The Force Betrayed: Cal Kestis x OC

1.

Sakana Angedis trailed her fingers along her lightsaber, feeling every ridge and gap in its worn metal. She was high up in one of the Wroshyr trees, looking out into the vast expanse of Kashyyyk. It was such a beautiful planet, with its lush forests that stretched for miles and the fauna that lived within it. She understood why her mother had chosen this planet as her mission all those years ago. 

The Shyyyo bird squawked above her with a deep, soft sound. She reached up to touch its wing as it dipped just above her head, taunting her. 

"I'm trying to meditate here," she complained, cracking a smile as its wing rubbed against her head and messed up her hair. It was a beautiful bird, its body colored like ivory while its wings spread into a dark blue. It stood out against the forest yet seemed deliberately placed there. The nature of Kashyyyk seemed crafted by the Maker himself, as if everything was meant to be exactly where it was. 

She closed her eyes again and began to meditate. Meditating had always been so easy for her before the Empire came, but now meditation had become near impossible. It had only been five years since the Purge, and she feared that at any moment the Inquisitorius would be at her doorstep. This was the one of the safest places on Kashyyyk and yet it did nothing to settle her worries. What had once been untouched by the Empire was now tainted with their stormtroopers and blasters, leaving a wide path of destruction in their wake. 

A wave of guilt hit her chest and she tried to push it away. Her other had come to study and live amongst the Wookies decades ago, long before the Empire had forced its way into the last remaining planets of peace in the galaxy. Her mother, Eryyyn Angedis, had been there when the Wookies were captured, but Sakana hadn't. It weighed heavily on her mind as she tried harder and harder to meditate. 

She concentrated harder and harder, trying to remember what her mother had taught her. In the five years since the Purge, her mother had been forced to slow Sakana's training. Because of this delay and the pain of losing her mother, she had lost some of her abilities to the Force, and meditation was the only way to draw them out. Since the Empire had invaded, true meditation had not been attainable, and she had yet to regain the connection to the Force she once had. 

She sat up and opened her eyes with a sigh of defeat. Every time she closed her eyes, all she saw was fire. Her village was in flames, burned to the ground that was littered with the bodies of dead Wookies. It had been a year, but it had not been long enough. The image had been branded into her mind, as if marking her to remind her of what she no longer had. 

The Wroshyr groves were far away from her village, but not far enough. She couldn't run all the way to Coruscant and somehow forget the atrocities committed that day. And not only the Wookies she'd lost, but the mother she now had to grieve for too. The Empire had taken all that she knew and scorched it, turning it into ashes that disappeared in the breeze and still burned her throat as if it were yesterday.  

She took another deep breath before repositioning herself on the old bark of the tree. She closed her eyes and tried again to connect to the Force, become one with the Force....

She felt a familiar presence and a wave of calmness seemed to rush over her. Ever since her mother had died, Sakana had been trying to reach out to her, pleading against her better judgement that she had become a Force ghost, and that she was somehow still out there. She had so many questions that her mother had left unanswered, but it was more than that; she missed her. 

The familiar feeling became steadily stronger as the Force began to flow through her somewhat freely. She could feel the Force bouncing off of someone, or something, even if they were far away. It overtook her and she became intensely focused; eyes closed with nothing on her mind except the Force.