and when the empire comes... will you be able to protect my little girl?
his words hang in the air for a moment, heavy and pain-filled.
could you protect her from me? is the follow-up bode thinks, but cannot speak aloud.
he knows what the answer is anyways, knew it before he ever thought to ask, and that's the crux of the whole issue.
cal doesn't have a response for him, and kata is just staring. it's okay. bode can fix this, he just has to kill cal and merrin and it'll be okay, and tanalorr will be empty but for him and kata, and she'll be safe - and his first friend since tayala will be dead - he makes to leap up and put cal in a headlock when he sees her.
tayala, in the flesh again, and she says to him, bode you have to stop this, do not do this to kata, she needs you, and it's all he can do to open his mouth and say i surrender.
then he blinks and tayala disappears and the person standing over the bloody scene isn't his dead wife, but trilla. despite that they've never met, he recognises her from all cal has told him - she's cere's former padawan, the one who almost died on nur.
the binders, she calls, tossing a pair down to merrin. the blade hasn't yet left his throat, but bode holds his hands out obediently without looking at cal. he doesn't need the force to feel the utter pain in this room. (but he is so open in it, so wounded, that it floods in anyway.) after his hands are bound, cal's blade hisses closed, and bode is summarily relieved of his holsters.
kata runs up to him as he stands up.
papa, she cries. her tears fall on the torn material of his pants as she hugs her tiny self around his leg.
please don't do that again, she whispers, and he doesn't have the words to respond.
kata. come here, merrin beckons, holding a hand out. kata disengages from her father's pants and takes merrin's hand, then they both disappear in a cloud of green smoke.
cal still hasn't said anything. bode can't, won't, look at him. the tension simmers in the air.
need my help, kestis? says trilla, and cal must nod because bode is suddenly lifted directly up and placed (gently, despite everything) onto the remnants of the bridge. cal lands next to him a moment later, starts walking ahead of trilla and bode; bode doesn't need to be told to follow.
the long walk back to the mantis is made in complete silence. bode has nothing to say for himself. he's ashamed, is what he is, because by the force it took a hallucination of tayala for him to realise that everything he's been doing is not justifiably wrong. he's known it was wrong all along, of course, but he managed to make it make sense to himself before. but now it's all falling apart. kata would have been safe on tanalorr, but she was already so lonely, and he wasn't listening to her. damn, he's done a lot of things wrong by her recently, hasn't he? she's barely even eight and he was... he was... he would have killed merrin and cal in front of her. or worse (maybe not so worse, a small part of him thinks) been killed right before her eyes... yeah, she would be better off if he were dead. then he couldn't hurt her on accident anymore, even if he couldn't protect her, either.
stop thinking that, cal says, eyes forward.
he hadn't realised he was thinking so loud.
it's true, though, he answers, voice cracking, throat dry. he feels like he's swallowed sand as he tries to get the words out.
it isn't. kata needs her father. cal doesn't say anything else.
you're projecting your feelings into the force so strongly i'm sure even your daughter can hear it, jedi shadow, trilla tells him.
oh.
the rest of the walk returns to silence.
merrin, what happened to papa? kata asks, her small eyes full of pained curiosity.
i do not know. i think perhaps he was swayed by the dark side, and so he could not think clearly.
but he surrendered...
yes, he did. i do not know what changed. perhaps when he gets back to the mantis, we shall ask him.
kata considers this for a moment, then tosses a more difficult question at merrin.
who was that other lady?
truth be told, when greez suggested they call trilla after cere's - after jedha, merrin hadn't expected her to show up to meet them on koboh. when they had all split up, trilla had disappeared into the outer rim and kept only sparse contact with everyone. not even cere had known where she was. so the fact that she met them at pyloon's without even needing to be told would imply she's been keeping tabs on them, without their knowledge, which greez did call creepy! and weird! among other things. merrin chooses not to repeat any of this to kata, though.
instead, she simply says, trilla is like a sister to me. we worked together some time ago, and she offered to help us after what your father did.
oh, okay. she pauses, contemplates for a moment. does she have magic like you?
no, merrin laughs. she is not that kind of sister. she... is a jedi, like cal and your father, and her master was a good friend of mine.
kata's perceptive, and she picks up on the meaning behind merrin's odd pause.
was trilla bad for a bit too?
yes. she was.
why do jedi go bad sometimes? kata holds her mookie doll closer, then adds, like papa?
for jedi, there is a light side and a dark side of the force, and if they carry hurt and pain inside them and do not let it go, it makes them reach out to the dark and use it to hurt people. a very good friend of mine taught me that a long time ago.
oh, okay. merrin sees the cogs turning in kata's mind as she processes merrin's latest statement. papa has been different since mama died. when we lived on nova garon, i just felt alone, even when he was there.
she falls silent, curls into the mookie doll, and merrin feels the need to scoot closer to her on the couch. she thinks of what she wanted from her sisters when she was small, and scared, and hurt like kata is.
would you like a hug?
kata nods, so merrin moves the last few inches in and cuddles up to kata, stroking her hair in a comforting motion. teardrops fall on her shirt, and merrin does not care to determine who is crying.
kata and merrin are still curled together on the couch when cal finally reboards the mantis.
kid! what happened? merrin hasn't- greez starts.
cal's eyes are hollow and empty, his gaze landing on nothing as he walks silently towards the hold. greez gulps. the hold where, even now, sit cere and master cordova's bodies in cold storage.
he may not have the force, but greez dritus knows when something is up with his kid. it's not a good sign that he doesn't see trilla, either.
i've got a bad feeling about this, he mutters under his breath. he makes sure he's got his blasters at the ready, then pokes his head out the hatch.
trilla? greez calls, looking around for signs of sapient life (or signs of a struggle). there's the weird purple grass, the weird purple trees, the weird purple sky, the wet footsteps leading into the mantis, wait - did cal track mud into his ship?! kriffing hells! he's gonna have a word with that kid later. (the cere in his head reminds him that cal probably didn't mean to do it, and that cal's just incredibly upset and on the verge of shutting down.) right. greez breathes out through his nose to center himself.
just as he takes his next breath, trilla answers him, perched high on a rock next to a very sullen-looking bode akuna.
hello, greez, she says, cool as a chandrilan cucumber, nonchalant about the fact that the guy they came here to kill sits beside her. in binders.
greez opens his mouth, mostly to ask a thousand questions, but all that comes out are splutters.
he surrendered, trilla says dryly. didn't you, traitor?
traitor rings out, low and dark, across the clearing they've landed on. bode looks ...uncomfortable, at those words. hell, even greez is uncomfortable, no matter how true it may be; something in the way she says that just hits all kinds of wrong in greez's head.
trilla, he starts, wagging a finger as his lower hands plant themselves at his hips. he's doing his best disappointed cere impression.
she's not wrong, bode says quietly, almost too quietly for greez to hear him.
speak up, jetpack, i can't hear you.
i said, bode starts again, louder this time, she's not wrong. i am a traitor. i betrayed cal's trust, yours, merrin's, murdered master cordova, got cere killed-
oh, shut up, kid, greez snaps back, reflexively tacking kid onto the end like he's talking to cal.
that shuts bode up real quick.
i don't wanna hear it out of you! clearly, cal decided you're better off alive for all of us, and as far as i'm concerned what the kid says goes! he's getting fired up. it feels good, to let all the emotions that have been roiling around his head out, to shout a bit here.
we can deal with everything after cal feels better. and until then, you're gonna keep your self-flagellation to yourself, you hear me?! beating yourself up won't change what you did, and you might as well learn to live with it! if anything comes out of your mouth for the rest of the day that isn't greez, thank you for your cooking or cal, thank you for sparing me or can i use the 'fresher? i will personally tan your hide so fast you'll - you'll- greez struggle to come up with an appropriate threat -you'll wish i'd given you over to the imps, i swear!
as for you, trilla, greez is on a roll now, don't karking make it worse! we're all miserable, we're all tired, we're all grieving cere! and master cordova! in case you hadn't noticed, their bodies are in the hold right now! the kid cried all the way back to koboh! if i catch you antagonising bode again, i will lock you in the 'fresher for the whole ride back to the cantina, i swear on my great-grandmother's grave! if cere could see you now-
he lets that threat hang in the air. to his satisfaction, trilla and bode both look thoroughly chastised, which greez counts as a win.
and get down from there! he adds for good measure, turning around to go back aboard the mantis.
he passes cal, who seems intent on going back outside.
hey, kid, greez greets him.
cal looks at his face for a brief moment before turning away.
he mumbles something indiscernible as he passes through the hatch. greez isn't even sure it's basic, he has such difficulty understanding it.
any idea what he's on about? greez points a thumb back at cal as he locks eyes with merrin on the couch.
no.
he said he was building pyres, kata offers helpfully, still nestled in merrin's lap.
you understood that? surprise colors his question.
kata nods, clearly confused as to the origin of greez's reaction.
he said it really loud, she says, frowning. didn't... oh. did he say it in his head?
greez looks helplessly at merrin, who shrugs, staring down at a datapad he hadn't noticed before. clearly, she knows about as much of this as greez does, which is to say nothing at all.
trilla and bode choose this moment to walk in, bode still in the binders.
gah! greez can't stand the sight of those things.
what, greez? merrin says, looking up from her datapad. why are you making such noises?
it's nothing, he lies, making his way into the kitchen. as much as he hates looking at the binders encircling bode's wrists, he can't argue with the fact that bode did just try to kill merrin and cal, from what he's put together. not to mention the whole jedha thing.
i'm making- he starts to say, then reconsiders. he should ask kata what she wants to eat before deciding what to cook.
actually, kata, wanna come give me a hand in picking lunch?
dirt coats his arms. he's in an undershirt, the sun beating down on his back, as he cuts planks for the pyres. if someone told him, right now, that there were tears on his face, he wouldn't be surprised.
it's been so long since he did this, and he hates every second of it; hates the way the wood splinters in his fingers, hates the sweat dripping from his forehead, the dirt that gets under his nails, the rocks that make their way into his boots. but there's something almost soothing, too, in the way that his muscles ache from the repetitive motion, the way that the pile of planks grows steadily larger next to him. (the way that he loses himself in the cutting.)
he has to cut enough for two pyres. he makes enough for three.
he's using mosey's ax - the ritual of a pyre funeral asks that one do it by hand, that one do it without the force, that one build it alone - and he hadn't had to explain anything to mosey, either, when he asked. which was nice, in a way.
(a part of him wishes she had, because then he would have someone to talk to who wouldn't give him those piteous looks on the way back. he can't bear to do this alone anymore.)
at some point during the construction of the first pyre, the one for cere, greez comes out of the mantis and offers him some water.
he doesn't say a thing - doesn't have the energy to - so greez just sets a canteen down near him instead and goes back inside. leaving cal alone. (again.) (still.)
it has been such a long time since he's done this, he almost doesn't remember how. he keeps looking over his shoulder to ask cere, or master tapal, or someone, but there is no one there, no one to answer questions about how tall it should be, or if the fire should be lit at exactly sunset, or if it's okay that no one else (except bode, he thinks, but he refuses to talk to bode right now) is a jedi - despite what merrin may think, trilla has yet to come back, and he doubts she'll return now.
master tapal didn't get a pyre after the escape pod crashed. it was too risky, too dangerous, even if cal had had the materials. maybe that's why he cuts enough wood for a third pyre-he owes it to master tapal, after all this time.
his hands start to hurt after maybe the third hour. bd is recharging inside (he's still alone) (again) and so isn't there to tell him to take a break, or to stop, or to put his gloves on. he does none of these things. it's easier to let go of the concept of cal kestis than it is to face the growing rot in his soul, to acknowledge that he, too, has been led down a dark and terrible path. he's supposed to be a jedi.
we will always struggle, but that is the test, cere says, said, words ringing in his ears, bouncing around his skull and lodging itself against the pit in his chest, and he swallows, trying to keep from thinking.
thinking is the problem here. (thinking has never been the problem.)
cal kestis is the problem here. not bode, for killing master cordova or betraying the hidden path; not cere, for the fight they had that he can never reconcile; not dagan, for dredging up two-hundred-year-old artifacts and missing planets; not the empire; not vader; not tanalorr; not anyone else.
the sun beats down.
he finishes the first pyre and moves on to the second. this one he builds for master eno cordova, and he has cut himself on the ax and on the splinters and on the paring knife too many times and there is blood, his blood, mixed in with the pyres. that's okay. let it burn. (let himself burn.)
if he were to let himself back into his body (because he isn't there right now, he floats above himself and watches his hands move of their own accord) he would undoubtedly feel himself falling, feel the rot spread across the core of his very being. feel the darkness eating him up from inside.
shame builds in his throat.
he failed, didn't he? (he had thought he was over this.) his life has just been one big string of failures after another - he failed master tapal, he failed brother armias, he failed cere, he failed master cordova, he failed dagan, he's failing himself and he's failing bode and he's failing merrin and greez and kata. he failed when he let hatred take root in his heart and again when he embraced the dark and before when he couldn't stop bode from taking the compass and before when he couldn't sense bode and - the list goes on. his hands are shaking. there's a new gash on his arm (he thinks, from somewhere beyond his mind, that this will scar) and he mechanically rips the hem of the undershirt off and ties it tight (too tight) around the wound.
it is a couple hours before sunset by the time master cordova's pyre is built, and cal sags against the cliff-face, broken. the canteen sits where greez left it this morning. it beckons, glistens, cries out to cal's dry and aching throat. he grants himself a brief reprieve, then he must return to the work. (he must lose himself in the work.) (must lose himself in the work.) (lose himself in the work.)
burn himself on the pyre, because who else is the third pyre for, bode isn't dead. cal kestis might as well be. he almost killed a man in front of his daughter. and nova garon - he'd tried so hard, so so hard, to pretend that he was okay, that he wasn't hurting so much, that he wasn't in so much pain all the time, that he did not struggle (that is the test) because to struggle is to fail (but she never said that, did she?) because to fail is to lose the last remnant of the jedi of old for forever and ever and ever. because he still has to hold the line. because there is no one else, not anymore. (because he is alone. there's no one else.)
it is almost sunset, and the pyres are done. the clouds glow red as embers.
though he is sore to the bone, cal picks himself up and pushes himself into the mantis. he makes his way to the hold, and moves cere's body out from cold storage. he thinks he hears someone ask him something, but he can't understand a word of what they say. it's as if they're speaking in some other language, one he's never heard before. (it's like they're ghosts.)
it matters not. he heaves cere's body up the ladder and then carries her gently to the pyre, placing her down upon that final altar. he needs to hurry. master cordova is next, no less heavy in his arms, and briefly cal lets himself wonder where everyone has gone. (he is alone.) (there are only ghosts.)
isn't that the end of it, always? to lose everyone and everything. to be abandoned. and that's the real fear, the one lurking behind every corner, that they'll figure out he amounts to nothing and they'll leave, or that they'll be taken from him, or both. it always circles back to that. the force is telling him he is supposed to be alone - first it was his crechemates, when he was apprenticed so young - then the war - master tapal - prauf - and when the mantis crew split up, dropped out from the fight, they were leaving cal too, because the fight is all cal's known since he was nine years old and master tapal's brand new padawan. and just when he'd found a family to replace them, they were murdered in front of him and he couldn't - didn't - stop it. and when he thought he had cere back, when he had just gotten to know master cordova, when he found a brother in bode - the rest, as they say, is history.
he makes it outside with master cordova, sets his body down on the funeral pyre.
it hurts. (is he allowed to feel pain, in this moment? isn't this all his fault?) he is suddenly aware, again, of the bruises that litter his body - from bode hitting him into the floor again and again, from every time he just barely kept bode's blade from cutting into his body, from how he lets himself get tossed around like a ragdoll during any fight, but especially one he doesn't want to have to win. (like the one against bode.)
it's getting more and more difficult to tell himself that he spared bode only for kata, just for kata. (yes, he spared bode for kata, had to convince merrin to give him the option rather than just kill him on sight, can't stand to think he would orphan someone else the way he had been.) but there's a part of him that hasn't had a brother before, can't quite let go of that (that's attachment; he's supposed to avoid that), a part of him that doesn't know why it's always so difficult on his own and why he needs someone to lean on. another jedi who survived and who fights the good fight and who hates the empire just as much as he does, even if none of it was really real.
the third, empty pyre looks longingly at him. waits. calls out to him. (waits.) waits. (calls out to him.) waits.
(he is on the pyre, his dead body covered in oil-soaked sheets like cere and master cordova, and merrin lights the fire, her fingers curling with green magicks. the flame licks up and up and up the wooden planks, catches on the fabric, blazes hot and bright across the corpses and releases them into the living force once more)
there's a commotion from inside merrin's room, where trilla and her have been taking turns keeping guard over bode akuna. it sounds like he is trying to escape, something that is quite odd given he has been content to sit silently under watch since cal started building pyres.
annoyed, merrin gently nudges an asleep kata off her lap and gets up.
trilla! she calls as she enters the hall. what is happening in there?!
something metal gets shoved across the floor, making a terrible creak. this close, merrin can hear bode shouting, cal, cal, i need to get out there, i need to- but trilla interrupts him to answer merrin, shouting louder as to be heard clearly through the door.
bode here is having a fit about cal! she yells. merrin can feel her straining in the force, keeping bode away from the door.
i will go find out the problem! she turns sharply, making towards the hatch as fast as she can without breaking into a full-on sprint.
her aim is to avoid unduly waking greez and kata, who have both been enjoying a post-lunch nap, but it would seem the noise has already roused their captain: he stumbles out of his cabin as she passes, his short-lived nap still settled over his features.
merrin? he mumbles, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. whasgoinon?
not now, greez, she all but snaps, brushing past him and into the kitchen.
it's a few short steps through the lounge and down the boarding ramp, where she sees something she has trouble comprehending, at first.
she sees the flame before she registers what's ablaze or how many pyres there are. then her mind catches up to the visual input she's receiving: a trail of fire links each of the three pyres, one for master cordova, one for cere, and - and-
cal kestis! she rages, teleports directly to him, where he lays on the third pyre and is pulling a sheet, shiny with oil, over his body.
she flings the sheet away from him and yanks him off the pyre, pulling him to her body. she stamps the fire out quickly before it can catch on anything. there is a distinct lack of response to her actions as she teleports him back aboard the mantis, something that would usually leave him complaining of nausea.
sithspit, he isn't even standing up. he collapses to the floor as soon as she lets go of him. it's the wrong move, she knows, but she has to get a reaction out of him somehow - she slaps him across the cheek.
a lone yellow iris (his eyes are not yellow) appears from behind a pale eyelid. tears slide down his reddened cheek, flushed where she hit him.
let me burn, he whispers, broken. the eye closes again as he stays slumped against the bulkhead.
as if in response, something crashes from the cabin area, and suddenly bode (bode?!) barrels down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of cal and merrin.
scrapper! snap out of it!
...bode? both eyes open, this time, still concerningly yellow.
hey, scrapper, bode says softly, kneeling down next to cal. if i have to be alive, so do you.
he reaches out, his wrists still bound together (so he did not care to get those off, merrin thinks) and offers his hand to cal.
merrin has been standing, watching this bizarre interaction, too stunned to decide if she should intervene. cal takes bode's hand and they stand up; bode leads cal to the couch, where he helps the younger man sit down. there's a strange lack of coordination to cal's movements that discomforts merrin. his eyes are still yellow.
trilla hobbles into view, using her cane. she's very out of breath. (belatedly, merrin realises that noise from earlier must have been bode knocking her away from the door.)
bastard bowled me over, she mutters, what could possibly be so...
her voice trails off as she spots the scene in the lounge.
those are sith eyes, says trilla in shock. why does kestis have sith eyes?
distantly, merrin is aware of greez shuttling kata out of the kitchen and past the confrontation in the lounge, presumably with the intent to exit the mantis altogether, but her eyes are locked on bode. he stands in between the two women and their little jedi (almost defensively, funnily enough).
she lets green fire manifest in her clenched fist - she has no qualms with killing that man here and now if it means cal will stop doing whatever it is he is doing. (the shadow the overhead light casts on his form has begun to ooze and writhe, and his soul feels more rotten than it did on nova garon.) fury burns in her heart, wicks its way up her spine and into her brain, pours out of her mouth as she bares her teeth and sparks on her tongue.
what have you done to him? she hisses. you have hurt us enough! leave him alone!
the acrid scent of smoke seems to fill up her lungs, the way it did as she waited, fruitlessly, for cere to return to the mantis the way she said she would; the way it did as the imperials burned and burned from the chemical fires caused by their own explosions, their own bombs, their own machinery set ablaze by merrin's hand; the way it did right after bode threw that detonator after he shot master cordova - she's not thinking straight. (she doesn't want to.) bode is here in front of her, and it would be so easy to just kill him. it would feel right. it would be right.
bode and trilla are both talking, one over the other, something about guilt and reparation and merrin you're going to catch the potolli-weave on fire and she doesn't care, isn't listening, because one of them is a traitor and the other hasn't been here in a long time - and yet, they're both her family, in a way, and so is cal, shivering on the couch, crying, and it is possible that merrin is scaring him more than bode is in this moment.
the fury does not go out, but it does simmer down, a low buzz at the back of her head rather than the all-consuming fire it was swift becoming. (she needs to heed her own advice more often, it would seem; it was only a few weeks ago that she was telling cal, left unchecked, the fire will consume everything in its path, until there is only ash. and yet here she is, moments away from losing control herself, moments away from burning down the last refuge she has left.)
(whose soul is rotting now?)
if cere were here, she would make him do breathing exercises, and then have him go meditate in the engine room until he felt better. then he'd sit around with his headphones on in the lounge and stim or something, and greez might make him tea, and cere and merrin and trilla would probably go watch a holofilm in cere's room, or play one of trilla's complicated board games, or something else quiet that wouldn't make cal's head pound with every move.
after they left, after he found gabs and bravo and koob and lizz, he still kept up the meditation. he's always been stubborn about following cere's advice, but she was rarely wrong - she truly was a jedi master. meditation really does help. everyone knew to give him space when he needed it. then, when he felt like he could handle other sapients again, he'd come back out to the kitchen and gabs would hand him whatever fresh produce they had (if they had any) and he'd sit and have a beer with the twins while they all decided what to do for dinner.
these past few months, though (all the time that he's known bode), he has yet to ever have a meltdown. not a full one, anyways. he's been putting it off since they learned about tanalorr in the first place (since before, really); cere would have chided him about it had they not been so busy every time they'd been to jedha to see her.
he can't get up and go hide in the engine room right now, though.
bode, in front of him, blocking his way off the couch. hands raised - wrists bound - engaged in a terrible shouting match with merrin, who crackles with barely-contained green energy. trilla, leaning heavily on her cane against the railing of the steps into the kitchen, argues with them both; all of their presences in the force are overlaid with swirling nebulae that roar and thunder against cal's sensitive mind. he feels very small in this moment.
don't, he croaks out. he needs them to stop, needs them to shut the hell up so that he can run away.
(they don't seem to hear him.)
you killed cordova, you called the inquisitorius down on the archive-
i had to! i had no choi-
you had a choice! you always have a choice! cere and i had our differences, but she would have helped you in a heartbeat! you had only to ask!
how was i supposed to ask? was i supposed to just say, hey everyone, i'm a spy from the isb and a jedi? tell me how that goes over! tell me how that gets kata out, tell me how you would have helped!
we'll never find out, will we? because you were so resistant to the very concept that you called the inquisitorius to cere's base-
vader killed cere because of you! because you are too selfish and narrow-minded-
you can't understand, you don't have a child-
and what, being a father excuses betraying the other people who loved you? kata told me how you were during the fight, you scared her with how little regard you held for her safety-
i - i-
ENOUGH!
cal can't take it anymore. he screams and a shockwave bursts out, pushing everyone as far away from him as possible. he gets up and runs from the room without a second thought, flying through the hallway in a matter of seconds before he's finally, finally back in his room, the door sliding closed behind him.
he locks it, for good measure. collapses onto the bed, wakes bd up from the charging port on the workbench, lets a sob out into his pillow.
then he screams again, and again, and again, looses all his rage and tears and grief into the pillow (the poor pillow).
the pillow echoes with every time he cried over prauf the first few nights he was aboard the mantis, all those years ago. layered on top are the nightmares about master tapal, then nightmares about vader, and about the purge and about all the death he's seen and created since bracca. but all the echoes on the pillow are his, at least, and familiar in their pain. not like the ones on the couch in the lounge, where bravo and gabs' poker games still linger, and cere's first real conversation with trilla after everything stains the potolli-weave in a way greez could never clean. where countless sleepless nights were spent pouring over mission intel or ancient jedi documents or, once, a particularly stubborn force-puzzle that cal just could not get the hang of; memories that, combined with the way the force hung heavy around his force-sensitive companions, only made him feel worse.
here, though, with the door locked tight, it's just him and his best friend, who is currently snuggling under his hands to make the knobs on his chassis more available for cal to stim with.
thanks, buddy, he sniffs, tears still streaming down his cheeks. there's a lot of snot in his nose. gross.
he's crying for a lot of people and a lot of things right now, having held this meltdown back since the ninth sister showed up on coruscant.
her name was gabs and she was the best damn hack he's ever met, and a stray blaster bolt killed her, pierced her through the chest as she dove to save his life.
her name was masana tide, and she killed koob and lizz, and he cut her damn head off.
his name was bravo and he was almost as good a pilot as greez, and he got blown up by tie fighters and the remnants of his z-95 wrecked the exterior hull of the mantis and cal had to limp to koboh all alone.
his name was brother armias, and cal did not know him, but cere trusted him, and cere trusted cal to bring him home, and cal failed and he died, crushed under rock that cal couldn't catch in time.
his name was rayvis, and cal had never met anyone of his species before, nor anyone with his appetite for what he regarded as honorable war. it was a shame to kill him, even though rayvis asked him to do it; his death still weighs on cal's conscious, just like masana's.
his name was dagan gera and he was a jedi knight, one cal would have liked to have known once. but it is not an easy thing to free someone and then watch them shatter their soul in front of you. cal should have built him a pyre, too.
his name was eno cordova, and cal barely knew him but bd did, and bd loved him, and he made it possible to even get to tanalorr and helped cal realise there is a world in which he is not alone, a world in which he is more than just a lightsaber. bode akuna shot him dead the morning after he betrayed them all.
her name was cere junda, and there are a million and a half things he wishes he could say to her still, because when she rescued him from the inquisitorius on bracca she didn't just save his life, she irrevocably altered him - for forever. she reignited the jedi within him and taught him what master tapal couldn't, because master tapal died in the purge and never had to live through the empire. and when he found her body in the smoking ruins of the archive, lightsaber wound through her heart, he knew he was hours too late, and when he touched her he saw through her eyes the fight against the imperials, her efforts to save the anchorites she cared for so much and to preserve as much of her life's work as she could. he saw her death at the hands of vader, and saw how she almost killed him before he killed her. he sobbed then just as he sobs now, because it is a horrible thing to live through someone else's death firsthand, and some part of his soul died then as she exhaled her last breaths. he has been half a ghost ever since.
his name was grock, and he was crass and grumpy and meant a lot to dana, and he died at the hands of an imperial patrol while cal was chasing bode across nova garon. or maybe before, maybe while they were giving cordova the broken compass pieces retrieved from santari khri's observatory, not that it really matters. cal found his body and took it home for dana to bury.
his name is cal kestis, and he is alive.
his name is cal kestis, and he almost killed himself a little while ago.
his name is cal kestis, and slowly but surely he is rematerialising inside his own body.
he opens his eyes.
greez dritus is beyond over whatever the kark is happening in his ship right now. it's been at least half an hour since he and kata made their escape from the tense stand-off unfurling in the lounge, and the two of them are now watching what passes for sunset inside the nebula.
they're perched on a nice rock, kata swinging her legs aimlessly. one hand supports her, while the other clings tight to mookie.
greez scratches the back of his head. kata, i gotta ask ya somethin'.
yeah?
i'm sorry i couldn't make you mygeeto casserole, he says.
that's not a question. she looks at him with a quirked brow, a tiny frown creasing her features.
i was getting to it! what i was gonna ask is if you'd like to go grocery shopping with me later?
she perks up at that. grocery shopping?
yeah, i know this station that's only a few hours out, over in the lepleida system. it's civvie, doesn't have a big imperial presence, and they always have fresh produce.
i think i'd like to visit, kata declares. can we go there soon?
greez opens his mouth to answer, trying to find a way to say yeah, whenever the rest of our family stop trying to kill each other without sounding so damn negative about it, when trilla abruptly emerges from the mantis. she glides down the ramp in her hoverchair, looking decidedly worse for wear than she did last greez saw her.
kestis is having a meltdown, she announces, a speck of derision in her voice that most people wouldn't hear.
greez hears it fine and dandy, though. he narrows his eyes.
and how do you know that?
do you see my hoverchair? trilla says acridly, her tone the answer greez was looking for. she joins him by the rock.
okay, okay. fine. don't give me any details. in fact, forget i asked! he throws all four hands up in defeat.
merrin exits the mantis next. he can tell from the way she favors her shoulder that a massive bruise is forming there. by the nine hells, what happened in his lounge?
cal did, merrin grunts back. also, bode is no longer restrained.
what?! greez and trilla shout, horrified, at the same time.
it was no longer necessary. i have instilled fear of my magicks into him and he will behave or suffer the consequences.
you are one scary lady, greez mutters, skillfully avoiding her gaze as she walks over. his eyes remain trained on the boarding ramp, waiting for the last unlikely member of their crew to appear.
he does not.
where is bode? someone asks.
the 'fresher, someone else replies.
he's taking an awful long time. what is he doing in there?
no one has an answer, and no one wants to be the person who interrupts a guy in the 'fresher.
but really: why hasn't he left the mantis yet?
a better question occurs to greez. why did everyone else leave the mantis?
bode is not, in fact, in the 'fresher. well, not anymore. he was, for a few minutes - then he got done, and now he's knocking on the door to the engine room.
this is a spectacularly bad idea, but he's going to go for it.
cal?
...no reply. figures. well, none from cal; bd is sputtering something very angry sounding that bode assumes must be directed at him. he doesn't speak binary, though, so whatever insults bd flings his way go over his head. (jury's out on whether that's worse or better, for the record; not being able to understand them means bode is free to come up with some very self-flagellating ones, as greez put it earlier.)
he leans against the door, lets himself drop down to the floor.
ghost star, wonder where you are...
he's a terrible singer. tayala loved to hear him sing anyways, but she'd tease him about how bad he was nonetheless.
ghost star, are you very far?
he's singing an old lullaby tayala taught him, after they learned she was pregnant with kata. when he was away for work, tayala would sing it to kata every night.
all night long, i'll sing your song, if you watch over me.
there's still no response from cal. bd has stopped chirping at him, which may or may not be a good sign. he keeps singing.
ghost star, hiding in the night.
he hears footsteps from somewhere beyond where the hall turns. when he reaches out with the force, he finds something green and fiery lurking in the kitchen, something that must be merrin. a green tendril snakes its way to his position, as if she's confirming her identity. the footsteps still, and she does not come closer.
he keeps singing.
all your friends are oh so bright...
when the sky is clear, i can sense you near, looking down on me.
is he crying? he's crying. there's a tear making its tortuously slow way down his cheek, and if he wipes it away there will only be more.
ghost star, silent in the sky.
dank farrik, he screwed up bad. he's got to say something, anything, to cal, to try and express how sorry he is, how wrong he was, how by the force if he'd just been able to trust someone again it would be so different. he wants cal to understand, wants him to know how difficult it is to make the right choice, sometimes; to see what the right choice even is.
and it's not that he thinks he deserves cal's forgiveness. no, he knows better. scrapper had one karking flaw and bode exploited the hell out of it; bode saw a weakness and bit hard enough to tear flesh and now cal is on the other side of this door, and he's fallen further than bode ever meant to happen. (the part of bode who cares, who's always cared, who can never stop caring; that part writhes with shame over how easily he tainted such a strong and bright soul.)
now i start to wonder why...
he can never fully make this right. he's got to try.
show me your light, i've waited all night.
he feels cal stir in the force.
ghost star, won't you sing with me?
from the other side of the door comes the sound of someone - cal - getting up.
it's now or never.
cal, i'm sorry, bode says.
he hears a muffled i don't forgive you from the engine room.
i don't want you to, he replies.
good, says cal, and bode hears him sit down against the opposite side of the door.
it is infinitely easier to talk to him when he doesn't have to see his face.
(by the force, bode is a broken man.)
we need to light the funeral pyres, cal says. put dagan's saber on the empty one.
yeah, okay. he can do that. he rolls his shoulders as he answers.
i'll meet you outside, cal, bode says, getting up.
when he walks out of the hallway, merrin is still standing in the kitchen. she stares him down as he passes but doesn't say a word, preferring instead to lock eyes with him with a gaze that threatens to rip him limb from limb if whatever he just did makes cal worse. he understands. he'd do the same for kata.
he grabs dagan's saber from the shelf trilla had left it on and holds it in his hands with a tenderness he's forgotten he's capable of.
cal's footsteps echo behind him as he gingerly goes down the stairs, bruised from the fight and from cal's earlier outburst. merrin falls in line behind cal as bode leaves the mantis, making his way down the boarding ramp and over to where everyone else has gathered by the pyres.
he lays the ornate, red-bladed lightsaber down on the empty pyre, then pauses a moment, deliberates. around his neck hangs a locket containing a picture of tayala, the only thing he has left of her. he places it on the pyre before backing away.
his daughter approaches the pyre, after bode, and lays her mookie doll down, then walks over to him and takes hold of his hand.
papa, she whispers, i miss momma.
i miss her too.
trilla approaches the pyres next, placing something on the communal pyre and something on cere's. merrin follows, visiting cere and cordova in turn. cal goes last, placing several things on each pyre, before backing away to join greez. the whole thing is a silent affair - a proper funeral would have had the pyres lit at exactly sunset, by hand, and then the mourners would keep vigil until sunrise - but these are not ideal circumstances, so they'll have to settle for what they can do.
with a twist of her fingers, merrin lights the pyres. green fire appears at the base of each one, sending smoke curling up into the sky, then as the flames climb up the wooden structures they quickly turn orange, any trace of her dathomirian magick leaving as fast as it came.
once the flames have reached the bodies themselves, cal moves to cere's pyre and simply stands there. greez and the others, bode included, take this as an invitation to approach and say whatever they feel they must.
bode finds he doesn't have much to say. he apologises to cordova and cere. (distantly, through the force, he thinks he hears cordova forgive him.)
he has nothing for the communal pyre. he has said everything he needed to say to tayala every day since her murder, and what he really ought to do now is to let go. it isn't that easy - it is never that easy - but he can at least take that first step, so he simply stands there. breathes in. breathes out. lets go.
greez and kata are the first to go inside. bode follows soon after; he means to give cal, trilla, and merrin the space they deserve to grieve on their own. the atmosphere inside the mantis is muted, overcast; greez quietly offers bode and kata his room for the night and claims he'll sleep in the captain's chair. he does not let bode refuse him.
as soon as he lays down on the bedding, exhaustion washes over him. only one thought passes through his mind before sleep takes him, only one.
it's finally over.
