Archive of Our Own

For weeks now, Merrin had only dreamed of Cal Kestis.

It was not unusual for her, admittedly. In her first year off the Mantis she would often find her dreams haunted by the last time they’d seen each other. The last look on his face as she’d said goodbye to the ship she’d called home for years.

In truth she didn’t know why she’d needed so badly to be off that ship. It was the first place that had felt like home since she’d lost her sisters, but for months she had stared at the blinking lights of her bunk door, listening to the galaxy whistling by them and wanting nothing more than to stop at each planet and see what it’s people were like. Before Cal Kestis had burst into her life, she thought she’d spend the rest of her days on Dathomir. But as her time on the Mantis led them further and further from her home, she couldn’t help but feel like they were missing so much in this fight against the Empire. So many souls lost and hurting in the galaxy, and they were singularly focused on striking back instead of reaching out a hand to others like them. After so many close calls, long nights and near-captures, she’d also grown tired of waiting for the other stone to fall in the life she’d built. They couldn’t keep running forever. Merrin was starting to feel like an animal backed into the corner of it’s den, waiting for the inevitable predator to take something from her she couldn’t replace.

So when the time had come, and Cere had already gone to find her own path, Merrin simply asked to stay on Bandomeer once they’d fought off an Imperial “research” campaign that was draining the local villages of their resources. When she told Greez, he just hugged her tight, his four arms barely reaching above her waist, and wished her luck. Cal stood in the doorway to the bunks, listening. When he finally came over to them, he placed a small comm link in her hand.

“Call if you need us, any time or anywhere.” he said, and Merrin took the opportunity to grasp his arm and pull him into a hug. It was brief, and she could feel how tense he was in her arms, but she didn’t let go until he hugged back.

“Be careful, Jedi.” She said, pulling back, “I will no longer be there to save you from your own stupidity.”

He scoffed at her words, and she pushed him away with a small smile before walking down the ramp to the landing dock below.

Within the hindsight of dreaming, she’d try to find the right thing to say. On Dathomir the right thing was often the truest thing, no matter the consequences of sharing such truth. Zabraki were nothing if not honest, a trait she had found surprisingly rare amongst the other inhabitants of the galaxy.

So, in her dreams, she’d tried to tell him the truth of it:

“I am lost to myself, I know you understand this feeling.” She placed herself further up the ramp to the ship, five paces away instead of the actual fifteen. “I do not like this life we are living, Cal Kestis. I cannot continue this fight when there is so little anger in me now and so much to lose. I want to find my fire again and I do not know how to do it here. I hope you will forgive me someday.”

Cal met her gaze as he stood just inside the door, though she couldn’t remember if this was a memory or wish. For just a brief moment, she saw in his green eyes the tapestry woven of their time together. The animosity and fear they’d begin with, and the slow friendship that had blossomed from shared pain. She saw also the near misses, the almost-touches, the laughter over a hearty (if heavily seasoned) meal from Greez’s kitchen. She saw his head in her lap on the orange dining room benches, her hands swatting his away as she cleaned another bruise or scrape from a misjudged jump on a new planet. She saw his fingers hanging just inches from hers as she laid on the floor by his bunk and whispered sleeping spells in the form of lullabies to soothe a nightmare that had woken the whole crew. Inevitably, he’d end up curled on the same cold metal floor by her bunk days later when her own ghosts reared their bloodied heads in the dark of night.

In the dream, and in her memory, Cal closed the door without a wave or a word. The ramp retracted and the doors closed, the familiar hiss of the faulty left door stuck in her head as her closest friend trained his eyes on the door buttons instead of her. The fifteen paces reasserted themselves between Merrin and the ship in that familiar sickening movement dreams had, like she was being pulled away by the truth of the memory she so desperately wanted to undo. In the dream she stayed and watched until the ship climbed into the atmosphere. In reality she’d spelled herself away from the landing pad even before the door closed, ignoring BD-1’s beeps of goodbye as she blinked hot tears from her eyes that she refused to let Cal see.

That was the old dream which came to visit her nearly every night of her first year alone and the memory that she most adamantly wished she could alter. It wasn’t as voilent as the ones that left her screaming in the early hours of the morning. Not blood-soaked like the visions and memories of her sisters falling and dying around her. It wasn’t full of hatred, or spite, it didn’t feature that awful metal creature with the spinning sabers whose choking laugh would haunt her for the rest of her life. It was simple, grieving, unchangeable. It was the last gasp of a confusing and frustrating friendship that had also been her greatest joy for what seemed like an entire lifetime spent fighting the Empire with her new family by her side.

…

Merrin knew from Cere that Jedi were not permitted to pursue romantic relationships. She understood, even if her grasp of the nature of the Order before the fall was shaky at best. There were such sisters on Dathomir, those who had dedicated themselves to the craft and served as living beacons of Force magick. However the sisters of the lower order were permitted and even encouraged to mate to create more Zabrack to carry the fire. Though love was rare, it was not unheard of. If Merrin had not had the entire weight of her tradition placed on her shoulders at such a young age, she perhaps would have considered taking a brother or sister as a consort. But then came Malicos and his zealotry, his lies and manipulations of her magick. In those days she hadn’t had time to think of love, or even a memory of it to serve as a guide.

And so, she never expected to find it on the Mantis. Certainly, they’d both avoided it. Cal was singular in his cause against the Empire, and Merrin found his passion compelling if sometimes needlessly foolish and heroic. Though Cere was their de facto leader and strategist, they all knew it was Cal’s mission driving them forward and keeping them together. Despite his capacity to bind them to each other, Merrin could always sense the distance he put between himself and others. Even in their small crew, he was guarded with his feelings to a fault. In the early days of their friendship she respected this and kept her distance as well. But time to rest, heal, and live somewhat safely were funny things, and the two of them had found themselves growing closer without even realizing. She knew all of his favorite songs, which, to her, where some of the worst examples of music to be found in the galaxy. He knew how she took her tea and would often tease her for how sweet it was in contrast with her otherwise salty exterior. She knew the names of his closest friends at the temple, all the stories of their pranks as well as the story of their first trip to Illum to find crystals for their sabers. He knew the melodies of her mother’s lullabies and picked up a few of her most common Dathomirian curse words. They shared easy conversation and easy silence, both with and without Greez and Cere.

A year into their travels, she was the first to slip too deeply into that easy, unexplained companionship they’d built. They were crouching in the bushes on a planet in the outer rim, surrounded on all sides by Imps and worn to the bone. They’d exchanged whispers and hand signals about the plan of attack, and were waiting for an opportunity to present itself. Merrin’s fire was running on fumes, and she knew from Cal’s ragged breathing that he was too. His left lung had never quite recovered from the trauma of his saber injury at the Fortress Inquisitorius, and she found herself tracking the sharpness of his breaths when they worked together in the field. He was not as good at hiding it as he thought he was.

“Ready?” He whispered, meeting her eyes with that same reckless determination that had made her instantly despise him in their first meeting.

Merrin nodded and he turned to steel himself for the move, hand grasping around his saber hilt. Just as he moved to lunge she grabbed his wrist,

“Wait,” she said, desperate. Without another thought she brought her lips to his, and the boy softened beneath her touch for just a moment before pulling back with a look she couldn’t have read with all the Jedi mind tricks in the galaxy. “For luck.”

She turned before he could say anything else, and spelled herself on top of the rock formation where they agreed she’d attack from. She watched as the Jedi stared at the space she’d just been in, and then shook his head before lunging at the nearest enemy.

They never spoke of it, which nearly drove Merrin to madness. When they’d finally stumbled back onto the deck of the Mantis, bloodied and beaten, Cal only thanked Greez for picking them up and went to his room. BD-1 stayed behind for a moment to give her a confused doowoop and a shrug as if to apologize for his human’s emotional immaturity.

“What’s the kid’s deal?” Greez asked her, thinly masking his concern with a laugh.

“I do not know.” she said.

For the next week, Cal only spoke to her when the mission required it. In the daytime, or as close to it as they could guess in between planets, he’d spend most of his time in the cockpit with Greez and BD under the guise of learning more from Greez about piloting the Mantis. During meals he’d sit at the opposite end of the table, strategizing with Cere and avoiding her gaze.

They were staying the night at a rebel encampment near one of the larger, more dangerous cities in the Alderaan system. It was the day before an extraction mission, and the campfires were burning bright with anticipation and anxiety. Cal, BD, and Greez had snuck off with a few of their more familiar allies to a nearby cantina, Cal insisting he was only going to protect Greez from deepening his gambling debts.

After she’d watched them disappear down the path, Merrin came back to the fire and sat next to Cere. She reached out and used a small bit of magick to tend the dying fire. A few rebels regarded her with distrust and whispered to each other. Even in the face of an evil like the Empire, people still shivered at the name Nightsister. Cere was unbothered, holding her hands closer to the flame as it faded from green to yellow to red.

“That trick never gets old.” She said, smiling.

“It is simple magick, one strong in the Force like yourself could easily learn if you so wished.” Merrin replied, already knowing Cere’s answer.

“You know I can’t, Merrin.” Cere said with a familiar tinge of melancholy to her tone. “The Jedi order is very specific about how we use the Force, though you know I always love to see more of your sisters’ magick.”

“It seems your order was very specific about many things.” Merrin said, her voice more clipped than she intended.

Cere regarded her for a moment, her brown eyes going between the younger woman’s face and the fire. Merrin avoided her gaze, and let her idle hands go to work crafting tiny images in the smoke. A familiar little droid running, a Loth cat twitching its tail before lunging, a rebel fighter soaring above the embers. Cere left her in silence as the images faded back into the crackle of the fire, and Merrin’s head came to rest on her pulled up knees.

“There is a reason, you know. For all the rules of our order.” The older woman finally said, her voice soft. “Though, I must admit I’ve broken many of them myself.”

Cere looked back at the fire. “There was a time I wouldn’t have questioned them. A time when I believed the Jedi to be peacekeepers and guardians of the light before they committed to being soldiers for the Republic. But all religion has its limits, and its downfalls. All people of faith can find themselves blindly clinging to that faith in adversity, and that’s what our order did. We replaced peace, guardianship and the pursuit of knowledge with dogma and inflexibility. We started seeking purity of cause instead of kindness and truth, and we fell for a cause that was neither pure nor kind.”

“My sisters were never known for our kindness, but we are truthful.” Merrin said, carefully. “I have not found honesty to be a popular trait amongst those of your order, meaning no offense.”

“None taken,” Cere said with a chuckle. Then, “Merrin, you and I and Cal are the last of our kind. We are bound together in our grief for what came before us, and united in our trust in the Force and in the future. But we are all also figuring out how to navigate what has been left to us, and…” she paused, breathing in sharply before continuing “Sometimes going against the ideals of those you’ve lost can feel like a betrayal of their memory, even if we know those ideals were flawed.”

Merrin looked up to find her eyes met by Cere’s again. She had often underestimated Cere’s capacity to read her mind, though she knew this was a popular Jedi trick. Maybe because Cal was so terrible at it, and she’d spent the majority of her time on the crew with the younger Jedi. But now, she knew that Cere was seeing her exactly as she was, and the honesty between them was as familiar as the spells her mother had taught her beside a very similar campfire on a night that both seemed like yesterday and a million lightyears away.

“I understand,” she said. “You are right, Cere, as always.”

“Not always.” Cere said firmly, “But I have my moments. We best get some rest, the others will be back soon and we have a big day tomorrow.”

She pushed herself to her feet and placed a hand on Merrin’s shoulder, “I’m glad to have met you, Nightsister. We all are.”

“You as well, Master Junda.” Merrin replied, bowing her head.

Cere scoffed at the use of her title, as she always did.

“Get some sleep Merrin, I’m serious.”

Cere told them she was leaving a few days after that mission. After the day they dropped her off, Cal never left his bunk door unlocked at night again.
…

The dreams Merrin had of Cal Kestis now were much, much different than those she’d become accustomed to in her first days without him.

It was a few days after he’d left Jedha that they started. If she hadn’t had such horrible night terrors to hold them up against, she’d call them nightmares.

It started familiarly, on the night they’d taken shelter in the desert caves. Merrin would wake to find him missing and seek him out in the labyrinthine monastery. Along her way, she’d start to see bodies of troopers and droids, each burned and slashed by a lightsaber and discarded against the walls. Some of them, though, were crushed like they’d been in a rock slide. Bones and necks twisted and bruised.

“Cal?” She’d call, more afraid of an answer than silence. “Cal, are you there?”

Up ahead she’d hear the ignition of a saber, though it sounded deeper and distorted and altogether different from the blue one she’d heard a million times in battle. An Inquisitor, she’d think in a panic, and she could never stop herself from running toward the sound though she knew the outcome each time.

Red light flashed on the walls as she ran, and eventually she came upon a circular room with no roof. The clear stars of Jedha were nowhere to be found in this dream, instead the sky was black and the orange of the monastery walls glowed red in the absence of their light. All along the ground, to her horror, lay their allies. Wookiees and human rebels and Anchorites, slashed and smoking. Knowing what would come next, she would peel her eyes from the floor and up, to where a familiar figure stood on another pile of bodies. She could never bring herself to look at them, though she knew from their gray skin and tattoos that they were her sisters. The one at the top of the heap was different, smaller, and missing a head but not his three remaining arms.

The figure turned to her, pulling another struggling body from the wall where he’d held it until now. Cere Junda grasped wildly at her throat, her feet suspended from the ground as she choked out her last word.

“Please.” Cere managed to gasp, and was then thrown against the far wall with a sickening crack.

Merrin stumbled back, falling to the ground as her legs turned to liquid beneath her.

“No.” She whispered, and wanted to close her eyes. The dream would not let her, and instead she locked eyes with the dark figure before her.

His white cloak was dripping with blood, a much deeper red than his hair and illuminated by the neon glow of his red saber. She searched his face for the familiar green she could conjure from memory at any moment. But instead, Cal’s eyes were bloodshot and a rotted shade of yellow. He reached out a hand and pulled her toward him, she felt the Force of his grasp on her throat even though his hand was inches in front of her.

“Don’t act so surprised Merrin,” he’d say, his voice frighteningly even. “We all know this is how our story ends.”

She always woke with a start as his fiery blade slid into her chest.

When Cal returned from Koboh again, Merrin had almost told him about it. Then she’d seen him in the base and on their mission, heroic and determined as always to make a difference. She’d seen him crushed by the loss of Brother Armias though he’d never met the man, and she knew she needed to follow him back to Greez’s new home long before she’d planted that second kiss on him in the desert heat. She would protect him from this fate if it killed her, and she knew the only way to do that was for them to be together. And maybe, for the first time, she had started to sense that he wanted this too. He hadn’t pulled away this time, and Merrin wasn’t about to pull away from him again.

All her hopes had been affirmed last night when they’d shared that moment under the stars. He wanted this, she let herself feel the butterflies again remembering him saying it. After all this time, he had finally let her in.

Now she stood on the top floor of the Anchorite base, leaned against the rail as she watched her Jedi come in from the desert. She smiled as he passed, the memory of his lips on hers last night was fresh and warm. He didn’t look up to see her as he disappeared into the Archives, no doubt running to check on Master Cordova’s progress with the compass. She’d talk to him later. For the first time in years, it felt like they had time stretched out before them.

Merrin had not felt such hope since she was a child, though the dream and the distrust for a hope that strong weight heavily on her mind. She banished the doubt, they were going to Tanalorr. There was a temple and an old settlement there, and room to grow a community truly safe from the Empire’s grasp. She had no idea how such a jewel had landed in their lap, but she was not about to let it slip from their hands.

She turned from the balcony into the hallways behind her, she was supposed to meet one of the Anchorite sisters to do inventory and a supply run before the sun went down. Sister Jessup, she hoped, one of the younger sisters who made for better conversation than some of the stuffier residents of Jedha.

She was halfway down the hallway to the ration supply when she heard the explosion. The bedrock shifted with the sound, sand spilling from cracks in the ancient ceiling above her. It was not unusual for the desert since the Imperial troops often resorted to bombing the local fauna when they could not clear them with gas, but Merrin knew this was not such a case. She could feel the shift in the Force, tipping from hope and light to darkness and grief in an instant as she heard the all too familiar sound of Imperial ships above them.

Merrin ran, fear pushing all hope from her mind as easily as burning away paper.

Cal, she thought, the archive.

There was no other place it could have come from, the archive was the center of this base and she knew these halls like the back of her hand. She would spell herself there if she was sure she wouldn’t be teleporting blindly into a fight. She was fighting the instinct to do it anyway when she rounded a corner and collided with a body.

Sister Jessup fell to the ground with a grunt, and Merrin immediately pulled her to her feet despite the ache in her own head from running into the Narkis’s round headdress.

“Nightsister,” Jessup gasped, too flustered to bow as she normally would in the presence of a Force wielder. “I was coming to meet you, but the archive–“

“I know, I am going to help them.” Merrin said, “are there any injured, did you see?” Her normally low voice was thin and sharp with panic.

Sister Jessup straightened herself, taking a shuddering breath before answering. “I did not, but Brother Kel’tan did, he said that we are under attack and that Master Cordova is dead.”

Merrin felt a familiar shock of grief run through her. Cordova was a good man, and an important mentor to Cere and Cal.

“The others?” She said, pushing it down like bile in her throat, “Master Junda and Cal Kestis?”

“I do not know, Nightsister, I am sorry.” Now Sister Jessup bowed her head, “there is fighting in the archive and at the front gates, if they are alive I know they will be in the fray. I would help myself but–“

“You cannot,” Merrin said firmly, “Get yourself and any others you find who cannot fight to the hangar. Tell Greez Dritus he is our only hope to get you all out of here safely. Take the secret tunnels past the elevator, and be quick and safe.”

“Thank you, Nightsister, may the Force be with you.” Sister Jessup replied, then righted her headdress, bowed, and left. Merrin could only hope she would make it to Greez and that he was still alive to help them.

Taking a breath, she then ran to the edge of the railing overlooking the back entrance to the base. Anchorites were running in all directions, some carrying weapons and others artifacts. She hoped the researchers among them would be smart enough to avoid the fighting, but she also knew the need to defend one’s home was an overwhelming feeling. She spelled herself down to the ground floor, glancing at the back door to check its integrity before bolting down the hallway to the archive. Smoke filled her eyes and lungs as she made her way down the path, telling every Anchorite she met to get to the hangar. When she finally turned into the room that held the archive, she was coughing and tears welled in her eyes.

The scene was as horrific as she’d imagined. There were several dead Anchorites scattered around the room, and she saw what she could only assume was Cordova’s body burning near the door. The ash around it suggested that had been the site of the first explosion, and Merrin noted how the burned floor curved inward near one of the archive interfaces. She’d recognize Cere’s shield on any battlefield, it had saved her and Cal from certain death many times.

She barely had time to asses the damage when she felt a small pull on her boot. Merrin whipped around, ready to fight whatever had dared to invade her space. She was confused when she didn’t lock eyes with an enemy until she heard a booweep and looked down to find BD-1 tugging at her heel.

Panic surged through her even though she was relieved to see the little droid. She hadn’t seen him alone since they’d all been reunited.

“BD, where is Cal?”

She bent down to the droid’s level, and he laid back his antennae sadly with a long whistling tone. She should have known better than to ask the droid, Galactic Basic had been hard enough for her to learn without adding binary into the mix. And truthfully, she’d never needed to know what the droid was saying because he was always with Cal.

“Is he alive? Are he and Cere safe?”

BD-1 nodded enthusiastically, but then tilted his head and shook it slowly. Merrin didn’t have to speak binary to know he was saying they were alive but not safe, how could they be when they were two Jedi against an Imperial invasion.

“BD, listen to me. You must find Greez–“

The droid protested with a loud beep, but she kept going.

“You must find Greez and help him get the Anchorites on the Mantis. I will find Cere and Cal and bring them to the hangar if I have to drag them from the battle myself, do you understand?”

The droid nodded, and nudged her again. She put her hand in his flat head.

“We will be alright, keep yourself and Greez safe.”

BD beeped under her hand, and a compartment on the left side of his head slid open. Inside were five stims, glowing green vials of adrenaline and bacta. The droid dwooped again, and Merrin grabbed one from the tray and pocketed it.

“Thank you. Save the rest to help any injured Anchorites, yes?”

BD closed the tray and nodded, then turned from her and plodded towards the hangar.

Merrin stood up and turned back to the path leading up to the main door. There were a few troopers laid out on the path, some riddled with blaster shots and others slashed with a lightsaber. She could hear more fighting from the path ahead, and raced forward to the exit.

The exit of the bunker was blown wide open, still smoldering from the blast. Merrin stepped carefully over the fallen Anchorites in her path out onto the ledge overlooking the desert. She squinted against the sun as she took in the sight around her.

There were ships and AT’s everywhere, with troops littering the valley in loose formations. Just in front of the ledge she saw rows of Anchorites armed with various makeshift weapons. They had amassed some blasters in their time here, but the people of this planet had been peaceful long before the Empire, and chose to remain that way even in the face of extinction. They fought only when they had to, and she had never seen so many of them with weapons before. At the point of their formation, she saw a familiar orb of energy tearing its way through troopers, droids and AT’s alike. Cere Junda was a Force to be reckoned with, and she was leading an unexpectedly successful charge against this invasion.

Merrin did not allow herself a thought before teleporting down to Cere. Usually she would consider her point of entry carefully before the spell to ensure she didn’t materialize on the wrong end of a blaster, but her body reacted on instinct and she found herself standing behind her friend, shielded by her power as the battle raged around them.

“Cere, are you alright?” She pulled her staff as she asked, dispatching a trooper coming at them from the left flank.

“Yes, for now.” Cere said, her voice was strained with the effort of maintaining her shield. “Master Cordova is dead, we were betrayed.”

“Who?” Merrin asked, but she knew the answer before the question even left her lips.

She couldn’t say she’d immediately distrusted Bode Akuna. In fact, he’d grown on her in their time together on the Mantis and on Koboh. Cal trusted him, and that was enough for her. Until now, where she suddenly saw his actions in an entirely different light. A father, whom she’d assumed was working with them to protect his daughter from the Empire, and who was willing to do anything to guarantee her safety. Who could keep her safer than the Empire themselves? Merrin’s fire burned brighter as the realization washed over her. Cal would not have let Bode get away, he would have chased the man into the desert to whatever Imperial rendezvous he’d set up for himself and the compass. Cal would be running headfirst into a trap, a disappointingy common occurance for him and one which would surely mean the end of his luck.

“Cere, where are they?”

“I don’t know.” The Jedi answered, spinning her saber into a trooper’s chest. Merrin spelled away from her for a moment, jumping on the back of a nearby commander to slit his throat before returning to Cere’s side. “We have to finish this.”

Merrin nodded, and they set to work. She zipped around helping the Anchorites by taking out any enemy who got too close to getting the best of them. She couldn’t save all of them, but focused her energy on those near the front to hold the line together. Eventually they started to push back, helped not in small part by Cere managing to blow up several carrier ships. Merrin blinked in and out of Cere’s protection, following the Jedi’s orders when she could and her own instincts when necessary. They had just cleared the first wave when three more ships descended into the valley.

“Merrin!” Cere called from her left. She pulled her blade from a trooper’s gut as she turned to face her friend. Cere only nodded upward, her focus held by the sentry droid she was dodging. Merrin followed her nod to the sky, seeing how the ships were aligned and how the cockpit of the nearest one was glass. Merrin dug deep into herself, reaching for that flickering flame she knew so well. It was running a bit dry, but fear and determination fed it even when her body had started to ache. Cere was right all those years ago, they did use the Force in very different ways. While fear and anger were the greatest signs of weakness in a Jedi, they were oil to the lamp of the most balanced Nightsister. For Merrin, there was no divide of light and dark, only the Force and how it responded to her needs. Now, she let her need to protect this valley overwhelm her, let it climb from the pit of her stomach to the tips of her fingers. She reached her hands towards the ship and uttered a confusion curse. Even from a hundred yards, she could feel the pilot’s mind in her grasp. Wrapping her flames around it, she yanked.

The pilot jerked and the far ship lurched to the side plowing into the middle and then the last. The explosion sprayed the valley with smoke fire and burning bodies. All three ships came to a fiery end against the plateau beyond, and Merrin’s arms went slack as she staggered back from the effort. The dead were easy for her to manipulate, but the living were exhausting. Luckily, the Anchorite to her left was more aware than she and caught the sound of a blaster firing. They pulled her to the side just as the red bolt whizzed past her ear.

The rest of the battle was a blur as she recovered from her last spell, the world seemed to move in slow motion as they drove the Empire back and cleared the valley. Finally, they found themselves alone on the battlefield. Merrin ran to Cere, taking the older woman’s hands in hers as she clipped her saber to her side.

“We did it.” Merrin said, half sigh.

“We made a dent,” Cere said, “there will be more coming for the back entrance, we need to get these people to the hangar. I sent the contact codes with Sister Luthal to Greez.”

Merrin nodded, with access to the desert beyond the valley cut off Greez was truly their only way out. She was glad to hear that the identities of the Hidden Path were safe for now.

“Merrin,” Cere said, gripping her hands. Merrin looked at her, seeing the worry that was etched on her soot-stained face. “I can’t sense Cal, I don’t know where his chase took him, but I am afraid you are the only one who can find him.”

“Me?” Merrin said, pulling back. “You are the Jedi Master, Cere, I cannot do the things that you do. My mind–“

“Is heavy with emotion, yes, but it is also undivided.” Cere cut her off, “and you have only scratched the surface of your power, I know this. Come here.”

The Jedi pulled her close and touched Merrin’s forehead to her own. Instantly, Merrin felt her mind leak into Cere’s. She saw her as a child, long braids blowing in the winds of Coruscant. She saw her with Trilla, guiding the young girl’s saber in fluid motions in a candlelit chamber. She saw her strapped to the chair in an Imperial torture chamber, electrified barbs burrowing into her skin over and over. And then, she saw the doors of the Mantis open to a dark, rainy platform. Saw a young red-headed scrapper pinned down beneath a red saber in the storm. Saw his eyes as she called to him, the hope and fear and despair on his face as he made the jump onto the ship. Merrin held it there, letting herself into the memory frozen in time. Cal stood, soaked and terrified and still in the dining room of the Mantis. She reached out to him, younger than she’d seen him in years, her hand tracing the scar on his cheek.

“Found you.” She said, smiling despite the unimaginable odds.

“Go.”

She heard Cere behind her, and turned to find her as she had been when they first met. Brown vest, hair unshaven and glistening with the rain from that stormy night on Bracca.

“Go to him.”

“I cannot, I do not know how–“ she started, but Cere cut her off again.

“You do, the Force connects you. It connects all of us. You just have to trust it.”

“What about you?” She said, reaching for the older woman’s hand.

Cere grasped hers tight, “I have my part to play, and I know we will see each other again. I will stay here and save what I can of the archive, go and save that foolish boy you love.”

“I–“ Merrin tried to argue, but she blinked and Cere was gone. The memory shifted, back to the night before. The flames of the campfire were frozen in time, and Cal Kestis was staring out at the desert and its stars. She walked to him as she had just hours ago, though it felt like a lifetime had passed. As she neared, a green glow spread from the edges of his form. She reached out, and suddenly she was standing on a circular platform in the desert.

Merrin blinked against the sun, shielding her eyes and doubling over as a wave of nausea ripped through her body. Teleporting when one could not see your destination was a dangerous thing, and was forbidden by the sisters many years ago after a few had been lost to the place between places or came back with only some of their organs intact. It seemed she and Cal were making a habit of breaking the rules of their former orders.

That thought snapped her back to the moment, and she pushed herself upright. She looked around, not seeing her lost companion anywhere on this platform. In her looking, she caught sight of blaster burns and saber slashes on the rock pillars, and a spattering of blood on the ground. A fight happened here, but who the victor was she could not say.

“Cal!” She called, but no answer. “Cal!!”

Merrin let out a growl, how had this happened? Somehow despite Cere’s Jedi mind tricks she’d missed the mark, and now her powers had sent her halfway across the desert when Cere and Cal both needed her. She felt like a child again, beating her head against the cold rocks of her village as she failed again and again to execute a simple spell without her mother’s help.

Anguish washed over her as she realized she was too late. Bode had lured Cal out here and taken him, the ship itself was long gone and they were probably halfway across the galaxy right now, headed to an Imperial compound or worse, to the Inquisitors. Her anger welled inside of her, and she kicked a nearby stone off the platform. Curious, she followed it to the edge. She might as well take in her surroundings and see how far she would have to backtrack to be any use to Cere or Greez. By her estimate she was a few miles north of the monastery, she could see the smoke rising from the valley and hear the rush of smaller Imperial fighters in the distance.

Steeling herself for the battle to come, and putting the image of Cal in an Imperial torture chair out of her mind, Merrin looked down to see where her nearest jump could be. She was not under any circumstances trusting her destination to the Force again, clearly that had been an emotional mistake on her part and a costly one at that.

As she looked, her eyes caught the glint of something metal far below the platform. And next to it, a prone body.

Merrin blinked and she was there, the nausea of another uncoordinated jump matched only by the visceral terror of the sight before her.

“No.” She breathed. A strangled sound escaped her throat that she had never made before as she dropped to her knees beside Cal’s lifeless form. He was lying in his side, arm stretched toward his saber which lay a few feet away. Her hands reached for him against her will, and she rolled him onto his back. The side of his face was bloodied from a gash on the side of his head, his orange hair tangled and slick with more blood. Bruises spotted his face and she was just reaching for his cheek when he took in a shallow breath.

Merrin became aware that she too had been holding her breath, and let it out with a hiss as the tears came. She fell onto his chest, letting the familiar rhythm of his heart reassure her that he was, in fact, alive. Cal let out a weak groan as she did, and she pulled back to take in his condition. Besides the head injury, she could only find one, deeply concerning as it was. He’d been shot in the upper left shoulder, the wound was black and seeping a small amount of blood into the blue fabric of his shirt. She carefully placed her hands under him to roll him a little, and saw that the bolt had not gone completely through. Good, the boy had one too many cauterized holes in him already.

She let him down on his back again, and reached out to cup his head in her hands.

“Cal Kestis, if you die I will reanimate your body so that I can kill you again.”

If he’d been conscious, he would’ve laughed. Merrin brushed the bloody hair from his face. This gash looked bad, the shoulder looked bad, all of this was very bad. She could carry him, she’d done it before, but they were miles from the nearest checkpoint and Cere and Greez needed them now. Preferably, they needed a functional Jedi, but they would have to make do with an injured one and a fuming Nightsister. If there was any chance of them getting there in time to help, Cal at least needed to be standing. She knew many spells to affect the body and mind but they were for hurting, not healing. If she’d not been so depleted, she would try to reverse them. But that was a process that required twice the effort of the spell done right, and could be disastrous here when her mind was so unfocused and her body deeply, deeply tired.

“Cal,” she said, leaning in until she could feel his warm breath on her face. “You must wake up. I cannot do this without you, I cannot carry your deadweight through the desert.”

No response, so she resorted to lightly slapping the less bruised side of his face. “Please,” she whispered. It sounded foreign on her lips, Dathomirians did not beg. “Please come back. Cere and Greez need you, I need you.”

She brushed his cheek again, and then slid her hands down to his shoulders. “I am sorry for this.” She said, and shook him as gently and forcefully as she could. He groaned again, a pitiful sound she hated to hear, but his eyes did not open.

Merrin sat back on her hips, pushing with all her might against the waves of dread filling her mind. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t save him. After all her training and self-discovery and wandering, she couldn’t even help the people she cared about most. Cal would die here, waiting for a rescue that could never come because their family would be crushed by the invading Empire. She’d be alone again in the galaxy, true to the name she’d been given by the Imperials. The desert ghost.

As she leaned back over her friend, she felt an unfamiliar object shift in her pocket. She was confused for a moment before remembering. The stim BD-1 had given her. She pulled it from her pocket, inspecting the green vial to see it had not been damaged in the battle. It was intact, and she fiddled with it for a moment before a small needle ejected from one end. It was barely medicine, and in Cal’s state it would be like bandaging a severed limb, but it was all she had. She lifted the vial above him, and brought it down into his flesh just a few inches from the blaster wound.

Cal gasped, his hand flying to his shoulder as his ragged breaths turned to a dry, heaving cough. Merrin dropped the vial and her hands to his cheeks again. His green eyes finally fluttered open and met hers, the pupils of them uneven and glazed.

“Cere–“ he rasped, but she shushed him.

“Alive, the last time that I saw her. Fighting at the base and saving those she can. Breathe, Cal Kestis, and then tell me what happened here.”

He listened for once, falling back against the sand-strewn stone and breathing as deeply as the pain would allow. Merrin circled him and came around to his left shoulder. Kneeling, she ripped a length of fabric from the lining of her jacket and gingerly pulled his arm to her. He grimaced, but didn’t make a sound as she wrapped the cloth around his shoulder and tied it off below his armpit. Then she reached for his head again, and he turned under her touch until the gash was beneath her fingers. This one was simple enough for her magick, much smaller than the structures she’d rebuilt in the desert on their mission yesterday. Only a few layers of skin, no organs or complicated biology to restore. Green ichor leaked from her fingers as the skin knitted itself together, returning order to chaos. Cal’s hand moved to meet hers, tracing the newly smooth skin before wrapping around her fingers. She put another hand under his back and helped him upright, bracing her arm when he pitched backward for a moment before sitting up. His eyes were clearer, but still unfocused. She had healed the gash, but not the damage done underneath. That would take rest and time, two things they did not have at their disposal.

“Bode,” he said after a few moments.

“I know.” she said, “I heard as much from the Anchorites. I am sorry, I know he was a friend.” She did not mention the spell she'd already prepared for him were they to meet again, she was not sure that Cal would endorse turning his former comrade inside out starting with the skin of each finger and toe so that he could feel all of it.

“He’s a Jedi,” Cal said, she’d never heard such venom in that word before. “Was. A Jedi, now he works for the Empire.”

“An Inquisitor?” Merrin asked, taken aback. Though she’d rarely been able to invade the minds of those around her without great effort, Merrin was usually adept at sensing other Force wielders. They had an aura about them that was easy to read, a layer of awareness that made them nearly impossible to manipulate with magick. So the idea that an Inquisitor had been among them for weeks, trolling the archives and sharing meals with them on the Mantis…it was enough to send a shiver down Merrin’s spine. How could they not know? How could Cere not have known, most of all?

“No,” Cal said, shaking his head. “He’s something different. I should’ve known, when I first met him. I should’ve seen it.” He was spiraling, she could see it in the deep furrow of his brow and the wetness of his eyes. “I should’ve stopped him.”

Merrin squeezed his hand, “You could not have known, none of us did. Now come, we must get…“

She trailed off as the sound of a ship thundered overhead. Instinctively, she spelled herself a few feet in front of Cal, holding one arm back to signal for him to stay down. Then she saw it through the flurry of sand, the familiar blue-streaked hull of the ship she’d called home for years. There was nowhere to land near them, so the Mantis touched down a few hundred yards out into the desert, on a flat patch of sand. She saw the doors open and could just make our Greez Dritus’s small form running down the ramp.

She looked back at Cal just in time to rush forward and keep him from hitting the ground again after standing up too quickly. He slumped into her shoulder, trying his best to support his weight though she could see the sweat dotting his brow. Merrin wasn’t sure she’d seen him in such a bad state before, but she knew that head wounds were often worse internally than they appeared.

“Careful, Jedi.” She said coyly.

“I’m okay, I promise.” He replied unconvincingly.

She pulled his good arm around her and hoisted him to his feet. Nodding towards the ship, she asked, “Do you trust me?”

“Always.” He said, smiling weakly.

Merrin trained her eyes on the Mantis, on the ground just a few feet in front of the ramp. In a blink, they were both standing there. She heard BD-1’s shrill beeps before she even saw him running out the door.

“What is it BD–“ Greez turned from a few paces away, where he’d been shielding his eyes against the sun and scanning the nearby desert. Seeing the two of them, he threw his arms up. “Son of a bogling! Where have you two been?”

“It is good to see you too, Greez Dritus.” Merrin said as Greez looked them up and down.

“Let me guess, kid,” He said, addressing Cal. “You didn’t get the best of the low down womp rat who blew up our base?”

"He got away." Cal shook his head, shifting to bear more of his own weight as they started to head up the ramp with BD in the lead and Greez not far behind. The interior of the ship was loaded with Anchorites, some standing and sitting, others laid out and bandaged on the ground. Merrin sat Cal down on the dining table, usually a cardinal sin in Greez’s presence but the Latero had disappeared into the back of the ship. He returned with a rolled bandage and a cloth, handing it to Merrin.

“That’s all I’ve got, this ship ain’t no hospital and we’ve hit our limit of injured passengers.”

Merrin nodded and got to work untying the makeshift bandage on the Jedi’s shoulder.

Cal was already trying to get back to his feet, but Merrin pushed him a little too forcefully back to his seat. “You will sit, or I will make you sit.” She warned. BD-1 reinforced her order with a beep and a nudge at Cal’s side.

“Greez,” Cal said, leaning around her, “Where is Cere?”

Greez looked down at his feet. “You know how she is, Cal. She made us clear out once we had the contact codes. Can’t have those falling into the hands of the Empire. Last I saw she was running toward the Archives. I couldn’t stop her, kid, I’m sorry.” His voice cracked and he reached to wipe a tear from his eye.

Cal tensed under her hands as she wiped the blood from his brow, and she stopped to put both hands on his shoulders and lean down to meet his gaze.

“Cere is strong, we all know this. There are speeders in the storage hangar, she will save what she can from the archives and then–“

Suddenly, the room went dark. Merrin had never experienced what Cal felt when he sensed the history of objects and places, but she could imagine it felt like this. Being ripped from your body and mind and thrown through time and space. The panicked voices of the Anchorites around her faded to a haze of noise as she opened her eyes to a sight that was not hers.

She was in the archives near central control panel, and above her was a figure cloaked in black. He was tall, wearing Imperial armor full of electrical components. His mask was a vengeful thing, wide eyes and a slotted mouthpiece that hissed as he took in a breath. At his side hummed a red lightsaber, and she could feel the dread solidify in her stomach like lava turned to dark, cold stone.

She blinked and was back on the Mantis, staring into Cal’s face as both of them realized what they’d just seen.

“We have to go back.” He said, his voice choked and thick. “We have to go back right now.”

“What’s wrong?” Merrin heard Greez’s voice behind them, but she didn’t have the words to explain.

“Cal, you are in no state to–“

“Take me back.” He said. She had never heard his voice so cold in the waking world, and she realized with a start that she could feel his aura leaning into hers. It could have been residual from the vision they’d just shared, but she felt it was more than that. Conscious of it or not, he was using the Force to push her.

He stood, quickly and steadily, though she could see the effort of remaining upright in the way his jaw set tensely. Merrin took a step back. She saw now the rage behind the walls he kept around his mind and heart. It was a desperate need to fight, to claw his way back to Cere and defend her if he died trying because he could not fathom losing one more time, one more person. It was not so different from the energy she’d used on the battlefield, but there was something uniquely dark about it. A twisted, ruthless need that she’d seen only a few times, in the dream that had haunted her for weeks now and in the eyes of the Inquisitors they'd met along their journey. She saw now that in the years she’d been away from him, as he’d zipped across the galaxy never pausing to mourn a loss and always pushing forward to the next mission, the next strike against those that had taken everything from him, he’d started to fracture. That fracture had grown to a crack as he’d watched Bode strike down Cordova and as he’d fought for his life in the desert, desperate to understand why someone he’d called a brother would do this.

It was dangerously close, she feared, to breaking him altogether.

As she had this thought, she felt Cal listening. His aura shifted from hers, snaking a path to Greez behind her before she reached out, halting its path. To her horror, she saw his hand go to his saber.

Merrin let out a long breath, dreading what was to come. The moment she’d seen Cere’s vision she knew, it was a goodbye. She also knew, holding Cal’s mind as she’d held his hand just hours ago, that he knew this too. He would not accept it as she had, she knew what had to be done to keep him from meeting the same fate as his master.

“I am sorry, my friend” she said, and whispered a spell she’d only used on the most sleepless of nights. He'd never known the words of her lullabies had been laced with magick, and she'd always been careful to keep them pure lest they become a curse. It was one of the first spells her mother taught her, and even in her depleted state she knew it would catch him off guard. Her hands glowed with ichor and she saw only a second of shock and hurt in Cal’s eyes before they rolled back into his head. He dropped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Cal!” Greez rushed forward, catching the much taller man as best as he could. He lowered Cal to the floor gingerly as BD-1 jumped down from the table to scan his sleeping human.

Merrin relaxed, feeling like her every muscle had just been held in a vice. She dropped to the floor beside Greez and Cal, pulling the Jedi’s head and shoulder into her lap as Greez regarded her with confusion and more than a little fear.

“What was that?” he asked, pointing at her accusingly. “And don’t say it wasn't you, I know what your creepy green magic stuff looks like. What weirdo Force-thing did I miss here?”

“We saw something.” Merrin explained, “A message, from Cere. She is…” she swallowed as the image of the dark figure flashed in her mind again, “She is not going to meet us.”

Greez sat back, huffing. “This Jedi self-sacrificing kriff is going to be the end of me. She can’t do this, not again. Not when we just–and the kid,” he looked at Cal, “I can’t let that happen to him again.”

He was barely holding it together, she could tell. If Merrin was honest with herself, she was too. If Cal were to fight off her spell and wake up right now, she’d have to let him go. She was exhausted, and tired of losing, and so, so angry. Looking around, she took in the Anchorites in the cabin. Some were crying, some praying, and others were milling around tending to wounds as best they could. She could see in them the same grief she’d felt as a child, knowing that her old life was over and now she would have to pick up the pieces alone. This, she supposed, was what life was made of. Building something, watching it shatter to pieces in your hands, and then finding the strength to get back up again. To honor what you lost while saving what you can, what matters most. This time though, she thought, none of us will be alone.

“He will be alright.” She said, mostly for herself. “We must leave this planet, Cere–“ her voice caught, and she swallowed, “Cere would want us and the contact codes safe.”

Greez laid a stubby hand on hers, and she knew he understood.

“Strap in, kid, and watch over that idiot.”

He stood and walked to the cockpit, whistling for BD to follow. The droid looked at her instead, his antennae half-back and gave her a questioning boweep.

“Go, I will tend to him.” She said. BD-1 did as she asked, jumping to the holo-map to set their destination.

Merrin was aware of all the remaining eyes on her, but she had no words for the Anchorites. She had no more words for anyone today, only regrets. She was counting the survivors when she saw Sister Jessup coming towards her from the kitchen where she’d been tending to one of her comrades. Jessup held a cup of water and a small, shabby blanket that Merrin recognized from Cal’s bunk. The sister bowed her head as she stooped to give it to Merrin, and she nodded her thanks before spreading it over Cal. His face was still now, almost peaceful. She pulled the cloth from the nearby table and set back to work gently cleaning the blood from his face and hair.

As the Mantis lifted off into the Jedhan atmosphere, only a few could hear the Nightsister singing a soft, foreign lullaby to the sleeping Jedi in her arms.