The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[TFTwink]

Lawful vs Good is a topic I haven't seen people approach with much nuance. It's either 'Good is messy, which is why we need laws to be followed even if they aren't perfect" or "[Insert Atrocities] were lawful; good has to be fought for even though the immediate consequences are regrettable". There's probably some good ones that can do it justice that I haven't seen, and given this story so far, I hope this is one of them.

 

[shukkets]

Wonderful!
Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Grimmouse197]

Wow I love your interpretation of the force. And Your interpretation that following the force like a slave Is basicly the dark side.

 

[jason1stlegion]

Is there a mismatch of chapters? I see 55 over in AO3, with Symbionts being #55

 

[Hyenanon]

Is there a mismatch of chapters? I see 55 over in AO3, with Symbionts being #55

Click to shrink...

Not exactly! Archive Of Our Own does not allow unnumbered chapters. So for each of the interludes and vignettes, like the End Of Arc 1 Vignette: It's A Cheap Trick But It Works, I did not number them in my personal copy of the story, nor did I number them as I uploaded them onto QQ and Spacebattles. Unfortunately, Ao3 requires them to be counted, which inflates the numbers of chapters afterwards. It's really frustrating!

 

[TroubleFait]

From my point of view, the Jedi are evil! the Jedi Order is a slave to the Republic, and the Jedi themselves are slaves to their flawed perspective.

When Yoda complained in episode 2 that more and more Jedi were arrogant, he felt so passive about it. Rubs me the wrong way.

Oh, and the famous line: "If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist."

I have trouble explaining it, but this form of arrogance is what Yoda felt, I think it's also what he nurtured.

 

[Goudeauboywade]

next, it just better have some real sunlight."

Click to shrink...

Careful girl that is how you end up on Jakuu or tatooine.

 

[Driven_by_Apathy]

Hmm.... is there an invisible chapter 51 that I don't know about between 50 and 52, or is that just a typo?

I'm hoping for the former, but its probably the latter.

 

[Hyenanon]

Hmm.... is there an invisible chapter 51 that I don't know about between 50 and 52, or is that just a typo?

I'm hoping for the former, but its probably the latter.

Click to shrink...

AAAAAH! I knew I would do this sooner or later! It's a typo. Unforutnate! I'll fix it.

I am currently very busy with a bunch of things so there probably won't be a new chapter uploaded for another few days. It's coming though!

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 52: The Sith And The Jedi​

Nerim's hands were uncomfortably warm against the surface of the furnace, not quite to the level of burning his skin but close enough to make his brainstem scream at him. Tetha's cooler hands were pressed against the back of his, forcing him not to pull away.

"This is deeply uncomfortable," Nerim complained, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. "I would have a much easier time sensing the interior without physical contact."

"But you would have a harder time relating with it," Tetha responded. "You're not touching it to sense, you're touching it to feel. You need to embrace the pain."

"What does it mean to 'embrace' the pain?" He asked in an unfortunately whiny tone, his legs twitching underneath him in a fidgeting discomfort.

"You must understand it. Accept it. Use it. Pain is nothing but sensory information designed to give you a course of action. It tells you where pressure is being applied, and once you've transcended the animal need to instinctively react, it will give you a new dimension of data by which to formulate your response."

Nerim began actively struggling against her hands. "Ow ow ow," He hissed through his teeth, "The heat is building up. I'm going to start getting burns if we keep like this."

"Use the Force to circulate the energy through your body. But don't do it too well. You need the pain, just not the damage."

"This sucks so much, I wanna go back to Ilum," he muttered as he closed his eyes and took a sharp breath, attempting to call the Force to his aid. It almost seemed confused at the stupidity of his request, although he realized that was probably his own thoughts leaking in to his focus. The thought of using the Force to mitigate damage he was actively doing to himself was non-intuitive to him, and it didn't flow naturally. Obviously the advisable course of action was to simply pull his hands away from the damn contraption.

"Use your feelings," Tetha said, holding him down tighter to the furnace. "What is it that you're sensing?"

"It's hot!" He replied, frustrated.

"Yes, it's hot," she agreed. "It's not bad. It's hot. You're treating it like it's something bad, like it's evil for it to be molten rock. But it's not. It simply is hot. The key is to separate your sense of pain from your sense of bad."

Nerim felt a sudden sense of recognition, a memory leading back to the Revanchist Temple. Dangerous, not evil, like a cliff. He took a steadier breath, and thought back to when he was trapped in that waterfall sensation of the Force, and how he broke out; he had let the water break around him. Confronted with the heat of the furnace, he attempted the same. The heat broke around him, just slightly, some of it diverting a microscopically short distance over his skin and trailing up his arms like invisible aurora during a solar flare.

The heat was suddenly bearable, but still very much uncomfortable. Painful, even. It was uncertain even now if he'd manage to get out of this without at least first degree burns across his palms if they went much longer. "Okay," he said evenly, "I'm in a lot of kriffin' pain, but it's not bad. Got it."

Tetha nodded. "Good. Feel how close the cells in your hand are to bursting, disgorging their contents and mixing together into an indistinct mass."

"That's disgusting," he grimaced.

"It's okay for it to be disgusting," she reproached. "Vinegar is disgusting to drink, that does not mean we should avoid consuming or even thinking about vinegar."

"I...see," He frowned, closing his eyes again and focusing. "Okay. What about my cells?"

"The heat is close to reducing them to base components. It is from this slurry that one could, theoretically, reorganize the proteins and molecules into new organic forms. So too, with the stone. Inside it has been burst and disgorged, and it is now that one could reform it."

He felt the roiling material inside, molten and formless, truly protean in nature. "How does one reform it?"

"Ithorian viridite is particularly easy at this point in the process. It will more or less grow itself once you get it started. The difficulty is going to come from splitting your focus. I will help you the first time," she said, and he felt her presence expand into the small molten chamber. "You will need to form a pocket of colder stone at the center, enough for it to nearly solidify. Then, you have to mix it in a very particular order. Observe."

He felt the molten rock cool at the center at an infinitesimally small point, held in place by Tetha's power. Then, on all four sides, and both above and below, the liquid began swirling. Clockwise to the north, east, and above, counterclockwise on the south, west, and below. These six swirling patterns were perfectly matched in speed, and soon replaced the random roiling that had originally dominated the interior.

"This is far beyond me..." Nerim breathed out in awe.

"It won't be forever," she said reassuringly. "What I need you to do right now is to focus on what I'm doing, and slowly take over from me, one swirl at a time. Finally, you will have to connect them to the gem at the center, and hold that center in place while feeding it the material from the rest."

"Piece of cake," he said sarcastically. He felt Tetha smile.

"Wait until we get to the hard part."

He groaned. "When do I ever get to an easy part?"

She laughed softly. "This entire time, the most important part of the process is to feed the Living Force inside the chamber. If you fail to do that, it will simply produce a mess of stone. In order to produce true viridite, you must act in tune with the Living Force and nurture it."

He paused. "...Oh. That's it?"

"That's the hard part for a Sith," she laughed again.

"Huh."

"Now, let's proceed. I'll be giving you the shape of the whole process, I just want you to practice powering it."

True to her word, as he extended his personal Force into the chamber, hers did not retreat. It weakened, and he picked up the slack as best he could in perfect proportion, but the outlines of her influence stayed the entire time. The best way he could think to describe it was the difference between drawing on blank paper, versus a coloring book. And he tried his hardest not to let that make him feel as juvenile as it sounded.

The process took quite some time, long enough that the meditation disconnected him from his internal clock and he had completely lost track of how long it really was. His body was flushed from the heat and stiff from the posture, but the strong flow of the Living Force through him kept him from falling to fatigue. That infinitesimally small point began to grow as the material was funneled into it, which surprised Nerim, as he was not cooling the rock down; it simply began solidifying. Microscopic channels and fractal patterns appeared in the gem as it formed, forming the distinctive swirls that he saw on Tetha's bracelet.

Once all of the material had solidified and they arose from meditation, he suddenly gasped for air again, as he often did whenever he escaped from the immersion of meditating. He pulled his hands away from the furnace and shook them out. They definitely felt like they had been burned at least somewhat. Looking up to the clock, he realized it had been a little over an hour since he last closed his eyes. Both Arwain and Jianno had left at some point.

Tetha smiled at him and began the process of opening the furnace, breaking the vacuum seal. "Let's see what we've got. Lift it out."

The small round door at the top opened, and Nerim reached a hand out and attempted to grasp onto the stone with the Force. It was a slippery, faltering process which he failed at a couple of times, but eventually the Force responded to him and he felt the weight and shape of the round stone as it lifted into the air out of the hole. It was about an inch in diameter, and a deep dark green, with brilliant lighter swirls across its glassy surface. Tetha craned her head around it with an appraising glance, and then nodded.

"Looks pretty decent," she said, reaching out and grasping it. Nerim's eyes bulged.

"Whoa! Hey, that was just molten!" He cautioned.

She scrunched her nose with a smirk and tossed it between her hands. "What, still afraid of a little heat? Catch!"

She tossed it his way, and instinctively he caught it in his hand, before immediately letting go of it. The moment after he let go, he realized it wasn't actually hurting him. He attempted to grab it out of the air with his other hand, and it bounced off, leading to several attempts to grasp it before it finally landed back in his palm.

"What the...?" He tilted his head. It was very warm to the touch, but much less so than even the surface of the furnace, let alone the interior. "Why did it cool down?"

"It didn't. It's still just as hot as it was in the chamber. Viridite has an incredibly low thermal conductivity, similar to how metal always feels hotter or colder than carpet, even if they're the same temperature," she explained. "You could drop that thing in liquid nitrogen for a week and it would come out room temperature. You could keep it in for a month, and it would come out cold for a year."

"Remarkable..." He mused as he ran his fingers across the orb.

"Unfortunately, this makes them about the least useful possible thing for a core lightsaber crystal," she joked. "But it can come in handy on its own."

"At the very least, I can imagine it's nice jewelry to have in inclement weather," he nodded slowly, trying not to aggravate the burns on his palms as he held the stone between his fingers.

She frowned, and stood up, finding a small plastic bottle of light blue liquid in the cabinets. She brought it over and gestured for his hand. "I have some old pseudo-kolto that'll help with that."

He placed the viridite onto the floor between his knees and reached his hands out, letting her squirt the healing gel onto his palms. "I think I understand the lesson on pain, but I'm not sure I like it," he grumbled.

Tetha looked back up at him and gave him one of her barely-noticeable smiles. "Most lessons in the Sith will be like this."

He thought for a moment, and tilted his head. "...How much of the Sith training you underwent do you carry with you?"

She shrugged. "I'm not in the habit of dropping things, so everything, I suppose. I was always training under the impression that I would learn everything, but only selectively apply it."

"I was always taught that the Dark Side was infectious, corruptive. That once you started using it, it would consume you," he looked down at his right hand, still glistening with gel. "I've only tapped into it once, I think. It was very difficult to stop in the moment, but I haven't been particularly tempted since."

She looked down in thought. "Darth Machina taught me that the Sith believed the Dark Side was the original form of the Force. That it arises from animal impulses, such as rage, fear, desire, and so on. As such, he believed, it must have been what arose first, when the Force was developing in tandem with life. In a sense, it was like a disease, infecting creatures and driving them mad with the urge to self-preserve and self-propagate."

"I see even the Sith take a quite grim view of it," he said with some surprise.

"Sort of. You see, an unavoidable part of the nature of diseases is that, if they are too successful in parasitizing their hosts, they will burn out. A disease that quickly kills any being which catches it is doomed to wipe out its own habitat. A much superior disease is merely inconvenient. But even inconvenient diseases make themselves a target for intelligent life to wipe out."

Nerim blinked. "And the ideal form of a parasite is, eventually, a symbiote, because then intelligent life will protect it."

"Exactly," Tetha nodded. "This is how he explained the Jedi Order to me. According to him, the Light Side is the result of the Dark Side successfully disguising itself as something that ought to be protected. And, he told me, from a certain point of view it is a successful transformation from a competitor into a collaborator. It's not exactly a matter of deception, the Light Side is helpful to its hosts. The Dark Side is the remainders, the old strain, which is anemically limping along in vulnerable gene pools. This, he said, also explains why the Jedi Order is ascendant, and all Dark Sider organizations have been chased to the shadows."

"But if all this is true, why use the Dark Side? Isn't this just admitting to being on the losing side?"

She slowly shook her head. "No. You see, there are so many more options here than three. There is not just parasites, victims, and symbiotes. There are also predators, who predate on parasites. In much the same way a large whale is often surrounded by small lifeforms which live symbiotically with the whale by eating parasites which attempt to leech off of it, there are beings who can predate on the Dark Side, using it for their own benefit. There are also those who can reverse the game, becoming a parasite on the Force, which in a sense is its own titanic lifeform. And, ultimately, there is the theoretical higher lifeform, who can use their capabilities to manipulate the entire process, and liberate themselves and others from the inexorable laws of nature. The goal of the Sith is to produce this higher lifeform."

She reached to her wrist and fiddled with her own viridite bracelet, before continuing. "Ultimately, this is what he taught me about the difference between the Sith and the Jedi. The Sith view the Force as a thing which can be controlled, utilized, and in some sense used to transcend. The Dark Side is like electricity; wild and dangerous and immensely powerful, but immeasurably useful when subdued. The Light is, meanwhile, an evolutionary trap. It is good, but not as good as the Sith way, and in a game of evolution, only comparative advantage matters. And in a more messianic sense, it cannot lead to the ultimate lifeform, because they are tethered to the symbiont circle, which they can never transcend."

Nerim considered for a moment, and then when they met eyes, he spoke. "You've talked a lot about what Darth Machina thought. What do you think?"

"I think the Sith are deeply incurious about what that ultimate lifeform would do with their freedom," she replied instantly. Then she looked to the side. "Elements of it are very alluring to me, after spending my life in a soft sort of prison, living as a pre-planned person in a hole on the Outer Rim. But it didn't take long for me to realize Darth Machina was rather unconcerned with my freedom or happiness. He made that holocron because he had his own plans for anyone who found it."

She became quiet, and Nerim shifted in position out of seiza, sitting with crossed legs and holding the viridite in his hands. "What would you do with such freedom?"

"I can't honestly say. That would entail such a shift of perspective that I'm not sure I could possibly guess," she admitted. "But I know for sure there's one question that would need to be answered, which Darth Machina never gave me a satisfying answer to. Given perfect freedom, why wouldn't the ultimate lifeform choose to live in the symbiont circle? I've seen the symbiont circle from the outside. And I want in," she said firmly.

Slowly, Nerim smiled. "Sounds doable."

Tetha's steely expression broke with an exhale of amusement. "I sure hope so..." She trailed off, looking at the floor.

"I have no doubt that—"

"Nerim." She interrupted him, meeting his eyes with grave sincerity. "I don't know why you don't feel it. But I do. I do feel the corruption of the Dark Side. Almost every day, I want to tap into it. I feel like I...I can't be me without it. Everything is muted, and monochrome, and distant, and fake. Every now and then I can feel the Light, and everything gains beautiful clear sound, and vivid colors, and warm sensation. But then it goes away. And the Dark is always there, always real. I can't make the Light come to me, but I can make the Dark come to me, and it's so hard to resist."

Nerim blinked, listening in rapt attention, not even breathing so as to avoid interrupting her.

She frowned deeply, an expression of deep grief crossing over her like a shadow. "Part of why I want to learn the Force from you is to learn how you deal with it. How you deal with these monochrome moments between the Light. I wanted to know how you deal with the temptation, but you don't even feel it, do you? How?"

Nerim furrowed his brow. "What exactly is it that you're tempted to do?"

"To tap into the Dark," she said quietly.

"What exactly?" He insisted.

"To give into anger, and fear, and desire. To scream, and throw things, and run away whenever I feel like it, and live for myself and do what I want even if it's at the expense of others. I want to use my powers without ever even thinking about any rules! I want to hurt the people who hurt me and make the Galaxy cower the same way the Galaxy tries to make me cower!" She clenched her fists, her voice growing louder and more frantic as she went on. "I want to be a real person, not just window dressing that steps aside and bows and apologizes whenever I'm told!"

The Force around her grew twisted and rapid and cloudy as she spoke, and she began to hyperventilate, her face growing red and veins bulging in her forehead, before closing her eyes and slowly regaining control of her breathing. The Force became less tense, but no less cloudy. Nerim moved over to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked over to him with dull black eyes and frowned. "Why don't you feel it?" She asked.

He closed his eyes and thought. "I want to be happy, and free. But I want a particular type of happiness, and a particular type of freedom. When I say happy, I don't mean positive sensory experiences, though those are nice, or the nostalgia of looking on my past works proudly, though that is nice. It's not something that exists in the past or the present. The type of happiness I want most of all is a sort of pleasing expectation. A sense that, at some point in the future, something nice is going to happen, that everything will be okay. And when I say free, I mean both autonomy and control over myself. Not simply a lack of external restraints, but also of internal ones."

He opened his eyes, glanced over the regrettably sorrowful expression on her beautiful face, and grasped her hand in his. He continued, "To be honest, I'm not even entirely sure what the Dark Side is. Ever since I visited the Revanchist Temple, I've felt that the Force is much larger than we give it credit for. And, really, I'm not even all that interested in the answers. I just want happiness and freedom, and when I think about those things, the pain of others never seems desirable. I don't know. I feel like screaming is fine. Throwing things is okay. Living for yourself is most certainly reasonable, and I don't know that rules are exactly necessary. But every time I get close to the Dark Side, I both lose control, and my mind is filled with fear and anger. I sense no happiness or freedom down that path, and so it doesn't tempt me right now."

Tetha's frown deepened, and she looked back down at her hands. "My mind simply doesn't work that way. It does not always search for happiness. Sometimes I want to be angry more than I want to be happy."

"Me too," he admitted somberly. "That's why I ended up tapping into it on Cathar, I think."

She looked up at him in surprise. "Then what do we do?"

Nerim was still and quiet for a moment, and then shrugged sluggishly. "I don't know. I'm just a Padawan, I have no clue what I'm doing."

She smiled sadly at him, and shook her head. "We're so screwed."

 

[Cobalt60]

Huh. That's certainly one of the most unique philosphies of the force I've seen and I think it works really well for a sith perspective. I also really enjoy that it's not yet another reinterpration of yingyang duality.

 

[TFTwink]

I'm just a Padawan

Click to shrink...

Oof, still not used to it huh?

 

[TroubleFait]

Oof, still not used to it huh?

Click to shrink...

He doesn't need the Order's approval to declare he's Arwain's Padawan.

The Jedi Order might have the authority to remove this title's official recognition. But it cannot dictate to him how he sees himself.

Nerim is free, and that's why the Force loves him!

 

[Hyenanon]

Huh. That's certainly one of the most unique philosphies of the force I've seen and I think it works really well for a sith perspective. I also really enjoy that it's not yet another reinterpration of yingyang duality.

Click to shrink...

Thank you! Funnily enough, this entire chapter is heavily tinted with Taoist thought, down to a somewhat oblique reference to the vinegar tasters, which is an old facet of Chinese art meant to depict the contrasts between Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. So in a sense it's very yin-yangy lol

Oof, still not used to it huh?

Click to shrink...

oof

He doesn't need the Order's approval to declare he's Arwain's Padawan.

The Jedi Order might have the authority to remove this title's official recognition. But it cannot dictate to him how he sees himself.

Nerim is free, and that's why the Force loves him!

Click to shrink...

One of the things I plan to be exploring with this arc, but especially the next, is the strangeness that arises from the fact that the word "Jedi" refers to a religion, a private monastic group, a government entity, and colloquially just any Force User--And, as Nerim has pointed out, a culture, for those who are raised in it from infancy. The argument regarding Nerim's expulsion from the Jedi is not entirely over, in a philosophical sense. There's still a sort of debate being had

 

[shukkets]

Adorable.
Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Cobalt60]

Thank you! Funnily enough, this entire chapter is heavily tinted with Taoist thought, down to a somewhat oblique reference to the vinegar tasters, which is an old facet of Chinese art meant to depict the contrasts between Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. So in a sense it's very yin-yangy lol

Click to shrink...

Ha, I wasn't sure if that was intentional or not. I don't necessarily mind the force as a duality, it's a pretty obvious way to expand on the existant Zen/Toaist themes of the jedi order. I definitely enjoy seeing alternatives though, because the duality kind of started out being the edgy, subversive reinterpretation of the force in the expanded universe about 30 years ago and has now even effectively become canon under disney but still often is treated as fresh and subversive take when it's anything but.

 

[Grimmouse197]

Tetha's frown deepened, and she looked back down at her hands. "My mind simply doesn't work that way. It does not always search for happiness. Sometimes I want to be angry more than I want to be happy."

Click to shrink...

Anger is a beautiful Corruptive thing. I know from a person thing that keeps you coming back to it. I know from personal experience that anger is addictive. Yeah that Desire to want to be angry is a very real thing.

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 53: Being Around Her Again​

For a moment, everything was quiet, and Nerim could hear the rain beating against the roof of the ship above him, the gentle roll of thunder, and the tranquil flow of the Force. The bed beneath him was soft, clean, and pleasantly warm as the air around it was pleasantly cool. Everything felt calm and peaceful, and that peace was slowly disrupted by his mind wondering about how strange it was for things to be so peaceful.

His life had, after all, almost entirely fallen apart. He had grieved for it and worried about the future, and some part of his mind was undoubtedly still there. But right now, his soul was simply floating in place, suspended in the waters.

He clenched and unclenched his hands, feeling the slight tingle of heat still dancing across them. They had mostly healed from the geologic compressor. Despite it all, it was his first night back on the Lucky Worm, and he couldn't help but feel at home. Of course, some things were still unfamiliar. He was laying in what he had come to understand was a "proper" bed, instead of the much more spartan bunks he was accustomed to.

He had showered first, and his hair and body smelled slightly of fruits he didn't quite recognize, having used the products Tetha had bought for herself. It was enjoyable, although repeatedly odd to catch the sweet scent from himself.

Laying there in the dim light, staring at the ceiling, he almost forgot what it was like for time to pass. He was simply present.

Then, the door slid open, and the silhouette of Tetha was drawn out by the much brighter lights on in the bathroom. She was wearing a black bathrobe that clenched around her waist from the tied belt, and as she emerged, he could make out more of her features. Her hair was down completely, which he had never seen before. It was longer than he would have thought, rippling down to her waist. The robe was loose enough around her shoulders to expose her collarbone and the smooth, milky skin on her upper chest. Rather un-Jedilike thoughts—or rather, impulses—came to his mind, and he swiftly paved over them.

She reached for a switch, and very bright lights along the walls turned on, making Nerim blink at the sudden intensity. As his eyes adjusted to her preferred light level, she approached the bed, cautiously looking over him with an evaluating gaze, and then sat on the side, looking over her shoulder at him. Her face was half-hidden by the black curtains of her hair, and her expression was as implacable neutral as he had ever known. She raised an eyebrow. "You wear all that to sleep?"

He dumbly looked down at himself. All he had on was his tunic and pants. Granted, he usually slept shirtless. He looked back up to her and frowned. "Kind of?"

She laughed softly and swung her legs onto the bed, resting back on her palms and staring down at him with a small smile. "Strange."

"I don't have pyjamas," he said sheepishly.

"Neither do I."

"How do you sleep, then?" He asked with pursed lips.

"Like this," she said, gesturing to herself. "But without the robe."

He blinked, and then felt his cheeks begin to flush. "Oh," he said.

She raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise. "Oh? Of all things, that makes you bashful?"

"No!" He quickly denied. "There's nothing that strange about it. Plenty of species don't even wear clothes when they're awake," he rationalized.

"Then what's going on here?" She asked playfully, poking him on the cheek.

He honestly didn't know. Nudity had never really seemed sexual to him before, until he began imagining Tetha nude. Not that he would ever do that.

He shook his head and cleared the thoughts. "Sorry. I'm just out of it right now."

Her smile widened at that. "Really?" She asked, in a tone he curiously recognized as hopeful.

"Yes, really. It's no big deal," he said, crossing his arms over himself.

Tetha just smiled at him for a moment, and then shivered. "Brr. I need under the covers," she said. Nerim obligingly raised the blanket for her, and she slid underneath until it was under her chin, smirking at him. She writhed around for a moment, and then a moment later he noticed her bathrobe fall out the side of the bed onto the floor.

He took a breath to center himself, and then looked back at her, meeting her eyes. She stared at him, playfully, a little bashfully, and unmistakably with a tone of hopefulness. "Nerim," she spoke softly.

"Yes?"

"You remember what you said to me last night?"

He thought back. "I, uh, said a lot of things. Is this about the crystal?"

"Pff. No," she said, her nose scrunching in amusement. "Something way more important."

He thought for a few seconds, and then his face flushed brighter. "There's no way I actually said that out loud."

She giggled, and then her smile grew softer. He felt her move under the covers, and her hand slid up his chest until it emerged to cup the side of his face. "You did really mean it, right?"

Reluctantly, and with great exertion, he managed to choke it out again. "Yes. I love you, Tetha."

Her face lit up, and she scooched closer to him. "I love you too, Nerim. I've loved you since I met you. And I love how I can...relax around you. I can let my shields down, and I know you won't hurt me. I can smile, and frown, and show my emotions on my face and you won't use them against me."

He slowly smiled, and reached up to place his hand against hers, pressing it into his cheek. "That makes me happy. Thank you for trusting me."

"You trusted me first," she said, inching closer. "Now I want you to trust me a little bit more, okay?"

"Okay?" He replied, unsure.

Her hand disappeared back under the covers again, and he felt her tugging at the ties of his tunic. He froze, and his body stiffened, but he let her continue. A few moments later, she began to slip it off of him entirely. Then, as he was naked from the waist up, he felt her fingers trail across him. The shuffling had left the covers drawn down, and although he fastidiously stared up at the ceiling, he felt her eyes on him.

Then, he sensed her frown. Her hand moved to his left bicep, and her fingers gently traced his scar, a line of flesh that was darker and rougher to the touch than the rest. "What happened?" She asked softly.

"It's a lightsaber scar. When I was on Cathar, I got into a fight with another Jedi, a Human named Chey-Linn," he explained hesitantly.

"Oh. That name has come up several times," Tetha scowled. "She sounds like a bitch."

He smiled, and refrained from verbally agreeing. "She attempted to apprehend a suspected Sith, perhaps kill her. I didn't think she had the legal authority to do so. The rest…" He shrugged, looking down at his own arm.

Then, he looked to Tetha. She was lying on her stomach next to him, her shoulders and back exposed. She stared at him with an inscrutable expression. "Her? You know another Sith girl?"

He frowned. "She wasn't a Sith, she was a princess of Cathar who happened to possess some old texts that, I would argue, are not Sith related—"

"Wait," Tetha's eyes widened. "A princess?!"

"Yeah. I first met her on Raxus, a few months before I came to Utapau. Her name is Aesha."

She stared at him silently for a few moments, and then quietly asked "Am I not your first?"

"First what?" He asked, confused. Then he sensed what she meant, and his brows furrowed. "What?! No! She's just a good friend!"

"You spend a lot of time around women," Tetha pouted.

"Not in a romantic manner!" He defended himself.

"You've never looked at any of these girls with a male's eyes?"

"N—" He started to answer, before remembering his first mission with Arwain, and remote viewing Jianno's hip sway through the Force. He grimaced. "Once. I think I was still going through the last bits of puberty. It was an honest mistake!"

She scowled at him, and he pulled the covers back up over himself. "I'm not a pervert," he mumbled resentfully.

Tetha paused, and then slowly started to smirk. Something about the thought that he was a pervert seemed to have inexplicably pleased her. "I've heard the Jedi are somewhat repressive about sexuality. It must have been hard growing up with that."

"It's...not as strict as some people think," he said weakly.

"What does that mean?" She asked playfully. "Are there Jedi out there actually, y'know, doing it?"

He pursed his lips. "I mean, nothing of the sort has ever explicitly been said to me. But it's sort of implied. The original Jedi Code—it never forbids romance or sex, it merely warns against attachment. In fact it almost never forbids any actions, exactly, it only forbids states of mind. The 'rule' that a Master can only have one Padawan, for instance, does not exist in the Code. The Code merely says a Master should not split their attention too much or pick favorites. An ancient Jedi philosopher named Simikarty produced a series of extrapolations of the Code, which argued that these rules imply that Jedi should only have one Padawan at a time, and only be trained from infancy, and that they shouldn't have romantic or sexual escapades. In times when Simikarty's writings were less influential, the Jedi Order did not so strictly adhere to these rules."

Tetha listened attentively despite being in the process of trying to seduce him. He frowned.

"Sorry, I'm talking too much, aren't I?"

She laughed. "No. I'm actually kind of interested. But...How does this apply to you? Seeing as, y'know..." She trailed off.

He looked up at the ceiling. "My Master taught me that the reason why Jedi are vaguely not allowed to engage in romance is not because the moment of romance is bad. It's actually a good thing, to be in love, and to celebrate that love. Rather, the reason is because Jedi Knights are bound to a duty, to serve the Galaxy and life as a whole. This means that they must, at any time, be able to leave everything behind them. And it's...hard to thread these two things together. It's hard to be romantic with someone when there's an implicit understanding you may abandon them forever at any time, and it's hard to prioritize the Galaxy over the person you love."

"Do you still feel bound to that?" She asked, stroking his cheek.

He thought about it, which he felt caused her some amount of anxiety. Then he turned to her and smiled softly. "I think Simikarty was kind of stupid, and honestly, Fae was kind of stupid for favoring his works. As time has gone on, and in reflection on my exile, I've come to appreciate that the Jedi Code deals only in virtues and vices, as opposed to acts and duties. I can't imagine our teleological purpose as Force Users is to commit and refrain from acts, it's a fundamental attribution error. Rather, purpose can only match purpose. Ontologically, morality is—"

"Nerim, what the hell are you talking about?" She interrupted flatly.

He blushed and covered his face with his hands. "Sorry, I knew I was talking too much! I enjoyed philosophy class too much as a youngling."

She laughed. "So is sex forbidden or not?"

"Sex isn't forbidden, it's just...Not allowed," he mumbled quietly, lowering his hands.

As their eyes met, hers became half-lidded, and she inched even closer, close enough that their sides were touching. The feeling of her flesh against his sent an electric sensation up his spine, and her arm draped across his chest in a rather possessive manner. "Well, I don't live by the Jedi's stupid little rules."

He felt some sort of warm, static-y feeling extend across his body from where they touched, and raise like fog in his mind. "I-I suppose I don't either," he said shakily.

"Then...?" She looked at him with pleasing expectation.

"Then..." He repeated, beginning to raise his hand and reach towards her. He awkwardly placed it on her shoulder.

She stared at him for a moment, and then softly smiled. "This is going to be a long night."


________________________

Spoiler: A/N

There, ah, may be more. You're gonna have to donate for that though. (´= ⩊ =`)

 

[Natelord28]

Hmm good for them

 

[aedrik_doubletree]

It is always my favorite thing when high republic era Jedi are big old gigantic nerds

 

[TFTwink]

He awkwardly placed it on her shoulder. She stared at him for a moment, and then softly smiled. "This is going to be a long night."

Click to shrink...

This is when Arwain reminds them to use protection lol

This is a 'you can pick up anything you can put down' lesson isn't it?

 

[Celer]

...TBH I kind of wanted the full sex scene of them being awkward and adorable together. Still, this is great.

 

[Hyenanon]

This is when Arwain reminds them to use protection lol

This is a 'you can pick up anything you can put down' lesson isn't it?

Click to shrink...

To an extent! But, more to the point I think it's a lesson in what type of lesson to learn. In the end TFASY is more or less a coming of age story, and I think one of the hardest parts of growing up, in my experience at least, is not exactly learning lessons, but rather in being able to tell which lessons are actually good ones. Nerim's overly verbose philosophizing on normative ethics is played for laughs mostly, but there is actual meaning in it that ties into the greater theme.

...TBH I kind of wanted the full sex scene of them being awkward and adorable together. Still, this is great.

Click to shrink...

...I'm not saying it doesn't exist... But this is the SFW section of the forum! I'd been convinced to give it out to my supporters on ko-fi, but it's otherwise probably going to stay unpublished. I never even intended to publish any part of this in the first place, actually I was just fooling around experimenting with it while taking a long trip, but I later realized it kinda has some information in it that's, if not plot critical, at least important. Aside from all the thematic elements and character growth, Tetha being made aware of who Chey-Linn and Aesha are will come up later, so I chopped off all the NSFW bits and inserted it as a chapter in itself in the proper story.

 

[Selias]

It is always my favorite thing when high republic era Jedi are big old gigantic nerds

Click to shrink...

Have you ever heard of the Tragedy of Darth Plageuis the Wise?

View: https://youtu.be/sg0SmgoSMg4

 

[Hyenanon]

Have you ever heard of the Tragedy of Darth Plageuis the Wise?

View: https://youtu.be/sg0SmgoSMg4

Click to shrink...

This series is a national treasure

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 54: This Line Of Thought Will Carry Us​

"I still think we should split up at a strategic level," Jianno grumbled, barely audible over the creaking of the ship as they neared their destination in hyperspace.

"To what ends?" Nerim argued, checking over the engineering panel of the Lucky Worm.

Jianno frustratedly tapped her foot. He could feel she was somewhat annoyed she wasn't the one flying, if only so she could have something to do, and some measure of control over the situation. "So I can work on intel gathering in regards to the Hutts, while you track down the cultists."

"You know we were given a specific order of operations," Nerim frowned. "We're lucky enough that Irmat managed to get this deal working at all. First, we have to secure at least one of the Dark Siders. Then he'll be willing to send in the backup to get the Mandalorians offworld."

"And during that entire time, I could be preparing," she gripped the arms of her seat. "Gathering them together, to ensure no one gets left behind."

Arwain tutted at her. "Well, everyone is going to get left behind if we fail at the first step. We may need your help. Besides, if you spook the Hutts, they might beef up security, and Irmat might get cold feet."

"Exiting hyperspace," Tetha warned, tapping at her control panel and slowly winding down a lever. The ship snapped back into realspace, and suddenly the front of the cockpit window was taken up by a great yellow and white orb.

Boonta, despite being known as a desert planet, supported fairly heavy cloud cover. Its desertification was less due to a lack of water, and moreso due to a series of disasters and military actions that had since been reduced to vagaries of pre-Republic history, and had pulverized much of the world to dust. Almost the entirety of the planet's water naturally fell into subterranean caverns and craters, leaving the surface sandy and relatively dry, even as it rained as frequently as a grassland prairie. Colossal canyons split the continents apart, appearing from space like sunken red veins in the uranium-yellow sands.

Finding a spaceport was much easier on Boonta than on Republic worlds, as instead of a unified traffic control, each spaceport more or less maintained its own, and advertised itself loudly. Finding a reasonably priced spaceport was harder. After some browsing, Arwain pointed out a port near their intended destination, and Tetha began to take them in. They dove through the atmosphere and clouds, until finding a small pad and stamping the landing gear into it.

"Alright," Jianno sighed and stood up before the ship even stopped rocking. "Gear check, and then let's get moving."

They had all cultivated their images in order to not stick out too poorly on the quasi-Hutt Space world. Jianno had, of course, painted her armor a new set of colors and changed its insignia, to not immediately give away her clan connections and arouse suspicion. She was now a dull blue and mustard yellow, sporting a long rifle slung over her back and two pistols at her hip, among other weapons.

Arwain had donned a relatively elaborate double slit dress, which would appear somewhat notable in its richness, but was within Hutt Space fashion standards and would explain her ease of demeanor and the confident posture she always unconsciously adopted. Meanwhile, Tetha had clothed herself in a flashy Saarkanian outfit somewhat similar to her previous one, but where once was ultra-blackness was now stark white, cut up more frequently with bright orange accents, which made her appear rather like a street punk that wouldn't be out of place with an out-of-place bat, and that somewhat complimented her natural demeanor too.

They had explained to him that a disguise wasn't meant to make one look average. Average was weird, because nobody was average, the average was simply a mathematical invention based on the mean of all pedestrians one might see on the street. And on rowdy planets like Boonta, nobody wanted to be average. Rather, the disguise should serve to make one appear natural, and like they were tied up in their own little world, as opposed to trying to invade someone else's. As such, a large part of a disguise was to pick something that fit one's personality.

Nerim, of course, began to reach for his trusty old Jedi tunic first, before Arwain had slapped his hand away from it. Apparently they had told him all of this for no reason, because the three of them were insistent he wear anything other than something that a trained eye could clock as a Jedi outfit. And moreover, they seemed quite disappointed at his lack of creativity.

Like on Utapau, he once again found himself somewhat uncomfortable, wearing an outfit far more elaborate than he almost ever had in his life, even if relatively simple by more coreward standards. He itched from the fabric—not because it was rougher than his Jedi uniform, quite the opposite actually—but because of the unfamiliarity. He wore a simple orange tunic and baggy white pants that were tied at the ankles, and atop it all he wore a flat, dull green double breasted robe, which tied together at several places starting at his shoulder and down the side of his body, leaving a wide slit to allow his legs freedom of movement.

He always felt somewhat uncomfortably visible while wearing colors beyond the tans and browns he had grown up with. The outfit was tough enough to obviously be working clothes, flowing yet designed not to restrict his movement, and with enough layers to prevent too much exposure to the elements but breathable enough to allow him to sweat. All in all, he was both the farthest from his comfort zone out of all of them, and yet still the closest to being a Jedi. He also clearly looked the least wealthy and least notable, which suited him fine.

He shook out his arms to flatten the sleeves of his robe. The beads he wore on his arm clacked as he did so, like marbles tapping together. He had eventually managed to generate a good deal of Ithorian viridite, but any attempts at a lightsaber crystal in the short time they had failed miserably. Still, the stones that he had generated were pleasantly warm to the touch, and enough to cover most of his right forearm, the length looped again and again to strengthen it. The robe's sleeve on his right arm was hiked up to the elbow to show it off; he had been told that in Hutt Space, jewelry was expected no matter how impoverished you otherwise were. The asymmetrical nature of his outfit bothered his Jedi sensibilities, just as much as it was downright required by Hutt Space sensibilities.

Beneath he carried his weapons, but no lightsaber. No vibroblade either; it truly felt so unnatural to him that he thought himself better off unarmed entirely, at least he was better trained that way. He closed his eyes, tallied all his possessions, and nodded to himself. "I'm good," he said.

"All accounted for," Tetha echoed, ensuring her new lightsaber was safely tucked away.

Arwain peered over herself, and looked quite pleased with herself. "I look great, don't I?" She asked, rather pointedly to Jianno.

Jianno stared back for a moment, and then turned and left. Arwain huffed, and they began to follow. Jianno spoke back to them as she walked through the halls of the ship. "Listen, Nerim. You've never been to Hutt Space before, so I need to emphasize something to you. No one is coming to help you."

"Meaning?" He asked.

"Meaning, if you get in a fight, don't expect any intervention—at least not in your favor. If you're hurt, don't expect any medical assistance. If you're lost, don't expect any reliable directions."

"Is Hutt Space really that universally dismal?"

"Not universally," she said gruffly. "The throneworlds are much worse."

"They're better if you're a Hutt of good standing," Arwain said blithely. "The border worlds are perceived as torture even for the Hutts that rule over them. To be on a planet like Boonta or Tatooine, outside of proper Hutt Space entirely, is almost unthinkable. Only the worst outcasts end up here, or so they say."

"Why put so much effort into ruling despotically over systems you don't even plan to see thrive?" Nerim asked, already fatigued of the notion.

Jianno slammed the button to lower the loading ramp. "All Hutts are descendants of an inbred royal family notable for suffering severe congenital defects, including psychopathy, stunted intellectual development, and recessed chins."

"I think what she's trying to say," Arwain spoke as light began rushing in from around the ramp, "Is...Well...Perhaps she said it well after all."

The ramp hit the ground with an odd, plastic-y crunch in the sand, and they began to disembark. Nerim shook his head. "I just don't see how a Hutt political entity has survived for tens of thousands of years when they're such bad governors. I don't see how their worlds can be so underdeveloped and yet ruled by greed simultaneously. These are at odds. The Muuns, for instance, are stereotyped as greedy. They also developed their world and integrated with Galactic society, for the maximum profit."

"There are entire libraries of literature on how they've survived," Arwain sighed. "But the reason they can't properly integrate these territories is close to what Jianno said. They are, by in large, neurologically incapable of trust. They are forever stuck in an unconquerable prisoner's dilemma."

They stepped out into the sunlight. It was surprisingly temperate, closer to how Raxus Secundus was in the spring rainstorm, and much cooler than Cathar was in the summer sun. The air smelled of ship fuel and the sand beneath his boots was unlike anything he had touched before in some subtle way he could not place. Unlike every Republic world he had been to, the landing pads at the docks were not enclosed spaces; the spaceport simply had a large area behind it where pads were lined up in order. He wondered how they would perform security and passport checks, and then realized, they wouldn't.

Without further ado, they split up. There was no way for the four of them to stay together without seeming odd, no matter what they wore. Arwain and Jianno both went in separate directions to either side, and Tetha and Nerim continued to walk forward. He was surprised at the diversity of the crowds, comprised of hundreds of different species, many of which he had never seen in person before. The spaceport immediately lead into the outskirts of the city, where people were conducting their shopping.

Arwain was to seek answers at a local academic institution—which, surprisingly, actually existed. Jianno, supposedly, was going to be searching through various seedy bars and underworld contacts, if she hadn't gone rogue already. That left Nerim and Tetha, who were charged with the most longshot of their options.

The An'omarr Monastery was, as Arwain had described to them, one of the thousands of cults that could be found in Hutt Space, and one of the many that were descended from some unknowable progenitor cult which was known to produce many such strange monastics. The members thereof were, notably, not born Force Sensitive, or at least not in general, and yet nevertheless their practices produced strange currents in the Force.

It was, she had told them, theoretically possible for non-Sensitives to learn the Force, or at least something adjacent. It had been studied rather intensely by Jedi scholars, who found that many religious traditions and institutions among non-Sensitives would affect the ambient Force around them beyond that which was experienced with "normal" organizations. This, Arwain had told them, was debated frequently in regards to how valid the entire concept of "Force Sensitivity" may or may not have been. She in full disclosure admitted she thought it was something of an arbitrary threshold they used as shorthand for someone who could easily develop powers.

All that having been said, it was widely known among Jedi of a more outward-facing demeanor that untrained Force Sensitives often ended up seeking out religious institutions at some point or another in their lives, both due to the currents of the Force, and as their innate sensitivity gave them a predisposition to look for wider, all-encompassing existential answers, which were generally only promised by religion. Because of that, non-Force Using religious orders remained an invaluable if inconsistent source of information when attempting to track down adult Force Sensitives.

So as Tetha and Nerim trudged across the crunchy plastic sand-dusted streets, dodging between serving droids, slaves, and laborers, he attempted to keep himself orientated towards where he believed the monastery to be. Tetha walked by his side for a time, and in in front of him for a moment, and then lagged behind. He sensed a spark of frustration from her.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"Why do you think you're in charge?" She asked, annoyed.

He came to a stop. "Wha—in charge? How so?"

She pouted. "You're just walking and expecting me to follow you."

He frowned, completely puzzled. "If you want to lead us, you can."

"It's not about that, it's—Why do you just assume?" She crossed her arms.

He stared at her blankly, trying his best to comprehend what was going on. As he did so, he felt a tug on his sleeve, and turned around to see an alien. It was a Yarkora, comically tall with a bulbous camel-like face and large, expressive eyes. He was sitting down behind a stall, but even so was almost half-again Nerim's height, long enough to reach all the way out into the road. He grinned with yellowed teeth and spoke in Huttese. "You look like you're in trouble, young man! Maybe a gift would win her affections back, eh?"

Nerim blinked, and then placed a hand to his chin, browsing over the stall's wares. Tetha's back suddenly straightened and her expression became slightly embarrassed. "Hey! I'm not a debt collector, I'm not trying to extort you!"

"Hold on, this might be important," Nerim smirked, glancing over the wears and seeing if any of them caught his eye. True to form, one in particular did, a hairpin made of that dark cyan Olethra metal in the shape of a lotus flower, with what could've been a sapphire in the center, if he didn't know better. Of course, it was the type of cheap shiny imitation gem one might find in a fish tank—but even after days of agonizing over the geologic compressor, or perhaps because of it, he couldn't really tell what made one pretty and another gaudy. They both seemed pretty and gaudy to him.

"What's so important about it?" Tetha asked, uncomfortably shifting in place.

"I think stalls might be magic. Like diners," he said absently. Tetha stared at him like he was crazy. He pointed to the hairpin and spoke in Huttese. "I'll give you six for that."

The Yarkora scoffed and leaned back. "Six credits for a gem, to place on your gem? She'll think you're cheap!"

He grimaced. "Credits? Gods, no. Six wupiupi," he clarified. Wupiupi, the currency of the Hutts, was barely more than half the strength of a Republic credit. The fact that it was brought up meant he had definitely been clocked as a tourist, though.

The two of them haggled for a bit while Tetha awkwardly pretended not to notice, before sealing the deal with a handshake. Then Nerim took the hairpin, stepped in front of Tetha, and placed it in her hair. He stepped back and smiled.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked quietly, unsure if it was appropriate for her to enjoy the gift.

"It will come in handy," Nerim said confidently.

She blinked in surprise. "...It will? Have you had a vision?"

"No. I've simply decided that it will," he said. He took a moment to just enjoy the relative calm; the breeze which slightly smelled of fuel, the feeling of tiny glass beads of sand kicked up in the wind and bouncing off his calves, the variety of languages in the air around him, the cool shade of the market and the way the light from the bright yellow sky poking in through the tarp canopy and dappled over Tetha, glinting off of her new hairpin. "Now, lead the way."

 

[Simonbob]

"It will come in handy," Nerim said confidently.

She blinked in surprise. "...It will? Have you had a vision?"

"No. I've simply decided that it will," he said. He took a moment to just enjoy the relative calm; the breeze which slightly smelled of fuel, the feeling of tiny glass beads of sand kicked up in the wind and bouncing off his calves, the variety of languages in the air around him, the cool shade of the market and the way the light from the bright yellow sky poking in through the tarp canopy and dappled over Tetha, glinting off of her new hairpin. "Now, lead the way."

Click to shrink...

Ok.

I LOL'ed.

But, now that he's said it, I expect it will come in handy.