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Quin'cie and Akaavi were off in a clearing, well away from the rest of the team on Yavin IV. They were lying on a blanket, staring up at the sky.
"I love you," Quin'cie said in Galactic Standard. "Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum," he repeated in Mando'a, and then again in a third language that Akaavi was sure was his native tongue.
"You incorrigible polyglot," Akaavi said. It was endearing, though, that he was sharing his passions with her. Smuggling was all well and good, but she'd seen the way his eyes lit up at the prospect of a new language.
Quin'cie squeezed Akaavi's hand. "You know I am," he said.
Akaavi just rolled her eyes and squeezed back. "Ni kar'tayli gar darasuum, my love," she said. Her beloved just smiled at her before it faded.
"We're facing Revan," he said.
Akaavi hummed. "We are."
"Revan." There was a note of awe and horror and respect all wrapped up in one that Akaavi didn't know how to explain. "I don't have words for how I feel about this," he said.
"My people fought Revan three hundred years ago and then Revan set the Mand'alor on the path to rebuilding my people."
"Mandalore the Preserver."
Akaavi hummed once more. "Yes. Te Taylir Mand'alor." Quin'cie repeated the words, tasting them on his tongue.
"Revan rebuilt the Jedi, but I don't think how they are now is something that Revan expected." Akaavi pushed herself to a seated position and stared out across the dark waters as she listened to Quin'cie speak. "I... think I spoke to a fragment of Revan's Force Ghost," he admitted. "There were... discrepancies. Between what Revan said and what I felt through the Force."
"You've said your connection isn't nearly what it was."
"Yeah. That's why it was weird." He sat up as well, entangling their fingers. "Revan said he was protecting his line - protecting the Jedi. That I was chosen because he didn't want to risk someone of his blood." There was a faint tremble to his fingers. "That's not what I felt." The trembling stopped, suddenly.
"Quin'cie?"
The smuggler was silent for a time. "Akaavi, do you know what resonance is?" he asked quietly.
"Of course. Though I suspect that it means something different to Jedi."
"When a Jedi gets their saber crystal," he started, "they have to find the one that resonates with them the most. The crystal whose natural frequencies resonate with the Jedi's. It's largely why Sith have red sabers - the crystals crack against the nature of the wielder's Force connection."
It sounded like a lecture, almost. But Akaavi suspected that the words had a far more personal meaning.
"My sabers' crystals were... similar. To another Jedi's." It looked like it was going to be painful for him to say the words. "Similar to Revan's."
Akaavi didn't know what to say to that, so she stayed silent.
"Of course it didn't help that I have - had the same Stance." Quin'cie laughed hollowly. "No wonder the Council was so eager to get rid of me."
Akaavi gently took Quin'cie's face in one of her hands. "Cyare. They kicked you out because they're a bunch of stuffy di'kut."
The words startled a laugh out of Quin'cie. "You're right, my love." His smile returned. "All I want," he said, "is more time with you."
"Then we destroy a Force ghost upon the dawn," Akaavi replied.