Chapter Text
It starts on Ilum.
An echo.
A youngling lost in the caves, his friend's fear palpable as she alerts their Jedi Master. His concern lingers, softer than her pure panic.
Cal never finds an answering echo to confirm the child was ever found. He must’ve been, right? The Jedi would never leave a youngling behind.
Despite how sharp the fear remains, Cal doesn't pay the echo much attention. It's another snippet of someone else's life. He can relive history but do nothing to change it. He is a born witness, except he doesn't have the space in his overstuffed head to really think about it, not when there’s a kyber crystal singing to him. He files it away, uncertain he’ll ever pull it back out.
After he rebuilds his lightsaber, a new feeling of peace settles over him. The caverns start to fade from his mind. There's too much else to do.
Days pass. Cal’s well on his way to forgetting the echo entirely until Ilum and the lost child appear in his dreams. A tiny Jedi, species unknown, stands with his back to Cal, hood pulled over his head. They’re outside the old temple, a heavy storm growling. Pressed in by snow, Cal moves closer. If he loses sight of the child, he might never find him again. Cal snags on a faint feeling, more déjà vu than certainty. The boy runs away before Cal can reach him.
They enter the temple, the boy always too far ahead. The pathways are firmer in the dream, the way onward not blocked by water or gaping chasms. In the distance, Cal can hear the other children as they race through the caves, following the song of their crystals. He ignores them. He needs to follow this boy. He feels it, a powerful call that can only be from the Force. The child is a tiny figure running down frozen pathways. He shines so bright, almost too bright for Cal to look at.
He must be strong with the Force to glow the way he does.
Another catch. Déjà vu. A dream within a dream?
The child’s light dips around a curve in the ice. Cal loses sight of him. He doesn’t lose his connection. The child’s determination burns hotter and sharper than any lightsaber. He has no doubt whatsoever. He will find his crystal ahead. He is –
Confident.
Determined.
He’s going to be a Jedi Knight. He will serve the Republic. He can’t fail. He can’t –
– Can’t find his way. Can’t remember which way to go. Lost. He’s lost. And it’s so cold. He’s turned down so many pathways, and now…
Empty. There are no Jedi left to find him.
The feelings are powerful, and yet Cal cannot find the boy. Too many tunnels, too many turns, he’s missed him.
Wind howls through the caverns, pushing Cal back.
The lost boy is a voice in the distance.
Crying. Desperate. Alone.
Where are they? Where is everyone?
His confidence, gone.
His determination, dulled.
Cal feels it, deep inside.
The child needs his help.
There is a cavern ahead, the ice pure, deep blue. Cal steps forward. It can’t be far –
A storm explodes, shoving him back. He uses all his strength to hold himself in place. He’s using the Force and even that’s not enough.
The wind throws him off his feet.
And out of the dream.
Cal wakes up freezing, buried under a blanket he can’t get enough warmth from. BD-1 hops onto the bed to check on him, beeping worriedly about how Cal was mumbling and twitching in his sleep. Cal promises he’s fine, just a creepy dream, nothing to worry about even if he does feel like he just ran across an icefield. He can’t shake the cold or the lingering drag, like he just launched an entire ship into space with the Force alone. The memory of the child drives Cal from his bed and into meditation. The Force takes the cold, refreshes and soothes him, even if it doesn’t help him find the boy, no matter how much he pushes.
The more he pushes, the deeper the dream digs in. It finds him again a few nights later. He wakes up wearier than before, his connection to the Force strained. It’s a familiar feeling from the rare occasions he pulled echoes out of his own dreams.
He’s just never done it so much before. Maybe repairing his connection is changing his psychometry too. The boy is an echo. An echo without an ending. Cal has no idea how he’s become so caught up in it when the boy didn’t leave enough of himself in the Force on Ilum for Cal to find.
Cal stares up at the ceiling, watching the lights pulsing. With the mission looming large in his mind, he knows that this is another echo he will have to release. He tries again. Whenever the dream reappears, he tries to let it go.
The boy is not content to fade away. And if Cal manages to shove him to the back of his mind, he always crawls out a few days later.
Weeks pass. In the aftermath of Nur, the dream finds Cal every night, cutting through anything else. He becomes so used to the dream finding him, he wears extra socks to keep his toes warm. The images wind their way through his nightmares of the Fortress. Snow buries the Sith Lord entombed in black machinery. The Fortress becomes cliffs. Ilum looms large, cold shadows whispering. Exhausted, Cal follows a winding, crumbling path through the caves until he sees him at long last, the lost child, surrounded by the Jedi Masters carved from stone.
Ghosts of a fallen Order.
“I’m here,” Cal says to the child. “I can help.”
He steps closer.
The child turns.
His robes are frozen. They must be weighing him down.
His hood slips, revealing –
Cal bolts upright. The dream slips away, fog shrouding his memory. He watches his breath plume ahead of him.
The Mantis isn’t cold enough for that.
His socks weren’t enough. He’s freezing.
He can’t shake the dream. It’s unlike anything he’s ever experienced. He can’t get a grip on how long ago it was. The boy could’ve been left there right when the purge began, or the echo could be hundreds of years old. Whatever the case, the dream is so insistent. Cal’s never been one for prophetic dreams. Whatever this is, it’s got its teeth into him.
He won’t be going back to sleep tonight. Again. He’s lost track of when he last slept through a night. He knows how haggard he looks, how completely drained. He's using the Force every time he sleeps and he has no idea how to stop doing that. The lingering ache of his wound doesn’t help either. He’s not going to be able to hide this from the others for much longer. They’re not stupid; they’ll know this has nothing to do with his injuries.
Cal knows he should meditate, seek a path through this latest development. He simply doesn’t have the energy, the focus. Besides, it’s not working. The Force eats at him constantly, poking and prodding, refusing to take the dream from him. He’s tried everything he knows, gathered the threads and images of the dreams, examined them, accepted it is beyond his control and let go.
And still the dream holds on.
Every time he closes his eyes he sees snow, ice.
A child in Jedi robes, lost and alone.
Head thumping, eyes drier than the sands of Tatooine, Cal resigns himself to a night in the lounge. Wincing in pain, he carefully levers himself upright. He’s getting closer to the boy every time he dreams. Soon, he’ll be close enough to grab him, talk to him, find out who he is.
Where he is.
And then what? Could they really risk a return to Ilum? For what? Cal has no idea. He scrubs at his face. He can’t think clearly. He’s fixated and he can’t shift his thinking. Even the Force evades his grasp, swirling around him.
Dreams. They’re only dreams. Intense, sure, but nothing else. Dreams pass. This will pass.
He needs this to pass. He’s desperate for rest.
He’s not getting it tonight.
Cal slides out of his bed, taking his blanket with him. He wraps himself in it, huddling for warmth. He glances toward the workbench where BD-1 is charging and leaves him where he is. Instead, he grabs his headphones, tunes into the lofi stuff Greez introduced him to, and –
There’s someone in the doorway.
Cal whips around.
No one.
The doorway, and the hallway beyond, are empty.
Shaking his head, Cal laughs at himself and heads out to the lounge. He’s losing it, seeing things that aren’t there and jumping at shadows. Not great. Thankfully, at this hour, he has the ship to himself. Not even Greez sits at the helm, seeing them through their journey to… wherever it is they’re going. Cal’s forgotten, if he ever knew to begin with.
Had he known? He can’t think of much outside Ilum. Even Nur’s fading from his memory, washed away in an avalanche of ice and snow. He’s grateful. Nur was a nightmare he can’t unpack. So yeah, grateful a lost child haunting Ilum, haunting him, takes his mind of the horrors of that hell under the ocean.
Not that he's dealing with this any better than Nur.
A low hum of anxiety accompanies that thought.
Cal closes his eyes. Reaches for the Force. Seeks calm.
The music from his headphones dies down.
A howling storm replaces it.
Cal falls forward, catching himself on the galley’s countertop. Chilled beats fill his ears.
Great, now he’s dreaming while he’s standing. Not great.
He should probably tell someone.
No. They must be getting sick of worrying about him.
Shivering, Cal makes himself tea. He’s just added the leaves to the pot when he hears something that’s definitely not part of the music. He tugs his headphones off, leaving them around his neck. He stands still, staring at the teapot. What was that? The Force whips around him, pulling, always pulling. He doesn’t have the energy for this, and he doesn’t know what it means. He closes his eyes, lets the feeling gather inside him.
The Force tears Cal away from himself, from his moorings, deeper, further…
And there he is.
Standing in the dark and the ice.
The boy.
Alone.
Cal opens his eyes.
It’s snowing aboard the Mantis. Tiny flakes gather on his skin, prickles of incredible cold. His feet sting and he looks down.
The deck is a carpet of ice crystals.
Wind growls, hungry, hunting for weakness. Cal pulls his arms around himself, desperate for warmth. He needs to get help, needs to…
He moves to retreat.
Except he was wrong. This isn’t the Mantis. The ship has gone.
Left him behind.
In its place is the cold, winding tunnels of Ilum’s caves.
His friends are gone.
Cal is alone.
Panic bleeds into him. This can’t be possible. This can’t be happening. He’s lost in an icy tunnel, both ends stretching out into darkness.
He hears it again. The sound that startled him.
Knows what it is now.
Who it is.
Footsteps crunch closer.
Closer.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Stop.
Cal turns.
The boy is there, hood still pulled over his head.
Déjà vu.
He holds out a hand.
Cal takes it.
The storm consumes his mind.