You lie awake, thinking.
You have so many nights like this, just staring at the ceiling with your one remaining eye while you think. Maybe mirror-you was right. You do spend a lot of time monologuing to yourself.
Hmm.
Two of Coruscant’s moons, Centax-3 and Hesperidium drift across your view: straight up and through the ceiling, through the Temple. Each one is a glowing sphere of potential energy, captured in the gravitational pull of Coruscant itself. Many more lives roam about on the surfaces of those celestial bodies and in the ships and stations orbiting above, but down here, downwell, you lie awake, injured and thinking.
The daemon. It’s gone. You’ve checked twice over now. The curiosity in you itches at the walls of your mind. You want to investigate! The ship could hold so many answers! It holds so many secrets!
And you want them all.
And yet, Master Lasah’s words ring true, too. It could still be dangerous. Just because you don’t see anything now, doesn’t mean there’s nothing to trigger. Your own mind, your own inner-self, your own psyche! — it’s dangerous. It’s undeniably dangerous.
She’s right in a way. Exploring, or as she put it, “childish adventuring,” could very well get you… killed. Maybe.
That doesn’t mean your desire disappears. No, it only grows. Bigger and greater, the curiosity itches at you. The questions within you eat away at your resolve.
Who are you?
You look.
The ship remains, nothing different from when you were interrupted. You hover outside looking inward and scour the ship with only your sight — hands off.
A stone and gold bastion in a sea of warp-stuff, out of place and lonely without the void of nothingness. You gaze back up and out.
You spy the other moons: Centax-1 and Centax-2, also whirling about at cosmic speeds. Between worlds, hundreds, maybe thousands, of other starships race about. Some carry people. Others carry cargo. All sail about liberated in the endless void.
You look back down, but past the ship, and see a blue-white eye.
No, not an eye. A star.
Coruscant Prime.
Almost like your own little eyes, burning merrily away. It sits an astronomical unit away, orbiting the barycenter of the star system in tight circles. Everything moves. Everything is in constant, joyous motion, conserving energy and momenta. The universe is alive and the Force dances with the message!
Wondrous and mesmerizing.
You blink, and the ship comes back into focus.
No. You’re done for now. The exploration can wait. You have plenty of other things — safer things! — to occupy your mind: your eye-sight and Force-sight; Force purification and healing; telepathy and possibly Battle Meditation.
You look around again and find the memory. A glowing red eye-of-a-storm looks back idly.
You raise a hand—
—and fold a slice of warp-stuff over it.
That too can wait. Maybe even forever.
But tomorrow can’t, and so you go to sleep.
≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡
The droid buzzes around the room, cleaning up and arranging equipment in anticipation of Master Corr’s next visit.
“Hey, droid. Do you have a name?” you ask?
It spins its head around as its body keeps moving. “Yes, Initiate Xena! I do indeed have a designation! I am AZR-51322738—”
“Wait! Sorry, do you have something shorter I can call you?”
“No!” it sings out cheerfully.
“What does Master Corr call you?”
“AZR-5132—”
“No way.”
“Well, that’s what she called the first time. I do not believe she’s stated my unit designation ever since.”
“So what does she call you now?”
“She does not call me anything.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Oh.”
“You may do the same.”
For a second, that seems a bit sad, but then you remember it’s a droid. It doesn’t need a name. Then again, just calling it “you” or “droid” is…
Nah. Nevermind. That seems fine to you.
“Is there anything you need, Initiate Xena?” it asks.
“No, I was just curious.”
“Does it hurt?”
“My arms? Not when they’re in bacta.”
“No. Curiosity. Does curiosity hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I have heard that it kills felines occasionally. I would assume that it would hurt in that case.”
“That’s more like a — a consequence of curiosity. Not curiosity itself.”
“Oh.”
It putters around for another minute while you sit in silence, watching it work. But then suddenly, it swivels back to you again.
“Please cease.”
“Excuse me?”
“Cease your curiosity. It does not seem safe if it regularly results in death.”
“That’s not… I mean, it’s just a saying. It doesn’t actually kill people.”
“That is contradictory to your earlier statements.”
“I—”
You stop. Now that you think about it, curiosity did kind of land you here in the medical ward, so maybe the droid is right. But, not fully.
“That saying isn’t complete. It ends with, ‘satisfaction brought it back.’ So, even if curiosity can be dangerous, it’s not always bad.”
“I do not believe ‘satisfaction’ can revive the dead.”
“...”
“Please cease with your curiosity.”
“...Satisfaction is a kind of Force technique.”
There’s no way it’ll believe that, right?
“Hmm. I see now. Very well, you may remain curious as long as you can revive yourself. Wait, does it work on other people? This could be very useful here in the Halls of Healing.”
“Uh. No. Unfortunately not. It only works for me. And for cats.”
“Oh. Unfortunate. But, if you know such a powerful Force technique, then why are you badly injured?”
“It works only part of the time. It’s very rare for it to work, you just have to be lucky. And, felines tend to be very lucky which is why there’s that saying.”
“Are they also Force users? Are all felines Force sensitive?”
If your arms were free, you would be slapping yourself in the face right now. Why’d you let this stupid conversation get so far?
“No, no. Well, all living things have the Force within them. That saying is just about a particular feline. Anyways, that’s enough questions for now. I’m no longer curious!”
“Are you satisfied?”
“...”
Dumb droid.
≡][≡ ⬦⬦⬦ ≡][≡
“So, Xena, which one of these do you like the most?”
Master Corr lays out a few stickers in front of you, carefully keeping her eyes averted from yours.
“Huh?”
“Well, I haven’t really been giving you a choice, have I? It’s important for Younglings to have some sort of self-expression! So, how about I let you pick which sticker you get?”
“Uh, okay. How about—”
“Wait! I just thought of something even better! One second!”
Master Corr dashes out of the room. You track her, following the movement of her mind and emotions. Soon, you’ll hopefully also be able to use Force-sight to track her presence. Right now, however, her presence quickly fades away into the background of ever-present Force, and you have to make do with your other… talents.
She dashes between rooms, first to her office, then to another unknown location. Afterwards, she sprints back down the halls. You watch and giggle as other blobs of emotions — other people — are forced to dodge to the sides lest they be run over. Finally, she bursts through the door and skids to a stop in front of you.
“Here we go! Ehk! Urgh…”
“Master Corr?”
“Ach, that’s truly horrible. Sorry, I accidentally looked into your eye again.”
“Sorry!” you cry, shutting it quickly.
“No, no. It’s my fault. Anyways, here. Take a look.”
You open your eye again. It’s… sticker paper. Blank sticker paper and a few multicolored pens.
“Are you going to draw the stickers now?”
“No, you are!” she declares.
“But, my arms—”
“It’s practice! Just a bit of physical therapy. You’ll train up your arm strength and dexterity by doing this. Here, I’ll let you at it.”
She helps you out of the bacta tanks and hands you a towel. As you dry your arms off, she moves over to the counter and grabs a dataslate, then walks over and hands it to you while keeping her own eyes shut.
“Here, you can use this as a surface. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, then get drawing!”
But, you don’t. Instead, you ask her the question that’s been on your mind for a while.
“Master Corr, why do you like stickers so much?”
“Hm? Ah, well… It’s a short story.”
“A short story?”
“Yeah. I’ve found that it helps to motivate Younglings to give out small prizes. Stickers are small and innocuous enough. I saw a whole bunch on sale so I bought them in bulk. Now, I’m known as the sticker-Master, so I need to keep it up!”
That’s… not exactly very interesting or exciting. But, you suppose you didn’t expect much from that question.
“I’ve gone a bit overboard with you, though. I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay, Master Corr. I guess it’s just a bit of fun.”
“So you don’t dislike it?”
“Um. Not really.”
“Good, good. Now, get back to drawing! We’ll have you do some more practice with Purification after this. Gotta get all that in before Darling arrives!”
“Yes, Master!”