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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But is it really cheating if he's already on your side?

The padawan looks at her dryly, saying nothing in response. It lasts for all of several seconds before he snorts, ducking his head as a few chuckles escape him. "Does it matter so long as the outcome works out?" he asks, unable to keep from grinning.

Merrin thinks that she's maybe a little bit too pleased that she'd made him laugh, but—well. She tries to just chalk it up to the fact that it's been so long since she was last able to tease and laugh with someone, even if she's not laughing so much as turning her head away to hide her smile, making a show of inspecting the items on the workbench as if they're at all interesting to her right now.

"Oh? How do you know it worked?" She turns her head back towards him and raises her eyebrows, challenging. And still ignoring that inconvenient fact.

"Because you're talking to me," Cal says, matter-of-fact as he turns to rest his elbows on the worktable. Both his brows lift at that, almost a mirror of Merrin's own expression. Things could have turned out a lot differently, but any hostility had definitely been absent from the moment they'd encountered each other here on Temba.

"...so why did I really throw a lightsaber at you?"

Well, he's really got her there, and she probably should've expected to walk right into it. She could try to jokingly play it off like he still hasn't won her over, but that would be the furthest thing from the truth—not that she's about to admit defeat, judging by the way she averts her gaze, her nose wrinkling slightly.

"You wish to know?" She pauses, considering her answer. "You were trying to get on my good side. You needed my help." To defeat Taron Malicos, she doesn't say. "That is when you told me that having a lightsaber isn't what makes a Jedi."

As much as no confirmation seems to be necessary at this point, even Merrin's refusal to admit as much still serves to prove it. Cal isn't the sort to rub such things in people's faces, but his smile is faint as he watches her turn her eyes away.

He pushes onto his hands, still leaning at the edge of the worktable once Merrin indulges him with an answer. With the other things she'd said and the circumstances, Cal figures he must have repaired his lightsaber and returned to Dathomir. It was the only place left that had an astrium. A path forward. She'd told him he'd said that to her. So he'd found his own path forward, come back to continue what he'd started.

"It isn't," he nods. "Thanks for giving me a second chance."

A second chance. She shifts a little uncomfortably, her fingers digging into her arms. In reality, it was Cal that gave her the second chance, after she'd made his life as difficult as possible on Dathomir. She still thinks about their first meeting, and how reluctant he'd been to fight her despite all her hostility—at the time, she'd still believed Malicos' lies, and was convinced that it was all some sort of... trick.

How wrong she'd been. And how stupid she feels now, for letting Malicos take advantage of her. If she could bury that bastard alive all over again, she would.

Her gaze lowers. "You did not need it," she says quietly. Finally, she unfolds her arms, gesturing towards his lightsaber with one hand. "You gave me your lightsaber when you had no reason to trust me. I don't understand it." At least... no reason she can see. Cal is a kind person—she knows that now, but that can't be all there was to it, can there?

Maybe it's not the right question to ask—or implied question, anyway. It's not like he experienced returning to Dathomir, so how would he know what his future self had been thinking?

"Maybe that's why I gave it in the first place, then. You really didn't have any reason to trust me either, right? Not after what Malicos might have told you, not after what he tried to do. And I know that trusting anyone after you lose everything...it's difficult." But it's hard to be alone, and you can't just stay stuck, clinging to the past, wallowing in your own guilt.

"There's risks, but...sometimes the risks are worth it. And I'd rather make friends than enemies." Friends are a precious few back where they came from.

It is difficult—that resonates with her, and she nods, frowning. She still feels it now, even though she's free of Malicos' influence, with every new person she meets here in Temba. Distrust is always her first reaction, and she doesn't know how to stop it. It just feels like another thing Malicos took from her.

"I only knew that you chose to return to Dathomir. To challenge Malicos or join him..." She shakes her head. No, she may not have had much reason to trust him, especially when she still believed that the Jedi were responsible for her sisters' deaths, but that doesn't mean she didn't have any. At least, any reason not to approach him, to give him the chance she hadn't before. To take a risk.

With a sigh, she relaxes her shoulders, her fingers splaying over the surface of the worktable. "You never wanted to fight me. That is why I took the risk." That's all it comes down to, really.

He knows he's still working on some issues of trust with Cere and Greez, the former more so because he knows the former Jedi's been holding some things back from him. Annoying as it is, he supposes Trilla did get into his head a bit with that. But Cere and Greez are the only people he's allowed himself to get close to in a while. Being here in Temba has been like starting with a fresh slate, and he found himself seizing on the opportunities here.

Cal smiles wanly. "Jedi are supposed to be peacekeepers. A fight was never anything I intended to look for when I went to Dathomir. -but you probably know that already, now," he amends.

It's easy to look back, in retrospect, and wonder what would've happened if she'd believed Cal the first time, when he said that he didn't want to fight. They could've helped each other earlier, maybe, even if it all probably would've ended in the same way.

Or maybe not. Malicos' brazen betrayal had galvanized her, and Cal—she doesn't know exactly what happened between the time he left Dathomir and then returned, but she gets the feeling that he'd changed too. But there's no point in chasing what ifs now, and so she shoves the thought aside.

"Yes, I do know now," she says, putting a slight, dry emphasis on the last word, and shoots him a look, even if it's somewhat subdued. After a pause, she tips her head back so that she can consider him down the length of her nose, and asks wryly, "What would you have done had I not returned your lightsaber to you?" Would you still be a peacekeeper then, Cal?

Edited 2021-04-30 05:35 (UTC)

That's a heavy question, but not entirely easy to answer. But then Cal wonders what he would have done, even if he can only guess at what had brought him back to that point. He shakes his head.

"I guess it'd depend on what you did with it after. If you still insisted on a fight, I'd have to defend. If I had my lightsaber whole again, then I must have made up my mind to do something, and been able to confront my past failure. I'm not sure what further test would have been expected of me to obtain the astrium, but I'd hope you would at least listen to why I was there and what was at stake."

It's a more serious answer than she'd been expecting, but ultimately... not unexpected at all, from Cal. Even hypothetically, he chooses the path of least bloodshed.

"I did listen," she says decisively. Lives were at stake—many lives. She remembers the conversation like it was yesterday. There's something teasing in her tone when she continues, "You were lucky I did." And that she returned his lightsaber. That he didn't have to fight her in earnest, after all.

Then again, if she's being honest with herself, she's not sure which of them would've won, if it came down to a fight—while she had the advantage of being on her home planet, Cal is a strong fighter. So maybe she's the lucky one too.

"You are very different from the Nightbrothers, Cal Kestis. My people," she adds thoughtfully, almost idly, running her fingers across the surface of the worktable. Nightsisters and brothers always choose violence, if they can—power and strength are all that matters on Dathomir.

It's not a thought Cal wants to entertain. He hadn't gone to Dathomir looking for a fight, and even after he'd rather avoid it. So he's not going to discount Merrin's words, even if she is a bit teasing in that he was lucky she'd decided to listen. He grants her that twitch of a smile at that. "Guess I am," he says.

"I've only got somewhat of an idea of how life is on Dathomir from what I've seen and what you've told me. Just surviving the world itself looks like a challenge."

"Survival is always a challenge. But it made us strong," she says, almost as if by rote, with the confidence of someone who's very small frame of reference includes an entire life spent on maybe the most hostile planet in the the galaxy. Death can come very swiftly and unexpectedly if you're not careful, and only the strong survive—Dathomir taught her that. It might have... colored her views a bit.

But there is no us anymore. Just her. She frowns, her gaze snagging on that circular object on his worktable and then unfocusing as she sinks into reverie. "Perhaps not strong enough," she says quietly, as if from somewhere far away. Despite being forged in those fires, her sisters still perished. So what is the value of that strength?

Because really, the more she sees of the wider galaxy—and the more time she spends with Cal and his crew—the more she wants to question Dathomir's lessons. If Cal wasn't... Cal, she would've expected him to cut her down as soon as she stood in his way. It's how things are normally done on Dathomir. The planet is harsh, and it made the people harsh too. She's not sure she wants to be harsh.

Not being strong enough... He can relate to that. How many times has he felt that if he were stronger, braver, so many if's- but maybe it would have saved his master. But the past can't be changed, and dwelling on regrets just holds you back.

"Strength comes in different forms," Cal says quietly, like he's trying to remind himself aside from reassure someone with such similar experiences.

The soft tone of his voice draws her out of her reflection, and her eyes travel up to his face, searching. Some part of her senses that he isn't entirely speaking to her, but she can't quite bridge the gap to why. Does he not think he's strong enough? (This is probably what happens when you miss a life-changing trip to Ilum.) If so, she must disagree.

"Yes. I see that now," she says, her gaze on him direct, almost significant. Then she exhales, letting it drift away again. "I do not know why my sisters were... targeted."

All she remembers is a series of seemingly disconnected events: a long-lost sister, Asajj, returning home and taking a mate; two Jedi arriving on Dathomir to speak to Mother Talzin; and the armored warrior landing with an army of droids. The war came to Dathomir, but why? Why did all her sisters have to die? Will she ever know the answer?

"But we spend all our lives learning our magick. Honing its power. Protecting each other." Before the war, Merrin would've thought they were invincible, that no one would be able to challenge their power. She scowls, her hands curling into fists. "But we were still cut down so easily." No, strength—the traditional strength—doesn't always matter. Her sisters are proof of that.

That sort of look is hard to ignore, but Cal catches the tail end of it before Merrin is looking away again. He doesn't have answers for her when it come to what had happened to her people, her sisters. Fear, perhaps, power, most likely. If not the only reason, those things definitely had to have some part in it at the very least.

He finds himself nodding. How quickly a majority of an entire Order had fallen, playing into a grander scheme without even being aware of it. The thought still turns his guts after what he'd learned from Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"Not everyone," he says, his eyes seeking hers. "You're proof as much as I am that those responsible for going after the Nightsisters, or even the Jedi, haven't completely succeeded. It may not seem like much, but it's still something." He breathes a weak laugh. "It just took me a long time to figure that out."

They're similar in this, like they are in most things. She watched her sisters fall, and he his Order. Of course he understands—and that's a comforting thought, even if she wishes it didn't have to be. So is thinking that her survival, as unlikely as it was, is some sort of... defiance to whoever struck her sisters down. They didn't fully succeed, and that is, indeed, something.

Not yet, anyway. Like she told him in the tomb, nothing will bring her people back. Even without the holocron, Cal might be able to find other Force-sensitives, or maybe even other surviving Jedi, but Merrin has no hope that any of her sisters survived. She's the last one. From here on out, only time will destroy the Nightsisters of Dathomir.

But Cal is trying to cheer her up, and that's also something. She smiles slightly, even if it's weak and fleeting. "Yes, that is something. We still survive."

Smiles are a good place to start. Cal knows she's capable of better, but he also knows it takes time to be able to step away from those shadows of the past, and even then, they'll always be there, always a part of them.

"And we'll keep doing so, even here." At least here it seems a more favorable circumstance, storms aside. They had others they could rely on and help out. They're far from alone here.

"Have you thought about any place else to stay, or are you still at the hotel?"

That gets another fleeting smile out of her, though this one is a little stronger. She appreciates the... his... well. She appreciates a lot of things Cal has done for her, not the least of which is the fact that he's standing here with her right now, reminding her that she's not alone.

"I am still there," she says, her head tipping slightly to the side, "though I have not thought about another place, no." Then she raises her eyebrows, asking without words: why?

"Well, Master Kenobi's been wanting to see about converting some of the buildings into space for a Jedi temple. Not exclusively for Jedi, although he does want a place we can train and meditate, but it'll be a place to stay, too."

Obi-Wan had asked him earlier on if he'd stay at the temple once they had one established. Cal hadn't been too sure about where he'd wanted to be before the trip to Coruscant. He supposes it had helped prepare him to really be more open to being closer to people, after spending so much time keeping a cautious distance from them.

"I was going to ask Master Kenobi if he'd be open to other people staying there, not just Jedi," he continues, shrugging a little. "So you'd have some options if you didn't want to stay at the hotel forever."

Ah, Master Kenobi again, though she still hasn't met him. It doesn't surprise her that the Jedi, led by this Master, would want to make a space for themselves here, especially when there are quite a few of them. In a way, she's a little... envious that they can come together, build a small community. And maybe a little jealous too, that Cal can be a part of it, even if she is happy for him.

It would've never occurred to her that the Jedi would accept her into their community, even just to stay. Cal and Cere—Ezra too—have been welcoming to her, but she knows that Jedi don't have a generous opinion of her magick. And there is the... warning, so to speak, that Ezra gave her about Master Kenobi...

Also, she doesn't know Jedi rules, okay? They have lots of very strange ones, as far as she can tell. "This... would be allowed?" She doesn't sound skeptical, per say, so much as surprised this is even an option.

If there are particular rules to setting up a new temple, Cal certainly isn't aware of any. With the likelihood of more Jedi appearing being just as unknown as discovering any potential Force wielders, having a temple just for not even a handful of Jedi seems extravagant.

"I don't see why not. The Jedi are meant to help others, not to be shut off from them. I think visiting Coruscant has reminded us a lot about that."

"So you are helping me," she says, shooting him a dry look. Cal was right about one thing—she doesn't need anybody to take care of her, and the implication that she might offends her a little bit. But she knows he didn't mean it that way, and so she isn't actually offended—this time, anyway. She's just giving him a hard time, before quickly brushing it aside.

The truth is... she's lived alone for so long, but it was by necessity, not choice. Now that she has the choice, she doesn't know how to feel about the idea of living in the temple, among the Jedi. They're not her people, but maybe they don't have to be. Even though she was with the Mantis crew for only a short time, she... got used to sharing a space with them. It was certainly much less lonely.

It's a lot to consider, and her feelings are conflicted. "I will... consider," she says finally, and then adds, "Thank you, Cal." For thinking of her.

He still can't help but tense a little at the response, wondering if he'd overstepped some invisible bounds. Of course he'd meant nothing by it, and to offer help doesn't particularly mean he thinks any less of someone's capabilities. The look from Merrin helps Cal to relax again, even as he wonders if this is how things are always going to be between them. He's gotten a little more used to her brand of...is it humor?

"Not that you need to make a decision right away," he starts to say, trailing off as she says as much. At her thanks, that smile flits back across his lips, and he gives her another nod.

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