revivalproject | closed ☾

"Maybe it's the Force, maybe it's here," Cal suggests, shrugging a little. It's not lost on him the fact that things could have been a lot worse, but for whatever reason, whether just random or influenced by their already existing relationship, it hadn't.

"I don't know if I'd call it strange. It's not bad though, right?"

Bad? No, she definitely wouldn't say that it's bad. In fact, the idea of them being complete strangers in some other life or universe makes her... sad. Then again, it would've been very possible if her sisters or his Order had survived—without that tragedy, they would have no reason to meet. Jedi and Nightsisters don't travel together, after all.

Is she going to say as much, though? No. "Not entirely," she says, one corner of her mouth quirking up to reveal that she's teasing, even if she sobers quickly. "Perhaps it is just strange to think of a place where we do not meet at all."

It's definitely a different angle to consider things. It's like thinking about the empty space in a picture, rather than focusing on the actual subject. What would it have been like? They'd just go on with however they'd been.

"Yeah..." It's a sad thing to think about. To not have found someone to really connect with, to not have been able to grow. Maybe there would be other opportunities for them to change, although who could say if it would be for the better? Or maybe...they'd just be as they were.

"Just...knowing that if maybe I'd done something differently here or hadn't failed there, I might've never even gone to Dathomir. But that's where things have ultimately led me." No, he would have missed an important lesson if he never went to Dathomir. And who knows what greater harm Malicos might have caused if another Jedi hadn't stumbled into things, to reveal his true intent.

"Having met you, and been on this path we're on, I think I'd rather not think about how things could have been, otherwise," he admits.

Nightsisters, as a general rule, don't believe in things like fate or destiny or even "the will of the Force" that Jedi like Cal put so much faith in. They believe in shaping their own lives and rules with strength and sisterhood. But maybe, just this once, she might give Cal this one. It certainly feels like their lives intersected for a reason, and if that was the Force at work, then... she'll let it slide.

And... it's nice. Hearing him say that he wouldn't choose a different path. Hearing him say we. It does something to her, somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

"Me neither," she says sincerely, her head tipping slightly to the side. "You say that even though you haven't returned to Dathomir yet?" Last he remembers, she'd raised her dead sisters and he'd been forced to flee. Sure, she filled him in a bit on what happened after, but... maybe she still feels guilty, a little.

It wasn't the most pleasant of notes that he'd last left Dathomir, he knows. Being chased by the undead had been a final, additional blow that he hadn't needed then, not when he was already on emotionally unsteady ground. But being able to look at a bigger picture, he can see how maybe even those things were necessary. Maybe not even solely to him.

"I know there's something that I need to do there." Cal meets her eyes again. "Things haven't been great or gone smoothly, but I know I why I set out to do what I have. I just needed that push. But everything that's happened, or will happen along the way is just as important as that reason."

She can't help but think that Cal has a very charitable way of looking at things—she's not sure she would describe siccing the Nightbrothers and her dead sisters on him as "not great." In fact, she thinks that if she'd just listened to him in the first place when he said that they could help each other, things would've gone a hell of a lot smoother for the both of them.

But... "Perhaps you're right. Just this once," she says quietly, a subdued smile pulling at one corner of her mouth. She doesn't know if she would've been ready to make peace with him then, too weighed down by her anger and Malicos' lies. Maybe she'd needed to overhear that conversation outside Kujet's tomb, to see Malicos betray her with her own eyes, to let it galvanize her.

At the time, she was so furious with his betrayal that she hadn't paid much attention to Cal, or given any kind of second thought to what Malicos had said to him. But his lightsaber had been broken, forcing him to run to the Mantis, and some... part of him had been broken too, she feels like. When he returned to Dathomir again, he has different, somehow, in a way it would be hard for her to explain.

"What happened in the tomb? Before you left Dathomir." That tomb was a terrible place, even by Dathomir's standards. Something must have happened to him there.

"...a test. I think." Cal still isn't sure if it's exactly that or simply the dark nature of Dathomir. But then the dark side of the Force is still part of the Force...

"I had to confront my master. We fought, except I only realized later that he wasn't really on the offensive. But he just...just kept goading me to attack. Telling me I was a failure, that I was weak..." He wonders if it'll ever get easy recounting this, even after he's come to accept responsibility. "I...I actually struck him with my lightsaber, and that's when he grabbed a hold of it and crushed it in his hands. Telling me I wasn't a Jedi."

He shakes his head, crossing his arms as he lets out a breath. "When I opened my eyes I was back in the tomb by the locked doors, with a broken lightsaber in my hands. It just felt like everything was falling apart at that point."

So that tomb is even more terrible than she'd thought. She remembers Malicos taking her there, and she'd hated every second in that place, hated him. Her instincts hadn't been wrong.

There's a part of her that wants to take his hand, hearing him talk about his experience with obvious difficulty—but he crosses his arms and she shoves the impulse aside. "This is what happened, before you arrived here?" It's more a rhetorical question than anything, but it just further lodges that shard of guilt into her soul.

Her assessment hadn't been so far off. After going through all that, having everything fall apart, and then arriving here... she shifts her weight a little, eyebrows knitting. "I am sorry." Her gaze flickers to the side, and then back to his again. "For raising my sisters. I was angry with Malicos, and I didn't care if you were hurt alongside him."

Cal nods, lips twisting in a brief, ironic smile. "In a way it kind of worked in my favor. It gave me something else to think about. But I also thought that if I'd slowed down and let everything catch up with me, I wouldn't be able to keep going forward."

It hadn't been foolproof, of course. There was no way that he'd forget so simply the things that had happened to him, the wounds that had been reopened from years past. Still, distractions had helped, and people here knew nothing about who he was or had any expectations of him.

The apology comes as unexpected, and Cal turns his head towards her. "You didn't know. You were trying to do what was best for yourself and the legacy of your sisters." He smiles faintly, one end quirking up just a bit higher. "Although I could have done without being chased by them," he notes, just a touch dryly. When the world seemed to be crashing around you after being accused of betrayal by a ghost the last thing you wanted was to be pursued by the undead.

"Yes. It was the fastest I have seen you run." It's said in her favorite deadpan tone—not the one where she's actually joking, but the one where she's being brutally honest. It's true.

But... there he goes again, describing things a lot more charitably than she ever would. If she's being honest, she wasn't thinking about herself or the legacy of her sisters at all in that moment—she was just hurt and angry, and she wanted to make Malicos pay for his betrayal. Cal was just caught in the crossfire, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And before that—she'd put her faith in the wrong man and allowed him to manipulate her into violence against someone who would've been her friend before her enemy. She still... struggles with that, even with Cal's voice in her head telling her that Malicos was wrong to use her loss against her. But guilt and regret aren't so easy to negotiate with.

"You are strangely forgiving, Cal Kestis," she says, and there's a softer quality in her voice, underneath the usual harsh inflections of her accent. Then she pauses, her head suddenly canting to the side. "How did you hear about my sisters?" As far as he should know, she hasn't told him about the armored warrior, or Malicos promising her revenge against the Jedi.

His cough isn't quite a laugh and honestly he's not sure how to take that, but he decides it probably was true. "When you have good enough incentive..." He shrugs, wrinkling his nose a little.

"I give chances. I don't mean to go anywhere to pick fights, although these days I have to be prepared for that happening more often than not." The Empire doesn't give chances, unfortunately. "I only know so much from what you told me," Cal admits then. "That they were all gone, and it was just you and the Nightbrothers. And back on Dathomir there were these echoes... some of the ones I sensed were probably from Malicos' arrival, the initial distrust in him."

He looks at her almost apologetically, feeling that he'd infringed upon something private, not that he knew what to expect from those echoes until he was experiencing them. "But I found one of...a Nightsister, a survivor of something terrible. Alone." Sad.

"Yes. Of course." Maybe she should've guessed that it was his rare ability to see the past. It makes sense—the history of the Nightsisters must be written all over Dathomir, including her own. And in the end... it was just her own, years of mourning and laying her sisters to rest and seeking her revenge. Alone, as he said.

She's not sure exactly how she feels knowing that he'd experienced one of her own memories, or however the echoes feel to him, not to mention one that was so painful and personal to her. But what's done is done. And in the end...

"What you found was true. An armored warrior came in the night, wielding many of your lightsabers," she explains carefully, gesturing to his lightsaber, "and cut down my sisters, until I was the last. Alone." She swallows, her gaze averted. Even with six years of distance from the loss, recounting it still isn't... easy.

"I told you this, when you returned. Perhaps I did not have to," she adds, a thoughtful note in her voice. It's a little forced, but she's trying her best.

"Maybe not... But sometimes it helps. It doesn't necessarily make that pain go away, but...it helps other people understand more about where you're coming from, what you've gone through."

An armored warrior with lightsabers. It's no wonder she had it out for Jedi. Cal lets his arms loosen from their folded stance, gesturing vaguely with his hands. "Back when we visited Coruscant, one of the Jedi masters at the temple had Master Kenobi, Ezra, Grogu and I meditate together in the Force. Each of us had some painful things we'd gone through, and she'd hoped that in confronting and sharing the experiences, we could begin the healing process." He shakes his head, smiling bitterly. "I'm...actually not so sure how well that worked for some of us, but I think the idea was kind of on the right track."

"Sharing the experiences," she repeats, as if testing out how the idea sounds. She'd seen Cal meditating before, and wondered if it was something all Jedi did or just him—it seems that she has her answer.

Nightsisters don't meditate, really, but they do come together as a group to perform powerful magick together, pooling their energy for spells and rituals. Sometimes, it can feel like falling into a trance, surrounded in all ways by the power and energy of your sisters and Dathomir itself. Connected. As if they were all sharing the same breath, the same spirit.

She allows herself a small pang of grief, that she would never have that feeling of infinite closeness to her sisters again, and then tucks it away. "I did not know that Jedi could share their experiences in this way," she comments, almost as if to herself, before adding, "Did it work for you?"

Without really thinking about it, Cal gently sets a hand on her shoulder. He'd felt that, an all too familiar feeling, but at the same time he knows Merrin's goes so much deeper because of that closeness she had with her sisters.

"I don't think it's a common thing," he admits, at that point wondering that his gestured had been appropriate, but pulling away his hand suddenly might seem more awkward. He manages to let it fall away, clearing his throat as he looks off to the side. Well, so much for awkwardness. "We had some help in focusing- there was this special meditation chamber. But even when we meditate in the Force in general, we're a lot more open to each other, to everything around us."

He chuckles a little, shrugging. "Didn't work out immediately, no. Kind of complicated things in some ways, but I don't think any of us were really prepared or really even knew how interwoven some of our paths could turn out to be. Maybe not directly, but in people we've met." But the others seemed to venture far off from his own, and for a moment his expression turns wistful, but he forces a smile, another shrug.

"Anyway, I think ultimately it helped. I knew I couldn't just avoid thinking about what had happened. It's always there, that day everything just..." Cal shakes his head. "And it'll always hurt. But I know I can't change what happened, as much as I wish I could. There's always going to be things I wonder that I could have done to make things turn out differently. But I have to live with the outcome, with what's happened." He closes his eyes for a moment. "My master died trying to protect me. I won't forget that. I know I had a part in that, but it took me long enough to accept it."

His hand is warm and solid and comforting on her shoulder, and it feels like everything begins and ends with that touch. When his hand falls away, though, rather than awkwardness, she just... wants it back, with a fierceness that surprises even herself. And she wants to comfort him too, with that same fierceness, hearing him speak about that day and his master, even if she feels woefully unequipped to do it.

When he closes his eyes, she reaches out for his hand at his side, haltingly at first and then all at once, her fingers curling around his. That does feel awkward, but not enough to deter her—but maybe enough that her gaze doesn't quite meet his and it takes her another moment to find her voice.

"I had no choice but to accept the deaths of my sisters," she says quietly. That day—the day everything changed for her, the day her world ended—will always be with her, but even more than that...

"When a Nightsister dies, we perform a ritual to lay her to rest. We braid cloth that has been washed in the Water of Life and bind her in it, then place her in a burial pod. And we recite many spells, for protection and preservation, but the most important is a spell that allows her spirit to return to Dathomir and the rest of her sisters, forever." She pauses, a thickness in her throat that she has to swallow down before she continues.

"I performed this ritual for all of my mothers and sisters." Day in and day out. Over and over. She couldn't even tell him how long it took her—the days, weeks, months all seemed to blur together, a haze of grief and loss and this stubborn determination to do the only thing she could, at the time. "I don't know how long I did this for. At first I was only numb, but as time passed..." She squeezes his hand, holding fast as if it's an anchor. Breathes in and out. "I was forced to say goodbye to each of them."

Feeling her fingers as they gingerly slide around his own is a surprise enough to him that Cal opens his eyes again, glancing first at the pale hand that's grasped his own before seeking Merrin's face, her skittish gaze. He doesn't want to press her as she begins to speak about her own pain, letting her continue as she will, if she wants.

He can't imagine having to do that for so many, and especially for so many close to you. It makes him wonder that those Jedi and younglings lost back at the temple had received a proper burial, a bitter feeling settling in his stomach as he doubts that would have happened. It doesn't even take into account the Jedi who were scattered across the galaxy at the time, dying in unfamiliar territory, most likely alone.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

He squeezes her hand back, as though maybe doing so would somehow transmit back to that lonely, hurt young Nightsister who had had to undertake such a heavy responsibility. No one should ever have to be put through that, to put to rest her entire family. He's not even sure how many that would have been, or if those undead Nightsisters that had pursued him had been part of that number. It's not an easy thing for her to recount, and part of him can't help but feel guilty for making her bring it up.

Looking at her as she tries to calm herself, Cal himself swallows, disentangling his fingers from her's so he can try to offer her an embrace instead. Is it a strange thing to do? They had two sets of memories still floating about in their heads, but even if he's certain that this would be more something the Cal that had grown up with Merrin would have done, he still feels the need to do so, something to help her lock back into the present, something to reassure her that she's not alone any more.

It's the first time she's ever spoken about the days and months following the massacre to anyone—not the Nightbrothers, and certainly not Malicos. It's more difficult than she expects, and there's a part of her that remembers burying her mothers and sisters as if it was yesterday, and she's just a sad, terrified, dazed little girl with one grim job left to do.

So she's caught off guard when Cal moves to embrace her, and her first instinct is to tense, wrenched back into the present. The fact that it's Cal—that she has memories of this, even if it's in another life—is what makes her finally relax, and she leans into the hug, winding her arms around him. Slowly, at first, and then fiercely—it's been so long since anyone has tried to hug her like this that she's almost forgotten what to do. The last time she'd initiated had been too quick, too brief, a sudden impulse.

But this is different, and she holds on with all her strength, her hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt. Some emotion lodges itself between her ribs, the corners of her eyes stinging, but she just presses her face into his shoulder and soaks in his strength, his warmth. Everything. It almost feels like if it weren't for Cal's arms around her she would come apart.

The seconds tick by until she thinks she can speak without her voice wavering. Sharing the experiences. "When I die, there will be no one to perform the ritual for me," she says quietly, her voice half-muffled against his shoulder. "My body will decay, and my spirit will not be able to return to Dathomir, or find my sisters."

It feels like a confession from a deep, dark place—something she never thought she'd confess to anyone. Nightsisters do not tend to fear death, knowing that they will reunite with their mothers and sisters in the spirit plane—but Merrin fears it now, and being parted from her family forever.

Wondering if he's overstepped his boundaries, Cal is fully prepared to step away if she wants. Instead he finds Merrin hugging him back, latching onto that consolation, and it's consoling to him in turn.

He remembers being alone, left with no one he could run to and forced to relinquish all the things that he'd ever learned because they would instantly mark him as a target. He had to survive or else his master's sacrifice would have been pointless. But everything they'd fought for, and those they'd fought alongside- it was suddenly like none of it had mattered anymore and there was no one to give him answers as to why.

There was nowhere for him to return to. He didn't know if anyone was left of the Order, but he held onto the hope that the Council would eventually end word, launch a counter attack, fix things. It was something he fiercely clung to those days immediately after he'd lost Tapal. And then those days turned into weeks and months, and even though he hadn't wanted to admit it at first, he probably knew the truth as soon as news spread that a Galactic Empire had been established. And while he hadn't been alone on Bracca, he hadn't been able to share any of what had happened, not when it would reveal the truth of who he was, not when Jedi were branded as traitors. He might have still remained there, working in the Empire's backyard.

He wouldn't have met Merrin.

Her soft words stir something in him, a sadness, a pain. There's still so much he doesn't understand about the culture of the Nightsisters. As certain as he is that their magick shares some aspect of the Force, he's not sure how that factors in raising the spirits of the dead. Where did they rest? Or was it that they were summoned back from the Force?

Cal's arms tighten around her, almost protectively, as though willing such negative thoughts to disperse, as though he feared Merrin might just start to vanish into nothing by just that confession alone.

"...what we're taught is that when we die, we return to the Force. It's everything around us, and it connects us. So even when we're gone...we're not."

When Cal's arms tighten around her, something in her starts to unbend after years and years without simple human touch, and she can feel herself relax, sinking into the embrace like she's suddenly boneless. She's safe here. That's the only way she can even begin to describe it: like she's utterly, perfectly safe.

His voice sounds a little different so close to her ear, rumbling through his chest—not in a bad way. It takes her an extra second to discern the meaning of the words instead of just the feel of them, and then another to let their comfort and hope flow through her. Maybe that old Jedi master at the Temple had the right idea, because she does feel... better, lighter, like a weight has been lifted off her. Or maybe it's just Cal.

She smiles a little, though he can't see it, and rests her cheek against his shoulder. "Connects us," she echoes softly, liking the way that sounds. With obvious reluctance, she pulls away from the hug, just a half-step back, her arms falling to her sides—the reluctance surprises her a little with how strong it is.

"Perhaps I can still find them." If magick and the Force are at all the same, and if they're all connected in some way, then there's hope. It's more than she had before. "Perhaps I can find you," she adds, and there's something a little softer in the way she says it, almost like a question. She doesn't know how these things work for Jedi—but she does like the idea of her spirit finding his, even if she has to use the Force to do it.

He can sense it, that subtle easing of the sadness that had previously settled like a blanket, a hope lighting up in its place. It's a reflection of his own feelings, accompanying the gladness of being able to have offered Merrin a different perspective that she could find some comfort in.

When she finally begins to pull away, Cal lets his own arms around her loosen, awkwardly letting them settle at his sides as he's not sure what else to do with them, like they'd had a mind of their own a moment ago. He smiles gently, nodding. The Force is full of possibilities, and while there's still so much they don't know about it, that small part they do is an important.

"At least here and back on the Mantis, wherever we are then, you won't have to worry about that part."

Something about his words seems to stream through the gaps in her ribs and settle in her chest with significance, with weight. Cal is telling her, in his own way, that she isn't alone anymore, not as long as he's around. And... and it surprises her how much she almost... needed to hear that. How much it affects her.

She breathes in almost shakily, her eyes tracing the familiar lines and planes of his face, her hands curling at her sides with a foolish impulse to reach out to him and... something. They're still standing close together, close enough that she see those faint freckles of his, and it makes her smile, gentle and warm.

"Then I will not," she says decisively, meaningfully. And then, after a moment of consideration, she adds, "And afterwards, I will make sure to haunt you, as a spirit. At least until you can join me again." She uses that tone that makes it almost impossible to tell if she's joking or not, but this time there's warmth underneath.

It could have easily been but a simple quip, but Cal's aware he meant what he'd said even as he'd said it. And even when the silence falls again between them, he finds that he doesn't feel nearly so awkward for it, even as they look at each other.

Her words may sound like a threat, especially given the way she says it, but it brings another quirk to his lips, that crooked smile of his. "At least I'd be in good company," he laughs. "But maybe we should focus on the staying alive part while we can."

There it is—his smile and laugh. This one sends a warm, fizzy feeling to the pit of her stomach, like potion bubbling in a cauldron. She feels like she... should step back a little more, but at the same time...

"We? You seem to have more trouble with that than I do, Cal Kestis," she teases, her tone arch, thinking of that moment she fished him out of an ocean with a lightsaber wound through his chest, even if he hasn't experienced it yet. But, well—it's still applicable. He does seem to end up in a lot of perilous situations, some of which she's even been responsible for.

"You're the one talking about haunting me!" Cal counters, laughing. Not that he will deny he's seen his share of trouble, but he figures it goes hand in hand with being a Jedi, especially in this day and age- well, maybe not here, but even without an Empire on his heels after his head, there are still things that come up here. The difference is that it can happen to anyone. All the more reason to be vigilant, not only for himself, but for his friends and everyone here who might find their own spot of trouble.

Still, for all their jesting, he doesn't much like dwelling on the idea of her eventual death, much less her speaking as though he'll be the one left behind. Again... A bitter addendum that he quickly quashes with the thoughts of their earlier conversation. Not alone though. Never alone. He smiles, a softer smile but still one he feels he doesn't have to force.

Hearing BD-1's inquisitive beeping by the foot of the table, Cal glances over with a twitch of a grin. "Have you seen the plant you helped BeeDee with? We thought it might have gotten neglected with everything that happened, but turns out, it's the exact opposite," he says as he reaches for Merrin's hand, eager to lead her towards the back as BD-1 skitters ahead.

closed ☾

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