The room they'd chosen was a moderately sized chamber a few halls down from the temple archives, which was unfrequented and comparatively isolated by its relative remoteness, something he could thoroughly appreciate. There was a perpetual, audible hum from the entrance console as their sabres ignited with a hiss and a flash, viridian and violet hues casted spectral darkenings into the dips and valleys along the walls as they took their stances.

The shadows exaggerated, tensing with them.

The first strike had been so quick, so fierce that his defence had almost broken under the sheer force of the blow. He grunted audibly and allowed the overwhelming pressure on his knees to bring him to a trembling crouch as he was pushed to his first compromise within a veritable few seconds.

'No', he would not be bested so quickly again, not now, not as he had been so many times before and especially not by her.

Revan: In all the years he'd known her not once had he been able to defeat her in single combat, his first bout with her in training when they were barely more than younglings together had only lasted a few minutes and even then she was expected to become one of the most potent duellists at the academy, every other Jedi who knew of her now knew of that if nothing else. For months, even years after her first victory against him their fights had only seemed to get shorter; she'd called him an 'idiot' once for refusing to stop challenging her in spite of her 'superior skill'.

He had once accepted his place with her and so the losses didn't bother him for a time, but now there were a few things keeping his confidence high: all those previous fights had only been with training sabres and he'd had many opponents since then; consistent defeat at her hands had humbled and hardened him to the strikes and taunts of most others. That, and this was a far less restricted fight; truly his skill had always rivalled hers and for most of the other Jedi that would be enough, but as much as he loathed to admit it this was a matter of pride as much as it was one of personal improvement: this was something he was always justifiably adamant about concealing for fear of a lecture from any of the temple's more 'disciplined' members and for losing her as a sparring partner or far worse, as a good friend: no respectable Jedi would permit what they'd likely dismiss as a one-sided grudge match.

And he would miss her.

After all that time knowing each other, growing familiar as they had their first parting of ways for her first serious mission had not just pained him for the several-week-long loss of her friendship, but in the possible permanent loss of the first and only true rival he'd ever had; he was barely able to hide his inner conflict from his colleagues or his relief to her when she returned, but the weary smile she bore when she saw him then spoke volumes about how much his efforts at stoicism had mattered.

She smiled rarely even then.

Now she looked... disappointed at his buckling; she knew how hard he'd been training, with and without her; the length of their more recent duels had begun to grow exponentially and now fuelled (and occasionally hindered) by his subsequent confidence he'd made every possible effort to challenge her as enthusiastically as he once did (though with their rigorous training schedules amid growing responsibilities to the order these latest challenges were increasingly infrequent).

He steadily allowed her some further leeway, luring her to exert herself further to get him to submit earlier before he executed his first contingency: at the perceived 'last possible moment' his left arm almost went entirely slack in correlation with the strong exertion on his right and she silently yelped as her previously stable strength now carried her chin into the silvery pommel of his weapon's hilt, sending spittle flying from her lips. His flat, splayed fingers heralded a following, moderate blast of power that put a metre and a half between them and she slid away, slightly dazed; she recovered quickly enough to parry his following lunge.

"You feinted" she said, with the sort of veiled amusement that only he and perhaps Squint might spot. He only smirked in response.

He'd always been the greater tactician between the two of them at least.

They both readied themselves again, taking their respective stances and the fight began in earnest.

By the end his legs were trembling, he was tasting iron on his lips, his lungs felt like they'd turned to pulp and she didn't look like she'd fared much better.

"what's all this?!"

That voice, that gratingly authoritative declaration from a mouth not much younger that his own wasn't enough to make them flinch but it did bring things to a halt; he felt a harsh drop in his gut beneath the burning ache in his bones at the realization that this would mean that he and Revan would be separated at the very least and he would never find out if he could've beaten her, that didn't bother him quite as much as he'd thought it would, he was more concerned that she'd be gone... he'd come to expect that.

"Bastilla" Revan's voice was steady even as she called upon her training to regain an even respiration, contrasting against the dark bangs clinging to her scalp and the subtle quiver in her muscles while he remained quiet, he didn't trust himself to talk yet.

"Revan" Bastilla replied with a pale sneer on her youthful face.

He suppressed a disheartened sigh.

Bastilla had always seemed to look down on jedi like them: the "defiant" ones who argued and talked back to their masters a little more than was subtly encouraged, especially if they were skilled and respected, she simply couldn't seem to accept that these people bent or broke the rules of the Jedi, her idols; this surprisingly open disdain of hers seemed particularly directed at himself and Revan, which in the end didn't surprise him and he very much doubted that it surprised her.

he'd always thought it was at least in part down to her circumstances coming into the order: Jedi who wished to be' Jedi' seldom seemed to turn out as anything much more than average and though Bastilla was always a 'by-the-code' padawan, sometimes he wondered if she knew how... smug she sounded sometimes.

This wasn't the first time she'd spoken to the two of them or accused them of breeching conduct

"If the masters could see you two now they'd surely understand what I've been trying to show them all along"

Neither of them answered her so she continued, dramatically.

"you've both grown attached, too attached" she almost smirked, but it looked as if nothing short of her honorary promotion to Jedi knight would break through that sneer "I've seen the looks you throw each other, you're not nearly as composed as you like to pretend!" he and Revan threw each other a mutual glance, an acknowledgment of their situation, an agreement to brace each other, do their best to make an effort to collectively resolve to whatever was about to come their way.

At their enduring silence Bastilla finally threw out an accusatory finger and pronounced loudly "you've been cultivating a romance in secret and I intend to see the council cast you both out for it!"

They looked at her as though she'd grown a second head before turning back to each other again, this time their eyes lingered. Bastilla was probably expecting an emotional confession before they begged her not to tell on them right before she launched into a long speech about the Jedi code and their shared arrogance for disregarding the rules and so on and so forth.

Instead of this they laughed, or rather he chuckled softy and Revan only gave a small smile that was just wide enough to look exasperated, an errant eyebrow twitch the only indication that she was truly displeased at all.

He wasn't expecting this particular accusation exactly, though he at least had vague projections about what a padawan such as her observing them as she had might suspect: Bastilla was still very young and idealistic (not that either of them had any right to call her out on her age, they weren't much older after all) and she had a very black and white way of viewing the galaxy, so in other words in her eyes the Jedi (those who followed the code) were right, and the council were the most accomplished Jedi so they must be absolutely right and therefore any Jedi who disagreed or disobeyed as they had (albeit in a much more minor way than what was to come) were absolutely wrong and it was up to the true Jedi like her to stop them. He had yet to determine his feelings on the matter.

"we are training, Bastilla, nothing more"

He tried to emulate Revan's now-solidified calm, placing his hands behind his back instead of at his sides, attempting to meld his features into an impassive mask.

She turned to him and her eyes narrowed.

"The two of you can barely keep your stances straight, what sort of training calls for a fight that ends up with the trainees on the cusp of collapsing in a heap?" she was almost pouting as her arms folded across her chest.

"What's going on?"

All three padawans' gazes, caught off guard by this latest unannounced presence, shot to the space between the entranceway where the Jedi historian Atris now stood. Her pearl-robed posture was as refined and uptight as he'd come to expect with her feet ever so slightly apart and her hands held behind her back.

She came bearing a relaxed smile on her face that dented her cheeks in a way he wasn't used to, it almost made him feel uneasy.

"m-master Atris I..." Bastilla stuttered before she was gently silenced with a raised hand.

"Revan, Bastilla, leave us" her words were spoken softly but clearly, made to leave no room for argument; her stern-grey eyes were fixed firmly on him. Revan spared her a brief flash of incredulity while Bastilla looked like she'd just been struck across the cheeks, certainly to the untrained eye the pigment of pink they'd donned didn't look too dissimilar from the mark of a firmly placed palm. Her mouth was open, struggling to form a rebuke before it closed behind thinning lips and her eyes blanked out as she turned and left without saying another word.

Revan left wordlessly as well; he knew, or at least suspected then that Atris would try to find some way to pin what some would consider poor conduct on her: despite Revan's notoriety as a great duellist, it was no match for her reputation as a potential philosophically unorthodox upstart.

"you know this has to stop Surik" she said, minimising the gap between them.

In his head he was already running through all the possible mistakes he could've made to tip her off; if Bastilla could find reason to suspect something then he had certainly made at least one grievous miscalculation and that must've led Atris to...

"what exactly were you and Revan trying to accomplish here?"

His train of thought performed a sharp U-turn; she might not have been aware of their contest's true nature.

Perhaps he could salvage some inconspicuousness after all.

"we met to exchange data and idle conversation and found ourselves spoiled for time, so I made the suggestion that we spar to keep ourselves occupied, and in peak condition" he put on a smile that he hoped didn't make him look overly innocuous.

"what could you truly gain from that? You both have thought-out schedules for your training, if you tire yourselves out here-don't give me that look, you can't disguise your laden breathing from me-you'll find yourself out of balance when next you meet your respective teachers"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek briefly before letting out a heavy sigh, making less effort to hide how strained he truly was: his shoulders fell and his legs wobbled ever so slightly.

The 'look' had likely only been a slight flash of discontent in his eyes but she had picked it up as easily as if he'd openly scowled at her, she'd probably picked up on a few other things as well.

"I... wanted to make sure we remained... ready, that's all" he was mentally berating himself now, he'd let too much slip.

Her eyes flashed dangerously as she looked down on him "ready for what?"

Backed into his corner all he could do was stare down at his feet, feeling very much like a chided youngling.

"I just... don't want us to become complacent; we may be living in peacetime but I don't think that's any reason to let our guard down" her gaze did soften then, but only a little.

"Meetra," she huffed. She placed her delicate fingers on his shoulders and began with a voice calm enough to make him look up at her "the mandalorian stratagem has had them testing themselves in border skirmishes, if they wanted to make any kind of war they'd have attacked by now, they seek self-improvement through combat not open conflict." she'd taken on the countenance of a teacher and part of him couldn't help but feel condescended, she'd find a place on the council comfortable. "Despite their twisted sense of honour they do have some sense of self preservation" she continued "they won't risk the future of their clans against the forces that weathered Exar Kun"

despite his scepticism Atris had managed to put 'something' in him at ease, at least now he knew her stance. He felt... glad when he was with her, even in a disposition of disagreement he found himself trusting her almost as much as he trusted Revan.

He nodded in acknowledgement, not concurrence.

Then she let a much more appealing smile appear on her face and released a breath he didn't realize she'd been holding; even with her misgivings he decided that she was pleasant company on the solitary merit of the possibility of that smile.

He returned her smile with one of his own, albeit his was more subdued.

"I'm happy you strive to keep yourself at your peak, but the Jedi have been training their members for millennia, have a little faith in us" she removed her hands from his shoulders and turned and left as gracefully as she arrived. Before she disappeared behind the doorframe she turned back to look at him.

"Take care Meetra, mind your thirst for readiness not manifest itself as a thirst for power." there was a pause and a smirk "Revan should learn to trust our word as well, she's been trying to eavesdrop on us ever since she 'left'"

He blinked absently at her as she made her exit.

For a while he found himself at a loss for what to do so he left the room and thought to make for his quarters.

"So, what did she want to talk about?" he froze. ah yes, Revan. Her tome was impressively static

"I'm not entirely sure" he said honestly. "She didn't seem to know why she was there either, maybe she was planning to improvise?"

Revan considered this for a moment before nodding. "We need to be more careful, I don't know how much longer we can keep this up"

"then let's not" she looked as surprised as he felt, it was some of the most overt emotion he'd ever seen on her face.

He took the initiative and pressed on.

"We have a routine, a plan, we have the edge of the council's eye which means a sizable portion of the temple is holding us in their attentions as well; I'm beginning to understand that we can't afford to indulge ourselves like this anymore, maybe it's high time we got serious, our enemy will not wait for us to mature so we must ensure that the Jedi address their intentions as soon as possible"

Revan's quiet was so powerful then that it was contagious; the hallway they stood bone-rigid in fell into a crushing, trepid silence.

Then Revan made an uninterruptable sound, turned, and left.