomes."

"Such as?"