Nomi and Rhen

Nomi finds Rhen in a common space. She's carrying her instrument, a 20 stringed lute-like thing with a deep resonator. She sits near Rhen, pulling her feet up beneath her thighs and resting her instrument across her legs, but doesn't play it.

"How are you doing with all this crazy stuff that's happening?" she asks.

Rhen has been leaning against a wall, but sits down cross-legged next to Nomi. Her eyes rest on the "lute" for a time. She is silent for several heartbeats.

"I do not know. I came to Coruscant looking for new hope, trying to leave doom behind me. Instead I walked directly into it. It is enough to invite despair..." She cocks her head. "Then again, I walked out of the doom, thanks to all of you. And that is something."

Rhen looks down at the instrument again. "Are you a music-maker?"

"Well, thanks for coming with us. It's been helpful to have you along. You know, you're a free agent. You could go any time. Yet you stay and help us, so I recognize that."

She pats her instrument and it lets out a little resonant hum in response to the pressure on the strings. "Yeah. I mean, I prefer it to the mechanics jobs I did at the temple, so it's really my first interest. I'm lucky I was playing this when everything happened so I ended up taking it with me. I didn't go back to my room, after all. It's called a Dotaesivar, from Adrennia. Technically I'm supposed to have twenty fingers to play it and I have even seen some use their toes. You?" She lifts the instrument and offers it to her if she would like to try.

"I do not play, but I thank you. I would prefer to hear someone with skill." She pauses. "A free agent, you say? I wonder if that could be true. But I think not."

"And you, Nomi? How are you? Was the temple your home?"

"I can play for you sometime if you want." She nods. "I've lived in the temple the last five years. Unless I was sent out as a ship mechanic, which I did sometimes. I'm lucky, I guess. I escaped with almost everyone who means something to me." Her lower lip trembles. And she presses them together to stop it. "Everyone that is except Master Singan. I do have family on Ryloth. A big one. But I was never close to any of them except Somi. She and Lilikai are my real family." She shakes her head. "I might be in shock. It seems unreal to me." She turns her body to look at Rhen more directly. "What do you know about the Sith? Truly? It seems there are a lot of mysteries surrounding what they truly are. And who."

"Shock, yes. That is possible. Sometimes it is important to take time...and sometimes we must keep moving." Rhen frowns. "I was never good at telling the difference."

When Nomi faces her, Rhen's face hardens. "The Sith...? I do not know enough, but I know two things. They cannot be trusted, and they are powerful." Rhen looks away for a moment, then focuses on Nomi once more. "One of them was Dooku. He destroyed my people, but now you tell me that he is dead. It is...difficult to accept." Rhen's gaze sharpens, somehow. "You must understand, Nomi. Dooku was very powerful, but he was not the master. And I fear someone has replaced him. They say there are always two."

Nomi gives Rhen a confused look. "Only two?" She shakes her head and looks further confused as she shifts her gaze across the room, apparently thinking about something. "How is that possible if it is a choice of how one uses the force and not a title..." she muses aloud. "Is 'Sith' a title like 'Master' for Jedi? Are there more Force users who tend toward 'dark' uses of the Force than just two, but only two are officially called 'Sith'? I just..." She stops herself, trying to figure out how to express her thoughts. "Some months ago..." She gives an audible sigh. "Someone Lilikai called a Sith, named Maul-something, and his brother killed everyone in a settlement on a little planet named Raydonia, out on the Rim. But this was when Dooku was still around and if he and his master were the only Sith, what does that make this other Maul person? This whole light/dark thing is confusing to me, especially since I am the Force-deficient twin. I can't sense it so I only have what others tell me to go on."

"It does not mean only two. It means when you find one, there is always another, but not more. And Sith is like Jedi, a group and a philosophy. The Sith title is Darth."

Rhen pauses, then gazes steadily at Nomi. "I know of this Maul. He is a Sith, or he was a Sith. In their fashion, he took on an apprentice and then there were two again. Do you see the pattern? But Maul was not any longer Darth Sidious's apprentice. I do not think he tolerates failure." Rhen looks away, staring intently into the distance. "As for the light and the dark...I do not see this the way the Jedi or the Sith do. Their ways seem unnatural, divorced from balance. The Sith are lost to their anger, and the Jedi are removed from their world."

Rhen looks back at Nomi. "Perhaps it would be better to speak to your sister about this."

Nomi nods, understanding dawning on her face. "So there can be many master and apprentice pairs. Just as there are many master and padawan pairs -were, I guess. But they do not group themselves like Jedis in a temple. And there are no masters who do not also have an apprentice like you might sometimes find a lone Jedi." She tilts her head to the side. "I get the feeling they are... well, if they are angry and intolerant of failure and so secretive or their existence, it seems that would go in hand with a possessiveness about their abilities and a mistrust of each other. Maybe. I don't know. I haven't met any Sith."

Nomi taps the belly of her instrument producing a resonant hum in the many strings as she thinks. "I am pretty sure that Sith... Darth? Maul is still alive. Last I had heard he was. No idea where. But he's out there. And by extension, his apprentice. He's not going to bother with small fry like us though. That would be a far step from targets like Master Kenobi who he was after when he surfaced before."

She shrugs. "I could talk to Somi. I probably will. But as you said, you have a completely different perspective. I have a feeling that the 'removed from the world' thing that you mentioned is going to work against me in asking any of the temple trainees about the dark side of the force. I don't think that they are taught much about it except 'don't go there'." She closes her eyes a moment and turns her head. "Besides, I've always felt a little awkward asking about it. Maybe it's like trying to explain the color blue to someone who only sees black and white? When we were little Somi first assumed that of course I could feel it and then when she realized I had no clue what she was talking about she tried to teach me. It was very frustrating. I just leave the Force stuff to her and try and find my own things that I'm good at."

Rhen nods to Nomi. "Angry and intolerant are good descriptions. The Sith are these. I think it means their numbers will be reduced to two, sooner or later. We need not concern ourselves with this process, however. They will attend to it themselves...though it will not make our lives easier, I think.

"Ah, I understand why you are asking me about the dark side, now. Although I do not know the Force as the Sith do, perhaps I can tell you something of it. The Jedi were never friendly to us, I think because in their eyes we use the dark side sometimes. However, we are nothing like the Sith. The ones I know of, they are like creatures possessed by the need for more. They want only power, and see only enemies or pawns. They do not grow, they only take. They destroy their allies to feed their power." Rhen pauses, and seems to collect herself. "I think this is the dark side.

"Once they ruled a vast empire. If this new Empire becomes like that one...it will not be a good place to be." Rhen shakes her head. "It is only helpful to understand such an enemy so much.

"May I ask you, Nomi, what it is like having a twin? Does your physical closeness keep you together, or drive you apart? Does being different in the Force bother you?"

"Knowing your enemy can be very important. Empathizing with your enemy because of that knowingness can be dangerous. I don't think I will ever empathize with a Sith. They do not sound like someone who would invite empathy. Anyone who can order the slaughter of a temple full of ultimately peaceful Force users including children or perpetrate the massacre of a settlement full of civilians to draw out a target deserves no empathy." Nomi's face is hard, an unusual look for her. She shakes her head sadly and her expression goes back to her usual softer look. "I think that a better understanding will let me help us move through a world that is being shaped by their hand right now, that is the only reason I am trying to understand more."

When asked about her twin she smiles. "Having a twin is like being one of the stars in a binary system. She is always there, always a part of my universe and she shines so brightly, but I shine too and when we are together we shine the brightest of all.  The way that I feel about Somi is the closest I have ever come to understanding the Force, I think. It's  not so much that we look alike, though we certainly make use of and have fun with that, but that we come from the same place- can trace back to the same moment of origin." She laughs. "We don't even know which one of us was born first!"

Nomi leans back against the bench seat and plucks a few harmonic notes on the Dotaesivar. "I was jealous of her skills with the Force at first. I have been off and on over the years. But I guess at one point I realized that it's silly. It's like being jealous that Vesper has orange fur, or that Efnir has precognition, or of your brown eyes. It's not something that I can change and it's not something that I was destined to have so I should not let it bother me. I am happy for Somi that she has found a place in the Universe with the use and understanding of the Force and I..." she shrugs. "Well, I can make music and I can put the nuts and bolts of a broken speeder back together." She nods definitively.

"To move through a world shaped by their hand... That is indeed our challenge. But all I can say is, do not trust them."

On hearing Nomi's twin description, Rhen looks unusually solemn. "I envy you that closeness. It will be a great asset on the road ahead. There is strength to be found in solitude, but little joy. It is not the path that should have been..." She closes her eyes for a moment, then changes topics.

"I am pleased to hear that you are not envious of the Force aptitude in your sister. I have seen such envy destroy relationships, and for no real reason. The galaxy is very large, and there are so many possibilities. Did you know that many of my sisters can't use the Force? It is...was no barrier to being one of us. I believe the ability informed one's path, but did not control it. Although...I fear things may be different, with the Sith. I cannot predict if they will ignore those who are Force-sensitive but weak, or if they will seek to be the only who can touch it." Rhen pauses. "At least we have some manner of plan left to us from the Jedi."

"I think I would like to hear some of your music, if you would play for me."

Nomi bites her lip. "I'm very sorry about the loss of your sisters. And..." She lifts a hand off the seat, palm up, holding it out toward Rhen. "While you are incredibly intimidating and we have many differences, we can also find many things to agree on and similarities to share and I hope that being here makes you feel less alone. I know I said earlier that you are a free agent, but I didn't mean that to imply that you are not welcome or that you don't have a place here. You do. And as long as you want to stay, I want you to stay. I might even want you to stay when you no longer want to!" She laughs a little.

"I had thought all the night-sisters could use the force. Thank you for sharing that with me. I told Vic that it is not biology that makes a force user. This is another example. And I think that you are right. those with force sensitivity may have to learn to hide it well."

At Rhen's request Nomi lifts the Dotaesivar into position. "Ok, I will play you something," She starts to play a song in a minor key, something that is slightly sad, but when she looks up at Rhen she appears to change her mind and her fingers move to a different position, flying over the strings to pull forth a complicated sound that feels playful and has multiple parts weaving in and out, each part different, but obvious companions to each other. Nomi continues to play until Rhen has something else to say or takes her leave.