#tahlgon

[bucketofdeltav]

It is July so it must be time to start posting Fragments of a Life!

Here's chapter 1.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/87874196

I promised you we would find out what Qui-Gon was doing in those five years away. You may swear and curse at me when you do.

[bucketofdeltav]

Trying to get my dumb fanfic brain back on track again now it doesn't have overheating as an excuse (Rome. Heatwave. July. I felt actually warm for the first time in over a year. There is, however, such a thing as too warm) and get it to stop giving me stupid traumatic Obi-Wan stuff and uh start giving me non-stupid traumatic Qui-Gon stuff.

Here's some more Tahlgon flash.

***

Qui-Gon is flung back to consciousness in a cold sweat, heart pounding, adrenaline flooding icily through him, hand pressed over his own mouth to stifle a scream of horror and despair. After a few moments to find himself again – I’m home. In my quarters. I’m a Jedi Master, not a Padawan. It’s the middle of the night – he gets up, throws on his cloak over the chones he was sleeping in, and goes to the Archives.

Tahl is waiting for him at the main doorway, yawning, dishevelled, and impossibly lovely.

“What was it this time?” she asks sleepily, but doesn’t insist on a response until after he has pulled her into a tight hug, where he can feel her, warm and solid and undeniably real, against him, and kissed her. Her mouth tastes bitter with sleep, but that just confirms that this – Tahl alive, Tahl safe, Tahl home in her beloved Archives, Tahl in his arms – isn’t a dream.

“You –“ Qui-Gon manages.

“I died again?” This has become almost routine since they came back. Some nights, he wakes as she is dying and then can’t go back for her; some nights, he finds her just as she melts into the Force and is left wandering alone in the darkness. Always, when the dreams come, he cannot sleep again until he has seen her, until he is sure she is safe.

“Yes, but a new one. It felt real.”

“Come to bed and tell me about it.”

In Tahl’s bed, with Tahl warming her icy feet against his legs – a minor annoyance usually, a welcome tether to reality now – he slowly untangles the dream.

“You went to a place called New Apsolon. It was...” some of the finer details are fading, but the last part is horribly vivid. “I tried to find you, but I was too late. I think you were poisoned somehow. You died, in a medcenter there.”

Tahl has a strange look on her face, and she shivers, pulling him closer.

“You know I’m going to Apsolon, actual Apsolon, tomorrow – I mean later this morning? New Apsolon isn’t a real place.”

“I didn’t. Please...” don’t go. But he won’t ask that of her, won’t ask that she shy away from danger. It’s not the Jedi way. “Are you taking anyone with you?”

“I wasn’t going to. It’s just invigilating an election, checking their systems to make sure everyone is satisfied that it’s fair.  But...” but dreams that feel real are sometimes visions, sometimes premonitions, sometimes just dreams, and it is not worth the risk.

“Please don’t go alone, Tahl.”

“Are you free? If not I can get –“

“I’m free.”

“I’ll draw you and Xanatos, then. Try to sleep, Qui. It’s going to be all right. And thank you for telling me.”

[jedimastertahl-blog]

Sparring Practice

Jedi Archivist and Master Tahl swung her lightsaber in a practice circle. The gold blade vmmmed and vibrated slightly in her hand. It had been some time since she used the Jedi's signature weapon. Longer since she had needed to. But-

She remembered the feeling that brought her back to the world of the living.

As storm is coming.

And every blade may be needed, even that of a librarian. 

Constructed from rancor hide leather and wood from the staff she used to carry, her lightsaber was unadorned except for a bead tassel and crisscrossing leather for a handgrip, and practical, plain even. She preferred it that way.

It fit her hands perfectly. She knew she was a little rusty -years spent dead, then months recovering after being brought back to life- but she hoped her sparring partner would help with that.

Qui-Gon Jinn was an old friend and, secretly, the love of her life. Thier feelings for eachother were confessed shortly before she died. Her death almost drove him to the Dark Side, so great was his grief. But now, by a miracle of the Force, they were together agian.

It warmed her heart, the thought of him and his blue eyes and deliberate, gentle manner. Tahl loved him- with all her heart, soul, mind, being, and every fiber of her self she loved him.

And he felt the same. 

Smiling slightly, she made another swing with her blade, warming up before they would begin.