Chapter Ten:

Where Educational Gaps Are Filled

Daegen finished his… he supposed report would be an apt description, even if he disliked using the word for the situation. Ketu was looking smug in his own understated way. The other members of the Council displayed various degrees of curiosity, but the other guest at the meeting seemed to be displeased.

"It's an undeniable achievement," Rajivari said, seizing the opportunity to make someone else feel inferior—or at least try to, given that Daegen was quite certain it wasn't him who was the inferior one, "however, it will not help us in the coming conflict. Unless anyone has suggestions on how to convince creatures that apparently cannot conceive the notion of altruism not to wage war with us, so we can show them the benefits of sharing and caring."

Daegen resisted the urge to roll his eyes. His little ray of sunshine of an apprentice was radiating irritation too. He decided to inform Xesh that this was why he should appreciate being taught by Daegen once the meeting was over. He was not Rajivari, which meant that while he occasionally was annoying he was never obnoxiously smug in a way that indicated an unhealthy appreciation for one's ego.

It was probably the reason why Ketu always seemed so detached. The poor man had to make it through all those self-indulgent tirades and fish useful lessons out of them. Really, it was no wonder he turned out so introverted.

"Far be it for me to question your wisdom, Master Rajivari," Daegen shot back in a tone that indicated that he was absolutely going to do just that, "but you must realize that we did more than just teach Xesh how to properly commune with the Force—you must also take into account that in doing so, I have also given him the tools to explain how the Infinite Empire misuses it."

Perhaps there was some exaggeration in the statement, since what they did establish was that they were going to have to work with a number of metaphors, but Rajivari needed regular bringing down to size.

"As loath as I am to curb your enthusiasm," Rajivari replied, Daegen's attempt at verbal shooting down having barely registered, it seemed, "I don't see how this will help us win, either."

"That," Master Quan said, "is because you have as much scientific inclination as a sea anemone, Master Rajivari."

Daegen saw no reason not to smirk, and did just that. If Rajivari could be smug, so could he.

"I believe the matter falls under my domain," Miarta Sek joined the conversation. "And while I cannot judge Rajivari's scientific inclinations accurately, I don't think we can dismiss any new information as insignificant without actually hearing it."

"We should hear what he can tell us," Ketu said in his usual placid tone.

Don't make talk with people sitting behind my back most likely, Daegen thought, sensing a spike of discomfort from Xesh. Perhaps, it might have been a good idea to advise the boy on public speaking before putting him in front of the Council. As strange as the sentiment was, not everyone enjoyed being in the centre of attention.

Which, once Daegen considered it, was very nice of them, because it only meant he could be magnanimous and take away the attention from them and make people pay attention to him. Nature was such a wonderful thing sometimes.

"You can talk from here," he whispered. "You're my apprentice now, so no one will expect you to follow protocol anyway."

Xesh glanced at him, and seemed to relax a fraction, but of course some people couldn't pay attention to what others were trying to accomplish.

"You feel weaker now," Rajivari said his dark eyes narrowed in—disapproval? Really, what was wrong with that man?

Xesh, predictably, took that as a challenge. For a moment, Daegen wondered if the Council chamber would need new windows and door again, but no. There was a flare of wounded pride, but it died down surprisingly quickly.

"No, I don't," Xesh replied, demonstrating that once one was taught that purposefully misunderstanding questions was a great tool for disarming the stupid ones the way towards enlightenment was open. Or at least the way towards providing Daegen with amusement.

Rajivari pursed his lips tightly, clearly not satisfied with the answer.

"Who thought giving Master Lok an apprentice was a good idea?" he grumbled, only to watch Ketu raise his hand. That Master Quan's hand also shot up was no surprise to Daegen at all, but apparently so did Miarta Sek.

Not to mention Daegen himself. He was slightly disappointed no one else seemed to agree. Not even Xesh, the traitorous creature.

"I believe, as questionable a teacher as Master Daegen may be," the Master of Arts said, "it is not the reason why we are here."

Some people clearly let their good looks go to their head.

"Perhaps we should finish this topic once and for all, least anyone feels that they had been cruelly deprived of their chance to complain about my teaching methods," Daegen said, because if that was not an invitation to be contrary, he was growing old and senile. "Does anyone want to add something? Perhaps we could make a neat little pile?"

Ruhr let out a groan. Being a wookiee he was quite gifted in that department, so it lasted for quite a few moments.

"I say this with utmost respect," the Master of Knowledge said, her blue lekku twitching in irritation, "but perhaps Masters Lok and Rajivari would be so kind as to withhold their contributions so that we might finish this meeting this week?"

While Daegen could absolutely see why Rajivari ought to stay silent, he definitely had much of value to contribute. Still, unlike some people, he could control himself and remain quiet. Unless, of course, someone said something that needed to be commented on.

"Since it doesn't seem like anyone else has anything pertinent to say," Ketu said dryly, "I'd like to hear what Xesh has to say. Can you still use the Force the way you did as a Force Hound?"

Xesh shook his head and gave Ketu a defiant look. "No. And I'm not going to try."

"Why not?" Lha-Mi asked. Which definitely was a pertinent question, but Daegen doubted they'd get a satisfying answer for it. Unlike studying biology, using the Force was a thing of intuition, after all.

"Because then I'll be what my owner wanted me to be and nothing else. Because it's about choice—once you choose to use the Force one way or the other, changing it requires you to change the way you look at everything: yourself, other people, the relations between them," Xesh replied. He glanced at Daegen before continuing, as if drawing comfort from his presence. Which was actually a rather nice thought. "And even if I were as desperate as I was when I was when I first used it like that, I don't think I could do it again. I know it's wrong now.

"I'm not sure if- I think there's something feeding off the darkness in the Force. The more people use it that way, the stronger it grows. But I don't know what it is."

"This is all very vague," Rajivari commented, only for Miarta Sek to hush him.

"The first reason is quite enough for you to never try using the Force again like this," the old togruta woman said. "The curiosity of others should not impact your recovery. But we need to know if you think others can be convinced to abandon this way of using the Force too."

Xesh looked at the floor, as if it held the answer to the question. Eventually, he looked up again, and said, "It will take time, but it should be possible at least with some other people."

"Thank you," Ketu said and rose from his seat. "I think this will be all. If we have any further questions, we will address them to Master Lok, and he will pass them onto you. You may return to Anil Kesh with him."

Most of what he had read before crash-landing on Tython had been instructions or manuals. Those had been useful, but not meant to entertain. Or give Force Hounds ideas—hence why the few things that he supposed were meant to be amusing he did read, had been stolen.

Did it count as stealing if one was the property of the person one was stealing from?

And now, aside from the things he was supposed to read because Daegen Lok told him to, he had things that were also probably supposed to be entertaining. They were mostly weird though. Or... well, he supposed they weren't weird here.

There had been one story about an orphan. She had spent a quarter of it complaining about it, with periods of describing a twi'lek very colourfully—and while he was not completely sure, he suspected that sapphire and cerulean were two different colours. Or maybe the author had invented the word "cerulean"? It looked suspicious.

And he really, really, really was sick of reading about the twi'lek's breasts, why did he have to know how they moved? And why would anyone want to be around someone who makes them nervous? Although, to be fair, the part with the feeling like something was fluttering in one's stomach was nearly accurate. He was still fairly sure this was not supposed to be a good thing when it did happen, though.

The other things had been less frustrating to read, although some of them still insisted on having the hero stare far too much at another character and describe their hair, eyes or some other body part in a way that made Xesh wonder if they were seeing it for the first time in their lives. Although, in some cases, at least it was interspaced with fragments about people finding their place among other people.

There was a particular one he had liked, where the hero had been wandering all over Tython (and got into trouble everywhere and then would spend the next few chapters trying to fix everything).

But here he was, trying to figure out if he had actually really read the last part or if his mind had wandered somewhere really strange, because there was no way a sentence could twist itself like that, instead of re-reading the story he had liked.

Maybe his attention had wandered and he read bits of three sentences, instead of one?

Her eyes like limpid tears-

What did that even mean?

-she met her durasteel orbs-

What durasteel orbs? How did one meet those anyway? And why was the twi'lek even meeting them if they belonged to her?

-and gazed into them with a secret longing.

A longing to escape the story maybe? At least that was the only idea he had. What was even the point of this?

As her head clears, she looks up at the person who pulled her out of the maelstrom. Silvery eyes, like a greedy god plucked stars from the sky-

How was that supposed to work? Were they supposed to glow? And which greedy god were they talking about exactly, anyway? Because he was fairly sure three-quarters of the rakatan gods qualified both as greedy and the type to pluck out eyes.

-meet her searching gaze, holding her spellbound. A voice, musical and twinkling like windchimes emerges between the full cerulean-

Again with the probably invented words. And didn't lights twinkle? Maybe they had windchimes that also glowed when it was windy, and the twi'lek's teeth were flashing?

-lips of her savior, and asks: "Are you alright?"

A quick gaze down the passage told him that there was a lot more winding descriptions ahead of him, all about various body parts of the twi'lek and some dialogue scattered in between.

There was no way he was getting through the story on his own. It felt too much like reading some sort of code to which he didn't have a key.

Truly, teaching broadened one's horizons. Daegen had been studying the text on the datapad intently for the past thirty seconds, but he was still unsure if he understood what the author had been trying to tell him. Someone ought to have put a warning about the dangerous concentration of metaphors.

"Cerulean is a shade of blue," he finally said. His apprentice looked practically insulted at hearing that, so Daegen added, "Not the one you'd normally use to describe sapphires though."

Having tackled the simpler question, he had no choice but to move to the other one. The one that indicated that his fears had absolutely been not unfounded. "I... might not be the best person to ask about why people would find breasts attractive."

"Why does it even matter?" Xesh asked mutinously.

"Because that appears to be the point of the story," Daegan said, and promptly corrected himself, "It's a romance."

Which of course proved to be also a completely unenlightening answer, given the silence and the blank look Xesh was giving him. Daegen tried to collect his thought—this was going to be more complicated than explaining sex, wasn't it?

"This may seem unrelated, but do you know where children come from?" he asked, as he took he keyed commands on the datapad. He was going to need diagrams.

Xesh eyed him suspiciously. "Incubators?" Then, just before Daegan started to explain, he added, "Eggs?"

He really hoped some cataclysm would wipe out the Infinite Empire, because that was just ridiculous. What was even the point of not explaining that? Did evil space-slavers feel shy about sex and childbirth?

"In some species, yes, eggs," he said, resigning himself to his fate. "Given that you're human, you probably ought to learn how it usually works with humans and species that can cross-breed with humans."

"Because that can happen accidentally or something?" Xesh asked, clearly unconvinced.

"Actually, yes," Daegen said. The download had finally completed, so he handed the datapad back to Xesh. "Essentially, you need two sets of chromosomes—one is carried in sperm produced by the males, and another carried in an ovum—those come from the female. Humans—and all the species they can cross-breed with—are viviparous—which means that the foetus develops in the womb of the female instead of in an egg."

Xesh had been studying the content of the datapad with a mystified expression for quite a while, before eventually shaking his head. "How does it all fit in there?"

Daegen peered at it over his head to see what he was talking about. It was a perfectly ordinary depiction of the organs involved in the act with their internal construction drawn. "If you go to next chapter, there will be an explanation on how human reproductive organs develop. That should answer your question."

Xesh obediently clicked on the screen to move to the next page, where a diagram of a couple in the act was shown, showing the biological reactions of a human male and female.

"That... involves far too much touching," Xesh said, giving the tablet a rather worried look.

Daegen peered at it over his head. It was a perfectly ordinary depiction of the organs involved in the act. "There's usually more involved before you get to this part," he said, because one was supposed to be thorough. "Now, as I was saying—since the foetus is developing in the womb-"

"The man must get his sperm inside—that's obvious," Xesh said glaring at him. "And there's a whole text about... stuff. I can read that later. The book had two women, so that's clearly not about that."

"It's usually enjoyable," Daegen said. "So, people don't just have sex to procreate, but to relax or bond. How casually one approaches having sex varies from person to person—for some it's something that is done with people they trust and are very close, for some it's enough if the partner is willing and attractive enough."

It was really quite amusing watching the boy when he was thinking hard—for someone who seemed to never stop frowning, he could very visibly go from "totally confused" to "oh".

"So... the main character wants to have sex with the twi'lek because of how her breasts move?.." he said. "And that's not a stupid reason?"

And that was when Daegen started wondering—some people just didn't feel sexual attraction at all. And while the boy definitely felt strongly about Shae, now that he thought about it, Daegen wasn't actually sure if what he sensed from him had any element of attraction.

"Do you think Shae's breasts moving is interesting?" he asked, figuring he might as well cover all of it at once.

"But they don't," Xesh replied. He appeared to be mostly confused again, and still showed no indication that he found the idea of another person's body sexually appealing.

And this went to show that everything could get awkward if the circumstances were right.

"So," Daegen said, "you actually looked at them long enough to find out."

Xesh shook his head. "I just notice movement. It might be dangerous. It doesn't mean anything on its own though—I mean... I notice when you stand in a way that would make it easy for me to break your leg. It doesn't mean I want to do that."

"That's a relief, then," Daegen said. Well. Was this a unique experience? Or everyone eventually ended up in a conversation with their apprentice that kept going sideways?

How did one explain sexual attraction anyway? Was this covered in some lesson he had never had?

"Regardless, no, this is not a stupid reason," Daegen eventually said, deciding to leave the 'I thought on how to maim you, but I don't want to' part of the conversation alone. "It's a perfectly valid reason. Most people find specific secondary sexual characteristics more appealing than others."

"But not everyone," Xesh replied. "So, you have people who like them all and some who don't care for any."

That was going surprisingly painlessly so far. Aside from the bit about breaking legs.

"Yes," he said, quite aware that he was probably radiating relief. "The book you were reading is still rather stupid, though. I wonder who wrote it. Where did you get it from?"

"Shae gave me some books to read," Xesh replied. "This was with them."

While the young woman certainly had her foibles, Daegen wouldn't have pegged her as the type to enjoy this type of literature.

"She ought to know, then," he said. "Let's ask her."

Shae couldn't help it. She started giggling after the first paragraph. Not only because of the unintentional silliness of the pompous prose, but because she recognized the style. How that thing found itself among what she'd given Xesh to read was a bit of a mystery, but nevertheless—Tasha, Princess Perfect, daughter of Master of the Temple of Knowledge, wrote silly romances about herself and the heroine of the stories about Dashing Drexia.

"Sorry," she said. "It's just—that's Tasha's—you might remember her? The twi'lek you threw a rock at. She was with the Council later?"

"I think so? The younger one, right?" Xesh replied. Then he looked at the datapad. "Should I have been reading that?"

Well. That was a good question, since Shae had no idea how the story had gotten itself where it now was. She certainly didn't remember Tasha asking her to read it. The last time she had received any books from her had been five years ago.

"She wouldn't have given it to me if she hadn't wanted people to read it," Shae said. "Although I really don't remember when she'd have done that."

Except who else would have given her that?

"Children," Daegen Lok groaned. "And here I thought your generation would grasp how to use a thesaurus and a dictionary in tandem."

Well, that was practically an invitation, wasn't it? "Are you implying you could not when you were my age, Master Lok?" Shae asked innocently.

Daegen gave her an amazingly imperious look—the kind that kings and queens probably practiced in front of mirrors so that they could impress their subjects with their majestic stuck-up-ness. "I could use both when I was six. Alas, the same cannot be said for many others. Fortunately-"

"They started sticking to words they actually know?" Xesh guessed.

"Yes, thank you," Daegen said, turning to give him a suspicious look. "Some of them had even mastered polysyllabic ones."

"Or stopped talking to you, because they were risking a concussion?" Xesh asked. He was even looking convincingly innocent.

"He's learning, isn't he?" Daegen turned to Shae, looking quite like a parent whose child had just shown them their first drawing.

Which, given that she remembered Master Quan acting like this whenever she talked back, was not surprising at all.

"It's good to know you haven't been feeding him all that chocolate for nothing," Shae replied.