OBJECTIVE: Discussions of Wild Force
Elias' signing caught Nirrah's attention, but, when she looked towards him, Efret saw him through their shared vision too. The master's own eyes widened slightly through she wasn't looking through them—it was habit—but then she smiled sweetly. She wasn't surprised to see him of course; she knew he'd be here. Instead, she was surprised by the enthusiasm with which he greeted her. It was a rather stark contrast with the memory of the letter he had left for her on Bogano, which of course spoke of no hard feelings but they lay between the lines anyway.
It also struck her how much she had missed not just the idea of him but his actual being. It soothed her to know that even if so much had happened to change their separate and shared worlds in the time they had been apart he remained the same man: one standing in resistance of the tides of galactic politics.
"
Thank you for your invitation," she said as she joined him on his righthand side. "
It's good to see you, Elias." Every muscle in her body held itself with sincerity and warmness. She hoped he would recognize the kinetic communication. "
I'm going to set up a holocall with an—" As she prepared to sign 'colleague', she thought at the last moment to add another before. "
—archeological colleague who is going to interpret this meeting for me. Please get my attention if someone says anything before I finish." One phrase in his letter made her hope that by qualifying the colleague to which she referred, he wouldn't feel himself put into a box.
She did want them to become more than just kindred Jedi after all.
She turned to Tewy, who had rolled up to her right side, and reached down to press a button near his holoprojector. A triangular blue beam reached up not even a foot into the air, tapering out in shape and fading in color as it gained in height. "
Please call Sodus," she requested the astromech.
He complied silently though a yellow indicator light flashed on his function ports so that she could see he had heard her and was doing what she asked.
The holographic feed also began to pulse through an ombré of blues until someone picked up the hail and the light coalesced into a male Chiss figure. He greeted her with a wave and <
How flight?>, but before she could answer, he began to sign for those gathered as some began to speak. Because she was watching Sodus rather than the room, she didn't know that Elias had spoken.
Yes, there were many ways to commune with the Force, and even a few of taping into It's Darkness to serve the Light. Efret found such traditions ironic and couldn't help but remain slightly dubious of their teachings themselves, but whenever she encountered practitioners of those ways her instinctive wariness was put to bed. Those she had met were very good people after all, and she was very grateful for every opportunity to reflect upon the biases internalized in her from all her years training and working as a Jedi.
She wondered how many different Force cultures were practiced in the Outer Rim. The class she had recently attended during her last trip back to Coruscant came to mind.
Dreidi Xeraic
had taught about the Dathomiri Witches. Here was too far to encounter any of their clans, but perhaps a far-removed or unrelated coven or two practiced similar magicks somewhere in these sectors. "
Whatever your approach to recruitment, it should be culturally sensitive," she suggested. The voice that spoke the interpretation of the signs she made in Galactic Basic Sign Language was not her own—she was effectively often, though not functionally, mute—but a computerized feminine voice one that played from a small vocabulator clipped to her tunic. "
This coalition will surely face the tribulations of its predecessor." She glanced to Elias at her side, who had recounted them, before averting her attention back to the gathered group. "
Its tolerance of not these injustices and agents of evil but the various ways the Force can be used to protect and nurture is inspiring. I would proudly assist the Forcers of the Rim in any way I can.
"
I currently serve on the NJO council," she added, though, like Elias, it was an admission rather than an insistence. Her vocoder didn't produce tones, but her expression betrayed some of her mounting disillusion. "
I am stationed nearby to oversee the recovery of Sith artifacts from worlds along our new front, but I don't know how long I'll remain...before returning to the Core." She made the addition quickly after realizing that she might be accidently insinuating that she meant to resign from her councilmember position.
She didn't mean that, right?
Maybe not.
Maybe.
She drew a shaky breath as she fell into stillness and turned to Sodus in expectation.
