Nomi and Somi 4

Nomi waits a little while after the group breaks up and goes their own way within the Temple, long enough perhaps that she has had time to get her own thoughts under control. She has avoided Somi a bit since the confrontation about Iscandar. Somi may have noticed that Nomi had been spending a little less time with anyone in private conversation since that point in time. She had been busy with the ship, sure, but her free time had been spent either in the cockpit or in the common areas where there were many people present. It seems Nomi has now gone out of her way to find Somi when the two of them will be alone.

"Hi." She opens, accompanying the words with the Lekku wish for peace conveying familial love. "I feel as though perhaps there is a rift between us still that opened up back on Hapes and I hadn't noticed it. Is that the case or did it appear some time later and I was blind to that moment, as well?"

Somi's plan is to spend a few hours meditating. She honestly feels ambivalent about Lilikai, at least for the subject of their former Padawan/Master relationship. Would it be nice if she could be redeemed? Of course. However, Somi is also realistic enough to realize that if that plan had any chance of working, it will have to come from someone that Lilikai actually cares about - her sister.

She has just found a good spot and is starting to settle herself on the ground, lightsabers at her side, when Nomi approaches her.

"It's there. I'm not sure when it appeared, but I could make some guesses as to what widened it."

Nomi gestures at the floor opposite Somi, looking for permission to sit. She takes up the space leaving a few inches between their crossed knees. It's apparent to Somi that someone has taught Nomi the Jedi specific positioning for meditation, perhaps Efnir. "I would like to hear your opinions on that," she says and then she is quiet, just waiting.

Somi inhales and exhales slowly, turning her moment of thinking into a small meditative moment. "Honestly?"

Nomi doesn't hesitate to respond. "Yep. Don't hold back. Just tell me," she answers while looking her sister straight in the eye.

Somi keeps her quasi-meditative pose as she responds. "It feels as if lately you've taken statements of concern as judgements or indictments of your choices, whether judgement was intended or not."

Nomi's lekku twitch in acknowledgement of Somi's statement. "Are you referring to the concern that I was the killer of Seth Iscandar? In that case, yes, I did feel that that was a judgement or an indictment. Were there other instances of this?" With her hands resting on her knees, one of her fingers begins to tap and she stills it, consciously relaxing the muscles to their natural curve.

"Not exactly." Somi sighs, but it's more of a release than a sound of frustration. "But that's an example of the misunderstanding."

"My concern is that you're putting more responsibility on yourself than you should. That's hard on anyone. But it's different now that you're more connected to the force. You have the ability to tap into something that lets you change things."

Nomi nibbles the inside of her lip. "I can see where you are coming from. I know you don't want me to have stress. And it's hard. Not having the same grounding and training in maintaining peace through the turmoil of the day to day as people who are Jedi trained adds to that stress. But... Now that I am connected to the Force, now that I have greater ability to change things via the manipulation of the Force, I think it's my duty to take on responsibility. Not so that I have power or because I can't stand other people controlling things. I can see the fallacy in that and I can see the Dark side in that. But, since I can do things that others can't, since I have gained that, I see it as my duty to do something with it, to influence the galaxy toward good, even if it's on a small scale of one life, but also on bigger scales as well."

Somi shakes her head slightly. "It's not stress. It's wonderful that you want to take on responsibility - make the universe a better place. You collect people who need protecting."

She pauses for a second, trying to figure out how to best explain herself. "I had a teacher who once put it like this: 'you can't stop the rain from falling on a flood.' I thought that was so silly. Of course it's going to rain where it floods. That's probably why it flooded in the first place - too much rain." A small smile plays over her mouth as she thinks back on less chaotic times for a moment. "I understand what she was saying now. That there will be things that even with the best of intentions, with the greatest of efforts, you will likely fail. Yeah, you could be good at moving things with the force and force the rain upwards, but doing that without drawing on the darkside would be nigh impossible. And once you've felt the power that comes from that, it becomes harder and harder not to pull from it. It came from a good place, but ultimately your intentions would be perverted. I worry that your intentions are outstripping your ability to find where the point is that you let go and accept that you've failed. It's hard to find that balance sometimes between needing to try harder and accepting that you've hit your limitations."

Nomi's lips press together and her eye lids droop as she examines what her sister has said interiorly. Nomi is silent for long enough that Somi wonders if she is even going to answer. Finally, Nomi's Lekku twitch to show the beginning of a question as her eyes open all the way and she looks Somi straight on. "And is there an area of life or pursuit that you feel I should start recognizing my failure or limitations and stop trying?"

Somi had waited so long for an answer that she assumed her sister was meditating and had started settling herself mentally into a meditation space as well, so the sudden question took a moment to register. Accepting the disruption, she opens her eyes and returns her sister's gaze, but without intensity. "Again, you assume judgement where none is meant. I'm trying to give you a warning about something you will likely face someday, so that you can be ready for that moment on the precipice. That you again jump to defensiveness worries me greatly."

Her gaze softens even more to halfway between sereneness and sorrow. "I think there are places where there's more danger. I'm not Efnir. I don't see what might come. But I see people, and I see anger where there wasn't anger before, even when we went through so much to survive."

Nomi sighs. "I was simply asking if you were giving me this advice because you felt I had reached this point or if it was philosophical advice only."

"To me, it feels, somehow, like we are at odds more often than not when it comes to me having the ability to connect to the Force. You didn't even really want to talk about it after it happened. And by the things that you say or the advice that you give - constant warnings about taking on too much or the temptation of the dark - it is starting to come across as though you feel I am in imminent danger of falling to the Dark side. Which, I suppose, is a feeling of judgement, yes. I am just trying to understand your viewpoint so I can understand if you actually feel this way, and why. And if not, then I can dismiss this feeling, too."

"Philosophical advice only. Imminent danger is a bit of an overstatement. But I see flashes of you behaving in ways that I would never have expected you to, and it makes me worry. As does your occasional contact with Lilikai. I'd rather be a little overcautious now, while you're still learning what you can do than ignore something I shouldn't have and see you..."

She trails off, before continuing. "You know you're the apprentice she always wanted, right?"

Nomi shrugs. "In the past months we have been in situations we've never expected to be in. You've also acted differently than I would have expected. If you want to see my conversation with Lilikai, you are welcome to. Anyone can. I said as much when I told the group I wanted to do this. And if I had something to hide about it, I wouldn't have told about it. You were right, you know. When you first had contact with her and when I convinced you we shouldn't try and go back for her. We should have. We should have done something to get her out of there."

Nomi looks sad as Somi's declaration. "I have heard you say that. I can't say that I agree."

“Maybe I’m more sensitive to the dangers, because it was so ingrained in our training. And then, to see my Master succumb to to it - how could I not be seeing possible flags? If I knew you were spending time training, it would be something else.”

She thinks about it, before continuing. “If Lilikai really wanted to be in touch with me, she could have done so at any time. She could have made her own drop with me. This is why I think she is no longer interested in me. Which is fine. My goals have nothing to do with spy craft.”

Nomi barks a laugh. "I do spend time training. You think my grasp of the Force and what control I do have has just sprung up from nowhere with no work and I am suddenly an 'amazing' talent without trying? No wonder you feel any sort of resentment if you think that I'm not working on it. On top of everything else, I try to work on 'training' every day for as long as I can. I don't have anyone to teach me, but I can use the basics Efnir has given me to work on my discipline and connection and to develop the skills I do have. I'm not Lilikai, Somi. No more than you are. She trained us both and she taught us different things. She no more taught me the Force or use of a lightsaber than you about spy craft."

"As to her not contacting you, I may be partly at fault. When she first asked about you and told me to tell you she was sorry, you said you didn't want to hear or know anything about her and didn't want me to tell her anything about you. So I didn't pass her message and I told her that I couldn't talk about you and that she'd broken things between you. Even if she'd wanted to set up a drop, how would she have told you what and where to access it except through me and I'd already told her no? I suppose she could have tried again, but with you closing down your walls and no longer seeking her in the Force would the method she used to communicate to you have even worked? If I had known you wanted her to reach out I wouldn't have been so final."

Somi closes her eyes again and is silent for a few moments. "Does this serve as a sufficient example as to why there's a rift between us? You ask me what I think and feel, saying you want me to be honest, then, once I decide to give you the benefit of the doubt and am honest, tell me that I'm wrong, because of information I would have no way of knowing, since you don't share that information. Then, you assign feelings to me without asking me if that's what I'm truly feeling." Though the words be read as having an angry tone, Somi uses a very matter of fact voice.

She settles back down into the meditation pose that Nomi first found her in. "I would love to have this conversation when it's able to be an actual conversation. I'm not really in the mood for an argument."

Somi pauses, then continues. "If you're interested in what I view as training and how I organize my mind and get in touch with my true feelings, you're welcome to join me."

She then starts her beginning steps of meditation.

"I'm not trying to argue with you. How can I give you the information you don't know without telling you the information you don't know? I was trying to say that I realized I was in the wrong for not passing on her message." Nomi has a tinge of frustration in her voice.

"I feel like you're not even giving me a chance, Somi! You just keep lecturing at me. Please! I don't want to meditate with you. I want you to talk to me." Nomi waits to see what Somi will do, or if she just continues to sink further into her meditation.

Somi is at a loss for what to do. The more that she tries to explain herself, the less it feels like Nomi is actually listening to her. It is like the conversation with Nomi and Lilikai all over again, where it felt to Somi as if her feelings, whether justified or not, were not really what Nomi wanted to hear. Was she supposed to lie and tell Nomi that yes, everything is fine? From Somi's perspective, it was starting to feel that Nomi didn't actually want to hear the truth of what Somi felt - that she just wanted validation.

Rifts were wide. Some rifts were good. She honestly believed that the rift between herself and Lilikai was good and healthy. After training completes, you're supposed to separate away from your mentor. The truth of Lilikai right now was complicated. And two opposing things can be still be true - complicated, but true. The last time she saw her former mentor she had used a familiar pattern, but it had been with unusual force. It could be simultaneously true that Lilikai went over with the intention of serving as a double agent, which would require embracing the dark side, and that the dark side is poisoning her good intentions, which could lead to the results of their last interaction.

But what about the rift between herself and Nomi?

Her thought process continues on, unaware of the elapse of time. She is vaguely aware of a voice, but she is used to filtering out noises on the ship. Her invitation for Nomi to join her had been her attempt at throwing a rope over the divide. She is curious to see if her sister will actually take it.

Nomi stares in disbelief as Somi enters her meditative trance, to Nomi it feels like her sister just hung up the holocontact, shutting her out completely. She feels the tears begin to gather in her eyes and she blinks furiously to get them to go away.

That was not how she had wanted the conversation to go. How had she gotten so at odds with her sister that it felt like her sister only judged her and her sister felt like all Nomi could do was contradict everything being said?

She sits there, watching her sister serenely meditate as though Nomi's family isn't falling apart, or perhaps Somi has already recognized it and come to terms with it. Nomi does not attempt to enter the meditation herself.

When Somi finally returns to the physical she finds a note.

"I'm sorry. Please, let's try again, later. I love you." It's signed "N" with a drawing of a flower.