"And if attuning them to the Force a bit means you want them back instead of not caring, I'll happily return them."

"Is attuning them to the Force useful to anyone other than you?"

"No."

"Seems like all the more reason for you to keep them, then."

"Conceivably you could also get to the point where they could be useful to you, too, however."

"I - wouldn't want to presume on that. What with the scarcity of teachers and you having so much on your plate already."

"Fair enough. Thank you for being understanding."

"I try."

He is unfairly enticing, if he keeps being himself at her she is going to have a problem.

"Anyway, let me look through these to see which ones I'll want to take - I assume it's fine if I err on the side of taking more gemstones than I expect to need on the basis that coming back a second time is a chore?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Excellent, thank you."

She begins searching through the miscellaneous synthetic gemstones.

"The difference between my galaxy's synthetic gemstones is rather minimal. Which is to be expected, I suppose," she says conversationally, as she peers critically at an emerald.

"In theory, really good synthetic gemstones should be totally indistinguishable from each other and from natural gemstones that just happen to be completely flawless, but I think I've heard it's not that simple. And I'm sure the magical powers complicate the situation further."

"A bit, yes. Synthetic crystals tend to be near identical and comparatively boring to natural gemstones, unless grown with a very exotic apparatus or under the personal care of a trained Force user. Their strength lies in naturally being flawless due to being grown in optimal conditions. Which is useful, it offers a sort of blank slate, but not always ideal."

"Huh. Does being grown with an exotic apparatus change their physical structure, or are there - Force-related properties at work, or both?"

"As I understand it, usually it's a mix of both, but more uncommonly it will be one or the other if it's particularly exotic."

"What kinds of exotic apparatus are there?"

"Off of the top of my head, there's a religious group in the Yissiru system that grows crystals over decades in large nutrient pools, tended to by one one of the native creatures of one of their moons. I don't have one of the crystals made there, but I did get to look at one, once."

"Your galaxy sounds so fascinating."

"I think so. It's sometimes hard to remember that it's as big and varied as it is, though."

"I feel like, if I lived there, I'd have a hard time ever thinking about anything else..."

"Life goes on, even with the backdrop of the astonishing variety. The weird becomes mundane. Not uninteresting, but normal."

"Aww. That's no fun."

"There are still moments of awe."

"Well, all right then."