#i decided to have less angst attached to cere's lightsaber...

[breakfastteatime]

Cere leans against the engine room door, watching Cal at the workbench. She'd come to fetch him for dinner and found him tweaking his lightsaber, most likely to keep what remains of the weapon functional. She's seen some busted lightsabers in her time, but nothing quite like his. She'd known Jaro Tapal, remembered his dual-bladed lightsaber that Cal now wields. Cere has not, and will never, ask him what happened to damage it. She doesn't need to, just like she doesn't need to ask him what happened to his own weapon, one that would've suited his stature far better. Cal's obviously grown in the past five years, but he'll never be Lasat-sized.

BD-1 dances across the workbench and spies Cere. He greets her with a cheery whistle and Cal finally looks up from his work, blinking as his eyes shift to a more distant focus. "Oh, hi, sorry. I didn't hear you."

Deciding this is all the invitation she needs, Cere steps in. "Don't worry. It's dinnertime. I just didn't want to disturb you while you work."

"Oh. Sorry. I just wanted to tune the emitter. It feels a little off."

"I see," Cere says. She doesn't, given that she's never used his lightsaber, but Cal's a born tinkerer. She's amazed he hasn't fixed the bottom half of the 'saber yet. She laughs inwardly, knowing as soon as he has the right parts he'll be doing exactly that. "Fixed it?"

Cal ignites the weapon, brilliant blue light shining across the engine room. He lacks the space to swing it, instead listening intently. "Hmm, better," he says, deactivating it and clipping it to his belt. He looks at Cere. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Don't worry about it," Cere tells him.

"Master Tapal always told me if I spent as much time practicing my forms as I did maintaining my lightsaber, I would've been able to beat Master Drallig before my eleventh birthday."

Cere laughs at that. "That man was unreal. I sometimes felt sorry for whichever Knight got it into their head to try and defeat him."

“Did you try?” Cal asks, not quite pulling off the naïve waif act he’s aiming for.

“Absolutely not,” Cere says. “And neither did Jaro Tapal. He was far too wise for such an idea.”

“What about Master Cordova?”

Cere almost chokes herself when she bursts out laughing. “No!”

Cal surprises her with his next question. “Do you… do you still have your lightsaber?”

“Only the hilt,” she says, an old wrench of anguish tugging somewhere deep inside. “You can see it, if you’d like.”

“Are you sure?” Cal asks, leaving the question hanging.

Cere realises what he means and nods at the workbench. “I’ll leave it there for you.”

After dinner, while Cal helps Greez with the dishes and BD-1 watches on, Cere returns to her cabin and pulls out her lightsaber hilt. She stares at it, wondering what Cal will pick up from it. She’s curious to know if she’s being brutally honest. Curious, and perhaps a little terrified. As promised, she leaves it on the workbench for him and spends the rest of the evening fighting the temptation to tell him to go pick it up and report back what he saw.

He doesn’t talk to her about it until the following morning, when he comes for breakfast with a poorly concealed smirk.

“What?” Greez bites out before Cere can even get there.

“Oh, hi, Greez!” Cal says with far too much cheer. BD-1 snickers on his shoulder.

Greez stares at him. “Have you been eating my plants? Did we not discuss the potential side-effects they’d have on Humans?”

Cal folds himself into a chair at the galley table. Cere stares at him, wondering what exactly it was he saw. Nothing bad, based on the look of him. He catches her staring and his grin widens. “Greez, did you know Cere once considered herself such a master with the ‘blade, she contemplated taking on the Jedi’s actual renowned lightsaber master?”

Cere stares. No. He hasn’t. Of all the memories, it’s that one?

Greez is suddenly very interested, and he serves up Cal’s breakfast eggs with a little more flourish than usual. “Go on.”

Cere sighs. Of all the damn echoes…

Cal pours himself tea. “Yeah, she’d just been knighted. Figured she’d better really test herself before she set out into the big ol’ galaxy.”

“Uh huh…” Greez is loving this.

“Cere was on her way to the dojo when she heard the sounds of a pitched battle. It was intense, and the Force burned with energy of the duel. Other Jedi gathered too, knights and masters, all of whom wondered who was mad enough to take on none other than Master Drallig, the Jedi Master who trained all others in the ways of the lightsaber.” Cal’s so caught up in his tale, Cere’s amazed he isn’t re-enacting it with his own lightsaber. “She steps in, and who does she see?”

“Don’t say Master Yaddle, kid, my heart couldn’t take it.”

“Oh no, it was Jedi Master Mace Windu, considered to be one of the top five duellists in the entire Order.”

Cal can’t keep his own wonder out of his voice. Cere remembers it only too well, remembers watching Mace Windu get absolutely wrecked by Master Drallig as her hand squeezed her own weapon, suddenly grateful she hadn’t arrived before Mace. He was indeed one of the greatest duellists in the Order.

But not the greatest.

And Master Drallig reminded him with ease.

“Top five, huh?” Greez says, pouring himself a fresh mug of caf. “Where’d you rank, Cere?”

“Not that high,” Cere admits, more grudgingly than she expects.

Cal’s smile is somehow broader than ever. Who knew there was such a smug little shit hiding under all that Bracca refinery? “When Master Windu finally yielded, Cere decided against her decision and opted to find someone else to spar with that day.” He leans forward, elbow on table, chin on hand. “So I guess what you told me yesterday was true, from a certain point of view.”

Cere musters all her dignity. “Indeed. I never challenged Master Drallig, and I felt sorry for anyone who did.”