"I don't get it."
It was an interesting tableau. Of all the people milling around the newly-opened art exhibit, there were only three at this particular painting and they were all tilting their heads at identical angles.
The man who had spoken was tall, dark, handsome and looking decidedly puzzled.
"I don't see why not," the woman protested. "It's perfectly obvious."
"Really," the other man, who could have been his twin, remarked. "Mind explaining it to the rest of us?"
"No," she asserted. "You two numbskulls should work it out for yourself."
The two men flanking her exchanged knowing glances. "You don't get it, either," Qui-Gon accused.
"Of course I do!" Noela protested. "It's perfectly clear that this part..."
She gestured at a pinwheel in an unflattering shade of chartreuse.
"Well, this part..."
She stared blankly at the brownish blob in the middle with an air of exasperation before finally nodding.
"All right," Noela admitted grudgingly, "I don't get it either, but it does say that this is called 'Tauntaun in Flight.' Can't you see that?"
"Tauntauns don't fly, dear," Liam said reasonably. "They stumble and stink and that's when they're in a good mood."
"Besides," Qui-Gon interjected helpfully, "I've never seen a tauntaun that looks like three Hutts breaking the Alderaanian Holy Law of Chastity."
"What!" Noela nearly shrieked.
"Look at the angle and the shading..."
Their heads canted in chorus to the other side and that action was followed shortly thereafter by a unanimous shudder.
"Thanks, Qui-Gon," Noela groused, sounding as if she wanted to be sick. "I think you've just gotten yourself out of buying us dinner."
"My intention all along," he teased.
She turned away, looking thoroughly nauseated. "I'm going to find something to drink," she explained, "and then I'll be back to find something that doesn't give me nightmares."
"Fair enough," Liam agreed. "We'll try and find some suitable candidates."
She stretched up for a quick, grateful kiss, then smiled. "Try to behave yourself," she admonished.
Qui-Gon shook his head as he watched her leave. "To hear her speak, you'd think she didn't trust us."
Liam slugged him playfully on the shoulder. "We're the men in her life," he teased. "She probably expects us to come to blows by the time she gets back from the water fountain."
"It's a pretty good guess," Qui-Gon agreed. "After all, we're supposed to be sizing each toher up, deciding if the other is good enough for her."
"And trying to figure out what you have that I don't," Liam supplied. "Have you figured it out?"
"Well, I know what you have that I don't," Qui-Gon informed him conspiratorially.
"What's that?" Liam asked in kind.
"A straight nose," Qui-Gon explained.
The other man was obviously trying very hard not to laugh. "That's true," he conceded.
Qui-Gon nodded. "Give her a few hours and she'll do the same to you," he assured him. "My first broken nose was courtesy of her kitchen door on the day of my Knighting."
Liam gave up on the effort to keep a straight face. "That explains a lot about why you let me open the doors," he surmised.
"No," Qui-Gon corrected. "That's because you're going to marry her and she will want you to be the gentleman for the rest of your happily-ever-after."
He was immensely pleased to see that this comment elicited a very pleased look from his best friend's fiance.
"So, what do I have that you don't?" Qui-Gon asked before the man could say something to the contrary.
"I'm working on figuring that out," Liam stated. "I've ruled out looks, brains and a sense of adventure because we seem to break even on all those counts."
"Indeed we do," Qui-Gon said, trying not to smirk. "I don't suppose you have a lightsaber?"
"From my role as Bor Yor," Liam reminded.
"An overanxious seventeen-year-old tagging along?"
"My aide," he supplied. "Is that the Obi-Wan with the swoop-bike experience?"
Qui-Gon managed to avoid swallowing his own tongue in amusement by responding, "That is the same."
Their path had wound around the next corner to a section of the gallery that apparently exhibited things from the artist's sane days. The painting that they now viewed was one with clearly marked figures in a side-embrace, arms balancing each other.
It was the best work of the exhibit and not just because of the personal chord it struck.
"That's what you have," Liam said after a long moment of silence. "You and she have always had that friendship and that balance."
It was absolutely true, even though neither of them had ever understood why.
"That's what I'll spend the rest of my life trying to imitate," Liam explained.
Before Qui-Gon could adequately even form a thought to respond to that, Noela returned and Liam moved on to the next painting.
"Well," she asked quietly, "what do you think of him?"
Qui-Gon's smile finally appeared. "Well," he conceded, "he's at least not a two-meter snake..."