⎛this galaxy has seen too much of darkness⎠

SINQUA WALLS // have you met QUINLAN VOS yet? HE/THEY is now THIRTY-EIGHT years old CIS MAN KIFFAR, originally from KIFFU but typically reside on YAVIN IV. after everything they've gone through, they show loyalty to THE JEDI ORDER. they are best known for being a JEDI MASTER, and i hear they’re grown pretty MAVERICK yet also SMUG at times; i hope they survive the galactic war. (SNOW, 25, MST, SHE/HER)

L O A D I N G : // …  8ABY : MONTH TWO … //

“i don’t know.” she admits truthfully, glancing up at quinlan with a small shrug of her robed shoulders. “but we have to try.”

she wasn’t sure she believed the words fully herself, but she would defend them with conviction if challenged. she’d always been like that, defensive of anything if it came into question, and although it had gotten her in trouble more than once with the council or her peers, it could prove useful here, under the sure scrutiny of the council and new republic if followed through. it was extremely risky, with no many unknowns, and it could not afford any of those behind it to falter in their belief.

at his second comment, the edge of her mouth quirks upwards into a small smile, hope and a tinge of amusement crossing her features. “we used to say the same of jedi and mandalorians, did we not? and now many fight side by side with us.” it was an odd trend amongst those who had been brought back - or who had already been in this time - with so many mandalorian warriors having found companionship and an ally in at least one jedi. a far cry from the galaxy she’d left, but she appreciated it, both for the unity it signaled and for the reduction of one more possible thread amongst all this violence ( raised in war, always a tactical mind, she could not help but think it ).

         even if in his time mandalorians had been neutral, a pacifist society, quinlan remembered well obi-wan’s late-night rants about the history of the jedi order and the conflicts they had faced along the way. so he knew what bastilla was talking about, in her time jedi and mandalorians were sworn enemies. and after hapes quinlan had seen nothing but collaboration between the two groups, to the point where the mandalorians stance had not even being questioned, not with so many jedi and mandos finding each other across time and space. but the sith, now that was a different thing. 

        but if there was someone who knew the power of the dark side, who understood the danger of letting oneself being pulled into the absolute overwhelming feeling of being able to have anything you’d ever want, it was bastilla. whatever the circumstances, they both had fallen and come back, but if there was something quinlan was sure every fallen jedi shared was that little voice at the back of their heads saying, remember how it felt? and that was why dark force users were dangerous, and quinlan was hesitant to trust them so easily, because in the moment there was no feeling that could compare. 

it was perhaps the first time that trilla had been referred to by an outsider as cal’s friend without automatically trying to deny it. an odd feeling to accept it as it was, to swallow the butterflies that still lingered in the pit of their stomach. she remembered seeing master vos a few times in the temple as a child, curiously asking cere about the man. he looked the same. of course, that was no surprise. most did, they were the one who changed.

“yes, i’m with the younglings.” it’s easier, and healthier, to identify theirself through that connection, even if it made it harder to deny any relationship to the new jedi order. “we have, but i was about half a meter shorter.” there’s a slight, but noticeable disdain in her next words. “many years ago, cere junda was my master.”

         the smirk that was about to appear on his lips stays as nothing more than a small smile. there are many things quinlan still needs to learn about the time he missed —well him being dead and all— but coming face to face to any former padawans, he does not need to hear to feel. no matter what quinlan knows he is never going to be able to understand what it was like during the jedi purge, and perhaps it is going to be too late, but all he can do is offer the support they did not have when they were force to grow up in the blink of an eye. 

“oh, i’ve had better days, but it takes a little more to land a hit on me.” she brushed some dust from the rubble off of her robes, still the picture of grace, even if she didn’t feel like it. she had never been one to show cracks under pressure. she grimaced faintly at his next words, nodding in agreement.

she had seen more than her fair share of slaughters on haruun kal. bodies stacked up one by one, uncountable losses. there had been many terrible things done during the clone wars, but haruun kal … haruun kal had known worse for longer. somehow, though, it had not managed to desensitize her to the destruction that consumed them now. it had only made it worse. “are you from order 66, too ? “

       while there were not many years between them, growing up quinlan had always looked up to to depa, she had always been a role model, the example masters pointed out to their padawans as who they should aspire to be, quinlan had been blessed enough to get to call her a friend. a smirk on his face as he watched her dust herself off, that was so very like her, ❝i remember❞ he said with a smile, ❝you’ve always been the toughest of us all...❞ 

it had been there in the back of their mind, the constant quinlan, their father. they could feel him in the force, the signature – one that she ha immediately searched for, one that she had immediately hoped would be there. but as she walks through the temple, the feeling of closeness of maybe kept creeping up. they raised a hand up to cover their mouth, to stop the noise that had escaped. because it had been years, since their death – since she had seen quinlan. but no one in the galaxy would stop them from recognizing her father. 

quinlan had been the main person in their life from two years old and on, he had been the one to teach and guide them. and though, the council had said the attachment between them had been too strong, had to be fixed – it never truly faded from their mind. how does one give up their father?? aayla wasn’t sure – they had never learned how. “quinlan,” it’s a whisper a barely there, sound because maybe if she speaks it to loudly he’ll disappear, and this will be a dream, or a terrible nightmare. 

they take just a few steps forward, tears clouding their eyes before launching into quinlan’s arms, hugging him tightly. “is it you??” they ask, looking at him. “you’re here. i – i –.” they try to get the words out, the ‘i thought i’d never see you again’ but the words fail. they just can’t get over the fact that he’s in front of them.

         he didn’t even notice the tears that had begun spilling from his eyes, she was here and that’s all that mattered, quinlan hugged aayla, and lifting them off the ground began spinning them around, like he had done many times when she was little, in his mind even after she became a knight, a master, a general, she would always be his little girl. 

            ❝it’s me, it’s me. i’m here❞ he said finally setting her down again, keeping a tight hold on them. ❝when i felt you die—❞ he knew better than to bring it up, but he had felt everyone die, kashyyyk had been of the last to receive the order, quinlain knew now, so he had felt them all die, ❝i— they were right you know? my attachment to you was... because i felt you die and i just did not care about what happened to me, not when my little girl was gone...❞ quinlan admitted. 

       growing up quinlan had actively looked for ways to stand out, to make sure he wasn’t like everyone else, the easiest of course had been to break the rules. something he had carried well into his knighthood, and once they became a master. he had been so proud of his reputation, going against the council, finding ways to circumvent their laws. and then of course he had gone against the order, and quinlan would never forgive himself for the damage he had caused. the lives lost, the loved ones he betrayed. and yet they had welcomed him back, of course he had not been sure if it was because they were in desperate need of soldiers for a war they never should’ve fought, it had not mattered much to him anyways, he had nothing but a burning need to do good, so he had fought their way. 

“right,” they retorted with a sigh and roll of her eyes. “because you know so much more about my destiny than i do. tell me, what other advice do you have for me, great purveyor of wisdom?”

          quinlan still felt like the padwan who had been caught in the archives doing —well pretty much everything except reading, whenever he was in the presence of jocasta nu. even if he was taller than her now, he somehow always found himself looking up at her. and she was the only one who could offer some unbiased insight into his situation. so against every cell in his body telling him to turn around quinlan vos found himself knocking on the door that lead into her office at the new temple. 

         ever since life day they had been scrambling to make sense of what was happening, of what was to come. quinlan hadn’t even found his footing in this new reality, had barely assimilated what had happened moments before he had showed up in it. it was never easy to find out you were decades into the future, but more than that was the fact that no one knew what had become of him. had he died at the hand of his men? or managed to survive the jedi purge? quinlan liked to believe he had died, the idea of hiding while the galaxy succumbed to fear and the tyranny of the empire was not one he liked to entertain. it helped to have something to focus on, and if he was being honest had obi-wan not come back from belkadan with that warning, quinlan would probably not have stayed at the temple. 

         they were all on high alert, not just the jedi order, the entire galaxy, it was something quinlan had not witnessed before, sure the war had left no world untouched but you either picked a side or were forced to pick one, here, well it was starting to look like a unified front. but of course not much could be done if they didn’t know who they were fighting. know your enemy.

         quinlan looked up at bastila, he had finally sat down after pacing across the temple’s meeting hall. there had been a sort of recognition between, not the old acquaintances kind, there were a few centuries between them, but the one that only those who had gone to the dark side and came back into the light shared. so of course despite being wary of the jedi order, —the new council did helped to make quinlan less hesitant to join them again— quinlan had trusted her immediately.

❝ no  friends , ❞ she  affirms , not  even  bothering  to  glance  out  at  the  growing  crowd.  ❝ if  there  were , i  think  there  might  be  trouble. ❞ friends  wasn’t  a  word  ventress  used  often ,  and  those  she  did  consider  under  that  label  were  considered  by  most  to  be  of  the  unsavory  type.   ❝ more  than  enough  people  who  want  my  head , though. ❞  to  be  fair  ,  that  was practically   the  whole  republic  in  their  time  -  it  wasn’t  her  choice  that  many  of  them  had  been  brought  back , too. 

one  arm  wraps  around  his  waist  ,  pulling  him  closer.  ❝ lucky  for  them , though , i  have  no  plans  to  give  them  my  attention  tonight. ❞ that  was  reserved  for  quinlan … and  whatever  force  called  to  her  from  below  their  feet. 

         ❝oh that’s not entirely true❞ quinlan said his voice hinting the beginning of a tease, ❝trust me after you helped little ‘soka and kenobi, plenty jedi started to see you in a different light❞ he finished with a wink, and hoped she would still want to dance with him after that comment on her true nature, a good heart.

no matter how many times cal comes across these situations, it doesn’t get any easier to manage the surprise. to see all these long dead jedi, those he’d grown up watching, believing in, learning from - seeing them now, after all he’s seen and learned and been through. quinlan, though… he seems closest to the nomadic jedi knight cal can remember, even if still a little different in the force, somehow. in a way cal’s familiar with, if he thinks too hard about it, but - now’s not the time.

hopefully they both make it out of here alive and he can ask about it later, maybe.

nodding in agreement, cal’s gaze is fixed on the direction the voice is coming from. he’s not sure he’s ever heard anything like it - he can sense items in the vicinity of course, and his abilities have grown stronger, but.. this is something else. something new. “that’s okay, i’m used to not liking what i find half the time.” he says with a weak chuckle, gaze shifting back towards quinlan. “whatever it is - i’d rather we find it and.. deal with whatever it is, than leave it and risk whatever it could mean for someone who’s not ready for it.”

          quinlan wasn’t sure how much cal had been told about what had happened to quinlan almost thirty years ago, but the kiffar had a feeling that since the whole thing was due to the council’s misguided belief that they had the upper moral ground, it wasn’t likely the situation would’ve been shared with anyone not directly involved. still quinlan would feel like he was lying if they never talked about it, later, a voice in the back of his head said. 

        there was very little that could still take quinlan by surprise, he had after all reunited with those he had loved and lost, and he himself seemed to have been brought to life —he preferred to believe he had perished at the hands of his troops than having turned his back on the galaxy during its moment of greatest need. but as he came face to face with eldra quinlan could not stop himself from opening and closing their mouth in surprise.