Solna knew Rassi wasn’t an idiot. Rassi was, in point of fact, brilliant. That was why it was so incredibly maddening that Rassi couldn’t see how wrong she was.

“I’m not wrong you know,” Rassi said, which wasn’t a sign that she was reading Solna’s thoughts. Solna knew that her sinful shield was still firmly in place.

She also knew that the shield wasn’t really sinful.

Accepting that fact was more difficult of course. Her head could see the logic of Rassi’s argument. Her heart though was still poisoned by, basically, her entire life up a few hours until earlier. 

The shield wasn’t the most bitter pill she had to swallow though. 

Reflecting on the past, a part of her knew that Nix had been right.

She was the one at fault for where Rassi had ended up.

Solna had never knowingly corrupted the Xah. She hadn’t reached out with her will and demanded that the future change to suit her desires. She hadn’t bent anyone’s will to her own, or pushed aside the gross physical laws of the galaxy in order to move pieces of it where she wanted them to be.

But she had wished, silently and often, that Rassi, or more accurately Rassi and herself would find a place where they belonged.

She hadn’t moved the Xah, but her heartfelt yearning had been heard and answered through the most subtle of nudges, bending the fates of Nix, the ghosts, Rassi, herself, and probably the entire Silent Enclave to where a meeting was more than likely and the outcome they’d arrived at essentially inevitable.

Or it had been subtle right up until they reached the precipice of change, after which Goldie had blown up a building and they’d fled across the stars which was sort of the opposite of subtlety.

That alone would have gotten her expunged, even if she’d been able to remain perfectly faithful to the beliefs she’d been raised with.

Beliefs she still felt herself clinging to.

It wasn’t right to change the fates of others.

It could only be a sin to impose your will against the natural flow which life chose to follow.

To a part of her, a large part still, that had to be true. 

Silence in the Xah was wise. It was good. It was safe.

But it hadn’t been for Rassi’s parents.

And even all of Solna’s training hadn’t given her the skills to be quiet enough.

It felt like everything in her was crumbling down, basalt granite foundation loosing all cohesion as the world she knew turned to drifting sand.

But against all of that, there was Rassi.

Rassi who had always been too big, too loud, too easy of a target for everyone who wanted to take out their frustrations. Rassi who’d been hurt time and again, and who had crawled inside herself and become so silent that even Solna sometimes couldn’t find her. Rassi who’d let Solna in and trusted her and believed in her, even when Solna hadn’t been able to be there for her.

Rassi, who for the first time in as long as Solna could remember, had hope in her eyes.

Solna wasn’t going to let anyone take that from Rassi, most especially not Rassi herself. 

“Is this the area?” Solna asked, casting her gaze up to one of the ship’s camera. Goldie would be able to hear her no matter where Solna was, but looking at the camera made it seem more like a conversation.

“It’s as much of an open space as I’ve got,” Goldie said. “We’re not carrying much cargo at the moment, but if you need more I can drop the boxes at the far end of the room off on a tether.”

Solna dragged Rassi through the door as it whooshed open and surveyed the space. It was plenty big enough for a Silent Dance, but the current occupant of the room seemed to be engaged in something that might be a bad idea to interrupt.

“Nix?” Rassi asked when she saw the Jedi floating crossed legged with her eyes closed. The Xah was swirling around her, flying away across the tiniest of gaps and the span of space to a distant star.

“Come on in,” Nix said, without opening her eyes or descending to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Rassi asked. 

Solna was curious to hear the answer too, despite the stab of fear that the answer might be enough to show her how to do the same thing. With how easy the mental shield had been to learn, it seemed a reasonable worry that all of the Jedi arts might be effectively contagious if you were exposed to them.

“Checking on my wife,” Nix said.

“Is…is she okay?” Rassi asked.

“She’s on a ship that’s a Dark Side nexus, trapped in a prison cell, and being delivered to an enemy whose apparently more powerful than both of us combined,” Nix said, uncoiling her legs and releasing the Xah so she could stand up rather than float. “Surprisingly though, yes, she’s doing fine. That’s going to change if they make it to Praxis Mar though.”

“What are you going to do?” Solna asked, the questioning leaping from her lips before she could think to stop it.

“I think I’m supposed to say ‘trust in the Force’?” Nix said, glancing over at a spot where the two ghosts appeared.

“Only if you believe you can,” Kelda said. “I mean it is a good idea, but sometimes we need to actually tell the Force what it is we want. Clear communication is, shockingly, an important part of even that relationship.”

“I can’t help but feel that was a dig aimed in my direction,” Ravas said.

“You always were the perceptive one,” Kelda said.

“In this case, I’m thinking we go with clear communication and all the gunships we can scrounge up,” Nix said.

“Music to my ears,” Goldie said. “Do I get the Quad Turbo Laster battery now?”

“Sadly my darling, there’s not enough time to install one,” Nix said. “Also your power system would need a complete overhaul to handle the load.”

“Right. Save Mom Two first, then proper upgrades, got it,” Goldie said.

“I also believe our wards here have something they need to resolve?” Nix said.

“How did you…?” Rassi asked.

“Goldie mentioned a dance and you’re not in your room,” Nix said. “Sensing you in the Force is harder than sensing either of these two,” she gestured to the ghosts, “but some things aren’t hard to work out with simple intuition.”

“We would like to settle a matter with a Silent Dance,” Solna said, knowing she didn’t need to ask for formal approval. Nix wouldn’t know what she was approving after all, and she wasn’t an Elder of the Silent Enclave, but it still felt right to ask for permission.

“Goldie mentioned coffins?” Nix asked, taking a seat on a crate at the side of the cargo hold.

“Oh, we won’t need those,” Rassi said. “The Silent Dance isn’t dangerous.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Solna said, prompted to honesty by Nix’s apparent acceptance of their plan. “If both of the dancers are skilled enough and neither is willing to concede, the dance can push them to where bruises or worse occur.”

“This is how the Enclave resolved disputes?” Nix asked.

“It’s one of the tools we have,” Rassi said. Solna could hear the lingering remnants of connection Rassi felt to the Enclave in the ‘we’, even as the coals of her own connection to them burned down lower and lower.

“Is it acceptable for me to watch?” Nix asked.

“Yes, but you can’t interfere,” Solna said.

“Just so that I’m clear, is that ‘can’t’ as in ‘it would be culturally inappropriate’, or ‘can’t’ as in ‘doing so would cause grave harm to one or both of you’?” Nix asked.

“As you shouldn’t,” Rassi said.

“Okay,” Nix said, and leaned back on the crate.

“I feel like our master would have put a stop to a fight before it happened no matter what form it took,” Ravas said.

“They did. Several times. Look where that got us,” Kelda said, taking a seat on one of the other crates/

“I’m not so unhappy with where it got us, but I’ll agree we could have gotten her by far easier roads,” Ravas said, sitting beside Kelda on her crate rather than finding one of her own.

That ghosts could be cuddly was something Solna had never considered and would have been extremely puzzling if everything else about her present wasn’t much father removed from the life she was used to.

“What are the boundaries?” Rassi asked, walking across the cargo hold to take a spot at the edge of an imaginary circle between them.

“Our extents and no further,” Solna said. She wasn’t going to hurt Rassi, but she did intend to fight so hard Rassi would have no option but to admit Solna was right.

“And the words?” Rassi asked, following the proper form even as she cast aside everything else the Silent Enclave had taught them.

“You will understand which of us is wrong. You will see the worth I see in you. You will hear the truth of my sin and you will carry none of its weight on your shoulders,” Solna said, naming the stakes she was fighting for before completing the proper form, “and the silence?”

“You will understand which of us is wrong. You will see the innocence I see in you. You will hear the shriek of my failure and will accept me as outcast and broken,” Rassi said.

Which Solna would never do.

What Rassi viewed as a failure to be what she should have been, the perfect Silent Doll for the Enclave, Solna knew to be a triumph of who Rassi was.

“In three beats we begin then,” Solna said and felt her heartbeat pause as it synced with Rassi’s.

“In two beats we begin,” Rassi said.

“In one beat, we begin,” they said together and stilled their breathing.

And then the dance started.

Solna took a step to her right, traversing the circle as Rassi did the same, the Xah within them slowing, and slowing, and slowing.

Another step and the stillness of their breath spread to the hearts, the shared beating slowing together, step after step after step.

With their hearts held in ever deepening silence, the blood in their veins began to slow and yet still they danced, one step around the circle, after another, twirling to face outwards and inwards as they went, their hands and arms describing glyphs of perseverance and intention in the air.

Solna’s body screamed for her to drawn on the Xah, to move her blood, to bring air in and out of her lungs, to power her thoughts, to keep herself alive.

And she refused.

To move the Xah even with the smallest ripple was to forfeit the dance, and to forfeit the dance meant allowing Rassi to continue to believe the terrible lies she was telling herself.

Across the circle, Solna could see Rassi struggling. There were some advantages to being smaller, but Solna knew her hyperactive metabolism was going to work against her as much as Rassi’s bulk would.

It didn’t matter though. 

Rassi would crumble first.

Not because she was weaker, but because she was in the wrong, and she knew it.

Solna had seen the confirmation in Rassi’s eyes. There’d been no disagreement with Nix there. Rassi hadn’t tried to hide that either. She knew Solna had sinned. She knew who deserved the blame for their situation, no matter how any of them tried to pretend it wasn’t okay that she’d driven the two of them from their home.

No matter how much Solna was having trouble regretting her actions enough, or feeling the  guilt she was so clearly due.

Guilt which should have pressed her onwards. Shame should have fired her resolve to prove that she was the one who deserved punishment, not Rassi.

Never Rassi.

Guilt and shame were a weak fuel though. Step by step they went on, and Solna felt her strength draining away. She’d pledged that their battle should only be unto their limits and she was fast approaching hers. As the end of her strength loomed every closer though, Rassi showed no signs of faltering. 

Solna’s best friend was pushing herself relentlessly forward to prove what? That the Enclave had been right? That Rassi’s true self was a mistake, a broken thing to be discarded.

Anger rose in Solna’s breast but before she could draw on it for strength, a new dancer joined the circle.

“My words and my silence are this,” Nix said. “That you will understand that you are both right, and both wrong. You will see yourselves as I see you. You will hear the words you should have heard long ago and know that you are neither sinners, nor unworthy.”