Bankor

Smiling, Niall shook his head. "Tatooine. I don't recommend it unless you're fond of sand." And who was, really?

Her comment made him chuckle. "That sounds rather frustrating. At least the military is slow moving enough that we often get a bit of time after that." He tilted his head, regarding her with an interested expression. "Jedi do get to take personal time occasionally, don't they?"

"Of course. But it is not something you can ever truly turn off. For better or worse," she adds with a wry quirk of her lips. "Hm. I like sand when it's next to water. Less so otherwise. So I will keep your advice in mind."

Niall narrowed his eyes at Tethys, his expression thoughtful. "I would like to say that I understand that. Being a leader is something that can't be turned off... or, at least, almost never. Perhaps that little bit makes the difference." He sighed. "I've often wondered what it would be like to feel the Force. Every since I was a child, I wondered."

"Did you know Jedi as a child?" she asks, giving him an inquisitive look. She's gathered enough to know that he's from a political family--and on Alderaan, no less, where the Order has a significant presence--so it seems likely enough.

"In a way." Niall said, acknowledging this with a nod. "I was familiar with the order, of course. But I was thinking more of the childhood friend I mentioned. When she was..." His lips worked for a moment, selecting the proper word, "-accepted into the Jedi, it was a rather significant event for me. Although not so much as it was for her, of course."

Tethys nods. "I understand that. She went somewhere you couldn't follow... and vice versa." Her eyes move toward the planet outside the viewport again, a large ocean now visible as the Valiant Star continues on its orbit. "A neighbor's daughter who used to look after me left home to join the Deep-Sea Rescue Corps when I was about seven or eight, and I was terribly fascinated by them for a long time afterward."

"Yes." Niall said. "And so ever since then, I wondered what it would be like. I thought maybe if I..." His lips pressed together. "Well, I just wondered what it was like."

He tilted his head, looking at her. "Deep-Sea Rescue Corps?" He asked curiously.

"What which part of it was like? Leaving your family, living in the Jedi Temple? Or... other things?" Tethys raises a quizzical eyebrow.

"Deep-Sea Rescue Corps, yes. I lived on Dac for most of my childhood. It's an ocean world, so emergency services are organized differently from most terrestrial planets," she explains. "The Deep-Sea Corps train for the most daring underwater rescues and the most dangerous emergencies--floating settlement collapse, deep submersible accidents, krakana incursions on seafloor farms, that sort of thing. There is always at least one holodrama about them running on local stations." Her lips quirk wryly. "Now I am sure their work involves much more dull waiting than the dramas show. Much like soldiering, actually. But they're justly honored all the same."

"Feeling the Force." Niall said. "That was the one thing that it seemed to me would change all the other things. And that no amount of intelligence or hard work would allow me to correct." He sighed. "Perhaps if I could have done that, we wouldn't have been separated."

He shook his head as the conversation moved on. With an effort, he smiled again. "Oh? That does rather sound like an equivalent to soldering. Both in the dull waiting and the dramas. You're familiar with Havoc squad, I'm sure. Perhaps that's our Deep-Sea Rescue Corps equivalent."

"Hm." Tethys nods with a coolly sympathetic air. "Not necessarily, you know. Younglings from the same sector often scatter to far reaches once they leave their temple for their apprenticeships. Even within the Order, many of us find ourselves making paths quite different from our friends'." It doesn't so much sound as if she's trying to console him, than as if she's supplying a piece of missing intelligence. "Well, I have heard the name before, I am certain, though I don't know very much about the unit."