Someone Didn't Pay the Electric Bill

[out_of_order]

WHO: Cal Kestis, Kaz Brekker, Asterope Glass, Merrin and whoever might want to drop by
WHERE: Not-Temba/Sh'Ka's Power Station and related areas
WHAT: Cal's assembled a team to work on restoring the power and maybe establish communication from the other city
WHEN: End of August to mid-September OMG WHY IS IT SEPTEMBER ALREADY
WARNINGS: Kaz N/A


Basecamp was set up within some of the offices of the power station, with a space for a rudimentary campfire outside if people wanted to heat up food or water to drink or use in general, or just enjoy the fresh air at night. Cal had brought along a couple of portable space heaters he'd cobbled together in case things got too cool inside at night, free for anyone's use.

The first day had mainly consisted of setting up a space for them to stay in and unloading whatever they'd managed to bring by way of equipment and rations, and a bit of territory scouting to see what was available for them. While the water plant, wherever that was, would have to be another project entirely, at least water itself was available, if requiring a bit of a walk from the station. Kyle's buddy system would be recommended, mainly out of concern for the large creatures that have been known to dwell within the wooded areas not far from there.

The power plant itself would be the next thing to look at to see what might need repairs, and if parts would be needed from the other city. Cal had Reeve's notes to share as well as previous experience in working on power restoration for Temba, and the similarities between the cities would make things at least a little easier. The most tedious part would be inspecting the connecting lines to make sure there wouldn't be any damaged areas that might cause problems if they went ahead and turned everything on. This would take the longest time, so the inspections would be divided up in sections, and they'd check back in after each one. The option to swap out between engineers would also be there so no one would be stuck with any one task, and Merrin would be able to bring them back and forth as she got more familiar with the layout of things.

It would be a lot of work and effort, but if there were things worth learning here, getting this done would be a key part to it.


((OOC: Feel free to treat this as a mingle and task sort of thing! Working on stuff? Taking a break? Getting chased by bunnyboars? Dropping off care packages for your hard-working engineers and friends? Do it do it do it! I will post an update on progress once I get some infos~))

Comments

[out_of_order]

That's definitely good news. Merrin's shortcut will be a great help to all of them, and allow for more time to work on things with the cutting down on travel time. Cal nods, rolling himself upwards to sit.

"Oh, you did?" By his tone it doesn't sound like he'd been aware that they'd met, but he's cautiously glad of it. But Cal picks up on that subtle...something, head tilting at her. "How'd it go?"

[noch]

So Obi-Wan hadn't told him about it. The cautiousness in his tone doesn't go unnoticed, and she realizes that maybe he shares Ezra's... worry, that the two of them wouldn't get along. At least that part of their conversation wasn't the part weighing on her, so she can give him some relief there.

"We had much to talk about. He is a kind man," she says thoughtfully, turning her head to meet Cal's gaze. Not what I expected of a Jedi is what she might've said before, but she's found that after all the Jedi she's met—Cal, Cere, Ezra, Obi-Wan—Malicos seems to be the exception, not the rule. "He invited me to visit the Temple."

[out_of_order]

He's not too surprised that they had a lot to talk about, but he can be glad that it's apparently gone all right. Cal smiles then, relieved that Obi-Wan had invited Merrin himself.

"I'm glad you got the chance to finally meet him," he says. "So what all did you two talk about?" He wouldn't have asked if he didn't feel that there was something Merrin wanted to bring up from her conversation with the Jedi master.

[noch]

She falls quiet for a moment, her brow wrinkling as she turns her head forward again, staring ahead unseeingly. After her talk with Obi-Wan, she thought that she just needed a little time, to process the truth of her sisters' fate, but even after so long she still feels... lost. Time hasn't given her the clarity she wanted.

Wordlessly, she curls her legs up and rests the circle of her arms on her knees, as if she's cold despite the heat from the fire. "He knew who it was who murdered my sisters. The armored warrior," she says finally, soberly. "And he knew who ordered the attack. General Grievous... and Count Dooku. They were Separatist leaders."

How strange, to know their names and deeds but little else. General Grievous she can still see in her mind, even now, as she saw him then, a metal monster ruthlessly cutting down her sisters with his lightsabers. But Dooku... she knows so little of the man, can't picture what he looks like at all. For all the pain and grief he caused her, he's just a dark shadow, barely anything at all.

[out_of_order]

Cal watches her quietly, and the way the crackling light from the campfire casts a warm tone to her usually pallid features. As she changes her position, hugging her knees as though she might close herself off, Cal shifts in his own position, turning where he sits so that he can face her better, if not be a little closer.

The first sentence makes it clear enough why Merrin seemed so hesitant. She finally knew the name of the one responsible for wiping out her sisters. Names, and not just any, but ones that he knew well, if only because of the involvement in the very war that he and the Jedi were made to fight in. And they were both gone, weren't they? Not an easy thing to digest, especially when you'd spent so many years harboring vengeance.

He's not sure what to say to that. There really aren't words to offer that can make anything better, especially when you're not sure what you should be trying to offer. But he lifts a hand, setting it over the closest of her's, giving it a squeeze.

[noch]

It's alright—just his hand on hers is enough. It pulls her towards him, comforting and strong, and she turns her hand over under his, so that they're palm to palm, and shifts so that she's angled towards him. Her knees brush against his legs, but... she doesn't move them away.

"He said that Count Dooku betrayed his apprentice, Asajj Ventress. One of my sisters. I remember when she returned home and took a mate." At the time, she hadn't thought much of it, beyond the wonder of a long-lost sister returning so suddenly. Nor did she know why. "As our sister, we would've helped her seek revenge. But it must have failed."

And then Dooku struck back. It's the only explanation that makes any sense to her—she knows the Nightsisters well, and they do not suffer betrayal from anyone, not even Sith Lords. Revenge would be the only possible route to take against a man who wronged one of their own.

And it was their destruction. More than anger, a bone-deep sadness settles over her, and she grips Cal's hand a little tighter, her head lowering. "All this time, I have wondered. I thought that knowing would... bring peace, but it does not."

She can feel tears start to crawl up her throat and sting the corners of her eyes, and so she closes them, shutting out the image of their entwined hands between them, blurring. "There is nothing more I can do. Dooku and Grievous are dead, and so my sisters cannot even have their revenge. There is nothing," she repeats, softer.

[out_of_order]

He has no words, but he can listen. And when Merrin turns her hand to grasp his, he holds hers obligingly. Given what he knows of Dooku and Grievous, they weren't people to be taken lightly. It still hurts all the same to know that they had also had a hand in something so heinous.

There was no reason that such knowledge would bring anyone peace. Cal can't blame her for that, although at the same time he wishes it weren't so. When her hand tightens, he squeezes it back a little more in turn. He can sense her anguish, the hopelessness. It's a space he knows well, when you don't know what to do and it just seems like you're left to drown in everything and nothing.

He pulls at her with that hand, pulling her towards him to wrap his arm, and maybe the other around her if she relinquishes her grip, a firm embrace. "...they left a void that you filled with a desire for vengeance," he says, his voice just above a whisper at her ear. "You just need to find something bigger, something better to fill that in. But that's something only you can choose."

Merrin hasn't given up all this time. He doesn't think she will, even now, but it's a rare thing to see her so vulnerable, so open. He wants to protect that, to let her know that whatever choice she makes next, she doesn't have to do so alone.

"Your sisters still have their revenge. You've survived. Dooku and Grievous are gone. You can continue to honor them just by moving forward."

[noch]

There's barely any relinquishing at all—she folds herself into the circle of his arms, sinking into all the comfort and strength of his embrace, letting it surround her. How odd it is, how unthinking and easy—it's only because it's Cal, and because she trusts him with the vulnerable parts of her.

She squeezes her eyes shut against tears, buries her face in his shoulder and breathes, but his words seem to strike her directly in some small, weak place, and there's nothing she can do to stop them anymore. It's been so long since she last cried over her sisters, but... this feels like an ending of a story that started years ago. An ending where her sisters are still gone, and always would be.

But he's right. She survived, and Dooku and Grievous didn't. They failed—the Nightsisters still live on, even if it's just through her. Even if she doesn't know how to move forward without vengeance—what her something bigger and better is. Thanks to Cal, she feels like she's just started to scratch the surface of how wide the galaxy is, but... that just makes her place in it an even bigger question. She's a Nightsister without sisters, with a half-empty planet to call home.

"Moving forward," she echoes quietly, muffled against his shoulder. At least... she has Cal by her side, and Cere and Greez, back in their galaxy. At least... she has Cal with her now, here in this place. That's a start. "It seems I have little choice this time."

[out_of_order]

He holds her tighter as those tears finally can't be held back anymore, feeling like he's physically trying to hold her together, even as he lets her know it's all right to just let it out. There had been no one to comfort them in their loss all those years ago, no one to offer a shoulder to cry on when everything had been taken from Merrin just because her sisters had been drawn into a power conflict. Cal hardly thinks that this will make things right nor make up for the thens of yore, but it's something he can offer now, and he feels that's just as important.

The concept always comes back around, moving forward. It's what she'd told him he'd offered her when he apparently returns to Dathomir. It's what he's decided, even after arriving here on another alien planet, broken and once again uncertain. It seems like all they can do, and yet he knows the alternative is to not do anything at all.

"Still a choice," he says. "But whatever you choose, I'll be here for you."

[noch]

She'd spent so many years waiting on Dathomir. Waiting for Malicos, waiting for the chance at revenge, just waiting. When Cal came, it finally meant that she could stop waiting and seize what she wanted for herself. She thought that... one day, she would find the truth and finally seek her revenge.

Well, she did find the truth, but the answer isn't what she wanted. So now she's back to another new path forward, this one wider and less certain. Nothing can avenge her sisters. Nothing can bring back her people. All that's left is her.

I'll be here for you. The words seems to slip between her ribs and squeeze, and her arms tighten around him, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt, as if that would keep them here like this forever. And it's not forever, but she does stay like that for a long time, her face pressed into the crook of his shoulder, enfolded in his embrace and all of the comfort and support and strength he's giving her.

Finally, she draws back—just enough to look into his face and appreciate how unexpectedly precious it's become to her. Slowly, she... she lifts her hand, brushes her fingers against his jaw, the touch feather-light. Cradles one side of his face, her thumb against his cheek.

"You were right, Cal Kestis," she says quietly, her expression soft, a small smile lifting one side of her mouth. There's a trace of humor there, for the inside joke to come, because he doesn't remember the words he's going to say to her. "Life does have a funny way."

[out_of_order]

Who was he to say such things? But then he knows how rare it is to have anyone even from the same place to come from relatable times. How far they've come from that first encounter on Dathomir, distant and guarded, broken and distrustful.

Cal remains as he is until Merrin begins to move back. He loosens his arms around her enough for her to do so, smiling back as she traces his face, meeting her gaze. The words are only familiar because she'd said them before, some time after she'd first arrived on Agra 10. It's still strange to be told something he hasn't even said yet, apparently from his standpoint, but it says something that she's kept them close to heart.

"It's nice to know I can be right sometimes, at least," he says, his smile twitching upwards on one corner.

[noch]

Her gaze falls to his mouth, where his smile twitches, but then it lingers there for a moment. They're sitting so close, still connected where his arms wrap loosely around her, where her hand cups his face and the other curls around his side, fingers slotted against his ribs—so close that it would be perilously easy to bridge the distance between them again, but this time with...

Before the impulse can even take root, she lets her hands drop—one, then the other, with effort—and scoots away, putting more space between them. "Sometimes," she agrees, but there's affection in her tone.

[out_of_order]

The warmth he feels in his chest is different than the warmth of the crackling fire just behind Merrin. It's connected to the warmth of her touch, her hand against his cheek, her arm still loosely around him, and the look that she regards him with. It lingers even as she slowly drops her hands away, moving apart again, and the separation is all the more palpable as the night air quickly steals between them.

BD-1 skitters back then, having lost track of whatever insects he'd been stalking, tweedling happily as he comes up beside them. Cal chuckles, setting a hand on the little droid's head. "You done, buddy? I should probably get you set up to recharge." He looks over at Merrin again. "We should probably turn in too, soon. Been a long day."