The Oath

She doesn't know how long she's been sitting here in the corner of her cot. She hasn't spoken to anyone since her return to the Mantis. She's been barely functional, really. Her brain definitely wasn't made to endure this much rejiggering in a single day.

Cal explained her situation to the others as best as he could. Greez didn't want to stay planetside any longer, saying things about supplies and communications like he expected Anna to protest. She just nodded along numbly, and the captain seemed grateful. She's grateful they're leaving. She can't stand the sight of the ruins any longer.

There's nothing left for her here.

They must have taken off some time ago now. She can feel the ship lurching and rattling as Greez navigates it through the deadly obstacle course leading back to civilization. The sharp pain from the gash in her hand has dulled away under the stim-soaked bandages wrapped over it, but she barely noticed the pain to begin with. Even the terror from the journey here is only a faint memory now, drowned under an ocean of new ones fighting for dominance in the confines of her skull.

She screws her eyes shut, willing the images to stop, willing the noise to cease. None of it matters anyway. The silence comes slowly, painfully. It's a dangerous silence, one that gives her room to think.

She's seen dark before, but not like this.

Thirteen years spent waiting, wondering, yearning for her past. Now she finally knows who her parents are. She finally knows where she came from. She finally knows the horrible truth. She laughs as bitter tears stream down her cheeks. All the answers are here, right here in her head, yet all she wants is to forget them all over again.

She's the princess of a kingdom that's been erased from history. Her home planet is barren, barely hospitable. Everyone who ever loved her is dead. After all this time, she thought she'd be ready for the answers to her past to be anything, but she isn't ready for this. After all this time, she thought she'd be used to loneliness, but this is different. There is no room for hope in this new emptiness. There is only a hole, a pit of nothingness devouring her from within like a parasite. The gnawing is a physical vertigo. She wants to throw up. She wants to curl up into a ball and disappear.

She tries.

She must fall asleep at some point, because suddenly the sound of knuckles on the other side of the closed door is jerking her awake. She raises her head from between her knees. Everything aches, but she can't find the energy to move.

The knocks come twice more before she finds her voice.

"Come in," she rasps.

Immediately, the door slides open, revealing a clean-shaven Cal in a newly laundered set of travel clothes. Despite everything, she feels her cheeks flush with embarrassment when his gaze flits over her. She's barely done so much as take off her boots since they left Arendelle. Her tattered shawl pools around her, not much more than rags at this point, a stark contrast to the spotless cream-coloured mattress beneath her.

Cal ventures into the room with careful, cautious steps. He isn't wearing his lightsaber, Anna notices.

"Hey," he greets quietly, sitting down on the opposite corner of the cot.

"Hi." Anna's response is barely a whisper.

"How are you holding up?"

She wipes gum from the corner of her eye with a finger. "I've been better."

He hesitates before scooting closer on the mattress.

"You wanna talk about what happened?"

"What do you want to know?" She meets his gaze through a tangled curtain of hair still caked in rock dust.

"Well…" Cal chuckles softly. "Why don't we start with that floating rock thing you did? Not gonna lie, that threw me for a loop."

The gentle teasing in his tone lifts the heavy blanket of lethargy just a little. Anna straightens her legs, grimacing as her back pops in several places.

"I don't know how I did that." She frowns as she pulls some hair out of her face. "That was the Force, wasn't it?"

Cal nods slowly, his expression becoming sober once more.

"Probably. Something happened when you touched that… hand. It was like a pressure suddenly disappeared."

Anna's eyes widen. She looks down at her hands.

"You felt that, too? The pressure?"

"That's what I meant by 'bad feeling.'" Cal pauses. "Wait, are you telling me you felt that, and you still kept going? Some survival instincts you got."

Anna glances up again to find Cal smirking at her. The corner of her own mouth twitches up for a brief instant. Too brief. She sighs.

"I remember now, Cal." She takes a shuddering breath. "The Empire attacked Arendelle. My mother took me away from the castle when it looked like we were going to lose the war. She paid a—well, I thought he looked like a scary fish monster, so probably a Mon Calamari—to help me escape the planet." Tears well up, obscuring her vision. "My mother didn't come. She… removed my memories somehow, right before the pilot took me away."

"To protect you from being discovered by the Empire." Cal's brow furrows. "That's why you couldn't remember."

Anna nods stiffly, wiping away the tears with her sleeve.

"The last thing I saw was this thing coming down from the sky," she whispers. "This beam of light that hit the ground and just melted it."

Cal's mouth draws to a thin line.

"Orbital bombardment," he mutters darkly. "That's what made those craters. Not a meteor shower."

The words make the hair on the back of Anna's neck stand on end. She shivers. She's heard of the Empire's death fleets, though only as a passing rumour. Entire armadas of Star Destroyers outfitted with massive turbolasers, roaming the galaxy with the express purpose of razing entire planets to the ground.

"Operation Dark Sea," she utters hoarsely. Fresh tears drop from her eyelashes.

Cal closes the remaining distance between them and wraps her in a soft hug. She buries her face in his chest, squeezing her eyes tight against the image of tens, hundreds of those laser beams laying waste to her home, her people, her family.

"I'm so sorry, Anna."

She can hear his voice rumbling in his chest. She clutches to him as the sobs start again, her tears soaking into the coarse fabric of his vest.

"I'm… sorry… too," she mumbles between hiccups.

"For what?"

"Using you as… my tissue box."

Cal laughs. Fingers run gently through her hair.

"You know, of all the things I've had slobber on me over the years, I can definitely say I like you the most."

Anna chokes out a laugh.

"Gee, thanks."

She stays there in his arms for a long time, focusing on the gentle rise and fall of Cal's breathing. His fingers keep stroking through her hair, slowly working their way through the tangles and knots. Gradually, her sobs die down to sniffles.

"Thank you," she says again, more firmly this time. She pulls back, taking Cal by the shoulders and looking him in the eyes. "I mean it. Nobody's ever given half a scazz's ass about me since I lost my memories. You… you mean a lot to me."

Cal stares back with a tender light in his eyes. Anna drinks in the details of his face, tracing her gaze over the faint scar slashing across the bridge of his nose. There's a different kind of vertigo now, one that sends tingles up her back and makes it hard to think.

One that compels her to do something really, really stupid.

Cal's lips part to say something more, but she's already pulling him in by the shoulders. Her eyes close as she feels his lips meet hers, her hand moving up to cup his face as she leans in out of instinct. Her heart thunders in her chest. His lips are soft, and for a moment she can swear he's kissing her back.

Then Cal freezes under her touch, shrinking out of her embrace as if she'd hit him with a stun baton. Her eyes snap open to find an ocean of conflicting emotions in his. She jerks her arms back, pressing her hands into the mattress as dread pits in her stomach.

"I…" Cal clenches his jaw, his expression shifting between apology and veiled panic. "I can't do this."

"What do you mean you-"

"I just can't, Anna."

The words stab into her like knives. He must see the tears welling in her eyes because he lets out a sigh and turns his shoulders back to face her completely.

"A Jedi shall not know love," he states sternly. "I can't break that rule again."

"Again?" Anna freezes. "Is this… is this because of Merrin?" she asks hesitantly.

Cal holds her gaze for an agonizing few breaths.

"No," he finally says under his breath. "No, she wasn't the problem."

He rises from the cot in a single stiff motion and begins to leave. Anna watches helplessly as he presses the button to open the door.

"Call… call if you need anything."

The door slides shut over Cal's strained expression.

The moment Anna hears the mechanism whirr to a halt, she turns and buries her face in the pillow behind her. She wants to scream, but Cal might hear so she bites back the urge, settling instead for punching the pillow again and again until she's panting from the effort.

Why? Punch. Why? Punch. Why did she do that? She's barely gotten used to what it's like to have a friend for crying out loud, where in her peanut brain did it make any sense to try to fly before she even knew how to walk?

And what did he mean, Merrin wasn't the problem?

She draws her legs up to her chest, curling inward and hugging her knees as she rocks herself back and forth, trying to calm the churning in her stomach. Her heart aches like a shard of white-hot metal is lodged inside her chest. Serves it right. It's done enough damage for one day.

With a growl of frustration, she pushes herself up and dangles her legs off the bed. All of a sudden, her grimy clothes feel disgusting on her skin. Blowing a tuft of hair out of her vision, she grabs a fistful of her cloak and tears the entire thing from her shoulders. She hears the pin snap and watches it shoot off into the corner of the room with a tiny morsel of satisfaction.

Time for a long shower.

The next few days really, really suck.

Her newly recovered memories are proving to be a royal pain. Initially, she thought having them properly back within reach would put an end to the dreams. Dead wrong. Instead, the dreams get worse—more frequent, more vivid, and much more terrifying. Before, they were almost an out-of-body experience, detached and hazy. Now, she relives the last battles of a losing war every night, jerking awake to the sound of her own screaming with acrid smoke still burning in her nostrils.

In a cruel twist of fate, those same memories also frustrate her endlessly during her waking hours, but for the complete opposite reason. Naively, she always thought getting back her memories would be like gaining access to some secret archive of holovids, ready to be played back in picture-perfect detail at her command. The reality is a fragmented torrent of confusion.

So much is gone even after the wall that her mother put in her mind was torn down, decayed to nothing by years of stagnation. As for the memories that survived, well, turns out thirteen-year-old memories are far from photographic. Everything from before the war is faint and faded, barely anything but a jumbled collection of hazy inklings.

She can remember her father's voice, but not the stories he told with it. She can remember her mother's smile, but not her face. She can barely remember her sister at all. She can't even remember when the pilot abandoned her.

And then, on top of all this mess, there's the… situation with Cal.

At first, she avoids him entirely, retreating to the isolation of her own quarters at the first sign of his presence—which basically means she's in her room all the time, since the Mantis really isn't that big of a ship. BD-1 comes to check on her every once in a while, and she doesn't have the heart to turn him away. For once, she's glad she can't understand the little droid's beeps and chirps—makes it easier to rant to him when she can pretend he can't understand her either.

Without BD-1 to distract her, the rest of the time she spends in her room is awful. The isolation leaves her with nothing but aching loneliness and sorrow for company.

She's going to lose her mind if she keeps this up.

So on the third day, instead of snatching her dinner tray and darting off into her room like a cave spider, she steels herself and stays at the table.

To her relief, Cal isn't there when she sits down. Greez and Cere don't say anything as Anna takes small bites out of her bowl of stew, but she catches them shooting her cautious glances when they think she isn't paying attention.

Eventually, Greez breaks the silence.

"What do you think of the stew, kid?"

Anna raises her gaze from the now half-empty bowl. She blinks. She must have been hungrier than she thought.

"It's good. It's great, Greez."

The stew is an odd mixture of savoury and sweet, but it's worlds better than the hard rations and gruel she's used to surviving on. Truth be told, she still hasn't really gotten used to having proper meals on a regular basis—a part of her still fears she might not see food again for a long time.

That could be her life again very soon. She swallows, pushing the thought aside.

The captain laughs, punching Cere in the shoulder.

"Told you it would stew. Grandma Dritus's recipes never fail."

Cere shrugs the Latero off with a wry shake of her head before turning her attention back to Anna. The older woman regards her with an expression made of stern lines, leaning forward and placing her hands on the table.

"Anna, I think it's time we debriefed about…" Anna shrinks into her seat. Is she going to ask about Cal? Did Cal tell Cere about what happened? "... what happened on Arendelle."

Anna lets out a slow breath, trying not to look too relieved. This whole situation is so completely backward—she'd rather discuss the genocide of her entire people than talk about her own stupid feelings. Real mature, Anna.

"Arendelle was attacked by the Empire, just like we thought… but there were no survivors," she begins slowly. "They burned the planet to the ground from orbit. That's what those craters were." She glances up and finds poorly concealed disappointment etched over Cere's features. She presses on in a smaller voice. "I had another vision in the ruins of the castle. My mother, she removed my memories somehow, to protect me from the Empire. She paid a Mon Calamari pilot to get me off the planet right before the bombardment began."

Cere nods gravely.

"My condolences." The woman's expression darkens further. Suddenly, she scowls fiercely, her hands clenching to fists on the table. "Another of the Empire's atrocities just… swept under the rug. When will this nightmare end?"

Greez takes another slow bite of his stew.

"This has been one heck of a week, huh?" he says carefully. "We should lie low for a bit. Go sightseeing or something at the farthest outskirts of the galaxy, at least 'til the heat dies down."

Cere grits her teeth audibly.

"This was supposed to be our lead, damn it," she hisses. "A chance to find allies, to finally strike back at the Empire. Now we're back to… running. We can't keep this up. This is unsustainable."

"I'm sorry," Anna says quietly. "I'm sorry I dragged you guys into my mess. I… I had no right-"

"No!" Cere cuts her off sharply. She sighs as Anna stares back in wide-eyed silence, her expression softening slightly. "None of this is your fault, child."

Abruptly, Cere glances up, raising an eyebrow at something behind Anna.

"Cal. You're late to dinner."

Anna nearly chokes out loud. She didn't hear Cal coming in at all. As his footsteps draw closer behind her, she makes a point of keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the bowl in front of her.

"Sorry, mother, I got distracted tuning the…" The joke peters out as the footsteps stop. "Oh, hi Anna." He sounds surprised. Is she imagining it, or is there a hint of eagerness, too?

"Hi, Cal," Anna mumbles back.

She tries very hard to ignore her now-racing pulse and eat her stew like a normal, functional person as Cal shuffles into the seat beside her. The dining table is unreasonably small. She doesn't know if she wants to shuffle toward or away from him.

Greez pushes a still-steaming bowl in Cal's direction.

"You actually went for it?" Cal asks in a mock-incredulous tone. "You sure this is safe to eat?"

"Don't kick it till you try it, kid," Greez huffs, folding his upper arms over his chest.

"What's in the stew?" Anna asks tentatively.

The silence that follows has her wishing her Force-sensitivity had the power to remove her from the visible spectrum.

"Greez, uh, had this idea that he would put the rest of the jorgan fruit in the meat stew," Cal explains, meeting her eyes with a brief glance. "I said no, Greez, that's a dumb idea, that's like putting cake in noodle soup. Apparently he really wants to prove me wrong, though."

She can't help it—a laugh bursts from Anna's lips from the absurd contrast between Cal's awkward tone and the words coming out of his mouth. Cal's eyebrows raise briefly in surprise, but when Greez starts guffawing too, a familiar lopsided grin breaks hesitantly across his face.

She really likes that smile.

"If you're done complaining about Greez's cooking, I think it's past time we decided on our next course of action." Cere's tone is hard as stone. "The captain thinks it best if we make our way to the outskirts of the galaxy and lay low."

Greez takes a sudden interest in the contents of his empty bowl.

"While I do not agree with his suggestion, he makes a valid point. We've attracted a lot of Imperial attention. With another Inquisitor on our tail, we're going to have to be very careful in choosing our next move."

Cal pokes at his stew with a spoon.

"Are you saying we should stop chasing Imperial communications?" he asks in a low voice. Dark flecks of motor oil dot the pale skin of his face. The smile is gone, replaced by a sudden hardness that's almost frightening.

Cere holds up her hand.

"I'm saying we need to rethink our strategy." She takes a long breath. "I was wrong, Cal."

Cal's brow creases in surprise. Cere pushes on.

"I was wrong to let the destruction of the Holocron cloud my judgement. The Jedi Order is no more, but we still have a duty to the people of this galaxy. If the fate of the Arendellians teaches us anything, it's that the cruelty of the Empire knows no bounds. Merrin was right. We cannot afford to operate from the sidelines any longer. We must strike back."

"Wow. Alright." Excitement battles trepidation in Cal's eyes. "What are you suggesting?"

Cere pauses to choose her next words.

"We are few. That fact hasn't changed. From the experiences we've had in the months since Merrin disappeared, I think it's safe to say that doing damage control isn't a battle we can win. We need to think on a bigger scale. I say we start looking for allies—get in contact with rebel cells, spread the news that we are here and we are willing to fight."

"And then?" Cal leans forward intently, his stew all but forgotten on the table. "What's the endgame?"

Cere glances individually at every person at the table.

"We do what we should have done years ago. We put an end to the Inquisitorius Program."

"You mean that fortress on Nur?" Greez scratches a mutton chop. "How are we gonna do that? We barely made it out alive last time, and that was with the help of Merrin's witch-magic."

"We will find a way, Greez," Cere replies resolutely. There's a fierce gleam in her eyes. "We have to."

"I'm… I'm with Cere," Cal says slowly. "Nowhere in the galaxy is safe for Force-sensitives until the Inquisitors are dealt with. We need to stop this at the source."

Cere's hard gaze finally settles on Anna.

"Anna, I'm not going to sugarcoat this. We can no longer guarantee your safety on this vessel. Every moment you continue to stay with us puts you in greater danger. If you're planning on parting ways with us, now is the time."

Anna feels Cal's eyes like a spotlight on the back of her neck. She risks a glance toward him, finding a sudden veiled tension in those green irises. Does he want her to leave?

Does she want to leave? She's fought tooth and nail to stay aboard this ship, but now that she has the answers she's been looking for, does she really want to be a part of the crew for good?

She thinks back to that fateful day on Sriluur. On any other ship, she would have been thrown off long ago if not killed outright. She's never going to find another crew like this one… but she's certainly pushed her luck far enough. Maybe it's time to go back to the life she knows best.

But maybe luck had nothing to do with it.

If she hadn't been swindled by that pilot, if she's been stranded a different day, if she'd run in the direction of a different spaceport, if she hadn't chosen this particular ship to stow away on… she would still be out there, blindly scraping by a living on the streets. Yet here she is, sharing a table with the last remnants of the Jedi Order, the memories she's been missing for thirteen years finally back in their rightful place. It's a crazy unbelievable turn of events, unless…

Lights flicker and stones levitate in her memory.

It was the Force. It had to be. The Force led her here for her to fulfill her destiny. She's spent her life as a nobody—but she was never a nobody.

She's the last Arendellian. She has a duty to her people.

"The last thing that my mother told me was that I am Arendelle's last hope," she says firmly, still staring down at the table. She raises her eyes to meet Cere's gaze, newfound purpose burning like a beacon in her chest. "I'm done running. This is my fight, too."

Cere nods. "Glad to hear it. We'll need all the help we can get."

Anna squares her shoulders, holding Cere's gaze.

"I want to be trained to use the Force. If we go up against that Inquisitor again, my blaster isn't gonna cut it."

The former Jedi's expression immediately darkens. She stares back in silence for a long moment before answering.

"Anna… you don't understand what you're asking. The Force is volatile. Dangerous. The pull of the Dark Side is very strong. Without intense discipline and conditioning, you could become an enemy even greater than that Inquisitor."

Anna raises her eyebrows, ready to launch into a rebuttal. The idea of her turning evil because of some mysterious energy field is absurd… right? Suddenly, she sees Cal standing opposite her in the courtyard ruins, lit lightsaber held ready to defend himself.

Ready to defend himself from her. She swallows.

"I won't let myself turn to the Dark Side. I promise."

Cere shakes her head.

"You don't even know what that means yet. You're much too old to begin training in the Jedi tradition." She holds up a hand as Anna opens her mouth. "Even if we are willing to overlook that, the fact is I'm not fit to train an apprentice. I've cut myself off from the Force. I can't be your teacher."

"I can."

Anna stops breathing at the sound of Cal's voice. She whips her head his direction to find his expression still locked in that unreadable mask.

"You want to train me?" she blurts in shock. Even after… no, she can't be thinking about that right now.

Cal keeps his attention fixed on Cere.

"Cere, you made me a Jedi Knight. By the Code, I can take a Padawan learner."

"Cal, are you sure about this?" Cere's tone is reprimanding. "A Padawan is not a commitment to be taken lightly. You will be responsible for her for many years to come."

"I'm sure," Cal says with a solemn nod. He glances at Anna, and she sees a glint of the previous nervousness return. "But this isn't just my choice."

"He's right, Anna." Cere's eyes bore into hers. "If you agree to having Cal as your Master, you will be taking an oath older than the Republic itself. Are you sure this is what you want?"

This whole situation is insane, so insane Anna barely manages to stifle a laugh. Not even an hour ago, she was avoiding Cal Kestis like a scrap rat from a spotlight, and now she's about to pledge her life to him. But then again, what other choice does she have?

Your powers are your birthright.

With her father's words echoing through her mind, she plants her feet under the table, takes a deep breath, and nods once.

"I'll do whatever it takes."

"Very well." Cere rises from her seat, gesturing for her and Cal to do the same. "Cal Kestis, by the right of the Council, I appoint Anna Arrel as your Padawan learner."

Anna glances over to Cal.

"Well," Cal says, raising an eyebrow, "looks like I'm stuck with you, then." Gradually, the lopsided smile returns.

"It's settled, then." Cere sits back down wearily.

"One other thing."

Cere glances up as Anna places her hands flat on the table.

"My name isn't Anna Arrel. It's Anna of Arendelle."

My first ever first kiss scene! I was sweating bullets the entire time I was writing this tbh. Hopefully it came out okay.