revivalproject | open ☾ an arrival

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open ☾ an arrival

WHO: Merrin and YOU
WHERE: All over Temba
WHAT: One (1) very confused space witch makes her debut
WHEN: Right now?
WARNINGS: None yet, but will update if anything comes up!

A. YOU'VE GOTTA BE KITTEN ME

Despite the fact that Merrin is absolutely the type to hold grudges, she's somehow made peace with Voroka and the other mothkittens in spite of the terrible crime against her—at least judging by the fact that she's currently sitting cross-legged in the grass near the library while the kittens nap, lounge, and play in the sunshine around her.

A few bolder ones have already approached her, and she extends her hand towards one of them to let it curiously sniff her fingers. She's learned her lesson from last time, however, and she keeps her talisman, a palm-sized, halfmoon-shaped white rock, gripped tightly in her other hand to prevent another theft. That's the last thing she needs, now or ever.

"Hello, Voroka," she says to the mothkitten, though her voice doesn't sound welcoming so much as stern, like a disappointed parent. "Did you think I would not recognize you?"

B. LIFE'S A BEACH

It takes her a little while to find the path to the beach, but she eventually stumbles across it and—well, her home planet, Dathomir, is essentially a dry, harsh wasteland, and the largest body of water that exists there is a swamp, maybe a pond.

So nothing really prepares her for the sight of the ocean stretching out in front of her. It appears almost infinite to her, and she stands there on the beach for a long time, staring out across the water in wonder, her lips slightly parted. Her gaze keeps darting to the waves lapping against the shore as if she's... contemplating something.

(In fact, she's contemplating putting her feet in the water, though she doesn't know how safe it is, if at all. A lifetime on Dathomir has made her wary of everything, even if it looks harmless.)

C. SURPRISE! AT THE DISCO

After a few days of exploring, Merrin has finally started to get the lay of this place, and so she feels comfortable enough using her magick to teleport around—at least in the town center, where she's most familiarized, whether there are other people around or not.

The only thing that heralds her imminent arrival is a thick green fog that she materializes into, and then she's suddenly there, looking completely unperturbed, like she just stepped off a lift instead of blinking into existence halfway across the city.

D. WILDCARD

Of course, Merrin is still exploring. She can also be found in the hangar, inspecting all of the ships, including exploring her own assigned ship, the First Breath, at the inn, contemplating her food options and wishing she could eat Greez's steak, in the hotel, staking out an empty room (or not?) to claim, or pretty much anywhere else, seriously. Jedi and anyone who can sense Jedi will also be able to sense her—she feels pretty similar, actually, but definitively more... dark. Or sinister.

Or feel free to use any of her TDM prompts, if those speak to you more.

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There's some sort of stray bolt on the counter, and she picks it up mostly to have something in her hands while she listens, her brow furrowing thoughtfully.

Power. Anger and hate. Merrin wonders if she would be considered something like a Sith, if that was the criteria. After all, that was what had fueled her for years, all in search of vengeance for her sisters. In the end, she may not have been consumed by it—not like Malicos, who had become... unhinged after Cal had arrived on Dathomir, truly mad—but she understood its lure.

But in her mind, power is only power, and emotions are only emotions. They're tools, and the danger is in how they're wielded. It sounds to her like these Sith used their tools wrongly.

Which is probably why she can't quite make the connection between that and attachments, or taking children from their homes. Maybe it's also because she grew up always surrounded by her sisters—in her coven, raising the younger generation was basically a community effort and everyone was family. Discouraging those bonds sounds foreign to her.

"Attachments? I don't understand." She sounds genuinely puzzled. "That is bad?"

Even Cal knows it's impossible not to let some emotion bleed into the things you do. He knows he's done so, using the Force in desperation to escape with his dying master when the situation had become so dire. In moments like that, he's not sure if anyone can keep their calm.

The silence that follows isn't exactly heavy, but Cal can tell that there's a lot to be thought about, and he can guess at what Merrin might be wondering. It's something he can't help but wonder too- just what is the origin of Nightsister magick? Is it some aspect of the Force? There are still so many mysteries to it, after all.

He's not surprised at the question that she finally asks. "Not...necessarily?" he says, shaking his head. "What we're taught is that as Jedi, we're meant to serve all, not just a specified few. Attachments might influence our actions and ability to act fairly. I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference now, though..." Now the Jedi are so few, scattered and acting independently if at all.

It is a lot to think about. As Jedi, Malicos and Cal had felt similar to her sisters, but not. Similar to each other, but not. They're all alive, and so is magick. It's trees and mist and blood, in the living and the spirits, in the hearts of planets and stars. From what little she knows of the Force, it may be the same thing, but she can't say for certain.

Almost absently, she calls her magick, feeling it thrum in her hand, bright green ichor levitating the bolt over her palm. A second later, she lets it fall again, the ichor dissipating like a guttered flame as her fingers close around the bolt.

Cal's explanation tells her quite a bit about the Jedi and their aims—very noble, it seems, but she's still not really sure what to make of this attachment business, which is probably evidenced by the skeptical angle of her eyebrows.

"So you are not allowed attachments to your family," she says, her head angling curiously. "And friends? Lovers?"

His eyes are drawn to the glow of green, and while his immediate reaction is to tense, he manages to relax into more of a curious state as he watches Merrin manipulate it. Even to his senses he's not quite sure what to make of it.

"I don't even know who my family is," Cal admits, which hadn't used to bother him, but then he'd gotten used to people again, around here, people who actually showed they cared and looked out for him in turn. So was it really so bad to be close to them?

He blinks and then shifts a little where he leans as he realizes Merrin hasn't finished with her line of questioning. "It's kind of strange on that. I think we're allowed friends, we're supposed to bond with our fellow Jedi, and even masters and padawans become close. I don't know how you can really avoid attachments at all when you really think about it. There's more objection when it comes to lovers." He offers a rueful smile. "But then I've found out that even Jedi Masters don't adhere too strictly to those rules."

She does notice the way he tenses a little when she uses her magick—she'd forgotten for a moment that he isn't so familiar with it right now, that last he remembers, she'd actually used it against him. Frowning a little, she sets the bolt back down on the counter, then leans against it and crosses her arms across her chest.

Strange is also the word she'd use. No families, but friends are allowed. It sounds like lovers aren't allowed, but some Jedi take them anyway, despite the "rules." It all sounds very convoluted to her, even arbitrary, especially since the apparent goal is to prevent attachments.

Will she ever understand Jedi? The more she learns, the more mysterious they become to her.

She shakes her head a little, her tone very dry. "You Jedi are indeed very strange." It isn't disparaging—if anything, she sounds almost amused. "The Nightsisters do not have such rules. I was close with many of my sisters."

As he well knows... their bond is eternal.

It's one of those things that the more you think about it, the less it makes sense. It also had to do with his being so out of touch with the Order and trying to live up to Jedi expectations. Cal can see how one's focus can shift in favor of those you grow close to, but maybe focus isn't that bad a thing. The Jedi had stretched themselves thin.

Merrin's comment isn't something he can disagree with. Framed in that particular way that she can manage, it makes him laugh. "I guess we are," he concedes with another shrug. "Maybe being here is a chance to try things a little differently."

Well, at least he agrees. It makes her feel a little better to know that even an actual Jedi finds his own Order a bit strange. Then again—he might say the same thing about the Nightsisters too, if she told him about some of their traditions.

"Oh? You would break the rules?" She's teasing him now, spurred on by his laugh. Her tone is light, eyes gleaming with humor and crinkled slightly at the corners—subtle, but it's there. "You do not strike me as the type, Cal Kestis."

To break the rules, that is. No, she's picturing him as an obedient and eager pupil—not that she was much different, if she's being honest with herself. She bent them a little, maybe, because she and Ilyana had a bad habit of egging each other on, but never bad enough to incur the wrath of Mother Talzin, like some of her sisters.

"Not break rules," Cal says, a brow arching so high his expression is almost comical. Any attempt to keep a serious look on his face is spoiled by another chuckle. No, he supposes he's not the sort to break rules. On the whole, he still does believe in the Order, enough to want to restore it.

"Maybe reconsider them. Especially after the things that have happened. And the things we find out have happened." It's disheartening thinking that even after the Empire passes, there's something else that rises eventually in its place, that there's still a fight happening. But they can only do what's in their power, and in this place, they're all far from anything of that sort.

"I've been able to meet other Jedi here. We've been able to share our experiences, and one I know by name, though I've never met him before here. He's actually a Jedi Master, and wants to establish a Jedi temple while he's here."

The expression on his face makes her smile, pursed slightly to keep it from growing too big, her eyebrows lifting as if to say: See? I was right. Because she was, and being right always makes her happy.

Her expression turns thoughtful as she listens, her arms unfolding as she shifts her weight against the counter. She's already met Ezra, and he told her about the other Jedi, so she doesn't look surprised at all by any of this information. "Yes, I know of him. This... Master Kenobi, yes?" she asks, drawing on the name Ezra had given her. She hasn't met him yet, but Ezra had already warned(?) her that he might be wary of Nightsisters like her.

Thinking back on that conversation reminds her—she'd wondered how Cal had felt meeting other Jedi, especially after thinking he might be one of the last ones, if not the very last. And—well, now she can just tell him, even if it's slightly off topic. "I am happy for you," she says sincerely, her expression softening. "That you have found others of your kind."

It's not at all surprising that she's possibly met the others if not heard of them by now. Cal nods. "Yeah, that's him."

For her to say she's happy for him finding others like him, other Jedi or at least those learning to be, it both warms him and makes him feel all too aware that the same couldn't be said for her and her sisters, although in a place like this, it left the possibility open. His eyes fall back towards the box he'd pulled out earlier, his hand resuming picking out pieces.

"I don't know if I'd get the chance otherwise. It seems like for the others, their paths cross at some point, or at least cross those of someone who's met one of them before." Who knows if he'll ever run into any other Jedi apart from Cere, once he goes back? "I already know we won't remember what we've done here, who we've met, if we're sent back to where we were."

He's found other Jedi, been able to continue his training with a master, and now they'll have a temple to do... whatever it is Jedi do there (she's still somewhat unclear on this point)—she really is happy for him, even if there's still a small, envious part of her that wishes she could have the same with her sisters. She thought she'd long ago given up hope of seeing any of her people again, or of rebuilding the Nightsisters.

But this place brought back some of that hope, and she doesn't know if she can be disappointed a second time.

She looks away, trying to parse his timeline—four Jedi who survived the Purge, or at least lived after it, and three of them haven't crossed paths with Cal in the future. Yet, maybe? She isn't sure what that could mean, since there are so many possibilities, so many potential futures. After Cal destroyed that Jedi holocron, their path became wide open.

Or they could all be dead, which is a very comforting thought.

There is some interesting information in there, though. "We do not remember our time here?" She sounds surprised, her brow furrowing. "How is this possible?"

Maybe it's too much to be thinking about. It's not like it does him any good here, wondering who they might meet or what might happen. Merrin's the only real proof he has that he's kept on moving forward, and for a moment he deliberates whether or not to ask about what happened with the mission.

His hesitation at least gives the Nightsister the chance to seize upon other things and ask her questions. Cal lets his own undecided question lapse, nodding.

"I'm not exactly sure how it works. If it's just a matter of not missing any time from when we were taken, that'd be reasonable enough considering how easily we're taken from places. But I've spoken to someone who had been and then gone and then returned again, with obvious time having passed for him before he'd been brought back. He'd said he didn't remember anything of Temba when he was back home, but it all came back to him when he returned."

There's something she hadn't really considered before now: what would happen when (if?) she returned to the Mantis. Did she just disappear from the ship, leaving behind Cal, Cere, and Greez to wonder where she'd gone? Would she just appear back on the Mantis in the same spot she'd been when she'd left? Would the same amount of time have passed there as it did here?

At least now she knows that it would be like she'd never left at all. Even to herself, which is a strange thing to reconcile. Maybe it's just her kneejerk reaction, but she doesn't like the idea of having her memory taken from her. Sometimes, it feels like her memory is all she has.

Her frown deepens, and there's a bit of a pause after Cal finishes that she doesn't rush to fill right away.

"I see." There's another pause—she wants to say it's good or bad or even interesting to know, but the truth is that she hasn't actually decided yet. It's a lot to think about. It makes her question whether their time here even matters, if that's the case, and there's no easy answer to that.

Finally, she just sighs, her expression smoothing out again, and nods once. "Then yes, you should take these chances while you can." Spend time with other Jedi, train with a master, live at the Temple... live your best Jedi life, Cal.

It's a lot to digest, he knows. It prompts a lot of questions that aren't easily answered, that probably don't have an easy answer. Just deciding that things would be fine if you were just returned back to when you came from with no one the wiser seems to convenient a thing to accept without question, not if it meant not retaining the experiences you had here. With Cal considering his perspective, he'd lose over a year of memories, of things he's done and people he's met. He can't describe much less put a name to the feeling that comes up with such a thought, but it's not very pleasant.

But then what can they do? Things wouldn't flow right otherwise, things might turn out differently. He shakes his head as though to physically disperse those thoughts before they can gather momentum. Merrin speaks up again and he looks at her with a grateful expression that quickly turns apologetic.

"I... Sorry. I didn't mean to dump all that on you. For a while I hadn't given it too much thought, but then things happened and everything else just got stirred up again."

"Your apology is unnecessary, Cal Kestis," she says bluntly, shooting him a look, her eyebrows raised. It's not like she can blame him for being the bearer of... news. Either good or bad or whatever she decides it to be. She'll have to unravel how she feels about it later. "I would rather know than not know."

Even if it means... dumping things on her, as he puts it. She wants him to know that, which is why she holds her gaze—he can tell her anything. They've always been honest with each other, once they allied, and she would never want to lose that.

Pushing herself away from the counter, she says, "Come. Show me around your workshop." It has the tone of a command. But it seems like as good a time as any for a topic change, and she does want the tour.

Meeting her gaze, perhaps understanding the meaning in that look, Cal nods. It's little enough, but it still eases a weight from his shoulders.

He lets whatever he'd had in his hand fall back into the box, not that he'd been paying too much attention in what he was trying to find anyway. Merrin's suggestion, or command as it may be, is still an acceptable one, and Cal looks a little amused as he pushes away from the counter. BD-1 hops to his feet and jets off of the countertop to the floor, beeping excitedly as he skitters back and forth between them before running off ahead, earning a brief shake of his had and a quirk of a smile from the padawan.

"There's not too much to look at, but sure. I'll give you the grand tour."

Look, he should feel lucky she doesn't order him around more, considering that she's used to having an entire village of Nightbrothers to command. She is their leader, even if she earned the position by default.

She watches BD-1 excitedly scurry ahead with an amused expression on her face, a fond smile tugging at the corners of her mouth before she can stop herself. Silently, she sends off a thanks to the little droid for managing to stick by Cal's side even here.

"I expect it to be very grand," she teases, completely deadpan as always, stepping aside to let him take the lead to... wherever this tour is taking them. "You appear to be very busy," she adds, just because of the sheer amount of stuff lying around.

"Yeah, well appearances can be deceiving." There's probably more parts sitting around than might actually be put to use at the moment. Cal has a few projects, one that just needs some testing out, the others not entirely on any set schedule.

"There's not too much to this room, basically the area I keep the salvage bins, if people find anything to add in or want to see if anything's there they can use."

By then BD-1's gone through the doorway to the adjoining room, and Cal follows after, grinning knowingly. "BeeDee just wants to show off his collection," he says. There's no denying his fondness for that droid. He's not sure where he'd be without the little guy and he's said as much many a time.

The other room is smaller but neater in that there's less clutter of parts here and there. Storage cabinets line one wall, suspended above empty crates. There's one main worktable area in here, a large, flatish ring-shaped device occupying one side of it, several crystalline rods set into it at given intervals with the ends facing towards and outwards the ring's center. Beside it are more familiar shapes, parts of a lightsaber for the look of it, and a whole one, if shorter than the one Cal's been known to carry.

There's a corner of the room that's clearly been used as a sleeping space, not much grander than the space he had aboard the Mantis. A small crate sits beside it, open, a dark gray jacket with deep blue paneling draped over its edge. BD-1 has made a beeline for the corner adjacent to that, which holds a small free-standing shelf near the one window in the room. It has some strange objects on it which seem completely out of place for everything else- several stuffed toys of varying shades of pink shaped like strange animals, a frisbee ringed in red and white with a star set in a blue circle at its center, a...hammer? of some kind, suspiciously puffy and revealed to be a printed design on some vinyl material, inflated for whatever reason. There's a couple of makeshift pots with a sprout or two, one of them with a small bloom of delicate blue flowers.

Quietly, she follows along behind Cal, her gaze roaming all over the workshop, curious but sharp. The objects on the worktable quickly catch her eye, including what she presumes to be another lightsaber, even if it's different from the one that Cal carries—she would know, since she held it in her hands herself.

She would've probably made her way over to it if not for BD-1's excited beeps over by his(?) corner of the room. So instead she heads for the droid, kneeling down in front of the shelf and inspecting the very strange assortment of items.

"Ah, so this is your collection, yes?" It's directed at BD-1, who replies with a cheerful trill that she takes to be an affirmative, and so she adds kindly, "It is very nice." Because he seems very proud of it.

"What are these?" She starts to reach for the one of the fluffy pink animals, then stops and glances towards Cal, wordlessly asking if it's okay to touch.

The plush toys shimmer a bit from bits of glitter that haven't quite been brushed off of them. One looks squid-like, and a few of different-shaped figures with four legs. At Merrin's glance, Cal gives her a nod.

"Gifts from the Agrii...I think. There were a few...very long days when there was glitter falling everywhere. Those were left for us to find too. BeeDee decided to claim them," he explains. "I think they might be modeled after some of the local creatures. At least two I kind of recognize anyway."

He walks over to the corner to join them. "The Agrii sometimes go overboard with things. Usually they mean well, but aside from the language barrier, they don't seem to understand when something might be too much."

She takes the one that looks like a squid (though... do squids exist on Dathomir?), gratified that it's as soft and fluffy as it looks, and then gives it a few experimental squeezes.

"So they are not for voodoo." Her tone is deadpan, but she does shoot Cal a glance out of the corner of her eye, her eyebrows raised, to let him know that she's joking. They do have normal dolls on Dathomir, hard as it might be to believe with a bunch of witches. After a moment, she replaces the stuffed toy on the shelf, careful not to knock anything else over, and straightens.

"These are all gifts from the Agrii?" She doesn't sound too impressed, if only because her opinion of the Agrii is pretty low right now.

BD-1 borbles as he watches Merrin appraise his plushies. He's become quite fond of that one in particular although Cal can't fathom why, especially considering their encounter with a swarm of those squid-fish creatures in the flood plains.

To Merrin's look, Cal offers her an equally dry one, masking an unvoiced laugh. "Just those," he says before pointing other things out. That disc and...hammer? were from some kind of festival that one of the others managed to put together somehow. Apparently it's some kind of magic but I'm not exactly sure how it works." Billy could do some pretty amazing things for the few times Cal's seen it.

"The plants are just our shot at recreating a terrarium like Greez's, I guess."

Magic definitely piques her interest, which shows on her face, but the disc and hammer, as he called them, look perfectly ordinary to her—or as ordinary as two completely alien items can look, she supposes. She'll have to come back to them later.

Instead, she considers the plants, including the one sprouting dainty blue flowers. No offense to Cal (or BD-1?), but Greez's terrarium on the Mantis is much more impressive, though she guesses she can appreciate the effort. It's hard to top Greez's apparent skill with plants, after all.

"They are still very small. This one," she says, gesturing to the blue flowers, "does not look like it would survive for long on Dathomir." Delicate things don't last very long on her home planet.

Still, she stoops down and reaches out to very, very gently touch one of the flowers, the petal silky against her fingertips. It wouldn't survive long, sure, but she still thinks it's pretty. Definitely nothing at all like the plants and flowers on Dathomir.

Edited 2021-04-20 03:46 (UTC)

Neither Cal nor BD-1 have that figurative green thumb, and Cal supposes if he wanted to seriously cultivate anything he would have tried that agriculture datapoint. That the plants had survived being transplanted at all is considered a plus in his book.

"I don't think they get very big," he nods. He remembers the...plantlife on Dathomir well enough. It was amazing how even those could look ominous. "Different plants grow in different environments. I hope the ones I found for Greez have been doing all right." He doesn't doubt that they have been. The Latero had an interesting array of hobbies.

Merrin doesn't think she has much of a knack for plants—not like some of her sisters did, anyway—but she does have a spell or two that might help. Greez had even seemed open to letting her use them, as long as she didn't turn his plants into... monster plants, or whatever he'd been imagining. He seems to have a very vivid imagination where Nightsister magick is concerned.

She glances towards Cal, nods once as a kind of... warning, she supposes, because last time she used her magick he'd been caught off guard, and then murmurs a spell in her own language, green ichor flowing from her hands and into each of the plants. It doesn't appear to make much of a difference, but it had been just a small spell, enough to give the plants a little more strength. It might take a few days, but they'll grow.

She straightens again, satisfied. "They were growing well when I... left," she informs him. "Our small captain takes their care very seriously. He treats them almost like children." She sounds amused, but is that also a hint of fondness for Greez in her voice? Yes, but she won't admit it.

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