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The baby was left under the shade of a tree, grasping the hand it had wriggled free from its secure swaddling in the air toward Cere as she knelt beside the worn bassinet. The poor thing was too tired to wail, reduced to hiccups and heaving breaths. Cere knew better than to try carrying the infant back to her crèche. She wasn't sure if she was big enough to do so safely. Instead, she gently pulled the baby, a little Pantoran, into her lap, cradling its head in her elbow.
Pudgy fingers found one of Cere's many braids, tugging the wooden bead at the end into its mouth.
"Hello, Nidavali," She whispered. "I'm Cere; you asked me to find you." She pulled the bead from the baby's mouth, and the tears began once more despite Cere's shushing.
Cere didn't notice herself humming until the crying slowed again, Nidavali blinking up at her with tired eyes. It was a familiar tune but not one she recalled learning. It brought the image of a woman with dark, soft skin and laugh lines, peering down at Cere with a smile so warm she could feel it. The woman sang, and the words fit right into place.
"The moon is new, The wood is dark, The sun has died.
But I am here, My darling dear; Come sit by Mother's side.
The stars are black, The air is still, The sky is wide.
But I am here, My darling dear; Don't worry, dry your eyes."
The baby was fast asleep by the time Creche-Master Apago found Cere, panic from her absence flooding the Force. He spoke into his comm, relieved, before settling beside her against the tree. Her attention was fixed on the baby and the lullaby she still sleepily hummed. Cere leaned against the Togruta, his hand heavy where he placed it on top of her head.
"I want to be a mother one day." She murmured, though Master Apago made no indication he'd heard her. Cere was half-asleep when the baby was pried from her arms, despite her whine of objection, and she was scooped up from the ground as well.
Years later, her Master Eno Cordova told her she was as natural a Seeker as they come, a rarity, he'd said. It was why he was asked to take her on as his Padawan at a younger age than usual. Her Force signature was one children in need would reach out for instinctively.
"It can be very difficult," Seeker Bellen Lo warned when Master Cordova requested their expertise while he took a trip, "for someone with your gift to avoid attachment. Most Seekers follow the natural pull Force-sensitive children have. You will be drawn towards Force-sensitives who have no one else. Who are crying out for a parent that will not come. No matter how much they wish you to be, you will not be their mother. Do you understand?"
Cere nodded. Of course , she understood! She was a Jedi, and Jedi did not form attachments. The aching grief she felt every time the lost child she'd found was taken from her was just a result of her inexperience. In time, she would only feel joy and hope for the child's future in the Order.
Cere was the one who found Trilla orphaned after a devastating structural collapse in the lower levels of Coruscant. She and Master Cordova had just returned from a year-long archaeological expedition on an asteroid that appeared to have once been a space station thousands of years previously; she wasn't his Padawan anymore, but he was still her friend.
Cere felt the child calling for her a moment before the details of the disaster reached the Temple, and she was on the first relief shuttle out.
Very few survivors were found in the ruins of the miles-wide apartment building. Trilla, barely a year old, was cradled close to her dead mother's chest. The woman had saved her daughter's life, sacrificing her own. Cere thanked her, and prayed the Force carry her gently as she extricated the wailing baby from rigid, soot-covered arms.
She hummed the familiar lullaby, little Trilla wrapped tight under Cere's tunic. Downy black hair tickled the skin of her chest as she carried her charge to safety. Infants needed skin contact, especially in a high-stress situation. And if the feeling of the small ear pressed against her sternum and over her heart made something in her yearn so deeply for a Bond she wasn't meant for, well, she would get over it.
The look Master Lo gave Cere when she chose her Padawan was resolutely ignored.
'Maybe if I had let myself love Trilla the way I wished I could, she wouldn't be standing before me with so much hate in her eyes.' That's the thought, no the realization that sent Cere over the edge, tipping headfirst into the Dark. If she allowed herself to be a mother , she would have died before that Shadow could rip and tear the location of her Padawan and the Younglings from her head. By rejecting attachment, she created the Second Sister.
How many times had she stopped a hand from brushing Trilla's hair back as she slept? How often had her voice caught on that lullaby before she realized she was singing? Affection didn't go against the way of the Jedi, quite the opposite. But Cere was afraid.
She had to be careful , didn't she? Master Lo had drilled that into her since she was a little girl. Master Cordova always tried to convince her otherwise, but he didn't understand. He couldn't . He didn't feel the animalistic instinct to lash out when a creche-master took Cere's latest charge from her arms, or the urge to give anything if it meant Trilla didn't have to experience pain or loss.
She couldn't give in, not by an inch. Because if she let herself sing a lullaby as a mother, then it would become that much easier to embrace the Dark for her child. For all the good it did her in the end, though. Her fear of the terrible things attachment could lead to left her blind, and Trilla suffered for it. And then Trilla made others suffer for it.
"When you said 'We need a Jedi,'" Greez started once Cal had finally passed out in the engine room, "I was picturing some 200-year-old monk, or, like, a grizzled warrior covered in mystical tattoos, or whatever. Or someone like you, ya know?" He was mopping where the dirty water of Bracca had been tracked in, though in Cere's opinion, it had long been cleaned up.
"He's… not what we were expecting, certainly. But—"
"I mean, how old is he, anyway?" It was a good question. She knew Jaro Tapal and his Padawan had been stationed over Bracca when the Purge started. And she recalled Tapal managing to convince the Council to let him take lighter assignments. His apprentice was still a Youngling, really, something to do with a unique ability that was best tackled early. She was positive Cal was that apprentice. She'd only spotted him once, bouncing around Tapal's legs, but the shock of red hair was hard to forget. All of which meant…
"He's around 17, maybe 18. And I suspect he's been on Bracca since the Purge." She sat with a heavy sigh, the two glasses she carried clinking on the table as she set them down. Greez paused before setting the cleaning supplies aside to throw himself on the couch beside her. Cere didn't need the Force to know he was picturing the same thing she was; Cal, just as scared and shaking as he had been earlier, but so much younger. Greez cleared his throat of any tightness and reached for his now-filled glass.
"Just so you know, I don't trust teenagers. As a rule. Scrappers I distrust more as a formality." He made a valiant attempt at mimicking her human gesture of tapping their glasses together before tipping it back.
Cere did the same, then pushed herself back to her feet to resume her search for a change of clothes and a few heavy blankets for Cal. She'd heard once that humans with red hair and paler skin tended to run cold, and the thin frame revealed when he'd shrugged off his poncho wouldn't help.
Knowing Greez, he was already preparing a meal plan. He'd done the same for her, though her own malnourishment when they'd met was a result of her mental state rather than the actual lack of basic resources expected of a place like Bracca. She had to make a note to warn Greez not to be too upset about potential food-stashing.
After finding some mysterious sweatpants and an old sweater, she decided to grab one of her blankets, made of thick wool and big enough to cover a bed three times the size of the cot Cal was sleeping in. It was the first thing she'd purchased for herself outside of bare necessities after the Purge. It was also very soft and warm, which simply made it the best choice for lending to someone cold.
Cal hadn't even bothered with the threadbare sheet folded at the end of the cot, evidently preferring to lose consciousness the moment he laid down. He was curled on his side, back to the wall. Cere was initially just going to leave the clothes and blanket on the little workstation, but…
Trilla used to twitch in her sleep like a Lothcat. It was how Cere knew she would wake up well-rested, sleeping too heavily even to dream. Cal was doing the same. So before she could talk herself out of it, Cere put the bundle aside and knelt down to gently pull his mud-caked boots off with practiced ease. Then she unraveled the blanket, keeping it folded in half since it was big enough.
Cal nearly disappeared under it but made no sign of being disturbed by the heavy blanket now covering him. There was a tugging in Cere's chest, something that she felt when they broke Bracca's atmosphere but refused to accept.
A Force signature, young and scared and alone, reaching out for the lullaby she kept locked away.
The Mantis had just left Ilum's atmosphere, and Cal was still struggling to get out of his water-logged poncho. He was making his displeasure at that fact very well known and didn't complain when Cere batted his shivering hands away from the clasp of his climbing harness.
"Get the heat going, Greez." She said over her shoulder, trying to nudge BD-1 out of the way where he, assumedly, thought Cal's hopping from foot to foot was a dance and wanted to join in.
"The heat?" Greez complained, "You know how much extra fuel that uses up?"
"Greez, I will drop dead right here out of spite." Cal shot back through still-chattering teeth.
"Getting the heat going!" A gentle hum started throughout the ship, and Cere finally managed to help Cal escape the poncho. Unfortunately, BD resisted her nudging, and the poncho fell on top of him with a wet splat. He let out a confused trill after a moment, asking where Cal had gone. Cal had already booked it to the engine room.
Cere picked the half-frozen poncho back up as Cal momentarily reappeared with some dry clothes and disappeared again into the 'fresher. BD raced toward him but wasn't quick enough to slip into the room as the door closed. He bonked his head against the door, demanding he be allowed in, but Cal gave a muffled apology that Cere couldn't quite pick up. Whatever it was, it left BD folding up with a whine and moping in the hall.
"Guess he's cold, then?" Greez drawled once the ship settled into hyperspace.
"You should get that stew you prepared warmed up. I'll be right back." She pointedly ignored his grumbling and made her way to the engine room, carefully stepping over BD and ignoring his grumbling, too.
The big wool blanket was folded as much as possible, and Cere draped it over her arm and climbed down the ladder. With Cal using the sonic to dry off, she couldn't stick the blanket in the machine for a few minutes, but she could fold it around the hot paneling of the engine.
She had been worried about the blanket after she learned of Cal's psychometry, unsure what imprints she may have left on it, but he didn't even seem to realize it had been hers. She's tried to ask, once, in as roundabout a manner as she could, if he picked anything up.
"Well, it was definitely someone's comfort item." He'd replied, tracing the messy pattern woven into the fabric. "And comfort items are usually pretty hazy, especially if it was something that was slept with. Blankets, plush toys, that kind of stuff. Not clear memories on them, just what it provided, I guess. That probably doesn't make any sense, but…"
"Hard to explain how you experience the world, I imagine." Cere understood that. She'd only tried to describe the connection formed between her and the children who called for her a handful of times before giving up.
"Yeah, tell me about it. But it's like… yeah , a kid might be holding onto a doll when they're scared. But the fear isn't what's left behind, or the specific memory that caused the fear. The echo is the safety and comfort that the doll gave them."
Essentially, her old blanket helped Cal feel safe enough to sleep due to the comfort she took from it. That was still difficult for her to process; she wasn't sure she could make a truly positive impact on someone, not after what she had done. It seemed Cal was determined to prove her wrong.
Just as she was about to ensure Cal hadn't passed out, she heard the sonic shut off above her. The blanket was nearly too hot and would be perfect by the time she got it back to the main deck. She heard BD excitedly greeting his best friend as if he had been missing for hours and not in the next room for barely 15 minutes as she climbed back up the ladder. The poor thing clearly had a problem with separation anxiety.
She intercepted the two of them in the engine room doorway, wrapping Cal in the warm blanket and diverting him to the lounge in one move. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "I love you" into the fabric, but it was unclear if it was directed at the blanket or at her, or maybe at BD-1.
Greez hardly glanced up from the stove as she led Cal to the couch, where he practically collapsed once reaching it. Cere had to wrestle him back up from his attempt to curl under the blanket on his side. He complained loudly but otherwise didn't put up too much of a fight. BD took the opening to nudge his way underneath with him.
"Let me see your face, Sweetheart." Cere paid no mind to the half-hearted glare she got, unwrapping the cocoon Cal had been determined in making. She put her hands on either side of his face; his skin was still cold, and the tip of his nose and his cheekbones were red with frostnip. There were a few shallow cuts, likely from ice whipping around in the high winds. She didn't miss how he pushed into the touch, chasing the warmth when she pulled away.
"Give me your hands." There wasn't any grumbling this time, hands held out to her. Cal's teeth weren't chattering anymore, but shivers still wracked his frame intermittently. Cere sucked in a breath through her teeth. The tips of his fingers were paler than the rest of him, the beginnings of small blisters beginning to form under the skin. One hand was worse than the other, likely the one on which he didn't wear a glove.
"Uh oh," Cal stated. BD gave a worried beep, head popping up from under the blanket to see what the issue was.
"Yep, 'uh oh.' Luckily, this is pretty minor as far as frostbite goes. However, I'm pretty sure you're also hypothermic." Cere stood to grab the medkit stored in the kitchen.
" Again? " Cal groaned, flopping back on the couch. She paused, sharing a look with Greez that had become commonplace.
"Why am I not surprised?" Greez muttered, turning back to the stew. Cere resisted a sigh.
"Do I even want to ask?" It was something she had begun to notice; Cal had a tendency to share rather upsetting and traumatic life stories with the same air as someone talking about a slightly odd but otherwise mundane experience.
"It was nothing crazy or anything! The first time I went to Ilum, I was with my best friend, Yvir. We were both heading back after finding our crystals, but there was an earthquake or something, and Yvir fell through the ice into the water. So, I jumped in after them, which was stupid because they were a stronger swimmer than me and also half Twi'lek and half Zabrak, so they ran very warm." Cal had a wistful smile as Cere returned with the medkit. She vaguely remembered a little horned Twi'lek who played dirty in lightsaber competitions. Mace Windu's Padawan before the Purge, if she recalled correctly.
"So Yvir ended up pulling me out of the water, and we realized that the passageway had collapsed around us. We weren't stuck for very long, but it was really cold, and my clothes were all wet. Honestly, the only reason I wasn't worse off was because of Yvir. Which they held over my head for years , the asshole." A heavy silence fell as she felt Cal wrestle himself back to the present. Despite her self-imposed disconnect, Cere found herself more and more aware of Cal's Force signature.
"And is that the only other time you've gotten hypothermia?" Cere questioned as she carefully wrapped the bacta patches around Cal's fingers. His hesitation spoke volumes.
"Well, no, but the other times were on Bracca and Greez gets all… weird when I talk about Bracca." His use of times , plural, was not lost on her. It made something in her heart sting, just as almost every other new detail about Cal's life on Bracca did. Greez, for his part, was clearly not accustomed to the protective instincts that traumatized teenagers tended to activate. She really needed to have a talk with him about that, actually.
"Hey! No fucked up Bracca stories if you want to eat!" Greez threatened from the kitchen, a steaming bowl held in two of his hands. Cal rolled his eyes and shot Cere a look of 'see what I mean?' It would have had more impact if his fluffy red hair wasn't sticking out of the blanket over his head. Despite the threat, Greez was already heading down the steps with the stew.
"Once you eat and we make sure you're warming up, then you can get some sleep. Sound good?" She took the bowl from Greez and then handed it to Cal. BD stood from Cal's lap, intent on being a very steady and well-behaved table.
"Sound's amazing." He replied around the spoonful of soup he'd already shoveled into his mouth. Greez passed her another bowl for herself, taking his own food to the pilot's seat.
Cal still had yet to shake the habit of eating as fast as possible, likely conditioned by the food insecurity typical of a place like Bracca. Greez had started giving him smaller portions after he made himself sick one too many times. The fact that Cere managed almost half of her meal before Cal's bowl was empty was a testament to how exhausted he must have been. The bowl clinked on the tabletop, and Cal leaned heavily into Cere's side.
"If you don't let me go to sleep now, I will be so evil about it." He murmured into her shoulder, eyes already closed.
"You’ve been making a lot of threats for a cuddlebug." Cere put her food aside, then brushed his hair aside to touch her cheek to his forehead. He was still cold, but not as much as before. Without thinking, she pressed a kiss to Cal's hairline as she pulled away. It took a lot of effort to keep her muscles from tensing once her mind caught up.
She didn't need to tell herself she wasn't Cal's mother. She knew better. She did. The instinct to pull away reared its head, snarled, 'Your attachments have dragged you into the Dark once already.'
But it wasn't her attachment to Trilla that made her fall. It was her fear of attachment. Fear that had been instilled in her from such a young age, she had grown accustomed to it. Master Cordova had tried to tell her, tried to show her that not everything the Jedi Order taught was actually feasible in practice.
So Cere focused on the weight against her side, the hair tickling her chin when Cal shifted in his sleep and decided, for once, to try listening to her Master.
" I do not know what that means! " Merrin's desperate, frustrated shout pulled Cere fully back into consciousness, blinking hard against bright lights with a gasp.
"Damnit, how do you not know what CPR is?!" Greez shouted back. He sounded further away. Where was she again? "What about your witch magic? Just do something! Get him breathing again!" The Mantis, that was where she was. That didn't make sense, though. She and Cal had been—
Cere shot up, tamping the wave of dizziness down as she scanned the lounge room. She didn't have to search for long. Cal was leaning back against Merrin's chest, the Nightsister tugging frantically at the buckles of his leather vest. They were both soaked to the bone, and Cal wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing, either. BD-1 made a low whine, nudging at Cal's hand where it lay limp on the metal flooring. A strangled, painful sound that might have been Cal's name escaped Cere's throat as she scrambled towards them.
Merrin was saying something, but it was just noise as Cere felt for a pulse. There were a terrible few moments where she couldn't find it until she snapped for Merrin to be quiet. There. It was weak, but there. She quickly got his vest off, trying to focus on the task at hand rather than the circular wound in Cal's chest.
"What are you doing?" Merrin asked as Cere pushed her away to lay Cal back, but she didn't put up a fight. "Is he still alive?" Greez appeared then, guiding Merrin back further. Hopefully, she wouldn't panic; chest compressions could be frightening to watch.
Cere tuned out the sound of Greez likely explaining what she was doing to Merrin, all of her focus on getting Cal breathing again. A part of her kept expecting the Dark to bubble up again inside of her with each second of no response, but it never did. She wouldn't let it, not when Cal needed her.
Then Cal sputtered, water spilling past his lips, and Greez rushed forward to help Cere ease him onto his side.
"Merrin, go get the medkit in the kitchen," Cere ordered. When she heard no response, she glanced up; Merrin hadn't moved, eyes fixed on where Cal struggled to breathe. " Merrin! " Her shout was accompanied by a loud slap against the metal hull, and the Nightsister startled out of her shock.
"I-I'm sorry, is Cal—"
"Go get the medkit in the kitchen. Now. " At that, Merrin picked herself up from the floor, rushing to the drawer where the medkit was stored. She returned after a moment but froze again once her gaze landed on Cal. Cere reached up to grab her by the wrist and pull her back down beside her. She would apologize later. Taking the medkit, it was passed quickly to Greez.
"Get the med-scanner; we need to know how deep that wound goes." As much as Cere wanted to stick next to Cal, she needed to get Merrin back in focus.
"Hey, look at me." She placed herself between Merrin and Cal, hands on either side of the girl's face to keep her gaze forward.
"He-he wasn't breathing, and I didn't know what to do. I thought he was dead , and I couldn't—"
"Do you know any healing magic?" Cere had never been much of a healer, even before she cut herself off from the Force.
"I-I don't–I know some, but I never–Mother had only just started teaching me healing magic when—and I couldn't save any of them and I don't know what to do! " Merrin was near-hysterical, and for the first time, Cere could see her for the scared, traumatized kid she was, just like Cal. She could feel Merrin reaching for her in the Force. Cere felt her own expression soften despite herself.
"I know, baby, I know. But you can save Cal. I'm right here; you aren't alone, alright? I'm right here with you." Cere pulled Merrin closer, foreheads touching, and searched for the strange, wild thing that was the Force signature of a Nightsister.
Her Bond with Cal had formed before she'd even realized, like a baby bird that had nervously nuzzled under her wing while she was still half asleep. Reaching out for Merrin in the Force was more akin to beckoning that little bird to her side with a promise of warmth. She didn't have to wait for long. After a brief hesitation, Merrin's Force Signature surged towards her own.
Cere pulled back physically, letting Merrin feel the trust and belief she had in her. The Nightsister took a steadying breath and straightened her back.
"I should be able to stabilize him for now, but we need to go back to Dathomir so I can heal him properly." She would also need Cere to share energy through their Bond, nearly spent from the magic she had used already, but that wouldn't be a problem. Whatever was required, Cere would give.
It was touch-and-go for a while, and Cal still had a fever almost as stubborn as him, but he pulled through. Greez and BD-1 were the only members of their little crew who seemed to have energy to spare. The two puttered around the kitchen, Greez letting the droid scan every ingredient or food item he had. The Lateron hadn't been happy about it, but it kept BD from anxiously poking at Cal when he wasn't feeling well.
Cal was in the process of dozing off with his head pillowed in Cere's lap on the couch while Merrin leaned into her other side, absorbed in one of the ancient holofilms Greez had stored away. Cere had seen it a hundred times before, so her attention to it was easily pulled away. She kept slipping into an almost-meditation, feeling at the Bonds where Cal and Merrin's Force signatures tangled in her own.
"That song's on my blanket," Cal mumbled, bringing her back. "What is it?" Oh, she had been humming, hadn't she?
"It's an old lullaby. I've known it since I was a little girl; I think my mother sang it to me." There was still a twinge of guilt at the acknowledgement, but the fear had passed.
"It sounds very beautiful," Merrin added softly, pausing the holofilm. "Do you know the words?" Her head tilted into Cere's shoulder. Cere smiled, one hand carding through red hair, the other smoothing over silver.
"The moon is new, The wood is dark, The sun has died.
But I am here, My darling dear; Come sit by Mother's side.
The stars are black, The air is still, The sky is wide.
But I am here, My darling dear; Don't worry, dry your eyes."
She still wasn't their mother. Not really. Not yet. But Cere knew that Cal and Merrin were her children just as she knew the words to an old lullaby.