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There had to be days like this away from the constant battle against the Empire, moments when technical details, battle strategies and resupply didn't seem as overwhelming as they really were. Cal needed this, because it was perhaps the only way he could breathe fresh air and catch a glimpse of light in his foggy mind. These small, futile, tender moments they shared with Merrin were his shield in the storm, keeping him anchored in a reality where all was not lost in limbo.
Merrin needed that too. She wanted to believe that there was a place in the universe where they weren't forced to fight, those few stolen hours when she didn't feel the immeasurable pain of not being able to help all the people persecuted by the Empire. Those moments when she wasn't going through an endless blizzard in search of a better future. She was exhausted. She was also in the grip of a deep fear about Cal, a fear that he'd tip over into a place where following him would mean plunging into an ocean of flames and ashes. She had come to fulfill herself through her travels and encounters, she was more at peace with herself, and occasionally managed to feel that little burst of lightness that soothed her heart. But Cal... She was so worried. For him, because the thought of him suffering was unbearable. The very idea of him living a lifetime without healing or even softening her heart was torture. But there was a selfish part of her that feared for herself.
She could feel the gulf that separated them in the internal struggle against anger and suffering. She had managed to move forward, but her Jedi was at her back, still imprisoned in his anger and sadness, trained to fight and so deeply in search of justice that he had blinded himself in the light he wanted to bring into this world. What if the gulf between them never closed ?
Merrin always shivered when she let herself be drawn into her darkest thoughts, always wondering how long it would be before Cal could emerge from this darkness. She always saw that gaping hole between them as the possibility of it being their own tomb, her trying to climb out of it planting her fingers in the fresh earth to extricate herself from this nightmare and Cal digging deeper with his own hands.
And she knew she'd follow him because she couldn't do otherwise, Cal was her sun. The hottest star that lit up her life, and being with him was as exhilarating as having wings as big as the Shyyyo bird and flying around him to catch his light. But the sun was as dangerous as the meanderings of Cal's mind: she could let herself be swept along by it, intoxicated by the breeze as she flew around him unattended, burn her wings and fall for him into the precipice.
The atmosphere was humid as they went deeper into the forest. Cal walked ahead and let his thoughts wander, but he felt rather calm, for through his many expeditions he had discovered an admiration and passion for this very special environment, especially when, as today, twilight was showing its first signs. The night seemed to be slipping away, and the trees became so many torches whose gleams gave glimpses of winged dragons, snakes and scorpions; ghosts and spectres appeared and showed their gloomy shadows against this backdrop of light; but soon everything was extinguished and an even more terrible darkness reclaimed this place.
But Cal found something reassuring in the anatomy of the forest, something he felt he'd been searching for all his life. A kind of mutual affection, despite the enveloping yet disquieting duality it represented. The forest was stunning. Tiny, light-green leaves, a green so natural it seemed artificial.
You wanted to touch them, to be touched by the soft, hairy, green foliage. To hug a tree, to press your cheek against its bark, to smell its wood. He could feel his own history, take root deep in his soul.
And he longed to share these moments with Merrin. For these moments of wandering were imbued with a deep silence that settled between them like the whisper of a too-well-kept secret. They didn't judge each other, they didn't speak for several minutes, but their complicity and deep love seemed to grow like the immense branches of the trees that surrounded them.
They were content simply to walk in the subdued, filtered, diffracted, glittering, moving, green light. Listening to the sounds, so thin and almost echoey. To notice the silence bouncing off the bark and almost resounding, powerful and sonorous. They walked along emerald paths, in the light, in the peace offered by this eternal forest.
They came to a narrower passage where brambles had formed, and Cal winced. He didn't want to use his lightsaber to clear the way, for he had the deep feeling that this forest was so alive that it would punish him for mutilating it. He looked up at a few fallen branches that looked solid enough for him to hold on to and reach the other side.
"Aren't you teleporting?" He said in astonishment.
"No... I'm going through this without Magic Cal Kestis." Her eyes locked into his to reassure him, and her smile finished comforting her Jedi.
For her, it was obvious: trees were immobile beings that grew in massive, mixed communities and had inevitably developed ways of synchronizing themselves. She wanted to undergo the trials and tribulations, for her body to bear the marks of pride and autonomy, strength and endurance. The closer she got to nature, the more she felt worthy of its voice and her own. As she wandered the immensity of the forest, she too found rewards and moments of pure comfort. She could lose herself in it, shed her suffering and perhaps be reborn.
As she toiled through the sharp brambles, accepting the pain they imposed, she could hear Cal above her pacing the branches with an agility that always impressed her. However, the height at which he was standing prevented him from seeing the imminent danger.
"Cal ! Be careful there's a huge hole, don't let go of your grip just yet."
She only heard a laugh, which made her roll her eyes as she now knew the outcome of this small obstacle.
A deafening noise echoed through the forest and she immediately heard a growl rising in the humid air.
"It's not as if I didn't warn you."
Merrin appeared through the last brambles almost intact, her hair slightly undone and a lock falling over her cheek. She watched him climb up the hole with difficulty, drawing a grin of pain every time his hand grasped a place to hold on to. He didn't want to meet her gaze, which would be an admission of failure, but he knew that when he returned to the surface he'd have to create a diversion to avoid Merrin's inquisitive gaze. But he couldn't help making a remark as cheeky as it was stupid :
"Everything's fine, just a little bump in the road."
"Yes, of course. Why would such a wonderful Jedi need to listen to a killjoy like me."
Cal turned his head towards her, smiling wryly. While regaining some composure to appear less damaged than he really was, he moved towards the young woman with a mischievous air.
"Did I hear 'wonderful Jedi'?" he asked.
"I can see you coming. Don't even try to get close to me Kestis, you're dirty and what's more... You smell bad" she replied, trying not to smile stupidly when she was already drowning in the Jedi's green eyes.
He stepped forward a little more, his arms raised as if to mimic the approach of an a priori threatening creature. He was so stupid.
"Cal."
For a brief moment, he used the distraction of his arms to use the Force to bring her closer to him and embrace her forcefully.
"Cal ! No! Oh my God, stop it right now! It's disgusting!" she exclaimed, trying to free herself from the Jedi's grip without any real success.
Cal burst out laughing at the distress she was in, but didn't relax his embrace at all; on the contrary, he took the opportunity to rub himself up against her, getting almost more mud on her than on himself. Merrin tried to fight back and glared at him, a deeply outraged look on her face as she tried to punish him for this affront. She hated mud and having it on her was the highest point of what she hated most, given that she attached a certain importance to her appearance in general. And then there was the smell... That absolutely infected smell which made her think that her stupid Jedi had fallen into a hole, but which must be a nest or a lair of some absolutely foul creature.
"I think I'm going to throw up. I hate you."
"Oh no, I don't think so, I think it's just the opposite," he replied with a disconcerting audacity that was, it had to be said, a large part of his natural charm.
Stupid Jedi.
He finally released the young woman slightly, but she didn't disengage from him immediately. She pretended to wipe herself when a light green flame pushed the young man to the floor, then walked towards him, flashing a Machiavellian smile as he looked at her, both dazed and... Satisfied.
So that was his favorite activity after all, constantly provoking her and pushing her to her limits to get her all hot and bothered and then contemplating her annoyance. It fascinated her that this impulsive side of her personality seemed to be what Cal liked best about her, although she couldn't quite understand why.
What irritated her more was how easily he always achieved his goal, how he could bring out so many emotions in her even after so many years at her side. He was delightfully exasperating. His Jedi.
"Did you just attack me head-on Nightsister ?!" he exclaimed with a falsely shocked expression.
He rose quietly to his feet and planted his mischievous green eyes in hers.
"You're an idiot Cal Kestis."
He gripped her hips gently, making her shiver.
"Say it."
She sighed loudly, both annoyed and totally intoxicated by the warmth of his presence and his hands on her.
"But I love you anyway."
He gave her one of his secret smiles, the kind he kept only for her and which had the power to make her melt on the spot. That silly yet adorable smile that stretched his face to make it even brighter and made his scar almost invisible, so much did it radiate.
Despite the misfortunes of his existence and the call of darkness constantly present in his broken mind, Cal Kestis had been lucky. He often felt like a sailor plunged into solitude, trying to fight the waves and at times feeling the sea engulf him in the abyss. He could feel the pain and abandonment so suffocating that he felt as if he were drowning.
But the day Merrin truly came into his life, the sea decided to give him a rest and let him sail at will.
She was his lighthouse in the thick night of his existence. His country when he needed to feel at home.
He placed his lips on hers, gripping her hips a little tighter to hold her to him as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He pressed his kiss a little harder, his tongue mingling with hers as she suppressed a moan at the Jedi's apparent need to devour her. For a moment, she let herself be carried away by this burning wave and savored it. She was immersed in the deep abyss of their desire and every time a little space slipped between their lips, she caught her breath and plunged into this ocean of feelings that consumed her. He looked at her for a moment with a serious air that seemed to probe the depths of her soul, while at the same time being turned towards the secrets of his own.
Cal's face became the face of the world. It unraveled and recomposed itself as landscapes of wind and sun do. Shadows dissipated under the blows of desire. The light of the beloved body trembled, gathered and exhaled in joy, which covered everything as the rising sea covers the sand.
All that mattered now was this combat-like complicity. The glow that shone at the end of the confrontation was the discreet glow of the absolute. Nothing could extinguish it. Nothing could turn it into an inferno.
She wanted to relive this moment a thousand times over, in this forest where everything seemed so tangible and so anchored. She wanted to feel that violence and its sweetness again, and all the fears it inspired and the joys so acute. And everything seemed to resolve itself, to melt into the embrace, into the trust of instinct, into the warmth and fusion of bodies. She believed religiously and completely in what they felt in front of each other, and she believed in that precise moment when they had lost all notion of reality, of the separation and division between beings.
She stepped back slightly, even though she appreciated her Jedi's growing enthusiasm.
"Mmm... definitely don't think we'll be doing anything more in this state."
"Oh, on the contrary, I find it very refreshing to feel a little... Animal isn't it?"
She burst out laughing.
"I have nothing against the wild side, on the contrary," she whispered in a warm voice, "but ... Cal, you stink. And so do I. So as a great Jedi knight, I'm sure you'll show legendary patience until we take a shower."
Cal grunted and put on an annoyed expression like a child who'd been punished. He huffed and suddenly looked at her, squinting as if he'd understood something essential to his life.
"Did you just say we?"
"Yes."
The Nightsister's eyes shone with a... Sensual light. Cal could almost see green flames dancing around her pupils, as she stared at him like a predator stalking its prey.
"Go back to the Mantis, you idiot."