Chapter Text
Malak was incensed to see Ellin return to the diplomatic quarters. “What are you doing here? This is my assignment.”
“Revan’s back,” Ellin said, the news immediately silencing him, “She’s coming here. She wants to know what happened on Onderon.”
“Revan? She’s…” All pretence vanished under Malak’s shock. He suddenly stood straighter, glancing nervously at the elevator door.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you this agitated,” Ellin commented.
“I’m not agitated,” Malak rebuked, but failed to rein in his reactions.
“You’re sweating. Relax. Take a deep breath,” Ellin advised, “if it’s going to be this difficult for you to see her, maybe you should leave. She only needs to see me and Talia.”
Truthfully, Ellin was buzzing under her skin just as much as Malak was. She was just better at hiding her feelings for Revan than he was. Seeing her again alone would have been everything Ellin hoped, but no such luck, Malak stayed where he was.
“Not on your life,” he said. “I haven’t seen her in six years…”
Neither of them had. Ellin couldn’t even take her own advice. Her breathing faltered when the elevators slid open. Like she was suddenly plunged underwater by Revan’s arrival. With her heavy hood drawn over her head, and her mask shadowed underneath, Revan looked more wraith than woman. The long evening shadows bent in her presence and seemed to cling to her. The temperature in the room dropped two degrees as she stepped through the door. Beside her came a tall, skeletal, rust-red droid made nearly as intimidating a presence as Revan herself. Then she reached under and removed her helmet, and the same girlish face Ellin remembered smiled her same dazzling smile, and it was like Revan never left.
“Malak? I wasn’t expecting you here,” Revan asked. Ellin felt a pang in her chest, why did he get to be acknowledged first?
“The Council assigned me to protect the queen, and when I heard you were coming…” Malak trailed off.
“Good to see you.” She gave him a familiar nudge to the side. Then Revan looked Ellin’s way, and she was all fluster and heat again. “Why Princess, I think you’ve grown.”
“So have you,” Ellin softly replied. Grown more beautiful, most of all. The years had forged teenage bravado into adult confidence, and the mischievous gleam in her eyes sparkled brighter than ever.
Revan shook her head, “Not as much. You’re taller than me now.”
She was right, Ellin realised. Revan’s presence made her feel like a child again, but she had an inch over. It had been the other way around last time they had seen each other.
“Can’t believe I’m the tiny one in our group now,” Revan complained, “Completely unfair. But Ellin, I hear you have some exciting news.”
Ellin felt like she was blushing even redder, if that was even possible. She sheepishly showed Revan her severed Padawan’s braid. “I passed my trial. I’m a Jedi Knight now.”
“I knew you could do it.” Revan hugged her and Ellin felt like her heart would stop.
“I did as well a year ago,” Malak interjected. Ellin scowled. Could she not have one moment?
With one arm still holding Ellin, she put the other around Malak’s shoulders. “Of course. We finally all made it. Back together again, and no masters to keep us apart this time.”
While Revan enthused their reunion, Malak and Ellin exchanged a glare over her head. If only you weren’t here, this would be perfect, he was wordlessly saying to her, and the feeling was mutual.
A tiny but forceful cough broke the embrace. Talia came to see what the commotion was and tutted disapprovingly of the fraternising Jedi. “Ellin, who is this?”
“This is Revan, she’s an old friend,” Ellin explained, “She wanted to know what happened on Onderon.”
“And…” Talia prompted, staring pointedly at the looming droid in the room.
Revan explained. “That’s HK-47, I built him, he’s been watching my back for me on the Outer Rim.”
“You finished him?” Malak asked. Ellin’s face scrunched in annoyance. She had no idea about Revan’s little project, and apparently, he did.
Although it seemed Malak was little more satisfied, sending a warning look at the silent droid as he replied to Revan. “It must have been hard out there all alone, but you have me to watch out for you again now.”
Ellin fought not to roll her eyes. She knew Malak was possessive, but was he truly jealous of a droid? HK’s vocabulator whirred in an unamused tinny scratch. “Statement: The Master is entirely capable of functioning on her own. Your meatbag condescension is of negligible benefit to her.”
Malak stared at HK in stunned silence. Revan wheezed and doubled over laughing. “HK, refer to all organics as meatbags from now on.”
“Diagnostic: Vocabulary updated, Master.”
“No!” Malak objected.
Ellin tried to keep cool but couldn’t help a small snicker under her breath. At last, someone deflated Malak’s ego. While Revan fought to get her giggling under control, Talia loudly cleared her throat again. “If you’re here to discuss the invasion, I’d rather do so quickly.”
Revan, Ellin and Talia retreated to a private room, leaving Malak and HK waiting outside. Ellin agreed, their reunion and her crush could wait. The fate of Onderon was at stake, maybe the fate of the galaxy if Revan was right. They sat down and Ellin told her everything.
***
Malak glowered as he was forced to wait. “Important business with the damned princess… it’s like she hardly even notices me.”
His only company was that accursed droid. “Analysis: Organic meatbags’ inability to read emotional clues never ceases to disappoint me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Malak accusatorily replied.
“Observation: Meatbags possess and are driven by their emotional impulses and yet most do not understand them. I do not possess such impulses and yet do understand them. Conclusion: It is a grim irony of sorts, that those most in need of such enlightenment find it the most elusive. What a mess you people are.” A long-winded way of calling Malak stupid.
“You have a high opinion of yourself for a droid,” Malak said, “and you still haven’t explained.
HK-47 didn’t have a face that could make expressions, but between his blank metallic stare and the whirring of his processor, it felt almost as if he was digitally rolling his eyes at Malak. “Observation: Your presence was an unexpected development. In the time since my activation, I have not seen my master so delighted as she was when we arrived here. Opinion: I find the most pleasurable increase to my capacitor charge comes when we are hunting Mandalorian raiders or sabotaging their warships. Observation: And yet these activities weigh upon her and have been lifted since our return to Coruscant. Conclusion: She was pleased to see you, meatbag, though why she values your presence so highly is beyond me.”