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Track: ‘Soldiers’ - Otherwise

Wolffe didn’t understand what was happening when Plo Koon was suddenly handing him his lightsaber. And he still couldn’t quite put the pieces together when he noticed Cody go flying through the air under Padawan Tano’s guiding force. But he definitely understood the tightness of fear in his chest when Rex and Cody ran directly at the Sith Lord who had just beaten one of the strongest Jedi he knew to exist.

“Son,” Plo Koon's voice cut through Wolffe's fear, a sense of calm in his storm, and dragged Wolffe back to the Kel Dor and his offered saber. “Your family needs you.”

Wolffe's world shifted to an odd halt as he considered what was happening. Thoughts that haunted him flooded through him, bit at the edges of his mind with doubt. What was he going to do? What could he ever do?

Wolffe has felt useless before, has lost everything in an instant. He has watched his brothers die often enough to wade constantly in hopelessness. And he remembers fruitlessly hugging his brothers close when they were all just cadets, wishing for an option other than the trials for war. There were so many times Wolffe, the supposed strong and intimidating commander he was, had only felt pointless and worthless. So many times he had cried to the galaxy to give them all something to hope for, something to make all the pain worth it.

And yet, Wolffe realized in a bright instant, he always had it. In his stillness he remembered how Plo Koon called him son, and meant it as much as Wolffe did calling Plo his Buir. How after each battle he would come back to the 104th and be greeted with just as much warmth from his brothers as respect, finding strength in each other. That at the end of the day, it was his family that had always kept him fighting, striving to stay hopeful and survive. It always had been and always will be his family that makes this life worth living, and he would do anything and everything to keep it that way.

Wolffe locked eyes with Plo Koon for a moment just long enough to convey everything he knew the Jedi could already see clearly. And as the world came crashing back to him he took the saber without an ounce of hesitation.

what we have now

Cal awakens on Tanalorr, and what seems to be a perfect day begins to go wrong. Post-Jedi: Survivor with spoilers. Rated PG-13ish for established Merrical. Angst, grief, hope, love, ~2450 words.

The morning light of Tanalorr filters gently through cracks in the temple ceiling, sending down soft, gold-edged rays through the small private chamber where he and Merrin have set up a room. Cal mumbles, rolling over on the makeshift bed and taking half the covers with him. Merrin is warm and sleepy beside him, her skin soft against his own, and he draws her closer, breathing in the sweet smell of her hair.

“We have slept in again, Cal Kestis,” she murmurs throatily. “I blame you, of course. You kept me from my rest.”

“Someone was awfully frisky last night, I seem to recall,” Cal yawns. He hardens slightly, remembering her insistent kisses last night, how she eagerly undressed him, her hands, her mouth, her --

He lets out a long breath. They have work to do this morning with the others, and he knows he shouldn’t let himself get distracted. No matter how much he might like to be.

“Still thinking about it, are you?” Merrin asks, amused. She rolls over and props herself up on one elbow, leaning over him. He drinks in the sight of her, soft gray skin and dark tattoos, a wicked grin. He bites back a groan.

Her gaze flicks back, and she peers under the covers with a knowing smirk. “Ahh. I like the way you think.”

“Hey, come on, now. We promised we’d check in,” Cal half-protests. “The Path needs us to get this housing ready, and we need to have that meeting with --”

The familiar sound of BD’s servos whirs as the little droid hops over to them, blithely ignorant of their nudity and innuendo. Cal sighs, drawing the sheets higher over Merrin and himself.

“Cal, my dear Jedi, you said you were going to teach the droid to knock.”

“I’ve been busy!” Cal says. Merrin simply raises one eyebrow and gives him one of those looks, the sort that makes his brain short-circuit and his pulse quicken. For a moment he’s tempted to tell BD-1 to come back later, that he’d made a mistake with the time and really the meeting with Cere was for tomorrow, not today.

But something disquiets him, a frisson rippling through the Force, there and gone before he can put a name to it. His arousal vanishes, and he looks away from Merrin, unsettled.

“Cal?” She sits up, the blanket falling down around her waist, the golden light bathing her skin in a warm glow. “What is it?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Something felt… off. I’m not sure what it means.” He sighs. “Probably just guilt about how late we’re going to be. We’d better get going. Make it up to you later?” He gives her a small smile, and is gratified when she returns it twofold.

Cal sends BD-1 off to wait as they get dressed, but they meet him at the front of the temple, where he is waiting patiently for them. Cal bends to lower a hand and BD clambers up to his regular perch as they step outside into the fresh air. The glorious Tanalorr morning greets them with misty light, and brightly colored banners ripple from the temple in the breeze. Gardens stretch alongside the path, tall leaves fluttering in the wind, fruits and vegetables beginning to swell and show in colors of scarlet, violet, emerald.

The three of them travel through the gardens and back along the creekside path leading away from the temple. Merrin seems content, but Cal cannot help but look over his shoulder as they walk. There is only BD-1 there, cheerful and loyal as always, but there’s still a nagging feeling, something skittering at the back of his mind.

He tries to ignore it, his feet tracing the familiar trail alongside Anchorite Creek. They cross the new stone bridge, a beautiful melding of angular Jedha architecture with jeweled motifs unique to Tanalorr; the lilac-blossomed larien tree, the clever waterhare, the carvings of the Koboh Abyss. He always appreciates this bridge and the way his footsteps ring on the stone, but for a moment it almost feels like its solid arch tremors beneath his feet.

“Did you feel that?” Cal asks. BD lets out a beep in the negative. Merrin shakes her head.

“Feel what?”

“Nothing,” Cal says, stone solid beneath his feet, and he tries to believe himself. We’ve made a perfect world. What is there to worry about?

They meet back up with the others at the village, which is already bustling at this early hour. The sight cheers him, and his odd mood fades into the background. He takes a deep breath and smells the morning meal on the breeze, rich with spice; Pyloon’s of Tanalorr keeps Greez busy, even with several residents working with him as sous chefs. He and Merrin will have to stop in for a bowl of waterhare stew when they next get a chance.

They keep heading toward their destination, passing Narkis Anchorites working with refugees from the Hidden Path, raising another set of new residences. Cal nods to them as they pass. He recognizes some of the Anchorites from Jedha. There are new members of their order, too, only identifiable by the Tanalorr-lilac stripe they wear on their sleeves.

Not everyone wears the garb of the Anchorites; droids roll or walk along the dirt streets on their business, and plenty of people with bare faces wave as they make their way to the Archives. A few of the refugees he recognizes from his days as a Padawan, other survivors besides himself: a young woman with her dark hair in tight braids, a tall man with olive skin and piercing blue eyes. Pride unfurls in his chest, pride and a fierce protectiveness. They’ve built so much here. And there is still so much more to do.

Many of those who cannot help in the physical efforts of building work in the new Archives, cataloging their growing knowledge of the Jedi Order and its history, and it’s here they head, Cal keenly aware they’re late. That must be the reason he’s feeling off. He knows exactly which slightly disappointed look Cere will be wearing --

The smell of smoke, ash dancing in the flame-choked air, red and black --

Cal staggers, sagging against the door as it slides open. “Cal!” Merrin cries, slipping a steady arm around him. On his other side, a familiar man in robes braces against him, helping Merrin to keep him upright.

“Cal! Have you taken ill?” Master Cordova asks. Together he and Merrin lead Cal to a seat near one of the desks, where he bows over himself, breathing hard. BD-1 chitters at his shoulder.

“You don’t feel it?” Cal gasps. He holds out his hands, ash coating his fingertips. He doesn’t understand. “Look at my hands. There’s something terribly wrong --”

Merrin and Master Cordova look at his hands, but they seem worried, exchanging concerned glances. “I will get Cere,” says Merrin, and claps Cal on the shoulder, her hand squeezing him tightly against his jacket. “We will figure this out, Cal. Together.”

Cal looks down at his hands again. They’re clean once more, and his head reels. What’s happening?

“Tell me what you sense, Cal,” says Master Cordova, kneeling carefully beside him. His brown eyes, always so wise, seem troubled. Cal knows it’s because of him. He tries to center himself, reaching for the Force, but it feels muted and hazy, muffled somehow.

“I saw fire,” he manages. “Fire and ash.”

“A memory, perhaps sensed by your psychometry?”

“No, this didn’t feel like a normal memory,” Cal tries to explain. “It feels like it’s something that doesn’t belong here. Like something that isn’t real, that never happened.” He gazes around the room, drawing comfort from its soaring shelves of twinkling datapads, the silver globes lighting the hall, the sweet smell of larienwood incense. He tries to ground himself in the library, in all they’ve built here. “It couldn’t have happened.”

“It may have been a vision, then,” Cordova muses, getting to his feet and sitting down on the chair beside Cal. “The Force may be sending you a message of things to come.”

Cal shakes his head in frustration. He’s not a Padawan. “I know we can have visions from the Force, Master Cordova, but I always feel so tightly bound to the past. I’ve only had visions of the future in places where the Force is magnified and concentrated, like Ilum or Bogano…. The past has always been so much easier for me to access. This didn’t feel the same way.”

“Perhaps that’s changing,” says Cere. Cal lifts his head to greet her, and their eyes meet--

She’s so light in his arms. How could someone so powerful, so strong, be so, so still?

Cal recoils, panting. The smoke chokes him, blinds him, engulfs him. He’s lost in it, reaching for his lightsaber, finding nothing there. He cups his hands around his mouth, calling, hoping, begging. “Cere -- I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should have been there --”

“You okay there, scrapper?”

Cal opens his eyes. The smoke has vanished as quickly as it had come, and the temple soars over him, golden daylight streaming through its windows. Bode gives him a broad, easy grin, smile lines crinkling at the edges of his eyes. Dagan’s lightsaber hums in his palm.

“This isn’t right,” Cal whispers. “It isn’t real --”

He raises a gloved hand. Imperial black against crisp ISB white. He lets the frantic rage shriek through him, a desperate eruption of pure hate boiling forth, he wants this, needs this, a weapon, he’s nothing but a weapon --

The temple shatters around him, Tanalorr shatters around him, and he remembers everything.

***

“Cal! Cal. Come back to me, Jedi,” Merrin murmurs throatily. He realizes her arms are around him, holding him tight against her chest, his cheek nestled against the soft skin between her breasts. Her twin heartbeats pulse in his ear, a metronome grounding him here, now, safe.

For a moment, they simply stay there.

“What happened?” she asks in a soft voice.

Cal reluctantly sits up, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling. They’re in the Mantis, back in one of the narrow bunks they insist on squeezing into together. He knows they could sleep separately, but neither of them like to do it anymore if they can help it.

“I dreamed of Tanalorr. The way it should have been.” His throat constricts, and it takes him a moment to steady his voice. “It was beautiful, Merrin.” He wants to tell her everything. The new Archives, the lush gardens, the voices in the streets; Cordova… Cere….

Instead he buries his face in the crook between her neck and her shoulder, and breathes in, and breathes out.

She strokes his hair gently, fingers twining through the strands that tickle the back of his neck. She presses a kiss to his forehead. “We will make it so, Cal. I promise you.”

“Maybe. I hope so. But she’ll never see it.”

Her fingers still, then shift for her hand to cup his cheek. She slowly lifts his chin until he’s gazing at her, her dark eyes bright. “No, she will not. That is something we cannot change.” She blinks, and a flicker of her own grief passes across her face, a painful mirror to his own. “I miss her too. Cere and Cordova both, but Cere… she was part of our family.” Tears glisten, unshed but unashamed, in her eyes.

They haven’t talked of Cere this openly in weeks, busy with fighting the Empire on Koboh and taking care of Kata. But now the loss is here, sitting in the space between their breath, and the wound aches so, so much.

Anger flares within him. How can his mind have given him so much detail of Tanalorr vibrant and growing, of a world where they’d truly won, and yet so little of Cere? When he would have given anything to see her again, to speak with her -- to apologize --

But he remembers how his mind had tried to tell him he was dreaming, and his heart sinks. He had known. Even in the midst of a dream that felt realer than real, he’d known.

There is no bringing Cere back, not even in a dream.

Cal swallows, feeling sick. It’s all a mess, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to feel about any of it. The Jedi Order would tell him to let it go, but the Jedi Order itself is dust and ashes, and he feels the feelings anyway, Order be damned.

Grief feels different now than it did as a child. It’s no less confusing than it was then, but back then he’d been so desperate to survive, so powerless to protect himself, that he’d shoved the feelings down as far as they could go. Now the feelings and the Force are both as powerful as they’ve ever been. He feels the Force crackling throughout him, body and soul, straining to be used. He’s healed his connection… but is that such a good thing, now? There’s violence poisoning his connection, an intoxicating rage, a searing hatred, the darkness…

He shivers, and he steps away from it, for now.

“I don’t know--” His breath hitches. There’s water tracking at the edges of his eyelids, a burn in his chest. “Even through everything, even when we were apart, she was always guiding me. And without her, I don’t know if I can be enough. For Tanalorr… for the Path… for Kata….” Imperial black on ISB white. “For you.”

“You are enough for me, Cal Kestis,” she says, and he sinks back into her embrace.

“But the future --”

“Is what we can make of it,” Merrin says, her voice steely. “We will find the way together, you and I. That is how we will honor Cere and Cordova. And the Jedi, and my sisters. And if you stumble in the darkness, I will lead you by the hand; and if I do not see the path, your light will guide me.” She kisses him, her open mouth slanting over his, then pulls back. She blazes with determination, so beautiful he can hardly bear it. “Do you trust me?”

The world falls away, and Cal lets it. There is only this moment, shimmering between them. The grief and darkness will be there waiting for him when he returns, he knows that much, but for now, there is only Merrin. He takes her hand in his, and he knows that no matter what lies ahead, the two of them are bound together.

“Always,” he whispers.

She smiles, and the world feels perfect once again.

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vaellis1994

2 years ago

Hey hey hey! Once again, it’s me. Was wondering if you’d write the young on Melida/daan + eldritch obi-wan? Please and thank you. This universe gives me life :)

War is not meant for children.

That doesn’t mean it isn't fought by them. When they are the only ones willing to stand against the senseless slaughter and argue for peace. When the children are the only ones that answer the call to end the war that’s silenced them for centuries.

They can’t call for aid, can’t pay for hired guns or supplies or even shelter.

But the Jedi come and there is hope, and then the Jedi leave again and they are left with a thin boy without the weapon he has learned to use all his life and nothing but a vibroblade to substitute it.

Neild thinks they’ve lost then. Cerasi argues that so long as they breath they can’t be lost. Obi-wan Kenobi smiles with oddly sharp teeth and tells them that sometimes all there is left is hope. And the determination for change.

Runil, the little medic tells them that they can’t lose him with wide eyed wonder and three living breathing children that should be long dead in the ditch they found them in. She tells them that he is the miracle worker they’ve needed with that desperate hope they’ve barely kept alive.

(The oldest is 10, probably older than Runil herself, Obi-wan won’t explain what he did to save her though she watched him lay a hand on her chest as she choked on blood and quite sobs. Runil is the daughter of two doctors long lost to the war and even she isn’t certain it’s something she could even understand.)

None of them know what to make of the figure he cut’s on the battlefield. Half as tall as any of their enemies and yet the blaster weighs heavy in thin hands and never misses a shot. Neild sees the way he moves, sees the way the world moves with him. Dust and stones hanging in the air around him as he darts for his target with an efficiency Neild can’t begin to understand.

He see’s the way Obi-wan’s head snaps to the side and his hand rises, pulling thin air and jerking Locc off his feet from half the field away as the ground beneath him explodes. The younger boy should be dead, not shaking and bleeding from a dozen cuts. Obi-wan seems to disagree, a snarl on his face as he pulls the boy to him and raises a hand. A dozen mines explode across the field and Neild thinks maybe he was wrong.

Maybe the war isn’t lost just yet.

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vaellis1994

2 years ago

lucerys with his mother rhaenyra and his father alicent, they're a happy family btw

524 notes View Post

vaellis1994

3 months ago

I'm not okay. Took a mental health day to do my part and make some art about it. No matter the opposition, we won't be erased. A world without trans people has never existed, and it never will! 🏳️‍⚧️

May this piece be a small light in the darkness for those in need of comfort and hope. Feel free to share/re-post elsewhere if this resonates with you. Just please make sure you include the alt text!