Chapter Text
Cal can’t stand it any longer.
In the two days since the Partisan group whose lives they saved and who, in turn, saved his life, departed the ship, Cal has done nothing except eat and sleep. Energy for anything else has been non-existent. His chest wound and other injuries are healing nicely, though, and for the first time since their mission to Nur, he finds himself desiring something else: a shower.
Nur’s (probably contaminated) salt-heavy seawater, sweat and Force-knows-what-else are making his skin feel the industrial-strength labels he used to use back on Bracca. His hair is uncomfortably stiff and crunches whenever Cal lays back on his pillow..except for the parts that feel like an oily mess. Cal dares not take a whiff of himself; he fears that in his already-fragile state, he will pass out if he does. He can’t remember the last time he felt like such a mess.
And, now that he actually has the ability to stand up on his own without passing out, he doesn’t have to. The shower has been calling to him ever since he first woke up from surgery and now he is ready and willing to answer that call.
Cal grimaces as he works himself into a sitting position on his bunk, breath catching as the wound pulls. He still has several hours left on the painkiller he took earlier, but it doesn’t completely eliminate his discomfort as he swings his legs over the side of his rack. Rather than take his chances moving around and possibly (probably) losing his balance while standing in the fresher, Cal opts to begin disrobing while still seated and in the (slightly) more open area of his sleeping ‘compartment.’
The sling goes first; two simple snaps and the material slides free of his arm, falling at his side near the pillow. Cal takes a moment to let the cramped limb stretch out before moving on to the more onerous task: removing his shirt. It’s a soft, simple sleep shirt, without all the clasps and buttons present on his heavy-duty work shirts. But in reality, that’s the problem. For a man whose body feels like it will fall apart if he raises his arms over his head, the lack of buttons presents a significant challenge.
Cal tries. Really, he does. He twists this way and that, trying to go slowly or at times going faster, as he would if he were ripping a small bandage off. But when his last movement causes the stab wound in his chest to send a spike of agony all the way up his spine and then down to his toes, he’s forced to admit defeat. The Jedi Knight who defeated two inquisitors and managed to steal a holocron with the names and locations of Force-sensitive children from a Sith Lord can’t even get his own shirt over his head. It’s time for Plan B.
Feeling very much like an invalid, Cal forces himself to his feet (and then waits for the ship to stop spinning) before slowly making his way out to the lounge, utilizing the wall for support when necessary. They’re docked, he knows, at some out-of-the-way space transit station to refuel and load up on whatever supplies they can afford before continuing on to Dantooine. Greez and Cere are gone, having departed in search of food and medical supplies almost an hour ago, and they took BD-1 with them, but Merrin is still here. She is technically assigned to guard the ship, but Cal knows the real reason they left her behind is to look after him. He’s not sure how he feels about that in general, but right now, it’s a blessing.
Said blessing is seated up in the cockpit, ostensibly monitoring the screens Cere has been teaching her about. Hoping he’s not interrupting anything important and knowing he likely isn’t, Cal makes his way into the cockpit and clears his throat softly.
“Merrin?”
The Nightsister pivots immediately. Cal is momentarily struck by how her silver hair is both highlighted and backlit by the dim light streaming in from outside, but shakes it off. He has a mission to complete.
If only the words would come out of his mouth, though! “I, uh,” Cal swallows, and has to clear his throat again, prompting renewed aching in the bruises that ring his neck. The young Knight can’t believe he’s about to ask a woman to take his shirt off. Especially a woman like Merrin. Still, he plunges onward, “I’d--really like to take a shower but, um, I can’t get my shirt off.”
There. He said it. Hopefully he doesn’t sound like a pervert, although Cal immediately cringes when he thinks that. He doesn’t have high hopes for it.
Merrin regards him thoughtfully, and Cal desperately hopes she’ll understand his intentions are honest and not, oh, blast him with a green ball of pure energy in retaliation. She frowns. “Will the waterless sonic Greez mentioned not work?”
With the Stinger Mantis being a luxury yacht, the ship has the option of taking either a water or a sonic shower. The more economical sonic mode could get both Cal and his clothes clean, without him ever having to undress, but there’s a problem with the wavelength controls. The increased vibration will be hell against his battered body. Hot water, on the other hand, promises to soothe all the aches and pains he’d gained on Nur.
“I can’t,” the redhead explains sheepishly, running a hand through his (very salty) hair. “There’s something wrong with the controls. The water mode is safe, though, the bandages are waterproof.”
Merrin sighs. Greez has been saying he would fix it, but apparently he hasn’t gotten around to it yet. The thought of helping Cal take his shirt off doesn’t bother her (although the realization that he will be conscious this time does cross her mind); only the thought that it will cause him pain and discomfort does.
“Come,” she stands and gestures to the common area, away from the transparent windows of the cockpit. “Into the lounge, where passersby cannot ogle you.”
Flushing, Cal does as he’s told.
Merrin may have a brusque personality, and her words are the bluntest Cal has ever heard, but her hands are unfailingly gentle as she helps him work his shirt over his head. It hurts, and they have to stop and readjust more than once, but it’s not nearly as bad as attempting it on his own.
Merrin, for her part, finds it surprisingly difficult to keep her mind on the task at hand now that Cal is no longer in danger of dying. His early Jedi training, years of hard labor, and months’ worth of non-stop battles, have left him in very good shape (his current injuries notwithstanding). He is strong, Merrin knows, stronger than her, in more ways than one. But for all that strength he has never been anything but gentle with her, at least since their first real meeting on Dathomir.
So she will be gentle in return. And she’ll keep her mind on the task he has requested of her. That too.
“Done,” Merrin announces unnecessarily when they finally succeed in parting Cal’s shirt from his body. Cal sighs in relief, carefully rolling his left shoulder to alleviate some of the tension that has accumulated there. He turns to her then, gratitude evident in his tired, yet still bright green eyes.
“Thanks, Merrin.” Warmth suffuses his voice. He gives her a small smile. “I couldn’t have gotten that off on my own. Sorry to interrupt...whatever you were doing.”
“It was boring,” Merrin assures him. “And I do not want you injuring yourself again, or else we will have to return to that ice world to steal the Partisan medic. And he does not wish to see you again for a long time.”
Cal chuckles, trying not to jostle his injuries; Merrin certainly has a way with words. “I’ll be careful,” he promises, wincing as he stands. Merrin automatically reaches for him, then reminds herself that he does not require assistance standing and walking anymore. Her hands return to her sides.
“Go slowly,” is what she tells him instead. “And wash thoroughly. We cannot have you getting ill from lack of cleanliness. Come out when you are done, and I will change the bandages.”
Cheeks pinking at the thought of Merrin poking at his bare torso once more, Cal nevertheless acquiesces before heading back towards the ‘fresher. Removing the rest of his clothes is much easier than removing his shirt but for some reason, the pink in his cheeks refuses to leave until he actually steps into the shower. And even that’s just because the rest of him turns pink in response. Nevertheless, the hot water is heavenly and Cal wastes no time in (carefully) following Merrin’s directions.
The water on the ship is rationed, though, and Cal emerges ten minutes later, in clean clothes and feeling much more human than he has in days. Picking the dirty ones up from the floor to throw them in the laundry is a chore he vows not to repeat (put them on the counter only) until he heals, but it could have gone much worse. The hot water has done its job in loosening stiff muscles, and he finds it a little easier to make his way back to the common area of the ship.
Merrin emerges at the same moment he does, carrying the bag the medic gave them. There’s not much left in it besides antibiotics, hence why Cere and Greez are currently out sourcing supplies. Cal knows Merrin wants to see more of the universe and he feels more than a little guilty that she’s stuck here, babysitting him instead. Still, a small voice at the back of his mind whispers, she might have chosen to stay.
He sits down again, this time at the dining table to provide easier access, and Merrin gets right to work. She tries to keep her mind on the task at hand, she really does...but she’s failing. Now that she’s done this several times, her body goes through the motions automatically, washing her hands, gloving up and then settling down in front of him. The bacta patch comes off easily, most of its adhesive gone now that it’s been in place for nearly twelve standard hours. Clinically, Merrin notes that it appears to be healing well; the flesh is no longer red and inflamed, and the wound is closing rapidly.
However, these thoughts quickly get shoved to the back of her mind as Cal flinches at the stinging disinfectant she sprays on, just to be safe. He won’t like it when she scrubs off the remaining detritus and dead skin around the edges, either, so to distract him, Merrin reaches for the first subject that pops into her mind:
“You have a lot of scars.”
Above her, Cal blinks. He knows she’s trying to distract him from the pain, which honestly isn’t that bad, but he appreciates the effort. And trust Merrin to choose a topic that most other people shy away from. He doesn’t mind, though, even though it throws him for a loop.
“Er, yeah,” he says awkwardly. No one’s ever really commented on his scars before. “They’re, uh, not really big on safety precautions at the ship-breaking yards.”
That is an understatement, Merrin thinks as she surveys his exposed skin. While she has seen them before, primarily when she was trying to save his life only two days ago, this is the first time she’s really taken notice of them. Cal’s torso is mostly free of marks (sans the obvious one, plus several others), but the same can’t be said of the rest of him. In addition to the obvious scars on his face and neck, Cal’s arms are littered with the evidence of old burns and cuts, manifesting as pale, flat lines or raised, knotted tissue, some of it red, and some of it not. Plus there’s the metal hand. There’s no avoiding that.
“Do they all have stories such as this one?” Merrin queries as she gently begins to clean the area around the wound. Cal, to his credit, manages to hold back a flinch, though she notices he briefly tenses up. Whether it’s in response to her touch or her question, she doesn’t know.
“No.” For a moment, Cal thinks back, trying to remember where he acquired the various marks on his body. Scrapping and rigging are dangerous jobs, especially on Bracca, and he honestly cannot recall where most of them came from. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s been cut, struck or burned. Others have come from his travels with the Mantis crew, when he’d fallen or when a blaster shot, stun baton, electrostaff, or the odd representative of local wildlife would sneak past his defenses. Nothing deadly, thankfully, and nothing like the wound that Merrin is currently tending to.
She’s waiting for an answer, he remembers, and considering what she is doing for him, and what she has helped him with in the past, Cal owes it to her. He does remember a few of the stories, after all, and not all of them were as emotionally charged as some of the others.
“This one,” Cal points to the bridge of his nose and then remembers she can’t see it, looking down as she is at the hole in his chest. He elaborates, “On my nose, is from a respirator, a breathing mask. I was a little kid and I’d finally managed to find one my size. Then I hit a growth spurt, but it was awhile before I could get a new mask.”
Of the few stories he is able to remember, that one is probably the least embarrassing. Still, though, Merrin remarks, sounding only slightly like she is teasing him, “You say you were small as a child? I hesitate to think of it, because you do not seem so big now.”
“Hey!” Cal gives her a look of mock-offense. “I’ll have you know I’m taller than the average human. And yeah, I was a tiny kid.” He holds out his hand to demonstrate how tall he was (not) at the time. “I shot up around 14 or so.”
“Hmm. You may have grown taller but,” Merrin pokes him (gently) in the ribs, but only on his right side. “You are too skinny. You should eat more, Cal Kestis.”
At that, Cal snorts, then stops when it sends a small spike of pain through his torso. But that segues nicely into his next story. “I actually learned that lesson once,” he comments, flushing faintly as he remembers a more embarrassing story. “All the riggers on Bracca like to go drinking at the end of the shift a lot. One of ‘em said I should go, and I wasn’t gonna say no because I needed to blend in, so I went. But I didn’t know you’re supposed to eat something before you drink, and I hadn’t eaten anything that day. Plus I’d never had alcohol before, so it didn’t take much. I tripped over air and that’s how I got the marks on my brow and lip.”
Merrin frowns. While that is a seemingly harmless story, there is a dangerous undertone to it. Cal was living in hiding at the time, his life depending on how well he hid his secret. And secrets, everyone knows, do not mix well with spirits. She queries, “Was that not dangerous for someone in your position?” At his confused look, she elaborates, “To drink spirits with others when you keep secrets.”
“Oh, that.” Sighing, Cal nods. “Yeah, it wasn’t the best idea at the time. What can I say, I was 14 and all I knew was I needed to fit in. Scared the crap outta me afterwards though.”
“Seeing as how you are still alive,” Merrin deadpans, “I can only assume you learned your lesson, and made wiser choices in the future?”
“Sort of,” Cal grins at the look she shoots him. “I learned to eat before drinking. Crews on Bracca are notorious for frequenting cantinas and like I said, I needed to fit in. I learned how to increase my tolerance gradually though, just to be safe.”
That...is actually a nice bit of knowledge to have, Merrin has to admit. All this time, she thought the Jedi denied themselves all of life’s pleasures. It is good to know that they did not. Or at least, the one in front of her doesn’t. And the potential for having a drinking partner that is not terrified of her bodes well for her future on this crew.
“In the future,” she declares, “if we return to Dathomir, I will introduce you to the spirits of the Nightsisters. The liquid kind this time.”
Cal smiles. “I’m looking forward to it.” Softly, he adds, “Whenever you want to go back to Dathomir, Merrin, just say the word and we’ll take you.”
“I will,” she promises, smoothing a new bacta patch over his chest. “But now is not that time. Who else would save your skin every time you get into trouble?”
“No one I trust more than you, that’s for sure.” And what’s more, Cal is completely sincere when he says that. At first, he thinks his words have made her uncomfortable when she gets up, then he realizes that she’s just repositioning herself to take care of his back. He realizes, then, that she could have easily left him to take care of his front on his own, and only dealt with his back when he was done. The fact that she is choosing to do it all warms him from the inside out.
Merrin settles in behind the red headed Knight and reaches for the old bacta patch stuck to the back of his ribs. The adhesive peels off easily enough but as she pulls, she feels a tug and Cal flinches. The rest of the patch is stuck, possibly due to increased drainage when he lays on his back. Needing something to help her pry it loose while causing him as little pain as possible, Merrin reaches around him, intending to pick up the bottle of saline water that sits a little farther away than she remembers placing it.
Before she can pick it up, however, Cal reaches over. Rather than twisting to pick it up with his right hand, he instead reaches to pick it up with his left. The bottle is just within his limited range of motion, so he’s able to grasp it and pass it to the Nightsister over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, hesitating when her fingers lightly brush his as she takes the bottle from his hand.
His metal hand. Both of them go quiet for a moment, Merrin turning her attention to the stubborn patch on his back and Cal gazing down at the durasteel gears and mechanisms that make up his left hand. He debates for a moment about whether or not to bring it up, before he decides to just take a leap. After all, Merrin has never been shy about telling him her opinion, and she’ll definitely be sure to let him know if he oversteps his boundaries.
“Merrin?”
Merrin sounds distracted as she answers, focused as she is on the final bit of the patch that refuses to separate from his skin. “Yes?”
“Does my hand…” Cal trails off, licks his lips, and tries again. “Does my hand...bother you? I promise I won’t be offended if it does.”
What? Merrin stops what she is doing and stares at him, momentarily forgetting that he cannot see her expression. It is his hand; why would it bother her? She tells him so. “Cal, it is your hand. Why would it bother me?”
Cal stares down at his fingers, both flesh and metal, as he struggles with how to give voice to his thoughts. Finally, he starts with, “Because of your Sisters.”
How on Dathomir is his hand related to the massacre of her Sisters? Cal pauses for a moment, shooting a glance over his shoulder, before he elaborates:
“Cere and I...we were talking and I was trying to figure out who would have attacked your Sisters with a lightsaber when you were a child. When I told her it was an armored warrior, she got all quiet for a second, then she said it might be General Grievous.”
Merrin swallows. In all the time she has spent mourning her Sisters, she has never once had a name against which to direct her rage. Malicos never told her, focused as he was on getting her to teach him her secrets and direct her rage against the Order he so clearly despised. Despite her efforts to be gentle, Merrin cannot help but clench her fists, curling her fingers inwards against her palms, as if she is attempting to crush the mysterious General between her digits. If he’s still alive...Merrin does not know if she will possess the strength to turn away from her vengeance a second time.
Cal feels the change in her emotions, both through her fingers and through the Force. “He’s dead, Merrin,” he assures her, causing her to relax her hands as she experiences a maelstrom of emotions the likes of which she has not felt since their confrontation with Malicos on Dathomir. She simultaneously grieves the loss of being able to deliver justice herself, and yet is relieved that she will not be faced with the choice of whether or not to do it. Cal continues, “Or at least, I think he is. Cere says all of the Separatist leadership was killed at the end of the Clone Wars when the Empire rose, and he was one of them.”
Merrin nods. As much as she wants to avenge the deaths of her Sisters, she is glad that the galaxy is rid of one scourge. Then her brow furrows as she goes back to the original question. “Cal, why would you think your hand would bother me because of this General Grievous?”
“Right, I didn’t tell you that part.” Cal glances down at his mechanical fingers, flexing them almost experimentally. “Grievous was...not a man. At least, not really. I think he only had his brain and a few organs left, pretty much everything else was mechanical, like a droid...like my hand. He was more machine than man.”
Unconsciously, he shivers, involuntarily recalling another bringer of darkness that seemed more machine than man.
But Merrin is not thinking about that, focusing instead on his words. Slowly, she says, “So you...thought your hand would remind me of him?”
Cal nods. “Yeah.”
Behind him, the Nightsister huffs. Trust Cal to assume something like that. “Then listen to me, Cal Kestis.” Her sudden reappearance in front of him startles him. “And listen well. That thing brought nothing but suffering and death to my people. It may have wielded lightsabers like the Jedi, but its hands were instruments of evil, and nothing more. But you, Cal Kestis, when you returned to Dathomir, the first thing you did was give me your lightsaber. Then you gave me the astrium and you held my hands as you allowed me to hold the future of your people in mine. You freed me from my own darkness. You and he--and the dark shadow--may have metal hands, but it is what you do with them that matters. Do you understand?”
Meekly, Cal nods. He never thought of it that way. But he’s not sorry that he tried to protect Merrin from a potential reminder of her own trauma.
Satisfied, Merrin returns to her position at Cal’s back and finally succeeds in prying the bacta patch from his skin. She’s right that the greater amount of fluid draining from his exit wound is what caused it to stick, but the flesh underneath still looks healthier than it did two days ago. It will just require a little more cleaning than the entrance wound did.
Grabbing an antiseptic wipe to get to work, Merrin glances back over Cal’s shoulder and sees he is still staring at his hands. She is used to it now, but the difference between them truly is striking. He glances back over his shoulder, catches her looking, and holds up his left hand for her to see.
“You’re probably wondering how I lost it.”
“I am,” she admits. She knows it is possible that he might have just been born without it, but the scars near the end of his wrist tell a different story. “But you do not have to tell me if it is too painful.”
But apparently it is a tale with which he is willing to oblige her. “It’s not,” the young Jedi assures her, giving her a little half-smile over his shoulder to drive that reassurance home. “Cere and Greez know the gist of it, I just forgot to tell you.”
Cal takes a deep breath, then holds his arm up again, rotating his forearm so Merrin can see the full extent of his scarring. “After Order 66,” he starts, referring to the Purge that killed most of his Order, “I didn’t start working as a scrapper right away. I got a job in what the officials called the ‘Hazardous Waste Disposal Processing Plant’ but we always called it the chem pit. They needed people who could get into the pipes, and I was small enough to do it. The toxic material in there could melt your skin off if you weren’t careful, and one day I forgot my gloves. There weren’t any spares, so I just went to work without them. Of course, that was the day I caught a splash and it burned me pretty bad.”
As if in reaction to the event itself, his metal fingers spasm, and Cal takes a moment to push back the memory of the fire that had raced along his arm that day. Then he shakes it off and continues, “I couldn’t afford to go to a clinic, so I just took care of it with the med kit and hoped for the best. But things weren’t very clean on Bracca and the bacteria in the waste was something else. My hand got infected. By the end of the week, it had swelled up and turned black, and my fingers were just about falling off.”
Behind Cal, Merrin winces. She remembers seeing a Nightbrother with such an affliction, and knows there is only one treatment once infection of that magnitude has set in. Still, that does not make it any easier to think of Cal going through it.
Before her, though, Cal is still speaking. “I must have passed out from the fever,” he speculates, “because the next thing I remember is waking up in this small hospital, really more of a clinic. My whole hand was gone, but they didn’t do the implantation for a prosthetic. Turns out that the guy I was renting a room from, Prauf, had found out about it from one of the crew, and he actually spent his own money for the surgery. He just couldn’t afford the prosthetic.”
“Then he sounds like a very good friend, this Prauf.”
Cal smiles sadly. “He was. He hardly even knew me at the time, I was just a traumatized little kid who kept everyone at arm’s length, but he did it anyway.” And with his hand gone, Cal didn’t have the option of keeping his roommate at ‘arm’s length’ anymore. In the days after the amputation, Cal relied on him for basically everything until he figured out how to do it himself. They became close, and that was how Cal gained his first friend on Bracca. Prauf had even refused to collect rent when Cal was informed he’d lost the job at the chem pit.
“And once my arm healed,” he remembers, seemingly lost in old memories, “He got me a job scrapping. Master Tapal had taught me a lot about mechanics and I hated ‘resting’ back then,” and at this, Merrin snorts, because Cal’s not much better at that now, “so I passed the time fixing an old speeder Prauf hadn’t gotten to yet. So he figured he wasn’t taking too much of a chance on a one-handed kid scrapping ships.”
Merrin glances down at Cal’s metal fingers, frowning. “You did not have a new hand yet?”
Cal shakes his head. “No, prosthetics are expensive. My Jedi training made me more agile than most, and I was able to do most tasks one-handed. Still, it took me almost two years to earn enough for a new hand.”
At this, Merrin is struck with a surge of sympathy. To lose the person closest to him, and all of his friends, and his entire way of life in a betrayal, then to be stranded on an alien world, sustain such a serious injury, and go on doing hard labor while missing a limb just to earn said limb back ...she cannot imagine it.
Cal turns his hand over, showing her nothing but the plate that covers the back of his mechanical limb. “Most prosthetics have some kind of cover,” he explains in response to her baffled expression. “But I couldn’t afford it. It was all I could do to keep up with the adjustments as I grew, then Prauf lost his house, and I had to find another place to live. So I just wore the glove to protect it.”
Merrin smoothes over a new bacta patch on Cal’s back, tosses her gloves, then leans closer to examine his hand. Now that she is looking at it closely, she can see that while the struts and wires that make up his artificial palm and digits are covered with some kind of steel plating, that plating is incomplete to allow for better movement in his hand. “See the gaps?” he asks, and she nods. “It’s all waterproof, but it’s really prone to getting crap stuck in the gears. That’s why I wear the glove most of the time, it’s a pain to take it apart and clean it out.”
“Does it hurt?”
Cal shrugs. “Not often, no, but sometimes. It’s called nerve pain, or phantom pain, when the nerve endings just...flare, almost like my hand is still there, still burned. It’s usually just when it’s really cold, and the metal acts as a conduit straight into my body.” The nerve pain he dealt with after Ilum had kept him up the entire night. “The glove helps with that somewhat, and it’s why I try to keep my sleeve pulled down.”
At this, Merrin frowns once more. While not cold, per se, it is not terribly warm in here, and Cal is shirtless. She comes around to his front, then, startling him once more, and reaches out to brush her fingers against his. Cal regards her curiously, but allows her to examine his hand. The metal is slightly cooler than room temperature, not cold as she momentarily worries it will be, but the touch triggers another question in her mind.
Before she can talk herself out of it, Merrin wraps her warm, flesh-and-blood fingers around Cal’s cool metal ones, uncaring of how harsh the unforgiving durasteel is as he reflexively grips her hand back. The young Jedi starts at her sudden movement, and Merrin can see a hint of a blush forming on his cheeks.
“Can you feel this?”
“Er,” Cal clears his throat, having to forcibly redirect his mind from...other things. It feels as though all of his Jedi-trained discipline fails him whenever Merrin is nearby. He forces himself to answer her question, “Yeah. Yeah, I can feel it but it’s not the same as being able to feel it with my real hand. I’d need a different interface--that’s the cuff--for that. I have proprioception, and I can sense pressure, but that’s it. It limits my psychometry, too. But that’s not really a bad thing--only really strong echoes can make it through the glove and the prosthetic.” That was how Trilla’s lightsaber had overwhelmed him, and Cal is ever so glad he held it with his left hand instead of his right.
Merrin looks down, squeezing his hand experimentally. “You are very gentle with it,” she observes as his fingers flex against hers. Then again, Cal is gentle with everything. Until danger appears, anyway, then that gentleness disappears and a warrior takes its place.
“It took me a long time to learn that,” Cal confesses ruefully. “I broke a lot of stuff before I figured out there’s a difference between the amount of pressure needed to, oh, say, crush my lightsaber,” and Merrin is reminded of the story he told her, about the near-disastrous consequences of the vision he’d had during his first time on Dathomir, “and the amount of pressure I need for this.”
Merrin is about to ask what ‘this’ is when Cal answers her question without her ever having asked it. Much like she did before, and before he can talk himself out of it, Cal wraps his prosthetic fingers around hers again, giving her a light squeeze before gently running his thumb across her knuckles. Then he pulls back, shocked at his inexplicable actions. He’s never done that before. He shouldn’t have done that. So why, in that moment, did it feel so right?
For a moment, Merrin forgets how to breathe. No one has touched her like that since Ilyana. Even the way Cal grasped her hands on Dathomir doesn’t come close to this. If this was anyone else, Merrin thinks distantly, she would be offended. But it’s not someone else, it’s Cal Kestis, and she can’t bring herself to mind at all.
What she does mind, though, is the way that Cal retreats from her, looking as though he is getting ready to hide behind those mental walls he has built up over the years. And suddenly, without warning, Merrin finds she is desperate for this moment not to end. She knows, she understands, that Jedi do not have much experience with emotion, with affection. She’s willing to afford Cal the space he needs to process it. But that doesn’t mean their interaction has to end, it just has to take a different turn.
Hoping that it will keep him from running away from her, Merrin thinks back to the subject matter of their original conversation. She has asked him about his scars, and the personal stories behind them. It’s only fair that she shares a few of her own.
Just as Cal shifts as though he is about to run away (at least, as much as he can in his condition and on a ship this size), Merrin asks, “Have I ever told you the stories of the markings on my skin?”
Still looking as though he is only seconds away from bolting, Cal nevertheless relaxes back in his chair, even if only by the smallest of measurements. He looks wary, Merrin thinks, and a part of her aches for what his own Order has done to him, to make him so fearful of himself.
But at least Cal goes along with her question, replying in the negative. The answer is obvious; Merrin has never told an outsider, not even Taron Malicos, of what her marks mean. It is not just that Nightsisters and Jedi do not travel together; rather, Nightsisters have made a point of eschewing the rest of the galaxy. And look where that has gotten them. Merrin is the last of her kind. And survivors...they adapt.
Cal has shared some of his stories. Merrin can share some of hers, too, and it might just alleviate some of the loneliness that has been plaguing her ever since General Grievous made planetfall on her world. So she takes a deep breath, and plunges into the past.
“My skin does not scar as easily as yours, as we are descended from Zabraks,” the young Nightsister begins, gesturing to her exposed skin, unblemished except for the marks that were deliberately placed there. It’s a stark contrast to Cal’s, which carries the stories of his past whether he wants it to or not. The Jedi looks down, a faint flush blooming across alabaster flesh, and Merrin continues her explanation, not wishing to embarrass him. “Rather, my marks indicate the completion of rituals and overcoming of obstacles on the path to becoming a full Nightsister.”
“So it’s a coming-of-age story,” Cal muses. “But tattooed on your body?”
Merrin confirms this. “This is correct, in a manner of speaking. Nightsisters are born with the magic of Dathomir embedded within them. But it takes time to learn to control it.”
Cal nods. It seems as though the Nightsisters are not so dissimilar to Jedi in that fashion, and Merrin’s connection to the Force is arguably as strong as his own, if not stronger. It’s just different, but in this case, different is wonderful.
(Why different is wonderful is not something he is prepared to think about. So he gives himself a mental shake and refocuses on her story.)
“This one,” Merrin points to the twin lines on her forehead, and the accompanying one on the bridge of her nose. “Is from the very first time I cast a spell.”
“And what spell did you cast?”
Merrin thinks for a moment; it is so long ago, now, and she has not thought of it for so long, that the memory no longer comes to her as readily as it once did. She does find it, though, and what she remembers makes her heart warm. Fondly, she reminisces, “I was very young at the time. There was an older Nightsister child, only a year older than me, who was much farther along in her training. I did not like her; she was arrogant and would always tell me how much further I had to go before I could reach her level of training.”
Cal can’t imagine that a young Merrin, even one who had not yet seen how harsh the galaxy could be, would have taken that lying down. “So what did you do?”
The silver-haired Nightsister shrugs, but he can see the hint of a tiny smirk when she says, “She was to be judged on her control of her magick, to further her own training. So, moments before she was to go before the Elder Sisters, I cast a spell of ill tidings on the bracelets she wore. When she tried to use her magick, her control was even less than the youngest of the Nightsisters not yet talking.”
And while Cal cannot, in good conscience, approve of such a thing, he can’t truly condemn her for it either. The years he spent on Bracca exposed him to things the Jedi never would have, including the petty tricks, some harmless and some not so harmless, that workers would occasionally get up to, to either prove themselves or one up someone they thought had wronged them. He’d been scandalized at first; once he began adjusting to it, though, he mostly shook his head and stayed out of it...whenever possible.
(There’s a reason Tabbers owes him a favor, after all.)
“Did she ever figure out what you’d done?”
“Oh, she knew almost immediately, when the Elder Sisters told her,” Merrin says breezily, not at all bothered by the memory of the revelation of her shenanigans. “I had not yet learned how to look innocent,” and at this, Cal has to hold in a snort, because he’s pretty sure she can’t do it now, either. Merrin is too straightforward for that. “They were aware of how she had treated me, and it did not take them long to discover it was me. Both of us were made to make amends to one another.”
“What did you have to do?”
“She was more skilled than I,” Merrin admits. “But she believed herself to be above teaching. So, with the supervision of an Elder Sister, she was required to assist me in spells and skills I had not yet learned.”
A perfect punishment, Cal muses. One that addressed both of the issues at hand. “How did that...work out?”
And Merrin smiles. Her smile, though, is tinged with a drop of bittersweetness. “It was hard at first. But we learned to understand one another. And then we became inseparable. Her name was Ilyana.”
Cal does not need to be a Jedi, with Force-granted insight, to know how that turned out. Merrin might be a bit older than him, he thinks, although he’s never asked her. After all, she has already told them that she thought she and Ilyana would be together forever. But such a future was not to be, and he had caught an echo on Dathomir, of a young girl grieving the loss of all she held dear, including the one person whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
It also makes him feel more than a little ashamed of his earlier actions. How was it his right to grab her like that, to hold her hand as Ilyana never would? This is what happens,Cal thinks, when the Force throws an inexperienced Jedi in with a beautiful Nightsister. He’s lucky she didn’t blast him with ichor.
(And as soon as he thinks the part about a beautiful Nightsister, Cal shoves it from his mind. Such things don’t bear thinking about, not right now, and probably not ever.)
Across from him, Merrin is entirely oblivious to the young Knight’s inner castigation of himself, caught up as she is in the memories of the past. She reminisces, “There is a ritual all Nightsisters must go through, to prove their worth to the coven, and to Dathomir. Creatures known to us only as The Sleepers lived in the depths of the pools of our village. Any unwary Nightsister who did not keep up her guard when bringing in water could be drowned at a moment’s notice.”
At that, Cal shivers. While his memories of Nur after Trilla’s death are spotty, he will never forget the feeling of water filling his lungs. But this is not his story, and he shakes himself out of his memories. “What was the ritual?”
“While the creatures were deadly, they were vital to one of our potions, the Water of Life. A young Nightsister seeking to further her training within the coven would be required to harvest one such creature and return it to the coven.”
“What did you have to do?”
“I had to dive into the pool, and kill it,” is Merrin’s straightforward response. But Cal, who has faced his own share of ritualistic trials, knows there must be more to it than that. So Merrin continues, “We were allowed no tools. They would weigh us down, and defeat the purpose of the test. Instead, we were required to use our magick and tap into the planet’s energies, the Force as you call it, and defeat it. If a Sister allowed her fear to overcome her, the creature would drown and kill her.”
Cal can’t help it; he cringes. He knows the Nightsisters were raised with beliefs and values that the Jedi Order never agreed with, and he’s okay with that...for the most part. But the idea of a young girl possibly being sent to her death as a test doesn’t sit right with him. “Sounds brutal,” he comments without meaning to.
This earns him a withering look from the Nightsister before him. “A young Nightsister had to prove her strength,” she snaps, “or the magicks she was to be taught, the energies she would be exposed to later, would overwhelm and destroy her, much as you claim the Dark Side can do to Jedi. We could not take the risk.”
And having survived the destruction of his Order, multiple battles with the Inquisitors, and the encounter with the Sith Lord on Nur...Cal can’t really argue with that.
Still, Merrin makes sure to drive the point home. She stresses, “And how did you come of age?”
To his credit, the young Jedi does not rise to the bait. “The Initiate Trials include combat skills,” he readily admits. While participants were certainly discouraged from harming one another, they were expected to prove they could rise to meet any foe that threatened the Republic and its citizens. Such a practice might be considered near-barbaric to anyone else. “And then the war started, and we were all thrown into it, Padawans included. Not at first, but towards the end…” Cal shakes his head, and looks up to meet the Nightsister’s eyes. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have judged. Dathomir is...very different from what I’m used to. But I am learning.”
That he is, Merrin allows, and her temper cools. Her aim, in truth, was to get him to see the hypocrisy in his judgment. Perhaps the Nightsisters were harsher than the Jedi, but they lived in a more extreme environment, one that was steeped in tumultuous, passionate energies. Any Nightsister that gave in to her fears could be a danger to the rest of the coven--a fact which Cal well knows, having faced the Fallen members of his own Order. Therefore, she nods, and settles back into her seat. She also remembers that she has a story to finish, and so she continues it.
“My greatest fear, at that time, was drowning,” Merrin admits. The irony of it is not lost on either of them, given the fate that she only recently saved two Jedi from. “So the creature wrapped itself around my leg and attempted to pull me down to the bottom. It left a mark, here,” she gestures to her left ankle, which is covered by her trouser leg and boot. “But I remembered my Mother’s teachings, and used my magick to overcome it.”
“And didn’t drown,” Cal notes with a small smile. “You overcame your fear. Did you bring them the...Sleeper?”
Merrin smiles and nods, her pride shining through her normally impassive facade. She turns, slightly, allowing him a better view of the left side of her face. “I did. And I earned my second mark.”
“How old were you?”
For a moment, Merrin considers this. She has only just begun to learn about the time-keeping systems of the rest of the universe, and the variety of methods confuses her. Cal is patient, though, while she comes up with the answer. “Ten, perhaps eleven of your ‘galactic standard’ years. I do not remember for sure.”
“You were young,” Cal muses thoughtfully. Then he throws her a small grin. “I was too, when I went through the Initiate Trials. I guess we have that in common.”
“I suppose we do.”
“And what about the other one?” Cal queries. “The matching mark, on the other side?”
“Ah, that one,” once again, Merrin smiles, recalling the better times of her childhood. “That mark signifies completion of one of the first rituals of an advanced apprentice?”
“What is it?”
Merrin pauses, thinking of how best to explain it. She has never spoken of this ritual outside of her coven before, not even to Malicos (not that he would have been interested in it anyway, the power hungry mongrel). Finally, she begins, “The Nightsisters, we are not like the Jedi. We pride ourselves on our connection not just to the planetary energies, but to each other.”
Cal nods; he remembers her declaration that the Nightsisters’ bonds are eternal. Acknowledging his acceptance, Merrin continues, “Therefore, many of our rituals are about creating and furthering those bonds. This ritual, it is a step on the path to becoming a woman. We called it the Melding of Spirits, the joining of ourselves with another person. In my case, Ilyana.”
At that, Cal’s face heats, and he curses his pale complexion. A Jedi, he may be, but he’s not ignorant. He knows what ‘joining’ with another person can involve. The Order did teach its students the basics of life, after all. And Bracca had more than shown him parts of life the Order would not have condoned. Still, the thought embarasses him, and so does his voice when he forces out, “You mean, like...sex?”
At that, Merrin does something Cal has never seen her do: she stops for a moment, staring at him, and then she bursts out laughing. Cal’s face heats even more. He’s not really sure if her reaction confirms or denies his assumption, but he has to admit; it is nice to see her laugh. He tries to resist it, he really does, but laughter such as this is contagious, and he ends up laughing right along with her.
Or at least, he laughs for a few seconds, before the motion becomes too much for him, and his chest flares in pain, bringing an abrupt end to his merriment. It also loosens something inside, and Cal’s lungs momentarily seize, his eyes widening as he simultaneously fights and attempts to follow the urge that will definitely bring another wave of pain and suffering.
Merrin immediately sees what is happening, and stops laughing, cursing herself for causing him pain. Still, the Partisan medic told them this was necessary, even if it was horribly uncomfortable. So she grabs a wipe from the pile of medical supplies, curls his fingers around it, and lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. Softly, but sternly, she orders him, “Cough, Cal. I know it is painful, but you must cough.”
The hand laid on his shoulder is what convinces Cal to accept his fate. He gives in to the urge, screwing his eyes shut as the reflex causes wave after wave of agony to crest over him. It’s awful, and he hates it, but it works, and slowly, his lungs’ attempts to turn themselves inside out cease. Panting, and cringing when the simple act of breathing makes the wound flare, Cal pulls his hand away from his mouth and instinctively tosses the wadded-up material towards the trash can. He has no idea if it makes it in or not, but he can’t bring himself to care.
Once his tremors ease, Merrin helps him sit back up. Cal closes his eyes for a moment, adjusting to the change in position. Merrin keeps her hand on his shoulder. It is only after he opens them again that she queries, softly, “Done?”
Another breath, and then Cal nods. His breathing is slowing down and the pain is fading. He rasps, “Sorry about that...I interrupted you.”
“Do not apologize, Cal. Your body is healing; you should not fight the urge to cough, you must clear your lungs.”
“No, I mean…” Cal shakes his head. The coughing sucks, yeah, but he interrupted her story. He swallows, his throat now dry. “I interrupted you before.”
“Oh. Your question.”
“Yeah.”
“One moment.” Merrin goes to the kitchen, filling a tumbler with water before returning to the table. “Drink that.”
Grateful, Cal sips the cool water, letting it soothe his sore throat. Once she is certain he will not choke on it, and set off a repeat of earlier events, Merrin returns to the topic at hand. “So the ritual. To answer your question, it is not sex.”
Embarrassed once again, Cal flushes a bright scarlet, and looks away. “Sorry, it just sounded…”
Merrin can’t help it; she rolls her eyes. “While we on Dathomir certainly did not eschew such...attachments...as your Jedi Order did, there was nothing sexual about the Melding of Spirits. Did you forget that I told you I was a child when they attacked?”
...Oh yeah. That.
Merrin does not know how it is possible, but Cal’s cheeks turn an even brighter red. He hunches in on himself. “Sorry.”
“At least you have provided me some entertainment. I do not remember the last time I laughed.”
The flush fading from his cheeks, Cal nods in understanding. “Yeah, I know the feeling. So what is the ritual about?”
“It is about joining your mind with another, to share your thoughts, emotions, power, and feel theirs in return.”
Cal hums thoughtfully. “Sounds like a Master-Padawan bond.”
“What is that?”
“A bond that forms between a Master and a Padawan. There’s no ritual, it forms on its own. It’s a constant connection to the other person through the Force, even when they’re not in the same system. But the nearer you are, and the closer you are, the stronger it is.”
“Then yes, it is similar, though ours requires preparation, and can be shared amongst any Nightsisters, regardless of their stage of training.” Uncharacteristically, Merrin hesitates for a moment, debating over whether or not to share this next bit with him. The ritual is not wholly harmless. However, Cal has demonstrated no judgment over her use of her power, not even with the knowledge that she passed on some of her teachings to the Fallen Jedi. Merrin forges ahead. “It creates intimacy amongst Sisters, a bond that is eternal. But it can also be used for other purposes, to meld your spirit with an enemy and render them helpless.”
Merrin’s fear of judgment, as it turns out, is unwarranted. Cal merely nods, accepting her statement for what it is. Her upbringing, the lessons she was taught, were different from his, and he has no right to judge them, not when the ones who taught him turned out not to be nearly as infallible as he thought. And again, her statement sounds familiar.
“You know,” he muses. “It sounds kind of like an old Jedi technique. Most of the galaxy called it the ‘Jedi mind trick.’ It only works on someone who isn’t dedicated or set in their convictions. Jedi would use it to convince people of something that wasn’t real.”
“Malicos told me something like this. He said that the Jedi would bend the minds of others to their will.”
“Sounds more like Malicos himself,” Cal retorts before he can stop himself. Then he sighs. “But he’s not wrong, not entirely. Jedi used it when they were trying to avoid fighting or drawing attention. They were only supposed to use it in an emergency, you’re not supposed to take over another person’s free will like that. But I’m sure there were some who abused it.”
The Nightsister nods. With power like hers, like Cal’s, moderation in all things is key. The ability, on its own, is not a bad thing, especially not if it can be used to avoid unnecessary loss of life. But there are rotten meilooruns in every bunch, after all, and with the hypocrisy that Cal’s Order seemed comfortable living with, she is sure that there were some who abused it, all in the name of doing good. “Have you ever used it?”
Cal shakes his head. “No. I was just starting to learn it when my training...ended.”
And Merrin is very familiar with how training can end.
The conversation pauses for a moment, as both the Jedi and the Nightsister find themselves lost in the past, sorting through memories of both the good and the bad. Cal is the first to shake himself out of it. In an attempt to lighten the mood, he asks, “What about the other rituals? What were they?”
Merrin shakes her head. “I did learn others, but you have already seen them. My training ended much as yours did. Much of what I do know is...offensive, meant to be used against one’s enemies.”
‘Well, that failed,’ Cal thought to himself somewhat sardonically. ‘Should’ve thought of that. Note to self: do not attempt levity when talking about the near past. There’s almost nothing in it to laugh about.’
The young Jedi does not give voice to these thoughts, though. Out loud, he says, “I get it. A lot of my training had to focus on fighting since we were at war. There were other Force-techniques I never had the chance to learn. Another thing we have in common.”
Merrin tilts her head inquisitively. “Yet you were able to become a Jedi Knight. Will Cere continue your training?”
At that, Cal stills for a moment. That’s a...conversation he’s going to have to have with Cere. Along with several other conversations the two of them will have to have, probably in the near future. But for now, he settles on, “I don’t know. I hope so, it will depend on what she’s comfortable with. But Merrin, if you ever want to go back to Dathomir, to get something of Ilyana’s or something that will help you continue your training…”
“I am continuing my training now,” the Nightsister interrupts him, somewhat forcefully, as if she wants to shut down any ideas he might have about returning her to Dathomir. But Cal will never do such a thing, not if she’s not ready or doesn’t want to go. “I am learning, as I get to know the rest of the universe which my Sisters once shunned. As for Ilyana...I do miss her. But I carry my Sisters with me wherever I go. Our bond, while it may take a ritual to establish, is eternal.”
Cal smiles when he hears the pride in her voice. Merrin, in a way, embodies all of the Nightsisters who formed her coven, and all of those who came before them; she carries them forward with her into the future. And Merrin confirms this thought when she adds, “My people may be gone, but I carry their ways, their stories, their spirits with me. As I experience the rest of the galaxy, so do they...therefore, you must show it to me, Cal.”
Merrin’s way of speaking, Cal thinks, is something he will never tire of. Should she ever decide to change vocations and become a speech-writer, her audiences won’t stand a chance against the power of her words. But there is no need for her to convince him. He is already convinced.
The Knight, already knowing he will do everything in his power to show her as much of the galaxy as she desires, vows, “I will.”
But not yet, Cal is forced to admit as he sinks back in his seat. As much as he wants to follow Merrin’s desires and show her as much of the galaxy as she’ll allow him to, Cal is spent. The shower, the talking, and then that coughing fit did him in. Any energy he might have dredged up to force himself out of bed is gone.
And apparently, it shows. Merrin gathers up their supplies, tossing the used ones in the trash and returning the rest to the medkit. Cal watches her, wishing he could help but knowing he’ll just be in the way. Then she turns back to him, and reaches for his shirt.
“No,” Cal asserts, shaking his head and holding up a hand.
Merrin gives him an exasperated look. Why must he be stubborn about this? “Cal, it is cold in here and you are wounded. You must stay warm if you are to heal.”
Well, she has a point. But he has a better one. “Not yet,” he says, and there’s a hint of pleading in his voice. He shifts, and Merrin notices that he is hugging his left arm a little closer to his chest. “It’s hard to take it on and off on my own. If you hadn’t been here, I would have been stuck.”
It’s a difficult admission for him to make, Merrin can tell. Cal is used to doing everything on his own and needing the help of another for something so personal must be humbling, possibly humiliating. And she has to admit, it could be dangerous, too; Cal could reinjure himself attempting to take his own shirt off. Hopefully the supplies Cere and Greez have gone to acquire will include more shirts that are easier for the wounded Jedi to don and doff on his own. Until then, she will grant him a reprieve.
“Very well,” the Nightsister grudgingly acquiesces. She drops the shirt, but continues moving towards him, and holds up the sling. “But I am not giving you a choice with this one. Lean forward.”
Cal does, allowing her to secure his arm once more. He winces, trying not to hold his breath as the motion temporarily places more pressure on his wounded chest. He still has hours more to go until he can take another painkiller, but being upright for so long has caused the discomfort to grow. A nap, he decides, will do nicely.
Once his arm is properly secured, Cal sits back for a moment, gathering his strength. Merrin watches him closely.
“Do you need help returning to your cot?”
At that, Cal smiles slightly. As much as he doesn’t mind the increased contact with Merrin, even welcomes it, he knows he can do this on his own.
“No,” he replies softly. “But thank you.”
With his strength restored as much as it can be without a nap, Cal places his free hand on his knee and manages to gain his feet. He takes a moment to make sure that he won’t topple over, then he slowly makes his way back to his cot. He pulls his blanket--and all the extra ones, Merrin is not wrong about the cold--up to his shoulders, and is out the moment his head hits the pillow.
Merrin watches him go. For someone who once thought that she would spend the rest of her life with a woman, she finds that she can’t help but appreciate the view.