"Your daughter?" Rey frowned. It had never occured to her that Maz may have a family.
'She's way over a thousand years old, of course she has a family.' She chided herself.
Maz looked quizzically at Rey for a moment before answering. "Jessi rarely stays in one place for long, if you're going to find her I suggest you speak to her daughter Kina, on Tallos."
"Which port on Tallos?" Ben asked, frowning.
Maz shook her head. "Kina has too much of her mother in her to stay in any port for long… but she does visit Yarlo every few months. I suggest you start there."
Rey groaned inwardly. 'Why is nothing ever simple?'
Ben smirked at her briefly then thanked Maz for her help before the pair returned to their ship to consider all that they had learned and discuss their next moves.
"Maz sent you here." It wasn't a question. The tiny alien glared up at the two humans. "To find my mother."
Rey and Ben exchanged a glance and a thought.
"Oh, don't be so shocked." Kina scoffed. "You aren't the first humans Maz has sent to me for help locating Jessi." She shook her head and sighed heavily then waved them forward and turned around to weave her way through the boisterous crowd in the waterfront dive. "Come on then."
Tallos is a world with very little landmass and vast oceans full of underwater mountains that are incredibly rich in gems and precious metals. Kina is a rugged little being that makes her living through deepsea mining. Rey can't help but be fascinated by the waterworld and the beings that live on it.
Kina leads the Solos across a snarled maze of piers and docks until they finally reach dry land. "My place is up in the mountains, I hope you have strong stomaches."
"Why would we need strong stomaches?" Rey asked, slightly confused and thoroughly curious.
"Because I'm done floating for the season." Kina says in a warning tone. "My feet are on dry land, and they aren't leaving it again until the windy season ends out at my mine."
Ben caught sight of an odd contraption up ahead that Kina seemed to be walking towards. The thing was big, black, rusty and sitting on the ground… on massive, man sized wheels. He frowned as the tiny alien climbed nimbly up the side of the unusual conveyance. "Do you mean to use that thing for traveling?" He asked incredulously.
Now a foot higher than Ben's black crowned head, Kina glared down at him. "Before you insult my truck let me give you a friendly piece of advice…Don't."
'And I thought the Falcon was a hunk of junk.' He thought to Rey, who bit her lip to keep from smiling.
"Knock it off." Kina scowled, startling both Solos. "And get in, unless you intend to wait for me to come back… in two months."
Rey and Ben scrambled up the rolling monstrosity and settled themselves into the cramped cabin with Kina.
Rey's curiousity could barely wait long enough to strap in before she asked, "What exactly did you want us to 'knock off'?"
Kina slid Rey a sideways look through narrowed eyes and slapped her palm against a smooth black panel in the middle of the steering wheel, causing the engine to roar to life. "If you have something to say, use your mouths, I make it a rule to avoid people who communicate telepathically. They aren't trustworthy."
Both humans gaped in open astonishment.
Ben recovered first just as the truck lurched forward from it's parking space. "Are you Force sensitive?"
Kina made a disgusted sound and shot him a withering glare. "You've seen the galaxy, thousands of species, billions of stars, landed on hundreds of planets and yet you know nothing outside of your own limited interests."
Ben was too intrigued to feel the sting of her sharp insult. "If you aren't using the Force, then how do you know that we were speaking telepathically?"
Kina ignored the question completely as she wove through the crowded streets of Yarlo screaming colorful insults through the open window at pedestrians and other drivers who dared use the clogged roadway.
Once the port city fell away behind them Ben repeted his question.
Kina clamped her jaw sullenly for a moment then asked, "What do you know about my people?"
"You live for a very long time." Ben answered, a shrug in his voice though he remained still.
"And…?"
"I met Maz once as a kid, and again a week ago." Ben said dismissively. "You're the second of your kind I've ever met."
"So… you know nothing of my people." Kina surmised.
"Are you saying your people can hear other people's telepathic communications?" Rey frowned.
Kina rolled her eyes. "This is why I tend to avoid mixing with your kind."
The Force began to boil around Ben, Rey took his hand and squeezed it firmly.
Kina looked at the pair with newfound curiousity as the storm of frustrated anger abated from the Force inside the truck.
"I can't hear your thoughts, I can feel you exchanging them." Kina finally admitted. "It's similar to how you feel the Force, but unlike you I cannot command the Force."
"You've tried." Ben stated, picking up on the sadness underlying the curiousity, fear and frustration emanating from the tiny woman.
Kina didn't bother to respond.
"What else can you do that is similar to what we can do?" His voice had a tone reminiscent of a student asking a teacher a question about something he found interesting.
"That's none of your business." Kina snapped.
"Can you feel the emotions of people who are nearby?" He pressed.
Kina didn't answer, but a shiver in the Force around her was as certain a confirmation as a verbal one.
Rey was as intrigued as her husband by that shiver. "Is that how Maz knew that I was desperate to find a sense of belonging?" She asked.
Kina ground her teeth but didn't respond. She didn't have to, the spikes of indignation in the Force around her answered for her.
"Why doesn't the Force around Maz provide as much information as it does around you?" Rey asked, fascinated.
"Maz is old, I'm not." Kina shrugged. "She's better at keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself."
The rutted track they were jostling over began to climb the side of a huge mountain who's summit was hidden in dense clouds.
"How old are you?" Ben frowned.
"I was born the same year Palpatine became Chancellor of the Galactic Senate." Kina said flatly.
"And how old is Maz?" Rey queried.
Kina snorted. "Who knows? She wont say... at least five millenia, though, since my mother is over four-thousand years old."
Ben frowned deeply. "How old can your people live to be?"
Kina said dismissively, "Most live well past ten millenia... some live twice that long."
A deep furrow formed between Ben's brows as a wave of uneasiness washed outwardly from him. "Twenty thousand years?"
Kina shrugged again, "It's as rare as normal humans living to be a hundred, but it does happen."
"So, there are still some of your kind alive who may have witnessed the fall of the Halcyon Order and the birth of the Jedi and Sith religions?" Ben's frown softened into a thoughtful expression.
"Doubtful, but possible." Kina said nonchalantly.
"Are there beings that live longer than your kind?" Rey asked.
Kina didn't answer for a moment, chewing her lip she stared through the mud spattered windshield and guided the truck at breakneck speed up the winding mountain road.
"Are there?" Ben asked after a few moments, a gleam of sneaking suspicion in his eyes.
