ʟɪʟ' ᴏʟᴇ ᴍᴇ
Ala Quin had, quite decisively, not chosen the dignified way to wait.
The appointed meeting place, a gently sloping bank overlooking one of Naboo's glassy, slow-moving waterways, offered a perfectly respectable flat stone clearly intended for meditation. It remained entirely unused. Instead, Ala was halfway up a wind bent tree, one booted foot hooked over a branch while she peered, utterly absorbed, into a carefully woven bird's nest.
"Oh, hello there," she whispered, as if the tiny, blinking hatchlings could understand her. One hand rested lightly on the trunk for balance, the other hovering nearby in case any of the little creatures decided to make a premature leap into the wider galaxy. "You're very brave, you know that? Or possibly very confused. Hard to tell at this stage."
A soft breeze stirred the leaves, dappling her face in shifting gold-green light. She tilted her head, listening, not just with her ears, but with the Force, which hummed here in a way she found endlessly delightful. Water burbled below. Insects zipped about. Somewhere in the distance, something large splashed.
Underwater, the Gungan city awaited, a world both alien and alive. Ala had already been once, and the memory of it still made her want to spin in slow circles just thinking about it.
Today's visit, however, was decidedly less about wonder and more about…well. Representation.
"The Grand Master should attend," they had said.
"It's an important cultural exchange," they had said.
They had not said it involved sitting politely through a multi-hour ceremonial recitation conducted entirely underwater.
Ala did not mind. Not really. She quite liked the Gungans, their enthusiasm, their grand gestures, their tendency to treat even small moments as something worth celebrating. And the ceremony itself, honoring a seasonal shift in the currents that sustained their city, was meaningful. The Jedi Order's presence was simply a sign of goodwill. No impending doom today. Just festivities.
Still, she suspected her soon-to-arrive Padawan might appreciate knowing that this was not a mission of peril.
"Well," Ala murmured to the nest, "we can't have them arriving to find me stuck in a tree, can we?"
A smile formed, mischievous and silly. "Actually, we absolutely can."
She shifted her weight slightly, utterly unconcerned, and let her gaze drift toward the path, very clearly looking forward to whoever would appear next.
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