#ckw

The lower levels of Coruscant smelled of ozone, recycled air, and despair. The endless hum of speeder traffic was a constant, oppressive drone overhead, but down here, in the shadowed canyons between monolithic towers, the sound was muted, replaced by the distant echo of bootsteps, Imperial bootsteps. You and Cal had been moving like ghosts for days, a pair of wanted specters haunting the undercity. Cal Kestis, with his shock of ginger hair and the telltale hilt of his lightsaber hidden beneath a ragged poncho, was a beacon for every stormtrooper patrol. You, a fellow Jedi on the run, knew the feeling all too well.

The strategy was simple: keep moving, never stay in one place for more than a few minutes, and use the teeming masses as a cloak. You’d ducked into a dozen little shops: a droid parts vendor, a stall selling questionable meat skewers, and a dimly lit tapcaf playing tinny holographic music. Each time, you’d linger just long enough for the white-armored patrols to clank past the transparisteel windows, their helmeted heads swiveling in mechanical unison. Cal’s tension was a live wire beside you, his hand never straying far from his concealed weapon.

“Just another couple of spacers down on their luck,” you’d mutter, pulling the brim of your own hood lower. Cal would nod, his jaw tight, his bright green eyes scanning every exit.

But the net was tightening. A routine patrol had somehow turned into a coordinated sweep. You could hear the amplified voices echoing down the alleyways. “By order of the Imperial Security Bureau, halt for inspection!” They were corralling you, herding you away from the main thoroughfares and into a labyrinth of service alleys.

Your breaths came in short, sharp gasps as you ran, Cal right on your heels. The alley narrowed, the walls closing in, covered in grimy pipes and flickering emergency strips. You took a left, then a right, hoping for a cross-passage, a maintenance hatch, anything.

Dead end.

A high plascrete wall, stained with years of runoff, loomed ahead. The only features were an overflowing dumpster and a single, flickering glow panel that cast everything in a sickly yellow light. Behind you, the methodical, marching footsteps grew louder. A squad. Maybe two. There was no shop to duck into, no crowd to blend with. It was just you, Cal, and a wall.

Cal spun, his back to the dead end, his eyes wide with a panic he was trying desperately to master. “We’re trapped,” he breathed, his hand moving to his poncho. “We have to fight.”

Fighting meant blaster bolts, lightsabers igniting, and an immediate alert to every Imperial within ten levels. It meant capture, or death. There had to be another way. Your mind raced, discarding possibilities as fast as the bootsteps grew closer. And then it landed on the one thing a Jedi wouldn’t think of, the one thing the Empire’s faceless enforcers would overlook.

You turned to Cal, the plan crystallizing in an instant. “Quick, kiss me.”

He blinked, the panic in his eyes shifting to pure, unadulterated confusion. The red-headed Jedi stared at you as if you’d just suggested levitating the entire wall. “You want me to do what?” The incredulity in his voice was almost louder than the approaching stormtroopers.

There was no time for debate, for gentle persuasion. The first white helmet was about to round the corner. With a roll of your eyes that was equal parts exasperation and fondness, you closed the distance between you. You placed a firm hand on his chest and pushed him back against the cold, damp wall.

He let out a soft 'oof' of surprise, but before he could protest further, you captured his lips with your own.

For a second, he was rigid, frozen in shock. Then, instinct, or something deeper, something you’d both been too busy running to acknowledge, took over. His body relaxed against the wall. Your other hand came up, tangling in the soft, ginger strands of his hair, holding him close. The kiss deepened, a desperate, convincing performance that quickly blurred the lines between act and authenticity. You could taste the faint tang of the ration bar on his lips and feel the rapid beat of his heart against your palm. His own hands, usually so sure and capable, fumbled for a moment before settling on your hips, gripping the fabric of your jacket. You could feel the rapid beat of his pulse where your thumb brushed his jaw. The world narrowed to the warmth of his mouth, the slight scratch of his stubble, and the quiet, desperate sounds neither of you fully stifled.

The boot steps rounded the corner and halted.

You didn’t pull away. You poured everything into the kiss, the fear, the exhaustion, the unspoken camaraderie of shared survival. You explored his mouth, a silent promise and an apology all at once. Cal, after his initial shock, responded in kind, his hands coming up to grip your arms, not to push you away, but to anchor himself.

From your peripheral vision, you saw the glow of white armor. You heard a muttered, electronically distorted voice. “Ugh. Just a couple. Move along.”

A gruff laugh. “Get a room, you two.”

The bootsteps resumed, fading back down the alley the way they came, moving on to hunt less romantically preoccupied prey.

It took another long moment after the sound had completely disappeared for you to break the kiss, pulling back just enough to rest your forehead against his. You were both breathing heavily, though not from the run this time.

Cal’s eyes were wide, his face flushed beneath his freckles. The alarm was gone, replaced by a dazed, vulnerable wonder. He searched your face, his lips still slightly parted.

“That…” he started, his voice a hoarse whisper. “That was…”

“The only thing I could think of,” you finished, your own voice not much steadier. Your hand was still in his hair.

He didn’t move to dislodge it. A faint, incredulous smile touched his lips. “It was a good think.” He paused, the smile fading into something more serious. “A really good think.”

The humid, earthy scent of Harvest Ridge Barn hung heavy in the air, punctuated by the rustle of dried fodder and the low, rumbling gurgles of the creatures stabled within. You stopped dead in your tracks, crossing your arms tightly over your chest as you stared at the bipedal, feathered anomaly standing a few paces away.

"What in the Force is that? I'm not getting on that," you said, your voice flat with absolute refusal.

Cal slowed his pace, turning back to look at you with that familiar, patient grin tugging at the corner of his lips. "It's a Nekko," he explained, gesturing toward the creature as they walked deeper into the barn's shadow. "And we need them if we have any hope of ever making it through at least half of Koboh. The terrain out there isn't exactly built for a casual stroll."

You let out a heavy, dramatic groan, rolling your eyes toward the rafters. "That has to be an over-exaggeration. We have the Mantis. We have legs."

"Okay, maybe just a little," Cal admitted, chuckling as he approached a stall and gently led a striking, white-feathered Nekko out into the main walkway. The creature shifted its weight, its large eyes blinking curiously at you. "But we really do need one for where we're going. The mud slides and steep ridges ahead will swallow you whole. So just bear with me here, will you?"

You stared at the massive bird-like reptile, then at Cal's hopeful expression. Defeated, you threw your hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, fine... but I still don't know how to operate these things. Do they come with a manual?"

"Which is why I'm going to teach you," Cal said softly, his expression softening. He stepped closer, extending his hand toward you. "Come here. They don't bite... at least, not from what I've seen so far."

You hesitated but stepped forward, letting Cal take your hand. His grip was warm and steady as he guided your fingers toward the Nekko's beak, allowing the creature to take your scent. It let out a soft, trilling breath against your skin.

"See?" Cal murmured, looking from the creature to you. "You two just need to trust each other."

"This is easily one of the top ten worst creatures I've ever seen," you muttered, though you didn't pull your hand away, reluctantly allowing the Nekko to finish sniffing you.

"Well," Cal teased, leaning in a fraction closer, "you don't have to like it in order to ride it."

A wicked smirk flashed across your face. "Funny... the same thing could be said about you."

Cal’s cheeks immediately flushed a faint pink. He let go of your hand, waving you off with an embarrassed scoff. "Hey! Just... just get on the thing already, will you?"

Amused by how easily you'd rattled him, you stepped up to the Nekko's side. Cal shook off his fluster and stepped in close to guide you, placing your hands on the base of the creature's thick neck. "Right here," he instructed, his tone turning serious again. "And try not to yank its feathers, or else they'll yank you off. I found that out the hard way."

You carefully adjusted your grip, trying to find a secure hold without provoking the beast. "Okay... how do I get things going—"

Before you could even finish the sentence, the Nekko suddenly jolted forward, taking a brisk stride out of the barn. Luckily, Nekkos aren't exactly known for high-speed sprinting, but the sudden movement still caught you completely off guard. You gasped, gripping the feathers a little tighter than intended as you swayed in the saddle.

"There you have it!" Cal called out, a laugh bubbling in his chest. "Keep steady!"

"Easy for you to say!" you yelled back.

"Keep steady," Cal encouraged, rushing over to his own Nekko and quickly hopping into the saddle to catch up with you. He pulled up alongside your trotting mount. "They sort of... know where they’re going. You just have to guide them with your knees and a little bit of intent. Think ‘forward,’ and it’ll go forward."

You gripped the reins tightly, your jaw clenched. “I was thinking ‘stay still,’ and it completely ignored that,” you grumbled.

Before you could master the art of mental telepathy with your overgrown bird, Cal suddenly spurred his Nekko onward. With a burst of surprising agility, Cal’s mount launched itself into the air, gracefully leaping right over the tall barn gate blocking the path.

Your eyes widened in pure horror. "What the—! I'm not doing that!"

You had no idea Nekkos were even capable of clearing obstacles that high, and frankly, you had zero desire to find out if you were capable of surviving the landing.

Noticing your panic, Cal turned his Nekko around on the other side of the fence. His voice carried across the yard, calm and reassuring. "You can do it! Just give it a running start. Trust the Nekko; it'll handle the rest!"

Sucking in a sharp breath, you nudged the creature with your heels, urging it into a clumsy trot. You steered it closer and closer to the wooden barrier. Your heart hammered against your ribs as the fence loomed large, but right at the last second, the Nekko coiled its powerful legs and hopped cleanly over the fence, landing with a heavy but stable thud on the dirt road.

The creature slowed to a gentle trot, moving over to where Cal was waiting.

"See? Perfect form," Cal praised, offering you a bright, proud smile. "Though... you know..." He pointed a finger slightly to the left, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. "...there was actually a latch on the gate door we both could have used."

You froze, looking at the perfectly functional, unlatched gate, and then back to your boyfriend.

"What? So you made me do all of that for nothing?!" you cried out, incredulous.

"Not nothing," Cal smirked, shifting in his saddle as he turned his Nekko toward the open wild. "At least now you learned how to leap for later."

Jedha’s dust had barely settled in their lungs before the galaxy tilted on its axis. One moment, Cal Kestis and you were sharing a quiet, breath-held glance across the Mantis’s common area, a silent conversation of almosts and not yets. The next moment, alarms screamed, blaster fire painted the ancient stones, and Bode’s betrayal carved a wound so deep it seemed to swallow the stars themselves.

Before, it was all stolen moments. Lingering looks that lasted a heartbeat too long, fingers brushing when passing a tool, only to snap back as if scorched. You’d make an excuse, checking for a cut, comparing calluses, just to hold his hand, and then the heat would rush to your faces, the contact broken with a nervous cough. You both knew. Friends don’t stare like they’re trying to memorize the flecks of gold in someone’s eyes. Friends don’t lie awake in their bunks, the narrow corridor between you feeling like a chasm, aching with the unsaid want to bridge it. But the Empire offered no room for softness, no time for revelations. The want was a luxury, a secret flame banked beneath the urgent survival of the day.

Then, Jedha erupted. Cere’s alert, the crushing realization of their compromised sanctuary, and the frantic flight, it all blurred into the stark, unforgiving moment in the Archives. Bode’s blaster. Master Cordova falling. The fight that chased them across the stars to Tanalorr ended not with peace, but with a child’s trembling hand in yours and the weight of a dead man’s daughter in Cal’s arms.

Kata.

Suddenly, the delicate, unspoken thing between you and Cal was buried under the immediate, monumental task of keeping a little girl alive, helping her breathe through the grief. The hands that ached to intertwine now busied themselves with preparing meals, mending torn clothes, and building a makeshift crib. The longing glances were redirected, softened, into watching over Kata’s fitful sleep.

To the group’s surprise, especially Cal’s, you slipped into the role with a natural grace you didn’t know you possessed. While Greez fretted about nutrition and Merrin weaved gentle, magical tales, you became a pillar of quiet routine. One evening, as Kata fussed in your arms, you settled into a chair, a flimsy plastic storybook in one hand. With the other, you gave a slight, focused twitch of your fingers. A few of her colorful toy tooka-cats, left on the table, stirred. Then, they lifted, beginning a slow, waltzing rotation in the air above her, glowing softly with a gentle nudge of the Force. Her crying hiccupped to a stop, wide eyes following the dancing toys. Your voice, low and steady, began the story of the Lost Star-Turtle, and by the time the turtle found its constellation, Kata was asleep, her breath even, cradled against your chest. Cal watched from the doorway, his own heart a tumult of grief and awe, the sight stirring something profound and painful in his chest.

The days bled into weeks on Tanalorr. The immediate dangers faded, replaced by the rhythm of caregiving. But the space between you and Cal, once charged with potential, now felt vast and filled with the ghosts of what could have been. The unspoken thing had not vanished; it had been pressurized, packed down into the quiet moments after Kata was finally asleep, when the Mantis was still save for the hum of the ship’s systems.

One such night, deep into the ship’s artificial cycle, found you both in the lounge. Greez was long in his bunk, Merrin meditating in her quarters. Only the soft glow of the console lights illuminated the space. The silence was a solid, tangible thing, stretched tight over years of friendship, months of unvoiced desire, and weeks of shared, devastating parenthood.

It was Cal who finally broke it, his voice rough from disuse. “You’re good with her,” he said, not looking at you, his gaze fixed on the starfield outside the viewport. “Really good. I… I didn’t expect it. I didn’t know you had that in you.”

You leaned back in the chair, the leather creaking. “Neither did I. It just… felt like the only thing to do.” “It’s more than that,” he said, finally lifting his gaze. The exhaustion there was profound, but so was a raw, vulnerable curiosity. “You were a natural. The way you used the Force… not as a weapon, but as a comfort. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched Cal’s lips. “The mobile was a good trick. She loves that.” He paused, the silence returning for a long moment, heavier now. “Maybe… maybe you could show me? Sometime. How you do it. How you’re so… calm.”

“Anytime,” you said, the words feeling both like an offering and a lifeline thrown into the chasm between you. “It’s not about being calm. It’s about focusing on her, so you don’t have to focus on… everything else.”

The truth of that hung in the air. Everything else. Cordova’s death. Cere’s sacrifice. Bode’s betrayal. The Empire still out there. And this… this tangled, aching, beautiful mess of feelings between the two of you, now woven inextricably with the care of a child you were raising together.

Cal finally turned his head, his green eyes finding yours in the dim light. The gold flecks were muted, shadowed by exhaustion and sorrow, but the intensity was the same as all those stolen glances. “That’s the thing,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, as if afraid to wake the ghosts or the little girl sleeping down the hall. “When I focus on her, I see you. Teaching her to stack stones. Reading to her. Making her laugh. And it… it confuses me.”

Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic echo of all the times his hand had almost found yours. “Confuses you?”

He looked down at his own hands, scarred and capable, now often holding a child’s smaller one. “We… we never talked about it. What we were. Before. I thought we were friends. But friends don’t…” He trailed off, the old, familiar shyness resurfacing, but tempered now by a weary, hard-won honesty. “Friends don’t feel like this. And now, with Kata… it’s all different, but it’s also the same. I still look at you and I…” He shook his head, frustration bleeding into his tone. “What are we?”

The question, finally voiced, seemed to vibrate in the very air of the lounge. It wasn’t just about romance anymore. It was about partnership. Family. A bond forged in war, tempered by loss, and now given shape by the silent, sleeping child in the next room. You thought of the desperate want to kiss him that had haunted you on Jedha, a want that now felt both distant and immediate, transformed into a deeper, more terrifying need, the need to build a life, not just steal a moment.

You took a slow breath, the answer forming not as a declaration but as a shared truth, pulled from the heart of your confusion. “I don’t know what we were,” you said, meeting his gaze fully, the unspoken years of longing laid bare. “But I know what we are now. We’re the ones who get up when she has a nightmare. We’re the ones who decide what she learns, how she grows. We’re… her fathers. And maybe…” You reached out, slowly, giving him every chance to pull away. Your hand didn’t go to his cheek or to intertwine with his fingers. It settled on his forearm, a solid, grounding touch. “Maybe we start from there. And we figure out the rest… together.”

The Mantis hummed around them, a familiar, grounding sound that usually felt like home. Tonight, it felt like a fragile shell holding back the vast, cold silence of space. You stood in the common area, the last one to board, watching Greez fuss with the galley and Cere share a quiet, weary look with Merrin. The air was thick with an unspoken exhaustion, the kind that came not from a fight, but from a rescue.

You’d stayed behind with Greez, your stomach a tight knot of worry the entire time they’d been gone to extract Zee. When the ramp had lowered, Cal emerged first, his usual vibrant energy utterly drained. He didn’t launch into a rambling debrief, didn’t crack a joke about another close call. His eyes, usually the color of a Kashyyyk sunset, were dull and shadowed. They scanned the bay, bypassing Cere’s assessing gaze and Greez’s relieved sigh, and locked directly onto you.

Without a word, he crossed the space and pulled you into a hug.

It wasn’t his usual quick, one-armed squeeze. It was a full, silent collapse into you, his arms banding around your shoulders with a desperate, almost fearful strength. His face buried against your neck, his breath warm and unsteady. You held him, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, your fingers threading through his ginger hair. You could feel the fine tremor running through him, a vibration of spent adrenaline and something deeper, something raw.

Just as suddenly as he’d initiated it, he broke the embrace. He didn’t meet your eyes, just gave your arm a faint, apologetic squeeze. BD-1, who had been clinging to Cal’s shoulder, gave a soft, concerned whistle and then hopped nimbly onto your own, his little head nudging your cheek. Cal did not explain, just turned and walked stiffly toward the back of the ship, disappearing into the corridor that led to the crew bunks.

You were about to follow when BD-1 trilled urgently. A small, blue holographic recording sprang from his projector. It was shaky, taken from his vantage point on Cal’s back. You saw the flash of blaster fire, the grim set of Cere’s jaw, Merrin’s green magick flaring. And then you saw it: not an Imperial shuttle or a prison transport, but a small, battered escape pod, its hatch forced open. The design was pre-Empire. Republic.

Your breath caught. Cal had told you about it once, in the dead of night after a particularly bad nightmare had shaken him awake. The escape pod. The one he’d used as a child to flee the burning Albedo Brave after Order 66. The one that had become his tomb and his salvation, floating in the dark for years before Bracca. He never talked about it in daylight, but in the vulnerability of night, the memory sometimes leaked out, the cold, the silence, the crushing loneliness.

Now you understand. The mission to save Zee had forced him back into a coffin of his past.

You waited, giving Cere and Merrin time to settle Greez and a grateful but shaken Zee. You gave Cal a few minutes of false solitude. Then, you made your way to the back.

The bunk room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of the ship’s running lights from a small viewport. Cal sat on the edge of the lower bunk, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He heard you enter and didn’t look up.

“Hey,” he started, his voice rough, aiming for casual and missing by a parsec. “Sorry about that. Just… a long day. Got a bit space-happy for a second there. Didn’t mean to…”

“Cal.” Your voice was quiet but firm, leaving no room for his deflection.

He finally lifted his head. In the low light, he looked younger and older all at once, the freckles across his nose standing out against skin pale with fatigue. But it wasn’t just his face you were reading. As a Jedi, your connection to the Force was a constant, flowing river, and Cal was a familiar, bright current within it. Usually, his presence felt like a warm, steady flame. Now, it was a sputtering ember, choked by the cold ash of remembered terror, guilt over showing weakness, and a deep, profound sorrow that had been stirred up from its long sleep.

You didn’t need the Force to read him, though. You were always good with that kind of thing: the slight tension in his jaw, the way his eyes darted to the floor, the defensive hunch of his shoulders. The Force just painted the emotional truth behind it in vivid, heartbreaking colors.

In the dim light of the bunk room, you found him. He was sitting on the edge of his bunk, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He didn’t look up as you entered, but his shoulders tensed.

“You don’t have to play it off,” you said, leaning against the doorway frame, not crowding him but not giving him an escape route either. “BD showed me the recording. I saw the pod.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured; the words rushed, practiced. “That was… a lot back there. Just tired. Adrenaline crash, you know? Didn’t mean to…” He waved a hand vaguely, already trying to build the wall, to sweep the terrifying vulnerability of that hug under the rug.

You didn’t say a word. You simply sat next to him, the mattress dipping under your weight. The space between you was charged, but not with awkwardness. With the Force.

And in the Force, Cal Kestis was an open wound. You didn’t need to be a Jedi to feel it; your connection to him had always granted a unique clarity. But now, it was a torrent. The cold, metallic taste of the escape pod door sealing. The deafening roar of the facility collapsing around him. The stark, lonely silence after the pod’s engines faded. And beneath it all, the old, familiar terror, the ghost of Bracca, of the Scrapper’s Fate, of watching everything you know vanish into the void, leaving you utterly alone.

He was still talking, a soft stream of excuses about mission stress and fatigue, his voice a fragile shield against the storm inside him.

You reached over, your hand covering his where it gripped his own knee. His words faltered and died.

“Cal,” you said, your voice quiet but unwavering in the humming stillness. “Look at me.”

He hesitated, a Jedi Master reluctant to face a truth he couldn’t outrun. Slowly, he lifted his head. His eyes, usually the color of a Kashyyyk sky, were shadowed, haunted.

“You don’t have to play it off with me,” you continued, your thumb stroking the back of his tense hand. “I felt it. I saw it. BD showed me the pod.”

He flinched, a barely perceptible tremor. The last brick in his wall crumbled. “It felt… exactly like before,” he whispered, the confession tearing itself from him. “Everything was coming down. And there was the pod… and I just… I had to make sure they got out. Even if…”

“Even if it meant you didn’t,” you finished softly.

He nodded, a single, jerky motion. The brave face was gone, leaving only the exhausted, scared man beneath. The ginger Jedi who carried the galaxy on his shoulders but was still, in his heart, that young padawan who’d lost everything.

“You’re not there anymore,” you said, turning to face him fully, your other hand coming up to cradle his jaw. Your touch grounded him, pulling him back from the edge of that memory. “You’re here. On the Mantis. With Greez, and Cere, and BD.” You leaned forward until your forehead rested against his, a Keldabe kiss as intimate as any embrace. “With me. You came back. To me.”

The air in the collapsed arena tasted of ancient dust and ozone. Shattered tiers of seating rose like broken teeth into the gloom, and the only light came from the two blades that carved the darkness: one a steady, defiant blue, the other a seething, hungry red.

Cal Kestis stood, his breath a steady rhythm against the pounding of his heart. Across the circle of rubble, you stood, a mirror twisted in a dark reflection. Two sides of a single, scarred coin.

The parallels were a cruel joke of the Force. Both of you had known the warmth of a master’s guidance, only to have it snuffed out before your eyes. As Padawans, you had each felt the universe tear open, leaving you alone in the chilling silence that followed. That was where the paths diverged. In his moment of absolute loss, Cal had grasped for the light, clinging to the memories of Jaro Tapal, choosing to honor rather than avenge. In yours, you had reached into the void and found a colder comfort. The pain wasn’t something to overcome; it was a power to be wielded. You fell, not with a scream but with a grim acceptance, while Cal rose, battered but unbent.

“This doesn’t have to be the way,” Cal called out, his voice echoing in the vast space. His blue blade was held in a defensive guard, its light casting long shadows behind you. “The pain… I feel it, too. It doesn’t have to define you.”

Your laughter was a short, sharp sound. “Define me? It forged me. You took your grief and made it a shrine. I took mine and made it a weapon.” You ignited your crimson lightsaber, the sudden, violent glow painting the ancient walls the color of a bruise. Where Cal’s light was a beacon, yours was a warning. The two illuminations met in the middle, blending into an eerie, shimmering purple that danced across the stone, a visual testament to your intertwined destinies.

You were his shadow. He was the Jedi who inspired hope on the Mantis, the beacon Merrin, Greez, and Kata looked to. He was the light everyone preferred, the proof that goodness could endure. And every time someone looked at him with trust, every time his name was whispered as a symbol of the Rebellion’s hope, it was a silent indictment of your choice. It enraged you. His very existence denied the validity of your path.

With a guttural cry born of that fury, you struck first. A powerful, overhand slash meant to cleave his defense and his righteousness in two.

Cal did the opposite. He didn’t meet fury with fury. He flowed sideways, a leaf on the wind, his blue blade redirecting your momentum harmlessly into the ground in a shower of sparks. It was the essence of your divergence: you attacked the obstacle; he moved with the energy.

The duel became a deadly debate. You circled, blades clashing in bursts of sizzling light and screaming energy.

“Join me,” you hissed, parrying a swift jab. “The Empire offers strength, not hiding. Together, we could burn the past that hurt us and rule the ashes.”

“Rule?” Cal shot back, spinning away from a vicious sweep. “Is that what Master Yulen told you? To seek power over others?” He saw you flinch at the name. “Her death was a tragedy, not a lesson in tyranny. Honor her by protecting life, not dominating it!”

“You protect nothing!” you roared, pressing the assault. “You run, you scavenge, you delay the inevitable! The dark side is the only truth in a galaxy of lies!”

Back and forth you went, a vicious cycle of words and blows. You tried to convince him of the power of surrender to emotion. He tried to reach the Padawan he knew still existed beneath the rage. But the arguments were as locked in stalemate as your sabers. Every philosophical thrust was parried by a lifetime of opposite experience.

And you were equally matched. You knew his Form, the echoes of Tapal’s teaching in his moves, just as he could still see the ghost of Yulen’s graceful footwork in yours. He was stronger in the living Force, drawing resilience from the crumbling world around him. You were fiercer, drawing on a well of pain that seemed bottomless. You were two halves of a broken whole, perfectly balanced in conflict. A blow that would disarm a lesser warrior was met. A Force push was countered by a barrier of equal strength.

The fight did not become a contest of victory but one of attrition. Sweat stung your eyes. Your muscles, once fueled by adrenaline and rage, began to burn with simple exhaustion. Cal’s breaths came in ragged gulps, his movements losing their fluid precision. The brilliant purple glow on the walls flickered with your weary strikes.

Back and forth. Lunge and parry. Accusation and invitation. The purple glow on the walls flickered and swirled like a storm. You were trying to convince him of the liberating truth of power. He was trying to convince you of the resilient truth of compassion. Both arguments fell on ears made deaf by experience.

You broke apart, putting ten meters of shattered ground between you, both leaning on your knees, sabers still lit but drooping toward the floor. The arena was silent save for the sound of your labored breathing and the hum of the kyber crystals, one grieving and one bleeding.

You looked at him, this mirror-image, this living reminder of the road not taken. He looked at you, the ghost of his own worst possible future. In that moment of shared, utter exhaustion, there was no hatred. Only a profound, devastating sorrow for the other and for the coin that could never be whole again.

The path to convince the other had led only here: to a standstill, in a forgotten ruin, with two Jedi too strong to beat the other and too broken to save themselves.

His strengths were your weaknesses. Your patience was thin, your anger a fuel that burned bright but fast. His weakness was your strength. His care for all life, his reluctance to cause harm, was a chink in his armor you exploited time and again, forcing him into desperate defense.

He fought to save you. You fought to awaken him.

An hour passed, then maybe two. The purple light on the walls never wavered, a testament to the deadlock. Sweat sheened both your faces, your breath coming in ragged gasps. You were both strong enough to keep up with the other, and in doing so, you were only tiring each other out, draining the galaxy of two of the last Jedi for no gain.

Finally, locked in a crackling saber bind, faces inches apart, you both realized it. The words had run out. The arguments had circled back on themselves. The blue and red blades hummed against each other, the purple light throbbing like a sickly heart.

“You can’t win,” you panted, the dark side offering a last reservoir of bitter energy.

“Neither can you,” Cal breathed back, his light sustained not by anger, but by a weary, unshakeable hope. “This… this just ends with us both empty.”

The blaster felt cold and familiar in your grip, a counterweight to the heat of the chase. Cal Kestis had been a ghost, a whisper in the Outer Rim. The name had been a thorn in the Empire’s side for months, and now, a personal itch between your shoulder blades. But you’d made a career out of silencing whispers. Jedi were slippery, all instinct and premonition, but you knew their tricks. You’d hunted their kind before. You knew the tells: the unnatural stillness before the storm, the way the air seemed to thicken around them. That knowledge had let you get close, close enough to leave a scorch mark on his shoulder, close enough to force him to leap from a moving freighter. You’d learned to move against your own instincts, to breathe when every fiber screamed to act, to be still when everything said run. That was how you’d gotten close on Nar Shaddaa, leaving a scorch mark on his shoulder. That was how you’d cornered him in the Bracca scrapyards, forcing him to leap from a moving freighter. He knew your name, or at least, he knew your reputation. You were a real threat.

That’s why it tasted so bitter.

You found him not by your skill, but by Imperial incompetence. A patrol had gotten lucky, triggering a mag-containment field in a Coruscant under-level. He was suspended upside down, twenty meters above a roaring river of speeder traffic, his arms pinned to his sides by the crimson energy field. His lightsaber, that infuriating blade of pure defiance, lay on the walkway just below him, useless.

You stepped into the dim light, your boots echoing on the permacrete. He twisted to see you, his expression shifting from frustrated struggle to grim recognition.

“You,” he grunted, the blood rushing to his head.

“Me,” you said, your voice flat behind your helmet’s modulator. You kicked his lightsaber, sending it skittering over the edge. It vanished into the traffic below. “Looks like the Empire’s finally doing something right. Pity I can’t take credit.”

Cal managed a tight smile. “Sorry to spoil your fun. I know you prefer a more hands-on approach.”

You walked a slow circle beneath him, looking up at the trapped Jedi. “I’ve chased you across five sectors, Kestis. Burned through enough credits in fuel to buy a small moon. And this is how it ends? A freebie?” You spat the word. “I’ve put down two of your kind. One on Taris, one on Dantooine. They all have that same look right before the end. Like they see something you don’t.”

He was silent for a moment, the only sound the howl of the traffic wind. “And what do you see?” he asked.

“A job,” you said simply. “A reputation. And a freebie hanging in front of me.”

That’s what it was. You hadn’t outsmarted him, hadn’t outfought him. The Empire’s dumb luck had done the work. You hated freebies. They diluted the brand. A bounty hunter was only as good as his last earned capture.

“So, what’s the play?” Cal asked, his Jedi calm firmly back in place, a mask over the precarious reality of his situation. “Collect the easy credits? I’m sure the Imperials will be along soon to save you the trouble.”

You stopped, tilting your head. The mag-field emitter was a standard Imperial issue, humming on a console to the side. It would hold him until a transport arrived. Or until it was shut off. The fall was… considerable. The traffic was a continuous, deadly blur. A survival rate? Near zero. For anyone else. For a Jedi? Not zero.

Your reputation was built on confirmed kills, not deliveries to an Imperial cell. Your name was feared because you finished the hunt yourself.

A cold calculus ran through your mind. Distance to the traffic: 20 meters. Speed of average speeder: 300 kph. Probability of impact: High. Probability of Jedi using the Force to mitigate the fall: Also high. But it wouldn’t be a clean escape. It would be a desperate, brutal struggle. And it would be your doing.

“Still don’t like Jedi,” you stated, your voice cold. “But I hate freebies more.”

You raised your blaster, not at him, but at the humming console. “A real hunter,” you said, almost to yourself, “catches his own prey.”

You fired.

The console exploded in a shower of sparks. The crimson field flickered and died.

Cal dropped like a stone.

For a second, he was just a falling shape against the neon-lit canyon of the city. Then you saw it, a slight shift in his posture, a focused exertion. The Force cushioned his plummet, turning a fatal drop into a controlled, though still violent, descent. He slammed onto the roof of a passing cargo hauler, rolling with the impact before scrambling to find a grip. It wasn’t enough to stop the fall, not from that height with no leverage, but it slowed him, just enough to alter his trajectory from a fatal plunge onto permacrete to a crashing, rolling impact onto the roof of a passing freight hauler.

You leaned over the railing, watching as the hauler carried him away, shrinking into the river of light. He looked back once, his figure small and distant. You couldn’t see his face, but you knew the look. It wasn’t gratitude. It was the acknowledgment of a debt to a different kind of law.

You holstered your blaster. The chase was still on. The score was still unsettled. But your reputation, the reputation of a hunter who valued the hunt above the prize, was intact. You turned and walked back into the shadows, the roar of the traffic fading behind you. The game was still being played. And you never played for free.

You turned from the edge, the taste of the encounter bittersweet. No bounty. No clean win. But your point was made. You weren’t the Empire’s garbage collector. You were the hunter. And next time, it would be on your terms.