Zonama Sekot, Friday Morning Fandom Time
However long ago it had been in Fandom since she'd left, it had been weeks for Tahiri, and weeks ago she definitely wouldn't have anticipated that she'd be here, crash-landing and then setting up a camp on a sentient planet with a Jedi she'd idolized for years and was married to the older version of one of her classmates, the shaper who'd helped torture her, a Yuuzhan Vong priest, and a Shamed One spreading heretical beliefs. But here they were, Nen Yim and Harrar bantering amongst themselves about the Sekotan life forms and ecosystem the way Ben and Jaina talked about machinery, Corran and Yu'shaa and Tahiri trailing along with them.
Harrar was skeptical, but Nen Yim kept insisting that there had to be some kind of central intelligence coordinating and linking all life on the planet.
"As I prophesied," Yu'shaa, who had been silent until now, spoke up, "and as the Jeedai said. This is a living planet, one large organism, more than the sum of its parts. Like a worldship that made itself. Don't you see what this planet can teach us? Harrar, you were just decrying the competition that destroys us. It is that blind fight to ascend that leads us to treat so many of our people as Shamed."
Harrar ignored him, and addressed Nen Yim directly. "Can this be?"
"We are seeing it," she replied. "However, I can find no clues as to the mechanism that binds the individual life-forms to one another. There are no chemical exchanges that might explain it. The flora and fauna here are not equipped with communications organs like our villip, or anything even remotely similar."
"It's the Force," Tahiri cut in; she realized they couldn't sense it, so she'd been trying to be patient, but she could only take it for so long. "I can feel the ties, feel a sort of constant chatter among -- well, everything."
"I have heard that you Jeedai possess telepathy like our villips," Nen Yim answered, turning her focus to Tahiri. "But the ones I've taken ap -- examined showed no signs of specialized organs, either."
"No, of course not," Tahiri said, her voice tight -- she hadn't missed the near verbal slip. "The Force binds everything together. Some creatures communicate through it. I can feel what Corran is thinking, sometimes. With Anakin it was even stronger, like . . . " Like something she'd never forget because it was unlike anything else she'd ever felt in her life, and something she didn't need to dwell on. "Never mind. You'll have to take my word for it."
"And using this Force, you can impress your will upon others, yes?" Yu'shaa asked.
"On the weak-minded," Tahiri replied. "But I get no sense that anything here on Zonama Sekot is being coerced into anything. It's like every living thing just agrees to do things this way."
"I cannot see this Force, measure it, or test it," Nen Yim said. "I cannot credit it with the effect you assert."
"You may not know what it is," Tahiri said, and an unprompted memory arose of Nen Yim asking her to levitate a stone in her cell in the shaper damutek on Yavin Four; she spotted a stone nearby and reached into the Force to move it through the air, dropping it at the shaper's feet. "You might not be able to see it or feel it, but you can see the results."
Nen Yim nodded then asked, abruptly, like she'd just been hit with a huge revelation, "Assuming you are correct, you are connected to this Force -- as no Yuuzhan Vong is. And yet, in part, you are Yuuzhan Vong. What does your Force tell you this place is? To us?"
A slow smile spread across Tahiri's face. "I've been thinking about that a lot. I've never been able to quite put it into words until just now."
"And? "Harrar asked.
She took a deep breath and answered, "This is where we're from."
[OOC: NFI/NFB/OOC-okay etc. etc. etc., still adapted from The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes, I'm getting toward the end of this one, I swear . . .]
Harrar was skeptical, but Nen Yim kept insisting that there had to be some kind of central intelligence coordinating and linking all life on the planet.
"As I prophesied," Yu'shaa, who had been silent until now, spoke up, "and as the Jeedai said. This is a living planet, one large organism, more than the sum of its parts. Like a worldship that made itself. Don't you see what this planet can teach us? Harrar, you were just decrying the competition that destroys us. It is that blind fight to ascend that leads us to treat so many of our people as Shamed."
Harrar ignored him, and addressed Nen Yim directly. "Can this be?"
"We are seeing it," she replied. "However, I can find no clues as to the mechanism that binds the individual life-forms to one another. There are no chemical exchanges that might explain it. The flora and fauna here are not equipped with communications organs like our villip, or anything even remotely similar."
"It's the Force," Tahiri cut in; she realized they couldn't sense it, so she'd been trying to be patient, but she could only take it for so long. "I can feel the ties, feel a sort of constant chatter among -- well, everything."
"I have heard that you Jeedai possess telepathy like our villips," Nen Yim answered, turning her focus to Tahiri. "But the ones I've taken ap -- examined showed no signs of specialized organs, either."
"No, of course not," Tahiri said, her voice tight -- she hadn't missed the near verbal slip. "The Force binds everything together. Some creatures communicate through it. I can feel what Corran is thinking, sometimes. With Anakin it was even stronger, like . . . " Like something she'd never forget because it was unlike anything else she'd ever felt in her life, and something she didn't need to dwell on. "Never mind. You'll have to take my word for it."
"And using this Force, you can impress your will upon others, yes?" Yu'shaa asked.
"On the weak-minded," Tahiri replied. "But I get no sense that anything here on Zonama Sekot is being coerced into anything. It's like every living thing just agrees to do things this way."
"I cannot see this Force, measure it, or test it," Nen Yim said. "I cannot credit it with the effect you assert."
"You may not know what it is," Tahiri said, and an unprompted memory arose of Nen Yim asking her to levitate a stone in her cell in the shaper damutek on Yavin Four; she spotted a stone nearby and reached into the Force to move it through the air, dropping it at the shaper's feet. "You might not be able to see it or feel it, but you can see the results."
Nen Yim nodded then asked, abruptly, like she'd just been hit with a huge revelation, "Assuming you are correct, you are connected to this Force -- as no Yuuzhan Vong is. And yet, in part, you are Yuuzhan Vong. What does your Force tell you this place is? To us?"
A slow smile spread across Tahiri's face. "I've been thinking about that a lot. I've never been able to quite put it into words until just now."
"And? "Harrar asked.
She took a deep breath and answered, "This is where we're from."
[OOC: NFI/NFB/OOC-okay etc. etc. etc., still adapted from The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes, I'm getting toward the end of this one, I swear . . .]