Private Between the Lions

[Jonyna Si]

CATHAR
Western side of Mwamba Msituni, Jedi Temple of the Old Jedi Order ​

TAG: Efret Farr

The Temple of Cathar, still being refurbished, was ready enough Jonyna felt confident sharing it with other council members. After all, with a new curator on the council, it was only right Jonyna shared all the old knowledge with her. Valery Noble did want them to copy over all these anyways, so...

She sat on the new starpad, newly installed just a month ago to give jedi arriving a chance to fly in without having to climb the mile high cliff face that led up to the temple, waterfall included. The new curator was someone she had only really encountered a few times now. Supposedly she was deaf? That could cause issues, if not for Jonyna's only skill in picking up languages. Despite her lack of skill in reading, Jonyna had always been a quick study in learning the languages around her. The last few days, she had been following along a datacron of sign language, trying to learn the basics. She had gotten to the point where she could at least hold a conversation, she hoped.

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret made a note to herself to rappel over the cliffside later for fun. Plus, maybe hanging over a rainforest canopy was just the thing she needed to gain some much-needed clarity.

Yeah, she'd get her climbing gear out of the cargo compartment of her loaner X-wing after her meeting with Jonyna.

Her astromech, Tewy, zoomed them through atmosphere towards the old Temple. Once they were above the starpad, the droid lowered the fighter's landing gear and gently brought them down. The fuselage settled down over the tripod legs slightly and then rebounded in response to touching down. Soon after, the glass canopy began to swing upwards into the sky.

Nirrah was the first out, taking to the sky to stretch her wings after the confining spaceflight.

Efret was next, pushing herself out of her seat, maneuvering to the side, and sliding down the hull to the ground. As she turned to face her fellow councilmember, the X-wing's sunbonnet began to close, and Nirrah alighted on Efret's right shoulder. "Jonyna." As Efret signed, a green grid of light projecting from a clip on her tunic's lapel scanned over her hands. A femininely programmed voice also emitted from the device, verbally interpreting her signs. "Thank you for inviting me here. I'm honored to see your homeworld and excited to get to work."

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

Jonyna took a moment to look at her hands, before signing back.

<No problem. we go climbing later?> She gave an innocent smile, <Can you read lips, or signing better?>

Her understanding of sign language was still a bit crude, but she thought the effort would put a good foot forward.

 

[Efret Farr]

"Yes, I lipread well one-on-one," she, or rather her interpretation unit, said. "Thank you for learning for my sake if you did." She bowed her head, truly appreciative when anyone went to the effort. "But speech is fine if you prefer it." In her experience, it did make collaboration easier more often than not.

She returned Jonyna's smile with an excited one of her own like a padawan barely able to contain herself. "What's first?"

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

Oh thank goodness. She had only learned enough to say basic words, even if she was able to string them together into small sentences. She didn't wanna sound like a dunce in front of her new co-council.

"First we go to the library." Jonyna nodded, leading them inside. The lobby was a massive space, an open window carved in the shape of the old jedi order symbol, shining a light in said shape down on the foyer below. To the right they went, into a hallway that led them finally, to a large room.

A library. With books. Thirty untouched shelves of tomes older than basically anyone alive now in the order.

Jonyna paused, her eyes idly scrolling as she walked up to a shelf. "Where do you want to start? I don't think these are categorized since...well, some of these aren't even in standard basic."

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret walked on a bit ahead of Jonyna so that she could still see her lips. The archeologist smiled. "That's not a problem. I can read many languages." The ones she didn't know she could pick up so well she was almost fluent, or could at least understand the text she was handling, very quickly.

"You want them digitized, right?" she asked, wanting to be certain of Jonyna's wishes. "I suppose we should just start and categorize as we go. By topic and author is my recommendation.

"I would also suggest that we pile up the tomes on the floor. We can reorganize them on the shelves as we finish entering them each into the system. That way, the physical copies get orderly too."

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

"That's the idea, yeah. Put all this stuff in the archives, so we can study it."

The Cathar paused, looking to the shelves. "Well...I guess we'll just start by picking a book yeah?" She paused, looking to a random shelf and picking a tome off the shelf with telekinesis. She wanted to prevent actually touching it, as the volumes themselves were very old, and very delicate. "First edition copy of the jedi star-charts, by Master Wan Cho..." She paused, idly flipping through the pages. "Sylvar, some of these stars don't even exist anymore...weird..." She paused, looking to Efret. "Right, sorry, can't read all of these."

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret followed Jonyna's lead, using telekinesis to pick up the nearest book. Just as well to start there.

"We'll be able to read as we digitize," she suggested, knowing that the engagement they would be doing probably wouldn't be much for personal entertainment or education. Still, they were bound to learn some of the content. "How do you want to chunk work? An hour and a half, then a break, perhaps?"

As she finished signing, she walked towards a nearby table on which they could begin their task.

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

"Sounds like a decent plan." Jonyna smiled back. "So...tell me about yourself." Jonyna offered, pulling book after book off the shelf. "Would be nice to get to know my fellow Council Members, ya know? I haven't really had a chance to have friends since I came out of the ice.."

 

[Efret Farr]

"About myself?" From her new position, and after setting down the volume she would work through first, she began to help Jonyna clear the shelves telepathically.

Efret had seen what her colleague had said just fine but defaulted to repeating it rhetorically anyway to give herself a moment more to think. She had a generic introduction on the tip of her tongue, something she had prepared and memorized long ago to tell locals of all the places that her fieldwork took her who she was. However, it didn't seem fitting to recount the same old mental script to a fellow Jedi. "Well, I'm an archeologist," she began, perhaps predictably. "My area of preferred research is prehistoric Force use throughout the galaxy, particularly how it first developed in human, near-human, and humanoid species." She shrugged. "There hasn't been much done, plus I myself haven't had occasion to study it as much as I would like but the current evidence and ideas are fascinating nonetheless."

The fact of the matter was that there were more practical facets of Efret's job that were prioritized over her preferred research niche. Recovering more recent Jedi history, as well as furthering their understanding of other modern and lost cultures of the galaxy, was more important than tracing a phenomenon through time immemorial. While Force use in sentients other than midichlorians was foundational to intergalactic history, the understanding of its exact origins likely mattered very little. Would it change the past, the present, or the future? Probably not, but it would satisfy Efret to unravel even part of the knot anyway.

Thinking about the last bit of progress she made in this vein took her back to Jakku. What she and Elias had found there was waiting for her to properly catalog it in the enclave vaults on Bogano.

For a moment, she appeared troubled, but then a new smile broke like the sun from unexpected cloud cover over her face. "I'd like to be friends, Jonyna. Will you tell me something about you?"

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

"Me? Oh Sylvar, where to start?"

Where to start?

"Well...my past aside, I don't have much left outside of the Order now. It's nice to get out, go dancing, eat a good meal, but...My company is thriving at least. Si Tech, biggest arms manufacturer in the Alliance, presently. It's not a role I ever expected myself to take, to be honest. Kinda...stumbled head first into a fortune. A friend of mine from...before I went into the ice, he had this little account made for our crew. We were this tiny rebel cell, just 8 people crammed into a ship. But, Kraden was the money guy. He made that account, put credits away for us to use when we needed stuff, and...then we got frozen for 900 years. Nine centuries of interest later..."

She made a hand gesture, letting Efret fill in the blank there.

"It's funny, my species doesn't really have a...concept of money. Of wealth. Tribes use the barter system mostly, and more often than not, it's just good will that keeps city-trees going. When your neighbors ask for help, it's kinda expected that you do. The tribe looks after each other. If their airspeeder breaks down, and you know how to fix it, you do. It's as simple as that. So....to find myself rich, it's...strange. All I could think of to do was to give back. And while making weapons might not sound like the best way to do it, I thought back to my Rebel days. Of how much help it would've been against the Empire to have an AT-AT of our own."

Jonyna let out a sigh, looking to the next book. "I've been trying to find a boyfriend recently....or girlfriend. I'm not picky." She snickered. "It's rough. Trying to find someone who can see all your flawsa and look past them. Had one a while back, but...he disappeared..." Her frown quickly shifted as Jonyna pushed that to the back of her mind, forcing herself to smile as she looked to her fellow jedi. "What about you? You fancy anyone? Any horror stories? I'm always starving to help the love sick."

 

[Efret Farr]

"It's funny, my species doesn't really have a...concept of money. Of wealth. Tribes use the barter system mostly, and more often than not, it's just good will that keeps city-trees going. When your neighbors ask for help, it's kinda expected that you do. The tribe looks after each other. If their airspeeder breaks down, and you know how to fix it, you do. . . ."

"Ah, an economy of gift-giving and -receiving, and a culture of care," mused Efret. It was getting increasingly rare to find all of those qualities alive and well in one culture as more and more planets and people were infected with the indifference of corporations and their credits. "I don't know you well, so please forgive me if I speak too presumptively, but I dare to assert you've always been rich." The archeologist spoke from her experience with cultures that were similar to the cathar in regards to the ways they handled their non-financial economy. "All that has changed is your cultural context, and thus the definition of what currency is. It must be jarring." Then and, perhaps, even still. "I'm sorry that the galaxy demands more change of some of us than others."

"What about you? You fancy anyone? Any horror stories? I'm always starving to help the love sick."

That question caught Efret off-guard even though it shouldn't have. After her recent meeting with Valery Noble on Bogano, Efret knew better than she had before what was at stake and what she had to do to improve her situation with Elias, but the anticipation of that interaction still began to freeze her blood. "Yes," she began after a beat, then continued on quickly when she realized two questions had been asked of her. "I do fancy someone, but I haven't been acting like it. He's pulling away and I don't blame him." Would Jonyna be able to guess who he was? Maybe. The tension between them on the Prosperity hadn't felt subtle. Surely someone else had noticed that too.

She shook her head, letting go of disappointment in herself. "I ask the Force every day for a chance to fix my mistake."

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

"Oh? If you need a wing-woman, I'm always free. You got your charms, and I dunno, I can help you out. Know a fashion designer who could make you a really pretty dress, we could do up your makeup..." Jonyna rubbed her chin. "Oh! I could do up your hair! I'm good with that."

Jonyna didn't really ever have a chance to play 'dress up' in her younger days. The only other female on their ship back in the day was Zash, who had...well, an interesting complexation. That being, none at all due to a starfighter accident.

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret bowed her head in gratefulness but also a bit of embarrassment. "Thank you. Help with my hair would be fantastic." Jonyna might not have meant it literally, but Efret would like to wear her hair up again. Since Jedha, she had only done her own hair in a loose, low braid. Though the wound at the back of her head had healed up completely by now, she was hesitant to put her locks in any sort of updo.

"I was thinking about wearing something I already have and I don't wear much makeup, but I did want to have some henna. It's a plant that, when turned into a paste, can be used to temporarily stain the skin," she explained. "From Lorrd. I'm Lorrdian. If you'd like, I can teach you some of the traditional designs, and you can help me decorate my hands and maybe my shoulders."

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

"Oooo, I'm always up for learning about new cultural stuff! Hmmm..." She tilted her head, now entirely focused on getting Efret prettied up. "Maybe I could braid your hair up. What'da think? I got a couple options."

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret smiled. "That sounds lovely. I don't know when I'll see him next. I don't even know where he is now." She glanced down at the the table in front of her, then looked back at Jonyna. "I could give you a call when I find out.

"But for now—" There were only two tomes left on the shelf. Efret took one telepathically and floated it over to where she stood, setting it down gently on the table and opening it to the first page. "—I'd like to focus my thoughts elsewhere, if it's all the same to you. I realize in part now why the Old Order forbid romantic attachments. They can easily cloud the mind."

Efret pulled out a chair and sat down. She hovered a finger over the book as she scanned the tile page for the author's name. "Master Khudy Tanin," she read. The pages began to flip for her to look over the many full-spread pictures and read some of their captions. "Oh my, wow. It looks like she sketched local stories of heroes carved into tree-homes across all of Cathar." She glanced up to Jonyna again. "Do you remember any such carvings from where you lived when you were growing up?"

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

"Oh, all over the place. Every City-Tree has some carvings on them. Mine has me already carved on it once." Jonyna smiled. "I can show you someday. They're scattered all over the planet."

She always thought that rule was stupid, but she understood that Efret wanted to move on. Romance was not something everyone wanted to dwell on.

 

[Efret Farr]

Oh, but Efret did want to dwell. That was the problem.

She had had a crush on Elias since their dig on Jakku. Her feelings grew first on Kytrand and then Bogano. Her stay on the swampy planet hadn't just been a warm and welcoming healing retreat but an unexpected, almost romantic rendezvous. She had decided to leave for Coruscant a few days before the invasion because of that, but it didn't mean the unspoken undertone of their dynamic was uncomfortable or undesirable to her.

On the contrary.

She was so comfortable with him, and desired him as much as she knew now he did her, but, when the Dark visons that had plagued her life nearly every day since, she couldn't bear to share even more pain with him. So she went away to try and fix herself by herself, but she hadn't been able to fix anything. She was only grinning and bearing. At least it wasn't getting worse.

What she hadn't taken into account was how he might interpret what she did, and how that in and of itself would inflict pain.

Every word of the letter he had written her with that pain fresh in his heart had burned themselves into hers:

Dearest Efret,

If this note finds you, then know that I have already left Bogano. The Force has called me to the Mid-Rim, and I fear that ignoring this call for something that was never meant to be is not a risk I am willing to take. I waited for you as long as I could, perhaps presumptuously, but still with hope that you would return. I am pleased that you sought out the enclave for healing, grateful that you entrusted us with your care, but I naively believed that you came to Bogano for more than simple medicine. That misinterpretation is my burden to bear, not yours.

We are kindred Jedi, and that is all we are meant to be.

Your friend always,

Elias

She wanted to spend every waking moment thinking of what to do and what to say to him when she saw him next, but she couldn't let herself obsess, not now. The Force would guide her in that moment on how to act if they were meant to be in each other's lives as more than fellow councilmembers.

"I'd like that too," she told Jonyna. "Carvings are my favorite types of artifacts, though calling them that feels strange when they belong to living cultures. There's one in a cave on Shili. It's a mix of a carving and a mosaic. Bits of shell and teeth are stuck into the carved grooves. It depicts a Togruti mythological story involving the spiritual significant of the convor."

Jonyna Si​

 

[Jonyna Si]

TAG: Efret Farr

Jonyna smiled, offering her own history. "There's one on my home-tree, a mosaic much older than even me. The first carving my people ever did. It's a sort of...spiritual painting, representing rebirth. My people, when the Mandos came, only a couple thousand of us made it to the safety of the jungle. When Ran Dom Kuun was planted, it allowed us to begin again. The mosaic depicts this beautiful Je'ka rising from the ashes, covered in Cathar stripes like my own. I'd love to show it to you someday."

 

[Efret Farr]

Efret smiled and bowed her head. "It sounds beautiful. I'd love to see it."

She then worked in relatively silence for about thirty minutes, only mentioning the authors and topics of the tomes she worked on or asking for Jonyna's so that she could update the master list that she was compiling. At the end of the work session, Efret closed the most recent book she had finished digitizing. "Care for a break?" She was getting a little hungry herself.

Jonyna Si​