bastila turned at the call of her name, rising to standing as she pivoted, fingers deftly pushing the text she’d been examining back into the carved shelf. the jedi library here was far smaller than the one she’d studied in on dantooine, and thus only a fraction of the size of the knowledge that had existed on coruscant before the empire had risen, but she’d taken to it nonetheless, tasking herself with paging through the ancient texts in search of knowledge on the eras she’d bypassed, as well as information that could be useful in the training of the younglings. so much had changed, but that was to be expected over the span of three thousand years.
still, she knew much. that was one of the reasons she’d been asked to greet one of the newer arrivals, she presumed. even with her youth, her experience both in her time and in this new one had provided her with the wisdom - and demeanor - of someone twice her age.
having risen, she offered the man a hand, small smile touching the very edges of her lips. “it’s a pleasure to meet you, master vos. are you finding everything alright here?”
the answer was likely “no”, as came from the lips from nearly everyone who had been transplanted by the rift, but she asked the question anyway, out of both courtesy and curiousity. she was intrigued by the idea of speaking to someone who obi-wan had informed her shared no wholehearted devotion to the jedi; her youthful idealism had faded with the star maps, and she’d begun to feel many of the same emotions towards the order as she had heard the kiffar did.
quinlan took her hand and gave it a firm shake, “ pleasure is mine ” he said with a small smile, “ and you can just call me quinlan, i think jury’s still out on what’s gonna happen to our ranks, right? ” he said nonchalantly, of course quinlan had asked obi-wan a lot of questions, but at the moment there had been more pressing matters than the inner workings of the new order. even trying to say the words new order left a bitter taste in quinlan’s mouth.
“ i still can’t wrap my head around what happened, or how it happened ” quinlan said with a shrug, there was no point in keeping his feelings a secret, he was way past masking his emotions, “ but it seems like things are shaping up around here ” he motioned towards their surroundings, it was more than he had expected, more than he was used to, the work he did for the order didn’t usually involved sleeping in his own comfortable bed every night.
vos had not reacted well when obi-wan told him they were a couple of decades into the future from quinlan’s last memory, he could only imagine what it must have been for the jedi in front of him. “ obi said— master kenobi said you would be the best person to talk to, he mentioned it’s been a few millennia for you ? ” he said looking at the ground, he wasn’t easily embarrassed but this somehow felt invasive, “ how have you—? how have you managed to—? ” quinlan wasn’t even sure what to ask, “ i don’t even know if i was supposed to die, or grow old while hiding from the empire ” quinlan scoffed, he didn’t even know which option he preferred, “ how’s anyone even coping with any of this ? i guess that’s why they decided to rebuild the order right ? to have something to focus on—”