Jane Espenson, the writer of this episode with all these little moments, is coming back for s3 and every time I remember that I nearly start vibrating.
I’m so serious, Star Wars as a whole would be significantly better if Cal Kestis found Huyang after Jedi Survivor.
Like, can you imagine these two nerds geeking out over sabers? Cal’s already got a habit of picking up strays, particularly historic Jedi Order droids.
Huyang being simultaneously appalled and impressed by Cal’s constant tinkering and creating the most ridiculously versatile seven-stance saber Huyang’s ever seen.
Huyang and Zee bonding over being so old, reminiscing over Jedi they both knew.
Huyang being with someone who actually loves the Order he served for 25,000 years.
More thoughts and imaginings below…
It’s a rare day when Huyang doesn’t recognize a lightsaber. Though these days it’s rare to see a lightsaber to recognize. But he recognizes the man holding it.
Far from the gangly youngling that came aboard the Crucible almost two decades ago, Cal Kestis now holds a lightsaber that is not the one he built then. It’s a mixture of components from the hilts of Eno Cordova, Cere Junda, Jaro Tapal, and even Santari Khri and isn’t that curious. Huyang amends his internal assessment. It’s not Cal’s first lightsaber, but there’s no doubt that it’s his, not with the way he carries it. Carries himself.
There’s no mistaking Cal’s intentions as anything but heroic. After all, he’s risking his life for an ancient droid stranded in the midrim in a galaxy swarming with monsters hunting any force sensitive with an unbled crystal and he’s looking at Huyang with genuine joy as he rambles about the Path and a High Republic droid that located his signal and getting to his ship so they can be safe, the droid on his back chirping just as animatedly.
Still though, there’s something about Cal…he’s got a scrapper guild tattoo on his arm, a weight in his eyes, a blaster on his hip.
And a Dathomiri charm on his belt.
And that’s the most worrying one, Huyang thinks as he follows Cal to his ship. Huyang sees the charm before he sees the woman who gave it to Cal, but they get to the ship, the Mantis, and to her before he gets a chance to ask Cal about it. She’s a Night Sister, the once sworn-enemy of the Jedi who looks a little too much like a padawan from long ago who turned the saber he taught her to build on the galaxy.
Huyang distrusts her immediately.
Then, Cal says her name is Merrin, she’s a Night Sister, in a tone that even Huyang can tell is an awed one, and that Cal is very much wanting to add but still definitely silently saying she’s the love of my life.
And that’s even more worrying, because Jedi don’t have loves of their lives, especially not ones who are witches that draw their powers from the dark side of the Force.
So, yes. Huyang immediately distrusts Merrin.
———
It doesn’t last long though.
Because Huyang likes Merrin despite all the reasons he shouldn’t. He likes her dry sense of humor, likes that even he can’t always tell when she’s joking. Only Cal ever knows. And he knows every time.
And even he, a droid, can recognize the way Cal looks at her, like he firmly believes that Merrin herself lit the stars with the green fire that dances on her fingertips. Can recognize the weight of the quiet way she murmurs to him, the meaning of her putting a hand on his cheek or shoulder.
So Huyang’s distrust very quickly becomes a healthy mix of fear and respect. He still doesn’t entirely approve though, make no mistake.
———
They’re en route to Tanalorr (and it’s been centuries since that name came up) and Cal shows Huyang his hilt with a proud grin, even if Huyang is simultaneously impressed and appalled at the sight of the most ridiculously versatile, seven stance weapon he’s seen in his very long career.
But then he remembers Cal’s Gathering, remembers the hyperactive youngling, listening in rapt attention, climbing all of the Crucible’s shelves, eagerly examining all the components, and rebuilding his hilt five times. So maybe he shouldn’t be surprised.
They’re making sure they’re seen at a busier spaceport on the other side of the galaxy from where they’re actually going, heading across the city to look for supplies they need. On instinct, Cal saves a Miralukan family from bounty hunters aiding the hunt of Force Sensitives.
Cal, Huyang learns then, is a very skilled fighter, effortlessly switching between forms and saber stances thanks in no small part to that ever-changing saber of his.
Merrin is at his side during the fight. And maybe Huyang doesn’t know everything about the Force, even after all those thousands of years, because her magick shields and makes light for scared children and so many other things the dark side cannot do, helping others the way Night Sisters never did.
The city is immediately swarmed with Purge troopers hunting a Jedi, so Cal, as easy as breathing, brings his poncho hood up and passes his saber to Merrin to keep safe with her in the shadows. She’s waiting for them on the Mantis, engines warm, saber safe, and bacta ready to patch Cal up.
And Huyang decides he adores Merrin.
Even if she prefers her magick dagger to a light saber. (He offers to help her make one. Cal’s eyes light up and he offers to help her make it spooky because he adores all of the things about her that scare everyone else. She laughs and declines).
———
Still, Huyang doesn’t exactly approve of Cal’s blaster, or the light saber stance he’s created around the uncivilized weapon, just as he doesn’t entirely approve of Cal and Merrin’s romance, no matter how much he likes the both of them. He nearly chides the young man a few times early on, because he knows better, knows that Jedi can’t have attachments.
More and more, Huyang wonders if that urge is just a result of his programming.
There’s a family that’s alive because of him and Merrin, both of whom, he noticed, protected everyone else around them even more than each other.
Merrin is changing what it means to be a Night Sister. Cal is doing the same with the Jedi. Huyang isn’t sure how to feel about that.
———
Cal’s created a blaster stance, he’s got a scrapper guild tattoo on his arm, and a childhood scar across his face from a soldier meant to be his ally. There’s a Night Sister he’s irrevocably in love with.
Still though, any peculiarities aside, Cal carries himself steady, wields the Force like any seasoned master of old. Especially when Merrin is at his side.
Jedi can’t be orthodox anymore. Not if they also want to draw breath, as organics must.
Besides, Huyang is a several thousand year old droid. He can adapt.
———
They reach Tanalorr, the refuge Cal is building. The New Order is nestled in the walls of an ancient temple.
There, Cal asks Huyang to tell him about the Jedi. Things he’d forgotten from history class because paying attention was difficult and it was over a decade ago. Things he hadn’t had a chance to learn. Going forward doesn’t have to mean forgetting after all.
The Mantis Crew listens intently to stories of Jaro Tapal, Cere, and Cordova’s Gatherings. Even Trilla, Masana, and Bode if they’re up for it. When Huyang tells the story of Cal’s gathering, Cal laughs too, even of he turns the same color as his hair.
Cal swears Huyang must run off of an ancient kyber crystal. He has never been disabused of this notion because no matter how talented Zee swears Cal is, Huyang performs his own maintenance thank you very much.
———
One day, Huyang explains to Merrin just how sacred a Jedi’s saber is. And Merrin remembers a nineteen year old boy tossing her his sword of light. And suddenly it isn’t only a treasured memory where he offered his trust and only weapon (to someone who tried to kill him three times), but the moment he handed her his life. He never said it, they aren’t quite that sappy despite what Greez says, and she never asks him about it. She doesn’t need to. But from then on, when Cal discreetly tosses her his saber to keep safe or hands her half the hilt and ask if she’ll practice sparring with him, she’ll understand what that means.
———
And of course, it’s Huyang who guides Kata through the construction of her first light saber. He’d stashed away a few components, kept them safe in his chest plate and pack all these years without ever knowing why. He’d chalked it up to his programming, but he knows now it was actually for this.
He gives her the same speech he gave Cal. And Cere and Jaro Tapal and Eno Cordova and thousands upon thousands of younglings before that. The speech he hasn’t given in over a decade. The speech he’d never thought he’d give again.
And as Cal listens to Huyang, watches Kata slot the pieces together with the Force he taught her to trust in, something in him heals. When Order 66 happened, Cal had only been a year or so away from guiding a group of younglings to Ilum for the Gathering, then onwards to the Crucible. It was a sacred ritual all padawans did at least once, one that Cal had been looking forward to. He never thought he’d get to do it after the Purge. It was just one more thing taken by the Empire.
But Cal gets to do it now. Maybe it’s not Ilum or the Crucible but in the ways that matter it’s the same.
Cal told Huyang once that if there hadn’t been a war, he would’ve begged to be first Jedi to be stationed on the Crucible permanently. Huyang had tutted that that’s not how things were done. But as his photoreceptors meet Cal’s ever-emotional eyes over Kata’s head and Cal’s lips turn up in a small, bittersweet smile, Huyang hopes that he would’ve allowed it in that other life.
Because Huyang feels complete again too, because this was quite literally what he was built for all those thousands of years ago.
———
Cal saves more and more force sensitives, brings them into the cradle of the world protected by a dangerous nebula that to them brings light, Gatherings become more and more frequent. Not as frequent as they once were, but enough. They’re not on Ilum anymore but there’s kyber crystals on Tanalorr and what good is an architect droid if he can’t design some skill testing puzzles for the younglings?
As a droid, Huyang can’t use the force. But even non-organics start believing in a higher power, especially ones like Huyang who spent all of their existence around beings powerful enough to make light itself tangible. So knows that when, inevitably, the Empire falls (they always do) Cal will help build an even stronger Jedi Order, one that will still be standing in several thousand years.
Huyang remembers every Jedi he’s ever built a saber with. But certain memories surface more often. He has no doubt that in several thousand years, Cal Kestis, will be one of those more frequent memories.
———
A few years down the line, Huyang is giving the speech again, this time as he helps Cal and Merrin’s children construct their lightsabers. Children who aren’t just Jedi-in-training but have green fire in their eyes and hands too, and always gather around to hear the architect droid’s stories of a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
Maybe some things about the Jedi way are changing, but the best parts are still around, still surviving.
