Author's Note: This originally started out as just one fic, for my Tumblr, because I fell in love with a song and linked the song to a couple, but things got out of hand. It will be 4 chapters, I believe, and this first is going to be a double upload. It's one of my in-between projects while I'm working on 134 Days.
This is an AU (Slight, but still an AU) of Qui-Gon and Tahl's relationship, from Initiates to her death, and beyond. I took liberties here and there. Mostly because when I started writing, I had not yet finished the New Apsolon arc in Jedi Apprentice. (Technically I'm still not done, lazy me.) But it can still mold around the original quite well.
So welcome to QuiTahl feelsy land.
Lyrics from "Yours Truly" by Paradise Fears.
Dear Tomorrow,
You've been shining so brightly
I'll be holding on tightly
To the words that you said
Initiate Jinn does not have many friends. Every other Initiate at the Temple has at least one; that person they can go to with secrets, or hope to be pitted against in training.
But not Qui-Gon Jinn.
He doesn't need them. Jedi don't form attachments, and Qui-Gon wants to be a great Jedi.
As it is, no one will put up with him. He's too stubborn, they tell him. Too inclined to havoc and rule-breaking, the instructors say. Or, as his creché-master exasperatedly phrases it, a "constant headache".
But it doesn't matter, because he's never known anything except his isolation.
Not until he sees her.
Because you took that one moment
So much more than alone then
We were out on our own then
Until you took me in
Qui-Gon vividly remembers the first time he encountered Initiate Uvain. He was ten, she was nine.
Of course, he has seen her before. Many times. Everyone knows about Tahl Uvain; she came to the Temple older than most. She has a sharp wit and a sharper tongue, and her saber skills are fast-approaching those of the advanced Initiates.
She's also every bit an outsider as Qui-Gon is.
He watches her from a distance, marveling at her skill, but always too headstrong and afraid to approach her. Silently, he wishes they could be paired off in training. Tahl Uvain would give him a match of wits and saber skills like he has never known.
But he stays aloof, unaware that she is watching him as he watches her.
Then you sat down next to me with your heart on you sleeve
If I never would've met you then I never would believe
Someone like you would be writing to someone like me
Then it happens.
She catches his gaze across the refectory. Cerulean eyes challenge gold-striped, and Tahl lifts her chin proudly, walks purposefully across the crowded room, and thumps her tray down onto his otherwise empty table.
"Initiate Uvain," Qui-Gon says, almost tonelessly. Almost.
He cannot quite keep a note of surprise from those two words.
Surely she's heard about him from the others.
"Initiate Jinn," she replies in kind, quirking an already-arched eyebrow higher. "I hear you're quite the maverick."
"I hear you're quite the swordswoman," he shoots back, startled. She has a quicker tongue than he expected, especially from a nine-year-old.
She stares at him for a long moment. Without quite knowing why, Qui-Gon holds his breath.
Until a grin breaks across her face, lighting it up brighter than the sunrise glinting rose-colored hues off the windows of Coruscant, and the breath catches suddenly in his chest.
"Call me Tahl," she says, and holds out her hand to shake.
That was how their friendship began.
Signed, Yours Truly…
To Be Continued.
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