The hovercraft is already turning away, but as she watches it loops behind a pillar of sandstone, pausing for a few moments behind the rudimentary cover before coming into view again and making its way toward her. The black-garbed figure driving it stops the machine a minute's walk away, settling it onto its kickstand so that she can dismount and approach, watching warily.

She doesn't look like much of a threat, honestly; she looks like she's been through the wringer already, and it's a miracle she's not injured in a way that fucks up walking.

On the other hand, with the way the indigo-blue glow is concentrated around her wounds, even as the figure approaches, she could probably become a threat, given time.

Time she doesn't have, and seems to know she doesn't, given how that glow stops, and she leans heavily upon the strange, glowing indigo staff she carries.

...

"I don't suppose you speak English."

It's not a question; she's just...hoping, despite her worst day ever, and the way she clearly expects to be disappointed.

"Because despite the way you look like a Caucasian human, I'm somewhere different enough that my Ring's broken."

She continues, confident in her counterpart's incomprehension, and so tired.

"So."

Indigo glows and - ::Greetings-salutations-contact.  Request-hope-believe: (Not-fighting)-collaboration-armistice?::

The woman stops walking when Diana speaks, but doesn't seem to understand her. She flinches slightly at the indigo communication, but then shuts her eyes and replies - ::Acknowledgement. Query-regarding-intentions.:: And after a brief pause, ::query-regarding-immediate-needs (medical, other).::

...Diana viscerally reacts to the flinch, eyes going wide, as she stifles some sort of noise - but she can't stop the undertone of concern-for-her-interlocutor that leaks in to the next bursts of thoughts-words-concepts, even as she does manage to make it feel less...that way, thanks to Pradnakt's example.

::Helping.::  There's a whole bundle of things tied up in that, reflexive enough that they can't not be honest.  That they happen to involve people with fantastical powers even Jedi or Sith don't have, facing off against equally fantastical threats, and wielding technology that's simply absurd, cold-guns and tornado-machines and arbitrary mimickry - technology that could shake galaxies - is nonetheless something one might reflexively doubt, if they hadn't seen this woman appear out of nowhere with their own eyes, and perhaps even then.

...and when Pradnakt gets around to asking if she has medical needs, she fires back a ::Request-query-curiosity: Medical-supplies-technology-practices (with some of her own attached, a mix of the semi-mystical Light bullshit and practical field medicine under quite varied conditions, much done with minimal Ring-slinging); needs(other) food (memories of an omnivorous diet...) water (dihydrogen monoxide, she knows the chemical structure...) shelter (a bed, indoors (her bed, under a mountain...))::

She doesn't observably react to the claim of implausible technology - it's not exactly unheard of for people with unusual powers to be less than fully sane, and while she doesn't specifically get that impression here (well, beyond the obvious naivety, anyway) she has no particular reason to get into a debate about it.

In response to the query about medical tech she sends an impression of a hospital, vague enough to suggest that she's never actually been in one but tinged with expectations of highly advanced tech, and also colored by an impression of enough distance to be largely inaccessible; she also sends an impression of her own medical skill - a solid understanding of the basics, but not much more, and quite limited actual experience and available resources - and of a third option that's near enough to be potentially useful, albeit still limited to basic functions like stabilizing broken bones and distributing antibiotics.

...She could probably benefit from a clinic, and she doesn't have vaccinations for whatever, though - after a moment of sharp worry, and a flare of indigo light - she communicates, with a bit of an embarrassed overtone, that she doesn't think either of them are going to catch something debilitating from the other, no matter that she can't be as sure as she'd want to because her Ring is somehow broken --

::Apology.  Frustration.::

...

::Concern-for-other: desire-avoidance-?flashback?::

::Confidence-regarding-safety-from-disease,:: she sends, and then ::mild-annoyance-at-meddlesomeness,:: with a muted sense that there's much more going on there.

She opens her eyes and goes back to the vehicle, bringing it up to where Diana is standing: there's only one seat, but it's long enough for two if they don't mind being very much in one another's personal space; the woman has settled herself at the back of it.

...She eyes this dubiously, but, with some embarrassment, gets herself situated - after a hissed swear-word as the way she shifts herself tugs on a stitch (and reveals a gash through her dark-and-indigo outfit, where armor must not have covered) - then continues the...conversation?

::Not-meddling-intent, desiring-being-considerate.::

Once Diana is settled, the vehicle starts moving again, turning to go out past the previously-looped-around pillar and approach the heavily decorated silvery humanoid figure who's walking away from it, keeping it between herself and Diana's previous position. The woman pulls the vehicle up beside the figure, and spends a few seconds conversing with her; they seem to be discussing logistics. At the end of it, the metal woman turns back toward the pillar and the speeder starts moving again, back to where it was coming from when Diana appeared.

Diana just...emanates sheepish apology in that silvery figure's general direction!

And then, while they're still having that conversation...

::Consideration: sidecar?::

She can make a basic sphere-with-a-seat-in-it, even with the - hastily-conjured - seatbelts, and will, to not leave one of her rescuers behind.

...huh. She stops the vehicle and sends ::query-regarding-confidence-in-abilities,:: along with a sense that her preferred configuration of things is Diana in the sidecar and the droid on the speeder proper.

::Embarrassment - sidecar-containing-self impossible (unmet precondition); regret.::

::Confidence: Very.  Duty, practice.::

::Hesitant consideration of alternate-harder ideas.::

"Mm," she says, and brings the speeder around to confer with the droid again; neither of them sound very confident in the sidecar.

::...Additional explanation.::

See, the reason she needs to be on the hovercraft is because maintaining a construct stationary to herself, or even moving it - (she sends images, Diana flying, (Ring on her finger and prominently involved,) connected to dozens of construct stretchers with people on) - is easier than connecting even one to other stuff (images of having to tie a construct rope to things).

"Mm," the woman says again, more neutrally, and then there's a fuller empathic message: Diana should stay where she is; the woman is going to get off the speeder and set the droid up to drive it, and she'll take the sidecar.

She doesn't stick around to wait for a reply, instead dismounting (there's an odd sourceless sensation of pressure that keeps Diana stable when this rocks the speeder a bit) and getting a wool blanket and a canteen full of water out of a compartment in the back of the speeder; the canteen goes to Diana after the woman takes a demonstrative sip, and the blanket gets tied around the droid's neck like a bib, covering the enameled flowers that decorate her torso. They continue to speak while this is happening; the droid still seems concerned about the situation but the woman is reassuring her.

Telepath having telekinesis too, check.

::Appreciation.::  The water is good, and she appreciates the steadying.

::Confidence - understanding-of-doubt::, she sends to the droid.  Even though she's a bit of a mess right now, even without her Ring, she's still an Indigo Lantern, and to fail at so base a task as keeping someone who is notionally in her care (for all that that's more the other way around in practice), safe is almost literally unthinkable - so it won't happen.  She doesn't know how much they know about how this works, but...It's an emotional thing, and she has plenty to spare.

::...Further consideration::  ...If she's worried about Diana having the capacity to hurt the other woman somehow...Well, there was that not-exactly-a-PTSD-flashback, but...beyond that, she literally can't do that unless there's some sort of blow-up-the-world plot she's presently being manipulated in service of; it's just not how Indigo light works.

The droid goes still when 'spoken' to, and says a few words to the woman, who pauses as well to stare at Diana.

::...Confusion?::  Is there some sort of anti-robot racism going on around here?  Her nominal boss is a robot, she's not going to think a person's lesser just because they're instantiated on circuitry instead of meat!  ::Realization - empathy-telepathy abnormality?  Explanation.::  After the absolute bullshit she had to go through to connect her Ring to others' Rings, starting out, she'd be downright embarrassed if she couldn't use the same trick to communicate with an actual robotic person.

::Telepathy-abnormality,:: she confirms. ::Mental-interactions-with-droids: considered-impossible.:: She's still staring.

::Explanation(bemused)::, the first thing they should know is that this isn't exactly telepathy as much as...the underlying pattern of thought she is using isn't 'let's send this thought to someone else's mind', as much as it is 'I wish this person could understand me'?  It's a reflective sort of thing, where her existing empathy and understandingness contributes to the model of the translation process - whereas most telepaths she knows rely on being able to just push thoughts at the recipient and hoping their brain is similar enough to puzzle it out.  And that's just not true for people who're running on circuitry, enough that standard telepathic senses are quite often blind to them - but the minds are still there.  They're just different.  And, not being normal herself...She actually tries to understand them.  She fixed the oven with empathy, once; it was surprisingly like soothing a stray cat.

Uh-huh.

"Mmnh," the woman comments, noncommittally, and goes back to what she was doing; it only takes a few more seconds, and then the droid takes her place behind Diana (the blanket pads the pokiness of her art enough to avoid outright pain, but it's still a bit uncomfortable to lean on her if Diana tries it) and the woman settles herself somewhat gingerly in the glowing sidecar, and they can be off.

"Mmm."  ::Uncertainty-in-fundamental-models, anyway.::

The ride can pass in mostly-silence, Diana surprisingly focused on admiring the terrain around them, but - true to her word - capable of maintaining the sidecar through even that distraction.

The woman only waits about five minutes before 'speaking' to Diana again: It's dangerous both to Diana and to bystanders for her to be seen to have powers, in this polity, so the plan is to take her back to the house and swap her obviously-power-based medical stuff for mundane, hook a trailer up to the speeder, and then they can get head into town to get her to the clinic. It's about a four hour ride each way to get to town and the group will be pretty limited in what they can do there - they can stop at the library, and pick up supplies if they don't mind terrorizing people a bit in the process, and that's about it - so if there's anything she's going to need in the next eight to ten hours besides the obvious (food, water, and they'll set up a bedroll for her in the trailer for the ride home) she needs to say so before they leave. In the longer run they can get Diana to the city for vaccines and anything else the clinic can't handle, but unless there's something particularly urgent that'll be at least a week or two; it's a three-day speeder trip to get there and they aren't prepared to leave the house unattended for that long at the moment.

It hwhat.  ::Confusion.  Reflexive incomprehension.  Shock, worry, anger determination.::  Nobody's getting hurt because of her and if the agents of this polity think they have something to say about that they have another think coming.  If she has to fix her bones with compassion, hope, her medkit, and duct tape, she will - it'll be unpleasant, sure, but to protect others, it's worth the pain.

It's darkly amusing, apparently, that Diana thinks she has a chance of managing that. More relevantly it's not an immediate danger, so unless she intends to take up residence indefinitely in this particular patch of sandy nowhere she's going to have a hard time doing anything about it at all. Best just to avoid the issue altogether, which isn't even particularly hard in this case - they already know the woman has powers, that'll provide enough cover if Diana's even a little circumspect. Lose the holo-constructs, don't telepathy at anyone, don't do anything else weird, and it'll be fine.

Diana thinks she has more than a chance at that, even as squishy-human as she is.  Lanterns are meant to tend to crises on the scale of an entire galactic sector.

Nonetheless, she'll keep things under wraps until she understands enough of the situation to know what needs overthrowing.  (Because fuck that.  She's not going to hide forever, not when she could help people.)

That sounds like a sensible plan. They can discuss the long-term later.

The woman's name is Sunset, by the way, or Dusk if that's more of a name-word in Diana's language, and the droid's name is Daisy and her designation is DZ-12Q. There's another droid at home as well: Nine, designation 9P-3X-UU0Q. It seems that she likely doesn't need to say that she expects Diana to be polite to them, but that often doesn't go without saying around here, so just to be clear: do that.

Of course; it is even more important to care about those others refuse to.

::Glad to have met you,:: "Sunset, Dusk; Daisy."  (She points, and mimes the sunset on the first name with a descending fist.)

::Chosen-name:: "Diana."  ::Disambiguating other-Dianas:: "Diana Pallas."  ::Chosen-profession:: "Indigo Lantern."  She points at her Lantern-onna-stick, and the emblem on her chest.  "Indigo Lantern Diana Pallas, Lantern Diana Pallas, Lantern Pallas.  Diana Pallas is an Indigo Lantern.  This is Diana.  This is a Diana.  This is an Indigo Lantern.  This is also an Indigo Lantern.  Indigo Lantern is a duty.  Indigo Lantern is a job.  Indigo Lantern is also an object."  ::Annoyance at language being characteristically-language.::  "Diana Pallas has an Indigo Lantern, therefore Diana Pallas is an Indigo Lantern."

::Query: understanding-increased?::

She takes a few moments to translate that aloud to Daisy before replying - yes, it's useful, but Daisy's the one who'll be learning Diana's language so it's best to wait 'till she's not distracted.

They're nearly home, anyway; Nine's watchtower is in view now, just there.

(Diana didn't leave Daisy out, to be clear.)

::Acknowledgement.  Anticipation.::

The trio's home, when they get there, turns out to be a small collection of white adobe buildings - four simple three-story watchtowers spaced evenly around the perimeter of the area, surrounding a small barn, an oversized garage, a cozy one-story house, a compact, lush vegetable garden, an area roofed with trellises holding melon plants, and a dusty yard with what appears to be a decoratively-shaped climbing frame taking up part of its space. They park in the yard, in front of the house, and Daisy confers briefly with Pradnakt before turning the speeder off and dismounting to head for the garage. Pradnakt, meanwhile, extricates herself from the sidecar and offers Diana a hand getting off the speeder to head into the house.

::Pretty.::

Diana appreciates Pradnakt's help in dismounting, though this doesn't stop her from buoying herself with a soft Indigo glow.

"Mmhmm." Does she just have the stitches and the bad arm, or is there anything else Pradnakt needs to take care of here?

There's a bunch of minor cuts, bruises, and abrasions, but she's actually in surprisingly good shape - mostly because she isn't supposed to be in melee combat at all, and because there was some on-the-fly patching up of wounds, but that's immaterial to her present condition.  She's pretty wrung-out, though; it looks like it's been a long, long day for her.

::Query: power-enabled healing capacities?  Otherwise, request: - peace-and-quiet, protein-rich food, painkiller.::

Healing isn't available in her powerset, no (and the flinch at the question is much more subtle, this time), but she can provide painkillers and call Daisy in to make some eggs while she moves some things around to make space for a cot in the room they're in, which is a workroom that easily takes up half the house's floorspace; Diana can sit at the worktable that dominates it while all this is going on.

She'll take the painkiller now, and wait until the eggs are ready.

::Warning, poorly-controlled emotional radiation imminent - maintain safe distance if concerned about adverse effects.::

And, her warning delivered...she starts incanting something?

"In darkest night, my light still shines -

though I have lost all else that's mine;

For all I'm running out of cope,

my light still shines - I still have hope."

It's hard to hope, when you've gone from something bad into something that for all you know might be worse - but...she's not alone.  And for all that she's sure that Pradnakt would deny it if she asked, she can tell her host does care.  She wouldn't be alive, right now, otherwise.

And that hope, that belief, is enough to fan a small, flickering spark of emulated Blue, and the ease it gives to doing anything that heals - which she needs more than ever, without a working Ring.

She can make this work.  It might suck, it might hurt, but she can.  That bone-deep certainty finally allows her to start properly mending her wounds, tendrils of indigo light probing the cellular machinery, understanding it, speeding it on its way to repair what's broken and been lost - thus the requested eggs, which she eats as she works - and of course properly setting (with a sharp, pained gasp), then fusing back together, the broken bones in her staff arm.

::...Exhaustion.  Appreciation of food.::  "Thank you, Daisy.  Thank you, Dusk."

Pradnakt pauses in her work at the warning, and watches the process warily. She doesn't interfere, though, except that when she sees Diana go to set her arm, she shifts her stance slightly and all of Diana's pain suddenly fades away, just for the moment or two that it takes for her to do it.

...Diana is pleasantly surprised by this and radiates a ::Gratitude:: at Pradnakt, even as focused upon manually healing her injuries as she then is.

"Mm," she offers lightly, and goes back to telekinesing things around; it won't take much longer for her to get the cot set up than it will for Diana to finish plate of eggs and melon slices that Daisy gave her.

...the sun's blaring down from above, but she's had such a day that she's inclined to use the cot, once it is available to her.  Just to have a lie-down.

::Gratitude, reiterated.::

Pradnakt sends a sense of acknowledgment, and retires to the back of the house, turning out the overhead lights when she goes; Daisy stays in the room for a few more moments, drawing the curtains on the few small windows here and there on the walls, before following her, leaving Diana alone.

Oh...she's surprised they're being so considerate of her, after she just...dropped on top of them...but...she's sleepy.  She'll rest.  It's nice.

...And, eventually, she will wake.

It's fully dark in the room now, aside from a sliver of light leaking in from under the door that leads further into the house, where Pradnakt and Daisy went. They don't immediately come out.

She'll go "I'm awake" at the door and flick the lights on, but otherwise...it's up to them how much they want to interact with her, she supposes.

Daisy comes out after a moment, to ask a polite question in the same language from before that Diana doesn't know yet.

::Incomprehension, apology.::

She says something deferential and goes to open the front door, motioning for Diana to stay back from it; there's a red light of some sort moving around outside, which stops moving after a moment and then disappears entirely after she speaks and Pradnakt responds.

The Sith comes in, then, breathing slightly heavily as if she's just been working out. ::Query: needs/wants?::

::Food, language-learning, information(strategic)(about dangers-to-people-with-powers).  Information(wtf just happened?).  Information(Daisy-said-what?)::

She sends Daisy to go start on a meal before addressing the rest: Pradnakt was out practicing her swordwork; Daisy asked if Diana needed anything and then said she would have to get Pradnakt, and then did that. Neither Pradnakt nor the droids are good at teaching language, so the plan is to get Diana a book or books on the topic; they can inquire at the library in the morning if Diana still wants to go to the clinic, or Daisy can make the trip to town alone once they've got a shopping list for her, though it won't be surprising if such a book will need to be ordered in from the city. They can work on the shopping list now, or Pradnakt can tell Diana more about the state of the galaxy.

"...why the fuck is the space future still relying upon physical books instead of education software," ::Absolute bemusement, homeworld - programmed language-learning, Ring - programmed language-learning, Daisy - programmed language-learning, why does language-learning require physical-object-book?::

::Irrelevance; que-sera-sera.  No clinic - exposure unnecessary.  Request: galaxy-information.  Strategic-overview, culture.::

'Book' was a metonymy, though if Diana wants something interactive that's going to require hardware they don't have here. Most likely in the form of a teaching droid, actually, but she'll sort that out later.

Anyway. The state of the galaxy. (She pauses to get a sketchbook and some colored pencils out of the cabinet by the cot.) The galaxy looks roughly like this; this bit is the Sith empire, where they are now, this bit belongs to the hutt trade empire, and this bit is the republic, which has some kind of complicated democratic thing going on. The rest of it is the outer rim, which isn't a coherent polity on a galactic scale. The empire and the republic are - or were last she checked, but she'll be surprised if it's changed - at war; the hutts are more closely aligned with the empire but mostly neutral in a 'selling weapons to everyone' sense. The Sith started the war and can be assumed to be in the wrong about it, though it's been long enough since the war was relevant to Pradnakt's life that she's forgotten most of the details beyond that; they can get Diana a book or something on that, too.

None of these three polities are particularly morally upstanding, in Pradnakt's opinion, but the empire is arguably the worst and in any case it's the one Diana is going to have to deal with at least at first. To explain the empire first she has to explain Sith, and the Force - the Force is the part of physics that can be interacted with by some people to let them do things that look like magic; there are various methods of interaction that have various prerequisites in terms of mental state and allow for different effects, and Sith study a method called the dark side, which uses emotions - particularly negative emotions like anger and fear - to empower the effects it can create, with the side effect of also strengthening those emotions. If Diana is thinking that this sounds like an incredibly bad idea, yes, it rather is; your average Sith finds a balance that leaves them functional enough, but it's not exactly rare for them to wind up in destructive feedback loops, and the culture doesn't help. All Force sensitives - people who can interact with the Force, which is a very rare ability - discovered in the Empire are trained to be Sith, starting from early adolescence, and the emperor and entire upper government are Sith, though in practice most governance happens on a planetary level and is run by Forceblind people, and the main effect of having Sith around is that they're entirely above the law and beholden only to other Sith.

(Yes, Pradnakt is a Sith. She's been opting out of interacting with most of the empire for the last fifteen years or so for personal reasons, but she still is one. That's why she's not going to go into town unnecessarily; her mere presence terrorizes people. And reasonably so, on their part.)

Relevantly to Diana, Sith culture runs on a power-based hierarchy, with Sith always on the lookout for resources that will help them overpower or defend against their rivals. Diana will be seen as such a resource, if her powers are discovered.

::...Surprising similarity (Lanterns: Red Orange Violet).  Musing: Sunset-Dusk is non-practitioner of Sithness; why is Sunset-Dusk Sith?::

She hasn't been participating in Sith culture but that's only one part of being a Sith; using dark side techniques, which she does, is the more central one, and she's still in the position of being ungovernable by mundane means - cooperating with someone trying to enforce laws on her sounds about as appealing as cutting one of her limbs off, and she expects to be able to fight off any number of mundane police.

::...Counterargument: By that standard I'm a Sith.  I'm not a Sith, I'm sure you agree.  Ergo, that argument doesn't make sense.::

::...fuck the police, anyway.::

::Lawfulness and Goodness are dissimilar axes of prediction.::

::Sith(philosophical) are Chaotic and Evil.  To reject Sith-nature does not inherently cause Lawful Goodness.::

She's actually developing a lot more facility with this technique as she gets used to it.

::You give half a damn about other people, and if you try to bullshit me about that, I'm right here as proof otherwise.  You might not maximally care - but you could wield Indigo, as I do.::

::Ergo, why claim to be Sith like those (derogatory-sentiment(emphatic)), who absolutely (emphatic) don't care about the impact they have on other people's lives?::

And now Pradnakt is bodily dragging Diana off the bench and to the front door. (By her good arm, but that could be coincidence.) Unless she comes up with a counter in the couple seconds this takes, she will be deposited on the front stoop with the door closed behind her.

::I'm pretty sure that the fact that you feel so indignant about this means I'm on to something.  Because you wouldn't be so angry about it if you were confident that I was spouting bullshit.  You'd just be dismissive.  Because you don't have to care what I think.::

(She's entirely fine with being dragged around.)

The door remains closed.

It's very dark out here, but at least the stars are gorgeous without any light pollution.

"Well, let's see what the fuck happened to you," she directs at her power ring.  Not like she has much else she can do right now.

If she could get a single resonator back online, or fix the compute bits, it'd be pretty useful.

She doesn't expect that to be viable without a workshop rated for molycirc, but she does have a full diagnostic readout stored on her emergency Batcomputer, and even knowing what broke ought to be pretty useful.

(She's kind of expecting it to be something about micronization, or subspace; those are the really wibbly bits of ring-tech.)

She's not left alone for very long: after about ten minutes, Daisy comes out with a tray of food for her, lit by a miniature lantern that also sits on the tray, and settles next to her on the stoop with it.

If Pradnakt is paying particular attention to Diana's emotions, there's a sense of something like vindication, mixed with exasperated fondness, for a moment.

"Thank you, Daisy."

"...Dusk is really something, isn't she?"

Diana starts nibbling away at the food as she continues working on her diagnostics.  The preliminary results are "so much of this is fucked up that it's probably easier to list what's not broken", but she can get a couple of the coarser Light-sensitive components to reset, and some of the inductive communication systems - the way her ring talks to her - which is good, because she really needs to be able to listen, as well as speak.

She's never been as good about caring for herself as she is about others, and that's biting her in the butt, right now.  She needs just a little kickstart to properly bootstrap herself into having a two-way translator, at which point she can probably power through on determination or hope if she must - but she does need to get that started with compassion.

So after fairly bathing the ring on her finger, worn beneath a glove that actually fits around it, in Indigo...

Diana drops into an almost meditative state, and certainly a contemplative one - and speaks to Daisy, her Ring glowing as much as her Lantern does.

::"Can you say something?  I want to see if this translation effect works."::

"Yes ma'am. Did it work? I'll recite you some poetry if you need more than this."

"I think it's working.  And if it's working at all, it probably ought to be working totally...Oh, here, let me see if..."

"I'm going to stop translating my speech and see if I can translate Batman's language file format for you."

And she offers the tip of a semi-undefined luminescent Indigo cable to Daisy!

She hesitates slightly, but takes the proffered cord and plugs it into a port hidden amidst a spray of small yellow flowers on the side of her torso.

"That worked, ma'am," she says, in English. "Thank you."

"Oh, thank goodness.  Thank you, for trusting me enough to let me do that.  I'm sure we could have managed to learn to speak eachothers' languages some other way, but this brings down the complexity a few notches.  Even more if I can unfucken my Ring's translator components.

"...how's Sunset holding up?  I feel like I might have..,pushed too far, too soon, earlier."

"She's fine, ma'am, but it seems like you did, yes. I didn't get a very complete explanation from her of what happened; can you tell me more about it?"

"There is a Sith philosophy.  There is also a Sith organization.  Sunset has distanced herself from the organization, but claims to adhere to the philosophy.

"I don't think she really adheres to Sithism as it's practiced, as evidenced by the way I am still alive and mostly unmolested.

"As evidenced by the way she is actively protecting me from the organization, when my admittedly basic understanding of the philosophy says that she ought to hone me into a weapon against it.

"...For all that I can't not smack the Empire in the face regardless.  I'd hardly have a right to this Lantern if I didn't.

"And I might be talking out of my ass, here, but it seems like she gives too much of a damn about other people to be the...self-centered fear-and-anger monster she passes herself off as.  That she wraps up an altruistic streak in selfish justifications."

"She does, yes ma'am, though I wouldn't let her hear you say it if I were you. And it's more complicated than that, anyway."

"...mmm?"

"She'd prefer to find a way for things to work that you're comfortable with, in the long term. But there's a real danger to you and her both, if another Sith finds out about your powers while you're with her, and her first priority if that happens is going to be her own wellbeing. There's a real chance that she'll hurt you herself, too, if you offend or upset her too much. She has an altruistic streak, but it's not the only impulse she follows."

"I see."  Yeah, she's been here before.  Reminds her of the Terror Twins, though she expects the maybe-a-Sith to have more critical thinking skills than them.

"I'll keep that in mind; thank you for telling me."

"I've dealt with situations somewhat akin to this before, honestly, and I almost worry I'm coming into this with bad assumptions from previous work.  Because, back home, I - did a lot of work 'redeeming' villains.  Finding people who'd just been - kicked into the gutter by society, rather than having truly chosen the lifestyle of terrorizing the masses with power they had accrued - by hook or crook - for fun and profit.

"And something about everything about this situation...it's got those instincts running in high gear."

"Mmhmm. I should talk to her about it before I tell you much more about her, but while I'm not surprised at that, her situation isn't quite either of those, and it'll offend her pretty badly if you assume it's the former - Sith culture considers having the strength to make your own choices about your life important; you shouldn't suggest that she hasn't done that without very good cause."

"She's making her own choices, yeah, it's just that her options are kind of shit, and enforced by threat of some powerful fucker murdering her.  Because if the Emperor doesn't do that, I'll eat my nonexistent hat.  Relatedly, fuck the Emperor.  With a rusty spork."

This gets a chuckle. "Yes ma'am."

...Well, she's just going to keep sitting here and seeing what she can fix of her Ring, and enjoy the quiet presence of Daisy.

Daisy seems to be fine with that.

She'll have another hour or so to work uninterrupted before the door opens behind her. Pradnakt huffs in annoyance and edges around the two of them - Daisy scoots out of her way as well as she can - to head around to the side of the house.

::Apologies.  Regret overbearingness.::

She gives Pradnakt her space.

Pradnakt ignores her.

About half an hour later, there's a thump on the other side of the house, suggestive of someone jumping down from a low ledge, and Pranakt is just visible walking from there toward the garage; when she gets there, she pauses - it's too dark to make out any details of what she's doing - and Daisy signs in her direction and stands to go over there.

...Yeah, she's not really very certain what she could do, or what she should do.

Though, she does have one question... "...Daisy, can you ask her if I'm allowed in the workshop at present?  ...and I want to know what's happening there, but I'm respecting her privacy and space, so, uh...yeah."

"Yes ma'am." She signs again and waits for a response. "You can go in, yes. We have some packing to do in the garage, I assume that's what she wants me for."

She nods.

"I'll be in there, then."

...She wants to figure out what all those tools are even for.

"Oh - could you send back your copy of English, and a copy of whatever the common tongue is, when you have a chance?"

"Next time I'm not busy, yes ma'am." And she goes.

On closer examination, most of the things littering the table - which is big enough to be impossible to reach the center of; Pradnakt must use her telekinesis when she works at it - are not tools but pieces of larger machines, and seem to be arranged more based on their aesthetic properties than their functional ones. Of the tools, many of them are recognizable enough - there are only so many ways to design a wrench or screwdriver or soldering iron - but again there's a sense that this is more an art studio than an engineer's workshop based on which ones are closest to hand and seem the most used. The bins of parts along the side wall, sorted by size and color rather than function, also suggest that this is the case.

...Huh.

It checks out, given that...she doesn't think Daisy did all her own art...but it's still interesting to process.

She does, however, want to understand these broken machines, to understand the person who makes use of them.  So she lights up her Lantern (in a sense, for her Lantern is always on), and falls into that same meditative state, as Indigo plays over what Diana seeks to understand.

Most of it is decommissioned farming and food processing equipment, with broken housewares making up another notable portion, and the occasional spaceship or droid part or piece of virgin material as well; it seems to have come from all different sources, at least in terms of the people who used it.

And casting her Lantern's light wider, viewing the reflections of the actions within this space...?

It's Pradnakt, Daisy, and Nine's home, and they seem happy here, sitting together at the table to work, each on their own projects - Daisy does calligraphy and Nine writes, along with Pradnakt's artistic tinkering and Daisy's cooking - and talk, or working together on household chores, or just spending time together, in pairs or all three.

...d'aw.

She smiles, gently, and lets her Lantern dim.  Right now...

...she's not really sure what to do, still.

Perhaps just...continue to exist.

Perhaps keep trying to fix some of her Ring.  Perhaps - well, she just really doesn't know.

Perhaps she will follow Pradnakt's example, and try exorcising her feelings - lost, alone, adrift, desperately reaching for connections - into art.

There are more usual kinds of art supplies in the cabinet, she might remember from when Pradnakt drew her a map of the galaxy, if the Sith's preferred medium doesn't suit her.

No, the broken machines...feel right.  It's not like she isn't one herself, in some ways.

...Not that she's going to openly admit that.

Still, she feels some kinship with them, so...they're her chosen medium.

...For all that she doesn't have anywhere near as much skill in using it as she'd like.  She has a dream, a vision, a nightmare - but not particular plans for realizing the heart that's been torn out of her chest like a falling angel.

There are plenty of parts, well-organized and easy to look through, and the tools are good quality and nicely weighted, and intuitive enough to figure out how to use; she may have problems instantiating her vision, but they won't be those problems.

And...have problems instantiating her vision she immediately does, because there's some sort of fundamental contradiction, that she daren't even articulate, when she approaches the art.  There's a centerpiece, her bleeding heart...but what goes around it is a paradox.

She has a few hours to think about before Daisy comes back, knocking and pausing for a moment to give Diana a chance to clear up anything she doesn't want her to see before she opens the door.

There really isn't much to see at all.  Just some loose parts on the table, and a frustrated Indigo Lantern.

"Are you all right, ma'am?"

"Never have been."

"...Sorry, I have no idea why I said that.  But, I'm as fine as can be expected when I'm pretty sure I'm not going to see my home again and that I failed to defend it."

"It's fine, ma'am, it's understandable that you're upset. If there's anything we can do to help I'd like to know about it. For now, is there anything in particular you'd like for dinner?"

"I'm not a fan of soups or mushrooms, but otherwise, I'll probably eat whatever's available.  ...Also not really a fan of seafood, but I don't expect you to have any."

"We don't, no ma'am. I'll do a casserole tonight, in that case - I'll just need to go get some ingredients from the garden."

Diana nods, suddenly just...tired.  "...you don't need to use the honorific.  I'm not your boss."

"All right," she nods. "You can come with me, if you'd like to see the garden."

"...yeah."

She'll just, put the parts back away.  And then follow Daisy to the garden.

It's around back, between the house and the barn, half a dozen rows of dense foliage producing a variety of surprisingly familiar produce - tomatoes, beans, squash, lettuce, strawberries - along with some less familiar plants, lit by a floodlight on the back of the house that Daisy switches on when they get there, after giving warning of it.

Daisy goes and starts digging up some carrots from one of the rows to put in the basket she brought out.

Oh, that's fine, she has flash filters in her helmet.

"...I feel like I ought to help you out here, but I also feel like I ought to not interfere, and heck if I have any idea why that is.  ...Should I?  Or rather, would you like me to?"

"Either way is fine with me - you could pick some beans, or find a nice melon for dessert?"

...beans.  She can do beans.  She can probably do beans.  She hopes she can do beans.

The beans are pretty straightforward, especially once Daisy has gotten her a basket and shown her what to do.

Oh, okay, that works.  Thank you Daisy.  ..."Thank you, Daisy."

"You're welcome. Let me know if you run into any trouble." And she goes back to her own harvesting, efficiently collecting carrots and a potato and a few radishes and a selection of herbs.

Diana harvests the beans, letting simple work distract her from the ache in her soul.

And Daisy comes back over when she's done. "That looks good, thank you. Ready to go in?"

"...mmm."

She supposes she must be.  Despite how that's not how any of this works.

"You can stay out here instead, if you'd like."

...Yeah, she might do that.

All right. "I should have dinner ready in about half an hour; feel free to use the fire pit around front or go talk to Nine if you'd like. Did you see where the floodlight control was?"

"Mmhmm."

She's just gonna...watch the plants.

Daisy will take the beans and go, then, returning in half an hour to set the tray with Diana's dinner out on a folding table she's brought out for the purpose - mixed vegetable casserole featuring caramelized onions, scrambled eggs and chickpeas in a lemon-herb sauce, fresh-baked biscuits with hand-churned butter, a glass of goat milk and another of strawberry-cantaloupe juice, and a warm soft cinnamon-sugar cookie for dessert. "Here you are," she says, simply, and turns to head back inside.

"...oh, wow, this is...it's so much, I..."

Her attempt to convince Daisy and-or Pradnakt to be less generous because she doesn't feel like she deserves it is interrupted by her stomach grumbling.  "...well, I'm outvoted on whether you should have, apparently..."

Aww. "I hope you enjoy it."

"I'm sure I will."

...She'll eat the food, cookie first.

Daisy heads back inside. An hour later, the sky is still dark, but there's bird sounds from the brush around the house that suggest sunrise will be starting soon, and she comes back to let Diana know that if she'd like a shower before Pradnakt goes to bed and blocks access to it, she should take it now.

"...I probably ought to."

"I mean, watch me not do it anyway, but I probably should.  Given how today's been."

"Well, it's up to you, but you should come inside soon in any case, it's going to start getting hot when the sun comes up."

"Mm."

...She's still not moving.

"...ma'am?"

"...What do you do, Daisy, when you have failed all you've sworn to, and the only reason you remain alive to see it is the whim of an uncaring god?"

"Ah. Well, I suggest you come in and take a shower, and you can help me with the morning chores if you aren't tired yet."

"I suppose, if you insist."

"...For the record, please insist."

"All right." And she takes her hand to lead her in.

Directly behind the workshop is Pradnakt's bedroom, just barely wide enough for her king-sized bed and the shelves on either side of it, with a strip of floor space at the foot of the bed to allow passage between the four doors out of the room - the one to the left of the bed leads back to the workroom, and then there are two doors across from the bed and one to its right. The walls and ceiling in the bedroom are heavily covered in artwork, mostly a mixture of Pradnakt's metal sculptures and Daisy's calligraphy, though the piece over the bed is a large photograph of a canyon made of much redder stone than the local stuff and there are a number of pieces in other styles as well. The shelves are full of bric-a-brac, a mixture of decorative objects and decorated boxes holding various practical things, plus a few gadgets too big to go in boxes. Pradnakt herself is lying on the bed reading from a black tablet-like device, and doesn't look up or acknowledge them when they come in.

The left-hand door across from the bed leads to the bathroom, a large L-shaped room tiled floor to ceiling in a rich blue-green-brown marble; there's a long vanity along the wall with a sink and several bottles of soap, large bottles of regular and heavy-duty varieties surrounded by a collection of little bottles labeled as being various floral scents. The shower apparatus, with both a fixed head and a handheld sprayer, is around the corner, without a curtain to separate it from the rest of the room. A hanger on the back of the door holds a fluffy towel and a bathrobe, but Daisy tells Diana to wait a moment while she gets her a towel of her own and change of clothes.

She can certainly wait, yes.  Somewhat awkwardly, but she'll wait.

It doesn't take long, at least; the spare towel is just as luxurious and Daisy has found thin black sweatpants and a dark grey shirt with yellow embroidery around the neck for her as well.

"I'll be right outside if you need anything," she says, and leaves her be.

Then...she'll wash up, and eventually make her way out.

Daisy is sitting half-crosslegged on the end of the bed, signing to Pradnakt, who looks up from the conversation and looks her over, somewhere between consideringly and appraisingly.

She looks, above all else, tired.  Hollowed out, like what animates her is only a reluctance and refusal to die rather than zeal for life; like she's been fighting a war and in the end she lost, no matter how many tricks she pulled out, no matter how much she gave, no matter how much she saved; she looks like she had her heart torn out and spat on, and there's a yawning chasm left where it used to be.

She's stubborn, but she looks like a pyre that's burnt down to embers; the way she keeps looking at the yellow embroidery like it's managed to somehow revulse her (and always with a spike of recognition-warning!-annoyance-frustration-exhaustion, like a heartbeat of ingrained reactions, repeatedly considered and dismissed) but she just can't make herself do anything about it certainly contributes.

Her staff looks like it's supporting her half-zombie shamble of a walk, to the casual observer, but as Pradnakt looks Diana over, it's more like Diana is trying to pour herself into the indigo-hued staff she carries, rather than draw support from it.  To give what's left, because she doesn't really know what else to do, because she can't support herself.

The Sith doesn't spend long looking her over, but then locks eyes with her, signing to Daisy as she does so; the droid nods and leaves for the back room. There's something intense about her stare, compelling, not in a frightening way or a way that cuts through Diana's exhaustion at all, but it's hard to look away from and leaves her feeling very seen.

::Stand up, warrior; you are not yet finished.
Beaten you may be, but broken?
Angels have fallen from greater heights
and survived, so why shouldn’t you?
Never mind what you are made of;
you are more than this flesh that binds you.
There is nothing you have to fear
that should not fear you a thousand times more.
Your heart is a galaxy, and your soul is lined in stars.::

[source]

::So I think I know what your problem is.::

...Yeah, Diana hasn't even heard Pradnakt articulate her opinion of what the problem is, but with the way she's just...been pierced through in a single poem, she's pretty sure Pradnakt's right.

Please tell her there's a chair and a box of tissues somewhere in here.  She needs one.

::...yeah, I bet you do too.::

...She's so glad she doesn't need to be looking at her staff right now.  It's a pillar of her life and it's also a wound.

There's plenty of room at the foot of the bed, and Pradnakt indicates that she should sit there, sending a box of tissues floating over as she does.

::You got that staff young, didn't you. Or - not necessarily when you were small, but before you had much else going on. You've never been anything else.::

"Yeah."

She nods.

::And it consumed me, as I consumed it, as I turned it from someone else's mindrape device - :: (- Flashes of the Indigo Tribe, Compassion-brainwashed one and all, follow in that comment's wake -) :: - into a tool of my own making; into something I used for the noblest purposes.  And now...the very reason I took it up has been ripped away from me.::

::And something like that always hurts, but that's not your problem, really. I don't get the impression that you have trouble with hurt. The problem is that you never had anything else, and now you don't have anything at all. Or feel like you don't, anyway.::

::Ripped away, like I said.  Leaving a big, gaping hole, right where the motivation goes.::

::You can be more than one thing. You were confused about this with me, too - you thought I couldn't accurately be a Sith and still be kind, because Sith aren't kind, but I can, it just comes from the other things that I am.::

::You don't have other things that you are right now - or you think that you don't; I think there's more there than you realize - and that's going to be hard, but it's never too late to pick up something new.::

::More that...my impression of Sith is perhaps, colored - ha, a pun - by the ways I know the Emotional Spectrum distorts its wielders - and Red, Orange, and Yellow...Anger, Greed, and Fear...Those colors aren't just not kind; they're affirmatively cruel.  Sometimes this is shaped by the lights themselves, sometimes by their Corps' devisiers; I'm very certain Yellow Lanterns would be quite different if not for Thaal Sinestro, but...it's still...I've had to use/mimic all of them at one point or another, and despite the fact that Red is the most 'extreme' color, I can at least say it's clean, in the end.  It's worse on the bearer than the people it hurts.  That doesn't give Sith much to recommend them, by extension.::

::But that's a bit off-topic.  ...I'm not sure what the heck I can possibly do here.  I'm not Batman.::  Who'd already be revolutionizing something, she's got ironclad certainty in that.  ::I'm not equipped to do the bullshit you normally want Lanterns to do.::  Like 'be or fight a living planet'.  ::I'm just some human girl, lost in a galaxy far, far away from her home, that happens to have power-onna-stick.  There's not much that does.::

Daisy comes back while she's speaking, passing Pradnakt another shirt. This one is also embroidered, but just at the wrists, mostly in red with speckles of other colors, and Pradnakt takes a stitch-ripper from one of the boxes by the bed and begins removing the embroidery, somehow without needing to look at it.

::In galactic terms, right now, there's not much, sure. I'm not inclined to take you off-planet like this. But not everything has to be galactic scale, and I'd say this shouldn't be, and on the smaller scale - well, there's some limits to what can be done here and how fast we can get things, but within that the world's your kollina. I'd suggest you start by designing yourself a house, if you're staying we'll want to build you one.::

::I...you...why would you...all this...for me?::

::Sure, why not. It's not a hardship, and the Force obviously thinks you're meant to be here. We were gearing up to leave but we're not on a schedule. And if you're going to be around for the next year or whatever I'd rather not have you gumming up my workshop the whole time.::

::...well when you put it that way it makes sense, for all that I think I need to actively avoid believing that explanation if I'm to heal in good time and develop the...self-compassion I lack.::

::If I just didn't want you gumming up the workshop I'd put you in the garage.::

That gets her to laugh.  ::Yeah, you could.::

::How does building stuff work around here, anyway...?::

::Assuming you want to match the other buildings, which I'd prefer, we'll order in some barrels of powdered adobe and some bales of hay, and mix them with water to make a paste; I'll clear out a foundation with telekinesis that we can pour that into, and then we'll make bricks with it for the walls, and if you want more than one story we'll reinforce those with metal so they can take the load, and then once everything's settled and dry the roof just rests on beams on top, is the basics of it structurally. I'll need to run pipes for water and sewer and either run wires from our existing generator or get you your own - I don't know off the top of my head if we have enough capacity for a second house on this one. Or if you want to be farther away we might get you your own septic tank and dig you another well, in which case we'll have construction droids in for a few days to handle that. And if you want to build with something other than adobe I'll need to read up on it but that's an option if you want it.::

::That sounds about right.  And as far as power goes, I know the Watchtower was a refitted Green Lantern fortress, which implies being able to plonk my Lantern into something to make it charge stuff...Well, assuming that still works over here.::

::Like, electrical stuff? That'd be convenient. It's not a big deal to get you a generator, though.::

She shakes out the shirt, sending a flurry of bits of embroidery thread onto the bed, and gives the sleeves one last look-over, picking off a few remaining threads. ::Here.:: She passes the shirt, now an uninterrupted dark heather grey, over to Diana.

"...thank you."

And she'll just...pull that shirt on real quick, not caring too much if Pradnakt sees anything - though she does turn around, first.

::The yellow was...disconcerting, because I'm not a Yellow Lantern.  And the big boss of the Yellows has a whole thing with my world's Greens, because there is nothing normal about my home planet, so...I have some weird instincts.  I swear, it's a cosmic weirdness magnet, or possibly cursed and blessed in equal measure, as far as I'm concerned.  Powerful aliens everywhere, super-geniuses who're paranoid to the point of stupid about said aliens, Batman, a bunch of people whose gimmick is archery of all things, functioning...A fucking boxing-glove arrow should not even fucking work and I am upset that someone who'd try and make one is somehow part of the assembly of 'Earth's mightiest heroes' when I had to go behind their backs and coordinate a rescue mission for someone they didn't even know had been kidnapped to get them to admit I was remotely competent for fieldwork.::

::Bureaucracy's always a mess, I hear. But if the yellow is all, you should be fine until Daisy gets out to get you your own clothes, I only have a few things with yellow or gold. Lots of red, but - well, it'll only be a few days.::

::Yeah, but it's not bureaucracy - it's the League's frontliners.::

::...I don't mind red so much, honestly?  I get angry pretty often myself.  I just can't let it rule me like Reds do.  And a lot of them...have legitimate grievances, you know?::

::I mean, I don't, but it doesn't surprise me. Anyway, sounds like you could use a journal to get some of this down into. Or tell it to Nine, if you want a listening ear, he's good at that.::

::Maybe.  Kvetching doesn't work very well when I feel unheard, though.  So I might go do that at Nine.  Wouldn't expect a journal to help much, that's just talking to myself.  And I already know what I think about things, you know?::

::You might be surprised, but yeah, it's not the same. I'll have Daisy introduce you - I ought to be getting to bed, myself.::

::Yeah.  Though, when you wake up, I want to hear more about this 'the Force wants me here' thing.  Seems like something to ask you and not those it seems to refuse to speak to.::

::I don't actually know any more than that, and there may not be much more, but I can see if it'll give me anything. It's mostly just - of all the places on all the worlds, you landed fifty feet from me. That's not just happenstance, and the Force does work through apparent coincidences.::

::I wouldn't have thought there to particularly be that sort of not-a-coincidence in play, but if the expert in whatever field of bullshit you're dealing with today says it's actually not a coincidence, you listen, or you get fucked up, in my line of work.::

She shrugs. ::I'm not worried about it. The Force doesn't usually have some grand plan, it just makes people lucky sometimes - mostly why it matters is that I trust it not to screw me over by putting you here. But I'll check in the morning, sure.:: She scoots up toward the head of the bed to make room to pull down the blanket, not fully getting into bed yet but giving a clear signal that it's time for Diana to go.

::Sleep well.::

And she steps out.

Daisy follows after a moment. "Did you want to come with me for my morning chores? I'll be watering the plants and taking care of the chickens and goats."

"I think, that if I'm going to be designing a house, I probably ought to familiarize myself with how your computers and architectural software and blueprints and - so on, work, here.  And the details of the local environment...really wish my Ring was working, it had some very impressive do-what-I-mean tech, and so much raw compute.  And it's not like Batman isn't equally bullshit, but he's a different sort of bullshit than Oan tech is."

"We don't have a computer like that here, but I can show you around the area once I'm done with the garden and the animals if you'd like."

"...Hold on, let me make sure I understood what you said correctly.  'You don't have a computer like that here' implies multiple possibilities, all of which have me...almost worried about the state of general-purpose computation in this galaxy.  What's the sort of computer or computer peripheral you're lacking, exactly?"

"General-purpose computers exist, ma'am, we just don't have enough of a use for one for it to be worth getting one. I can order one in, if you'd like."

"...How do you...not have enough of a use for..."

"...Is it networking, that doesn't exist?"

"That's most of the reason, yes - well, a combination of a network connection being fairly expensive to arrange for a location a hundred miles from the nearest settlement on a planet that's too sparsely populated for networking satellites to be practical, and the fact that having a meaningful network presence would be a security risk - Pradnakt has enemies among the other Sith."

"...I'm kind of surprised that there's enough manpower in their intelligence services to even find anyone just based on traffic analysis.  Or is it really good algorithmic search and weight of compute?"

"I'm not sure how comfortable she'd be with me discussing her security situation with you. In any case, she's not very interested in the internet or computers, so it wasn't a hardship not to have anything more powerful than a datapad."

"...Something about the nature of this being a discussion about the mistress of the house's security situation doesn't quite scan, but I'd hardly want to endanger her.  ...Although there's another question of how much compute-per-volume y'all have with those datapads?" 

She can answer that, and it's a fairly generous amount of computational power for what datapads do, but they're still just media display machines with basic drawing and text editing capabilities and little to no ability to add aftermarket functionalities.

"Ahh.  I see.  ...Well, I bet I can get the Batputer to do something about that if I actually need the extra compute sometime."

"If you'd like."

"I don't know what I'd like, really.  That's the problem."

"Well, if tinkering with datapads sounds interesting, I can get you a couple when I go into town, and if it turns out not to be as interesting as it sounds, that's fine. It took me and Nine a few tries to find hobbies we liked, too."

"I think I'd like a datapad, at least."

"Of course. Is there any media in particular that you'd like? I'll be able to translate it for you."

"I don't know...A cross-section of what's popular?"

"Sure, I can do that."

"Thank you.  You're all - going so far above and beyond what I'd expect, and not even with particular systemic assistance."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, back home, if someone got dumped in my lap, I could probably find them somewhere to live and a translator, but I wouldn't be paying for that out-of-pocket because my day job is Weird Stuff First Responder, and I doubt they'd even want to eat my cooking.  Meanwhile you three have - invited me into your bosom, given me more than what I'd need, and you're not only not government or otherwise plenipotentiary agents, but basically hiding from your government."

"Well, you did get lucky with where you appeared, yes. But it really isn't an inconvenience or anything."

"...I imagine that I'd have endorsed being dropped on a hypothetical anti-Sith sort of Force user more, but I think that being here may teach me what I need, rather than reinforce my problems.  ...It's always been a lot harder to muster compassion for myself.

"And regardless of that...you're welcoming this absurd, troubling stranger that got dropped on you.  You're giving her a home, not just a house.  And maybe this is 'just' some long con, to get into the good graces of someone who can flip the galaxy's table, but...it isn't just that.  Perhaps I'm incurably optimistic, but...it just isn't.  I like to think I'm a good judge of character, and - I don't know.  Something about the lady of the house just...has this irrepressible core of giving a shit about other people, and I'm...as certain of that as I am that the sun will come up tomorrow.  So I don't really mind, you know?  If someone's going to be taking advantage of me, it may as well be someone I trust to do it with good intentions.

"Which is kind of a paradox, but...somehow, some way, I believe it's a real thing.  Especially given that...I'm not actually the best at strategy, you know?  Tactics, absolutely, strategy, no.  Though I'm decent at firebrand-type manipulation of public opinion, apparently."

She nods. "I can say more about that, if you'd like, but I'll need a few minutes to think about how to explain it, and I should go take care of my morning chores."

"I'd like that, if you have the time.  Is there a spare datapad, so I don't have to faff about with file format conversions when I start planning a house?"

"Mmhmm." She retrieves it from the cabinet and puts it into tutorial mode before turning it over. "I won't be long."

...She tolerates the tutorial (after securing that English-Basic language pack) with some ill grace, because she's not a total neophyte to tablet computing, but is, on balance, thankful for it.  The skeumorphisms are all different.

...does this galaxy not have paper?  She's very confused at some of these icons!

Eventually, she ends up with a surprisingly well-drafted (for a relative novice who's nonetheless observed technical schematics very frequently) blueprint and building plan.

She's actually planning on not a cubic structure, but something approximating a dome, to make sand drifts just go around should they make it that far; she draws from old traditions on Earth as part of her inspiration, and adds a central column for a chimney, with which to generate passive cooling during the day.  Remembering how to build a dome out of bricks takes a lot more time.  ...Well, no, remembering how to build a dome that doesn't suck is what takes that time; she has no doubt she could arrange something dome-shaped even if it wouldn't be as sturdy should it get blown up.  ...That she doesn't consider the possibility of it not getting blown up says something about her, she thinks, but she's not sure what it is.

She wraps a staircase to a second floor around her chimney, because she is, if she's building the home she dreams about (modulo this environment), going to have a balcony, to take in the fresh air from while still feeling inside.  Ish.

"Hmm hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm...going to need some molds...and figure out flooring...Second floor bedroom...if I assume a sphere of...Oh, hmm, what about underground?  Could probably benefit from a basement...Maybe the kitchen there?  No, first floor kitchenette; better greywater reclamation and accessibility that way...Should discuss that with Daisy."

Daisy has by this point returned from her chores with half a dozen eggs and a bucket of milk, and busied herself in the kitchen, transferring the milk to a jug to go into the fridge, taking the day-old milk out to churn into butter with a hand-cranked machine, whisking two of the eggs with vinegar and sunflower seed oil to make mayonnaise which she combines with some of the buttermilk and some fresh-cut herbs to make a dip, cleaning the kitchen, and starting on a batch of yogurt drops, crushing dried berries into a powder with a mortar and pestle, stirring that powder into a jar of homemade yogurt, and piping the resulting flavored yogurt onto dehydrating trays.

"What was that?" she asks when she hears her name.

"Thinking about floorplans.  Figured you'd know what makes a good place to put a kitchen better than I would; my culinary experience is mostly 'can cook things if I have exacting directions'.  Also, what sort of flooring is readily available around here?"

"It's easier to run water pipes to one part of the house than several, so if you can put it near the bathroom that will be more convenient to build. And you'll want more storage than you're likely to think you do, and it's nice to have a window in the space, if you have room for it on an outside wall." She gestures at the little window over her kitchen sink. "For flooring, the easiest kind is concrete, and they'll have linoleum, tile, wood, and area rugs in town too, but they won't have many styles of any of them. And if you want a second floor we'll have to get supplies from the city anyway and you can get essentially whatever you like there, within reason."

"I don't actually think we'll need to get any big structural members in, though I'm not done yet so I can't run the numbers on that; I was planning on shamelessly exploiting the power of arches and domes, especially since we're casting our own bricks."

"I suspect Pradnakt is going to insist, but you can talk to her about it when she wakes up."

"Mmhmm."

Daisy goes back to piping yogurt drops.

Lessee, you do the chimney like this and the arches to support the second floor like this and the many, many kitchen cabinets like this and the windows - hmm, rotate those 45 degrees so they fit in between the diamonds - like that...

Build in a few bookshelves, first-floor half-bathroom goes there, sink-stove-fridge triangle goes there right next door...pipe column like that, septic tank like so - eugh - greywater reuse toilets? - bathrooms (she has one for herself upstairs) have nice tile floors, bedroom gets a throw rug...can't forget the railings...how defensive-construction mindset should she be..."Eh, fuck it, if someone shows up here to attack us and actually gets in my house, everything's already FUBAR.  I'll just build something nice."

(This does not prevent her, however, from adding a few strategic places to hide weaponry, or take cover.)

Let's see, use the bookshelves to frame a comfy sitting area there, add a vaguely-defined electronic-entertainment blob inside because she doesn't know what exists locally yet, put a nook for dining in right there so it's readily accessed from the kitchen - hmm, the kitchen should have a stainproof floor, make a note to figure that out...linoleum might work, but eeeehhh...

"You mind making sure I didn't forget something blindingly obvious?"

"Is this intended to be off on its own? I don't see a place for a generator, if so - we can bury your water tank, that's a good idea anyway, but generators don't take well to that. And I'm not sure from this where you're planning on keeping your clothes, and you might want a workroom of some sort."

"Generator...Right, I do need one of those.  ...are solar panels just not worth your time around here, or are they not invented here?"

"They aren't as good as gravity-tangle generators, by several metrics."

"Ah!  I see.  Unfortunately the most common thing referred to as a 'generator' in my homeworld is an internal combustion engine, which does not go inside.  Let's see what we can do here - there's a few places I could certainly put electrical systems..."

Blocking out an actual space for the electrical system (and its maintenance), though, requires followup questions about its requirements and characteristics.

Daisy can't answer all of her questions, but enough for her to settle on a layout for the system at least.

"Are you going to want something to eat soon?" she asks when they come to a lull in the planning.

"...I probably should," she says, "though I might not notice."

"I'll get something started, then."

She goes to do that, putting some dough from the refrigerator in the oven to bake and setting a pot of lentils to simmer.

"...I'll finish this up then, shall I?"

And she finishes blocking out the maintenance spaces!

Daisy comes back over to answer any more questions she might have, but there's not much more to do with the blueprint; they'll probably be done with it by the time the meal is ready.

All according to keikaku!  What food did Daisy make now?

She's mixed the lentils with a scrambled egg and some leftover vegetables from earlier, with herb-topped bread, a pat of fresh-churned butter, and another fresh-baked cinnamon-topped cookie alongside.

"Oh, wow; have I yet mentioned that your food is a succulent exemplar of artisanal cheffery?  Because, damn, it is.  You know your materials and you know what to do with them."

Awwwww. "Thank you, I'm glad you like it."

"It's really good!"

And very quickly gone!

"Would you like some more?"

"Gods, don't tempt me, I can't work with the Flashes on longer missions because I will accidentally keep up with their eating habits despite not burning speedster amounts of calories...and this food is actually high-quality..."

"All right. I'm sure Pradnakt will let me know if I get your diet wrong, anyway - did she explain her powerset to you?"

"Not in much detail."

"She's a sensory specialist, in addition to the things that any Sith can do with the Force," she says, gathering up Diana's dishes to wash. "The Force is best with biological things, so her strongest skills are related to that - she can sense biological beings' emotions and medical status in very good detail as a matter of course within about a thirty foot range, and their presence and a vague sense of emotional and medical state out to about a hundred miles."

"...Wow, she'd be a godsend in disaster relief work.  Though that would probably suck to do."

"It hasn't come up before but I'd expect so, yes."

"Yeah.  I get most of that secondhand and it sucks.  I can't imagine what my home team's actual telepath experiences."

"According to Pradnakt it does get easier to ignore after a while, though it never got to the point of not bothering her at all."

"...that's..."

"...the part of me that does first responder duties feels like this merits a hug and-or a thermal blanket to wrap up in.  Except it's chronic, so that doesn't actually...work.  And would also be weird to offer now, anyway.  But still.  I can't imagine what that's like; it's bad enough knowing without feeling.  Knowing and feeling people dying around you...I can't imagine it's pleasant, even if it's something she's dissociating from nowadays."

"Oh, it's not relevant here - that's part of why we're so far from everything, there aren't usually any other biological people in range of the house. It is part of why she didn't leave you in the desert, though."

"Yeah, it's not relevant here."

"- I'm not sure I understand quite what you're getting at."

"It's relevant a whole lot of other places."

"Yes, but she doesn't find it that bad as a matter of course, actually. Being near people who are ongoingly suffering is hard for her - that's also why she chose to move to a planet where enslaving biologicals is illegal - but just being around people isn't generally bad in that way."

"...yeah."

"...is the galactic consensus that droids aren't people?  I haven't seen many of the local silicon life yet, but you certainly are - and yet even you place yourself subservient to me, and - I haven't earned that."

"That's the consensus, yes; it's not usually this obvious that it's wrong. Part of that is that - not most of it, but part - is that droids are programmed to act appropriately to their roles; it really doesn't bother me to act the way I do, I don't have the instincts about it that humans do."

"Mmgh.  No, I absolutely know there exist human people who work sort of like you, honestly, and it's not like it's wrong to be that way; it's just that - even if from a utility function standpoint we both win, my gut thinks I'm taking advantage of somebody, and rebels.  I feel bad about my grandmother giving me pocket money, y'know?  So, if there's something problematic about interacting with you, in particular, I think it's on my end, really.  That said, the galaxy at large is clearly wilfully blind and deserves a bop on the head with this handy-dandy compassion stick."

This is also pretty cute; Diana might be starting to get to the point of being able to read it in Daisy's body language when she thinks that, too.

"I'm not sure if this helps, but I don't feel taken advantage of. I wouldn't be happy without people to take care of."

"Yeah, it's...there's this toxic sort of independence my home culture encourages to sell more houses, and unfortunately, it poisoned my brain to the point that I was desperate enough for self-reliance to go gallivanting across the galaxy about it.  So this...people feeling fulfilled by taking care of others...I have an academic understanding, and honestly some personal experience, but my brain won't let me reflect that onto others properly, won't let me mirror-neuron or theory-of-mind it, convinced I'm just...burdening them, and not providing opportunities to indulge in a beloved activity.  Even Indigo Light only stretches so far."

"I'd want to talk to Pradnakt and Nine about it first, but - droids can record and share experiences, at least with similar-enough droids; would your light let you play back that sort of recording, do you think?"

"Mmmmmmmmmaybe.  It's - it's not actually telepathy, though?  It's at a remove, and - that's the problem, that I am still at a remove from understanding that other people enjoy helping on a gut level.  Rather than approaching that understanding through the process of reason."

She buries her head in her hands, propping it up with her elbows on the table.  "Maybe if an actual telepath was able to communicate that interoception-introspection-whatever, the feeling of enjoying helping me, to my brain, as someone was actually experiencing it...but I imagine that's...difficult.  I wouldn't want to ask it of Pradnakt, at least."

"Why not?"

"It'd be particularly intimate - probably - and we do not have that sort of relationship, or indeed any particular relationship at all.  In addition to my still-there-despite-lots-of-superhero-public-events social anxiety of 'what if I ask her and she decides to hate me about it'."

"She wouldn't hate you about it. You're right that it could be intimate, but she has a few methods of sharing emotions and not all of them are. If you think it would help, I think it's at least worth asking."

"I...I think it would, yeah, but - I want to wait until I've been here a few weeks first, probably."

"That seems reasonable."

"We have a few hours before I expect Pradnakt to be awake, is there anything you'd like to do in the meantime? Or - do you have an idea of when you're going to want to sleep?"

"I should probably meet Nine.  And...I'm pretty sure my sleep 'schedule' is now officially entirely off the rails, but I'm good for a while yet, I think - is there anything in particular that you need or want to know?"

"I don't think there's anything we need to know, though if there's something that you've been waiting for us to ask about this would be a good time for it. We have been curious about your powers."

"Mmhmm!  I don't necessarily want to tell you everything, but what I do is...I wield the Indigo Light of Compassion; I pull it from this Lantern, and shape it into constructs as well as more esoteric effects.

"The Indigo Light has the unique ability to mimic the effects of other colors of light on the 'emotional spectrum', Rage, Avarice, Fear, Will, Hope, Compassion, Love, from Red to Violet.  It's...a fundamental part of life, experiencing those emotions; there's alien species all over and they all have those same emotions.  Somehow.  You wouldn't think it likely from a naive evolutionary standpoint, but, yeah.  It somehow is, nonetheless.  And then there's the hints of cosmic meddling and the New Gods and...yeah.  There's what you might call 'a lot of shit that just happens because someone decided it should', I think.

"Where was I...Right.

"So, I also have a Ring, which is, if the Lantern produces light in a specific frequency - which it does, actually; even Lanterns that don't have visual processing hear notes of the same frequency somehow despite that not actually being how sound is supposed to work...Anyway, the Ring focuses Light, in my experience, though Greens' rings also store it - Rings help stabilize constructs, run support functions, calculate FTL travel, and so many things.  Which is really annoying when it's broken.  And...that's, yeah, about it."

Daisy nods. "Pradnakt mentioned that you're used to working on a larger scale than I'd expect with constructs as your primary power."

"The amount of planetary problems that got solved by punching or blanketing some asshat is frankly depressing, but yes, I did get a lot of stuff done that needs computational and sensor support I'm presently lacking.  Maybe I'll see if I can rig up the Bat-computer to do it....Anyway."

"You might want to see if Pradnakt's willing to take a look at your ring, sometime, she might be able to figure out something about what's wrong with it. Anyway, would you like to meet Nine now?"

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea."

"Ok," she nods. "You can come with me to get him if you'd like but it'll be getting hot out there by now."

"Eh, I'll live.  And I do want to see how badly my environmental shielding doesn't work without my Ring, too."

"All right."

It's hot out, not dangerously so but definitely uncomfortably, and very bright. Daisy leads the way to one of the watchtowers - Nine is visible at the top, a broad-shouldered and apparently headless shape half-hidden by the parapet - and inside, where it's somewhat cooler and comfortably dim. The inner wall of the tower is lined with a spiral staircase, leading up three stories to a hatch in the ceiling, which she raps on and waits a moment before opening. "Nine? I've got Diana with me, is it a good time for her to meet you?"

"Sure," he rumbles, low bass to her easy soprano, and she moves away from the hatch to give him room to come down onto the stairs. He's tall, approaching seven feet, and not quite as headless as he appeared from a distance, though it's more of an abstracted suggestion of one set into the hump of his shoulders than anything designed to look personable.

And Diana's environmental shield is...actually doing a pretty good job of keeping the worst of it off of her!  Huh.

"Hello up there!"

"Hello!" He starts down the stairs. "Let's go back to the house, it's not really meant for humans in here."

"Yeah, it really isn't, is it?  And yet us stubborn bags of meat keep trying to do it anyway, Vegas, that does mean you -"

"...Excuse me, I just, have some opinions of people who build in deserts just for kicks."

"Oh?"

"My opinion is that nobody should be building shit in fucking deserts.  I much prefer tundra, if you must be somewhere incredibly isolated from others, though that's possibly just my bias for a nice bracing blast of cold air speaking."

"Ah, so just personal preference, then?"

"Yes and no; deserts are really inhospitable in general and I think building a whole city of casinos in the middle of one is stupid.  I just also dislike heat."

"Huh. I don't see why anyone would do that, yes."

"The land was cheap and the arm of the law tied down to the point where the one-armed bandit had free reign, as I understand it.  But yes.  Whyyyyyy.  Vegas is execrable."

"In this case we're the closest habitable planet to the intersection of two hyperspace lanes. They're working on improving the climate, if I remember correctly, but that's a slow process."

"Huh.  Neat.  What's hyperspace like?"

"Traveling in hyperspace isn't like anything much, but most biologicals find the transition in and out of it unsettling. Logistically, realspace gravity is much more dangerous in hyperspace, which is why most ships stick to the hyperspace lanes that are known to be safe, and that makes hyperspace travel times unintuitive, too - they have much more to do with how many hazards the ship needs to navigate around than how far the destination is from the origin."

"Huh.  There's lots of FTL methods back home, but none quite like that that I know of."

"It seems strange that you have several," Nine muses.

"I mean, most of them are variations on a couple underlying themes, ignoring whatever bullshit the Speed Force is up to this Tuesday.  'Bend space' - I bet this is closest to hyperspace, there's a practical model of a drive that works just off of gravity and antigravity - 'skip space', 'this isn't FTL it's just going fast in another dimension that's got different topology'...Teleportation."

"Hyperspace is the 'different topology' kind, I think."

"You can predict hyperspace obstacles fairly linearly from realspace topology, though, can't you?  I wonder if hyperdrive engineers would recognize the topology Alcubierre devised."

"I'm not sure. Maybe I'll have Daisy get me some books about it next time she's in town."

"I'll see if I actually have the math handy; I don't think so, though.  Only so much I ever stored locally."

"Mmhmm. So, did you want to talk about something?"

"...There must have been, but heck if I know.  What do you do around here, actually?"

"I help guard the place. Not that it really needs it, but it helps Lord Pradnakt relax to have someone else keeping watch."

"Mmhmm.  Security is important."

"Especially to Sith, yes."

"Mmmmm."

He seems content to sit quietly.

...Yeah, this is nice.  Diana will probably eventually fish out a book she was reading (from home), to finish it.

He eventually takes a datapad out of a compartment hidden in his plating and begins writing something; Daisy checks on the yogurt drops and starts straightening the cabinet.

Diana directs an inquiring noise at Nine about that!

"I'm writing a novel."

"Ooh.  What's it about?"

"It's a murder mystery, but it's about the droid perspective on human society."

"Ooooooooh.  I hope I'll get to read it when it's done.  Who's the protagonist?"

"It's from the perspective of the servant of the detective investigating the case, but he considers the detective the protagonist, so it goes back and forth depending on who's in the scene."

"Mmhmm!  Ooh, I do have the collected Sherlock Holmes...Would you like to have some detective novels from my universe?"

"Oh, yes please."

And he can have the entire Sherlock Holmes collection, some Hercule Poirot books, the subsegment of Discworld focused on the Watch (and the rest of the series, for that matter), a bunch of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books of various epochs...

He accepts the file transfer and sits quietly for several minutes.

After a moment's thought, she also yeets some courtroom thrillers at him, then resumes reading, herself.

"Very interesting, thank you."

"I'm glad you liked them.  Hope they help."

He goes back to writing; Daisy continues to putter around, and after a few hours she starts making Pradnakt's breakfast.

"...what time is it, anyway?"

"Roughly eleven or eleven thirty, this planet doesn't quite have a twenty-four hour day."

"...Damn, my sleep schedule is going to be shot.  If it wasn't already dead on arrival, that is.  ...How the heck do y'all handle weird rotational periods relative to Galactic Standard Timekeeping, anyway?  ...If you do."

"There's a standard calendar, but generally each planet or ship will keep its own clock and translate when it's needed."

"At least y'all don't have Daylight Savings.  I really fucking hope.  Right?"

"Not commonly enough that I know about it, at least."

"Oh thank goodness.  It's so fucking stupid.  Economic disruption, car crashes, lots of other health shit..."

"Why do they do it, then?"

"Some rich nob wanted more time hunting bugs, then they dusted it off as a wartime rationing measure and forgot to put it back when they were done, apparently.  Everybody keeps trying to get rid of it but they never seem to find the momentum.

"Though I think they might've this time, actually.  I forget what the news was precisely, though, which would matter."

"Hunting bugs?"

"Butterfly collecting, to be more specific."

"Huh."

"I know, right?  Like, I get it, butterflies are your special interest and waking up early in the morning sucks, but bending timekeeping itself is too much of a competing access need!"

This gets a brief chuckle out of him.

Yay!  Someone laughed at her joke!  She is getting a good grade in comedy!  A thing that is both rational to want and possible to achieve!  (Hahahahahaha no it isn't, but she's still happy Nine laughed.)

At which point Pradnakt, with her hair still mussed from sleep, pokes her head in to ask Daisy a question; Daisy gives a brief answer, and Pradnakt goes back in, presumably to get ready for her day.

"Oh, hey; good morning."

A moment passes, then Diana remembers that the droids are the only people presently capable of English.

::Embarrassment.  Goodmorning/greetings.::

She gets a sense of distracted acknowledgement in reply.

Fair!  Well, she'll finish her book.

Pradnakt's back in ten minutes, now wearing a different outfit - all black, again, but with a different pattern of red and gold embroidery - but the same holster belt Diana might recall from yesterday. She greets Daisy and Nine, and then sends ::G'morning. Doing better today?::

::Yeah.  Let myself get distracted with house planning.::

::Always fun. Come up with anything good?::

::Yeah!::

She hands Pradnakt the datapad with the blueprints, and Light-constructs a rendition of what she thinks the house might look like when it's complete.

Hm.

::I haven't seen domes done in adobe before, I'll have to look into it.::

::It's all brick; you can do this with red brick; therefore, it's possible with adobe, because the theory is sound unless the material isn't.  I don't know the specific numbers but it oughtn't be hard to check if we have samples, and really I should just see if the structural qualities of adobe are included in the,:: her broadcast cannot not tinge with subdued awe as it touches upon the expletive-deleted Batman, ::mini-Batcomputer's reference database, but either way, my money's on it working, eventually.  There's a pretty famous cathedral that's been around for a pretty long while, built this way.  It wasn't with adobe specifically, but...bricks are bricks, yeah?::

::Bricks are bricks but neither of us is an expert with them, I don't want to have to dig you out of a pile of rubble. It's not a no, I just want to look into it first.::

::Yeah, I don't want to find the house falling down around me either.  ...Why am I so feeling-obliged-to-defend-myself, if you were attacking me I'd know.  And I agree about double-checking my work!::

::You would, yeah,:: she sends, neutrally. ::Anyway, that might mean a month or two of waiting, if I end up having to order a reference from offplanet - we'll know when Daisy gets back from town, they'll be able to tell us if there's something suitable in the city even if they don't have it.::

::"Eh," we can just make some samples, get actual stress data, and then do physics models to rough tolerances.  I've got hardware that isn't a locked-down user-babying tablet computer and I'm almost certain Robin uses this thing to plot...I don't know what that boy hasn't plotted with this, honestly.  Either way, I bet Batman packed a physics simulator in the guise of demolitions programming.  Just in case it's needed.::

::I suppose that takes less than a couple months. I want to see the math as you go, though.::

::Yeah.  Figured you'd be involved directly, honestly; you're the telekinetic.::

"Mmhmm." Daisy sets a plate down in front of her - a veggie omelette, pancakes with syrup, crunchy granola clusters with dried berries, and the newly-finished yogurt drops - and she takes a moment to thank her before continuing. ::I'm planning on sending her in tonight to get things for you, she can pick up a barrel of adobe powder this trip too. Have you come up with anything else you want?::

Daisy sets a similarly laden plate down in front of Diana.

::Probably some clothes wouldn't go amiss, though we have surprisingly similar figures - the only colors I'm going to have a problem with are bright yellows, oranges, and reds, probably.  I already mentioned language learning...  Maybe something for self-defense; I trust my Indigo staff, even without my Ring, but it's not good to have only one trick.  Speaking of which, Daisy mentioned that I should maybe ask if you'd like to take a look at that sometime.  My Ring, I mean.::

Om nom. ::Sure, I can do that.:: She settles in a bit and closes her eyes. ::Try using it? So I can see.::

And she can...try that, for Pradnakt's edification.  It's certainly very broken, that much is evident.

Hmmmmm. ::Again.::

Again she does it, for she wants Pradnakt to be able to understand --

And Pradnakt hisses, quietly. ::Rude. -not you, your thing. Got it, though. There's some subtleties of our physics that are different than it's expecting, the [untranslatable] is [untranslatable] and it expects it to be [untranslatable], stuff like that. I can run an adjustment for it, once I've had a chance to practice, but that'll only help if you're close to me. There might be some underlying damage, too, but I think I can fix that once the adjustment is there.::

::Hmm.  What if you and I work together to help the Ring understand what's different?  It's not beyond our combined powers, I should think, even if it feels like it's going to be a feat and a half to pull off a lasting success - one that...actually enables it to adapt to any future variances in otherwise-fundamental constants.  ...What was rude about it?  ...Oh.  And there's one component that absolutely must stay broken.  I can show you which, I have scans.  ...And what's with the untranslatable concepts, anyway?  Force stuff?::

::I'd give decent odds that I can't communicate with it for basically the same reason I can't use the Force to communicate with the droids, but we can try, sure. The untranslatable stuff was physics, but yeah, in the Force-ey sense. Rude for your thing to be trying to do things to me without my permission, if you try that with most Sith you'll get hurt.::

::Yeah, that part is the part that is supposed to be broken.  What needs burning?::

::It's more holistic than that, I think? You wanted me to understand and it tried to do that; seems to be a pretty pervasive part of how it works.::

::Ahh.  Huh.  Weird, everybody keeps telling me it's not magic, and yet.  Alright, that's less 'oh fucking hell kill it with fire' than I thought, more of an 'oh, huh, whoops, sorry'.  Which, my sincere apologies; that was not intended.  There's still...Well.  Some shit the Indigo Tribe, which I pointedly refuse to be associated with, embedded in this, that needs to remain broken, though.::

::I'm not terribly worried about that, I should be able to stop it in its tracks without too much trouble if it's like the rest of what it's doing. Still better not to have it come up, but if it does.::

::Thank goodness; I really don't want that to happen to anybody.  At least not in that way; I might endorse compassionating the Emperor or something, but.  That's good to know.::

::Most Sith will have a little more trouble with it than I do, keep in mind - being a sensory specialist means I have better reflexes for that sort of thing in practice, since I can see it coming. I'd still expect them to throw it off but not without being affected at all. And all bets are off with the Emperor.::

Diana nods firmly.

::Anyway, what were we talking about - Daisy going to town, right. Usually she goes every month, so you'll want to make sure to have a good list for her, but for this extra run it's not that important, except anything you know you're going to want to order in she should get started with now.::

"Mmmm."  ::Is there anything you'd recommend, incidentally?::

::We're getting you a vehicle, I don't know if you'll prefer a speeder or a hovercar or what other preferences you might have about it. I'm not sure whether we can have a vaccine kit shipped out for you or if we'll have to go in to the city for it or what - hopefully that doesn't need to come in from offplanet, I'm not sure how different the adult-from-newly-discovered-planet kit is from the baby kit, fortunately it's not urgent. Most of your appliances and big furniture for the house, a computer if you're going to want a local one, anything else you wouldn't expect to find in a town of a couple thousand people.::

::I would certainly like to know about local vehicles.  And...hmm.  I probably will want a local computer.::

::Speeders are more popular around here but mostly for reasons that aren't relevant to you - they're more agile; you can herd livestock on them; they're a little cheaper; since they are more popular there are more of them around and you're more likely to find one with any weird requests you might have. Hovercars I hear are easier to learn to drive, and it's less hassle to put cargo in them at least if it's clean cargo, and the routine maintenance is a little easier. Harder to get parts if something breaks, though.::

::I'm certified on operating a lot of weird vehicles; I'm sure I'll be good either way.  ...My day job instincts have me thinking I should get a speeder, because of that agility.  But damn, if I need that agility, shit's gotten pretty fucked, so...I don't know, really.::

::I'm inclined to get you a speeder too, and if there's not much difference either way we might as well go with what sounds good. We'll most likely be leaving them here in another year or so anyway, it's not like it's a permanent decision. If you decide a week after you get it that you hate speeders I'll have Daisy get you a hovercar asap, for that matter.::

::I see.  I did mention getting some sort of self-defense item, right?::

::You did, yeah. I'm thinking a shield projector, like Nine has -:: She says a few words to him and he rumbles an acknowledgement and activates the shield function of his forearm, producing a humming field of translucent blue that extends a few feet above and below it. ::Blocks blaster fire and can take a hit from a lightsaber, too, though it's not enough to win you a fight with a competent Sith.::

::Oh, that would definitely be helpful.  How's it hold up against kinetics?::

::Depends on how big it is and how fast it's going. A slugthrower will wreck your day but a thrown rock will mostly just be annoying.::

::I see.  Most of the weapons back home are guns, but I take it that blasters are more common, here?::

::Dramatically, yeah. Blasters come with a stun mode built in - you do sometimes see people die of stunning shots, but not often, and it's not so directly a matter of aim - and they're not as hard on buildings and things, so they're less regulated. Probably doesn't hurt that they're less dangerous to Sith, either.::

"Mmhmm."  ::I think I probably ought to pick up a blaster or something, just in case.::

::Sure; they'll have those in town I'm sure. Lightsaber's not off the table either but I don't get the impression that your powerset lends itself to them and it's way too easy to lose an arm without that.::

::I don't know what a lightsaber is, or why it would need special powers, but if I want a melee weapon, I have my staff.::

::They're a Sith weapon, sword with plasma for a blade.:: she pats the holster at her hip. ::They can cut through any mundane material. They pull, though, you need telekinesis and ideally at least a little precognition to wield one safely. And you'd want to think about what carrying one would say to other Sith, but that'd be half the point if you did want one. - well, I say Sith, but Jedi carry them too. Anyway, if you want to present as a third party then definitely skip it.::

::...Huh.  How do they work?::

She can explain! It's pretty neat.

::...It is.  What's this kyber crystal stuff?::

She knows less about kybers, but still more than the very basics. Naturally occurring ones are best but they're also made artificially like so; they're very slightly sentient and that means they need a couple extra preparatory steps like so for Sith use; they have these qualities that are relevant to lightsabers and these other qualities that are really just symbolic.

::That's...Huh.  That's really interesting.  There was a power source of the Violet light, back home, that came in crystal form.  I don't think anyone made plasma blades with it, though! (humor)::

::I wonder if kyber is a similar material...And, if so, what I could do with it.::

::Well, we can grow one if you want to find out, I have the gear for it.::

::I'd be really curious to try that, yeah.::

::We'll order in the materials, then.:: She passes this along to Daisy.

::Thank you.::