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kanerallels · 6 months ago

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My first fic for @spectre-week!! This one was born from my obsession with N.D. Wilson's 100 Cupboards series (go read it, y'all, it's amazing) and is hopefully vaguely comprehensible. Here it is on AO3!

The forests of Kaller are not particularly noteworthy to most of the galaxy. The snow lies heavy on the surrounding mountains, and the wind sings sharply through the branches of the conifers and the kallnut trees. It’s not a top tourist destination, despite the beauty.

The current residents are more focused on the war that is being fought over this planet and hundreds of others. The Clone War has ravaged the galaxy for close to three years now, and at times it seemed it would never end.

Until now.

But there’s something much darker going on in the forests now, as an army of clones hunt for a missing Jedi Padawan crouched in a tree.

The last thing Caleb Dume should have been focusing on was the trees around him. His master was dead, and the clones who had been his friends and allies mere moments ago were now hunting for him.

And yet. As he leapt from branch to branch, heart pounding with terror, he found himself noticing. Noticing the deep brown barked trees with three pronged leaves that were sprinkled in between the conifers here and there. Kallnut trees, he remembered his master calling them. As he crouched on one of the branches, his fingers wrapped around the grooved bark, and Caleb felt a tug in his heart.

This way, the trees seemed to whisper. This way.

But he didn’t have time to indulge in daydreams, so he kept running.

When the clones found him and he fell from one of the trees, it wasn’t a kallnut. He kept running, until he made it to a ravine. One of the clones tried to convince him to come back, but Caleb knew he couldn’t. There was no one he could trust anymore, no one who wouldn’t try to end him for the saber at his side and the holocron in his belt pouch.

When he leapt across the canyon, he heard it again. The whispers, leading him deeper into the forest.

This time, he had nothing to lose from following it. So he did, led by a trail of deep brown barked trees.

Miles away, he found it. The biggest kallnut tree he’d ever seen, looming above them all ominously. The wind rustled the light green leaves, and Caleb almost forgot about the clones chasing him, about what he’d seen mere minutes before.

The fear receding, he moved slowly closer. There was a strange energy to the air, a humming. The Force rippled strangely, in a way Caleb had never experienced before.

When his hand touched the tree, for a moment his fingers fit perfectly in the grooves of the bark.

And then there was something like a flash of lightning. A dagger of pain went through him, and he hit the ground, unmoving, while fire blazed through him.

When he woke, Caleb Dume was blind.

He was blind, in the middle of the woods, on an unknown planet with hunters out for his blood.

His hands were shaking as he pushed himself upright. All he remembered was touching the tree, and then… something strange. Something rushing through the Force like a wave of fire, crackling towards him and consuming him.

But he wasn’t dead. Just blind and achy, his stomach churning and his hand throbbing with pain. Instinctively, Caleb reached out for the Force— then recoiled.

It was like looking straight into the sun. Too bright, brighter than it ever had been before. The world around him was burning with life and green fire.

How could that be true when it also felt far too empty now, without Master Billaba?

Fear and grief swelled in his chest, but Caleb stubbornly pushed it back down. Taking a deep breath, he lifted his face, feeling a cold breeze chill his face.

There were no sounds that indicated he was still being hunted. But he couldn’t stay here. He’d freeze to death or be caught. The only way was forward, even if it was going to be slow.

Vaguely, Caleb remembered seeing a stray branch laying on the ground not far from the tree he’d approached. Staying on his hands and knees, he felt around in the grass crackling with frost. The snow hadn’t reached through the thick branches of the kallnuts here, but it was still cold enough that the ground was hard and the tips of Caleb’s fingers were stinging.

It was only a few minutes before his hand closed around the branch he’d spotted. Tentatively, he pushed himself to his feet, using the branch for help. It was a decent length for a walking stick, and it was solid. Sturdy.

He clutched it tightly as he cautiously started through the woods around him.

It took him a long time before he’d made it back to the nearby city. By the time he did, Caleb had sort of gotten the hang of navigating without eyesight. The walking stick helped, though he was still unsure. Still scared.

The city was worse than the woods. In the woods, he was alone and surrounded by trees. Safer than anywhere with people— and worse, clones.

But they would know to look for him in the woods. Here, he would blend in, and he was less likely to freeze or starve to death.

He came pretty close to it anyways, until Janus Kasmir found him.

The Kalleran took pity on him and fed him. And, when Caleb begged him, he let him come to his ship, giving him some place safe to sleep. Even if it was only for a little while.

He hadn’t really slept since losing his master almost a week earlier. Only fitful bursts here and there. Now, scrubbed clean and curled up on one of Kasmir’s bunks, he dreamt of blaster fire and screams, and kallnut trees growing high above everything else.

When Kasmir helped him the next morning, he commented, “I didn’t remember you being blind, kid.”

“It was… recent,” Caleb said quietly. He didn’t know how else to explain what had happened, the strange fire that had burned through him.

“Huh. Have something to do with that burn on your hand?”

The burn. Caleb hadn’t seen it, but he’d felt the pain, the throbbing agony. Without any better ideas, he’d torn a strip from his robe and wrapped it up. Until last night, when he’d been cleaning up. In the fresher, he’d… seen it. Not his hand, but the burn, more like a brand. A symbol, one that he’d never seen before, but knew the meaning of immediately, instinctively.

It was a kallnut tree. Vibrant and green and growing and solid. Unwavering. And it was part of him now, in a way that he couldn’t express in mere words. Caleb vaguely remembered reading about something like this in the Jedi Archives, but at the time he’d been too tired to even try and figure it out.

“Kind of,” he said, and Kasmir seemed content to leave it at that.

He’d thought that would be the end. Kasmir clearly didn’t intend for him to stay, blind or otherwise. He’d most likely just throw him out on the street, and the Kalleran had clearly planned on doing just that.

But then his emergency signal went off.

The Jedi, who he’d thought were dead, were calling him back to the Temple.

Relief flooded through him for one magnificent moment. He could go home. The masters, some part of the Council, surely would have made it. Someone would know what to do about his blindness, and he would have some small piece of his life back.

But he had no way of getting there. And Kasmir flatly refused to take him there when Caleb asked him— begged him to take him to Coruscant. The Kalleran refused, then stalked out of the ship, telling him to finish his meal then get out.

Frustration boiled in his chest, and he threw the bread Kasmir had given him across the ship. Pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes, he bit back a scream of helpless frustration.

I have to do something, I have to be able to get to the Temple. But without a ship? Without the ability to see what he was doing?

As if on cue, a tiny crack of light blossomed around the corner of his palm.

Shocked, Caleb yanked his hand back. The light in the ship was dim, but to his eyes it was blisteringly bright. Blinking back tears of pain, he stared, unbelieving at the ship around him.

He could see again.

There was no real time to take in the shock and relief pounding through him. He was already charging into the cockpit, starting up the engine and taking off. The coordinates to Coruscant were easy to remember, and Caleb was working on autopilot. He was going home. He was going back to the Jedi Temple.

Only minutes away from exiting hyperspace, he received a new message.

“This is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic have fallen, with the dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. This message is a warning and a reminder for all remaining Jedi…”

Caleb listened to the words, numb with horror. The only thing that jolted him out of his panic was the ships surrounding him as he floated above the planet’s atmosphere. Coruscant wasn’t safe, just like Kasmir had said.

He barely made it out alive. And when he got back to Kaller, Kasmir was furious with him. The Kalleran barely seemed to notice he’d regained his vision, or care. He just tossed him off the ship and told him to never come back.

But Caleb truly didn’t know where else to go. So he stuck around, until one day, he saved Kasmir.

Sort of. Kasmir didn’t seem to think he’d really done him any favors. But it got him a job with the Kalleran, which went… interestingly. In the end, Caleb stuck with him. Despite the fact he insisted on calling Caleb “kid”, and had sold him out as part of a con, and was gruff and sarcastic.

He was familiar, and he wouldn’t betray him. At least, Caleb didn’t think he would. And he was only a little nosy.

“So, you didn’t stay blind long,” he remarked one day as they sat in the cockpit of the Kasmiri, watching hyperspace blur past them.

“Yeah,” Caleb said slowly. “It… I don’t know. I wasn’t lying.”

“Nah, I could tell that,” Kasmir said with a dismissive wave. “Ya know, I heard stories about that kinda thing, once. About people going temporarily blind, and when it stopped, they were… different. Kinda like the Jedi, but it was different. Green men, they were called, since they had this tie to some sort of plant.”

Caleb’s throat was dry, but he managed a nonchalant shrug. “Hmm. Sounds like an old story.”

He could feel Kasmir watching him with narrowed eyes, but then he shrugged. “Eh, just a legend. Could be a real one, or not. Doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Right,” Caleb said, the tightness in his chest easing a little.

Green men. He knew that legend, a little bit. Stories about the seventh son of specific families in parts of the Outer Rim. Their connection with different kinds of plants, the power it gave them. Caleb had never actually met someone with those abilities.

But now… he glanced down at his hand, covered in a glove. Beneath it glowed the kallnut tree— sturdy brown trunk, three-pronged leaves shimmering a light green. Strong and steady, humming with a power that he didn’t quite understand.

Part of him wanted to test it, to reach into that well within him. But he knew better. It wasn’t safe to be a Jedi, and the green men weren’t safe either.

So he kept it hidden. As the days slipped by and he kept working with Kasmir— until things went sideways, and he had to leave. To protect himself, but to protect Kasmir, too.

No one was safe around the Jedi any more. Caleb was better off on his own.

Actually, that wasn’t true. Caleb Dume was better off dead. Kanan Jarrus was better off traveling on his own, far away from anyone else who could die. Far away from the Force, too. And that was the way things stayed.

At least, they stayed that way until he met Hera Syndulla.

~~~

Hera still wasn’t completely used to having a new crew member, even after a full month of it. Not in a bad way, by any means. While Kanan was a shameless flirt (though he’d toned that down a little, thank the Force) he was also a hard worker, quick to pick up on the plans she made and even quicker to come up with his own. He also made her laugh, although she’d often refuse to admit it.

But having a new person on the Ghost was, well, new. Hera was used to looking out for herself and Chopper, and Kanan threw a wrench into that dynamic. Most of them were easy to cope with— someone else using the refresher, his insistence that they didn’t subsist on only ration bars, which resulted in a lot more shopping, to name a few.

However, he also had a habit of disappearing whenever they landed in a remote area, especially when they were near a body of water or trees. Hera had asked him about it, and he’d just said he was meditating in the vaguest possible way. Considering he was a Jedi, that was most likely true.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t a pain in the neck sometimes. Namely, when they needed to leave, and Hera couldn’t find him.

She’d accidentally left him behind once. While Hera had realized it before she’d even broken through the atmosphere, and had gone back immediately, Kanan had been VERY dramatic about it. So Hera had no intention of making the same mistake twice.

Which was why she was now taking a not so lovely stroll through a stand of trees on Tythlona, in search of her crew member.

“Kanan?” she called out warily, weaving between tangled brush and ancient trees. The forest here was old, but most of the trees were smaller, with twisted limbs and golden-green leaves. They all reached above Hera’s head, but not by much, and she could see the evidence of fallen fruit underfoot. “Kanan, can you hear me? It’s time to leave.”

There was no response, and Hera let out a sigh of annoyance. They were due to leave soon, and she hated to linger on a planet where she’d run a mission, even if it was just dropping off supplies. There was still a chance, however small, the Empire could track it back to them.

She opened her mouth to call for Kanan again, then stopped. There was a break in the trees ahead, and something was moving.

Instinctively, her hand twitched towards her blaster, but she didn’t draw it yet. Instead, she moved forwards through the woods, staying at the ready.

It wasn’t long before the trees fell away, and Hera was standing at the brink between the cool, shady woods, and a wide open plain of golden grain. A small expanse of grass split the ground before the grain sprang up, and it was there that Kanan was kneeling, his back to her.

Hera’s voice stopped in her throat at the sight before her. She’d never actually seen him meditate before— but she’d seen other Jedi do it, and it didn't seem like much. It certainly hadn’t looked like this.

All around Kanan, plants were springing up in a long half circle. Saplings, Hera realized as she slowly approached, staying as quiet as she could. The tallest barely brushed the top of his head, buds twisting to life on the spindly branches. As she watched, crumpled leaves smoothed open, their three tips stretching towards the sun. They were growing before her very eyes.

The saplings seemed to hum with life and a rich green energy, framing Kanan until he almost looked like he could be one of them. Hera stood, uncertainly watching him, until he finally moved.

Lifting his head, he turned and looked at her through the leaves. Surprise flashed across his face, and he got to his feet, moving carefully out of the ring of small trees. Their rate of growth had slowed a little, but the tallest of them already reached Kanan’s mid-chest.

“Hey,” he said, pausing in front of her. “I didn’t hear you coming.”

“Well, you were clearly distracted,” Hera said, her gaze flashing from him to the small ring of trees. When she looked back at him, his expression was… self conscious. Embarrassed, almost.

“Yeah. I, uh…” he paused, looking back at the trees for a moment, a half-smile crossing his face. “Would you believe me if I said it wasn’t a Jedi thing?”

Hera’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, I suppose that explains why I’ve never heard about it before. Then… what is it? If you want to share,” she added immediately. “If it’s none of my business, then tell me that.”

Kanan shook his head, grinning a little. “Hey, it’s all your business at this point, Captain Hera.” He lifted his right hand, and Hera saw he wasn’t wearing the fingerless gloves he always had on.

She quickly realized why. On his palm was etched a burn scar, deep and old. But it wasn’t just a scar. It was something more. Something that, as Hera watched, shimmered with a green light the same shade as the leaves on the tree.

“There’s an old legend,” Kanan said quietly. “About the seventh son in certain family lines— usually in Outer Rim planets, although I couldn’t tell you which. But those seventh sons have a connection to a plant, and that connection grants powers that I don’t really understand. All I know is that they’re strong. Strong enough that it’s a miracle I haven’t been spontaneously growing trees this whole time.”

“So… you’re one of those seventh sons?” Hera said slowly.

“I never knew my birth family, but… apparently, yes.” Rubbing at his palm, Kanan said, “I learned about this growing up– at least a little bit. But I never understood the scale of the power, of what all it would mean. I was only fourteen when I got it, but I’ve barely used it since then.”

“Fourteen?” Hera did some rapid math in her head. “So that would have been—”

“Right after the Purge. And I mean right after.” Kanan let out a wry laugh. “Not the best timing. I’ve… I’ve never actually told anyone about this.”

Hera knew what that meant, coming from him. Kanan wasn’t closed off, necessarily. He was open enough, and friendly— more than just friendly, with his flirting. But he kept his secrets close to the chest.

Or at least, he had. These days, he was starting to be more and more open with her. And that wasn’t something Hera was going to treat lightly.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she told him quietly, and he smiled.

“I know. You’re nice like that.”

Hiding a pleased smile, Hera commented, “You know, just when I think I have you figured out, you come up with something new. Any other mind-blowing secrets you have hidden?”

Rubbing at his beard, Kanan frowned in mock concentration. “Well, my killer good looks aren’t a secret to anyone, so… nope. Looks like you’re the mysterious one, now.”

Hera laughed. “I’m honored, dear. Are you ready to go?”

“One minute.” Kanan turned, bending to pick up his gloves from where he’d left them. For just a moment, he lingered by the trees, fingertips tracing over the tops of the dancing leaves. And then he was pulling on the gloves, turning to face her. “Let’s roll.”

As they headed back to the ship, Hera asked, “What kind of trees are they?”

“Kallnut trees,” Kanan said. “Apparently the nuts are pretty good, but I’ve never stuck around one of them long enough to find out.” He glanced at her. “Any more questions?”

It was a genuine question— Hera could tell. She took a minute to consider, then said, “What does it feel like?”

A thoughtful frown knitted Kanan’s brows as they came out of the trees. The Ghost was landed nearby, and Hera knew it was only a matter of time before Chopper came out to demand where they’d been. But Kanan stopped anyway, looking like he was turning the question over and over in his mind.

“It’s different from the Force— and the same,” he said. “The Force is just… there. Always. Like a river you’re walking next to, and can dip your feet in at any minute. It’s easy to reach, like breathing. This is… brighter. More persistent. They’re both easy, but if one’s more confusing, it’s the kallnut tree. But it’s strong. I— I don’t know how to explain it other than— can I?”

He slipped off a glove and held his scarred hand out to her. Hera’s breath caught, but she took his hand. His fingers were gentle and warm as he rested his palm against hers.

For a moment, there was nothing. And then, a flare of warmth from the knotted scar. Hera gasped as a humming brightness tangled around her hand. It was alive and strong and felt like roots deep in the earth, leaves reaching for the sky. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before, and was somehow fully… Kanan, yet not Kanan.

It was gone a heartbeat later, and Hera was aware of Kanan watching her. “Make any more sense?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” Hera said, forcing herself to breathe evenly. “And no.”

He nodded, still holding her hand. “Same here.”

And then Chopper’s loud, accusatory bwomping cut through the stillness surrounding them, and Hera forced herself to let go of Kanan’s hand. But her fingers still tingled from the contact as she headed back to the ship.

Of all the potential crew members she could have ended up with, Kanan was definitely on the stranger end. But she found she didn’t really mind that.

#star wars rebels #swr #kanan jarrus #caleb dume #janus kasmir #hera syndulla #kanera #kanan comics #the bad batch #tales of the spectres #spectre week #spectre week 2024 #writing stories is a kind of magic too #swr seventh son au

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