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At a bar beyond the end of the universe, a young blond man sits sipping a bluish drink and watching stars explode through the window.
Luke Skywalker and Callida in Milliways
The door opens.
A red haired woman in dark armor blinks at a room that she was not expecting. Her eyes scan the room, then lock on the blond man in his chair. She had not sensed a Jedi behind this door before she opened it.
The feeling is mutual.
my-father-before-me
She feels... odd. Certainly not the shining beacon Yoda was, nor the black hole of the Emperor. Almost like his father did, towards the end.
He smiles at her. "Hi there. Bar says the first drink is free, if you're thirsty."
She raises her eyebrows, slightly. What the hell?
"... Hello. Does the drink come with a complimentary explanatory pamphlet?"
my-father-before-me
"The way I understand it, it's still there, the door was just temporarily rerouted."
It is amazing just how much someone can communicate with a pair of eyebrows and a doubtful expression. For example, this woman can successfully communicate the phrase, Bullshit.
But Occlus is at a Dark Council meeting, quite unreachable by comm for at least another hour or so, and Callida is not going to leave this problem alone until her teacher is free. This is her ship, and she's investigating this phenomenon.
"I see," she says, mildly. "One moment."
She raises her comm to her lips.
"TN-R13." There is an answering (and slightly grumpy) series of beeps. "There is an unknown phenomenon currently borrowing the door to my ship's cargo hold. And also an unknown Force user. Probable Jedi. Do please send some kind of security if you don't hear from me in, oh. Fifteen minutes." More beeps, this set loud and grouchy enough that Luke can pick out // Jedi + ship == Mynocks + ion port // Ship == faulty //, which earns a faint snort from the woman. "Noted."
And in she steps.
"TN-R13 demands new tools when its had a bad day," she says, taking a seat at the bar. She is not going to sit next to the Jedi; she would like to have some time to react if he decides he would like to act like the last Jedi she met and threaten her with a lightsaber. "And gets much more irate."
"They were an experimental offshoot to the T7 series, designed to be sturdier and programmed for more decisive decision-making capabilities in crises. Unpopular because it turns out that many people are put off by decisive droids beeping orders at them. The chassis upgrades made it to the T7 model, the programming - did not." She's not actually very good at droids, but TN-R13 has made very sure she knows everything about this particular subject. Somewhat to her dismay.
my-father-before-me
"T7 hasn't been a standard astromech designator in," he counts on his finger, "almost three thousand years."
my-father-before-me
"Just got done fighting an Emperor. We're still trying to put the pieces back together."
"Another Emperor." Whatever this is, it's not very creative. "By your tone, I make the assumption that he was - atrociously power hungry, narcissistic, and had grown so powerful he was nigh unstoppable and long thought to be unkillable?"
my-father-before-me
"Pretty much. Ruled the galaxy with an iron fist, had all the Jedi hunted down and killed."
"... All?" she says, blinking. A hypothetical galaxy with only Sith sounds horrific indeed. The Jedi aren't perfect, but they are pretty good at keeping the Sith from taking over everything and then running it right into a sun. "How quickly did the Sith devolve into self destructive in-fighting without them?"
"Ah. So with all the Jedi dead and with only two Sith, did you learn from holocrons, or has a third order finally been founded?"
my-father-before-me
"They didn't get all the Jedi. Two managed to escape notice. I learned from them."
"How very... symmetrical," says Callida. "Well, thank you for not threatening me with a lightsaber, this is a vastly more civil conversation than the one I had with the last Jedi I met."