#the Force is strong on Tanalorr so I'm gonna break some rules

[animatedjen]

The Mantis door had been left open. Even from the engine room, Cal could taste the salty, Force-stained air of Tanalorr drifting through the ship. It mingled with leftover pyre ash clinging to his vest and boots – he couldn’t bring himself to wash just yet. Any form of penance felt justified, no matter how small.

Cal hunched over the workbench, cleaning dried mud from his saber’s emitter (again) trying and failing to distract himself (again) when the click-whirr of BD’s scanner broke the silence.

“You found another bogling ‘gift?’” Cal muttered. BD chirped negative! from somewhere under the table and emerged with a small, foil-wrapped square.

Bracca. Despite years of dust, Cal immediately recognized the meal bar sold to double-shift employees. This one was dented, shoved deep into a pant pocket to be saved for a day without any other options. BD announced that the square’s interior might be edible, but it didn’t match any food descriptions in his current databank.

“It was barely food,” Cal said. “I’m pretty sure the droids ate better than we did.” Removing the caked-on dust revealed an Echo of rusted iron and rain, the shuffling of hands and goods under a dingy Guild banner, and the desperation of a young Scrapper hiding his last bit of food.

This was from his first night on the Mantis. Cal saw himself there on the cot, a trembling scrap rat of a kid with wild eyes and a broken lightsaber. Sensing echoes from his own memory was rare; psychometry draws upon the experiences of other people. But Cal had a strained relationship with the Force these days – and a strained relationship with himself. Another penance. He found himself drifting towards the bed.

The echo of Cal stripped off his drenched poncho and examined the blaster hole on its sleeve. His gaze darted around the room, then towards the hallway, where Cere’s voice murmured faintly over the hum of the engine. “I shouldn’t trust her,” he exhaled, wringing his Master’s saber in his hands. “She could still turn me in.”

Cal settled next to his younger self. The wind outside was stronger now, dragging purple leaves and glittering flecks across the floor. He sighed and leaned back against the bulkhead.

“She– Cere– she will give everything for you,” Cal whispered. His jaw trembled, and he fought through the grief swelling in his chest. “She’s going to save you over and over. And sometimes you’ll be mad about it, because you think she’s being too cautious. Sometimes her teaching will seem too simple, and you’ll act like you know everything, but you don’t. And when she walks away–” the words caught in his throat. “She walks away and you won’t understand why. And you’ll keep fighting, and you won’t know how to stop, and eventually you ruin everything.”

He tasted salt on his lips. The lights on the ceiling blinked on and off, and on and off.

“So I should leave?”

Cal turned to his own echo, now staring directly at him. 

“I’ll leave,” the younger Cal repeated. “Right now. Make them drop me off on Nar Shaddaa, find work, and go back into hiding. Then none of this will ever happen, and no one will get hurt.”

Five years of sorrow washed over Cal. It was an empty promise from a boy who had not yet experienced the full power of the Empire. But maybe, a quiet voice offered, maybe everyone else would have a better chance without you.

The echo (or whatever the Force it was) glanced past Cal. Somewhere outside, Greez was calling to Merrin. Her reply made Kata laugh, and their distant voices melted into the breeze. “Who is that?” the younger Cal asked.

Cal dragged his boot across the floor. “Family,” he finally replied. “Your family. If you stay.”

“Are they worth it?”

“Yes.” The sharpness in his own voice surprised Cal. Despite everything that went wrong, all the pain he caused, and all the lives lost. You two are the best thing that ever happened in my life, Greez had once said, sitting on this very cot. For all of Cal’s failures, he had somehow been given the best people in the entire galaxy.

And if they chose him, no matter what happened, then maybe Cal could too.

The younger Cal walked to the doorway, hovering at its threshold. “Do we actually do it?” he asked timidly, clipping the broken saber to his belt. “Do we rebuild the Jedi Order?”

Cal met his gaze. “You make a difference. You save people. Not all of them.”

“Is it still worth trying?”

“Yeah. I hope so.”

His echo nodded and disappeared down the hallway. A moment later, Cal heard himself tentatively playing Cere’s hallikset. Then came footsteps and a familiar voice–

–and the memory was gone. Cal stood next to the Mantis couch and stared at the empty space where Cere should be sitting. He pried his fingers from the foil wrapper clenched in his hand and dropped the misshapen lump of Bracca on the table.

“What’s that?” Kata asked as stepped inside. Merrin followed behind, her eyes darting from the meal bar to Cal's pinched eyebrows. A purple leaf had lodged itself inside the fold of her jacket hood.

“Something BD-1 found under the workbench,” Cal shrugged. “It smells weird.”

Kata crouched at the table, poking the foil with one finger. BD hopped up next to her and reiterated his initial findings, but clarified the food item was long expired and no attempt at eating it should be made.

Cal pulled the leaf from Merrin’s jacket, and she in turn brushed a piece of ash from his shoulder. Kata gingerly opened a corner of the foil and immediately made a face. “This is really bad,” she confirmed. “Like nekko barf. Can we show Greez?”

“Lateros smell things differently than we do,” Merrin explained, her expression deadpan. “He will find it pleasant.”

“No way,” Kata teased, but she and BD were already out the door and halfway down the ramp. A moment later, Greez’ yell of disgust echoed across all of Tanalorr.