--sparkvallen
Disclaimers: Bah humbug - you know I'm not Lucasfilm!
Chapter Eight
I'll never take a public transport again, Pharinseaya thought. If this is how a mission for me is going to go from now on, never again! I'll learn to fly a small shuttle or even a B-Wing, blast it!
Rym's life was the opposite of Pharinseaya's. Where Pharinseaya had traveled much of the galaxy by virtue of having been born of missionary parents, Rym had never been off Corellia much less to the other planets in that system. Where Pharinseaya had gone on to Jedi Training on Yavin IV when Skywalker had opened the Academy, Rym's life had been a struggle for daily survival, etching her way as a mechanic. Despite the bond they'd shared in Coronet City, jumping in to help with disaster relief, the two women found themselves sharing a compartment with a stranger.
It wasn't that having to bunk with Svoby was so horrible, it was just that Rym's sudden enthusiasm had begun to grate on her nerves somewhat. The spaceport itself was a new world to Rym. Like a child, she'd wanted to take time and explore the shops, the docking bays, the cafes. She'd never before ventured there so everything was exciting to her. And the ships! Rym's eyes roved from one glimpse to another as they passed by various docking bays while heading toward theirs. She had a comment for everything she saw...
...and Pharinseaya wasn't quite sure how to deal with this "new" Rym she was with. Once aboard the transport and they'd found the quarters they'd share for the next 72 hours, Rym had been in constant motion, wanting to explore the ship, wanting to interview its mechanics and engineers on the levels below. Pharinseaya had wanted to speak more with Rym about her Jedi potential or at least take time for meditation to sort out the experiences she'd had on Corellia, but Rym Svoby was not one to be contained.
Force help us when we reach the Temple, Pharinseaya thought. What is Master Skywalk-- Luke, going to do with her?
"Ya sure yer not gonna come to the cafeteria with me?" Rym asked one more time.
"No!" Pharinseaya said more sharply than she'd intended to. "I... No, please. Go ahead and enjoy yourself. I'll be fine here."
Rym shrugged and was out the door. As it wooshed closed, Pharinseaya let out a sigh of relief. Were they not traveling through hyperspace, the Jedi Knight would've contacted the Temple to let the staff and Masters know that she was bringing a "guest" back with her from the Corellia mission. She knew she should have said so before they left, but now it was too late. Comm channels were impossible at the speeds that the transport traveled.
"They'll want me to train her, I'm sure," Pharinseaya admitted out loud to the empty quarters. "I found her, so she'll be in my care. I bet. Oh, Force help me, what have I done? I'm not qualified to teach someone!"
She took a deep breath and let herself slide into a meditative state in which she could gain clarity and insight. Rym returned before long with a nerf milkshake for herself and for Pharinseaya. Her entry didn't rouse the Jedi from her meditation; she continued to sit in the chair with her hands on her thighs, eyes closed. Rym watched her, standing just inside the door for several minutes. She could feel a tingling on her scalp just watching Pharinseaya though she wasn't quite keen enough to realize it was the Force she was sensing in a new way. The Corellian finally took a seat on the edge of the lower bunk - Pharinseaya's bunk - and took a big slurp of her milkshake.
That foreign sound - the sucking on the straw - seemed to draw Pharinseaya back to waking reality. She quietly regarded Rym who was still watching her. Feeling much more centered, she smiled a greeting to the other woman. Rym did not return the expression. In fact, Svoby's countenance was dark and brooding.
"Is something wrong, Rym?"
Glaring, she replied, "Why dontcha tell me?"
Pharinseaya gasped in surprise at Rym's tone of voice. "I... excuse me?"
"I heard you! I heard everything you was thinkin!" Rym shouted. On the table in front of her, the nerf milkshake she'd brought back for Pharinseaya trembled. "I heard all of it!"
The Jedi spotted the quaking milkshake and could see that Rym's rage was being worked out telekinetically more than through her limited vocabulary. Pharinseaya realized in that moment that she was momentarily lucky the control was being extended to the beverage and not she. Rym was strong with the Force and that anger could easily be turned on her.
"Rym, please. Tell me what you heard." All the while, Pharinseaya thought, Oh, Force help me now... she heard my earlier reservations.
"There you go again!" she screamed. The milkshake slid further across the table, its container being clenched and squeezed through the Force. "Why you gotta do that?! Think I can't hear you or somethin'?!"
"Oh! Oh, my goodness. Rym! You heard my thoughts through the Force?" Pharinseaya exclaimed. She shot to her feet.
"Whatcha think I was sayin'?! I HEARD you! Talkin' 'bout me and sayin' bad stuff after YOU dragged me on dis mission!" Rym stood as well; she had a significant height advantage over the Jedi.
"Rym..." Pharinseaya realized she'd not be able to compose her thoughts in advance. She'd just have to proceed slowly and cautiously. "Rym, I was just thinking things and I didn't know you could hear my thoughts as you did. I'm sorry, truly. What I was thinking... First, you have to understand that I'm exhausted. This has been a long and stressful journey for me--"
"Yeah, cuz of me. You said that already," she snapped.
"No. Because this entire mission was so vague for me, Rym," Pharinseaya countered, locking eyes with her. "Finding you was what I think my mission was for, to be honest. And I should have been prepared for your being excited about space travel, but I was being only as patient as I could be given how tired I am."
Rym snorted.
"What else you heard though has less to do with you and more to do with me."
"Dats not how it sounded, Pharinseaya," Rym pointed out. "Ya were mad I was happy with travelin', ya were mad cuz I wanted to check things out. Ya were mad at the idea that you'd have to train me to be a Jedi after YOU said I should come on dis trip! What da Sithspit ugly gundark are you up to, treatin' me like dat?!"
Exasperated, she lost her her regained cool and snapped, "Look! I'm sorry, Rym! I didn't know you could hear my thoughts, that we were that closely connected through the Force! Why were YOU listening in to a private thought anyway?"
Rym glared.
"My issues are my own. I've never been a Jedi teacher before and I'd expect that IF you're taken as a student that the Council would have me work with you. This has less to do with you than it does with me, as I said before."
"Fine. Whatever you say, Jedi," she snapped. She stalked past Pharinseaya to walk out of their cabin but not before Rym gave a final unconscious shove of the nerf milkshake and sent it crashing into the startled Jedi Knight. Pharinseaya was drenched in chilled chocolate nerf milk and horrified at the argument that had transpired.
