frus·tra·tion n. 1. The condition that results when an impulse or an action is thwarted by an external or an internal force.

The Padawan suddenly felt ashamed that she had ever told him. Self-consciousness more so than fear that she had told him something that could jeopardize either her or them. Why should she be embarrassed to mention it to an outsider, not familiar with the Jedi Order, or one that had not been welcomed into the wide world of their galaxy quite yet? Sure, they lacked technology, but the Force was definitely strong here; strong with Anessen and his kind, and astonishingly strong with Galadriel, even if none were aware of it.

Even if they did not have a name for it.

The Force is the… singular spirit that courses through everything in the universe. It is the life force that unifies all.

Adai Seth cast her eyes downward and drew the blanket nearer to her skin.

She suddenly read a burst of incoherent understanding, something along the lines of “Aha!” or “Oh!” from the humanoid next to her. You do mean Illuvatar, then?

“Illuvatar?” she spoke out loud. The syllables were alien to her and they rolled off the tongue in a manner just short of casual.

Yes. Illuvatar, Eru, the One, He Who Is. He created the Valar who created the world by the laborious work of their own hands and minds.

You must be silly. You really believe in multiple deities that created this world, and this world alone?

But it was too late. The Padawan could not take back what she had thought to him, and now that single string of thought would be the gateway to many other things that she promised herself to keep hidden from them. Anessen looked taken aback.

Silly? I am not being silly, Adai Seth. What I tell you of is the truth. Fourteen Valar descended from the Halls of Illuvatar to create this world, Ea, and all that you see.

Actually, this was the moment most crucial. She now had two choices: to either agree with him and end the conversation, letting him triumph in his ignorance, or to continue to argue that this world was most certainly not the only inhabited planet, and his kind not the only intelligence species in the galaxy. She had learned that many societies before being integrated into the galaxy often experienced denial of many things before they are taken as truths. Perhaps this was one such case that was not yet ready to listen. This race of Elves, as they were, would make great Jedi some time in the future.

Adai sighed deeply and rubbed her eyes in distraught. She didn’t know what to do, for the most part. She knew what she thought the best answer would be, what the most ethical course of action would be… but on the other hand, was sowing the seeds of controversy the most moral thing to do, even if you are in the right to begin with?

I’ve seen far more than you have, Anessen Tell me. What do you see at night when you look up at the sky?

He gave her a look as though she had asked a moronic question. The stars, of course.

What created those stars?

Elbereth did so with the dews of Telperion, one of the Two Trees of old.

Oh Force! How she so badly wanted to explain to him how massive clouds of gas and dust collapse to create gigantic, hot, burning spheres, who in turn can acquire planets that are born in much the same way. How she so badly wanted to explain the forces at work within each star, and how their own system revolves around a star that is no different from the countless others in the galaxy. How she so badly wanted to tell him that she had traveled through his night sky, seen his spherical world from thousands of miles away, passed his moon, crashed in the mountains but twenty miles from where they sat, and her droid was still there, waiting for her patiently in the snow. The gnawing compulsion to tell him that everything he took to be true was in fact wrong made her ache in the pit of her stomach, and the only thing she could do to relieve it was close her eyes, let gravity take hold of her, rest her forehead on his shoulder, and think: Yes. Elbereth did create the stars.