A pair of solutions to cognitive dissonance presented themselves around the time Tilon succeeded in weaving a skein of solid mist between his hands. The two ideas arrived rapid-fire, maybe some kind of boon from the Force or those passed on or just his soul's response to the ancient Force tradition at work here. Things were wrapping up, but he stayed on the bench, thinking.
Revelation one: the ethical issues - whether trips like these were extractive, treated knowledge as a commodity separable from the people who lived it - scaled with power differences. It was one thing for a penniless, independent wanderer like his father to ask to learn. It would be something entirely different for a Jedi-corporate magnate or a Jedi general or a galactic institution to do the same. Where Quill and this expedition fell on that sliding scale were open questions, but establishing the scale helped ease the tension. And in parallel, the hosts' own agency, resources, capabilities, and power relationships were part of the equation too. It would be one thing to ask for the secrets of penniless, independent wanderers; it would be another to approach a powerful institution like the Fallanassi or the Ithorian Priests of the Mother Jungle. That scale helped make sense of things too.
Revelation two: a specific purpose mattered. As a Jedi researcher, Tilon was aware that Jedi had crossed paths with mist-weaver derivatives in recent years in hostile contexts,
on Mimban and
on New Cov. In the latter instance, the aggressors had been able to change their faces' appearance through mist-weaving or something like it. He wondered whether others here had been more intentional than he had about finding ways to understand that ability or counter it.
And frankly, he'd find uses for that ability. He'd been an alchemical test subject for several years in his youth. Elements of his appearance were by choice and other elements weren't. The option to adjust how he presented himself at will had an appeal. Common sense suggested that weaving a new face over his own would be orders of magnitude more complicated than the skeins he'd managed so far. No harm in trying, though.
He ran his fingers into his brightly-colored hair and began to weave. All the mist he'd woven so far had been muted, colorless. Conjuring new skeins and strands in his hair felt strange but not unpleasant. He pulled some of his hair before his eyes and saw it interleaved with gray as if he'd aged twenty years. As disguises went, pretty meagre - but not bad for a first try. Work from here and he might just find some application that was relevant to the New Cov situation that
Valery Noble
had
reported.
Most likely, he figured, the more advanced skills like this - shaping a tangible false face, like on New Cov - were among the many things that this planet's Light-oriented mist-weavers would know and perhaps share, if people were willing to convert to their way and remain among them for a time. He pondered it as his hair grew grey.
