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capricornus-rex · 2 years

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A Shadow of What You Used to Be (19)

Chapter 19: Voice of Treason | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Requested by Anon

Summary: There is another! Years after young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a second child—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

A/N: Hello guys, I’m sorry if I’ve become so inactive last year. The slump was one thing, but more and more things kept piling on my shoulders that it’s becoming more difficult to bear. I lost my grandmother a few months after I announced that she was sick. We lost her to cancer. My only comfort was that I was able to take care of her and spend time with her. For a while, I lost my energy to write again; and now that it’s the new year, I’m picking up my old habits again. I hope you guys have had a great Christmas and I wish you guys a wonderful 2022. ❤ As for me, I’m okay and I will be.

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 16 – 17 | Previous: Part 18 | Masterlist

20 of ?

Trilla’s heart leapt, but not in the wholesome way most would think.

The sight of the red-haired Jedi roaming free like a dog and Irele—of all people—behind him without any form of restraint on him launched a thousand ideas into Trilla’s mind.

It was a risk to frame Irele, but if ever the universe would favor her, perhaps she would topple Vader’s own ward out of her own pedestal.

“Don’t you have another target in mind, Trilla?”

“It was never implied that we stick to whom we choose to hunt,”

Irele squinted in reply. The Second Sister’s knack of not answering Yes-or-No questions slightly vexxed the young ward.

Trilla raised her lightsaber, its end pointed at the boy with a head of hair as crimson as her blade. The gesture suggested as if she’s taking the Jedi for herself.

“I see that he is not bound, Irele,”

“Smart observation,”

The Inquisitor’s lip snarled, “Are you conspiring with this Jedi?”

“Do you have proof that I am?”

There is a silence. Irele was not to be underestimated, especially her wit—borne from the harsh desert life in Tatooine and sharpened by her exclusive Imperial training to serve Vader—it was more of an ally to her than an asset, as some people would have remarked. She made sure that the Inquisitor was aware of the repercussions if she were to accuse the Vader’s Ward, heavier is the punishment when the treason is proven baseless and for lack of evidence.

“Then why isn’t he bound if you’ve captured him!?”

“Cal here proved to be quite cooperative that I felt that there is no need for it,”

The Jedi boy could not react—as a matter of fact, he does not know how or what. Thoughts chased each other around his head, the exchange of the two women was nearly white noise to him. Although, one coherent question could be heard in his mind, What is she planning to do with me in this?

When the white noise dissolved and his attention returned to the Inquisitor and his apparent captor, just when he thought they were coming to a close in the conversation, a trooper in black armor with red stripes—one that Cal is very familiar with—butts into the scene.

He politely does so, beginning with an “Excuse me” and when all three turn to him, the soldier fixes his faceless gaze on the young ward.

“Lord Vader has requested for you, milady,”

“Tell him it’ll take me a few minutes, I left my fighter in the other side of the island,” the fact slightly exasperated the girl.

Irele detected a croak in the soldier’s voice, as if he cut himself from what he was about to say; he gathers himself in the next second.

“He requests that you come now, we will have a shuttle arranged for you.”

with the Second Sister and the Purge Trooper standing beside each other, Irele half-shifted her eyes to her left, then quickly steeled them at the latter, perfectly masking her growing distrust. It appears she was more concerned of her favorite ship being blown to bits or thrown off to the black ocean rather than the credit of her capture being grabbed by someone else.

“Have a porter fetch my fight and dock it where I’m headed,” she commanded as she strode ahead of the trooper. She signalled for another trooper standing around to put Cal in handcuffs. The air of authority lingered upon her.

Before disappearing with the trooper, she stopped at her heels to face the Second Sister.

“You’ll take it from here, won’t you, Trilla?”

the woman did not speak. Irele took it as a yes when she hung her head and did not meet her gaze again. Irele let her thoughts run once she was alone with the trooper in the large elevator heading to the surface. The moment she left Cal alone with the Second Sister, he was open for the taking and the next competent person was there with him. Later on, her thoughts branched out to Trilla’s next possible move, which she has always anticipated from the start. Turning him in formally before Vader obviously meant that the acknowledgment is hers, and hypothetically, the favor. She can almost feel the Second Sister’s glee.

Vader’s sister was confident that she cannot be toppled that easily. Her cunning was something that her own big brother lacked and secretly envied, for he was the perfect opposite: he is sheer, brute force, imposing and terrifying just as his mere silence. Her mind wandered on the idea that while there are moments where she saw Trilla’s determination—albeit reckless and sometimes miscalculated—but she confessed to herself that she had been blind to Trilla’s desperation for favor. Being in the second highest rank among the Inquisitors meant that she would do anything to preserve that status, or evolve it—but Irele had the feeling that she Second Sister would’ve preferred the latter.

Through the maze of rock and ice, Irele and trooper find themselves in the base—the one pasr the abandoned village—and marched through the aisle of computers on either side. Her appearance caused every Stormtrooper to drop everything and greet her.

“Carry on.” she simply dismissed.

The large door disappeared into its frame, Irele makes her way to the center of the landing platform that’s jutting out of the mountain face. A gray shuttle awaits her at the end of the runway.

The humid ocean breeze was such a relief for Irele, the air in the caves felt too stale and heavy—it reminded her of the days where she was first captured then conditioned. The scent of wet grass was welcome in her lungs and for the first time, her exhale sounded satisfied, and a smile snuck in as she pushed out the last of the air before boarding the ship.

Once off-planet, she recognized her ship. Behind it—with a considerable distance—was another, and she didn’t need to know whose it is.

When the shuttle landed in the hangar of the second command ship, she gracefully strode out of the entrance, barely missing a beat in her stride; the trooper following her tails was replaced by a uniformed officer, obligated to escort the young lady to the dark lord’s chamber. Irele gestured at the man with her, essentially dismissing him and so he left as she entered.

After her first few steps through the door, she bent a knee and bowed with great reverence.

“You called for her, Brother?”

In the center of the room was a large, black shell. Parted vertically to reveal an ice-white space inside, sitting in it was Darth Vader with his back turned to Irele while looking at a screen. He later swivels his seat to face her.

“The report states that you’ve caught a Jedi,”

“As I should, yes,”

“Perhaps you’re aware that he and his companions have something far more important than the bounty on their heads,”

Irele squints her eyes in puzzlement. Vader senses that she is not hiding anything behind that expression.

“It wasn’t stated in the profile though,”

Indeed, when the profile were presented before the Inquisitors and Irele, there was no indication that Cal is in possession of whatever important thing Vader mentioned.

Irele continued, “What is it?”

“A Holocron,”

“What does it contain?”

“A list of children, Force-sensitive ones. They will be a great asset to the Emperor. I trust that you make him talk about where he’s hiding it,”

“Even if it kills him?”

Darth Vader only stared facelessly.

Meanwhile, Trilla did exactly what Irele had anticipated. She thought that there is the slim chance that either Irele will declare her responsibility of the capture or Vader will acknowledge it based from the reports submitted. The Inquisitor decided to gamble her luck.

“We’ll take him to the ship,” Trilla commanded another trooper.

The Second Sister takes the lead, two troopers block Cal from a back exit.

Still bound, Cal had not noticed that from the moment he and Irele met Trilla, BD-1 was missing the whole time. He was smart enough not to make his concern obvious, he trusted the tiny droid had something up in its circuits. He asked BD-1—in his thoughts—where could he be.

Alas, the tiny droid, practically invisible to the enemy, skittered rock to rock as he attempted to get closer to the troopers. Whatever the droid is planning—it will end up to be a mess. The pitter-pat of its feet was muted by the dull squeaking of the cogs in the middle of the caves. In a spider-like grace, BD jumped onto the shoulder of one trooper, the tip of his splicer sends a jolt of electricity and BD didn’t wait for him to fall to the floor before hopping to the other.

The Second Sister spun to witness the commotion unravelling before her. Not wasting a split second longer, the tiny droid immediately hopped onto Cal’s wrist and picks the lock of the cuffs. Cal’s first instinct was to ignite his saber, Trilla follows, and they exchange hits. The were too preoccupied with their skirmish that they didn’t notice a small band of bounty hunters—one of them was a droid—had been camping above the rocks and finally got the golden opportunity to jump on them.

In the middle of their interlocked saber, the hulking droid descended from its perch, the ground shook as it landed and split the two warriors apart. Then it was time for the bounty hunters to spring into the action.

“Oy, you take on the woman, get the boy!” cried the hunter, thick with accent.

Trilla and Cal each had to deal with two hunters. It would seem that Cal had gotten the shorter end of the stick since he had both the droid and the hunter’s attention. The Inquisitor was pushed to the edge, landing a lower rock outcrop with her two enemies.

Once separated, the humanoid bounty hunter fished out something from under his cape. A small metal canister explodes into a fog upon hitting the ground, partially blinding Cal; it caught Trilla’s attention and gave the enemy an opening to strike her—and strike her he did. This disoriented her long enough to make their escape with a knocked-out Cal on the droid’s shoulder.

They fled.

The Second Sister felt her stomach sink to her feet.

#cal kestis #cal kestis fic #star wars jedi fallen order fic #star wars fic #requested by anon #anon request #swjfo #swjfo fic #jfo #jfo fic #jedi fallen order #fem! oc #cal kestis x fem! oc #cal kestis x fem oc #cal kestis x oc

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moonlit-imagines · 2 years

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Taglist

Lacey’s Taglist Google Doc

the link above contains a list of urls that are tagged for select fandom fics posted on this blog! it is for viewing only! a list of available fandoms to be tagged for is below the cut. if you want to be added to (or removed from) a fandom, shoot me an ask!

*DO NOT COMMENT ON THIS POST. I WILL ONLY ADD YOU IF YOU SEND AN ASK.

*i don’t tag for individual characters!

*please let me know if you change your url

*if you do change your url more than twice a month you will be removed from the taglist

*this post gives some troubleshooting if you’re untaggable, but sometimes tumblr just won’t let me tag :(

once again, i do not tag for individual characters or in-universe movies/shows (ie. “only the mandalorian,” “just the avengers”). fandoms on bullet points are “subfandoms” and can be specified! but if you use the name of the full fandom (ie. DCTV) you will be added to all subfandoms if there are any (ie. gotham AND titans), but if you only want one, just tell me the subfandom (ie. titans).

American Horror Story

Bat-Family/DCAU

Batfamily

Young Justice

Cobra Kai/Karate Kid

DCEU

DCTV

Gotham

Titans

DC Movies (Non-DCEU/Animation)

Batman (Keaton)

Batman (Kilmer)

Batman (Clooney)

Batman (Bale)

Batman (Pattinson)

Joker

Disney Animation

DCOM

Descendants

Teen Beach Movie

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Euphoria

Fear Street

Friends

The Good Place

Harry Potter/Fantastic Beasts

I Am Not Okay with This

Indiana Jones

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Movies/Disney+ Shows

Defenders

Marvel (Non-MCU/XMCU/Games)

The Amazing Spider-Man

Spider-Man (Maguire)

Spider-Verse

Venom

Morbius

Misc./Prompt Lists

The Devil All the Time

Jurassic World

The Office

The Outsiders

Supernatural

Top Gun

Victorious

Wednesday

Musicals + Movies

New Girl

Peaky Blinders

Riverdale

Shameless (U.S.)

Star Wars

Stranger Things

That 70’s Show

The 100

The Umbrella Academy

Video Games

Avengers

Batman Arkham

Injustice

Spider-Man

SWJFO

X-Men

#taglist #taglist stuff

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fallenjedii · 4 years

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unforgettable ; iii of iii.

word count ; 4012. warnings ; small injury, smutty smut.

previous chapter | END.

cal was able to convince cere and greez to stay on kashyyyk for a couple of weeks, he wanted to catch up on lost time with you. the two of you were constantly at each other's side, cal even changing your bandages daily. it made you shy when you had to lift your shirt for him to change it, and cal's face would be red each time.

he's been dying to get a moment alone with you, but as soon as the time comes up, there's a new mission to be completed. this time, saw has you and cal separated. this is your first mission back since your wound reopened, now completely healed with no chance of reopening again. cal looks at you nervously, but you smile.

"i've been on plenty of missions without you, you know. i can take care of myself." you reassure him quietly, holding his hand. he smiles, nodding in agreement while raising the back of your hand to his lips. he kisses it, causing you to blush. saw clears his throat, gaining attention from the both of you. he finishes debriefing the partisans, then sends everyone to gear up.

you put on your helmet, grab your blaster, and an electro riot baton. cal raises an eyebrow, noticing it's the same kind that scout troopers use.

"where did you get that?" he asks playfully, already knowing the answer. you give him an innocent look, smiling like you've never done anything wrong in your entire life.

"i found it."

everyone is preparing to depart, but before you head off, cal pulls you aside. he looks worried.

"is everything alright?" you ask, resting a hand on his cheek. he leans into your touch, hands resting on your waist.

"what if i lose you again?" his voice trembles, unable to make eye contact with you. he's terrified of something happening to you again, only this time you would be gone for good. the anxiety he feels is crushing him, gently pulling you closer to him by your waist. you gently lift his chin to make him look at you, running your free hand through his hair.

"i promise to come back to you, cal. i'll come back, and i'll join your crew... and we can do everything together again." your voice is gentle, but reassuring. there's no hint of nervousness or uneasiness in your voice. you're determined to spend the rest of your life with him. this eases most of cal's anxiety, pulling you into his arms for a hug. you hug him back, loving the feeling of his arms around you. you two pull away slightly, faces inches away from each other. he wants to kiss you so badly, but he knows the mission comes first. you know the same.

the two of you begin to head off in separate directions, but before you're too far apart you call his name. he turns to look at you.

"i'm counting on you, star boy!" you yell, cupping your hands around your mouth to make sure he hears you. he chuckles.

"same goes to you, starlight!" the new nickname turns your cheeks red, waving as you depart.

you've been sent alone to handle a low level situation. a small number of stormtroopers have been spotted loitering in a clearing, and you were to execute them and reinforce any barriers. cal's purpose was much higher, he was to sweep the former imperial base and hack into the surveillance cameras so only the partisans had control of them. the two of you were far apart from each other.

you reach the location of the stormtrooper sighting, but see no one. you look confused, scanning the area. the further you walk into the clearing, the more uneasy you get. it's way too quiet.

"i'm surprised to see you alive, bodyguard."

you freeze for a moment, instantly recognizing the mechanical voice. you turn, the second sister standing several feet away. you pull out the electro riot baton, taking a stance. you always dreamed of revenge, but you never thought you'd get the chance.

"i'm full of surprises, as you can see."

"yes. i expected the jedi, though i don't mind finishing you off before him."

"i won't let you touch him." the baton sparks to life, earning a chuckle out of the inquisitor.

"foolish until the very end. i only wish i could see his face when i strike you down. the expression he made on bracca was most satisfying." her lightsaber flares to life, emitting a familiar red hue. you grip your baton tightly.

"leave him out of this." you spit darkly, surprising the second sister. she smirks under her mask, circling you.

"ah... i understand now." her voice drips with hostility. "you love him. you're willing to give your life for him. tell me, does he feel the same for you? are you his weakness?"

she strikes quickly, but you block her attack with the hilt of the baton. you push her backward, watching as she doesn't even stumble. she's quick on her feet.

"don't you know the jedi code forbids love? it's a weakness to them." she's taunting you, trying to get under your skin. there's a pang in your chest from hearing the information, but you don't let it show. she strikes again, you deflect her once more.

"so what? even if we can never be together, i will stay by his side to protect him. my love for him is selfless. it's something you wouldn't understand!" this time you charge at her, aiming for her legs with the baton. she's quick to react, stepping to the side and grazing your shoulder with her lightsaber. you grunt, feeling the sting. you don't let it affect you, you've felt much worse.

she laughs, something that makes you uneasy in the pit of your stomach. she continues to attack, while you deflect and block as much as you can. it's hard to land a hit on her, and you're slowly losing energy.

cal makes it to the surveillance room easily, making quick work of the wiring and signals that rerouted the footage to the empire. once he finishes up, he looks at the cameras to see various partisans winning in several places.

"bee woo!!" bd nearly screams, directing his attention to a specific screen. cal looks, his heart dropping. he sees you fighting with the second sister, fear rushing through him. you're not properly equipped to defeat her, he panics. he's terrified of what could happen.

"hang on, y/n! i'm on my way!" he announces to no one in particular, quickly running off in your direction.

your stamina is low, you're barely keeping up with the inquisitor. she's relentless, determined to defeat you. she's getting too cocky, creating an opening for you to exploit. you take advantage, quickly swinging the baton to make contact with her waist. the shock is enough to stun her long enough for you to whip out your blaster and aim for her. it grazes her forearm, a groan emitting from her. before she can retaliate, you're both distracted by an incoming imperial ship. the ship hovers above the ground, ramp coming down with the door open. it's another inquisitor you've never seen before.

"second sister! our presence is needed elsewhere!" they call to her.

"can't you see i'm busy?!" she growls, motioning towards you. the other inquisitor looks at you, then scoffs.

"they're not worth the energy! this is urgent!"

the second sister looks at you for a moment, then bows towards you.

"you will not be so lucky next time." she makes haste towards the ship, hopping on the ramp and entering through the door. the moment the door closes and the ramp retracts, you collapse on your knees, holding your shoulder. you're exhausted, feeling the dull throbbing of the small injury.

cal is almost to you, but the anxiety is overwhelming once an imperial ship is seen flying away. he runs as fast as he can, legs feeling like jelly. he reaches the clearing, seeing you on your knees and hunched over.

"no..." he panics, still running. "bd! go check on them!" as soon as the words leave his mouth, the droid darts off in your direction, reaching you quicker than cal. you notice the beeping, looking up to see bd-1 in front of you.

"hey, little guy." you smile while bd scans you. he sees your injury, popping a stim up from the top of his head. you take it, injecting it into your wound. you sigh with relief, instantly feeling the throbbing go away. "thank you."

bd trills happily while you stand. you turn to see cal, who's slowing down his pace to a jog. he's glad to see you're okay, his heart beating faster.

"hey-" you barely finish your greeting, cal grabbing you by the collar of your shirt and kissing you roughly. you're surprised, you didn't take cal as someone who'd pull you in like that. though caught off guard, you quickly wrap one arm around his waist, your other hand cradling the back of his neck as you press your lips against his.

the roughness of the kiss fades quickly, turning into something slow and passionate. lips lock together, moving perfectly in sync. his hand leaves your shirt, both hands now resting on your waist as he pulls you flush to him. you gasp into the kiss, cal quickly taking advantage of parted lips to slide his tongue in. you groan softly, now holding him closer as your tongues graze against each other. soft grunts leave him as you gently bite on his lower lip. you two stay interlocked until your lungs burn for air.

pulling away, he rests his forehead against yours. both of your lips are swollen and wet, chests heaving from the lack of oxygen. he places another kiss on your lips, gentle and innocent. you kiss him back, feeling your heart swell with love. you smile at him, and he smiles at you while looking into your eyes. he loves you, he can't imagine being without you ever again. he wants each and every part of you, regardless of what others have to say.

"i'm glad you're okay." his voice is soft, brushing his fingers across your cheek. he looks at you with such adoration, it makes your face flush.

"i'm glad you are too."

the night begins with a celebration, partisans happy to have a small amount of casualties and no deaths. your arm is wrapped up, slathered in bacta gel. blane said you would be fine in a couple days, as it was a small injury. you and cal watch from afar as partisans and wookiees dance and drink together, a bonfire roaring at the center of the party. you two hold hands, finally taking a moment to yourselves. bd-1 is entertaining the wookiees, cere is chatting with saw while greez cracks bad jokes with some partisans who find them hilarious.

"follow me, i want to show you something." you tug cal's hand lightly, leading him to a quiet part of the forest. it's teeming with wildlife, sounds of nature ringing throughout. you stop in front of some vines, holding your hands out to present it. "ta da!"

needless to say, cal is confused on why you've stopped in front of a wall.

"those are vines..?" he teases, tilting his head slightly. you nod excitedly.

"watch closely!"

you pull away the curtain of greenery, revealing a cave that had been redecorated to a hideout. there were several blankets on the ground for padding, a couple of very large pillows, and lights strung up around the walls. it looks very much slept in, a place you came to whenever you had a bad night-- which was nearly every night without cal.

"this is amazing..." he exclaims, walking in. you follow after him, the vines closing behind you. you take a seat onto the padded floor, motioning him to join you. he crouches down, sitting next to you.

"i found this within the first couple of weeks i got here. i didn't feel comfortable sharing a room with the other partisans at first, so i slept here for a long time. once i was more familiar with them, i only slept here when i had nightmares, or when i really missed you.." you trail off, eyes looking at your poncho from bracca. there's a hole burnt where your abdomen would be. cal follows your gaze, guilt rushing over him.

"...i should have just grabbed you and ran. i felt like i abandoned you when the mantis flew away. i beat myself up for months, i still do--"

"cal."

he looks at you, your voice calm and unwavering.

"what happened was not your fault. i don't hold any anger or resentment towards you for that day. my only regret is not following you immediately." your voice is so sincere, it catches cal off guard. his hands tremble, pulling you onto his lap. you straddle him, one leg on each side. you wrap your arms around his neck while his hands rest on your waist.

"i love you, y/n. i think i always have, i just wish i had told you sooner." his voice is gentle, gazing at you lovingly. you smile, leaning down to close the space between the two of you.

"i love you too, cal kestis. i always will." you finish by pressing your lips against his, cal immediately returning the kiss. it's gentle, loving. your heart feels like it could burst any moment, your fingers finding your way into his hair. he groans quietly, pulling you further into his lap by your waist. this creates friction against your groin, causing you to moan softly.

once he hears you moan, cal pulls away to look you in the eyes. there's a new fire in them, something primal. your cheeks burn red seeing him like this, not that you haven't imagined it before. he looks down to your lips, then back up at you as if asking for permission. you respond by kissing him again, rougher this time.

it's just what he wants, groaning against your lips as he carefully flips you over onto your back. he hovers above you, not breaking the kiss. you can already feel the tension rising in you, soft moans leaving your lips as one of cal's hands trail under your shirt. there's something eating at you though, something the second sister brought up during your altercation. you pull away from him, looking away shyly.

"what is it, starlight?" he asks, fingers under your chin to pull your face towards his.

"is it... really against jedi code to love someone?" you ask, sounding dejected. if that was the case, you and cal would never be able to be together-- not how you two wanted to be. cal sighs, forehead resting against yours.

"...yes."

your heart sinks, eyes cast downward.

"but... i think some rules are meant to be broken." he captures your attention again, making eye contact. you've never felt so special, so important. he was willing to risk it all for you-- you smile gently.

"i love you." you tell him again, brushing a strand of hair away from his face. he chuckles, leaning down again.

"let me show you how much you mean to me." his voice almost in a whisper, capturing your lips with his own again. you pull him close, craving his touch. his hand makes its way under your shirt again, fingers grazing against your scar. he pulls away, positioning himself so his face was level with your stomach. he lifts your shirt up enough to expose your scar.

before you can comment on it, he kisses it gently. your entire face feels hot, turning red from his gesture. he kisses further up your body, you help out by removing your shirt. it's cal's turn to blush at your exposed chest, drinking in the sight of you.

"have i ever mentioned how beautiful you are?" he breathes out, hands on your waist as he kisses on and around your chest.

"once or twice." you tease, gasping softly at the feeling of his lips against your skin. your hands find the hem of his own shirt, tugging on the fabric. "it's not fair if i'm the only one topless, you know."

he chuckles, raising his arms so you can discard his top. "i guess you're right."

you adore the man before you, body littered in healed scars. your fingers trail down his chest, causing him to shiver. "you're gorgeous, cal." you compliment, pulling him down toward you so you can feel his skin against your own.

you two kiss again, taking it slow as you begin to feel each other up. this is new territory for the both of you, wanting to take time to learn each other's bodies and find out what feels good and what doesn't. cal begins to unbutton your pants, making just enough room to slide his hand down and into your underwear. you blush fiercely, unable to contain the moan that escapes your lips. he breaks the kiss, watching your reactions.

"is this okay..?" he asks before going any further. you nod, giving him the green light. his eyes don't leave yours, you gaze into them as a finger dips between your folds. you gasp loudly, hips bucking unintentionally. he chuckles, sensing your excitement. he can feel how wet you are already.

"is this really how i make you feel?" he questions with amazement, repositioning himself further down as he completely removes your pants and underwear. he spreads your legs slowly, gasping at the sight of you. you're suddenly shy, looking away from him.

"y-yeah..." you barely manage to reply, a guttural moan escaping as cal uses his tongue on you. your hands find their way into his hair, gripping it as you try to keep from bucking into his face. he loves your reaction, his lips closing around your clit as he begins to suck on the bundle of nerves. pleasure quickly washes over you as you moan out his name, praising him.

"fuck, cal... that feels amazing..!" you moan, encouraging him further. his confidence grows, inserting a finger inside of you again. you tug on his hair, making him moan against you. the sound of his moan only turns you on further, face flushed. he takes his time, using his tongue skillfully while he pumps his finger inside you. you can feel yourself on the edge of orgasm, gripping his hair tighter.

"c-cal...!" you barely manage, unmistakeable sounds of pleasure escaping. he stops, looking up at you with jade eyes. his lips are wet with your slick, seeing him like that makes you attracted to him more than you already were. he licks his lips, then his finger.

"you taste good." his voice is husky, low with seduction. he discards his own pants and underwear, leaving you both naked. you both take a moment to look at each other, vulnerable and in love. a thin layer of sweat coats the both of you, hair tousled from previous activities. he smiles at you, kissing your forehead.

"...are you comfortable with this? is this what you want?" he asks, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. you cup his cheek, smiling at him.

"yes. you're what i want, and i want you forever, if you'll have me." your touch along his jawline is gentle, bringing him in for a quick kiss. he smiles, nuzzling your face for a moment.

"you're all i've ever wanted, and more."

he adjusts himself between your legs, the tip of his shaft pressed against your entrance. he looks up at you, you nod in response to his silent question. he slowly pushes himself inside of you, both of you groaning loudly. your walls are tight around his dick, and he fills you up satisfyingly. you both don't move for a few minutes, adjusting to the feeling. you quietly ask him to move, and he pulls out slightly, only to thrust back into you. his moan is loud, primal. you can see something in him take over as he firmly grabs your hips and picks up the pace.

"ah, feels good... so good...!" you manage to say between moans, moving your hips in time with his. you've imagined what this moment with him might be like, but it's better than anything you could have ever dreamed of. the feeling of him thrusting in and out of you is erotic, feeling a pleasurable burn as he stretches you out.

"fuck... you feel amazing..." he groans under his breath, resting his head against your shoulder as his nails dig into your waist. the sound of him fucking you echos throughout the cave, only fueling his fire. he's wanted you like this for so long, and the fact that it's actually happening is something he's not completely over. feeling your hips slam against him as he thrusts into is more than he can take.

"look at me." he commands, moving his head to where he can look at you directly. you obey, locking eyes with him as he fucks you. the faces you're making are gorgeous, and the way he's looking at you is more than you can handle.

"i... i-i love you..!" you exclaim as he thrusts into you faster and deeper, feeling your orgasm build up once more. he smirks, taking your chin with his fingertips while brushing over your lips with his thumb.

"i love you, too." his lips crash onto yours as his pace becomes erratic. he's close to release, his vision becoming hazy from the pleasure. you two moan wantonly into each other's mouths, on the edge of release.

"i'm gonna cum... fuck..." he mumbles against your lips, hips stuttering. you drag your nails down his back, leaving trails of red down pale skin.

"me too... don't stop..." you whine, one arm around his shoulder while your other hand tangles itself in his hair. he obliges, pounding into you roughly. you call out his name loudly, your orgasm rushing through you in powerful waves. you swear your vision goes white from the sheer pleasure, your body trembling. cal isn't far behind you as he cums inside of you, his own orgasm causing him to groan out your name. you ride through your orgasms together, thrusts becoming lazy and slow. he kisses along your collarbone, then up your jawline and to your lips. your chest heaves, exhausted. he pulls out of you, both parties feeling extremely satisfied. cal looks at you with gentle eyes.

"i want you to be my partner, y/n. now and forever." he brushes his fingers against your cheek, you lean into his touch.

"are you proposing to me right now?" you tease, adoring the freckles that were littered across his face.

"not yet, but in the future i will." he chuckles, bringing your hand to his lips to kiss your knuckles.

"well, i'll say yes to being your partner... and to the future proposal." you giggle, cheeks turning red. cal laughs along with you, he hasn't felt so complete in such a long time. you were a piece he was missing for so long, as he was a piece of you. you two completed two halves of a whole, an unforgettable bond. you fall asleep in each other's arms, both of you finally getting a deep, restful sleep.

in the morning you say goodbye to the partisans. they're sad to see you go, but they know your place is with cal. cere and greez accept you quickly, especially since cal has become a whole new person to them. he smiles more, is playful, and dedicated to the mission ahead of him. when the mantis lands on zeffo, you walk out of the ship hand in hand. bd rests on cal's shoulder, ready for the exciting adventures ahead with his two companions.

"ready, starlight?" cal asks, smiling brightly. you return the smile, squeezing his hand in yours.

"take me away, star boy."

#cal kestis #cal kestis x reader #cal x reader #swjfo #jfo fic #jfo fanfiction #unforgettable #works

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grandninjamasterren · 4 years

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The first sight was a surprise and a suppressed half forgotten memory bubbling to the surface. A merry laugh and a dash, “See you later!”

The lightsaber in his hands, slightly too big for him, but he’s grinning. “Look, Caleb! Isn’t Master Tapal’s lightsaber so cool‽”

A wry smile prefaces a bad idea and he could almost feel the ache of his hand from writing lines. ‘I will not steal cookies from the dining hall before dinner’

“It was his idea!” they both shout.

Whenever Kanan turned around, he half expected to see a shock of red hair slipping into the vents. “I double dare you to drop a water balloon on Master Windu.”

The laughter over the comms and he almost flinched to hear the name that tumbled from the boy’s lips. “Come on, Caleb! Let’s put the Seppies back in their place!”

He smiles, more of a smirk really, bitter and hopeful in one and the boy smiles back, sunlight glinting off his red black hair.

And Kanan forces himself to dwell on differences. A bittersweet smile, mentions of his parents, ‘By the light of Lothal’s moons’. The difference between brother and son, between friend and padawan, between the dead and the living.

Kanan Jarrus was not Caleb Dume.

And Ezra Bridger is not Cal Kestis.

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redvalkyriineedsfoodbadly · 4 years

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"He likes it when you get angry, when you close in for the kill, even when you look at him with fear in your eyes. Those things have become familiar and expected. This though, he doesn't know what to do with this and it shows in his quizzical expression. He looks utterly lost and the unfamiliar sensation is perplexing."

#jfo #star wars #swjfo #Jedi: Fallen Order #Fallen Order #cal ketsis #inquisitor cal #calquisitor #inquisical #cal valeska #My fic #always red #inquisitor cal x jedi reader

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reality-warp · 4 years

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Remedial Biomancy - Part 2/5 Cal

“It’s not working, kid.”

“Give it a second.”

“Come on, don’t you think they’d have changed them by now?”

Cal was about to toss another come back from where he was sprawled on his back under the comms panel, but the distraction of exchanging barbs with Greez made his finger slip on the wires he was connecting. A small shower of sparks exploded from the circuits, almost singing his eyebrows off. He swore, the stolen Imperial de-scrambler he was trying to install almost slipping clean out of his hands.

“Let him focus, Greez,” Cere chided, but Cal could hear her amused smile even if he couldn’t see it. Greez grumbled in reply, much like he’d been doing for the past half hour.

“I’m just sayin’. Those codes have been in circulation for over two months. What are the chances they’re still good?”

“The last ones we used worked well enough,” Merrin chipped in, sounding both baffled and faintly amused by Greez’s worry. She was sat on the floor beside Cal’s legs with BD-1 at her side, handing him the tools he needed as he worked.

“The last ones we used were only to intercept medical supplies,” Greez gripped back, jerking a thumb over one shoulder at the stacks of empty crates crowding the lounge. There was barely enough space to get through to the galley from the cockpit. “And assuming they aren’t bogus and lead the Empire straight to us, why is all this tinkering with my ship necessary?"

“Because these ones are supposed to be much higher level, the kind only the Admirals and Inquisitors can use. Even with the right codes to receive the transmissions, you need an Imperial de-scrambler to decode the messages as they come in,” Cere explained patiently.

“Otherwise, you get nothing but this,” Cal added, tapping the underside of the comms station with a screwdriver for emphasis. For the past five minutes it had been giving off nothing but a grating static noise like a badly tuned radio, and it was beginning to get on all their nerves.

BD-1 gave a trill of questioning bleeps, and Cal could see the frown appearing on Merrin’s face without seeing to look.

“What is he saying? Something about attack plans?” The former Nightsister was still learning Binary, and some of the droids lightning-fast chatter still went over her head.

“He’s asking why we don’t give the codes and de-scrambler directly to the Rebellion so they can use it for attack plans,” Cal translated for her, holding the soldering iron in his teeth for a second as he let the two wires cool and fuse together.

Merrin made a noise of comprehension and shifted to look at Cere.

“It is a fair question.”

Cere exhaled as if just thinking of the question was exhausting.

“We could. But if these codes got into someone like Saw Gerrera's hands, he’d just use them to strike at their weapons factories, their shipyards. Not free civilians, slaves, or use them to get supplies to starving cities who’ve been blockaded.”

Difficult as it was for him to wrestle with sometimes, Cal had already had this discussion with Cere when he’d found/stolen the de-scrambler from an imperial camp, and he knew what she was saying made sense. For the past month the crew of the Mantis had taken up something of a smuggling role within the Rebellion, and they’d been almost frighteningly effective at it. Several of the rebel leaders who’d met Cal had wanted him to fight alongside them in their ongoing skirmishes, but none of them could deny that their people needed food and supplies far more right now than they needed a single recently knighted Jedi—even one capable of as much as he apparently was.

They were just better suited to supporting than frontline fighting, and as much as Greez hated to admit it, the Mantis was turning out to be the perfect emergency supply runner. The small luxury yacht’s paint job had changed enough times to make it difficult to recognise and was just flashy enough that anyone who didn’t know her reputation would never guess she was carrying an ex-Jedi, a former Padawan, a Nightsister of Dathomir, and a Latero gambler who was still wanted by the Haxion Brood — let alone stolen cargo.

Merrin was quiet for a brief moment, then she made a small noise of understanding.

“I think I see. You’re saying if your Rebellion uses this information for grand battle plans, and the Empire finds out they have access to their high-level communications…

“We’ll all lose a massive tactical advantage, yeah,” Cal finished for her from under the comms panel. Cere made a soft sound of regretful agreement.

“We can share the information we gather with the Rebellion, help them get an advantage. But we can do a lot more ongoing good with this in smaller ways than grand attacks and battles.”

Greez made a sputtering noise.

“What so we’re heroes now? Saving the Galaxy on our lonesome, one yacht full of food crates at a time?”

“Better that than we knowingly leave a blockaded colony to starve,” Cal said, his thoughts coming out through his mouth on pure instinct. He couldn’t see her, but he could feel the approval radiating from Cere at those words. Greez scoffed, slapping the armrest of his chair lightly.

“Come on, kid. Even if you’re right, and even with all their bureaucratic red tape holding the Imps back, there’s just no way they’re gonna fall for the stolen-clearance-codes gambit a second ti—.”

Cal connected the last wire to the de-scrambler, and the mess of static coming through the comms instantly cleared out to the crisp, clear sound of Binary. BD-1 made a series of celebratory chirps as Cal shimmied out from under the comms panel to throw Greez a cheerful smirk.

“What did I tell you?”

Greez tisked and waved him off with two of his four hands.

“Alright, alright, no one likes a wiseass, kid."

Cere waved at them all to be quiet as she listened to the incoming transmission, running the lightning-fast Binary through a translator and reading the results as they appeared on the screen. Cal sensed the change in her before he saw the expression on her face shift from focused, to confused, to outright worried.

“What is it?” He asked instantly, clambering up off the floor. “Another outbound shipment?”

“Of a sort,” Cere admitted, looking suddenly even more uneasy as she kept reading. There wasn’t much that spooked Cere these days, not since everything they’d been through on Nur. The look instantly set Cal’s instincts on edge.

“More supplies?” He guessed hopefully.

“Food?” Merrin offered.

“Credits?” Greez sounded maybe a bit more hopeful than he should have. Cere gave their pilot an exasperated look and shook her head.

“None. It’s a formal transmission from the Lothal mining operation directly to the Inquisitorius.”

All of them blinked in shock at that. It had only been a few months since Cal and Cere had effectively blown up, flooded, and sank the last Inquisitors headquarters, and while they’d know that wouldn’t be the end of the operation, Cal hadn’t expected them to recover quite so quickly.

But that wasn’t the main reason he could feel ice forming in his blood…

“Why is a Lothal mining settlement calling the Inquisitorius?” He heard himself ask, not sure if he was ready to hear the answer. Cere grimaced.

“They’re sending a Purge Trooper squad to the settlement hospital. The Head Medic there has personally requested an investigation of his staff,” she answered, glancing up at him from the screen with a grim look. “He believes there’s a Force-sensitive in hiding out there.”

The longing Cal had been trying to suppress for the past five years reared its head inside him, trying to shove its way to the surface. He gently but firmly pushed it down, refusing to let that hope overpower his judgement again, no matter how much he wanted to believe it could be true. That there might really be other survivors like him and Cere out there…

“Does it say who this Head Medic thinks it is? Or why?” Merrin asked, peering curiously at the console over Cere’s shoulder.

BD-1 buzzed and bleeped excitedly from where he’d hopped up on the back of Cere’s chair, not needing the translator to understand the rapid-fire message.

“One of the junior medics. He thinks it’s either a human man called Lyle Tavian or a haedrathi woman called Rinna D’Lai,” Cal easily translated the little droids Binary into Basic. “The Head Medic thinks one of them used the Force to heal a dying kid.”

“It’s the woman,” Cere said without a traced of hesitation, her tone gone stony. They all eyed her warily.

“How do you know?” Merrin asked.

Cere exhaled headily, muting the message and turning to face them properly, her expression still grim.

“Because I recognise that last name. Rinna D’Lai was haedrathi nurse I met a couple of years after the Purge. She helped hide me from the Empire.”

Cal felt a sudden, unexpected stab of pain deep in his chest.

He’d only ever known one other haedrathi.

She’d been a healer too, or at least training to be one. She’d also been his best friend when they’d been younglings growing up in the Temple. He hadn’t thought of her in a long time, still couldn’t bear to think her name. And much as he’d once hoped of one day finding her alive out there along with survivors from the Jedi Council, he’d spent the past few years slowly coming to painful terms with the fact that it would never happen.

She was gone, just like everyone else in the Order.

Still, the sudden memory of their last conversation was a sharp, familiar ache that hadn’t lessened even after five years. One he didn’t need right now. So he pushed it away, promising that someday soon he’d deal with the grief for his old friend the same way he’d dealt with his guilt for Master Tapal’s death.

“She was one of the people who helped hide me after my escape from the Inquisitorius,” Cere was explaining. “I have little doubt she’s the one they’re after.”

“If she is a friend of yours, then we should find her,” Merrin said when no one else medially spoke up. She stood and nudged gently past Cal who’d gone quiet for a moment with the sudden stab of memories, bringing up the holo-map of the sector on the navigation console. Merrin had been practically glued to it since he’d first showed her how it worked a few weeks ago, spending hours soaking in all the information she could about how truly massive the Galaxy really was beyond Dathomir.

“Lothal is not far from our current location,” she said, magnifying and highlighting the distance through the nearest hyperspace lanes. “Six hours away.”

Cal pulled himself back to the present with an effort of will and turned to look at Cere again.

“She’s right. If we head there now we could get there before the Purge Troopers do.”

Cere opened her mouth to answer, but Greez—ever the voice of self-preserving caution—got there first.

“Come on, seriously? I thought you just said we’d be using these codes for supply running? Now we’re thinking of launching a full-on rescue mission from Purge Troopers?”

Cal shrugged, his lip turning up with a lopsided smirk.

“It’s not like it would be the craziest thing we’ve done. It’s not even the craziest thing we’ve done this month.”

Greez gave him a halfhearted glare.

“That is not reassuring.”

“Regardless,” Cere interrupted them, the frown still not falling from her face. She leaned forward on her knees, glancing around at them all meaningfully. “There’s just one problem in all this. The real Rinna D’Lai I knew is dead, and she has been dead for over four years.”

This time all of them stopped to just stare at her blankly, including BD-1.

“Ok, someone want to explain? Because I’m totally lost now,” Greez grumbled, throwing up all four of his hands.

“I am also somewhat confused,” Merrin agreed, her brow pinched in a frown.

“Rinna D’Lai died four years ago on Felucia. Or at least the one I knew did,” Cere explained. “She was killed in a transport crash between stations. I saw her ship go down, and there were absolutely no survivors.”

“Maybe someone with the same name?” Greez suggested, but Cere was already shaking her head.

“I don’t think so. Haedrathi are uncommon outside their home system to begin with, and their naming conventions are very strict. No two ever have the same at a time. Whoever is down there, it’s not the same woman I knew.”

Cal saw what she was getting at.

“You think someone stole her identity and is using it to hide from the Empire,” he said, not making it a question.

That certainly explained the expression on Cere’s face, lost somewhere between suspicion, sadness and anger. She didn’t answer for a long moment, clearly reliving a memory from long ago. She only looked up again when Cal reached over and rested a hand on her shoulder.

“Cere, it could still be someone who needs our help,” he pointed out, trying to think this through rationally, but unable to deny how badly he hoped it was someone else like them down there. “And if the Inquisitors are being sent after her, she’s definitely in danger even if she doesn’t turn out to be a Force-sensitive. We should at least try and help.”

Cere considered this for only a moment before nodding and getting up from her chair.

“Agreed. The Rinna I knew was no Force adept, but there’s a good chance whoever is using her name now might well be. And I’d very much like to know who they are, and why they’re using my dead friend’s identity.”

“Hold on, hold on, just one second,” Greez mimed pull on the brakes with two hands while holding up the other two in a stop gesture. “Assuming you’re right about all this, and there is a Force-sensitive damsel in distress or something hiding out down there. How are we supposed to get in and out of an Imperial settlement hospital with a potential fugitive completely unnoticed?”

The question hung in the air or a painfully long second as they all glanced at each other, clearly hoping someone else had a plan.

No one did.

But then Cal’s gaze suddenly caught on the stacks of empty medical supply crates cluttering up the living area—the ones from their last delivery for Mari on Kashyyyk.

That lopsided smirk reappeared as he turned back to face Cere.

“I’ve got an idea.”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

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hillysstyx · 4 years

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Summary: Six chapters, six stories, six meetings or adventures of the crew members of the Mantis – before the Mantis.

Chapter 1: BD-1 & Eno

A sweet and fluffy story about the friendship between BD-1 and Eno Cordova. Because BD-1 is the cutest of all Star Wars droids and he deserves it!

#star wars jedi: fallen order #swjfo #prequel fic #bd-1 #eno cordova

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rizzospurpleberrypunch · 4 years

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Swjfo has a great storyline and follows a lot of themes i used to put into fanfic after the prequels ended. didn't save any of that fic, but man if this game isn't making me itch to write some new stuff

I'm especially glad they addressed the risk they're putting these kids at, and questioning the purpose and morality of the jedi order altogether. as a religious person, this game does a good job of putting their beliefs into perspective and showing cal grow from his damaged spirituality as a kid to a confident young man who has support. it's just a satisfying story even if some parts are a bit predictable

#swjfo #sw jfo #sw jedi fallen order spoilers #sw jfo spoilers #swjfo spoilers #jedi fallen order #sw jedi fallen order #cal kestis #cere junda #star wars video games #star wars games #star wars jedi fallen order

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rnortalitasi · 4 years

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give me the strength to write all of the swjfo fic ideas i have while the fandom is still active instead of waiting three years to do literally anything fandom related

#fallen order #star wars jedi: fallen order

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capricornus-rex · 2 years

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A Shadow of What You Used to Be (18)

Chapter 18: Truce | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Requested by Anon

Summary: There is another! Yearsafter young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a secondchild—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

A/N: Hello guys, I’m sorry if I’ve become so inactive last year. The slump was one thing, but more and more things kept piling on my shoulders that it’s becoming more difficult to bear. I lost my grandmother last year. My only comfort was that I was able to take care of her and spend time with her. For a while, I lost my energy to write at the time; and now that it’s the new year, I’m picking up my old habits again. I hope you guys have had a great Christmas and I wish you guys a wonderful 2022. ❤ As for me, I’m okay and I will be.

Requesting to be tagged:@heavenly1927

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3– 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 16 | Previous: Part 17 | Next: Part 19 | Masterlist

19 of ?

Their screams echoed in the ice, but no one to hear it but themselves as they wind got colder and heavier. Cal managed to snatch a stray cable on one hand—apparent scraps from the excavation—and used to Force to shrink the minute inches that separated him from Irele’s arm.

That ultimately saved them from a bone-crushing demise, along with a few bumps of frozen outcropping delaying their fall, they may not know it but they’re a few feet away from the ground. With her free hand, Irele fished out her torch to flash on whatever’s below her feet. Without telling Cal at all, she pried Cal’s hand open so she can free herself and free herself she did, while warranting an abrupt “Hey!” from her apparent savior; she fell for a few feet but safely landed in a cat-like manner.

“D’aw come on!” Cal groaned through his teeth. He peeked down and decided to follow. He wasn’t sure whether to trust the Force, his instincts, or the mere fact that Irele had touched the ground nearly unscathed. He contemplated for a second before unfolding his swelling fingers clasped on the frozen, brittle cable.

When Cal straightened his back, he found it odd to discover that Irele has her saber in its sheath. She has her back turned to him, and so he examined her secretly while she examined the cave they’re in.

“Well, I guess we have to find our way out of here,” Cal awkwardly breaks the silence, but he wasn’t rewarded with the answer that he expected.

“Look over there, several openings—they must lead up to a tunnel network,”

He wholeheartedly startled by how agreeable she was. Irele quickly spun to face him and he jumped at the sudden confrontation.

“Listen, I don’t know about you but I don’t plan on dying of hypothermia while hundreds—if not thousands—of feet below the surface. So for now, as much as I wanna preserve my pride which I don’t have the luxury of, we…” she choked at the very idea of the word. She clears her throat, “We’ll have a truce. And that expires once we’re back on the ground, then we’ll go back hating and trying to kill each other.”

Out of habit, Irele uttered the word “Understand?” in Huttese—her second native tongue—to which Cal was taken aback by. He just nervously nodded, pretending to have understood the last word. She didn’t wait for Cal to say anything more, she expected that he complies because realistically speaking, there’s no other option.

She shuddered at the thought of what Second Sister or any of the Inquisitors would say once they find out she went in connivance with a Jedi just to get out of a cave. Scandalous!

Like a whisper, BD-1 nudged Cal’s jaw and flashed a dynamic map of the cave’s subterranean level. Two yellow blips indicate himself and Irele, surrounded my raised mounds of blue holographic light signifying the dead ends, the rock and ice formations, and open paths.

“Listen, umm…” Cal tries to call her attention while she was busy contemplating which path to go through.

“Irele.”

“What?”

“My name is Irele. You hesitated because you didn’t know what to call me, is that it?”

“Y-Yeah, you’re right, uhh…” he redirected his attention to the map. “T-Take a look at this.”

She approached him with such an assertiveness just by the way she walked; he guesses that she’s lived a life of entitlement, privilege, and power. She was standing by the opposite side of the map, the blue light highlighting the brown tinge in her hair, the yellow blips dotting her eyes like stars against a moonless sky.

“BD-1 managed to take a perimeter scan of this part of the cave we’re standing and its closest proximity which is just about a mile and a half. Would’ve been two miles if we were closer to the surface for a better signal.”

“Oh, so we do have the luxury of going back if we took a wrong turn,” Irele chirped. Then she hovered her finger over one of the paths. “We can start here, this pocket right here looks promising; if not, then we either turn around or head straight.”

“Okay then, I’ll roll with that,”

“Ah-ah, you take the lead,”

Cal caught on quite quickly, “How would I know you wouldn’t stab me in the back?”

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” she inhaled, immediately regretting it as the cold air froze her throat. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you a proper Jedi’s death instead of leaving you out to freeze.”

“Should I be comforted by that?” His brows furrowed.

“It’s the best I can do, buddy,” she shrugged.

He sighed and did take the lead. When he got a considerable distance from Irele, he whispered to BD-1, “You got my back, right, little bud?”

“Woo!” BD-1 whistled quietly.

–

Normally, Stormtroopers take ten to fifteen minutes only to write a status report; but with Irele involved and having been into an accident, they exceeded the deadline; going over the same paragraph mentioning the young Sith in command, debating whether it’s presumptuous, exaggerated, or understated.

“Hey,” uttered the girl, the boy turned around to acknowledge. And she continued. “Why did you help me back up there?”

He could not answer. As a matter of fact, he can’t pinpoint the exact reason why. Irele watches him trip over his words as he makes up an answer, she continued to stare at his shifting eyes.

She internalizes, “Oh, so that’s the Jedi’s compassion in action. Cute.”

“Don’t hurt yourself thinking of a good answer… if there isn’t any to begin with.”

“You could’ve killed me the moment I landed down here,” he suggested.

Irele clicked her tongue against her teeth and rolled her eyes around the subterranean space they’re in, trying to avoid the topic in earnest.

She squinted her eyes at him and slightly nodded, “I don’t like fighting in the cold.”

Cal gulped. He studied her as she came up with a plan to escape the cave and return to the surface.

“What are you exactly?”

Her head swung to the side to look at him in disbelief, “Are you kidding me?”

“N-No! That’s not what I meant! I mean… I know you’re human, but… So far, you’re the—”

“The what?”

“The most… docile Sith I’ve encountered,” it would appear that Cal did his best to come up with an adjective for Irele. The last time he met a Sith, she clung onto the windshield of the Mantis and attempted to steal control of the wheel using the Force. “You could take that as a compliment.”

“Thanks? I guess,”

Back in the Mantis, Cere frantically shoots back and forth on the computer terminal, hoping for Cal’s comm signal to bite—but to no avail.

“Cal? Cal, do you copy!?” Cere shouted through the microphone. After a minute of static, she gave up and took his seat next to Greez. “Nothing!”

“Look, I know it looks bad, but he’s a big kid. He can handle himself!” consoled Greez, but clearly that wasn’t enough to stroke the older woman’s nerves.

“Something doesn’t feel right, Cap, I feel like he’s encountered something… like a paradox,”

Greez admits to not being the most knowledgeable when it comes to Jedi beliefs, but with his practical living, he shares his own inkling that whatever it may be—he’s sure that Cal can handle it.

Meanwhile, Trilla has caught wind that Irele had been entangled with a Jedi, fell into a chasm when a Jotaz pounded the ground until it crumbled, and are now in the deepest level of the caverns. The girl’s circumstance gave her a thought, but it’s a shot in a dark—a bold one at that. What ought to be most perfect situation to test Irele’s apparent immunity from Vader’s wrath is—given how it looks like right now—is a baseless claim, in Vader’s perspective, at least.

“That’s the only report you have of her?” Trilla feigned concern for a comrade and the Stormtroopers did not see through it.

“Yes, Second Sister. Unfortunately, the search party is having difficulty in navigating the unpredictable terrain. We have no record of the underground levels of this area, so there’s lots of unexpected twists and turns,”

“For all we know, she could be in the other side of the region,” the trooper’s seatmate interjected, half-jokingly. “Just a theory, though.”

They continued on their monitoring while Trilla was left out to her own thinking. She retreated to a spare room in the station where she could do some thinking, after spending what ought to be an hour of meditation, she was discouraged by the mere thought that Vader will defend the young girl and will only believe Irele’s side once asked.

Behind closed eyes, she remembered the way Irele glowered back and how her words now sounded like a warning rather than advice.

“Remember this, Trilla: the fantasy you think I have is no reality of mine.”

“No reality, my ass!” she growled and stormed out of the room.

Trilla ordered a small transport to bring her to the other excavation site, near the crashed Venator, she needn’t explain why; she only had a feeling that she will encounter one of them, but she prioritized getting the Jedi first.

The unlikely pair continued to find their way out of the caverns and back on ground level, heavily relying on BD-1’s map, they seem to traverse deeper into the complex cave system with rarely a clue if they’re any closer to their goal. For Cal, it almost reminded him of the Padawan trials back in the day.

“That turn looks promising,” he points ahead.

They come across an enclave with a narrow path that leads up; they follow that but were stopped short when they were facing a cliff-face of ice with no manageable handholds and a gap between them. Cal remembered that he had the grips from Dathomir, he jumped toward the wall with the clawed grips punched through the ice and proceeded to climb. At that moment, he was too focused on not falling that he forgot about Irele for a minute; when he was just a few punches away from the ledge, he felt a chilling breeze blow at him—causing his fists to quiver—and when he finally reached the top, Irele was sitting on the ground, legs crossed over each other, her chin resting on her palm as if she was bored, and smirked.

“You know, it’s dangerous to turn your back on me.”

“Are you gonna help me or what?”

Irele took a moment. She instantly remembers when she watched Cal examining a broken Zeffonian pot and got an inkling that he had psychometry. She has met—and killed—Jedi who share the same ability, or something similar. One incident in the past made her cautious of people like Cal.

“I think you can handle this yourself,” she scoots back to give him room. Having the urge to use his showy side, he sprung off of the handhold, spun in the air and over Irele’s head and landed after her.

“Such a big help.” Cal mumbled under his breath as he dusted off his sleeves.

At the end of their new path was another large mouth of the cave; Irele hesitated to follow, curious as to why Cal was so carefree in just stepping in. The girl followed her gut feeling—it was something ominous and it’s not good for her either—as she slowed her pace on purpose, doing so quietly that Cal couldn’t hear her or feel her behind him, the boy was beginning to pick up the same thing… but he was too late.

Cal finds the Second Sister at the other end of the cave.

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darkowl-records · 4 years

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Heya JFO peeps,

I've been really really interested in the Nightsisters and how Magick works, and figuring out what a combination of Jedi Force powers and Nightsister magick would look like, so if you're interested in that I kicked things off with a Merrical fic you can find here. I plan to do more exploring Cal and Merrin creating a common force-wielding style so if you want to read or discuss, please hit me up!

#the force #force powers #dark side #jfo fanfiction #jfo #jfo spoilers #jfo fic #jfoedit #swjfo #sw #star wars jedi: fallen order #star wars fallen order #star wars

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capricornus-rex · 3 years

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A Shadow of What You Used to Be (17)

Chapter 17: An Unlikely Alliance | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Requested by Anon

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

A/N: Hi guys, I really have no excuse other than my creative slump. But as I’ve said in the previous chapters that my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. Well... just last month, I lost her. I’ve dealt with a good chunk of my grief in the past month as well; I still am, but I’m picking the pieces of what’s left of it. It’s the first time I’ve experienced the death of a close family member, so I don’t know what to do right now, I don’t know how to navigate through the sadness yet. Baby steps, I guess...

Requesting to be tagged: @heavenly1927

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 | Previous: Part 16 | Next: Part 18 | Masterlist

18 of ?

In a hurried grace, the Second Sister rushed to the nearest dormitory at her convenience. Locking herself in, she gingerly placed her comm on the floor, settled herself on her knees as she waited for the transmission to come through.

A projection appears before her, generated by the holodisk, standing at a mere twelve inches—a blatant contrast to the individual’s true height. The Castle Servant of Vader answers Second Sister’s call. There was no luxury of introductions when the Servant had come into full view.

“Tell your master that I have personally witnessed his ward, Irele, depart from our designation here in the planet of Zeffo. She had gone off-planet as soon as our common target, a Jedi by the name of Cal Kestis, managed to escape from their encounter. No word on where she fled and when she’ll be back—rather, if she has even returned to her directive.”

The Servant hummed, he didn’t speak for a second to absorb all this information. He was construing the words he’ll relay to his Master; this loyal page had a craftiness of threading his words accordingly to the situation and mood of Vader, and whatever predicament he’ll find himself with the Dark Lord, the outcome of his words remain constant.

“Be careful on how you devise your allegations, Inquisitor, for Lord Vader perceives such things into immeasurable scrutiny—especially when it comes to the girl. If what you say is true, rest assured that Vader will see into this and apply the necessary sanctions on his ward,”

His words consoled Second Sister, but he immediately killed her dream of ever winning the favor of the Sith Lord.

“I suggest you don’t celebrate your victory yet, Inquisitor. She is, after all, one of his greatest assets—if not the only one.”

Without word, the Servant cut off the transmission. The hem of his cloak swept the tile as he made haste to his master’s grand chamber. He entered a room where two crimson guards stood on each side, in the center of it all is an enormous Bacta tank filled to the brim. The cloudy liquid obscured the true figure of the one inside it, the guards and the Servant were the only ones who have ever since Vader in this state—and they were bound to never say a word about it, otherwise the sentence spells immediate execution.

The Servant immediately bowed, not keeping his eyes on the tank and stared at his warped reflection on the black tile.

“My Lord,” he addressed. “I’ve received word from one of the Inquisitors in Zeffo…”

There was a pause from both ends, and he felt the need to look up to emphasize the gravity of his news.

“It’s about the girl.”

–

“Look, BD,” Cal gasped.

The tiny droid whistled, amazed by the scale of the crashed Venator. Cal, being used to seeing these on a daily basis back in Bracca, didn’t feel the same way. Although, it intrigued it on whom it belonged to, who were the Master and Padawan tandem on that ship, and if they even survived.

On his left, he noticed what looked like a memorial fashioned like a columbarium. Empty clone helmets sat on each pigeonhole in the stone wall. Cal felt a faint trace of the Force in it, literally an echo, he knelt down and hovered his hand above one of the helmets sitting on the ground.

Blaster bolts rang in his skull, the fleeting red lights flickered behind his eyes—he almost regretted ever touching this echo.

“The villagers thought they were heroes… but they didn’t know what really happened,” Cal lamented, a quiet anger in his tone.

He reported the sighting of the crash to Cere, the woman on the other end advised caution.

A draft blew on his back, whisking a few strands of maple-red hair out of place, Cal looked over his shoulder and turned around to the opening of a cave. He decided to take that route instead. Carefully he dipped his legs into the water, he was able to wade for a few meters until eventually he had to dive in; it wasn’t a long tunnel anyway, he had reached the other end with a metal door.

“I wonder who did this first, the villagers or the Empire?” he thought out loud, his droid companion beeped to gamble a guess.

“It doesn’t look all too sturdy, and there’s rust—definitely the locals’ doing, probably a bunch of miners,”

Whatever’s on the other side of the door drew him in, he denied the curiosity growing in him to find out what’s in there. Fortunately, there was another way in, albeit the longer way around, he dared to use the ice slope until he found the heavy machinery installed within this complex ice cave system.

He landed on one of the highest areas of the caves, literally overlooking the whole operation in the caves. Elevators and massive cogs were planted in the area, Stormtroopers were stationed by the elevators while keeping at a safe distance from the local fauna dwelling behind the rocks. Cal had let his guard when he felt Irele’s presence at the last minute—say, the exact moment she ignited her sabers.

“Like the view?”

Cal’s eyes trailed on Irele from top to bottom. “I could get used to it.”

Compared to their first encounter, this one had more intensity and resolve from Irele. Their lightsabers twinkled like a collision of stars in the distance, their battle grunts drew the attention of the Stormtroopers in the lower platforms, a few wanted to take aim but immediately withdrew when they considered that they might hit Irele instead—which would instantly have them killed by her on sight once she’s finished. The girl would always find a way to pivot and evade Cal’s strikes and bring him close to her grasp.

“I’m just getting started!” Irele cackled wildly, adrenaline fueling her jump attack.

She landed the strike cleanly, with Cal barely blocking her attack at full strength—despite being taller than her—but their skirmish was quickly interrupted by rumbling. The rock shook underneath their shoes, some unwitting Stormtroopers got startled and then evolved into feeling alarmed. It was not the gargantuan machinery installed in the mountain. The two warriors froze, mid-attack, when they saw a silhouette behind that wall of impregnable ice growing with each quake.

A Jotaz tore a hole with its balled fists, sending shards of rock and ice flying. This was no ordinary, predatory fauna—it was the largest Jotaz that the Stormrtroopers have ever seen, bigger than the Rabid Jotaz. This was most likely the alpha of the colony… and the angriest.

What good will a pair of saber-staffs do to such a creature so calloused, aged, yet learned?

The small droid on Cal’s shoulder beeped so frantically that it might as well fry its wires from over-analyzing and die on the spot. Jedi and Sith had a turn on striking the animal but it just wasn’t enough; though it’s not everyday anyone spots a Sith and a Jedi teaming up to fight one enemy. Just imagine how the status report would be written out.

Albeit the lack of communication, it’s a miracle that these two synchronize their attacks so well against the Jotaz. Aside from the typical taking of turns, the faith they put to each other—even though it’s temporary—to grab one’s hand, to trust the timing, or the switching of places was uncanny and yet fascinating.

However good their strategy may be, it still could not withstand the colossal weight of a Jotaz’s fist pounding the earth. Cal has encountered one or two Jotazes, but that this one had a different way of fighting—more aggressive, its size did not hinder it thus making it move quicker and more agile.

“This is bad!” he thought out loud.

“Yeah, no shit!” huffed Irele after pivoting in the air to swing her saber on the Jotaz’s shoulder blade, barely cutting through the calloused flesh of the animal.

Eventually the animal got sick of these two children swinging and hitting it with glowing sticks. It was apparent that the great Jotaz was not using its full strength until now. The Jotaz propped itself on its two balled fists—enough a support to boost its lifted kick—and the two evaded it, but that was not the intention; then it started bashing the ground while targeting either Cal or Irele at the same time. The animal had gone berserk and started causing cracks on the rock on which they were standing. The ground shook, cracks opened up like mouths beneath their feet, and boulders were plummeting into the abyss.

Irele was standing nearer at the edge and she was on the collapsing side of the ground. Gravity betrayed her and her feet were planted to that piece of the ground…

Until Cal caught her.

“I gotcha…!” Cal reassured, albeit struggling between paying attention to the Jotaz or focusing on his grip on Irele. He panted, “Don’t worry… I gotcha!”

That one moment, they locked eyes—they’ve had eye contact once, but that was during in the middle of a fight—and there was something neither of them can explain or pinpoint. It was just a matter of mutual sympathy.

“Behind you!” Irele shrieked.

One second after Cal had turned around, the Jotaz swung a backhand at him and sent the boy—with the girl in his other hand—falling into the darkness of the cave’s depths. Into the midnight blue darkness the two of them go, debris and pebbles nicking at their faces and necks, and the bumps on their bodies would go purple by morning. If you were to peek over the edge, you’d only be greeted by pitch black darkness and fog, never to know how far that depth goes—but one thing is for sure, no mere human would ever survive that fall.

The creature’s long roar declared the two humans gotten rid of; meanwhile from the other side of the cave, were the Stormtroopers who witnessed it all, along with one Purge Trooper, from beginning to end.

When the Jotaz finally retreated, there was a debate on what and how to report it—especially to Vader himself. Whether or not they don’t send it directly to him, he will catch wind of what had happened to his ward one way or another.

Stormtroopers are going to have an absolute field day with this report.

“I wouldn’t wanna be the poor guy who’s gonna write the report about this,” one trooper sighed condescendingly to his companion.

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capricornus-rex · 4 years

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could you maybe right something with cal where the reader and cal are maybe doing repairs on a part of the mantis but the door gets stuck and the end up locked in the area for a while? and they’re both obviously in love with one another but just can’t really admit it to each other? if that makes sense lmao. you’re writing is super good btw!

Hi Anon! I’m really sorry that it took a while because I got caught up with the prior requests and my OC x Cal fic ;;;; I hope that I can make it up to you by finally writing this fic request. I hope you’ll still enjoy this story! I’M BACK TO WRITING, I SWEAR. I just enjoyed my break way more than I should ;-;

“Little Secrets That You Know That I Never Told” | Cal Kestis x Reader

Also in AO3

Tags: Subtle hints, secret crush, slightly jealous! Cal, mutual pining, bonding, warm and fuzzy feelings, fluff

Masterlist

Greez takes your hand to nestle a small pouch of credits onto your palm. It’s neither too heavy nor light, though the slightest movement warranted the metal inside to clink against one another.

“Alright, here’s the money for the parts and I’m sure you’ve got a good eye for quality!”

You bobbed your hand with the pouch to feel its weight, and then you thought out loud to Greez.

“Why don’t you come with us, Greez? Nothing bad about a little stroll, it’ll help in stretching your legs,”

“Aww no, my ship should not be out of my sight within a one-inch radius!”

“Uhh… Don’t you mean one-mile radius?”

“No, I did mean a one-inch radius!” pressed the Lateron.

Cal stepped in just when your banter with the captain has concluded. He asks you if you’re ready and you say yes. Even from a distance, you can feel the hostility from the town; in Cal’s case, it sort of reminded him of Bracca, and he sensed your uncertainty disguised as caution.

“We best be careful, Cere found a lot of Imperial signals here,” you recall.

“Then stay close to me,”

It came to Cal naturally, but when he realized what he just said, all of the color drained away from his freckled cheeks. You turned to him and he returned the gesture with a nervous side-glance that evolved into a full look; he was greeted with a small yet warm smile from you and you mouthed the word “Sure” within his earshot. Immediately, the color returned to his cheeks.

The two of you came across a shop that seemed promising, and so you enter the establishment, making your presence known by the ring of a chime that hung by the door—or lack thereof, since it was only a canvas curtain. A young man—perhaps in the same age as you and Cal—and his attention was drawn to the sound. He shifted in his seat, as he was originally facing away from the door, and vaulted over the main counter.

“Well now, what can I get for you?”

“Yeah, uh,” you fished out the compact holodisk and switched it on. “We have a list of parts. Do you happen to have these?”

The young shopkeeper leaned closer to the point that the hologram’s light pooled the entirety of his face, he makes a pensive look: chin between his fingers, squinted eyes, and a long “hmm” as he skims your list.

He clicked his tongue, “Yep, I think we have those,” then there was an awkward pause mainly on your end, so he decided to continue on. “Name’s Seff by the way.”

“Oh cool,” your lip stretched into a straight smile and you shrug your shoulders. “Could you, like… at least show us where they are, Seff?”

While you and Cal weren’t exactly there to make niceties, both of you continued to be polite to Seff. But Cal sensed something else from the boy—it was his seemingly desperate attempt to get your attention. Though he was comforted by the fact that you were uninterested in the subtlest way possible. Seff gestured the pair to the wall of wares; when you took the step ahead towards it, Cal stayed close by your side and shot Seff a sharp glance as he obscured the shopkeeper’s view of you—practically standing in the middle.

BD-1 obliged to flash his copy of the list through lens in the form of a hologram, he did this while perched on Cal’s shoulder. Meanwhile, you browsed the racks upon racks of parts. You felt a little playful and picked up a cylindrical lens shaft and held it to your eye level, the other end points to Cal—who was still busy looking for the other part on the list—when he noticed you in your little game, you finally caught a glimpse of him and his smile through the glass lens.

“Ooh, I think I spotted some treasure!” you chirped.

“Harty-har-har,” Cal cooed, barely even doing the impression of a space pirate. He carefully lowers the lens away from your eyes with his the tips of his fingers, revealing a cheery smile painted on your face.

You teasingly bit your lip to him, as if holding back a laugh, before returning the lens to the shelf. Endeared, Cal himself smiled privately as he looked rummaged through the shelves; he attempts to catch a glimpse of you, angling out his head just to get a wider view than just his periphery and caught your little smile while examining a power cell. You continued to search for the remainder of the list until the last item was ticked off.

“Do you honestly think the damage is that bad?” Cal thought out loud.

“I… I guess so. But we can only really tell once we come and look at her,”

“Ditto. But still, don’t you think these are a bit… excessive?”

That prompted you to check the list again, seeing that you’ve completed the list, you look at the haul and start to agree with Cal. The two of you exchange looks and give each other a resigned shrug of the shoulders. It didn’t take long for both of you to stay in the shop, but the whole time, you did what Cal has told you earlier—to stay close to him.

You approach the counter and paid for the parts, fishing out and counting the credits of silver and gold from the pouch that Greez handed over to you.

“Pleasure doing business with ya,” Seff bade as he swept the credits to him with his forearm.

“Thanks for the help,” you casually said, grabbed the rucksack, and then turned away.

The pair of you exited the shop and you can finally be yourself again with Cal. You slung the rucksack over your shoulder as you made your way to the ship.

“Persistent bugger, wasn’t he?” you quipped jokingly to Cal. It was your own way to relieving yourself from that rather awkward encounter, he concurred with a chuckle.

“Well, did you get all of them?” Greez greeted you from the entry ramp.

You beamed and showed off the rucksack to the Lateron, “Yup! Surprisingly, this one shop had it all. I hope you have the tools for it, though.”

“Oh sure, there’s an entire toolbox waiting for you in the engine room,”

Cal went ahead to the engine room—which was essentially his bedroom—and searched for the particular toolbox that the captain referred to. There were only a few compartments installed in the wall of the room, so it didn’t take long for the redhead to find the said toolbox.

The damage was in the room where the escape pods are, but the affected area was the auxiliary engine—which occupied an entire wall on the opposite side. The size of the auxiliary engine room was strictly enough for two people. You were in first and Cal followed behind after bringing in the tools, you were undisturbed by the hiss of the door and the clattering of the metal.

“Mind if I join in?”

“Come on, the more the merrier!” you squeaked.

You dismantle the grate covering the internals of the power hatch. You take a step back to get a full view of the damage—tendrils of gray smoke wafted out of the narrow crooks between the conduits, tiny orange sparks flew out of the dangling wires. It was an electrical mess.

“This is gonna take a while,” you groaned sardonically.

“Well, we better start then,” Cal gently bumps his fist against your shoulder and approaches the power hatch.

You set down the rucksack of parts and went one by one on which goes where. Being the expert scrapper that Cal was, he worked much quicker and handier, though that didn’t bother you—you’re just glad you weren’t the only one that’s going to tinker the Mantis until it’s completely repaired.

To keep your boredom at bay, you fished out the foldable headphones from your jacket’s inner pocket—you fix the gadget on your head, a single button on the right earpiece prompted a song to play. Even at a low volume, given the silence that hung in the room with you and Cal, he was able to hear and make out the song just by listening in on the rhythm and muffled lyrics.

“Mou houlingting gaan Sugaan Essena…”

He had to pause from unscrewing the auxiliary compressor when he heard you softly sing out those lyrics. Of course, he recognized it—it was The HU! When he turned his head, he found you lost in the song and found your antics quite adorable—bobbing your head to the rhythm, parroting the percussion with your fingernails tapping against the metal, and even strumming an imaginary fiddle in the air with your fingers assumingly flicking in the same pace, intensity, and timing as the actual guitarist.

It took you a second to acknowledge that Cal has been watching your little concert with yourself, you noticed it in your peripheral vision. This time, he didn’t dare to hide the smile—his main reaction of endearment to seeing you getting too lost in the song.

“You listen to The HU?”

You pulled down your headphones, “Yeah, I do! I love that band. Sorry, was my volume too loud?”

“Nah, don’t sweat it. I love that band as much as you do!”

Your eyes lit up in the poorly-lit engine room. You take off the right earpiece and offered, “You wanna listen in too?”

Cal nodded and you scooted yourself closer to him; your headphone was the kind that can have the headband extended or be safely split into two for sharing—you did the latter and fixed it on his ear. The slightest touch of your fingertips pressing against the side of his face was enough to make his heart skip a beat. His eyes became shifty as they struggle to look away and avoid eye contact from you, hoping that you would never notice the blush burning all over his face.

“There we go,”

The song continued to play in both of your ears. It’s already reached the chorus, and your spontaneous reaction to hearing that climatic portion was to belt out your best impression of the main singer’s pitch, accompanied with the fade-out at the last syllable. Cal and yourself did this in your own tones, it didn’t matter if it was off-key or that your pitches didn’t match in some parts, both of you enjoyed the song regardless.

When the iconic chorus—the namesake of the song—came in once more, for a moment, the two of synched and sang your hearts out while facing in front of each other. It felt like the two of you were doing your own musical gig inside the engine room when you’re supposed to be working on the repairs.

However, you went the extra mile—you mimicked the guitar riff that followed after the chorus and worked on the auxiliary engine panel at the same time. When you caught Cal looking at you again, you snapped out of your performer alter ego and awkwardly laughed.

“Sorry, I just… I tend to do this when I work. It’s a bad habit,”

“No, it’s perfectly fine. You seem to be having fun anyway, so I wouldn’t wanna wish to ruin that,”

You cleared your throat and bit your lip. The awkwardness gradually dissolved, the two of you exchanged shy smiles and continued to work and listen to the music spilling out of your headphones’ earpieces. You went on with your tinkering and repairing until the ship went dark: all the lights went off in a cascading succession, the engine hum had gone totally silent, and the door that the two of you came through was stuck and sealed shut.

“What happened?” exclaimed Cal.

“I don’t know! I can’t see anything!”

“BD, give us some light, would you?”

“Beee-woo!”

A switch clicked in BD-1 and his little lens was able to light up your spot in the room. The tiny droid shines his light on the entire panel in search of the potential cause of the ship’s blackout.

“It can’t be me—I was working on the secondary hyperspace compressor.”

“Can’t be me, either. I’m working on the wiring,” Cal’s eyes scaled up to the top of the engine panel. He points at something with his soldering gun. “There’s the auxiliary’s main power cell. That must have went out while we were working.”

“Then it must be from the outside, could be Greez,” you assumed.

“Yeah, but we can’t waste our breaths slamming the door calling for help like trapped scrap rats,”

You looked around the room, squinting your eyes to see better with the little light you’re left with through the cracks and gaps of the ship. You tap Cal’s shoulder, with BD-1 subsequently aiming the spotlight in your general direction.

“Look, there’s a vent. Maybe BD-1 can fit through and tell Greez to switch on the main power grid,” you suggested.

The droid chirped in agreement. He hopped off and skittered towards the said air vent. Cal crept to him, unfastened the screws and removed the grate for BD-1 to crawl into. Without a word, the droid entered the ventilation shaft in the hopes of finding a way out into the main interior of the Mantis.

“Well, I guess we’re stuck here. No point in fixing the ship without any light,” you sighed.

“Yeah, guess we’ll just have to wait for BD,”

Suddenly, a spark livened up your brain with an epiphany.

“Does Greez understand droidspeak?”

There was a silence, you’re hoping for a swift reply from Cal, but it seems to he too had the same realization. He didn’t answer you right away, you assumed that he had returned to the engine panel and probably didn’t catch what you said. You pawed the air, searching for Cal until you felt something solid touch your back and then fall with you.

At first, you didn’t even notice that you didn’t land on the hard, metal floor. In fact, you felt rough fabric and cracked leather on yourself. It took you a bit of a while to realize that you landed on someone else.

“Arrggh, took a wrong step there,” Cal groaned. In the darkness, you heard his voice was too close.

“Oh gods, I’m sorry!” you scramble away to his side and off of him.

You crawl to the wall and press your back against that as you watch the shadow of him toss and turn until he sat up. Your heart raced and your cheeks flared. You were grateful for the blackout obscuring your face, because not a single good excuse exists for you to save yourself if Cal did see the look on your face.

Though, you could’ve sworn you felt his heartbeat pace so quickly underneath his leather armor.

“No, no! I’m fine, [Y/N], really,” he insisted as both of you regain your bearings in the dark.

Either of you have to squint their eyes in order to see better. Only silhouettes appeared in your vision, you can make out the shapes but the facial expressions were difficult to read.

“Well, guess we’re stuck here,” Cal pointed out.

“And we even sent out BD-1 to tell Greez about this—and I know for a fact that he’s not fluent in droidspeak,”

“Crap, you’re right,”

Both of you released a concurrent sigh. Cal drew his legs closer to his chest, crossed them together and secured them around his arms. The stale air hummed through the vents—including the open one where BD-1 went through—but both of you cannot deny that the air’s gotten a bit thinner.

“I hope they’ll get his message,” you mumbled.

“I’m sure Cere will fill Greez in if he doesn’t get BD-1,”

Cal took a slow, deep breath and nestled himself next to you. The silence was a bore and you decided to engage in small talk while waiting for BD-1 to come through.

“So, when did you first find out about The HU?”

“Well, I was in a cantina having a drink with an old friend, Prauf, after working hours—it was the end of the work week, so we decided to unwind—and then this cantina had no live performers that time, which was a usual thing on that particular day. So instead, they had their speakers on and put on a virtual performance—they played that band’s top record and it just stuck to me.”

“Which is Sugan Essena?”

“Exactly. How did you come to know the band?”

“Nothing memorable, really. Overheard it being played from a frequency channel in a store owner’s radio. Coincidentally, a few of my friends knew it and I just had to ask.”

The two of you got lost in each other’s own stories over something mutual, which felt genuinely nice. The air gradually became stale by the minute, the longer the time seemed to have dragged on, the more anxious you became; Cal sensed this and he wanted to comfort you so bad, but he was afraid that it might turn out awkward or worse.

The least he could do—at least, that’s what he thought in his mind—is to stay close and keep you company.

You felt him scramble in the dark, two soft but heavy thumps sounded on the floor—he had just stretched out his legs and let out a leisurely exhale. You felt his sleeve brush against your bare arm.

“So, that Seff guy seemed to like you a lot,” Cal initiated, though he seemed to be disgruntled by his own topic.

You scoffed in the guise of an indifferent laugh, “Guy wasn’t really up in my alley, honestly. I was just trying to be polite as best as I can.”

“Oh? He wasn’t your type?”

You shake your head, quite fervently and added, “Nah. I have someone else in mind.”

You looked to him when you said the latter and managed a smile. A ray of light persisting through a gap in the ceiling shone over his left eye, making his jade iris twinkle and you watched it shift ever so slightly. His eyes were one of your favorite features of him—placing first place before his delightful freckles and his fiery, scarlet hair in third—but it was your own little secret.

To a certain degree, Cal was relieved, but then the next thing he thought about was whether or not to admit his feelings to you. He’s troubled himself with the thought for perhaps a couple of months now—according to your own counting—that you curiously wonder if he has ever felt it.

Surely he has, being quite the empath that he is. You’ve come to the presumption that both of you are just too shy to admit it to each other.

The predicament has made you forget about your headphones, which you took off and unintentionally dropped to the floor when the blackout happened; the music was still playing but it had already switched to a new song. Cal used the Force to bring it to his hands.

“Air’s getting a little thin, don’t you think?” you blurted softly.

Cal didn’t reply; he saw that your eyes are droopy, your breathing is slow and labored, and your face relaxed into a calm expression. He can barely suck in enough air to fill both lungs. The deprivation was getting to him as well.

Your entire body felt heavy too. Your eyes gaze down on Cal’s open hand facing up. You clench your own fist while fighting your hand from inching closer—you came to a stalemate with yourself and flimsily plopped your hand on the floor, just mere centimeters away from Cal’s. You parroted his posture—head leaning against the wall, staring at the ceiling, conserving your air with slow, calm breaths.

Bit by bit, you felt warm flesh nudge against the curve of your hand between the thumb and the forefinger—it was Cal’s knuckle. Your fingers flinched, and slowly he intertwines his with yours; it began with the first inches until it evolved into a clasp. You comforted each other with the warmth radiating from your hands that is now spreading across your bodies. It was a little silly, naïve idea at first, but you could’ve sworn you felt his heartbeat follow after yours.

A relieved sigh escapes your nostrils as you manage a smile—not bothering to hide it this time, you thought: if he sees it, so be it. Cal indeed felt your smile and did so himself. He dared to squeeze your hand softly but securely while the two of you wait out the power to return. Just when everything seemed to be taking too long and hopeless… the lights burst back into life, all the air from the surface blew in vigorously into the auxiliary engine room, and the entire power panel bellowed!

“Oh good, the power’s back on,” Cal mumbled, slightly groggy from the oxygen deprivation.

“Good, I knew BD would come through—and Greez too,”

You and Cal, together, fixated your eyes on your intercrossed hands. He shot you a fond, tender gaze that’s usually paired with his boyishly charming smile—the kind of smile that’s so hard to read, whether he was teasing with you or mischievously planning to mess around. You’re convinced that it was the former.

“Shall we get to work?”

“Let’s take a breather for a few minutes…” you shuffled in your seat, not planning to let go of his hand any time soon. “This actually feels nice.”

Cal slowly lowered his head so his cheek rests atop your head. You felt his thumb run across the skin of the back of your hand while the two of you rest and recover until, eventually, both of you drifted to a nap.

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capricornus-rex · 4 years

Note

Hey Hon! I know you’re cramped with requests and the “Old Friend, New Family” story so feel free to do this one whenever you’re ready! No rush! ☺️💖 Cal not knowing the reader has arachnophobia so when they go to Kashyyyk and are attacked by a huge, albino Wyyyschokk, she freaks out? To the point where she’s completely out of her wits, panic mode on FULL, and just scared to death? I have arachnophobia so when I had to play Kashyyyk, it was the worst experience of my life ;////3////;

Honestly, those spiders always give me the creeps and make me shudder ;;A;; Also, so very sorry for not publishing so soon! :( But good thing I just brought home my newly-fixed laptop today!! <3 I hope I can make it up to you and everyone with the fics. I’ll try my best to really keep publishing. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on quitting. Why would I? ;3 I’m having a blast with everyone here!!!

“In the Face of Fear” | Cal Kestis x Reader

Summary: Kashyyyk has its own charms and surprises, but what if one of those said surprises rear its ugly, unpleasant head right in front of you in the form of a spider that’s the size of a boulder?

Tags: Arachnophobia, Wyyyschokk, Matriarch Wyyyschokk, Kashyyyk, Arachnophobic! Reader

Also in AO3

Next: Part 2 | Masterlist

1 of ?

You and Cal finish off the last wave of Stormtroopers.

The partisan informants were right about the Imps getting into the forest to find Tarfful’s home village—which also doubles as a hideout for the Wookiees and a handful of partisans now led by Mari Kosan after Saw had left them.

“Good thing they haven’t come close to the hideout itself,” Cal commented.

“No,” you scoffed a chuckle. “They have a lot to go through besides us.”

Beneath your snarky, roguish facade, you clench your fist as you fight off the chill travelling down your spine when you catch the cluster of hatched Wyyyschokk eggs glued to a tree trunk. Cal spotted your grimace, you’re not taking your eyes off of those empty, shattered shells.

“You sure can’t stop looking at them,”

“I want to, but… Oh, I don’t know,” you shrugged.

“Come on, let’s get away from them. Those hatchlings could be close,”

“Heeeey!!” you whined, he laughed in response. You playfully tackled him from behind as he walked ahead of you.

It was a tedious trek to the hideout village—but that’s its advantage—both Jedi had to cross paths with a few more creatures before getting to any of the watchtowers or huts. You’re just secretly thankful that you haven’t run into any Wyyyschokks yet—most especially the albino, which happens to be the rarest of its kind.

You tread the forest with more caution than care, your eyes pan from tree-to-tree—searching for signs of eggs and webs—and Cal was quiet about noticing your anxiety. He knew you hated it when your phobia is being pointed out in some way, though he figured you’d like to talk about it just to vent it out.

For someone who isn’t familiar with the terrain of Kashyyyk, it can either be mesmerizing or downright frightening. It goes both ways for you. It becomes the latter when you and Cal stumbled upon a wrong turn due to the labyrinthine layout of the forest. Cal realizes his mistake and attempts to solve it.

“Hey, Cal, are you sure you saw a marker in a tree hollow?”

“I think so,” he replied, with the doubt evident in his voice. “Okay, I really think we took a wrong turn.”

BD-1 politely cut in and flashed the holomap, both Jedi navigated with their eyes, occasionally pointing at patches of land and tracking their would-be path.

“I think we cut across this upper level of the forest, there should be—”

You could’ve sworn you heard something shuffle behind your backs. Your abrupt turning unintentionally cut off Cal in the middle of his explaining.

“[Y/N], you okay?”

“Did you hear that?”

A pause. He listened in on the silence.

A simple rustle of the flora simply heightened your senses—mostly propelled by fear—and then the thing that neither of you noticed before has caught your attention.

“[Y/N], honestly, are you alright?”

You didn’t answer, you kept scanning the area and knew completely well that something isn’t sitting right with you.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you sighed, and stepped forward. “I’m just jumpy, that’s all—”

“[Y/N], BACK AWAY!!!”

Too late! By the time Cal had noticed that you were walking into a literal trap and tried to get you out of it, he was pushed back when the most enormous and most brightly-colored Wyyyschokk both of you have ever seen pounced on you. It had been patiently waiting for either of you to step on its web trap on the ground—and you went right into it. The creature entrapped you with its legs as thick as tree roots, you wriggle helplessly as you couldn’t take your eyes off of its multitude of bulbous, full black eyes, and its mandibles foaming with bile—hungry for flesh—twitch and flick above your bosom.

You let out what ought to be the loudest scream your chords could ever produce; once out of breath, you inhale and exhale rapidly. Your throat goes sore from the shouting that it stings whenever air would enter your windpipe.

The words are dislodged in your throat—you wanted to scream for help but cannot—your voice renders itself absent in your mouth, and only the silence brought upon by the sheer horror of this monster’s overall appearance, and in an uncomfortable closeness with you too.

Cal ran up to it, leapt, and drove his saber into its plump, jiggling hind abdomen. It screeched—a shrill, piercing wail that left a high-pitch noise in the ears—and turned to the offensive against Cal. That was your signal to get up, but the terror had paralyzed you; instead, the entire scuffle with that gigantic Wyyyschokk happened right before your eyes—just like with the eggshells, you cannot look away no matter how much you want to, the longer you look the more materialized your fear becomes. The redhead succeeded in a series of parries to disorient the creature.

“[Y/N], get to the high ground!”

His warning fell on deaf ears. You’re still stuck in staring at the spider, with your back against the wall.

“Bee-beeee, triiiillll!!!”

“I know, BD, I know!”

The little droid warned Cal that you were still frozen stuck in harm’s way, and he needed to think fast to get both of you out of this mess. He cleanly blocked the Wyyyschokk’s incoming wave of attacks, searing its fangs and hairy legs with his lightsaber upon parrying—and while the creature was distracted by its wounds, Cal fished out a flashbomb. He turned his heel to you before the area would be engulfed in bright light in a matter of a split second. He snatched you by the arm, pulled you up, and that woke you from that frozen trance of fear.

“We gotta move!”

The Wyyyschokk thrashed and erratically scampered left and right in search of its prey, you and Cal were making your escape through a pinch in the wall; the enemy tried to catch up but you had already squeezed through the end, its pointed legs jerked as it fitted through the crack, desperately trying to claw either of you just for a scrap of meat.

Life was still flashing before your eyes even after the Wyyyschokk gave up its pursuit. Your heart pounded louder than the Wookiees’ war drums, so much so that your breath cannot keep up with the pulse anymore, and your limbs have returned to its jelly-like state after you crawled your way out of the wall.

He noticed the rapid, sharp breaths that you take. There was also a wetness glossing over the surface of your eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

You couldn’t speak, still shell-shocked by the assault, and slowly shook your head as a response. The tears persist.

“Come on,”

A single touch—gentle and slight—was enough to make you jolt. You were ceaselessly apologetic. For what, exactly? Cal patiently waited for you to calm yourself and eventually helped you. When he thought you were ready, he held out his hand for you.

Slow and steady—Cal took the lead again, and he made sure you were okay along the way. Eventually, you did reach the hideout, but the trauma still hasn’t left your system and you have no idea how to get it out. A partisan was out there to greet you, but the first thing he acknowledges is the horror in your blank stare.

“Is [Y/N] alright?”

“Not really, we just stumbled upon the biggest Wyyyschokk we’ve ever seen,”

“Wait, does this Wyyyschokk happen to have brighter colors than the rest?”

Both Jedi exchanged glances, trying to recall the appearance of the monstrosity, and then the two of you looked at the rebel again; though, it was Cal who did most of the conversing.

“Come to think of it, yeah, it was a bit more vibrant than the others,”

“Oh, well,” the partisan scratched the back of his head, evidently reluctant to break it to you. “I think you guys just met the Matriarch Wyyyschokk.”

Your spine reduced to jelly again, goosebumps pelt your skin as a chill coated your shoulders, your eyes widened so much that they’d almost pop out of your sockets!

“I’m sorry,” you blinked several times, almost comically. “Run that by me again, soldier?”

“The Matriarch Wyyyschokk. Their mother. The mama spider.”

“I know what ‘matriarch’ means! But good gods, those things have a mother?!”

“Well, how do you expect to be so many of them wandering around without one?” the partisan shrugged.

“That’s just spectacular,” you say half-heartedly.

“Just steer clear of its den,”

“Thanks, we’ll remember that!” you whined.

Your hysterics still haven’t died down by the time both of you and Cal waltz through the network of bridges to start a little tour of the village.

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capricornus-rex · 3 years

Text

In the Face of Fear (4)

Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by @stellar-trinity

Tags: Arachnophobia, Wyyyschokk, Matriarch Wyyyschokk, Kashyyyk, Arachnophobic! Reader

A/N: My bad! Realized just now that I didn’t put the links of the chapters! ;;;A;;; So sorry!

Also in AO3

Chapters: 1 – 2 | Previous: Part 3 | Next: Part 5 | Masterlist

4 of ?

The glow of your lightsabers have either attracted or irritated them enough to make them crawl out of those holes in the wall.

Literally back to back with one another, you and Cal are being circled by the spiders. There are at least five closing the ring.

“BEE, BEE-TRIIILL!!” shrilled a panicked BD-1.

“I know, I know! I see them!” you shrieked back.

Your fighting grip falters around your saber, your swings are flimsy, and your strikes bore little damage—it could only graze their hides and anger them more, which is never good. One Wyyyschokk had its head full of eyes on you, flickering its mandibles with a gluttonous excitement, it lured closer while you backed away. The normal-sized ones were somewhat less of a challenge for you to overcome your phobia, still a challenge nonetheless. You’re only hoping the mother doesn’t show up and get itself involved.

Cal cut through their numbers effortlessly. You envied him. Envied the fact that these arachnids don’t bother him to the same degree as they do to you. Fighting these humongous crawlers felt taxing, though you still fought them to get it over with; when this wave finally settled, the two of you went on the move, going in blind into their labyrinthine dwelling.

“This way!”

“Are you sure?!”

“I know it!”

Holding his saber over his head, Cal leads the way—twisting and turning, you don’t know anymore if you’ve turned left or right this time but you still followed him. Hope burning within you that both of you will get out of this horrendous place alive soon. The two of you continued running, hand-in-hand, you looking out for the rear while he takes the lead; eventually, you got to the edge, and hopped along the rock platforms which vaguely resembled the path to the Gorgara’s pit in Dathomir.

“We’re just going further in!” you gasped at the realization.

“Don’t worry, there’s surely a way out,” reassured the boy.

There was barely any light in the deeper pit that you’ve jumped into. You strained your neck, tilting up to examine the area, searching for any visible opening that could serve as a way out, until you found one—high up in the ceiling of the cave is a rabbit hole of sorts.

“Look overt here!” you pointed to the cave’s oculus.

Cal scanned the hole and its surroundings, planning out the climb route. He knows you’re not equipped with climbing claws, instead you’re armed with a grappling hook appendaged to your gauntlet. You were doing the same thing: mapping out where to shoot the hook.

“There’s a small enough ledge I can perch on. From there, I can wire my way through...” you paused. “I think.”

He shot you a look that easily translates to “You think?” and he stares at you for a considerable amount of seconds until you look back at him, throwing back a look that responds as “What?”

“It’s doable!” you argued.

“I don’t doubt that,”

As you navigate around the deeper pit, something about it gives off a different ambience. Waving your saber around, you notice that the tree bark and the walls made out of rock were dappled with silky, white wisps. You even shone a light on animal carcasses and insect husks—you even spotted the remains of what ought to be a juvenile Tach.

“Trill... Beeep...”

I know, BD-1, we’re getting out of here sooner than you think,” Cal calmed the droid on his shoulder.

Looking around some more, you find more and more animal carcasses—many of which have fallen prey to a trap that rendered them immobile and defenseless against the monstrosity that created such an elaborate trap.

“This is no cave,” you said as-a-matter-of-factly. “This is a nest.”

Cal held his head up, using his saber as a torchlight, and absentmindedly spun around to register that it is indeed a nest. However, his ankle slighted backwards, the heel of his boot sticking to the web-trap laced with a viscous adhesive; strings of the substance formed between his shoe and the soil, hindering his footsteps. He didn’t feel it in the first few inches, only did he realize he was in trouble and the Wyyyschokk that had been lurking and following you around had gotten him in its grasp before he could alert you.

His grunt caused you to turn around and just when you think this day couldn’t get any worse, the Wyyyschokk that got him is the Matriarch Wyyyschokk.

“[Y/N]!!” Cal cracked, squirming in its coiled legs around his body.

Poor Cal saw his life flashing before his eyes, he could see it all replaying past the wide-open maws and fangs of the great Wyyyschokk. For a moment, he knew what your phobia felt like, and had a deeper understanding of it. The sheer horror overtook him and rendered his throat voiceless.

You melted to the muddy floor, you knees have lost their foundation, and your senses have dulled with your eyes glued to the monster. You blindly patted the soil, searching for anything, holding your unwanted gaze at the vibrant, prismatic color of the spider like that of a crow to a shiny trinket.

As the Matriarch Wyyyschokk slowly puts her would-be prey closer to her mouth, a hard, solid thump interrupted her—you had picked up a stone and lobbed it, hitting her head. When she turned around to face you, the creature was expressionless but somehow you can feel that wave of wrath gradually boiling within her.

“Oh damn it!” you immediately regretted it and scrambled to your feet, your heels failing to hold themselves upright, along with the wet soil not being very helpful.

You attempt to outrun the Matriarch Wyyyschokk at the last second; knowing full well that you’re literally an arm’s reach, the spider stretches out her free leg to your direction. It’s a twisted imagining to think of her holding these two humans and wave them about like dolls.

Saber in hand, you thumbed the switch. A radiant beam of light wildly growling out of the emitter. You could almost feel the hair of the Matriarch’s leg just centimeters away from your spine; with one swing of your arm, in result, she lost hers. The mother spider reared back in pain, though, remarkably, she was able to keep a firm grip on Cal—she just thrashed him around, suspended in mid-air, her swerving throes dizzied the poor boy.

You crawled into a thicket the size of a bramble bush, offering enough protection from being grappled by the Wyyyschokk, but you wouldn’t leave Cal behind. While the Matriarch was distracted in trying to claw you out of the thicket, Cal had finally broken out of her grip and scrambled away himself. Immediately igniting his saber, he watched the lumbering beast of an arachnid look at her now-empty leg, turn around in search of her prey, and hiss angrily at him for escaping.

Now that the Matriarch isn’t after you, it’s the perfect time to get out. Cal was holding out on his own just fine, but you knew you had to help him—the intent is there, but your fear was the main hindrance of you doing so. Cal turned to you.

“[Y/N], get to safety! I can handle this!”

“No, I’m not leaving you!”

While the two of you argued, the Matriatch Wyyyschokk—which is too smart for an animal—took the opportunity of her preys being distracted with each other and quick tucked her legs closer to her fangs, they moved with great precision and speed. The glands just underneath the spider’s jugular were doing its work, excreting a substance that’s greenish-white and thin as string, her amputated leg was still capable of holding it while the other spun and spindled the threads.

It was too late when Cal returned his attention to the spider. At the last minute, the Matriarch Wyyyschokk lobbed her spooled creation towards the boy—instantly trapping him in a cocoon of her own web. He discovers the material to be stronger and thicker than the regular Wyyyschokks’ thus harder to break out of. He can’t even move his fingers to get to the switch of his saber!

You shrieked out Cal’s name; he squirmed as he plopped to the ground, essentially helpless and immobile—like the remains of prey during their final hours—the Matriarch must have thought she’s finally resolved this one nuisance. The spider closes in on the cocooned redhead writing on the floor, when she towered over the Jedi boy, he felt like the only thing that could break out of this silky prison is his wildly beating heart. In the spur of a moment, you threw yourself between the Matriarch’s jaws and Cal, and deflected her as she was about to lunge and sink her thick fangs into the boy. Effectively, your saber singed her mandibles and perhaps the roof of her mouth when she “bit” into the blade. The Wyyyschokk stepped back in a fit of burning pain, while doing so, you turned to Cal and figured out how you’re gonna get him out of there.

You broke one of the most fundamental rule of fighting.

Never turn your back on the enemy—until it’s truly dead.

“The web’s too thick!”

You straightened your back while kneeling and held your saber mere inches over his body, “Stay still so I don’t burn you!”

“W-Wait!” he fretted, his clear green irises popping out of the whites of his eyes.

“Don’t worry, I got a steady grip,” you reassured, clueless of what he’s really panicking for.

“No, [Y/N], look out!”

The Matriarch had snatched you the same way she did with Cal. While you wriggle in her leg, she pulls you in closer to her face—it doesn’t matter if her mouth’s burned, all she needs to do is devour you, thus you’ve been rid of—though it was an opportunity: you gathered all the power in one leg and stamped her face hard with the sole of your boot, so hard in fact, that the mud that had caked the sole left a mark on the spider’s face. Afterward, you kicked her in th eeyes with the point of your boot, and did this repeatedly until the Wyyyschokk budges and lets you go.

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capricornus-rex · 3 years

Text

A Shadow of What You Used to Be (1)

Chapter 1: A Child Can Dream | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Requested by Anon

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

A/N: I AM SO HAPPY TO BE BACK! Our house is clean, power and wifi is back on, and we’re slowly getting back on our feet now! ❤ It was a tough 2 weeks, but we survived. My neighborhood is getting back on its own feet as well. We just need more time in flushing out whatever trace of the flood remains. Thank you so much to @glxy-otter and @someoneovertherainboww for sending me lots of love & support! It really made me smile 💜🥺

Also in AO3

Previous: Prelude | Next: Part 2 | Masterlist

2 of ?

The garage was filled with the same perpetual noise. For a seven-year-old, this is no suitable place for a child—but this is the normal she grew up in.

“Hurry up with that chassis!” barked a male Twi’lek with orange skin in Huttese.

The girl answered, in the same dialect, “Can’t you see that this thing is twice my size, Pelug!?”

“You’re lucky you’re faster than those pit droids, otherwise, I would’ve put you in concessionaire duty!”

A pair of hazel eyes shot a piercing look at the humanoid, a scowl forming in her eyebrows.

The orange Twi’lek’s pair of lekku wagged along with his finger pointed at the girl, his threat didn’t scare her as much as he wanted to—though it’s common knowledge that concessionaire duty was the worst, one is essentially demoted if put there. But she thinks she’s proved herself highly unlikely of being in that position.

Not receiving help—not expecting to either—she hauled up the chassis on a crate while shooing the doddering pit droids. When the path was clear, the hatch had already been opened—thanks to those little ones—to screw in the part before the big race. The speakers crackled and echoed across the entire garage, reminding us that the participants have less than thirty minutes before the racers are required to bring their rides on the starting block.

“Irele,” Pelug called in Basic, but immediately went back to speaking Huttese. “You got tiny hands, hold this open for me while I close off the hydraulic seals.”

Irele obeyed. She had a few seconds of relaxing her fingers one seal after the other.

After the tech work, their contender—a male Togruta named Gelesh with uneven lekku—hopped onto his podracer. A few switches and clicks, the Brazen Bullet roared to life—lights flickered across the entire dashboard, the engines belched, and the turbines thrummed.

“Hey, if Sebulba fights dirty—”

“I’ll fight filthier!” he cuts Irele off laughing, but she let it pass. The exchange was somewhat tradition for both of them.

The speakers in the garage crackled again, startling many who are inside, and the croaky announcer prompted the racers to prepare at the starting block; in less than a second, a second translates everything to Huttese. The announcer was the two-headed sentient of species she still doesn’t know the name of.

Gelesh’s entourage—including Irele—strolled out of the garage and made for the exit. The Tatooine sunlight abruptly blazed its rays over their heads, luckily, they were wearing headgear. Gelesh was confident although the nervousness was somehow getting to him, the girl can sort of sense it—along with a few more emotions that she didn’t want to point out to make it worse for him.

“Hey, Gel?”

“Yeah, Irele?”

“Relax.”

That took a load off of his chest, his lips stretched to a friendly grin, he pulled himself together first and then his goggles next. To each racer, they followed the instructions as the two-headed sentient said so. All the technicians began scrambling back to their pit stop when the mufflers have fired up. Little Irele went further into their pit stop, crawling through spaces that only she can enter; she then scaled a spire with makeshift handholds she herself installed until she could reach a ledge on the spire that apparently supported one of the spectator boxes.

The seven-year-old was small enough to seat herself on such a narrow edge; from there, she has as good as a view of the spectators in the towers and stands. If the crowd was already rowdy before the racers lined up on the block, the noise got wilder and louder that perhaps one can hear it all the way to Mos Pelgo. Each podracer had their characteristic noise for each action: ignition, acceleration, compressor activation, and what have you—Irele can identify the Brazen Bullet and its every sound with her eyes closed.

“Alright, racers, rev up those engines because we start in five…”

A collective of podracers engine noises rung and rumbled the circuit. Three seconds in, their ignition sent dust clouds flying over the heads of the poor people in the bottom row of the stands. The people in the bleachers joined the countdown, and so did Irele as she kept her eye on the single podracer whose body plates are forged with bronzium.

“ONE!!”

One by one, the vehicles zipped past—their noises abrupt like the firing of a blaster, the mufflers thunderous as they pulled the accelerators—some of the audience members had the hems of their clothes flying to the direction of the podracers, nonetheless arousing their secondhand adrenaline.

Irele’s little heart went with Brazen Bullet speeding right in the lead, the bronzium finish of the vehicle were fleeting specks of light over her glossy, hazel eyes. She scaled the spire some more until she could sneak a peek on one of the watchers’ tablets to see who’s in the lead and dead last. For everytime Gelesh completed the lap, Irele could almost feel her heels floating, as if she was the one driving the pod and feeling the exact velocity, the thrill, the sheer focus—driving one was a dream, though her mother forbade her, begged her even not to try it, but said so with a softness that compels Irele to obey, despite her desires.

Everyone had their eyes on the rising star, Gelesh, who was also leaving Sebulba in the dust. Hot on his heels, the Dug desperately cranked every possible lever his hind legs could grab on—in the hopes of catching up to the Togruta. The Dug, unwilling to accept defeat after the destruction of his streak by the victory of that one human boy years ago.

That boy was Anakin Skywalker.

Irele had heard stories of him: how he defeated the Dug despite all odds, and snagged the top place in the race, and how he was an underdog in everyone’s eyes. She wondered if they might have been friends somehow, given their mutual penchant for podracing albeit preferring different aspects.

“This is it, people! This is the last lap of the circuit—Gelesh Odibra and Sebulba are practically neck-and-neck! Who will cross the finish line first!? They’re all so close now!! It’s Gelesh!! No, it’s Sebulba!!”

The sentient argues with its Huttese-speaking head, looping what the Basic-speaking head kept saying in a continuous effort in riling up the crowd. Irele was literally on the edge of the tier when the Brazen Bullet and Sebulba’s podracer were within view. A twin-trail of sand, clouding the tail-ends of the podracers approach the starting line—with the third light blinking green, eager for the victor to zoom through it.

It was all such a blur. The crowd cheered, nonetheless, believing that their eyes didn’t deceive them and that they saw their contender stay ahead of the other by a hair. Not long after, a scuffle was developing when two differing spectators argued on whose champion went through the finish line first. Irele spotted it across from where she sat, but she didn’t watch the scuffle for long; she turned her attention to the announcer’s tower.

“Wow, did you see how close that was! Everything was such a blur I’m not even sure if I saw it right!”

The second head agreed, speaking in Huttese, in the same enthusiasm as the Basic-speaking one.

To finally calm the crowd, and settle it once and for all, the sentient clicks a pattern of buttons on their control panel to project a snapshot of the two racers at the finish line—determining who was closest to the line. Showing images from all angles, it’s clear that the Brazen Bullet’s nose was basically under the sensors of the light—thus triggering all three lights to indicate that a racer has completed the circuit.

“I don’t believe it! This is Gelesh’s third win in the streak—cementing his record just right above Sebulba’s!”

By the hum of a gong echoing across the circuit, a large portion of the crowd jumped and roared in a united cheer—ribbons and petals of sorts flew in congratulation, showering the youthful Togruta in his victory. He hopped out of his podracer, his entourage comes sprinting out of their pit stop with Irele at the tail just getting down from her perch.

“GELESH, YOU DID IT!” squealed the girl, sprinting and shouldering her way to his view.

A host hands over a trophy to Gelesh who then let Irele—perched on his broad shoulder—hold the other side of the trophy. People have gotten out of their seats to surround the defending champion. They chanted his name, the rest of the spectators showered him with flowers, petals, and ribbons.

Every victory was wonderful for Irele. Perhaps, it equaled to the exact same thrill as driving her own podrace. This went on for two more years, and in those next years, they enjoyed the sport—win or lose.

–

24 BBY

It seemed that the garage manager was feeling gracious today. The Rodian boss let Irele go home earlier than her normal shift, in which the girl celebrated with a grin whose ends pierced her plump cheeks, a squeaking cheer as she scrambles to put away her things, and a sprint that sent the dust floating behind her heels.

Irele didn’t head home right away, she went the other direction—towards the junkshop where her mother worked, employed by the blue, pungent Toydarian, Watto. The chimes rang as she burst through the door, startling the creature—who hoped it was a customer, but much to his chagrin, it was only the girl, and so he returns to his chair with a groan.

“Where’s Mom?”

“Over there,” Watto lazily pointed and croaked with his native accent running thick in his voice.

“Mommy?”

Shmi paused at the workbench to meet her daughter, “Irele? You’re out early.”

Irele threw herself into Shmi’s arms, embracing her as tight as her scrawny arms can, “Yeah, Selek let me out early today. Good thing he did!”

Her mother simply smiled, perhaps too overwhelmed by her daughter’s energy.

“You didn’t forget, did you?”

That somehow jolted Shmi enough for her realize that she had caught herself spacing out. She shook her head and mouthed the word “no,” she saw the concerned expression in Irele’s face and took her daughter by the shoulders.

“No, darling, I didn’t forget,” she pursed a sweet smile and tapped the tip of Irele’s nose with her forefinger. “How could I forget my promise to you?”

Irele’s eyes lit up, the sihght of it delighted her mother. Shmi then finished up whatever work she’s been busying herself with before getting off of work. Mother and child strolled out of the junkshop, Irele trottd off happily while keeping her hand clasped in Shmi’s—who was walking in her normal pace, with a few occasional tugs from the child because of her prancing.

By the time they got home, Irele impatiently put her things away in her room, got washed, and eagerly waited for Shmi to join her in the kitchen. The promise was that they were going to cook something together—a house favorite of Irele: Shmi’s own, delicious recipe. They had saved enough from their wages separately, and in total, they had enough to buy ingredient for a hearty, full supper consisting of meat, a medley of mushrooms and vegetables, and fruits and pallies for dessert.

They could only do this once for their individual pay was rather low.

All of this is a celebration of Irele turning eight.

A simple celebration with fulfilling food on the table, with no one else but her mother and herself, in the coziness of their cottage—to Irele, it was wonderful. And perfect.

It was everything she could ever ask for.

–

Months after their promised celebration, Irele had been seeing a man with sandy brown hair and a scraggly stubble. Maybe once or twice, she saw him clean-shaven. She always saw him frequenting Watto’s shop, either to buy or play Sabacc—but oftentimes, the latter in which Watto had a questionable win record. One should not be surprised if the blue Toydarian won through his swindler’s methods.

This man was Cliegg Lars.

Apparently, Shmi had caught the eye of Cliegg, as he frequented the junkshop in search of parts mostly for speeders and other machines he uses. Despite being a child, Lars’s feelings did not escape the insightful Irele; in her opinion, he’d been coming over to the shop a little too often for someone who kept fixing speeders. Although, she cannot be certain if his motives are true; it’s still a lead nonetheless. Even she had drawn attention to herself from the man, shying away from his gruff yet friendly hello’s, and then curiously watching him deal with Watto whilst hiding behind walls.

It wasn’t long until Cliegg began to fall for Shmi, rooting from their day-to-day interactions with one another whenever he would stop by. He pretended that he doesn’t feel Irele tailing them, but he didn’t let that bother him—she’s a child after all, he thought.

Shmi presently being a mother with a daughter in tow didn’t trouble Cliegg. A man of ethics—a rare trait in this lawless ball of sand—he could not imagine buying off Shmi from Watto, but then leaving the child to the Toydarian. Fortunately for Lars, it was evident that Watto’s gambling—with a not-so-impressive track record to boot—had gradually collapsed his business. Little by little, Watto’s wares had either been disposed of or been sold to the lowest possible price in the hopes of keeping the business up. When there was nothing else to profit from, Watto would be forced to sell his remaining property—the mother and child slaves. Cliegg took it from there.

From a certain point of view, his proposition of buying Shmi and Irele intrigued the Toydarian.

“How much you gunna pay fo meh two slaves, eh?” rasped Watto, irreparably pronouncing “slaves” as slehvz in his thick, native Toydarian accent.

“I can pay you twenty thousand each,” Cliegg bobbed his head for the dramatics, pretending to be pensive. “I’ll pawn off my X-class landspeeder to pay them.”

A single holodisk produced a projection of the item in question. The speeder—brand new and in its prime, only seven months old—was an interesting wager in and of itself. The rusty-reddish paint job would stand out in the desert, whether up close or in the horizon, sunlight would bounce off on the sheen of the thrusters’ metallic sections. Truly a shiny new toy.

Cliegg could have sworn he heard the clinking of credits when Watto’s eyes lit up with greedy intrigue.

Good, that’s gotten his attention. Thought the man.

Watto hovered himself closer to the projection, his flimsy wings struggled to carry his weight as they flapped erratically, and rubbed his fleshy chin at the same time. To the flying sentient, it wasn’t a bad deal, at least for Lars’s expense in his mind—the ratio of the trade somewhat balances out: Lars wants two things from him, thus he wagers something in the same worth.

“You must think me a fool, Watto,” Cliegg noted the perhaps long silence of Watto examining the images. “To pay you the price of a single landspeeder for two slaves.”

The Toydarian chuckled, then gestured defensively, “No, no. I don’t that, Lars, meh friend. In fact, this is quite an int’resting investment.” His emphasis on the word “investment” made him enunciate the S into a harsh, buzzing Z.

Perhaps, it is in the nature of every Toydarian to call anything an investment—even a gamble on a card game. There aren’t many of Watto’s kind here in Tatooine, but that is the only impression Cliegg can pick up from Watto for his opinion on the species. Not having any of the suspense, the man tried to broke the deal until they can shake on it. Watto came so far as making an event out of it, but Lars insisted to refrain from the grandeur, to which his beneficiary gave in.

They finally shook on it. The two males were clueless that Irele had been eavesdropping on their exchange. It was a bad habit that Shmi had gently reprimanded her of, but just this once, she had never been invested in someone else’s conversation—only because the subject was their freedom at stake, and it was this stranger who dared to go through this length of settling an agreement with their current slaver. Irele’s mind was in a whirl—would he be a kinder slaver than Watto? More generous or more cruel? With their conversation going on what felt like hours, she had resorted to sitting on the floor, her back against the wall as she listened in on their voices.

The girl heard the door chimes followed by the silence, then she scrambled to her feet when she heard the flapping of Watto’s wings grow louder and disappeared as quietly as she could.

Two days later after that agreement had been set in stone, today’s the fateful day: Shmi finds out only now that she and Irele had been sold to Cliegg Lars. When Watto announced that he’s sold them together to this man, understandably, the woman was taken aback from her lack of prior knowledge, and she had every right to be surprised. Her daughter, on the other hand, feigned it—her false silence fit in with the mood of the room.

Shmi and Irele Skywalker watched the pouch of credits transfer from Cliegg’s hand to Watto’s, signifying that they now belong to Cliegg Lars.

“Take them,” Watto says, although somberly. He hovers in place as he watches Shmi and Irele join Cliegg out of the shop.

“I wish you good luck on your business, Watto,” Lars bade, however, it felt backhanded.

At the entrance of the junkshop awaited a pair of eopies—tall, quadrupedal animals that served as mounts for people and carriers of cargo—handled by a Jawa that Cliegg hired for a few hours.

“I’m sorry if I couldn’t give you two a more comfortable ride to your new home,” there was a sincerity in Lars’s voice, warm and genuine, something that Shmi nor Irele had not heard for a long time.

“It’s fine,” Shmi stuttered while trying to be polite. “I’m more used with the mount than speeders.”

“Ah, well, where you’re living—you’ll get used to it, but I’ll let you do it in your own pace.”

With a simple waving gesture from Cliegg, the Jawa hauled the animal pair then coaxed both to go down on their knees—level enough so the humans can hop on their backs. Each eopie grunted when they felt more weight on themselves; Shmi and Irele shared one saddle, Lars took the lead from town to their new home.

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