The boy's parents peek through a viewhole.

It slams shut. They have a very fast, somewhat quiet argument.

The door opens. "C-Can we help you?" Asks the woman.

The Sith nods, politely but no less intimidating. "Your son; he's force sensitive. Bring him here." A directive, more than a command, and not unkindly delivered, but there's no question that she expects to be obeyed.

"-But the solder-"

"Now."

Here is the boy. He looks at the local bogeyman, glances at the droid. Turmoil.

"Hello." Gentler is still not gentle. "What's your name?"

He takes a deep breath. Centering himself. Lots of fear, but determination. "Nicholas Granmill."

"Nicholas. All right. I noticed that you're force sensitive, Nicholas; do you know what that means?"

"I - might have to turn into a Sith when people find out."

She nods. "You ought to be trained, and if any other Sith find you you might be taken to Korriban. But you're not old enough yet; you can stay here for another few years if that's what you'd like to do."

"I want-" He growls in frustration. "I wanted a ship. I wanted to have one and be able to go places I want. It'll be harder now." His parents are frozen stiff, though this is not really a surprise to them. His father in particular emits 'dissapointed anger'.

This gets a subtle grin. "Harder in some ways but easier in others; being a Sith is about having what you want."

He doesn't respond.

That's fine. "When you're ready, Daisy will bring you out - no later than the month of your fourteenth birthday; thirteen is more traditional. She's in town the first weekend of every month, you shouldn't have any trouble finding her."

Then the Sith turns her attention back to the boy's parents. "He's to be treated well;" there's a growling undertone to her voice, "I'm sure you're aware what happens when people mistreat my things. If there's anything you need to make that happen, bring it up with my droid and we'll see to it. Understood?"

"...Understood. We are not particularly well off. But, understood."

"I want to know more. What's involved in training. If I can visit."

"You'll be able to visit," she nods. "Not necessarily very often, but at least a few times a year. Training will depend on what you want to specialize in, but meditation, saber forms, and the basic force techniques are standard no matter what else you choose to learn."

"...How long does training take?" He's considering trying to run.

"Most people are competent at the basics within a year. But the more you learn while you're under a master's protection, the better equipped you'll be to defend yourself when other Sith notice you."

He was trying to ask how intense and difficult it would be, actually, but is kind of too afraid to actually ask that.

"I'll think about it. Before fourteen. I'm ten."

Dusk nods. "All right. If you have any other questions, Daisy can bring notes, too."

He nods rapidly.

Maybe when the terrifying boogeywoman isn't right in front of him and he's had time to think about things.

Entirely understandable.

She looks back to his parents - any questions?

No ma'am not at all ma'am.

The Sith nods, and she and the droid take their leave.

The following month, the droid arrives in town with a trailer full of machinery and art, just as usual.

The boy who always avoided the curious droid before, seeks it out.

"...Hello. You're Daisy, right? No other designation?"

"DZ-12Q," she recites automatically. "But I go by Daisy, yes."

Nod, nod. "If it's not troublesome, I have a note with some questions for your..." He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't actually know.

"For Lord Pradnakt," she fills in. "It's no trouble."

"The answers will significantly inform when I feel ready to... Go train. Thanks."

The droid nods. "We'll have answers for you next month, perhaps sooner." She pauses for a moment to consider - "I should ask about your parents, too, Pradnakt will want to know. Have there been any problems?"

"They've... They're fine. We really don't have much money. I'm not going to starve but it would be nice not to have to help collect wood for the generator and stuff, if we can just buy some."

"We can certainly cover that. How much do you need?"

He names a sum that's about twice as much as what the Sith and droid would pay for wood. "Should be enough."

 She nods. "Reasonable. I'll arrange it with the bank."

"Thank you. What you just covered was one of my questions, actually, so I'll revise my note real quick-"

He addresses it to Lord Pradnakt as formally as he can manage in the space he left for greetings at the top, and crosses out the lines explaining his frequent chores and how a little money could reduce them. Daisy has graciously agreed to provide a small stipend covering this question quite thoroughly. Many thanks. Then folds it back up and hands it over.

The droid's posture shifts subtly, unusually for a droid, in a way that might suggest a smile if she were human. "Certainly. Anything else?"

"I won't delay you any more. Have a nice trip."

"Very well. I'll see you next month."

A few days later there's a letter from the bank explaining that an amount of money ten percent higher than the agreed upon amount will be deposited in their account every month.

And in the meantime, Daisy brings Nick's letter to Dusk.

It's excruciatingly polite, and neatly written.

The gist of the letter is that he is very politely and rather obliquely asking two things - am I just going to have to trust you not to send me somewhere I wouldn't like? And, how harsh is the training? He won't be subjected to anything like what one hears in the horror stories about Korriban, right?

And two weeks later, there's a letter from Pradnakt in their mail, addressed to Nick and sealed with wax rather than having been delivered by the postal service.

If there's anything he'd like to have, perhaps a small speeder or a radio suitable for keeping in touch with his parents, that would make him more comfortable being away from home, that can be arranged, within reason. He's a little young for a speeder, yet, but twelve seems like a reasonable age for it, if that's what he'd like to do.

Training will be essentially nothing like Korriban; the letter includes a brief rant on the sheer wastefulness of it in pursuit of producing prestigious apprentices at no benefit to the apprentices themselves and also mentions that she can't set apprentices against one another, him being the only one she'll have. She goes on to assure him that while not every aspect of the training will be entirely safe or comfortable, she intends to avoid putting him in any unnecessary danger, and in fact is going to make a point of teaching him to access his danger sense before starting with anything like that and listening if he tells her there's a problem. "I intend to have a live apprentice at the end of this," she writes. "You'll find that I care very little for most Sith's idea of status or reputation, but in this case it matters; if I'm going to do this at all I'm going to do it well."

The word in town that day is that the Sith's droid has been in to buy building materials, enough to build a small house, with much speculation about why that might be.

He'll want a speeder. Not necessarily fast, one that can carry things. He'll want a good datapad with strong comms. Just the first one, if there's only going to be one. He greets Daisy when she arrives, but doesn't say anything else about training.

...Four months later, he tells Daisy, "I'm going to have a sibling. Once I do, or don't if there's complications, then I'm ready."

Daisy takes a trip into the city, and returns with a report on three used speeders for him to pick between: all of them have a decent carrying capacity, but they vary in speed, ease of use, and ease of customization; the most customizable one is by default the slowest and hardest to learn use but can be upgraded to be faster than either of the other two. Pradnakt sends him another letter, describing the datapad he'll have - a midrange professional model with plenty of storage and, yes, good comms, "but not good enough to reach the town; no datapad can do that. If you'd like a radio as well I suggest this model..."

"All right," says Daisy, at the news, and a few days later there's a letter from Pradnakt, asking how he'd like his space furnished and what sorts of food he likes and similar questions of day-to-day living.

'Simple' will do for furnishings, as long as he has a work area with good lights and ventilation. He'll be bringing tools and old projects. A radio would be good as well, but he doesn't want to be greedy. If any of these amenities aren't doable that's fine.

He does his own research into the speeders before deciding on the one that seems the most customizable. The rationale being that he'll probably learn the most from it. He's not especially picky in terms of food or living arrangements, though he does mention a couple of recipes he can't stand. He includes in the letter back that having time that's definitely for himself and he can't be interrupted would be nice.

...Will the stipend continue if he has a baby sibling? So his parents can take care of them well. (Daisy or Lord Pradnakt might be able to tell this question was added on after the fact)

The speeder has been acquired, and a set of radios. He can expect to have mornings to himself, with occasional assignments that he might want to work on then but no interruptions. The stipend will be continued for a few months, to allow his parents time to adjust, but not indefinitely.

Months pass.

Nick's baby sister is born at the expected time. He's eleven and a bit, now. She's healthy and happy and cute, as babies should be.

He's not sure what to expect as he reports this to Daisy, but he's surely putting on a brave face.

The droid nods. "And you're ready to go?"

"As soon as I get my pack. Go by speeder or by walking?"

"Speeder; I have the radio for your parents, too." She leads the way, and hands him the radio from the speeder's storage compartment when they get to his house. "Would you like any help bringing your things out?"

"I've got it, but thanks... They'd probably be afraid again if you helped."

She nods and stays with the vehicle.

He carries out two large bags, one crate, and one small backpack, and says his goodbyes.

Once they set off, "You're more than regular droids are. I can't put my finger on it. Not just the art."

"I'm older, yes. I haven't had a wipe in over a decade."

"Hm..."

Older droids are unstable and erratic, he was always told. Older droids have personalities? Wipes remove them?

This is a pretty troubling thought!

"I'm safe," she reassures. "Pradnakt wouldn't have kept me if I wasn't."

"No, it's... Philosophical ramifications?"

"...ah. Yes," she asserts.

He's quiet and thoughtful.

It's not like slavery is unheard of. No Hutt would say it's wrong. No droid-owner would say making droids do things and occasionally wiping them is wrong.

...He would hate hate hate being a droid.

"That little piece of information has given me a lot of stuff to think about."

"It did Pradnakt, too. She'll be happy to talk to you about it, if you'd like."

"I don't talk about thinky things very much."

"Okay."

"There is going to be some philosophy as part of your training, though."

"I mean, I think about things... I just don't talk about them. Nobody seems to appreciate it." There's a bit of a scowl there.

"Well." The droid's grin comes through clearly in her tone. "You're with us, now; you'll find that's not the case any more."

"...She's very scary. You're scary by association. Maybe that'll go away."

The rest of the trip passes quietly, probably.

Possibly.

It's a long trip; a little over four hours, all told. Around halfway through it, they turn from the main road onto a tiny trail, barely more than a game trail or goat path, and shortly after that they begin passing artwork, metal worked into the stone and cliff faces beside the trail, or stone worked into metal, arranged to catch the light or in a few cases with their own light sources, all in Pradnakt's familiar abstract style.

...He takes photos, that's probably what he's doing with the little bundle of wires and chips he fished out of his backpack.

Daisy doesn't comment, but does begin slowing slightly as they pass each piece.

"I like that one particularly," he says of a sculpture that's slightly reminiscent of a crashed ship embedded sideways in a section of cliff.

"That one was an interesting technical challenge," she reports, "it took a few months to figure out how to get it to support itself like that. Good results, though. My favorite's still ahead." She points it out when they get there; a delicate lattice of metal, anodized blue, shaped to suggest smoke flowing over the brown stone it's set in.

He nods at it and snaps photos, but, "Did you make it hollow and put struts inside?"

"Mmhmm. It's still pretty heavy, though, she needed enough of a base for the detail work."

"Wouldn't do if it took repulsors to stay up. And I would have thought this one would decay."

"A few of them are meant to decay. That one won't, though, the treatment that turned the wire blue protects it, and she did a few other things like that to it too."

He keeps asking about the sculptures the rest of the way. Mostly about how they were made.

Most of them are straightforward, but she explains the ones that aren't - a chemical bath here, a complicated balance of metals with different densities there, a carefully built heat sink to provide an updraft and a hidden fin to catch it in another case.

And eventually, they round a bend, and the Sith's home comes into view. He'd probably imagined something more impressive; in reality it's a cluster of small adobe buildings - two houses, a garage, and a fourth building that he doesn't get a good enough look at to figure out what it might be before it's hidden behind the larger house - and a dusty yard containing a tree and a well tucked up against the larger house, a large freestanding sculpture of the sort that the Sith occasionally sells, and a small fire circle ringed by rocks. The Sith herself is sitting on one of those rocks, reading something on a datapad, and doesn't look up as they approach,

"Lord Pradnakt. Here I am."

"Very good. Daisy will show you to your quarters," she nods at the smaller house. But rather than moving to do that, the droid signs to the Sith, who reacts with a pleased smile. "Perceptive, good. As a reward for figuring out Daisy's secret, you may have a treat with dinner - meat with the meal, or ice cream or fruit for dessert afterward, or tea with it."

He reacts slightly to the word 'may'.

"...Wasn't that hard to guess. Meat I think. And I like most of the art."

"Thank you. And you'd be surprised how few people do guess. Anyway, I'll leave you to it; Daisy is in charge of meals, if you have any requests, and I'll give you a few days to settle in before we get started." And with that she stands and heads into the house.

"If it's the same to you I'd rather start tomorrow. I came here kind of early for a reason."

Pause; nod. "Very well."

"Thank you both."

And with that, he goes and investigates the small house, hauling one of his bags.

Daisy follows with the crate.

The house is simple and sparsely furnished; the front door opens directly onto what is obviously the workroom, with a long table and bench against the right-hand wall under a skylight, empty except for a trio of adjustable work lights. Metal shelves line the back wall, and a small kitchen is set into the left-hand wall. A door next to the shelves leads to a bedroom, with an adult-sized bed flanked by bookshelves across from doors leading to a refresher and a closet.

Too bad he doesn't have many books. Datapad holds much more.

As he unpacks, "I've been thinking about the line between a device and a droid and it's probably how smart one is. I think you could have a droid that is a ship, or something, and you can certainly have a droid body that isn't a droid..."

"Something like that, yes. We have a few books on droid minds, if you'd like to read about it; it seems to be as much the type of intelligence as the amount."

"I'd like that."

He'll be unpacking and setting up the workspace how he likes it until dinner.

Daisy brings the rest of his things in and then leaves, reappearing at dinnertime with a tray - potato wedges with sour cream and game meat with gravy and fresh cherry tomatoes and a glass of milk. "Pradnakt usually just eats at her worktable; if you'd like something separate I can get that set up for you."

"This is fine. Thanks. And it looks really yummy too."

"I hope you enjoy it. Do you expect to need anything else tonight?"

"Nope."

"All right. I'll be in the other house if you do. Sleep well; I'll be by with breakfast and Pradnakt will see you in the afternoon."

"Have a nice night, Daisy."

He eats (yum!), finishes setting up his workspace, pokes at his speeder to get used to its internals and putters around the yard a bit, reads by datapad light, sleeps.

If he happens to look up in his exploration of the yard, he might notice Pradnakt sitting on the roof of her house, meditating, to all appearances oblivious to him.

Daisy comes by in the morning with another tray - cheese and vegetable omelette, hash browns, milk.

"What do you do when you're not doing chores or in town? Help with the art?"

"Chores take up a good bit of my time, but sometimes, yes. And the repair work, too."

"I was just wondering if a droid could develop hobbies. I want to read those books you mentioned at some point."

"Certainly." Her body language suggests a grin. "I do calligraphy, sometimes, and keep a diary - we're just as capable of enjoying things as humans, just programmed to find helpfulness rewarding. -that's a sore spot with Pradnakt, though, be careful if you bring it up with her."

"I see. Will do. I mostly take things apart for a hobby. Recently I've even started putting them together again."

"I'm sure Pradnakt will be willing to send over some of the machinery we get. And - are you going to want a droid?"

"...Probably not."

She nods. "If you did we could probably find you one that needed chassis work, but - better not, yes."

"Definitely not until I've read those books, anyway. Maybe in a year or two. I'm not sure."

She nods. "Dusk is going to bring them over with your datapad this afternoon, they're on disc."

"Aha. I could try to help with the repair work after breakfast if you like. It'd be interesting, I think."

"She's actually not awake yet; she keeps odd hours. I can bring something over for you, though."

"Either way, I have some unfinished projects still."

Nod. "I'll wait until she's set some things aside for you, then."

"See you later then?"

"Mmhmm. See you at lunchtime."

Back to trying to figure out how this little repulsor works, then.

Eventually, lunch: lentil soup, a small loaf of fresh-baked bread, a glass of milk. "Pradnakt will be by when you're done," says Daisy.

He cleans up his tinkering stuff and sits just outside his little house.

She leaves her house just as he's leaving his, datapad in hand. "Nicholas," she nods.

"Lord Pradnakt." He takes deep breaths, clearly anxious, maybe a bit excited.

She grins and heads into his house to sit at his worktable, apparently assuming that he'll follow.

So he does.

She passes over the datapad and a pair of discs. "This pad has most of my notes from when I was an apprentice, and an outline explaining what's available and in what kind of detail. The first thing I'd like you to do is go through it, decide what you'd like to learn, and write that up for me; you can change your mind later, but this will give us an idea of where to start."

"Alright. You said 'danger sense first' at some point...?"

Tap the pad on, start reading.

"Before we start on saber training at the very least, yes. You might want to focus on something else first, though."

The outline is pretty extensive - a standard mundane education, in the first section, with a focus on science and engineering; in the second section, Force-specific topics, everything from meditation and emotional control and channeling, to a list of two dozen lightsaber forms with brief notes on how they differ, to lightsaber design - 'I was at the cutting edge of it, ten years ago', says the note - to various force powers: a long list of sensory powers, from pre- and post-cognition to mindreading to area awareness; telekinesis with various subspecialties; personal enhancements, speed and stealth and so on; lightning generation, mind tricks, animal calming, and similar techniques that don't fall into another group, and new power development. In the third section, Sith-specific topics; history of the Sith, Jedi studies, Sith organization and politics, history of the Sith/Jedi war, and a selection of practical skills that are useful for Sith in particular, everything from hacking to personnel management to torture.

He reads for a good while.

"...I think I want to focus on what you consider general education at first, get ahead of it so it doesn't need attention later. Then some of the important history. That and - basic Force skills. So I can just go when I know what I really want later. When I understand the uses of it all. Probably meditation and channeling?"

She nods. "We'd need to start there anyway, for anything that uses the Force, everything else builds on that."

"I see. To make good decisions on what I want to learn with the Force I need to know more about the things I could learn than just reading about them for a little while. I will want sensory powers though."

She nods. "I can answer any questions you have, certainly. And I've specialized in force senses myself, so that will be easy enough."

"What does precognition do, feel like, how does it work? And the danger sense?"

"It feels a little bit like dreaming, the precog, or sometimes just a flash of intuition. Most people have to be meditating to do it, but if you have an affinity for it you might get the intuition sort even when you're not. The danger sense is a very limited sort of precog, with the advantage that it's reliable; you'll get a flash of intuition any time something is about to threaten you, about what it is and what you should do about it. Once you're used to it, acting on those intuitions becomes automatic, which can save your life in a pinch.

"Do other sensory powers turn into intuition eventually?"

She nods. "Some of them, or just," she shrugs, "part of your environment; I don't go around reading minds by habit, but when I am it's like having a holoprojector running a show in the background; I can watch or not but it's always there."

"...I see. Is there a defense against mindreading? Or other sense powers?"

She nods. "There's a way to mask your presence from anything that's generally-targeted. Sense powers that target you in particular are easier to notice, but generally harder to block; it comes down to a contest of strength, usually."

"I want that. The generally-targeted-defense, and any other stealth I can work on."

She nods. "All right."

"Do you think you could explain some more about the differences between lightsaber forms? And why lightsabers are actually good compared to blasters or something? Besides working well with the danger sense, I can see that much."

"A Sith with a saber can defeat anyone with a blaster," she shrugs, "mostly on versatility. Blasters have range, sure, but Sith are fast, and range doesn't help when we can deflect blaster bolts. Plus most conflicts between Sith are resolved by saber fights; you'll have to be amazing at stealth for that never to come up."

"...When it's time to learn saber, I want to see the different forms and then pick one."

"Depends on how you do with the danger sense; probably in at least a year. You'll want at least three or four, though, they're good for different things -" she goes through the list and describes them; most just vary in how much they focus on attack versus defense, but several of them have other strengths - 'good for fighting a larger opponent', 'good for close quarters or when you need to avoid damaging things', 'lets you make the best use of a speed boost', and so on. "I can demonstrate all of those for you."

"Okay. I want to learn about Saber design too."

"Certainly. Just the basics, or the more advanced things too?"

"Probably advanced stuff. I don't know much of anything about them now beyond 'extremely dangerous'."

"There's a diagram of the basic circuit in the notes, if you're curious now; they're not very complicated until you start trying to do things like change the shape of the blade."

"I will definitely look at that later."

She grins.

"Any other questions?"

"...I think I might have felt Force things already, a little bit. But I was reading something about how humans can trick themselves pretty easily, so I'm really not sure."

"It's possible, at your age, especially since you knew to pay attention. What did you notice?"

"I could - see - that my little sister was about ready to be born. I knew it before Mom did."

"Yeah, that's the sort of thing you'd get. And a good sign, if you like the idea of precognition."

"It felt more like a life thing? Like, there she is, she's done."

Nod. "All the sense powers are strongest when you're sensing people you're related to," she adds. "The Force is about life, in many ways. That's why we can't sense droids any better than any other machinery."

He nods thoughtfully. "There were a couple more little things but that was the big one."

"Mmhmm."

"If you're ready, you can start with the basic meditation exercise today."

"Yes, Lord Pradnakt."

She nods, and explains the basics of meditation - nothing Sith-specific, yet, beyond a mention that he might feel the Force when he succeeds, just instructions on how to relax and clear his mind. "You won't be able to do it for very long, at first - a moment or two, really. It'll get easier with practice. What worked best for me was lots of short practice sessions through the day, any time I had a spare minute or felt like taking a break from what I was doing; some people do better setting aside an hour or more at a time and just working at it until they get it. You should try both, and do whatever seems to work better."

"...I should try this. Somewhere else. If relaxing is important."

She nods. "You'll want a dedicated space for it, eventually; you should also work on figuring out what you'd like that to be like. In the meantime, wherever is most comfortable should be fine. - I should mention, if you want to go out into the scrub, that's fine; if you get lost, stay where you are and wait, and I'll come find you."

He nods. "I don't think I'm too young to use the speeder if I go slow. I know how to put a limiter on it if you want..."

Another grin. "So do I. If you get lost on the speeder there's a chance you'll be out of easy range, so make sure you have enough supplies for a day or so if you're going exploring."

"I got an electric compass from this one guy and wrote a dead reckoning program... But, yeah. Smart."

She nods. "I'll have Daisy bring you some ration bars and a water jug."

"I won't go far for now... I think my meditation place will be 'sitting next to a speeder somewhere new'."

"Sure. It'll be easiest if you're someplace quiet and fairly neutral, to start, and comfortable enough that you won't be distracted by being too hot or the ground being uneven or anything - you'll learn to deal with that sort of thing eventually, but it's not something you want to start with."

"Yeah, but I really like the idea of going somewhere just because I can. I bet it'd be relaxing to. I'll try here first though..."

Nod. "That kind of intuition is usually right, anyway."

Nod, nod. "So... How will the general education stuff work? Probably not like the school in town?"

"Not much like that, no. I've had Daisy get us homeschooling materials; mostly books, but some holoshows and hands-on projects, too. Daisy or I can work with you on those if you'd like, or you can go through them yourself; they come with tests, which I will want you to take and show me in any case."

"I can probably start on them myself, I think."

She nods. "Were you ahead or behind in any subjects, for your age?"

"I didn't really care about history... But I'm great at science stuff!"

"Good, science is important. Some history is, too, but it's not too hard to catch up on that later if you find that you need to; so long as you get enough of an overview to notice when you might need to learn more, I won't bother you about it."

"The history of Sith and Jedi is probably pretty important, relatively speaking, right?"

"Comparatively, yeah. If you're far enough away from the front lines you only need to know enough to recognize when someone's doing something stupid, but you might not want to be limited like that."

"I don't intend to go near war if I can help it."

"Yeah; me either, that's why I'm here. But it is a limitation, and it sounds like it might bother you more than it does me, eventually."

"Yeah, that's probably true."

"So, better to learn how to do it safely, even if you don't ever plan to. Just knowing that you could if you wanted to will make it rankle a little less."

"I hear Sith closer to the capital kill each other a lot?"

Nod. "Sith in general, really, but especially there; that's where the political power is, so it's where everyone who wants political power is, and even if you don't they won't believe that you're not just being sneaky about it."

"Then I'd better get good at not dying and staying out of the way."

"Mmhmm. There's plenty of places that aren't near the front lines or the capital, though, if that's all you care about, and there are ways to handle either of them relatively safely. Not staying very long will help a lot."

"That's all a long way off for now though... Anything else I should know or do before starting to study, and trying to meditate?"

She thinks about it. "It's important not to be too afraid. It's important not to be too fearless, too, having enough fear will help you stay alive, but - emotions make you stronger. The more things you're doing that you feel strongly about, the stronger you'll be, and limiting what you do because you're afraid of what might happen will limit you; you grow by going after what you want and figuring out how to get it, even - really, especially - when that's risky; just because something's dangerous doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile."

He takes a deep breath. "...Yeah. I was terrified of you. Not quite as much now... But it was the right decision to come train like you told me to, instead of trying to run or something."

She nods. "You're a Sith, or at least going to be; rules're different for you. I don't want your friends in town getting the idea that they can treat a Sith casually; that'd end badly for them, if anyone else comes through, so fear will protect them. They don't have the potential for much more than that. You do; it'd be a shame not to use it."

"...Hm. I'll get started then."

"Very good." She stands. "I'll be by again tomorrow."

So...

He tries to meditate once she's gone. Really tries, for a solid twenty minutes. Sitting in a few different spots. It doesn't seem to do anything. 

He gets bored.

He starts reading through the course materials and so on. Looks at the first couple of pages of the books about droids. He tinkers with his little repulsor a little more, but his heart's not in it. About half an hour later he tries to meditate again - and doesn't seem to make any progress.

He thanks Daisy when she brings him the meal bars and water, and takes this as a sign to go look at the little speeder again - does it have a limiter on it already?

Nope.

There is an unfamiliar add-on near where a limiter would go, though.

Uh huh.

Let's open up the casing and look at where the wires go and if it has a computer and not unhook anything.

No computer, but a radio receiver; it looks like if it stops getting whatever radio signal it's looking for, the speeder will stop working. And it's not a very powerful receiver, either; without knowing the strength of the transmission he can't guess precisely, but unless it's unusually strong, he wouldn't be able to go more than a few dozen kilometers from the source.

Ugh. And what about a radio dead area? He might wander into one and be stuck not two klicks from the houses. Those happen, sometimes. Especially with all these cliffs around. It feels arbitrary and shackling. He can't remove this without it being a betrayal of sorts to Lord Pradnakt - he's not sure he can remove it at all.

And now he doesn't want to use this thing either.

He wanders off into the brush with a canteen and a just-in-case meal bar, following the trail of art. Looking for a quiet, shady spot.

There's plenty of art and plenty of quiet; shade is a little harder to come by, but eventually he finds a spot where a tree casts a shadow on the smooth rocks set out for sitting on to view one of the sculptures.

This seems like a good spot. And he's cooled off (figuratively) some, and he can almost pretend Lord Pradnakt isn't metaphorically looking over his shoulder...

He meditates. Calm, breathing, calm. Empty mind...

When he finally manages it, there's a moment of cool calmness and a sense of vast energy, startling enough to make him lose his focus.

Woah.

...He really can touch the Force. He tries to do it again.

It's a little easier, the second time, even though he's more excited; knowing what he's trying to do helps quite a bit.

Okay. This is a good sign!

He looks at the art for a while, reads for a bit, wanders a little more whistling cheerfully, sits down and meditates again. Pretty much all day, like Lord Pradnakt said - trying to see if short bursts or longer ones work. Can he get it and hold it for more than a moment or two, today?

It gets steadily faster and easier to get into that state, but it's surprisingly hard to avoid thinking.

Meditating for fifteen minutes at a time between studying those course materials - or reading about droid intelligence - seems to work pretty well.

He will make progress on all of those things, then.

Droid brains, according to the books, are composed of two primary modules with several subcomponents each: The sensory-response module, with subcomponents for each sensory input device and set of motors that the droid has, and the obedience-rational module, with a cogitave theory unit integrating the obedience module, motivator, logic module, and memory banks.

So one side is just senses and muscles, so to speak, and all the important thinky bits are bundled together.

Obedience module. What do they do?

The obedience module is made of several subcomponents: various rule matrices, each preprogrammed with rules the droid must follow in a particular sort of situation, varying by droid model, and a personality matrix, where information about how the droid's owner and other people it interacts with expect it to behave is stored as it learns. The personality matrix is reset when a droid is wiped; the rule matrices are not.

Sounds like where a droid gets persony is in that personality matrix. But electronics and computers are deep and tricky.

He heads back to the cluster of buildings around sunset.

Lord Pradnakt has a fire going in the fire circle in the yard, and is sitting by it with a mug of tea. She looks up and nods in acknowledgement when he gets close enough.

He nods in return and walks closer. "I think I made some progress on meditation. I can feel - something, probably the Force, but only for an instant at a time."

"Mmhmm, good. It's normal to take a while to be able to hold it for longer than that; you're doing fine."

Nod, nod. "I'm assuming you've studied droid... Psychology... Some?"

"Some; not in general. What do you want to know?"

"Whether it seems like the personality they develop eventually is all in the personality matrix, or if changing the rule matrix or other components can cause problems for a droid."

"All four thought-processing modules are involved, but the personality matrix holds most of it. Changing the rule matrices ...can be done safely, in theory, but it's impossible to predict how that will affect an older droid without a very firm grasp of the programming involved."

"I can see that. It would be weird if changing the control module affected them any more than losing a hand would for me - something to deal with, but all the same thoughts in my head still."

"Mmhmm."

...He considers asking about the radio cutoff, but doesn't. "I'll continue on the same course for now then?"

She nods. "When you can hold it for a few seconds I'll explain some things you can do with it. Shouldn't take long."

"Goodbye for now, then."

He turns to go.

"-Nicholas?"

He freezes mid turn, and rotates back around nervously. "Yes, Lord Pradnakt?"

"Your speeder's ready; I needed a little time to put together an adjustable limiter. The leash is gone, too."

Oh.

"Thank you. I was wondering about that."

She nods. "You've been impressively sensible; making you wait until you were twelve would have been reasonable for most people."

"You have to be sensible to get anything done around here..."

"But most people manage anyway, somehow. I'll be more careful about underestimating you."

He nods, and smirks a bit when he turns away toward the little house.

She doesn't interrupt him.

She takes her time with the tea, and when it's fully dark out she begins practicing forms, lighting up the yard with her saber.

He watches for a while, somewhere between envious and awed.

He goes back inside before she's done if it lasts more than an hour or so.

She stops and stows her saber when she notices him getting restless. "That's the pragarumas form - one of the most common, basic ones, good balance of attack and defense and not much tricky to it."

Nod, nod. 

He has a notebook out, he writes the style's name down next to his notes on it. "That was all one form, then?"

She nods. "And a pretty simple one. Here's something more complicated -"  She lights her saber again and begins moving quickly around the yard, sweeping her saber left and right at apparent random and turning into the spaces left by her strikes, rarely facing the same direction for more than a moment at a time except when she pauses to twirl her blade close in near herself. She's careful not to get too close to him and stops after a few minutes. "Sut'vejas; good for fighting large groups with blasters or other minor threats."

Notes, notes. "It definitely looks like it has area effectiveness."

"Mmhmm. And the quick moves make it easy to switch from offense to defense; heavy blaster fire will slow you down, with that one, but you won't be vulnerable to it."

Heavy blaster fire merely slowing one down is something to ponder.

She gives him time to do that.

"...Are you going to demonstrate all the others now? Might take a while."

"Nah. One more, if you'd like."

"I would. Thank you."

She nods, and starts again. This form is more similar to the first one, a collection of strikes and guards and parries with no especially clear theme, but in comparison the attacks are more aggressive, and the defensive moves are less frequent and executed subtly differently.

"Strosius," she declares after a few minutes, "for challenging a stronger opponent, or making an example of a weaker one."

"I liked sut'vejas. The pragarumas is probably what I'll learn first when it's time for this, though?"

"Mmhmm."

"Do I have chores that aren't training?"

"Nope - you'll want to either keep your things put away or show Daisy where you want her to put them when she cleans, though, rather than having her guess. And you might want to learn how to cook and do laundry and things eventually, but there's no rush."

He nods solemnly. But inside he's rather more relieved than it appears.

Perhaps his parents continued with their heavy chores load, despite the firewood thing?

"...Something wrong?"

"I suppose not."

"Okay then. I think I'll go inside now, if that's fine?"

Nod. "Good night."

"Good night."

A little more reading and meditating, and some tidying, then sleep, unless something else interrupts.

Pradnakt takes the rest of her saber practice around the other side of her house so as not to bother him. Daisy comes by with breakfast half an hour after sunrise.

"Good morning, Daisy. I was thinking about cleaning. I'll clean up most of my stuff, the stuff I don't clean can go basically wherever if you happen to find anything. Except please don't touch the workbench and shelves. And I was wondering, what's the difference between calligraphy and really good handwriting?"

"Certainly," she nods. "And calligraphy is more technically complex; a calligraphy pen gives a wider or narrower line depending on how it's handled, so there's that aspect to work with along with everything else, and I have to think more about the ink itself. I can bring over an example if you'd like to see."

"Huh. I don't know too much about ink - mostly certain kinds not playing well with certain surfaces. I'd find it interesting to see, I think, but you don't have to if it's too much bother."

"It's no trouble."

"Great."

He sets down some tools and peers at breakfast on the way to the cleanser.

Two eggs, fried; a medium potato, sliced into wedges, seasoned, and baked; a slice of toast with butter; a glass of milk.

No meat. It is kind of a rare luxury, but seasoned potatoes with bread squeezed between them sorta replicates the texture. (Not really.)

He eats pretty quickly, waiting for Daisy.

It takes her a little while to come back, carrying a small framed quote on light red paper in black calligraphy with a simple black frame: "What you allow is what will continue."

He studies it carefully.

"Yeah, I can see it... You have to plan where and how to write, and you said line thickness, if you want it to be in the middle and look balanced and stuff?"

The droid nods. "It's not exactly creative work, like what Pradnakt does, but it does take skill and practice."

"Nah, it's pretty good. Creative... Yeah, I don't know, but it's pretty good."

Daisy's body language shifts in a way that suggests a smile, and then starts gathering up his breakfast dishes. "Is there anything else I can do for you this morning?"

"I think I'm good. Thanks."

"See you at lunchtime."

"Yep."

Another day of reading and meditating, it seems.

He packs the same supplies as yesterday and wanders around on the speeder at barely-more-than-jogging speed some, looking for more spots like the shade near that one sculpture.

Shade is sparse, but not particularly hard to locate; comfortable shady spots are rarer, but if he wants to take the time to look for it he can more or less have his choice of scenery.

Top of a cliff seems nice. But he spends about an hour in each spot before going to the next one. Building a mental map along the way.

And progresses steadily with his meditation, and the basic lessons he's been given.