Nix had to guess where the proper place was for her in the imagined circle Rassi and Solna were dancing around.

Or perhaps, more accurately, she had to make that place for herself, since Rassi and Solna were entirely focused on each other and balanced only alternate sides of the circle.

To her vast surprise though, gliding into the dance was all but effortless. Apparently, later dancers joining in was part of the ritual, which was interesting for a trial-by-not-quite-combat sort of thing.

That the ritual also anticipated late arrivals was the likely reason she felt her strength flow out rapidly the moment she began to follow the proper footstep. The drain stopped as she leveled out with her two young wards, who seemed to have been strengthened equally by the Force which had been drawn from Nix.

So that was fair.

Which wasn’t exactly what Nix had in mind.

Watching from the sidelines she’d barely been able to sense the girls at all, much less what they were doing to themselves. It had been Kelda who’d observed, silently, that they were slowing all of their vital processes to grow quieter and quieter, which Ravas noted could do a fair bit more damage to them than simple bruising.

Since neither Rassi nor Solna were going to allow themselves to fail the other, Nix, without any preternatural help from the Force, foresaw that the dance was going to end with both of them in dire need of medical attention. She could have called an end to the ritual there, but that would have done the sort of harm that no medical attention could fix.

Joining in on the mayhem may not exactly have been the ‘responsible adult thing to do’, but it felt like the best path she had available between unpleasant alternatives.

Which wasn’t to suggest that slowing her heart to where it was only barely beating was in any sense pleasant.

Each step she took had her muscles calling out for blood, which her heart, solid, reliable organ that is was, usually easily provided. With the work stoppage at the central blood processing plant however, the muscles work orders were encountering difficulties being fulfilled.

There was an obvious answer to that problem of course.

Nix could use the Force.

She could lift engine parts, or even entire ship’s at this point, if she set her mind to it. Moving her own blood was trivial by comparison (in theory moving another person’s blood was doable to, though Nix knew anything with blood also had enough presence in the Force to at least somewhat resist that sort of nonsense).

There was a problem with the simple solution though. Like there always was. Using the Force to make up for the stillness inside her would send out ripples like a boulder dropped into lake, and in a dance where the winner was determined by who could be the most “silent” in the Force, ‘cheating’ with Force powers would be an immediate loss.

So Nix trudged on, each step heavier and weaker than the one before.

She was older and stronger than either Rassi or Solna. She had a year of formal training in using the Force and a lifetime of intuitive practice with it. If it came to any other sort of “Force battle” she would have completely outclassed the two young girls she was competing with.

After another two passes around the circle though, Nix had to concede that both of her opponents were more practiced at the specific technique the dance tested.

A part of her had to smile at the thought – not that she had the blood left to raise her lips into even a faint smirk.

But, hey, she’d gone on a voyage to learn new Force practices and look, here she was dancing in the middle of one! Victory, right?

Victories sucked, Nix decided.

Not that she was going to lose.

Neither Rassi, nor Solna were going to give up on each other, but Nix had an advantage. She wasn’t going to give up on either one of them.

The darkness closing in around the edges of her eyes sight had other ideas on that account but Nix was able to push it away with the thought of how desperate Rassi must have been in the days, and weeks, and even years leading up to their meeting.

To entrust herself to a stranger, a monstrous one if what her people told her was true, that could only have come from the sort of misery that could have left her hating everyone on principal.

But Rassi didn’t hate people.

At least not other people.

Nix had wrestled with valuing herself long enough to recognize the deep need in Rassi for someone to believe in her.

That carried Nix through one step.

The darkness didn’t diminish in strength though.

Nix’s heart had slowed to where it wasn’t beating at all.

Which meant neither where Rassi or Solna’s.

Which meant they were all in danger.

But the girls weren’t giving up. 

Because Solna had been the person Rassi needed and was willing to give her life if needed to not lose that.

Solna, who hadn’t abandoned the beliefs of the Silent Enclave. Solna who couldn’t deny the terrible truths about the Enclave she’d been presented with.

Was this dance and its worst ending a means of escape from all that?

Not consciously, Nix thought. Solna didn’t want to destroy herself, despite how easy of an answer as that would be. Solna burned with fury and righteousness. She didn’t want to escape the world, she wanted to fix it, to make it how it should be, no matter what it cost her.

And the most important part of the world, was Rassi, the girl she hadn’t been able to save except by wishing with all her heart and witnessing the destruction of the only way of life she’d ever known.

Nix’s vision was gone by the time she finished the next step.

Hearing dwindled to nothing with the following one.

In the darkness, there were sources of strength remaining though.

Rage at the unfairness of the lives gives to Rassi and Solna.

Fear at failing them.

Despair at yet another impossible burden on top of the prospect that she might lose the person dearest to her if they couldn’t rescue Ayli.

Nix glanced at those childhood companions of hers, long “allies” who had only rarely done her any good whatsoever, and never without regrettable costs. She could have called on any of them to survive, and even to “win”. 

Except it wouldn’t have been the sort of “win” that fixed anything.

Dominating the girls, even with Solna’s shield, might have been possible, and would have settled the matter.

Right up until they grew strong enough, maybe in a few weeks, maybe in a few year, to throw off the compulsion. Their reaction to the betrayal then wasn’t something Nix needed to guess at, nor did she need to spare it a thought to know how knowing what she’d done would sicken her own heart.

So, no, the Dark Side could keep it’s quick and easy answers. 

Nix was one with the Force and the Force was with her.

For one more step.

She didn’t move her blood, she didn’t move her breath, or her body.

She simply reached inside, found the love that still beat within her silent heart and too a single step more.

And that was all she could do.

The darkness swam in to take her thoughts and she felt a ghostly hand holding her up.

“Not sure which of you three is the least sensible,” Ravas said as life and strength roared back into the silence that had overtaken Nix. “And I want you to consider that I’m the one saying that, despite the idiotic things I’ve done.”

“The girls?” Nix said, blinking to get her vision back.

“They’re fine,” Kelda said, kneeling down beside an unconscious Solna. 

Rassi was on the ground as well but was already starting to come around.

“What happened?” Nix asked, her thoughts still looping around themselves in little swirls.

“You won,” Kelda said. “Or at least you held out longer than they did. We’ll have to see if they’ll honor that since they hadn’t exactly asked you to join in their trial.”

“The dance accepted her,” Rassi said, pushing herself up to a sitting position and holding her head in her hands.

“And she outlasted us,” Solna said with a groan. “I don’t know how though.”

“She didn’t manipulate the Xah,” Rassi said.

“I didn’t have to,” Nix said. “This was a contest of wills, right?”

“And skill with the Xah,” Solna said.

“I’ve got a few years of experience on you in terms of skill, and for the rest? I only had to carry myself through the dance. You two were carrying your uncertainties too.”

“What, we…” Solna started to say.

“We weren’t as centered as she was,” Rassi said.

Solna frowned but didn’t try to correct the statement.

“I meant what I said when I joined the dance,” Nix said. “You’re both carrying a lot of undeserved pain. I can’t lift that from you, I don’t know how. But I do know that with time and a fresh perspective it can change. If I won anything here, I ask that you let me be that perspective.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Rassi said.

“She wants to us to believe her when she says things about us,” Solna said.

“I just want you to listen, really listen,” Nix said. “What you believe is ultimately up to you. All I can offer is something for you to consider.”

“We can do that,” Rassi said, and Solna nodded in agreement.

“Hate to break into this conversation,” Goldie said, “but we’re back in normal space and I’m getting a secure hail from Thirty-two.”

“Heading to the bridge now,” Nix said, jogging on only slightly unsteady legs to the secure console.

A hail from Thirty-two was what they’d been expecting. Hopefully something along the lines ‘we caught the ship, Ayli’s now safe in my office, and the people who took her are an expanding cloud of gas particles’. Nix wasn’t expecting that of course, but it was still a nice mental image to hold her nerves at bay.

A secure hail though suggested that Thirty-two felt the need to avoid warning their quarry what was waiting for them. The chance that the Evil Kidnappers weren’t aware that their planet was under a loose blockade by a quasi-pirate fleet seemed remote, and if Nix’s suspicions were correct, the kidnappers had every intention of making their presence known. Why settle for one Jedi-trained Force user when you could lure in four after all? 

“Goldrunner here,” Nix announced after hitting the ‘decrypt’ button.

“Nix? So good to hear from you,” Thirty-two said. “I only wish I had the news to report that you wished to hear.”

“No sign of my wife yet?” Nix asked.

“You’re the first ship we’ve registered entering the system in the last week,” Thirty-two said. “But that’s not the news that’s going to disturb you.”

Nix heard the others arrive behind her and suppressed her groan at Thirty Two’s words.

“I don’t want to ask, do I?” she said.

“Most likely not,” Thirty-two said. “Which is why I will tell you anyways. Praxis Mar is active.”

“Define ‘active’ please?” Nix said, knowing there was no definition that would be either comforting or good.

“Tectonically, energetically, probably spiritually too, though we don’t have sensors for that I’m afraid,” Thirty-two said. 

“You don’t need them,” Ravas said. “You’re right. I can sense it from here.”

“What is that place? Why are we here?” Solna asked, staring out the forward viewport at the tiny pale dot in the distance that was Praxis Mar.

“We need to go. This is wrong,” Rassi said.

“I don’t know if we can,” Nix said slowly, the echoes in the Force from the conflict on Praxis Mar washing over her.

Praxis Mar had called to several people, but it was calling to her most insistently of all.