hadthehighground | Duplicity IC Inbox

Yeah.

[ Another pause, another deep breath. There's so much to talk about, so many things he can't help but think Obi-Wan has to know. He's not really worried about talking about it, but it feels a little like staring down a pit. ]

Palpatine knew they didn't get everyone. They've been trying to track down the last of us. Do you know about the Inquisitors?

That doesn’t surprise me. Master Yoda fought Palpatine, but was unable to defeat him and fled. And of course there’s Anakin…

[He stops there, feeling the lump in his throat. They obviously knew that he was still alive. So it would stand to reason they would expect others. But his brow then creased slightly in confusion.]

Inquisitors? No, I don’t.

Some of us Padawans, they ... The Empire captured them and turned them to the dark side to hunt down the remaining Jedi. Darth Vader trained them. I don't know how many they've killed but I'm pretty sure they've found a few in the past five years.

They would have killed me on Bracca if Cere didn't show up.

Well that sure is a bombshell.

For several moments Obi-Wan could only stare at Cal, completely speechless. It was bad enough that so many younglings and Padawans had been slaughtered, but this was a different kind of evil. The scope of Anakin’s betrayal sinking in even more.

“Padawans turned against their own people?”

Clearly this was something Obi-Wan hadn’t even considered as a possibility. It was unfathomable to him. And yet before it happened, he never would have thought Anakin capable of what he did. And now he knows his own Padawan used children to kill other Jedi.

At first, he only nods, as he tries to decide how to continue. At some point, he should tell Obi-Wan about the holocron and the fight to get it. Wonder if he'd support the choice to destroy it.

For now, he decides to skip that.

"One of them was Cere's Padawan. I encountered her several times afterwards. During one of our fights, I managed to disarm her and took her lightsaber. I got to ... I saw what they did to her. The echo was so powerful I couldn't see anything else, or move. It was really painful. I don't want that to happen again. To be overwhelmed like that. Do you know if it's possible to learn to control it better?"

He doesn’t doubt that it was painful to see that. Obi-Wan is pained at the mere thought of it. Yet Cal didn’t have the personal connection that he did with Darth Vader… with Anakin. Right now he’s glad he doesn’t have Cal’s ability, because he’s certain that seeing something like that might destroy him.

“It is possible,” Obi-Wan says quietly. Frowning softly as he considers it. “Admittedly I’m not the best teacher as I don’t have the skill myself, not to that extent. I can feel impressions, echoes, feelings, but certainly not so vividly. But I think I can help you regardless.”

"Well, the chances of me finding someone who has psychometry and can control it is next to none. As far as I can tell it's not really something you can control anyway, just ... I'm hoping it's possible to stop it controlling me like that."

The echoes will happen regardless, that much he's certain of. Most of them aren't like that. Next time, though, he might not be so lucky that his opponent thinks they have something more important to do.

“It’s like any other skill, it takes practice and discipline, as well as time. You need to become familiar and comfortable with it. Only then will you reach the point where it will not control you.”

It was the same for controlling one’s force powers in general. Every now and then a youngling would crop up whose force abilities were beyond what they could manage. It wasn’t until they learned the ways of the Jedi that they could effectively use their abilities. Cal’s psychometry was of a similar thread, but his training was cut short due to the purge.

Now here comes the questions.

“How often do you meditate?”

Edited 2022-02-26 01:03 (UTC)

At some point, if he wants Obi-Wan to help him, he'll have to talk about it. So that might as well be now. It's not that it worries him to bare his heart here, it's just that it will probably always be difficult.

"Every day," he says, and leans forward to rest his arms on his knees. "But for five years I didn't. I tried, but ... After the Purge, every time I tried I'd feel this ... fear, and I'd lose control. So I stopped. My connection was broken. It's fine now. Stronger than before, I think."

That was heartbreaking to hear as well. With Obi-Wan reaching out to touch Cal’s shoulder in a show of sympathy, of understanding. The Purge had taken everything from them, leaving them broken.

“Tell me, how did you overcome?”

He wanted to know, to get a better understanding of the young man he would be teaching. The more that Cal said, the better. But Obi-Wan wouldn’t push him beyond what he was comfortable.

It wasn't more than he was comfortable with. After all, he'd talked about it already.

"I managed to destroy the crystal left in my master's lightsaber, so we had to go to Ilum to get a new one for me. I nearly drowned in the process, and when I took the crystal, it cracked in my palm. Not sure why. Maybe it felt my turmoil. That was ... my lowest point. I felt like I'd failed everyone. Myself, my master, my friends, the entire galaxy. BD-1 convinced me that it wasn't all over. I managed to take the broken pieces and make a new lightsaber with my master's and Cere's hilt together."

He pulls his lightsaber free from his belt and puts the tea cup down before taking hold of each hilt with one hand. Then, he twists them, and pulls them apart.

Listening intently, the older man winces slightly in sympathy upon hearing Cal had destroyed his master’s crystal. While attachment wasn’t something they were supposed to do, that would sting for any Jedi. He then nods and grimaces again at his tale of Illum. An appropriate place to go for a new crystal and sounds like it was perhaps untouched by the Empire. At least up to that point.

When Cal pulls out the lightsaber he had cobbled together from two others with a new crystal, Obi-Wan means over with interest to take a look.

“That’s quite the story, but it seems to me that trial has only strengthened you.” Which is how it should be. No one improved by taking the easy path.

It was probably just as well, in the end. A lightsaber always worked best with the crystal that had chosen the Jedi. He suspects Master Tapal's crystal worked so well only because it went to his Padawan, because Master Tapal personally gave it to him.

When Obi-Wan leans in, he holds the hilts out a little towards him for a few seconds.

"It did," he says softly, with a nod, and puts the saber back together. "I knew then that I was ready for anything. Well, almost anything. Ready to face my past, at least." He pauses for a moment. "I should probably tell you what me and Cere were doing. Have you ever heard of the Zeffo?"

Satisfied with what he saw, Obi-Wan leans back again, folding his arms and nodding. Every Jedi had to go through a period where they had to face themselves and their fears. Though some had more to overcome than others.

"I've heard mention of it." A hand idly stroking his beard as he tried to think back on what he knew of the planet. "In the Outter Rim if I recall." Obi-Wan had fought in the Outter Rim sieges, so he was at least vaguely familiar with many of the planets out there. He didn't remember Zeffo having any strategic importance though.

He didn't mean the planet, but that answers his question. The people that used to live on Zeffo was more obscure knowledge, from his understanding.

"Yes. Named after the people that lived there a long time ago. They were Force-sensitive and disappeared mysteriously a long time ago. Master Cordova was very interested in them. It was one of their ancient sites, a vault, that gave him the vision of the fall of the Order. When he realised the Council wouldn't heed his warning, he created a holocron with a list of Force-sensitive children and hid it inside the vault. After the Purge, Cere made it her mission to retrieve the holocron."

"I see," Obi-Wan says, leaning back and still messing with his beard as he pondered this information. Frowning as he again realized what a grave error was made.

"Was she successful?" A holocron of such a nature would be very valuable. One like it had been stolen by Cad Bane during the war and had almost led to the destruction of three children listed within it. He could only imagine what would happen to those children if the Empire got ahold of it.

He shakes his head.

"She couldn't do it. She'd cut herself off from the Force, so she needed another Jedi. That's why she monitored the Inquisitors' comms and came to Bracca when they found me. It wasn't easy. Master Cordova had stored all the information we needed in BD-1, but BD-1 had let him encrypt it and then wipe his memories. To unlock everything, we had to follow his footsteps and visit other Zeffo sites. Tombs. To get the information, BD-1 had to approve you and guide you."

When trying to put it all together in a way that made sense and didn't take too long to explain, it seemed very convoluted.

“Ah, of course.”

Right. If she had cut herself off from the Force then she wouldn’t be able to access it. Naturally a Jedi would do everything they could to protect such an important item. To keep it from falling into the wrong hands.

“That must have been quite the endeavor, though I would expect no less.”

He then motions for Cal to continue.

Quite the endeavour is an understatement.

"The vault needed a special kind of key to open. Master Cordova of course used one. The only one left that we knew of was in the palace and tomb of a Zeffo sage called Kujet, on Dathomir. He was a tyrant who sacrificed any who opposed him in his palace. It was steeped in evil. Even the Nightsisters avoided it. When I tried to enter it, it forced me to face my master. I couldn't get through until after Ilum. I wasn't ... steady enough."

Not strong enough. Obi-Wan would have probably understood what he meant if he said it, that it wasn't about physical strength, but 'steady' seems more fitting.

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