Imprints - Inamys - Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order Series (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

“Never look when you can leap, eh?”

Cal grit his teeth, clenched his fist and hissed out a curse as he pulled himself off the ground. Though not his worst fall, his body throbbed viciously and he had grazed both his hands. He could already feel the telltale wetness of blood dribbling from the shredded skin. Clearing the grit out would be a nightmare, and he dreaded the thought of the task when he finally found his way out of this hole.

BD trilled in sympathy and hopped over to Cal’s side, nudging his head against his leg. Thank the Force he was alright. Cal’s heart had almost stopped when the ground had given way and BD had been swallowed by the gaping darkness. He was a brave droid, but even BD would not always be lucky, and the distance to the cavern floor had been far from small. If he had hit a rock at the wrong angle…

No, he wouldn’t even think of that.

His thoughts must have shown on his face, because BD chirped again. It was a bright, reassuring sound, and despite their situation, Cal felt his breath begin to come easier. He rolled his shoulders and neck, and winced at the ache. He was in good enough shape to get out of there, but he would need a bacta patch once they reached Pyloon's again. The thought of the expression that would be on Greez’s face at his state was nearly as bad as the pain.

BD nudged him, offering a stim canister, and Cal took it gratefully. A quick prick and the throbbing ache in his knees and hands dulled until he could almost ignore it.

“Thanks BD.”

The droid let out a string of beeps that he had come to know as ‘you’re welcome’, and Cal patted his head.

The stim eased the pain, but resentment still bubbled in his stomach, hot and angry. A bitterness in his throat that he could almost taste. That kriffing frustration. Frustration he knew he had no place to feel. As he had walked through the old smuggling tunnels below Greez’s cantina, he had almost let it consume him. It was not the Jedi way to give in to it, but not even meditating could clear his mind or stop the wave of grief building in his chest.

Greez, Merrin, Cere — they could all turn their backs on the fight and fade into obscurity, making lives for themselves amongst the stars or on a quiet planet yet untouched by the Empire. It was not an option for him. He was a Jedi, and that alone was enough to condemn him to his fate. Resist and die fighting, or spend his days hiding out on some backwater planet until the Empire inevitably found him.

Even then, working hard and keeping his head down wasn’t enough to guarantee safety. Cal remembered Bracca all too well — the ragged lines of scrappers, exhausted from a hard day’s work and rations stretched several meals too thin. The sheets of rain that chilled him to the bone, and the uncontrollably shivers that weren’t from the cold. The Inquisitor’s callous promise to execute every last one of them if the Jedi did not come forward. Prauf’s bravery in daring to speak up, trying to save him from the inevitable. The lightsaber through his chest.

Cal didn’t know if the Empire had carried through with their threat, but he knew them well enough. It was likely they had. Hard work and compliance hadn’t spared anyone then and he wasn’t naive enough to hope that it would another time.

So Cal refused to hide. Instead he was loud, aggressive and impossible for the Empire to ignore — disrupting Imperial supply lines, gathering intel, and sabotaging machinery. Some small, ruthless part of him found satisfaction in the chaos he left in his wake. Working with Saw gave him a purpose, a way to fight back and make a difference.

Master Tapal. Prauf. Gabs. Koob and Lizz. Bravo.

The Empire had taken them all. His friends, his family, and every nameless echo who had fallen to their cruelty. Even Trilla, who he had feared for so long, had died by their blade. Their sacrifices were worth nothing if he gave up.

And it would all catch up with him one of these days, so why not go down fighting?

Still, he shouldn’t have snapped at Greez. He knew his old friend meant well and was concerned for him, and distantly he was aware that he should probably be concerned too. He hadn’t slept properly for several weeks, ate when BD stubbornly reminded him, and slipped into uncomfortable dreams when his body begged him for rest.

He couldn’t rest. He couldn’t rest, and in the days since Coruscant—

No. He wouldn’t think about Coruscant now. It was a raw, aching hole, and poking at the edges of memory would help no one. It lurked just below the surface, a twisting, writhing creature, clawing at his chest and his throat and choking his breath. He couldn’t let himself feel it or he may never stop. Cal knew he was running on adrenaline and it was only a matter of time before it caught up with him, but for now, he had to keep going. He could mourn later. The Empire would not wait for him to grieve, and if they wouldn’t then neither could he.

Why did no one understand that?

There was no time to rest. No time, no place, and if he did, he would break and he would not be able to come back together again.

Cal let out a shaky breath and ran his hand over his eyes.

Standing there, in the room Greez had so carefully prepared to him, it had built until bursting point.

He had taken obvious care in putting it together, and Cal’s heart ached at the thought. It was clear he had waited, had hoped, even though it was clear Cal wasn’t coming.

Greez had hung Cere’s hallikset on the wall, amongst an assortment of artworks that he’d collected (he had… unique taste, not that Cal would ever tell him that). Cal remembered playing it on one of his first days aboard the Mantis, when they were still strangers to him and the trust between them all was so precarious. Fingers on the strings, the echo had been warm, and he had let himself fall into the music and the memories it carried. For once it hadn’t been painful.

On Bracca Cal had avoided echoes as much as he could, but the sheer number of them made it impossible. The planet was a graveyard of memories. Sweat, grime and hopelessness, with no small number of injuries. He had felt too many deaths — scrappers crushed under faulty equipment, pilots shot down by syndicate thugs, a clone trooper struck down by a lightsaber. The echoes stripped away years of careful practice in control, and they burned, feverish as a blaster wound

The strings of Cere’s hallikset were nothing like that. The music of her memory felt like morning sunlight, pouring freely through the Jedi Temple’s high windows. She had let him play it often after he told her this.

On the bed lay a pile of neatly folded ponchos in a variety of garish colours. Cal had the sneaking suspicion that Greez had woven them himself, although he knew the Latero would never admit it. He recognised the patterns of some, similar to ones he had worn on Kashyyyk and Bogano, but most were new and brightly coloured in a way Cal would never choose for himself. Still, he was touched by the gesture, and would wear them anyway.

None of Merrin’s belongings were in the room — she had taken them with her when she had left — but despite that there was a clear Dathomirian influence in the art hung around the space, and the vast assortment of plants. Some were reminiscent of those hanging in the Nightbrother village or Merrin’s paintings. In the quieter moments of their travels she had often found peace in art, painting in the style of her people and the home she had left behind. Thick, sharp brushstrokes, each one carrying centuries of tradition and care. Dathomir had been a hostile place to explore, but Merrin’s stories and art carried such grief and love that Cal found himself strangely caring for the place. It had, after all, been the reason they’d met. No amount of bane-back spiders or nydaks could make him regret that.

As much as Greez might have denied it, and as uncomfortable as he had been around Merrin in the first few days since she’d joined them, he had eventually grown as fond of her as the others, and valued her as a part of their crew. Their family. Her presence in the room showed that clearly enough.

Then there were the plants. Some hung from the ceiling in painted clay bowls and baskets, and others were spread about the room, but one corner in particular was piled high with pots. They bloomed bright with life and colour, even without any sunlight — a clever lighting system of Greez’s that mimicked the environments of their home planets. Cal recognised all of the plants he had collected while they had travelled together — even the Dathomirian mushling and bleeding gut (Greez’s horrified face when Merrin told him the name was worth all the trouble it took Cal to get them) — as well as many more that he must have found since. Any more and it would have been a forest worthy of Kashyyyk.

Standing in the centre of the room, the handwoven meditation carpet beneath his feet, Cal could have closed his eyes and imagined all of them there with him. As if nothing had changed. It would have been so easy.

But it would not have been the truth. Everything had changed.

He hadn’t expected any of them to leave. Logically Cal understood that they had all been called to different things, and that the parting would have happened eventually, but it did nothing to lessen the sting of it. Somehow he had imagined them together on the Mantis, jumping from planet to planet until they grew old.

Merrin had been the first to go. She’d yearned to explore the galaxy ever since she had first seen the sunrise on Bogano, and each planet the traveled to only made her need grow stronger. It was impossible to miss, and no matter how much it hurt, Cal refused to take that away from her by asking her to stay.

Cere was next. Nur had been hard for both of them but she was deeply shaken by the past it had forced her to confront. She needed the time and space to find herself and her purpose again after coming to terms with her grief. Her capability for darkness. Cal knew that, had seen her pain with his own eyes, but it did nothing to stop a small part of him thinking that she had given up, had turned her back on something they couldn’t walk away from. Every time he had tried to comm her in the years since they parted, the frustration had bubbled up, vicious and biting, before he’d even managed to type out a message. He didn’t know if it was her, or himself, that he was angriest at.

Then there was Greez, who had always wanted to settle down, and the loss of his arm only made it more clear that the life they were all leading was not one he could follow.

Cal knew why each of them had done it, but it didn’t make any difference. No matter how many times he recited their reasons to himself, all he could think was that they left him.

He would always be alone.

No, he reminded himself before the thought could go anywhere else, not entirely alone. BD had stayed. Stubbornly clinging to Cal’s shoulder through everything that had happened since. His cheerful beeps were a lifeline some days, and his unending curiosity made Cal smile when little else could.

Still, back in that room under Greez’s saloon the loss had been too heavy and he’d needed to get out as quickly as he could. Otherwise it would have overwhelmed him. It had felt too much like home.

Cal shook out his wrists. He’d wasted enough time to his memories, to this planet. He wasn’t here to settle down, no matter how much Greez wanted it, and he needed to get back to Saw as soon as the Mantis was repaired.

“Come on,” he said, gesturing for BD to follow, “the sooner we get to Greez, the sooner we can—” He finally looked up, and his heart thudded to a stop.

Knowing Koboh’s history as a mining planet, Cal had assumed they’d fallen into a collapsed mineshaft or cave, but this was something, far, far more interesting.

“We should check this out.”

BD hopped enthusiastically at his side, ever the explorer.

Despite his urgency to get back to the Mantis, he couldn’t help the small spark of excitement that stirred in his chest as he looked into the massive chamber. Derelict, as many things on Koboh seemed to be, but not like any of the abandoned mine shafts he had picked his way through. No, it was far older. Ancient and forgotten — not as old as the tombs on Zeffo but tainted by age all the same. The chamber had been buried by the centuries and left to fall into ruin, but despite the collapsed stone and crushed, golden machinery there was a thrum of life in the still air.

Cal already had the gyro-module in his pocket — he could allow himself to take a little longer. Even as a padawan he had been too curious for his own good. Enough to test even Master Tapal’s endless patience.

Cal took a tentative step forward, testing the ground, but the rock felt steady. Solid. Hopefully more so than the rock that was now above their heads. He’d not expected the cave floor to collapse beneath BD’s feet and pull them both deep underground, but now, as he carefully made his way through the cavernous space, he was grateful for the fall. Exploring had always cleared his mind in a way not much else could.

Crystalline rock formations jutted out of the dark stone and— it wasn’t all rock, was it? He’d assumed at first glance that the deep purple stone — its colours shifting in the dim light — was organic, but it had been shaped, carved into the blocky forms that made a path up to a distant ledge. The geometric shapes reminded him vaguely of the shattered holocron sitting on his workbench all the way back on the Mantis. The thin gold lines across their surfaces were familiar, even though they were not the same.

In the air around him, in the floating dust, Cal could sense the age almost as if it was a living thing. An undeniable, strong presence tugging him forward. Not for the first time he wondered what exactly he had discovered.

With a pang, he though of Master Cordova. He would have been thrilled by this place. Cal remembered his voice from BD’s recordings clearly, interest lighting him up as he spoke of the Zeffo, documenting each new discovery with the care of someone looking after their pet loth cat. Or Bogling — he had lived on Bogano, after all. As eccentric as Cordova was, Cal would have loved to meet him.

The Force was thick in the air around him, filling the space like it was a vast lake. Quiet, calm, but powerful. If he focused, let it surround him and engulf him in its tide, he could almost see the ghosts — hundreds of ancient people following the very path he now walked. The presence of the Force didn’t necessarily indicate that Jedi had been there, but somehow Cal knew. Deep in his bones, as instinctive and familiar as breathing. This had once been a sanctuary. The air carried the same essence as the Temple on Coruscant and the ancient chambers of Ilum — the memories and souls of hundreds of Force users intertwined in the aether. It was a presence powerful enough to leave an imprint hundreds of years after they themselves were gone.

The Force was full of the ghosts of the dead, and this place was haunted by their memories, but for once he did not feel pain at their presence. In this cavern he could breathe a little easier. It felt more like the Jedi Temple of his memories — warm, comforting — than the Temple itself had, when he’d flown over its ruined shell on Coruscant. A feeling he’d missed, but not known just how much till he was surrounded by the overwhelming familiarity of it.

Just like in Greez’s saloon.

Hesitantly, but strengthened by the new resolve this place had given him, Cal let himself sit in the feeling. Let it wash over him. Let himself feel, just for a moment, that he was home.

Then he took a deep breath, held out his hand for BD to hop onto his back, and stepped forward.