Private Paid in Full

[Jacob Solay]

TAG: Meri Vale

Night had settled fully over Theed by the time Jacob and Meri emerged from the mountain transit lifts into the capital’s upper districts. The city glowed beneath the Naboo evening with the soft gold of street lanterns and the pale reflection of moonlight against polished stone, turning the curved plazas and elevated walkways into something almost unreal after hours spent buried beneath the archive stacks.

The air outside carried the cool freshness of the river cutting through the city below, along with the distant sound of water moving beneath bridges and terrace gardens. Musicians played somewhere farther down the avenue near one of the open plazas, their music blending softly with passing conversation and the steady life of the capital at night.

Jacob slowed briefly beside the railing overlooking one of Theed’s lower courtyards while small groups of people moved around them through the evening crowds. Most wore formal city attire or the layered fashions common among Naboo’s upper districts, and after the dust and silence of the archives, the warmth and movement of the city almost felt jarring.

“You know,” he said as they continued along the lantern lit walkway, “I probably should’ve realized earlier that making the person paying choose dinner could come to bite me in the butt.”

The grin tugging at the corner of his mouth suggested he had realized that long before now.

Unlike earlier in the archive, he had actually taken the time to change before meeting her outside the transit station. The heavier training clothes and worn jacket from the library had been traded for darker formal wear better suited to Theed’s evening districts. A charcoal tunic fitted close through the shoulders beneath a long dark coat trimmed subtly at the collar and cuffs, simple enough not to look ceremonial but clean enough that it was obvious he had made an effort. The outfit still carried the practical simplicity common to Jedi influenced fashion, though softened slightly by Naboo tailoring that made it look more refined than military.

The restaurant Meri eventually chose sat tucked along one of Theed’s quieter terrace levels overlooking the river. Warm light spilled through tall arched windows framed by climbing ivy and pale stonework, while the soft sound of conversation drifted out each time the doors opened for arriving guests. It was neither extravagant nor overly formal, the kind of place designed to feel comfortable rather than impressive.

Which, Jacob suspected, was exactly why she had chosen it.

Inside, the atmosphere carried the low warmth of polished wood, hanging lanterns, and muted music played somewhere near the back dining room. Naboo cuisine occupied most of the menu, though the restaurant clearly catered enough to travelers and off world visitors that the offerings remained broad and safe rather than aggressively traditional.

Jacob glanced over the menu once they were seated near one of the balcony windows overlooking the illuminated canals below.

“Okay, this actually looks good.”

The grin returned briefly as he glanced back at her over the menu.

“I was a little worried you were going to pick somewhere weird and fancy.”

The teasing sat easily between them now, far removed from the guarded caution that had defined their first conversation at the library table. Somewhere between the archives, the game, and the walk through Theed afterward, the evening had settled into something unexpectedly comfortable.

For a moment Jacob lowered the menu slightly, studying her across the small table while the city lights reflected softly through the window behind her.

“So,” he asked, quieter now than the teasing before it, “do you still think it was luck?”

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri had been quieter during the walk through Theed than she had been in the archive, though not withdrawn. If anything, she seemed caught somewhere between observation and distraction, her attention drifting repeatedly across the city as she adjusted to the transition from the buried silence of the mountain to the warmth and movement of Naboo's evening streets.

Theed at night felt almost impossibly alive. Lanterns reflected softly across polished stone while music drifted through the upper districts, blending with the distant sound of water flowing beneath bridges and terrace gardens. Meri's gaze moved often toward the city, quietly cataloging details out of habit, though every so often she would glance toward Jacob with the faint expression of someone still slightly surprised the evening had extended this far beyond the library.

When he commented on the danger of letting the person paying choose the restaurant, the corner of her mouth lifted.

"You say that as though I deliberately selected somewhere intimidating," she observed calmly. "Which would have been statistically unnecessary considering I already won."

The dry humor came naturally now, softened by the fact she no longer felt the need to guard it so carefully. Truthfully, she had chosen this place precisely because it didn't feel overwhelming. It was elegant without being performative, and warm in a way that reminded her faintly of the calmer corners of the archive once the initial awkwardness between them had faded.

Now, seated across from him beneath the soft lantern light, Meri looked subtly different from the girl who had first met him at the library table. The careful reserve remained, but it no longer existed as a wall between herself and the world. Instead, it was part of her rhythm, something quieter and less defensive now that she had stopped expecting every conversation to be an argument she needed to intellectually survive.

Her attention lingered briefly on him as he spoke, and the change in his clothing did not escape her notice. Unfortunately. The realization produced a faint warmth in her composure before she carefully redirected her attention back to the menu.

"You were the one who suggested dinner," she reminded him softly, her amusement clear. "If I had selected somewhere aggressively formal, it would simply have reflected poor experimental planning on your part."

When he finally asked whether she still thought it had been luck, however, Meri grew quieter. Outside, the lights of Theed shimmered across the canals while distant music drifted upward through the evening air. For a few moments, she simply looked at him, considering the question with more gravity than the teasing tone of the night might have warranted. Eventually, she lowered the menu completely.

"No," she admitted, the answer coming without hesitation.

Her fingers rested lightly against the edge of the table as she searched for words precise enough to explain a sensation she still barely understood. "I thought at first that I was subconsciously gathering information: movement patterns, sound, or subtle environmental changes. I assumed there had to be a rational framework underneath the experience that I simply had not identified yet."

Her gray eyes lifted back toward his, the memory lingering vividly in her mind. "But when you stopped moving, I still knew exactly where you were."

The admission carried a quiet sense of wonder she no longer seemed interested in hiding. Her gaze drifted briefly toward the city lights beyond the balcony as she struggled to find the right language. "I do not know exactly what I experienced in the archive, but it did not feel imaginary. It felt...familiar, in a way that makes very little sense to me."

That uncertainty no longer sounded frightening; if anything, it sounded strangely hopeful. Then, as the logic of the situation caught up with her, a trace of her signature dry humor returned to her expression.

"Which is quite unfortunate for you," she informed him with mock seriousness, "because it means your entire wager was built on a statistically compromised premise from the very beginning. You never truly stood a chance of winning."

Jacob Solay

 

[Jacob Solay]

TAG: Meri Vale

For a while after her answer, Jacob simply watched the lights of Theed shifting softly through the balcony windows behind her while the restaurant settled into the comfortable noise of an evening crowd around them. Glasses clinked somewhere near the bar while muted conversation drifted between tables beneath the warm lantern light, and every few minutes the distant sound of music from the streets below carried faintly through the open terrace doors.

At some point during her explanation, he stopped pretending to look at the menu entirely.

"Good."

The single word came easily, carrying quiet satisfaction rather than surprise.

As she continued explaining what she had experienced in the archive, Jacob rested his forearms lightly against the edge of the table and listened without interrupting her again. He could still picture the expression on her face beneath the old preservation lights after she found him between the shelves, the mixture of disbelief and fascination that had replaced the guarded skepticism she had carried for most of the evening.

By the time she finished describing how familiar the sensation had felt, the grin at the corner of his mouth had returned again.

"You've been thinking about it the entire walk here, haven't you?"

The observation sounded more amused than accusatory.

Outside, another transport drifted slowly through the upper levels of the city while moonlight shimmered across the canals below. The warmth of the restaurant and the soft movement of the evening crowd around them felt strangely far removed from the buried silence of the archive beneath the mountain, yet Jacob found himself liking the contrast. Earlier that night Meri had looked like someone bracing herself for an argument every time she spoke. Now she looked more relaxed than he had seen her since sitting down across from her in the library for the first time.

Then came the statistics again.

Jacob laughed quietly under his breath almost the moment she started trying to mathematically dismantle the wager retroactively.

"You're trying really hard to explain away the part where I won."

The grin widened slightly afterward as he reached for his drink.

The teasing sat naturally between them now, softened by the easy rhythm the conversation had gradually settled into over the course of the evening. Somewhere between the archives and the walk through Theed afterward, dinner had stopped feeling like the continuation of a lesson and started feeling dangerously close to something normal.

Jacob studied her across the lantern lit table for another second before leaning back slightly in his chair.

"So what do you actually do when you're not trying to scientifically dismantle the Force?"

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri did not deny it when Jacob pointed out she had been thinking about the archive the entire walk through Theed. In fact, the faint shift in her expression suggested she knew denial at this point would be both dishonest and completely ineffective.

"I have been attempting to determine whether the experience can be logically categorized without reducing it into meaninglessness," she admitted calmly.

The statement sounded exactly like something she had been internally analyzing for the entire evening.

Her fingers rested lightly around the edge of her glass as the lantern light reflected softly across the table between them. Outside the balcony windows, the canals below shimmered beneath the moonlight while the distant sounds of music and conversation drifted upward from the streets of Theed.

"Unfortunately," she continued thoughtfully, "the more I try to frame it strictly as subconscious environmental awareness, the less sufficient that explanation becomes."

There was no frustration in the admission now, only a quiet, genuine fascination. The fact that Jacob looked entirely too pleased with this outcome did not escape her notice either. When he accused her of trying to mathematically dismantle the wager retroactively, a faint, amused narrowing of her eyes appeared over the rim of her glass.

"I am not dismantling it retroactively," she informed him with complete seriousness. "I am reevaluating the reliability of the original hypothesis based on emerging data."

The dry humor beneath the explanation surfaced naturally, softened further by the fact that she no longer seemed particularly concerned about hiding it around him.

Then came his question about what she actually did outside of arguing with the Force academically. For a moment, Meri looked faintly caught off guard, not because the question itself was difficult, but because she realized very few people had ever asked it with genuine interest before.

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the city lights beyond the balcony.

"I attend the academy here in Theed," she said quietly after a moment. "Most of my focus is historical architecture, archaeological preservation, and comparative cultural study."

The explanation sounded practiced at first, the sort of concise answer she usually offered when people asked about her academic interests. But then her expression softened slightly, her tone taking on a gentler, more intimate note.

"And I explore ruins," she admitted. "Mostly older temple sites, abandoned archives, collapsed settlements, the places people stopped paying attention to."

Her fingers shifted lightly against the side of the glass as she considered how to explain it properly.

"I like seeing what survives people," she said, her voice dropping to a softer murmur. "Not politically or militarily. Most historians focus on wars, rulers, or major events, but those things rarely tell you what daily life actually felt like. Architecture does."

Now that she had started talking about it, the underlying passion for the subject became increasingly difficult to miss, warming her usual reserved demeanor.

"You can tell what societies feared by how they built their defenses. You can tell what they valued by what they preserved underground. Even small things matter, like hallway widths, ventilation placement, water systems, and communal spaces. People leave themselves behind in structures without realizing they are doing it."

The statement carried the quiet certainty of someone who had spent years studying exactly that. Then, almost as an afterthought, a faint warmth touched her expression.

"I also draw them. Not artistically, usually. Mostly structural sketches, layouts, details, inscriptions, and environmental notes, although sometimes I draw them simply because they are beautiful."

The admission sounded slightly more vulnerable than she intended, enough that she immediately lowered her gaze toward the menu again as though realizing she had said considerably more than she normally would.

After a moment, however, her attention returned to him with a quieter, lighter curiosity.

"What about you?" she asked softly. "When you are not hiding in archives and manipulating statistically compromised wagers?"

Jacob Solay

 

[Jacob Solay]

TAG: Meri Vale

Jacob’s grin widened almost immediately when Meri started reframing the wager like some kind of evolving research paper instead of simply admitting defeat normally.

“Wow. That is really thought out.”

He leaned back slightly in his chair afterward, clearly entertained now.

“But I think you still just said I won.”

A quiet laugh escaped him a second later, softening the teasing before it could sound too self satisfied. Outside the balcony windows, the lights of Theed shimmered across the canals below while distant music drifted upward through the evening air, blending into the comfortable warmth of the restaurant around them.

As Meri shifted into talking about ruins and abandoned structures, however, Jacob gradually grew quieter. At first he simply listened because he had asked, but somewhere along the way genuine interest replaced casual curiosity entirely. The more she spoke, the more obvious it became that this was not just academic study to her. She talked about ancient places the way other people talked about memories, noticing meaning in details most people would never even think to look at.

“You make ruins sound alive.”

Jacob leaned back slightly in his chair as he watched her across the table, the grin from earlier softening into something more genuinely interested now.

“Most people just see old buildings or broken walls. You talk about them like they still have something to say.”

The warmth that slipped into her expression when she spoke about sketching the places she explored caught his attention too, especially because she seemed to realize halfway through the admission that she had revealed something more personal than intended.

“I’d wanna see those sometime.”

The words came easily, without much thought behind them at first, though the way she briefly looked down afterward made him realize the request probably carried more weight than he initially expected.

When she finally turned the question back toward him, Jacob glanced briefly toward the menu before answering.

“Honestly, a lot of training. Combat, flying, tactics, military history. My grandfather pushed that stuff pretty hard growing up, so most of my hobbies ended up becoming things that were useful somewhere.”

He turned the glass lightly between his hands while he spoke, shoulders lifting in an easy shrug.

“Most of it’s not nearly as interesting as exploring lost temples beneath mountains or decoding ancient civilizations.” The grin returned a little more easily then. “I spend a lot more time in gyms, simulators, and training rooms than anywhere beautiful.”

For a moment he looked back down at the menu again before laughing softly under his breath.

“Okay, before I accidentally order something terrible, what’s actually good here?”

His attention lifted back toward her afterward, curiosity still lingering beneath the teasing now.

“And while you save me from that, what’s the best place you’ve ever explored?”

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri's eyes narrowed faintly as Jacob once again declared victory with entirely too much confidence, though by now the irritation she attempted to project had become increasingly undermined by the quiet amusement lingering beneath it.

"You are interpreting the data with considerable personal bias," she informed him calmly. "Which is generally considered poor research methodology."

The dryness in her voice softened immediately afterward as the conversation shifted away from the wager and toward the ruins she loved so much. When Jacob observed that she made old places sound alive, Meri grew quieter for a moment, her attention drifting briefly toward the lantern-lit reflections shimmering across the canals outside.

"I think they are alive," she admitted softly, offering the answer without a trace of embarrassment or hesitation. "Not literally, but people leave themselves behind in what they build. Most civilizations disappear gradually enough that they never realize what they are preserving accidentally. A ruin is usually the last honest version of a society left behind after politics, propaganda, and history begin rewriting everything else."

The conviction beneath the statement revealed just how deeply she believed it.

When he said he wanted to see her sketches sometime, however, Meri visibly hesitated. It was not because she disliked the idea, but rather the complete opposite. The request landed with unexpected weight simply because those drawings felt strangely personal to her in a way she rarely allowed other people close to see. Most of them filled notebooks nobody else had ever touched, packed tight with observations, layouts, fragmented translations, and quiet attempts to preserve places she feared the galaxy had already forgotten.

For a moment, she nearly said no automatically out of pure instinct, but instead, something quieter won.

"...I will show you sometime," she said softly.

The words emerged more gently than she intended, carrying enough sincerity that she immediately lowered her eyes briefly toward the menu afterward as though realizing how much trust the offer actually implied. Truthfully, another thought had nearly surfaced first, tempting her to show him the locations themselves. The realization startled her enough internally that she chose to keep it entirely to herself.

As Jacob spoke about training, military history, simulators, and combat, Meri listened carefully once more. The explanation fit him more easily than she expected, as there was a practiced awareness in the way he carried himself that made considerably more sense knowing how heavily he had been shaped by discipline growing up. Still, when he dismissed his own interests as less interesting than ancient ruins, one of her brows lifted slightly.

"You make tactical systems and combat training sound considerably less interesting than they probably are," she observed thoughtfully. "Most people specialize because they are naturally drawn toward certain ways of understanding the world. Yours simply happen to involve surviving situations that would personally exhaust me."

Then came the menu. At that, Meri finally looked back down at it properly, visibly relieved to redirect the conversation toward something less unexpectedly personal for a moment.

"The river herb risotto is very good," she said after scanning the page briefly. "And the grilled shaak fillet if you prefer something less subtle. Naboo cuisine tends to prioritize lighter flavors unless you deliberately seek out traditional lake country dishes. The plum blossom tea here is also worth ordering."

The recommendation sounded strangely specific, suggesting she had either been here before or had researched the menu beforehand with suspicious thoroughness.

Then Jacob asked about the best place she had ever explored, a question that silenced her for several seconds. Outside, moonlight shimmered softly across the canals while distant music drifted through the warm evening air of Theed. Meri's fingers remained still against the edge of the menu as her thoughts visibly drifted somewhere much farther away than the restaurant around them.

Eventually, she answered quietly, a wave of memory softening something in her expression immediately.

"There was a temple ruin beneath Naboo. It was not publicly cataloged, and though most of it had collapsed long ago, portions of the lower chambers still remained intact beneath the mountain."

Her gaze lowered briefly toward the table as though carefully reconstructing the memory, piece by piece.

"I found an old lightsaber hilt there, and that statement carries significance far beyond the object itself. That was the first time a ruin ever felt responsive."

She hesitated briefly, searching for the right description before the word emerged carefully.

"Not alive in the way Varin describes temples, but aware somehow, as if the place had been waiting for someone patient enough to listen instead of simply searching for artifacts."

Her gray eyes lifted back toward him again.

"I think that was the moment everything started changing."

Jacob Solay

 

[Jacob Solay]

TAG: Meri Vale

Jacob's attention stayed fixed on Meri while she spoke about the temple beneath Naboo, and little by little the rest of the restaurant seemed to fade somewhere into the background. Lantern light still reflected softly across the table between them while distant music drifted through the open terrace doors, but by the time she started describing the lower chambers hidden beneath the mountain, he was already trying to picture the place clearly in his head.

Ancient corridors buried beneath stone. Dust untouched for decades. A forgotten temple sitting silently beneath Naboo while the rest of the world moved on above it.

When she mentioned finding the lightsaber hilt, Jacob's expression shifted immediately.

"That's actually incredible."

The words came out before he could stop them.

Unlike Meri, his first instinct absolutely locked onto the object itself. Military history, old Jedi conflicts, and stories about the Republic era had surrounded him for most of his life growing up, and somewhere beneath all of that training had always been the awareness that the galaxy was filled with pieces of history people would never get to touch firsthand. A lightsaber hilt hidden beneath a collapsed temple did not feel academic to him. It felt real.

"You found an actual hilt inside an uncataloged Jedi ruin beneath Naboo," he said, still sounding faintly stunned by the idea. "That's the kind of thing people spend their entire lives trying to find."

Then she kept talking, and his attention gradually shifted away from the artifact itself toward the feeling she described surrounding the place. The way Meri talked about the temple made it sound less abandoned and more patient somehow, as though something in those ruins had been waiting quietly for someone willing to sit in the silence long enough to notice it.

Jacob grew quieter again after that, his fingers resting loosely around the untouched glass while he watched her carefully reconstruct the memory piece by piece across the table from him. The look in her eyes when she talked about the temple reminded him of something he recognized in himself a little too easily. Not the ruins specifically, but the feeling of discovering something that quietly changed the shape of your entire world afterward.

"I think I would've stayed there for hours," he admitted softly.

His gaze drifted briefly toward the moonlit canals outside before returning to her again.

"Just trying to understand it."

The words carried more understanding than curiosity now.

"I get why that stayed with you."

For another second he stayed quiet before the faint grin returned again, easing some warmth back into the conversation.

"Also I'm still getting the filet."

He glanced back down toward the menu then.

"And the tea. I feel like you've planned this entire dinner already somehow."

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri watched Jacob's reaction to the mention of the lightsaber hilt with quiet fascination of her own. There was something unexpectedly sincere in the way his attention locked onto the discovery itself, not academically or analytically, but with the kind of awe belonging to someone who had grown up hearing stories about distant history and suddenly realized pieces of it still physically existed within reach.

The reaction softened her expression almost immediately.

"That was more or less my reaction as well," she admitted quietly.

Unlike Jacob, her astonishment had not entirely centered on the object itself. It had been the feeling surrounding it, the profound silence, and the growing certainty that the place had been constructed with deliberate intention.

When he pointed out that people spent entire lifetimes searching for discoveries like that, Meri's fingers drifted lightly along the edge of her glass.

"I did not even go there expecting to find anything significant," she said thoughtfully. "Most of the upper structure had already collapsed, and the remaining pathways were unstable. It should have been little more than another partially buried ruin."

Her gaze lowered briefly toward the lantern light reflecting softly across the table.

"But the deeper sections felt quiet in a very deliberate way."

When Jacob admitted he thought he would have stayed there for hours trying to understand it, a genuine touch of warmth crossed her expression.

"I probably was there for hours," she admitted softly. "I genuinely have no idea. At some point, I stopped paying attention to time entirely."

Her gray eyes lifted back toward him, bright with the shared memory.

"I kept trying to understand why the room felt different from the rest of the temple. Why the air pressure changed near the lower chamber, why the acoustics shifted, and why the entire structure seemed designed to conceal that space intentionally."

She exhaled softly, the weight of the moment still deeply present in her voice.

"The chamber was sealed behind mechanisms that did not respond conventionally. It required the Force to open properly. Not brute force, and not excavation. Intention."

Her fingers rested lightly against the edge of the menu now, her attention drifting briefly toward the lights beyond the balcony before returning to him.

"That was the part I could not stop thinking about afterward. Someone built that place expecting the right person to eventually find it. The hilt was not lost there accidentally. It was hidden."

Outside, moonlight shimmered across the canals while distant music drifted upward through the terrace doors. Somewhere nearby, dishes clinked gently together as servers moved between tables, yet the conversation between them had narrowed into its own quieter, gentler world.

When Jacob finally declared he was still ordering the filet and the tea, the corner of Meri's mouth lifted into a small, fond smile.

"An excellent decision," she informed him with calm approval.

Then came the accusation that she had somehow already planned dinner. That earned him a slightly teasing, suspicious look over the top edge of her menu.

"I did not plan the evening," she corrected calmly, a trace of dry humor surfacing immediately afterward. "I simply researched the restaurant before agreeing to come."

After a comfortable moment of silence, her tone grew softer and more intimate as she shared a secret she rarely let out into the open.

"The hilt is still in my room at the academy."

The confession arrived casually at first, though her fingers stilled against the menu as she realized how much trust the admission actually implied.

"The Jedi who found it with me told me to keep it," she added quietly.

It wasn't ownership in a possessive sense, but rather a quiet responsibility. A lasting connection.

"I think part of me understood that removing it from the experience entirely would change what the discovery meant," she said, looking back up at him with a soft sincerity. "It never felt like an artifact."

Jacob Solay

 

[Jacob Solay]

TAG: Meri Vale

Jacob listened quietly while Meri described the lower chamber beneath the temple, and the more details she revealed, the easier it became to understand why the experience had stayed with her so powerfully afterward. What fascinated him most was not even the lightsaber anymore. It was the deliberate nature of the place itself. Someone had built those chambers expecting only certain people to reach them, and the thought settled strangely in his mind while the soft sounds of the restaurant drifted around them.

Dishes clinked somewhere nearby while quiet conversation and distant music blended together beneath the warm lantern light, yet the space around their table still felt quieter somehow while Meri carefully pieced the memory back together.

When she explained that the chamber responded to intention rather than force, Jacob leaned back slightly in his chair, turning that idea over in his head.

"That's honestly kind of amazing."

The sincerity in his voice came easily now. He no longer sounded surprised that she had become fascinated by the temple. At this point, he suspected he would have become obsessed with understanding it too.

"I think most people would've tried to force their way in," he admitted. "Or they would've missed the whole point because they were too busy looking for something obvious."

His gaze drifted briefly toward the moonlit canals outside before returning to her again.

"But that sounds like the kind of place that only opens for somebody willing to slow down enough to notice what everyone else ignores."

The words came thoughtfully, shaped more by understanding her perspective than trying to sound insightful himself.

When she admitted the hilt was still in her room at the academy, Jacob's attention sharpened immediately again.

"You still have it?"

There was no judgment in the question. If anything, he sounded more intrigued by the idea than anything else she had shared all evening.

The thought of something that old and important sitting quietly in her room instead of locked behind archive glass somewhere felt strangely fitting after everything she had described. By now, Jacob suspected she would hate seeing the hilt treated like a museum object stripped away from the story surrounding it.

And honestly, he understood that too.

When she explained that it never felt like an artifact, Jacob nodded slightly.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "You don't really talk about it like one."

For another second he studied her across the lantern light before the warmth returned more fully to his expression.

"So now I definitely want to see it."

Jacob held her gaze for another moment after and the faint grin at the corner of his mouth widened slightly again.

"That feels dangerously irresponsible."

The teasing warmth in his voice made it obvious he did not actually disapprove.

"You've got an ancient lightsaber hidden in your room and somehow waited this long to mention it."

He leaned back slightly in his chair afterward while servers moved between tables around them carrying fresh plates and drinks through the warm lantern light.

Then curiosity crossed his expression again.

"Have you ever tried turning it on?"

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri watched Jacob carefully across the lantern-lit table as he spoke about the temple, and little by little, the warmth in her expression softened further beneath the quiet sincerity in his voice. What struck her most was not merely that he understood why the place fascinated her, but that he instinctively grasped the nature of the test itself. Most people would have focused entirely on the hidden chamber or the lightsaber waiting inside it, yet Jacob seemed to understand that the structure had been designed around perception and patience rather than secrecy alone, and that realization settled unexpectedly warmly somewhere beneath her ribs.

When he observed that most people would have tried to force their way inside, the faintest trace of dry amusement surfaced again across her expression.

"That was approximately Master Vex's assessment as well," she admitted quietly. "He seemed disturbingly unsurprised that I became distracted by airflow patterns and acoustic inconsistencies instead of immediately searching for hidden compartments."

The memory softened her further for a moment, drawing her briefly back to the silent lower chambers beneath Naboo, where she had spent hours sitting among dust and fractured stone, trying to understand why the space felt so different from the rest of the ruin. At the time, she had believed she was simply solving a structural puzzle, but only afterward did she begin to realize that the temple itself had been quietly guiding her attention in directions other people would likely have ignored completely.

When Jacob asked whether she still had the hilt, however, her fingers stilled lightly against the edge of her glass.

"Yes," she answered after a brief hesitation, though the corner of her mouth lifted faintly afterward. "Though it is considerably less dramatic than you are probably imagining. It spends most of its time wrapped carefully inside a storage case beneath several sketchbooks and entirely too many research notes."

The understated explanation did very little to disguise the protectiveness threaded quietly beneath her voice, revealing that the lightsaber clearly occupied a strange place in her life now. Existing somewhere between a historical discovery, a personal memory, and something far more difficult for her to define cleanly.

When Jacob pointed out that she did not speak about it like an artifact, her gaze lowered briefly toward the warm lantern reflections shimmering across the tabletop between them.

"Because it never felt like one," she admitted softly after several seconds. "Artifacts feel disconnected from the people who made them. Preserved. Categorized. Finished."

Her fingers curled slightly together before she continued more thoughtfully.

"That place beneath the temple did not feel finished. It felt as though someone intentionally left a conversation incomplete and simply expected the correct person to eventually continue it."

Outside the restaurant windows, moonlight shimmered softly across the canals below while passing conversation and distant music drifted upward through the terrace doors, yet the atmosphere between them remained quieter somehow, shaped increasingly by the strange honesty the evening kept drawing from her.

Then Jacob admitted he wanted to see the hilt. That caused her to glance back up at him immediately, and despite herself, another small flicker of warmth surfaced at the edge of her expression.

"You say that as though I casually revealed possession of contraband military technology," she informed him dryly before pausing briefly. "…which, admittedly, may not be entirely inaccurate."

The humor settled easily between them now, no longer restrained by the caution that had defined the beginning of the evening. When he pointed out how irresponsible it sounded, Meri considered that very seriously for several moments before replying with complete sincerity:

"In my defense, most people do not react particularly well when informed there is an ancient Jedi weapon hidden beneath someone's bed."

Then came the question that shifted the atmosphere slightly again.

Have you ever tried turning it on?

For the first time since the subject arose, Meri hesitated noticeably longer before answering, her attention drifting briefly toward the lights beyond the balcony windows as she followed the shimmering reflections dancing across the canals below while organizing the memory carefully enough to explain it aloud.

"Not at first," she admitted quietly at last. "When I originally found it, the hilt was incomplete. The internal assembly had been damaged over time, and the crystal chamber itself was empty."

Her voice softened slightly as she continued.

"Some time afterward, Master Vex took me to Ilum."

The statement carried its own weight naturally, and even now, the memory seemed to affect her differently than the analytical discussions surrounding ruins and artifacts usually did.

"At the time, I believed we were simply retrieving a component necessary to restore the weapon mechanically," she continued, a faint exhale escaping her as though mildly amused by her former certainty. "That interpretation turned out to be significantly less accurate than I expected."

Her gray eyes lifted back toward Jacob again.

"The crystal chose me," she said more quietly now. "Or at least that is the closest explanation I have managed to arrive at."

Even now, the idea still sounded surreal to her, despite having lived through it firsthand.

"I spent most of the journey attempting to understand how a mineral formation could possibly exhibit preference or recognition," she admitted, a trace of warmth returning briefly at the memory. "Master Vex seemed deeply entertained by that line of questioning."

She paused, searching carefully for words that still resisted precise definition before finishing her thought more softly still.

"Afterward, we repaired the hilt together. The first time I activated it, I expected it to feel powerful, or dangerous, or perhaps simply unreal. Instead, it felt strangely familiar. Not because I had used one before, obviously, but because the entire experience felt less like acquiring something new and more like finishing a conversation that had apparently begun long before I understood I was part of it."

Her fingers rested lightly against the stem of her glass now as her gaze drifted briefly downward again.

"That was the moment I think I finally understood why the temple concealed the chamber in the first place," she admitted softly. "The hilt was never hidden to keep people out. It was hidden so the right person would understand why it mattered when they finally reached it."

Jacob Solay

 

[Jacob Solay]

TAG: Meri Vale

Jacob listened without interrupting, his attention fixed on Meri while she spoke. The conversation had drifted a long way from where the evening started, and somewhere along the way it had stopped feeling like a discussion about archaeology, the Force, or even the lightsaber itself.

What stayed with him was the image of her sitting alone beneath that mountain for hours while everyone else would have moved on.

Most people would have taken the hilt and called the trip a success.

Meri had stayed because something felt different.

Because she wanted to understand why.

“That’s the part that gets me,” he admitted, turning his glass lightly between his hands. “Not the lightsaber. Not even Ilum.”

His gaze remained on her.

“You sat there for hours because something didn't feel right, and instead of ignoring it you kept digging until you figured out what the place was trying to tell you.”

There was no teasing in his voice now. If anything, it sounded like admiration.

“I think most people would've found the hilt and missed everything that actually mattered.”

The restaurant continued moving around them while he spoke. Servers crossed between tables carrying meals, conversation drifted from nearby diners, and somewhere outside a musician was playing along one of the canals. None of it seemed particularly important compared to the story she had just told.

When she described the crystal choosing her, Jacob found himself smiling slightly.

“Honestly, the funny part is that you still sound surprised by that.”

The smile lingered.

“You spent an entire evening following airflow patterns through a collapsed temple because something felt off. Then you found a hidden chamber, rebuilt an ancient lightsaber, and somehow you're still treating the crystal as the unbelievable part of the story.”

He shook his head, amused.

“I don't know. From where I'm sitting, that part feels pretty on brand.”

For a moment he considered the rest of what she had said, particularly the idea that the hilt was never hidden to keep people away from it.

The thought settled heavily in his mind.

“I think my favorite part is that whoever built that place trusted somebody they'd never meet.”

His eyes drifted briefly toward the moonlit canals beyond the balcony before returning to her.

“They built it knowing they wouldn't be around when someone finally reached that chamber. They just trusted the right person would eventually find it.”

A faint grin returned.

“Turns out they were right.”

Then, after another second, curiosity won again.

“So what color is it?”

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri listened quietly while Jacob spoke, her attention fixed on him as he worked through the story in his own way. The restaurant continued moving around them, lantern light reflecting softly across polished wood while the sounds of evening life drifted through the open balcony doors, yet she found herself far more interested in the conclusions he was drawing than in the meal sitting between them. What surprised her was not that he found the discovery remarkable, but which parts of it had stayed with him afterward. Most people focused on the lightsaber, the hidden chamber, or the crystal itself because those were the extraordinary elements. Jacob, however, kept returning to the decision to remain beneath the mountain after the discovery had already been made, as though the most important part of the story was not what she found, but why she had continued looking.

His observation lingered with her for a moment before she answered. It had never occurred to her that staying might have seemed unusual. At the time, it had simply felt like the only reasonable choice available.

"I am not entirely certain the temple was trying to tell me anything," she replied thoughtfully. "Though I admit that explanation becomes increasingly difficult to defend the more often I describe the experience aloud."

A faint trace of amusement touched her expression before fading again into contemplation.

"At the time, it felt considerably less dramatic than it sounds now. Master Drakkon was with me the entire time, and neither of us initially knew what we were looking for. I simply could not leave while there were still unanswered questions."

Her fingers rested lightly against the edge of her glass as she considered the memory.

"The strange part is that finding the hilt did not actually answer those questions. If anything, it created more of them."

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the moonlit canals beyond the balcony before returning to him.

"The chamber felt different long before we discovered what was hidden inside it. The air behaved differently. The acoustics changed. Certain passages seemed designed to draw attention, while others concealed themselves. By the time we found the hilt, I had become more interested in why the chamber existed than in what it contained."

When Jacob suggested that most people would have taken the hilt and missed everything else, Meri lowered her gaze briefly toward the table, considering the thought before answering.

"The hilt mattered because of the chamber," she said quietly. "If I had discovered it inside an ordinary storage room, it would have been remarkable. Instead, it was hidden behind mechanisms that responded to the Force, concealed within a space that seemed deliberately removed from the rest of the structure. The object and the place were part of the same story. Separating them always felt wrong."

The explanation sounded obvious to her once spoken aloud, though she suspected it was not how most people would have viewed the discovery. The artifact had never been the destination. It had been the final piece of a puzzle that only made sense when considered alongside everything surrounding it.

His observation regarding the crystal choosing her drew another moment of silence. That remained the portion of the experience she struggled most to explain, perhaps because it resisted the sort of analysis she normally relied upon. Hidden chambers, ancient engineering, and architectural intention all fit comfortably within systems she understood. Crystals selecting their owners did not.

"I am aware there may be some inconsistency in my reasoning," she admitted at last. "Though in my defense, hidden chambers and ancient engineering are considerably easier subjects to analyze than sentient crystals."

The dry humor surfaced briefly before fading again when Jacob spoke about the people who had built the temple. That observation settled more deeply than the others had. For several seconds, she found herself looking past him toward the moonlit canals beyond the balcony, imagining the unknown builders who had designed the chamber centuries before either of them had been born.

"I thought about that as well," she admitted softly. "Imagine devoting years of your life to creating something you know you will never see completed. Building a place intended to outlive you. Trusting that someday a stranger will understand why it mattered."

Her gray eyes returned to his. "There is something comforting about that." The words lingered between them for a moment before Jacob's final question pulled her back to the present. For perhaps the first time all evening, Meri looked faintly self-conscious.

"Blue," she answered after a moment, a small smile touching the corner of her mouth. "The crystal produced a blue blade." The memory still amused her in hindsight.

"Which, I admit, disappointed me slightly at first. Not because I disliked the color. I simply spent several weeks convincing myself that the selection process would result in some profound revelation regarding my identity." Her smile widened by the smallest amount. "Instead, I received a blue lightsaber and several additional questions."

Then genuine curiosity returned to her expression. "Does blue carry any particular meaning?" she asked. "I have encountered numerous interpretations in historical texts, but they rarely agree with one another. At some point, it became difficult to determine where symbolism ended and mythology began."

Jacob Solay

 

[Jacob Solay]

TAG: Meri Vale

Jacob considered the question for a moment before answering.

"Traditionally, blue was associated with Jedi Guardians."

The explanation came easily enough. Military history had always interested him, and sooner or later that interest inevitably collided with Jedi history.

"They were usually the Jedi people pictured when they thought about the Order. The ones who spent more time out in the galaxy dealing with problems than sitting in archives studying them. Protectors, peacekeepers, the people who ended up between danger and whoever needed protecting."

A faint smile appeared.

"Of course, once you start reading actual history, it gets complicated pretty quickly."

He leaned back slightly in his chair.

"There were scholars with blue lightsabers. There were warriors with green ones. There were plenty of Jedi who didn't fit neatly into any category somebody tried to assign them afterward."

The restaurant continued moving around them while he spoke. Nearby conversations drifted through the room while servers carried meals between tables, and beyond the balcony the lights of Theed reflected softly across the canals.

"That's probably why the historical sources disagree so much," he continued. "People love categories. History usually doesn't cooperate."

His attention settled back on her.

"Honestly, I think the funny part is that you were disappointed."

The amusement returned to his expression.

"You found a hidden temple, spent hours trying to understand why it felt different, uncovered a chamber most people would've missed entirely, and somehow your reaction to the crystal choosing you was still that you expected a more useful answer."

The grin widened slightly.

"You wanted the Force to hand you a thesis statement."

There was no criticism in the observation. If anything, it sounded affectionate.

"And instead it gave you a blue lightsaber."

Jacob shook his head lightly.

"For what it's worth, I don't think that's a bad fit. You keep talking about yourself like you're just the person studying the story, but every story you've told me tonight ends with you actually doing something. You went into the ruins. You stayed when everyone else would've left. You opened the chamber. You went to Ilum. You rebuilt the lightsaber."

He smiled.

"That doesn't sound like somebody standing on the sidelines to me."

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri listened while Jacob explained the traditional associations behind blue lightsabers, her attention remaining fixed on him even as she finally turned some of her focus toward the meal that had been sitting largely untouched between them. The food had long since ceased being the center of the evening's purpose, yet she found herself taking a bite of the filet now and then as the conversation continued, pairing it occasionally with a sip of tea while she considered his explanation. His answer was, perhaps unsurprisingly, far less definitive than many of the historical sources she had encountered, and that alone made her trust it more. The tendency of ancient texts to present complicated realities as neat systems had always bothered her; the older she became and the more history she studied, the more she discovered that reality rarely respected the boundaries scholars attempted to impose upon it afterward.

When Jacob pointed out that historians often loved categories more than history itself did, Meri gave a small nod of agreement. "That has been my experience as well," she admitted, the observation emerging with the quiet certainty of someone who had spent far too many hours arguing with old records. "People become attached to patterns very quickly. Once a category exists, there is a tendency to force exceptions into it rather than reconsider whether the category was accurate to begin with."

Then Jacob arrived at what he clearly considered the truly amusing part of the story: the thesis statement.

For a moment, Meri simply stared at him, caught entirely off guard. Then, despite herself, a quiet laugh escaped her—not merely a smile or the restrained amusement she usually allowed herself, but an actual, genuine laugh. It was brief, but real enough that she lowered her eyes toward her tea afterward as though mildly surprised by it herself.

"That is...not entirely inaccurate," she admitted, a rare trace of warmth lingering in her expression as she considered the accusation. "In my defense, if a mysterious Force-attuned crystal is going to select me specifically, I feel it is reasonable to expect at least a modest explanatory appendix. Perhaps a summary page. Or footnotes."

The dry humor faded gradually as she considered the rest of what he had said, because unlike the teasing, those observations settled deeply. She found herself turning them over carefully, tracing a fingertip along the rim of her teacup as she grappled with the logic in his argument, even if she wasn't entirely certain she agreed with the conclusion.

"I think you may be giving me too much credit," she said after a moment, her gaze drifting briefly toward the city lights beyond the balcony. "Most of those decisions did not feel particularly remarkable while I was making them. Master Vex brought me to the temple and guided me through much of what happened afterward. The journey to Ilum certainly was not my idea, and even rebuilding the lightsaber involved far more instruction than improvisation."

Yet even as she said it, she found herself hesitating. There was another side to the argument she could not entirely dismiss; after all, the temple had not forced her to keep searching, Master Vex had not instructed her to remain focused on the chamber itself, and no one had required her to spend hours trying to understand why the place felt wrong.

Meri folded her hands loosely around her cup. "Although..." she murmured, the word emerging slowly as her expression grew thoughtful. "I suppose there were opportunities to stop. At several points, actually. Finding the hilt could have been the end of the investigation. Ilum could have been declined. The lightsaber could have remained unfinished." She frowned faintly, shaking her head lightly at the sheer understatement of her own words. "None of those options seemed particularly appealing at the time."

When her eyes finally returned to Jacob, there was still a lingering uncertainty in them, but perhaps a little less than before. "I still think I am usually studying the story rather than participating in it," she admitted quietly, "but perhaps the distinction is not quite as clear as I once believed."

Jacob Solay