The Force Betrayed: Cal Kestis x OC

15.

Sakana woke up first as the sunlight filtered through the branches and shone into her eyes. Cal was still sleeping peacefully a few feet away on his stomach, his hair glowing from the sun's rays. She caught herself staring at him and forced her eyes to look elsewhere, almost unable to draw her attention away from his fiery hair and concentrated freckles. The sun was up but a whole galaxy of stars was scattered across his skin.

"Bindi, come in," Sakana said quietly as she tried not to wake Cal. He stirred anyway and she had to fight the smile that wanted to creep onto her face.

"Morning, Sakana," Bindi said through the comm as Sakana breathed an audible sigh of relief.

"It's good to hear from you," she smiled, unable to contain her joy at the sound of her friend's voice. "We should be on our way down soon. We...defeated the Inquisitor," she paused, looking over at Cal. "The Wookies are safe, for now."

"I knew you could do it," Bindi said, and for the first time in a long time, Sakana felt proud of herself.

"Thank you," she breathed, staring at the wide expanse of tangled branches and leaves ahead of her. "We're going to head straight back to the Mantis." There was a familiarity all around her that she wanted to bask in forever, a feeling so good but fleeting that it physically pained her to let it slip by. 

"I'll be here," Bindi reassured her, and while it was still hard to let go, it felt different this time. She felt like she could make a difference not only on Kashyyyk, but on the entire galaxy. In the little amount of time she had known Cal, she felt like she had learned a lifetime of lessons. Everything had changed around her so quickly that she had no time to adjust, no time to understand her place in the galaxy. So much had been lost in such a short amount of time, but she wasn't alone.

Together, she and Cal could defeat an Inquisitor, and that was only the beginning. Truly, for the first time in a long time, she felt like things would get better. 

*****

Five Months Before Present-Day

Sakana found herself afraid to continue further into the journal as she realized just how few entries may be left. Though the resistance from the journal was still quite difficult to counter, her abilities had steadily grown twice as much as she'd expected after her mother's death. Her newfound strength made it hard to tell if the journal would soon be coming to a close, as all of the entries had revolved mostly around her father and herself. She knew her father's story ended during the Purge, when Obi-Wan Kenobi was killed. What then, if anything, would come after?

Despite her fear of reaching the end, she knew that she probably wasn't quite there yet. Her parents were still in the midst of the Clone Wars, and though her mother stayed on Kashyyyk far longer during this period than any other, she hoped there might be some length to the rest of the entries pertaining to the war.

She opened the journal with slightly more trouble than ease, as per usual these days, and let the next entry unfold. Royal blue filled her vision as a great sadness came over her, suffocating her senses with grief as her mother stood over a holo-table in one of the Wookie's Wroshyr bases. There were tears in her mother's eyes and Sakana knew something was incredibly wrong.

"How did this happen?" Eryyyn asked, holding her hand to her mouth in surprise.

"Master Kenobi was killed by an assassin named Rako Hardeen," a hologram of Ahsoka spoke, the expression on her face somber. "I'm so sorry, Master Angedis. His funeral will be held tomorrow."

"Thank you, Ahsoka," her mother said, her voice cracking. The hologram faded away as Eryyyn tried, and failed, to hold back her tears. She was alone at the holo-table, as her usual guests of Chieftain Tarfful and Chewbacca were nowhere to be found, and for once, she was grateful for that.