"Sometimes," she nods. "I usually don't stay away that long, though. They don't actually know I'm here, and I'd like it to stay that way, so I try not to be gone long enough that I'll start forgetting things."

"I kinda want to give you something to add to your collection, but I'm not sure what."

This gets a fond grin. "You can if you want, but... I think I mentioned that kobolds don't do ownership? This isn't actually an exception to that, as much as it might look like one. These things aren't mine."

"Still. You'll have the thing, and then if you ever need to use it, you can remember me!"

"That's true," she grins. "But I don't think I'm that likely to forget you. Here, look - " There's a pile of pages taken from the sketchbook over by the blanket-pile, and the kobold rifles through it and produces two pages with drawings of Ana, one a portrait and the other an action shot of her playing the teleportation ball game.

"You drew pictures of me!"

This calls for a hug!

The kobold giggles and hugs back. "Of course I did. I don't want to forget you, and drawing helps with that."

Hug hug.

Ana's datapad chirps. "Whoops, that means it's time for me go get ready."

Hug!

"All right." Hand, teleport, and here they are at the cafeteria.

"It'll be out on the south fields in about half an hour, I've got to run now, bye!"

And she's gone.

South field was the one with the portal, right? She tries teleporting there, and, yep; there are a few people there already. She finds a seat that seems like it'll give her the best view, and settles in with her sketchpad.

Here comes Ana in a line of other Jedi, walking out of the temple. They're all wearing simple tan robes that won't interfere with movement.

Ana waves to the kobold.

The kobold waves back!

The line of Jedi splits into two, and each heads to opposite sides of the ring that has been set up. The person at the front of either line steps into the arena, and goes to the center. They bow formally, then retreat several steps and draw their lightsabers. The blades crackle into being, one blue and one green. They wait for a few seconds and then as if at some unseen signal, the duel begins. Sabers make whirling fans of light, spinning around almost too fast to track. They crash together, then leap apart. The duelists push the battle back and forth across the ring, but both are perfectly aware of the boundary and never approach it too closely. Suddenly, in a blur of movement, green's saber is pointing to one side and blue is at their throat. Both sheathe their sabers, and bow to each other again.

That's definitely a bit more potentially lethal than the kobold is used to, but nobody seems to be expecting any problems. She watches carefully.

The Jedi competing today are all highly skilled, and immersed in the Force. The duel always stops just short of the point of injury or death. A variety of styles are displayed as the tournament progress. Most use the traditional single saber, but there are some who use saberstaffs and some who use a blade in either hand. Some are acrobatic, leaping up and around and over. Others favor a more solid approach, defining a bubble around themselves with their lightsaber and owning that space totally.

Hmm, a challenge. She's pretty sure she's not going to be able to enspell lightsabers directly - or at least not usefully, a spell on just the hilt won't do anyone any good - but there is a potential workaround for that. People often think of tools as extensions of themselves, which allows a spell cast on the person using them to affect the tool too, and it's generally obvious to the mage-sense when that's happening. She waits until a match is about to begin and sends a tendril of the sense out to examine the nearer combatant - if her guess is right, she'll be able to tell when they turn their lightsaber on, even without extending the sense to it specifically, and with luck, she'll be able to sense the whole blade.

This turns out to be the case. The lightsaber, including the blade as it appears, feels like a very natural part of the duelist's body and she can understand it in much the same fashion as any other limb.

Excellent. If Sith feel the same way about their weapons, this will be very easy, at least for as long as they can keep the element of surprise.

The dueling continues for several more hours. The tournament follows a simple single-elimination format. The winners are matched against each other until there are only two left.

Unsurprisingly to anyone, Ana is one of these. She uses two sabers, one shorter than the other, and favors a very fluid, acrobatic style.

The last fight is one of the longest so far, but she eventually manages to sweep her opponent's legs from under him and pin his saber arm. She puts her lightsabers away, and laughing, pulls him to his feet again. They bow to each other, and then the tournament is over.

The kobold applauds (quietly) with everyone else, and stays put as the crowd clears.

The contestants disperse. Some head inside to clean up immediately, others stay to talk with friends in the audience. Ana goes over to the kobold.

"So, what did you think?"

"You were awesome," hug, "and I can definitely work with that."

Hug! Slightly sweaty hug!

"Oh, good! I need to go clean up, meet you later for dinner?"