Nix hadn’t expected to be able to win over Tovos and so was neither disappointed nor surprised by his stubbornness.

“We are Lost but we are still Silent,” he said as though that pronouncement was the summation of what the rest of his life would be.

“Hey, lost things can be found again,” Why that wasn’t obvious escaped Nix but she felt it was worth pointing out anyways. “But that’s not what you mean is it? Well, maybe this will help; you haven’t failed this mission, or your crew yet. That only happens when you give up. You can still bring Ayli and I back to your Elders, and you can be part of the Enclave, if that’s what you want.”

“You know nothing about us. We will never find the Enclave again, must less be a part of it.” He seemed so certain of that, especially his second claim, that Nix had the inkling she was faced with more than the practical issue of finding a group of Force users who made hiding their sole focus.

“I think it you bring Ayli and I in, and you can explain to the Enclave how you found them so they can guard against it in the future, they’ll be more than willing to take you back in.” It was how anyone who was even vaguely reasonable would act, which left Nix only about half certain of her words.

“They cannot be found, and we cannot be forgiven,” Tovos said. They were alone in the freighter’s cabin, with Tovos in the pilot’s chair gazing out at the star filled void in front of them, so Nix wasn’t sure if he meant that his crew couldn’t be forgiven or if he’d direct that remark at her specifically.

“I plan to have a little discussion with Primus Dolon,” Nix said. “He will be in a very forgiving mood when we’re done.”

“That won’t bring Yoldo back.” Tovos’ words held no outward recrimination or anger. They were pale and numb. “There is no forgiveness for that.”

“Of course there is,” Nix said. “They didn’t tell you that a leader never loses anyone did they?”

Tovos was silent in reply which more or less confirmed that whether the Elders had spoken those words or not, Tovos had been raised to believe that was the standard he had to meet.

“You weren’t supposed to have to fight the Death Shadows,” Nix said. “There was warning they were near, but how they attacked Yoldo was something you couldn’t have prepared for.”

“You were,” Tovos said. “And your wife. Her Xah corruption dispersed one.”

“Our skills are different than yours. Some scenarios we’ll have the answers for that you don’t. That’s true no matter who we are or what we can do,” Nix said, hearing flickers of anger starting to surface in Tovos’ voice and taking that for a good sign.

“We are Silent. We will not be corrupted,” Tovos said, retreating to the platitude to shut out the words which had to seem like devil whispers.

“Another’s actions can’t corrupt you,” Nix said. “You are responsible only for your own decisions.”

She reached out with the Force, trying to sense if her words were having any impact on him, but it was like listening to a brick with his skill at hiding himself.

“What do you want?” Tovos asked, irritation in his tone if not in his presence in the Force.

“To bring you, all of you, back to the Silent Enclave,” Nix said, which had the benefit of being the plain truth. She also wanted to have a ‘conversation’ with Primus Dolon, but that had become a secondary concern.

“Why? Why would you want that? Are you stupid? They are going to kill you! Why didn’t you fight us?” Tovos’ spun the command chair to face Nix and she saw he face was completely devoid of the anger that surged through his words.

The Force which had been artificially placid and serene around him had gone almost perfectly, and unnaturally, silent. 

“Tovos. Dolon already tried to kill me. I don’t know what he told you, but he gathered up some of the children and tried to rush through the Expunging ritual.”

“That’s not…children are not part of the ritual!” Tovos shook his head to deny the truth the Force was trying to tell him. “And it’s never rushed. The Council must approve it and it’s only used on the most corrupt of souls.”

“It’s used on anyone who defies the Elders or the Primus,” Nix said. “And children are very much a part of it. You were never called because you have always been valued and trusted. Rassi and Solna weren’t called because they weren’t trusted. The children between those extremes though? Dolon calls them to ‘special duty’ when he needs to expunge someone.”

“That’s no possible. If he had Expunged you, you would be dead. You’re lying!”

Nix drew in a deep centering breath and opened herself in the Force for Tovos to see. He was resolutely closing himself off from what the Force was trying to tell him, but the truth was still Nix’s best tool for prying his eyes open.

“The ritual is meant to be used on Enclave members. You are amazing at hiding yourselves, and amazing at controlling the Xah within you, but you have almost no defenses against someone who has a connection to you twisting the Xah until it destroys you. That’s not your fault. You’ve never been taught how to resist manipulations like that.”

“Lies. The Jedi always lie.” Tovos hand went to his blaster but he wasn’t quite foolish enough to draw it on her.

“I know you’re tired of hearing this, but I’m not a Jedi,” Nix said. “I’m not saying I don’t lie. And I’m not saying I haven’t trained with a Jedi, or that I don’t know some of their arts, but I was not raised in temple. I grew up on starships. This bucket of bolts? I can probably tell you the part numbers on every piece of equipment and every panel in this thing.”

“You carried a Lightsaber, and you move through the Xah like a Jedi would,” Tovos said.

“The Lightsaber was a gift from the Jedi I trained with. She didn’t need it anymore on account of having been dead for about a thousand years,” Nix said. “And what you sense of me in the Xah is what you would sense of anyone who has a strong and open connection to it. I can introduce you to some Padal Horizon Knights and I bet you’d find them pretty similar to me.”

“Jedi Knight, Horizon Knight, there’s no difference. You are all corrupt. You all abuse the Xah for power,” Tovos said.

“Am I abusing you now?” Nix asked.

“What?” Tovos frowned, his perfectly neutral expression cracking from confusion at the turn in the conversation.

“Am I abusing you? Not in general, not with the Xah, just here and now, by talking to you?” Nix asked. Tovos wasn’t stupid, but he was being willfully blind, just as he’d been taught to be. Nix didn’t have much hope of overcoming a lifetime of indoctrination and cultural programming. That was something only Tovos would be able to do. The most Nix could manage would be to plant some seeds and help him see the lies he’d been trapped in when he was ready to accept the ugly falsehoods others had built his life on.

“I am Silent. You cannot harm me,” Tovos said, missing the glaring irony of the statement.

“This where I’m supposed to cackle maniacally and say something like ‘my Jedi techniques can destroy you’, or something idiotic like that right?”

“No. Wait. What are you talking about?” 

“Let me try asking again; is this conversation damaging you, or corrupting you?”

“No. I cannot be corrupted so simply,” Tovos said, eyes narrowed as he searched for some hint of where Nix’s question was leading.

“This is all that I do with the Xah,” Nix said. “What you’ve been taught is manipulation and abuse, is, for me at least, nothing more than a conversation.”

“Yes. Lies to the Xah, and yourself,” Tovos said.

“That can work, sort of,” Nix said. “Lying to yourself can get you pretty twisted up, and lying to the Xah is certainly a path to the Dark Side, or what you would call a corruption of the Xah. But that’s not the only way to have a conversation. Can I show you something?”

“I won’t be corrupted.” Tovos announced it like a warning, so Nix nodded in agreement.

“I know you and the other Silent ones enjoy exceptional senses. I think by being so silent in the Xah you learn to pick up on much smaller ripples in it than most are able to. All I’m asking is that you watch and listen for a moment.”

Tovos’ frown deepened but he didn’t refuse, so after a moment, Nix still her thoughts and reached out with the Force.

There was a switch on the console at the co-pilot’s station that would be nice to have flipped on. She wasn’t nearby it, but she knew the Force was. Would it be okay with tapping the switch to the other setting?

A reading light blinked on over the co-pilot’s seat.

The Force almost laughed at her for making such a big deal over so little of a thing, but then everything was little from its perspective. Nix acknowledged the silliness of the over formality with a slight grin. Normally, she and the Force worked together with a much more natural give and take, the Force providing direction and Nix providing execution, or vice versa as the situation warranted. 

Nix knew she wasn’t abusing the Force, largely because she’d learned at an early age what twisting the Force into something it didn’t want to be felt like.

That had been a terribly tempting hole to fall down for a while, and it had taken her a while to repair the relationship she had with the Force, longer because she hadn’t been consciously aware that was what she was doing. Each time she backslid into flirting with the Dark Side though, she’d felt the same hurt sickness and little by little, by listening to her ‘better self’ (as she’d thought of Force), she’d learned to find the harmony that didn’t leave her soul feeling ravaged. 

That sense had led her across the galaxy, to lonely moments and ones of boisterous merriment, but weathering the bad moments and not being overly captivated by the good ones had been so much easier so long as she held onto the peace within her that honest communion with the Force brought.

“You corrupted the Xah,” Tovos said.

“Did I?” Nix asked. “Did you feel any discomfort or violation there? Is the Xah disturbed or in pain?”

“No, but that was very small.”

“To the Xah, everything is small,” Nix said, gesturing to the starry sky outside the viewport. “When we speak with the Xah, we’re not talking to some small part of ourselves. We’re talking to that. To everything. Size doesn’t matter because nothing we interact with will ever be even a tiny fraction of the galaxy we’re a part of.”

“The Xah is greater than we are, but it can still be twisted, still be torn and rent asunder. What you do can damage the Xah even when you do not wish it to,” Tovos said.

“Yes. Exactly. Just wishing isn’t enough. We have to listen. We have to understand. We can hurt each other so, so easily if we don’t pay attention, or even if we do and we take a chance on something that doesn’t work out,” Nix was pleased to see Tovos nodding along with her. “But we can also make amends for the harm we do. We can heal, and we can help each other grow. That’s true between all of us sapients, and between us and the Xah. When I ask the Xah to do something, it’s not a demand. I’m not putting a blaster to the Xah’s head, or whipping it into doing what I want. And it’s the same when the Xah asks me to do something. We don’t punish each other, because that’s not what friends do.”

“Wait, the Xah speaks to you?” Tovos asked, confusion and shock plain on his face.