Kissed by Fire: Cal Kestis

Chapter 22

"I know, Cal," she told him sincerely. "But... this isn't what the dark side usually feels like?"

He furrowed his brows. "You can feel the Force here?"

"I feel something, and I don't like it," Y/n told him, hugging herself as she looked back at the red plants surrounding them. "I'm not Force sensitive, if that's what you're thinking. My mother had me tested as a child."

He nodded his head, but it still didn't explain her ability to feel Dathomir's pulses. Was it the connection he had with her? Cal himself could feel her discomfort and struggle with the planet, but he couldn't feel just what about it was bothering her. He assumed it was something to do with her mother and the Empire. He only wished the Empire was what bothered him. "I don't think we'll have to be here much longer," he assured her, pointing ahead to the large structure BD pointed out on his map. "We're close."

"Thank the Force, then," Y/n managed out, somehow managing to smile. "The quicker we get out of here, the quicker we find that holocron."

Cal nodded in agreement before the two of them hopped over a small break in the stone bridge. They went forward to continue, except they heard a sudden voice beside them speak. "Oh, fellow wanderers!" it said, and they turned to see a man standing on the side of the path. He was cloaked in a dark and torn hood. Behind the shadow of his cowl, he had a grey beard and a smiling face, but something abut him caused both of them to reach for the weapons. "I see you met the resident Nightsister, but, uh... unlike most, you're both alive. Ooh, a lightsaber!" Cal instantly put his hand over the blade in protection, Y/n holding tight to her blaster. "No, no, don't hide it! That would explain your survival."

"Who are you?" Cal spoke bravely. His hand never left his weapon.

The man's face fell a moment. "You don't..." He stopped, and put the smile back on behind his beard. "No one to fear. Just a traveler. Studying the nature of... extinct cultures and dead philosophies."

"You study the Nightsisters?" Y/n questioned, still high on guard as Cal put his hands on his hips.

"Ooh, my dear girl..." he uttered in a whisper, stepping a hair closer, "I study many things. But, yes, that Nightsister. Oh..." He shook his head. "She was only a child when the war came to this world. She had to watch her whole family perish."

Cal suddenly felt sympathy for the Nightsister, despite her constant attempts at murdering him. Just like him, her entire life was brought down by one day. A massacre destroyed her home. Clearing his mind, Cal looked to the old building ahead of them and asked, "What do you know about those ruins?"

"Oh," the man chuckled slightly and waved a hand. "Ancient beyond belief." He quickly turned his eyes back to Cal, focusing intently on the boy. "The Nightsister and her warrior kin... were seduced by the power that lurks within." Y/n exchanged a wary glance with Cal. "A-Avoid the ruin. Or suffer the same fate." He spoke almost casually, but there was an edge in his words that left goosebumps on the back of her neck.

Looking back at the man, Y/n narrowed her eyes. It would be easier to kill him in case he's a threat the devil whispered to her, but she did not listen. Instead, choosing the more diplomatic path, she asked, "How do you know so much about that Nightsister?"

"Observation," he answered easily, looking at the girl in such an intense manner she felt like she was bare. It was something Cal had noticed as well, stepping close to her side. "I've seen many things since coming here."

"What does that mean?" Cal questioned him while lightly wrapping his fingers around Y/n's wrist. If something were to happen, he wanted to be able to pull her out of the crossfire. He didn't trust this man, no matter how much lore or history he knew about Dathomir.