Private There's No Place Like Home

[Lief]

There was something ever so slightly off about the way in which the Shadow tilted his head, even in something of a body of his own, it didn't quite feel so natural. Truthfully, it felt like he was mimicking. Though not Eliphas, because he hadn't done that recently. Had he?​

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Second guessing himself, he tried to shrug it off.​

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Kal led him out of the ship, while assuring him there was nothing truly there he wouldn't be permitted to see. Even so getting out of their way while they worked was something the boy was keen to do, something about too many cooks in the kitchen sprung to mind. Either way, he didn't want to be in their way.​

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Something new awaited him outside the bounds of the ship, and he stared at it with quiet consideration for longer than intended. A table, chairs, food and drink. It looked like a buffet at a little kids party; a smile broke out over his lips at that thought.​

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<You did all this, for me?> the boy inquired, perking a brow. He shook his head. <You didn't need to do that,> his stomach grumbled in disagreement, but he did his best to ignore it. All the same, that simple act seemed to move him. <Hey, uh, thanks...> When was the last time someone had been so gracious in their hospitality?​

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Certainly long before Ensiss.​

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Had he ever experienced such?​

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Probably not. He picked up some sort of finger food to satiate his grouchy stomach, and sank into a seat at the table. One bite was enough to remind him of all he'd been neglecting since being abandoned on the ship the night before. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, wowsers was it all so dizzying. He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.​

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Kal ​

 

[Kal]

The Shadow smiled brightly, the expression seeming more natural - perhaps due to its closeness to the emotions that lay beneath, or perhaps he was simply better at smiles. <Think nothing of it - you are a guest, after all!>

A guest that showed up accidentally in a stolen ship, but still. Details, details.

Kal took a seat alongside Eliphas, seemingly content to watch him eat. His current body did not, after all, have taste buds. It was not the sort of thing the Shadow for which it had been made spent their time doing. Noting the Tetan's tiredness, Kal assigned a new task to a cadre of Grey Ones - clean the vessel, especially any bedrooms.

He shuddered to think of the hygienic standards employed by smugglers.

<You were lost for quite a while. Looking forward to your homecoming?>

Lief​

 

[Lief]

The boy was about ready to fall asleep where he was sitting, half eaten food in his hand; Kal kept him from such embarrassments.​

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He tried and failed to project his thoughts to the other, at this point much too drained to even really make a solid attempt at drawing upon the Force. Waiting until he had finished the bite he'd just taken, he responded this time with his actual voice.​

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"Mm" he began with a nod, thoughts of home rushing through his mind all at once. Their great and noble estate back on Empress Teta, the planetarium he'd fallen in love with as a child, the corner of his room he referred to as his art studio. Above all else though, thoughts of his family, his parents and his siblings. And of those he'd lost in his journey away from them.​

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"I expect they'll be surprised," he mumbled, leaning his head back and closing his eyes for a moment. If not for the activity in his mind, he might have been regarded as being asleep. He was not. "Can you undo a funeral?"​

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Kal ​

 

[Kal]

It seemed recent events were catching up to the Tetan; unsurprising, given that he had the chance to feel safe for the first time since this whole thing began. Adrenaline could only go so far, especially when the danger had passed.

<Easier when you're not in the ground, I imagine.> That would be an interesting message to deliver, but there was no getting around it. Unless Eliphas preferred letting them know remotely to let emotions calm a bit first, but he had been given no reason to expect that. Not that it was in any way shape or form his decision - he was hardly an expert.

His understanding of organics had grown significantly over the years, but 'family' was still an oddity.

<Actually, any specific requests for the ship, since my subordinates are 'in its guts' anyway?> The offer went further than words alone - accompanying them was the understanding that this station had few normal backup parts.

Little things were easy enough, but he should by no means expect a miracle.

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"Yeah," he said, with a subtle frown. Imagine being buried alive... Imagine that being how you undid a funeral. Someone heard you screaming down below..​

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Nope. Nope nope nope. Eliphas did not like that thought, in fact he very much wished to banish it from his mind entirely. Bad thought. Bad thought!​

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"I just hope they don't scream, you know... Like you see in the Holoflicks? 'Oh nooo, a ghoooost'... That'd be really bad huh?"​

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His parents weren't really the screaming types; maybe his dear sweet mother might faint, though. That'd be worse. Maybe he'd seek out someone else first, someone who could try and prepare them for it. Could he wait long enough for that though? No... He wasn't so sure he could. Eliphas was eager to return home, eager to see his family again. He wanted to be the one to tell them.​

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He blinked when Kal asked if he had any requests for the ship, to which the boy slowly shook his head. "Uh, so long as it still works when they're done I reckon all's well." Would it work in the end? It barely worked as is... Even so, he didn't need much.​

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Just a way to get back home. "What kind of ship is it, anyway? Never seen one like it before."​

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Of course what he could see was just a hodgepodge of other vessels grafted onto a skeleton of a ship long since ruined.​

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Kal ​

 

[Kal]

<You know, I've been told I look positively ghostly, I could give you costume advice.> Better to joke than to ponder the emotional turmoil that would likely be involved. Kal found it intriguing, but it tended to stress out organics.

The ship was an even better distraction, really. Both (emotionally) distant and impersonal.

<'Extended Reconnaissance'. A scout, really. A bit of a failure, given that returning with the information is a rather important part of exploration.> Of course, it had not been the only vessel of its class. Some had served with eminence, some had been lost (and largely recovered/destroyed), and a few still navigated the stars, observing dutifully.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Lief]

There was certainly an appeal to humour in moments such as those, where all one could do was either laugh or succumb to some sort of depressive state. The idea of the Shadow giving him tips on how to better seem like a ghost was amusing, though he shook his head despite the quiet laughter it had rose within him.​

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"A little cruel, I reckon. Maybe if they hadn't legitimately thought me dead..." Something to save for the future, perhaps, when the shock had truly waned. A practical joke... Harmless. He wasn't so sure it would be harmless if he attempted it off the bat. No doubt he'd end up with his skull caved in, and then they'd really have to bury him.​

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Thankfully Kal seemed willing to discuss the ship, and his detail of it made sense. He nodded a little. "You think the information was taken, or that whoever gutted her didn't realize what they got their hands on?"​

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It made the boy wonder what information they were even after; he knew better than to press such, though, it was none of his business. They were doing more than they had to for him in that moment, best he not sour their relationship so soon into its development.​

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If nothing else though, it had woken up him. The temptation to sleep was all but gone. That likely would bode well when he got back to the Galaxy he knew and loved, and began his journey back home.​

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However long that would take.​

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Kal ​

 

[Kal]

Kal glanced at the vessel for a long moment before answering. <Perhaps. Navigational charts, survey data, and the like might well have been extricated, but the core files were not compromised. It is how it was able to bring you here.> Had its most sensitive parts been breached, it would undoubtably have self-terminated or been disabled wholly.

Either way, his trip would have been impossible.

In theory, anyway, for no system was perfect.

<There is a faint chance it was compromised with remarkable finesse, mind you, but we will be able to preclude that possibility if it can be traced all the way back to its point of destruction, so to speak.>

Lief​

 

[Lief]

Okay, so nothing too too important had been taken then? That was good. Eliphas nodded, more or less keeping up with all that the Shadow was saying in some capacity or another. Truth be told the most pressing detail he took from it all to make sense of it was simply that if things had been too heavily tampered with insofar as data was concerned, he would not be here in this weird void at all.​

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"Good." he responded, reaching once more for a drink. It was cool and helped to keep him from falling prey to his desire to rest. Heavy eyelids did not make for particularly good company after all, and it would have been rude of him to fall asleep when his host was trying so hard to accommodate him.​

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"So... What else do you do here?" he inquired, glancing around the space curiously. He didn't expect to be told all that much, there seemed to be an air of secrecy around them, or at the very least need-to-know levels of security. Maybe he shouldn't have asked it at all, the last thing he needed was for the Shadow to start feeling suspicious of him or something. Not that Eliphas was hoping to do anything more than simply pass the time.​

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Pass the time, and not fall asleep.​

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Kal ​

 

[Kal]

Smiling mischievously, Kal nodded in the direction of the goons from earlier instead of responding immediately - or rather, the mundane looking light freighter they had boarded. He tracked it with his eyes as it lifted off and flew towards the hangar door, then gestured as it slid open to reveal the profound emptiness outside. The totality of the absence.

<The emptiness, the freedom from outside interference it provides, is ideal for research. The sensitive kind, to be specific. I am only involved in a small part of it, primarily as it pertains to Force-use.> That was the bulk of it, anyway.

There was some risky biomedical research going on, but that tended to scare guests.

Unnecessarily so, in Kal's opinion, given the stringent security protocols in place.

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"A research facility?" he retorted curiously, watching as the hangar door opened once again to reveal the vast totality of the blackened void beyond. He'd quite forgotten how horrifying it had seemed to him, how wrong it was to look out over a space devoid of stars, and a small shiver worked its way up his back.

Eliphas was grateful he wasn't going to be stuck here. He was more than grateful that the ship had brought him to a region manned by Kal and his ... employees? What were they exactly? Something akin to that, at the very least, he reckoned. He shuddered to think about what his fate might have been if it was devoid of life.

"Do you know much about it?" he inquired, tilting his head to one side as he returned his gaze to the Shadow, "The Force, I mean..." The boy was still grappling with the notion that it was something he could draw upon. What else was it capable of? What else could he do with it, if he tried hard enough? Was it something he wanted to pursue, to learn how to control, or would he rather continue to live in ignorance?

Well... Ignorance was never really his cup of tea. Still the unknown was unnerving.

Kal​

 

[Kal]

Not what the Tetan had expected, but then most research facilities did not hide behind a shroud of secrecy nor employ inhuman protectors and strange technologies to safeguard its inner workings - but most research was mundane.

This place was anything but, even by the admittedly unusual standards of the Shadows.

It was a place to study the higher mysteries, among them the Force that linked all life.

<Quite a bit. I have studied various traditions, participated in a few, and examined its inner workings through a more secular lens. Fascinating, is it not? The source of not just our power, but also a potential source of life itself. I certainly could not exist without it!> As far as your average sentient was concerned, it was a bit of a convor and egg situation.

<You probably already know a bit about it, distorted though it may be by cultural perspectives and a relative lack of objective research. The constant fighting between Lightsiders and Darksiders certainly doesn't help.>

Even his kind was not impervious to being pulled to one or the other, though it rarely causes open conflict.

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"I.. Actually don't know much" he admitted rather sheepishly, reaching for another treat from the table to satiate his grumbling stomach. "I mean obviously I know about the wars waged in its name, the Jedi, the Sith, but the Force? I don't know. It's a hard concept to grasp, I suppose. Feels more like myth or legend than reality."

That was all he'd known of it before, at least. The stories. They'd seemed almost childish and unbelievable until he'd met Starlin Rand a short while back on Alderaan. There he'd seen it used first hand. Felt it, even, as he was put under some sort of strengthening spell. And then he'd met Mathieu Brion too, and he'd healed someone using it which was all the more perplexing.

The very notion that he could one day be capable of the same?

Yeah, no, it didn't make sense to the kid.

But neither did speaking telepathically, and he'd done that today hadn't he?

"You say you've participated, but does that mean you don't actually belong to any of them?" A pause, a frown. "That's possible? To just remain yourself in spite of it? I heard they always try to, I don't know, recruit...?"

Kal

 

[Kal]

Kal nodded in understanding. To him the Force was as natural and self-evident as the pull of gravity, but he could easily see how it would seem much less tangible to the average organic. Force Sensitive or not, Eliphas was untrained.

<You are hardly alone, there are many superstitions tied to the topic. Even among those seeking understanding, there is far more guesswork than would be preferable. The Force is... difficult to define unambiguously.> That was only natural, really. The Force was unimaginably vast, connected to virtually all known life - and death to boot.

It was no wonder confusion abounded, even within Force Traditions.

<Oh yes, they tend to be quite enthusiastic - some are even forceful about it. Where I come from being unaffiliated is the norm, so to speak, but it would certainly be more difficult elsewhere. Difficult, but doable.> Eliphas might well feel the need to join some Force Cult or another, whether for tuition or for fellowship, but he should not feel forced.

Lief​

 

[Lief]

Difficult to define. Yeah that seemed to fit the bill, but all the same Eliphas was a boy of logic and reason. Though it may have once been something firmly out of reach, and thus unachievable to experiment with, and draw conclusions from, now that he knew he could tap into it... Well, that left him open to learning more. Figuring it out. Right?

But to do that, he'd need someone to show him how.

He frowned at that thought.

"I can't imagine it's an easy path to walk alone, without any guidance at all," he stated, humming under his breath, "But the last thing I want is to be roped up in some unending war that's waged millennia. What good has it done? Displaced people from their homes... Amassed piles of death. Nobody ever seems to have a solution."

He paused, then shook his head.

"I don't even know why there needs to be a solution. Why can't people just do their thing without dragging others into it? Or fighting over who understands it better?"

He realized he was going off on a tangent now, so he let out a sigh and peered back over at the vessel. Force, maybe it was simpler not knowing at all.

Kal

 

[Kal]

Kal nodded, the gesture almost mournful. The conflicts waged between the Sensitive were nothing short of tragic, made even more so by their inability to achieve a clear-cut victory. Sith and Jedi had been grinding each other to dust for untold millennia, but for what? Dead was dead, at the end of the day. No one enjoyed the spoils of victory forever.

No amount of glorious conquest would avoid or even delay the reaper's call.

Congratulations on a life of carnage, exit stage left and send in the next.

"Such a waste isn't it. Of time, and effort, and lives? I fear we won't see the end, however. I have yet to see any sort of major attempt at reconciliation and all attempts by one side to wipe out the other has failed." Individuals could work together well enough, in some cases, but the groups as a whole? They seemed determined to continue forevermore.

"It may be difficult to avoid being pulled into it, at least in some small fashion, but I would advise finding your own path. At least in a manner of speaking. Learn and cooperate, by all means, but don't become a tool of ideology."

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"Do you think they even realize why they were fighting in the first place?" he inquired, shaking his head solemnly, "Like, what started it I mean. Or is it just... This is how it's always been? They've always been our enemy?"

Those sorts of conflicts were the worst, the ones which spanned generations and ended up blurry. Blood shed for blood shed, an eye for an eye...

No. He didn't want any part in that.

Yet he knew that going back to Teta, and giving over this new found information about himself, would result in only one thing. Eliphas would be shifted toward the Jedi. It was inevitable, especially knowing who his father was.

Could he become a Jedi without succumbing to their fanatical ways?

Certainly, he'd try.

Kal

 

[Kal]

Sighing softly, Kal leaned back in his seat, an almost sorrowful look on his artificial features. "I think the reason why it all began stopped mattering a long time ago. Neither side remembers a time when the other was anything but an enemy to overcome and both have goals that put them squarely at odds with the other. It is a difficult puzzle."

He could not help but notice that Eliphas was already talking about our enemy. "I find the goals of the Jedi to be quite a bit more palatable, on average, I dare say neither side is entirely without merit - especially on the individual level."

Raising a hand, his fingers wove an intricate pattern from which illusory scenes spun forth. Armoured figures clashing, sword in hand. Blasters firing. Lives expended against each other. "This conflict has a start, surely, but there have always been those who wish to conquer and those who wish to resist them. Sometimes the rolls swap between them."

Lief​

 

[Lief]

"Well... It's stupid" he stated, going so far as to cross his arms like some pouty child. He did not, however, pout. "Both sides of the conflict. Ridiculous. I come from Empress Teta, there the Jedi are more or less revered, at least among those I knew. But it's foolish... They seem just as driven by war as the Sith at this point." The few he'd met on his travels hadn't been so bad, but that hadn't stopped the stories from trickling through all the same.

He'd heard a lot more tales since being out in the greater Galaxy than he had while isolated on his utopian planet.

As Kal formed illusions within the air, Eliphas glanced over at him and observed them curiously. The accompanying words had him nodding slowly. It would be a difficult path forward, he reckoned, he knew where he'd be expected to go, knew that the Sith would never be a path he could reasonably follow, but beyond that what choice did he have?

He needed someone to teach him. And if he knew Oskar Dune could only ever be the Jedi.

"I hope I never fall prey to their heretical nature," he stated glumly, "No matter where I end up, I hope I remain, well, Eliphas..."

Only he could make it so, though. Right?

Right.

Kal

 

[Kal]

Stupid was, while simple, largely an accurate assessment. At least as far as Kal was concerned. In his lifetime he had seen Sith and Jedi grind against each in self-destructive violence under several different banners and in varied theatres.

The commonality it all shared was the circular pointlessness of it all. One waxes, the other wanes...

... and then it repeats itself. Rapidly in his time and more slowly historically; either way, inevitable.

"It's hard to blame them. They don't remember a time before near-endless war." In fact, most of the current iterations of the Order seemed to define themselves as much by opposition to the Sith as by their own philosophy and ideals - the same went for the Sith, of course, but that had always been the case to one extent or another.

"It is always your choice, but it may not always seem that way."

Lief​