Traveling through Dathomir felt like being constantly stuck in a dark tunnel, one you couldn't find the way out. Nightbrothers were at every turn of the way, ready to pounce and kill the two of them on sight thanks to the resident Nightsister survivor. Armed with bows and maces, it took almost everything out of Y/n to keep herself and Cal alive on the forsaken planet. It also didn't help that Y/n felt like her mind was being lowered into a thick vat of boiling oil every time she tried to have a conscious thought.
She was starting to understand what Cere had told her before she spoke with Cal. That Dathomir would cloud her mind and try to warp her thoughts. It was a dark place filled with dark and hateful emotions. She tried not to let the feeling overcome her, but with every turn of a corner, she found it harder to resist as they ran deeper into Dathomir's grasp.
Y/n didn't know what the dark side of the Force felt like, but if she had to guess, it had to be this monstrous feeling inside of her. She found herself willing away that familiar devil on her shoulder again as they defeated yet another pair of Nightbrothers, all of them shouting about the power they held and the ease of the fight before Cal ran them through with his blade. When she watched the lightsaber pierce the Nightbrother's chest, a sense of superiority came over her.
Feels good, doesn't it? Watching him kill for you? the devil said, and Y/n shut her eyes with a shake of her head.
He killed because the Nightbrother attacked us. Nothing more. Y/n told it back, realizing how crazy she was making herself. Talking to the voices in her head, especially on a place like this, wasn't something she considered to be normal.
But you want him to kill for you, don't you? To do anything for you? To kill your mother for you?
"Shut up," Y/n whispered to herself, unintentionally gaining Cal's attention.
"What was that?" he asked her curiously, a slight concerned look now painting his features.
Y/n panicked, but shook her head in response as she said, "I just thought I heard something. It's nothing. Let's keep moving."
She felt her stomach roll in her gut when Cal hesitated before he nodded, motioning for her to go as he followed. She let out a breath, rolling her eyes at herself in annoyance of her brain.
Cal watched her for a moment, his eyes raking over her as he followed her. He didn't know it, but he was feeling the exact same thing that she was. Only it wasn't a devil whispering on his shoulder, but simply his feelings for her starting to go wild as they drove deeper into Dathomir. He wished they could leave, and that Kujet's Tomb could be anywhere else in the galaxy. Hell, he'd even take it if the Astrium was on Coruscant. But of course, he had to be brought to one of the darkest planets in the galaxy, fighting himself instead of his enemies.
He could feel himself growing tired of simply watching her from afar and hiding his emotions. Embracing them, as Cere or Master Tapal would say. But nothing seemed such a good idea as acting on his impulses right now. Although deep in the back of his mind, he kept himself at bay. He knew it was Dathomir feeding these dark thoughts, like it was made to do, corrupting everything he felt in this single moment. BD helped a little, buzzing in his ear whenever he got too sidetracked. Luckily for the droid, BD wasn't affected, making him the only clear minded companion on their journey.
Cal closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath as he centered himself once again. Meditation often helped with his unruly thoughts. All he could ever feel when meditating was the Force. It brought him back to himself. Opening his eyes once more, he looked to see Y/n glancing worriedly at him, the both of them knowing just how bad this place was. "Sorry. This place is just... like nothing I've ever felt from the Force before," he spoke as he straightened up.
"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.
"Must it mean something? Too many great minds have gone astray in search of... order." He spat the word.
"How long have you been here?" Y/n asked the mysterious man. Something just didn't feel right about him, but the more she knew, the safer she felt.
"Long enough," he answered ominously, and suddenly Cal's fingers tightened on her wrist. "This world provided a sanctum when I was in need. Shelter when I was weak. Enlightenment when I was lost in the dark." A dry chuckle slipped past him, sounding more like a cough than anything else.
"Right..." Cal drawled out the word, pulling Y/n back away from the mysterious man. "We gotta get going."
"Beware! Dathomir's mysteries are many."
He sent them off with yet another dry chuckle as Cal pulled Y/n away as quick as he could. Nothing was right about that man. He didn't want to be anywhere near him, and he didn't want Y/n to be anywhere near him. Especially not with the hungry manner that overtook his eyes. "Let's hope we don't stay to turn out like him," Y/n spoke as soon as they were out of earshot. "Long enough seems to have been too long."
"Let's just get to the tomb quickly," Cal told her, jumping to the next level along the path. "I feel like I'm swimming in cotton."
Y/n shared the sentiment. She wished the cotton would come and whisk away the devil that kept whispering to her at every turn she struggled with. She just wanted to go back to the Mantis and curl up under her bedsheets with a good book, or eat some of Greez's lovely steaks he cooked up for special occasions. Or just sit under the shower and wash away Dathomir from her mind.
There were many Nightbrother archers waiting for them when they reached the bottom of Kujet's Tomb, but Cal pushed them off the edge of the bridge. They approached the wall leading up to the tomb, but it was covered in a strange red plant, almost a sort of hardened lichen. "Looks climbable, but not without equipment," Cal said, but just as Y/n was about to speak, they heard something above them.
A Nightbrother had lifted a large boulder from the edge, and threw it down upon the wooden end of the bridge they were on as he shouted, "Die!!"
BD-1 riled off multiple words of hate while Cal and Y/n let out screams as they fell. Beneath them was wet slopes of rock they could slide down, similar to those they had found after the attack of the Ninth Sister. Cal tightly held Y/n's hand, BD digging his feet into Cal's back almost painfully to stay attached to him. With one last small leap, Cal managed to get all three of them to solid ground, letting out a sigh of relief. "Phew! Can't believe we made it," he gasped out, panting heavily.
Bee-beep boo beep! BD said, and Cal breathed out in amusement.
"You sure know how to have fun," he answered.
"I can't believe we have to make the entire journey back to the tomb," Y/n grumbled out, grappling up to the next level that Cal was climbing to.
When he reached her position, he put his hands on her shoulders and said, "I won't let anything here get us. Not our minds, or our bodies. We just have to stay focused."
"It's easy for you to say, Cal," Y/n sniped back at him, moving forward and away from his arms. "All you Jedi need to do is meditate to find yourselves again."
"It's harder than you think," he replied to her, finding a small crack they could squeeze through to reach another part of Dathomir. "Just... whatever you do, don't let yourself act on it."
"Already on it," Y/n grumbled, following behind him through the tiny pathway.
When they found the other side, they looked around to see three large sacs hanging from the ceiling of the room. They were bulbous, red, slimy, and dripping onto the floor. Y/n wrinkled her nose in disgust of the sacs, but she had not time to comment on them. "You will go no further!" the familiar voice of the Nightsister echoed before she appeared. She was high in the room, out of their reach.
As soon as she appeared, Cal finally ignited his lightsaber. "Stand aside," he demanded as Y/n aimed her blaster at the woman.
"No," she snarled down at them. "He was right about you."
The companions glanced at each other with confusion, Cal looking back up at the Nightsister to ask, "Who... what?"
"Jedi are thieves and selfish liars who bring nothing but death!"
"Back. Off," Cal ordered, advancing once more. "If you attack us again, I'll strike you down."
"Oh, I won't do a thing," the Nightsister mocked with a tilt of her head. She raised her arms, and Y/n knew they were in trouble as the green fire started to form in between her hands again. "But my murdered sisters..." She waved her hands towards the hanging sacs, and Y/n reeled back when they burst open and dropped decomposing bodies to the ground. The skeletons started moving, their eyes glowing the same green the Nightbrothers had. "They will have their revenge!"
The voice behind the Nightsister was dark and deep, like another power lying behind her own. She waved her hands one last time, and the undead Nightsisters rose to heir feet. "Uh... Cal, how to you kill the dead?" Y/n shakily asked, holding her blaster up as the undead straightened their cracking bones, hissing and grunting at their prey.
"I don't know, but I guess we'll find out," Cal said, and swung his lightsaber at a pouncing walker. It cut off its arm, but it seemed not to care as it came right back at Cal once more. This time, he cut off its head, and the entire body fell to the ground. "The head! Go for the head!"
Y/n backed up as one of the walkers came running at her. She shot her blaster as fast as she could, but one blast to the head didn't do what she thought it would. She ducked as the lumbering walker went to grab her before taking her baton and swinging it at the head. It flung from the body, landing far away as the walker slumped to the ground. Cal finished off the last one trying to kill him, and ran up to Y/n's side. "This was supposed to be an easy mission," Y/n mumbled to herself.
"We didn't count on there being a survivor," Cal let out a sigh. "We've got to keep moving. Like the Nightbrothers, I doubt those'll be the last she sends after us."
True enough, more undead Nightsisters followed the first three. They were inhumanly strong for having been discomposing for the last five or six years, but Y/n had a feeling it had nothing to do with their abilities. The Nightsister survivor's magick was unlike anything Y/n, or Cal, had ever seen before. Cal had never gotten to see the Nightsisters during his time under Master Tapal, but he had heard rumors of their magick, not to mention the massacre that brought them down.
The magick that kept the walkers strong didn't do much to keep them held together, but they still managed to pack a punch even when Cal removed a limb or two. It only became too much whenever there was a pack of them in a room joined by the bane-back spiders. He was lucky Y/n was beside him, or else he'd have been overthrown by the undead Nightsisters. They just kept coming in larger and larger packs, making it difficult to keep them at bay.
"You will pay for their deaths," they heard echo around them, both Cal and Y/n stopping to try and find the Nightsister. Only, she wasn't there. Her disembodied voice carried around them like a shadow.
"Okay, she's starting to get on my nerves," Y/n said as she took out another walker, shoving it up against a nearby wall and bashing its head into the rock. She was getting angry at Dathomir, more violent. Cal noticed this, but he knew no words of comfort would help her. He couldn't even help himself. Dathomir was truly a test for everyone, but for a Jedi, it was becoming the master of yourself. Not allowing emotion to dictate your actions. For someone normal, it was simply a task of trying not to fall too far.
"How does that Nightsister keep following us," Cal questioned as he helped Y/n up to the next level they were trying to reach.
Bee-boop? BD replied with his own question while Y/n shrugged.
"She's got magick. Powerful, by from what I'm seeing right now," she told him.
"Cere called them Force wielders, but I've never seen it used this way before," Cal informed her, and Y/n's brows shot up.
"That's supposed to be the Force?" Y/n repeated his words, and Cal nodded his head. "No wonder we both feel like crap."
"Yeah. We'd better stay on our toes." Cal looked wondering at his own words, before turning to BD on his shoulder and asking, "Wait, do you... have toes?"
Be-beep! BD answered, almost offended Cal didn't think he had toes.
"What do you think digs into your back every time he's there?" Y/n rhetorically questioned, although her face fell as they looked out towards the landscape.
They were offered a view of Dathomir from their new vantage point, and it wasn't a pretty one. Fog covered the vast steep canyons that ran over Dathomir's surface. Through it, they spotted a large silhouette of an animal beating its wings through the mist. "Any idea what that flying creature is?" Cal asked, and BD beeped while Y/n shook her head.
"I doubt it's as friendly as the Shyyyo Bird," she commented.
"Let's hope we don't have to find out," Cal stated while moving forward on their path.
They could hear voices ahead, the deep grumble of Nightbrothers joined by the crackle of a fire. Luckily for Cal and Y/n, they were sitting on the edge of a cliff, and as they went to grab their weapons to attack, the Jedi pushed them over the edge. Smarter, not harder Y/n thought to herself, impressed. Although, the Nightsister didn't make it any easier. On top of the Nightbrothers, they now had to deal with the undead Nightsisters as well, not to mention the various fauna that wanted a taste of Jedi and doctor.
They were beneath the tombs, as far as Cal could see it. Walking through the caves was no easy feat when the residents of Dathomir were out for his blood. BD scanned a few different glyphs that were written on the rock walls. "Nightbrother runes?" Y/n repeated what BD beeped.
"Think we're getting close to a village?" Cal asked as he examined them closer.
"Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?" Y/n answered him as they continued forward.
Once again, they heard the Nightsister survivor whispering in their ear. "Turn back, Jedi," she warned, but this time she fleetingly appeared in front of them before once again disappearing into her flames. They both tuned out her words, heading forward to continue their path. They had to take out a large beast in a sacrifice pit, which BD informed them was a lesser nydak.
They crossed to the other side, managing to escape the pit and finding themselves in a highly built area. Fences and homes decorated the rock, Cal saying, "This must be where the Nightbrothers live."
Be-beep boo, BD questioned him, and Cal shook his head.
"Through there? Not unless we had no other choice."
Boo...
"Yeah, that figures."
Y/n smiled lightly at BD's want to cause chaos, but said, "I agree with Cal. I'd rather we avoid a fight like that. Going directly into their territory might not be the best idea."
"Well..." Cal began as he made a large drop, seeing the bridge ahead being the only way they could go to reach Kujet's Tomb. "I think I spoke too soon. It might be the only way."
"Kriff," Y/n cursed gently, seeing their dead end. The only way to go was for Cal to pull down the large bridge that was pulled up across from them. She sighed, and gestured for Cal to use the Force.
As soon as he did, they heard shouts and cries from the Nightbrothers. "It's the outsiders! They've lowered the bridge!" one of them called as Y/n and Cal made a run for it to the gate.
"Take him out!" the Nightsister said from atop the gate, glaring down at the both of them as the archers fired.
Cal turned to his left, seeing a small path they could take to escape the fire. "Y/n, there's a path this way!"
"Wait, Cal-" Y/n called out, but Cal took ahold of her hand and pulled her to the path. Only, it wasn't a road, it was a slope.
Not prepared for the sudden drop, they let go of each other's hands. Fear overtook them as Cal watched Y/n slide to the left, disappearing behind a wall of stone. "Y/n!!" he called after her, the only notion he heard her being the faraway call of his name. They were suddenly alone, separated on Dathomir.