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It's a rare and special power. One that leads the Jedi straight to the red-headed toddler who feels so much more than the texture of everything he so happens to touch.
Psychometry wasn’t easily controlled, in fact it never truly would be. The user would always experience some kind of sickness after use, normally something in turn with whatever they’d felt, it was simply up to the force user to deal with it.
Cal Kestis is an even rarer talent, and as much as the Jedi often preferred to keep any user born with the ability of sense echo away from weapons of any kind, even their own as much as possible, they are at war and the boy cannot be spared.
But he can be paired with a competent Master, one with unmatched discipline that could keep him on track.
Sense echo was a clear introduction to the darkside, a first meeting that was a wave and not a handshake, but a meeting nonetheless. So as to keep him from falling, a clear mind and restraint was a must.
That fact alone is what cancels out the only current master among their ranks with the same ability to be the boy’s master.
Quinlan Vos wasn’t the one to train the boy, even if he had that skill in common, the circumstances were different, more dire. He couldn’t teach the boy and save him all at once at war, especially with his unconventional approach.
If the galaxy wasn’t ending, if they weren’t using padawan’s as generals in this war, maybe Cal Kestis would be perfectly fine with the man painted with a yellow line-if he’d managed to learn more discipline than his master: he would have had a fine chance of avoiding falling into the dark.
The boy is assigned to Jaro Tapal instead, a hulking lasat that knows the risk of psychometry and its gateway to the darkside.
He’d had the boy as a padawan for a day and he already knew with the light beaming from the boy, although tinged with an anxiety that they would work out together in time, the dark would have to fight harder than most to claim the small human’s soul.
Cal had no doubt been briefed at his weaknesses, his vulnerabilities, and had been forced into meditation very young.
Younger than any of the other children in his creche, but he’d taken to it well enough.
So Jaro starts their training with a session, the very session all masters and their padawans have to start their bond. Some masters do this after a week, but Jaro knows it’s pivotal to start this process even earlier.
Cal knows how to shield, does it well enough, but his facial expressions could use some schooling.
The lasat can tell by his mannerisms he’s often nervous and hesitant, but with a bond it would be much easier for him to help and work through the feelings the boy experiences whenever he touches something with history.
Plus for the boy’s first lesson he had something special, important in mind, something that would hopefully also strengthen their bond and gain a better understanding of each other.
Reaching throughout the force, the lasat takes the lead, certain where the boy is not. Secure where the boy is still flimsy. They click together after a moment of hesitation.
Jaro can tell it’s not because the preteen doesn’t want to be his padawan, rather he was fearful of what was to come and even more anxious about what that could potentially lead to.
Leading to the boy trying to meditate further, trying to sort his resolve, calm himself before things could get worse-send his feelings out into the force with the hopes it’d accept them and not leave him squandering.
They had plenty of work to do, but for now since their bond was new and Jaro could already tell sternly trying to veer Cal back wouldn’t help, he offered a wave of assurance.
Helping push the beginnings of panic and fear away, showing the little human wasn’t on his own with this process before their bond fully cemented and there weren't any traces of unease left.
The force was strong with the child indeed, he wondered what would finally happen when the boy experienced his sense echo now that they were paired.
Cal stared at the lightsaber on the table, his master sitting in wait-something Cal could already tell wasn’t normal for the imposing lasat.
Breathing in a light meditation, their breaths coming into sync, only then when Cal’s heartbeat was slow, slow enough that he might even drift off to sleep, the anxiety that had been there at the start of the session dissipated completely: his pale freckled hand reached out and picked up his master’s saber and was immediately assaulted by a flash of white and voices of the past.
His new masters and others, jumping at him, telling him more about his master than most knew.
His assumptions were proven correct, and it was a struggle to keep his breath even as the lives slain by the very saber jumped at his temples.
Jaro ended the session when bouts of physical pain filtered across their new bond, the beginnings of a headache starting right behind the boy’s eyes.
The lightsaber is pulled from the boy’s limp hands, a large weighted hand settling on the boy’s shoulder, the lasat directed the light headed boy towards his chest. Letting the kid lean against him and gather his bearings.
“You did good Cal, very good,” the boy’s eyes are shut but there is a glimmer of bashful validation that settles, still twinged with a pain that Jaro finds harder and harder not to rectify.
Cal would be dealing with this forever, Jaro wouldn’t always be there to assist either, the boy would simply need to work it out himself. That didn’t mean the jedi master wouldn’t teach the boy how to more accurately let go of his pain. This just wasn’t the time.
Persistence was key, except the kid was nearly asleep, burdened with a splitting headache. So much so, hearing the boy speak up is startling:
“You and Master Junda got your crystals together,”
“We did,” Jaro confirms, wondering how clearly the boy saw Ilum or even Cere’s face in his vision, “How do you know Master Junda?”
“She’d read to us in the creche,” Cal answers, smacking his lips as if he needed water which he likely did, and Jaro was quick to comply, quick to usher his padawan to bed.
They had work to do, a relationship to build, and far more training to proceed with all in the midst of a devastating war.
Neither the master or padawan is a stranger to headaches and the occasional accompanying nosebleed, or to the gloves that Cal was slowly growing out of.
The pair isn’t ready for the teen to have a seizure, it never having happened before.
Cal had taken a tumble, his withering gloves breaking against the ground before pulling himself back up off the ground.
Proceeding with the battle and their battalion, exhaustion pulling at them until the boy is forced to lean against the tipped over seperatist tank.
The second his palm hits the steel his vision whites out, he’s careening to the floor, body convulsing in spasms, eyes rolling back up into his head.
Scaring the daylight out of the surrounding clones, and briefly, momentarily, stumping his master.
Thankfully without hesitation their medic is acting, teaching, and instructing the master on how to handle the situation. As scary as it was in the midst of battle, his padawan incapacitated.
The force and his bond warbling with varying rivets of emotion and sensations that are blinding, it is a teaching moment for the clone and a learning experience for the master.
Jaro increases their training soon after, just as soon as the boy recovers, praying they wouldn't have an episode like this again anytime soon.
His master, the Jedi, the light side of the force is gone. Not completely, he knows death isn’t truly the end, there are still remnants of the past.
Within him, within the force itself...and within the history of every object impacted by significance.
Bracca was a mixed bag of echoes, his headaches had been constant since he’d managed to get enough credits together to afford a pair of working gloves.
Prauf had even bought him a handkerchief for his nosebleeds, also urging him to always have a water bottle at hand.
Of course he didn’t know the headaches, nosebleeds, and disorientation were a symptom of the force.
But thankfully another rigger took one look at him before claiming it was likely epilepsy and Cal was perfectly content to let them believe it, it was much easier to explain.
“That means you have seizures too right?” the teen nodded, his gloves saving him from the worst impressions, but it was bound to happen.
And it does as a wrecked imperial starship is torn apart, working through their systems, a particularly sharp piece breaching his gloves, slicing his palms, and terrifying the unsuspecting riggers surrounding him as he flails.
His eyes open wearily, a spare folded up pair of overalls tucked under his head, a straw being pushed into his lips.
A voice is warped above his head not quite breaching his ears. The teen doesn’t know who it is, who he is, or where the blurred surroundings his eyes can barely focus on allude to his wherebeing.
“Cal kid, that’s it drink up,” the voice isn’t daunting, it’s tinged with panic, but there is a tender concern that obviously means he’s not in danger, and Cal gives into the request.
Sucking on the straw between his lips weakly, the world and his memories-other peoples memories also come to mind in a montage of endless waves.
His neck stings and when his palm covers the puncture, he’s hit with another round of impressions, other hurt men on the scrapyard having used the same instrument to cure them after a metal wound.
A tetanus shot. Blood trickles from his nose and it is quickly wiped away.
“Maybe we should get you home for the day. You should stay home tomorrow too,” Prauf, his friend, his guardian since his crash on the planet, his savior recommended, instructed.
Cal is helpless to refuse, leaning heavily against his friend as he gets to his feet. The hole in his bloodied glove coming to his attention.
“I need new gloves,” the ginger murmurs, and the brush off that Prauf will get him new ones is enough for him to move his feet.
Saw knows there’s something off with the Jedi when the kid stares off, holds his head in agony, and struggles to stay on his feet.
The madman realizes quite quickly these instances only happen when the boy is not wearing his gloves, and very rarely when the boy is wearing his fingerless ones.
He has a working theory, one he is eager to test out as he picks up the holo of his sister and presses it against the kids palm without any hesitation before ripping it away.
The kid’s reaction confirms his suspicions. Dropping to his knees, eyes dilating but muddled with confusion, lips sputtering, all words Saw knew. Words he’d said. A name he had not spoken in ages.
When the ramblings-mutterings are over, Cal looks up at him dazed.
“Where am I?” his head tilts, looking at him as if it was him who was out of place. The ginger looked ten years younger, helplessly uncertain, almost pitiful, “Who am I?”
This Saw does answer.
“You’re a Jedi,”
He is haunted by the lightsaber that had brought him to his knees. It is a miracle he had not fallen to the floor in spasms.
The force had blessed him with a hasty retreat, but the once owner of the lightsaber that’d held so much pain was now deceased.
Cut in two by Vader-just the thought of even touching that broken beings lightsaber is enough for crimson to start dripping from his nose and his head to flurry.
He wipes it away with the handkerchief he held dear, his voice heavy and tired:
“May the force be with you Trilla. May the force be with you,”
Merrin pillows his head on her lap, her fingers running through his hair as he babbles, scared and confused.
The air warbles with green mist as she comforts the fallen Jedi. His freckled face unbelievably wan and hollow.
His kelly-green eyes reflect the barrier she’s put around them, keeping the world away when he was at his weakest.
He’d been pushed back, only catching himself by placing his hand on the altar, and she’d never seen anything like it.
It’d horrified her as his body tensed up in shock before dropping into a trembling mess.
She’d been utterly terrified. She still was as his body twitched every now and again, drool sitting at the corner of his lips, and tears brimming over his eyes that are thankfully no longer rolled up into his head.
“Merrin?” his voice is broken, quieter than a whisper, but what he lets out is nothing she could have expected. But as she takes in the encounter, she thinks she knows what truly had happened, what special power he possessed.
“They loved you,”
Tears dribble down her cheeks because she knows what he means. Knows who he is referring to. Her fallen sisters. She loved them...and she’s almost certain she loves him too.