dathomirs | for all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me

[rebuilder]

 The directive was a simple one. Routine even. For the Inquisitorious' most loyal hound, it was a test of his extensive conditioning. He wasn't a normal Inquisitor - where there was some level of free will with them, with this one, most, if not all of it had been snuffed out He had one order, and one order only: obey. 

Often, obey meant kill. Destroy. Terminate a target, eliminate a base or a threat by wiping it off the map and vanishing as if he'd never been there. No evidence. Typically, he was sent alone, where an Inquisitor would have an entire squadron of troopers to lead. There wasn't much else. He was a blank slate, a sum of what they made him into, a ghost. He didn't think of himself as anything because his thoughts were all programmed by someone else.

As was his training. 

Whoever he'd once been had been washed away under months of torture and conditioning until he truly was nothing but a weapon of the Empire. 

(It wasn't foolproof - on more than one occasion a hint of something would slip through his shields, causing him to question... but they'd take him back and start fresh, wipe the slate all over again).

The pilot did not let up once they landed on the nearly empty ruins of the planet Dathomir. A nightsister, his target, there had been a knowing smile on Grand's face but he did not know what it meant nor did he care enough to ask as he gathered his gear and boarded the ship. The chip in his hand revealed a woman, zabrak by the look of it - according to the information, one of the last of her kind. He said nothing, or felt nothing as he stared at the holographic image for a moment longer than normal, before stashing it once again. Adjusting his helmet, he drew his saber and stepped lightly over the rust red terrain to where he believed he would find her. 

When he found the woman in question, he engaged, red blade flashing as he ducked, dodged, and struck against her. She was powerful; the report had said as much - not to underestimate her and do not come back until the job was complete. For a while it seemed like they were both on even ground and fairly matched well. Neither had the upper hand. 

Not until she slipped past his defenses once, for only a second. The strike was strong enough to throw him back off his feel, the blank mask flying off his face as he hit the ground. 

Get. Up. Do not fail. Or else. 

Head still bowed, he climbed awkwardly back to his feet before meeting his opponents eyes, wiping blood from his mouth. Green eyes stared back from a face that might be all too familiar, if not slightly different - pale and thinner, but unmistakably the face of someone long since dead and gone stares back, eyes full of hate and rage, pain screaming into the force. 

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[dathomirs]

If she's honest with herself, Merrin let herself be tracked in the hopes of exactly this moment. She'd heard reports of the new Inquisitor. She'd seen him from afar, always able to escape before being sighted too closely in return. She'd watched him fight with a mounting dread, a sickening sense of familiarity creeping over her.

He fights like Cal, the thought remained unvoiced even within her own thoughts, because it cost too much to contemplate what that might mean. But still she'd let herself be seen, followed, caught. Almost.

I saw you die.

She stands half-frozen for an instant from the sheer shock of seeing her twinned fear and hope realized at once before shaking herself out of it long enough to throw a web of glowing green tendrils at him. She only seeks to restrain now -- she'd been pulling her punches just shy of causing harm she could not hope to repair, and in the process had taken more than a few hits herself. She wouldn't have the energy to hold him forever. But she doesn't need forever.

Sisters, lend me your strength. Just a little longer.

She sucks in a hitching breath that wants to come back out again as a sob, but she stands firm, not daring to move an inch closer despite the nearly irresistable drive to throw her arms around him and refuse to let go.

"What have they done to you, Cal Kestis?"

[ later ]

[dathomirs]

They don't stay long on Dathomir; much as Merrin might wish to stay on her homeworld, where she has found comfort in these past few months, it is a place of grief more than a place of healing now that she has Cal back. So they relocate -- to Bogano, a world that she had visited briefly with Cal when they first began their travels. A place more suited to helping him remember the person he was.

And a place that's peaceful enough to find time for less crucial but no less important tasks, in Merrin's opinion.

She's waiting for Cal when he exits the refresher, a small pair of scissors and a comb in hand.

"Your hair is still your most identifiable feature. Leaving it a bogling's nest will not change that. Sit and let me restore it to some sense of order."