11 | OCHI'S GRAVE

"He had to be headed for his ship. The same thing happened to us, it happened to him." Poe

"The only difference is, we're making it out of here," Celestia spoke some words of encouragement, to keep the group from falling into despair.

"How do you know he didn't make it out?" Finn chuckled nervously.

"He didn't," Rey responded as her eyes pointe din the direction of a rotting skeleton. The bones were old and dirty, nearly shattered into pieces. But, they were still intact enough to see that it belonged to a human.

Chewie groaned in disgust. BB-8 chirped as he rolled along. He found a small object buried in the sand beneath their feet and dusted it off to reveal a fairly large dagger. Rey grabbed it and held it up to her saber, the glow of the blue light allowing her to take a better look at it. "Horrible things have happened with this..." Rey whispered as she felt the memories of the material object flood into her. It was a force-sensitive person thing. Celestia wasn't in tune enough with her sensitivity to the force to be able to feel something like that.

"There's writing on it." Poe pointed out.

Threepio offered his services. "Perhaps I can translate."

Rey held up the dagger to Threepio and allowed him to take a peek. "Oh. The location of the wayfinder, has been inscribed upon this dagger. It's the clue that Master Luke was looking for."

"And? Where's the wayfinder?" Finn pressed for answers.

"I am afraid I can not tell you."

"20.3 fazillion languages, you can't read that?" Poe hissed at the droid.

"Oh, I have read it, sir. I know exactly where the wayfinder is. Unfortunately, it is written in the runic language of the Sith." Threepio spoke frankly as if they all should have understood why he couldn't tell them where the tracker was.

"So what?" Rey spat, getting frustrated at the droid.

"My programming forbids me from translating it." Threepio told.

"So you're telling us the one time we need you to talk, you can't?" Poe was quite irritated, too.

"Irony, sir. I am mechanically incapable of speaking translations from Sith." Threepio took a step away from the group. Right behind him a strange creature appeared. Everyone's eyes shot wide as they spotted the humongous creature. "I believe the rule was passed by the Senate of the Old Republic—" Threepio continued speaking as everyone else armed themselves to defend whenever necessary.

BB-8 squealed. The beast began to shriek an unholy sound, which echoed wildly through the caverns. Threepio turned around and took no time to hobble away. "Serpent! Serpent!" Threepio yelped as he hurried away.

It was certainly some kind of serpent. It had long, intimidating fangs with dripping saliva. It's skin was like leather and it's body was of a snake. With no limbs and a long neck holding it's head high above the others. Poe instinctively gripped Celestia's arm whilst holding out his blaster. She, too, held her own with her own blaster drawn and pointed at the beast.

Rey held her hand up, telling the others to stand down as she noticed the serpent's intrigue in her saber. She waved it back and forth, and, like a dog, the beast's eyes followed it like a toy to be caught. BB-8 hid behind Celestia's legs, knowing it was likely the safest place to be. He knew Cel would be the first and quickest to book it if things turned south.

Rey approached the serpent, causing Finn to cautiously whisper out her name. She proceeded to approach the serpent, and her presence seem to calm him. The beast let out a few snarls before Rey placed her hand on his tail. His tail seemed injured and unhealed as there were huge bloody gashes lining his scaly tail. She took advantage of this information and used her power to heal him, gaining his trust. She was dangerously close to its gripping jaws.

Poe shakily held his blaster, worried she'd only anger the serpent even more and it would come for them next. "Don't blast it." Finn whispered through gritted teeth. They were all very tense at the moment, wondering what the serpent was going to do next... kill them as he had Ochi?

The tension in the room alleviated was Rey healed him. His scales came back together and the bloody gashes disappeared before everyone's eyes. The creature blinked and groaned softly before moving away down deeper into the caverns, revealing an exit to the horrible caverns. Sunlight streamed into the tunnels, blinding everyone but the droids momentarily. BB-8 chirped a question as to how she managed to do that. "I just transferred a bit of life. Force energy from me to him." She explained.

Chewie picked up the dagger and stowed it in his bag. Celestia didn't think much of it as she was distracted by the beaming sunlight and newly revealed escape.

Once they exited the caverns, they headed straight for Ochi's ship. "We cannot possibly fly that ship," Threepio mentioned as he noticed how rickety and old the ship was.

"We gotta keep moving and find someone who can translate that dagger," Poe explained to Threepio since he seemed to be of no use.

"i suggest we return to the Millenium Falcon at once." Threepio spoke firmly.

"That ship will be swarming with stormtroopers since we stationed it so close to town, there's no going back now." Celestia told him as she trekked up the steep plateau to head for the ship.

"Yeah, they'll be waiting for us at the Falcon." Poe agreed.

"Mhm, they'll throw us in the Pits of Griq." Finn snorted.

Poe sniffed, holding back a loud chuckle. "Yeah, and use you as a target droid." If Threepio could gulp at that moment, he would. He was quieted after those comments, he didn't want to be used as a target droid, nor did he want to be thrown in the Pits of Griq.

Something caught Rey's eye as she stared off in the distance of the desert. Finn walked over to her to check up on her. She assured him she was okay and left most of her things with him before he took off. Celestia didn't mind, she knew Rey had a way of escaping trouble, and she and Poe needed to get to work on the ship if they were planning on getting out of there anytime soon.

The door of the ship creaked open, its age showing through with the creaks and croaks of the ship. "Let's see what we got!" Poe announced as he began flickering on the lights of the ship.

Cel hurried over to the cockpit to begin roaring on the engine. "lets get those converters fired up." Poe told her as she was already on it.

The ship began to hum beautifully as it was turned on. She clasped her hands together in delight. "Look at that." Finn hummed in satisfaction.

Celestia looked out the windshield and spotted Rey far off in the distance taking a long walk away from the ship. She knew something was coming. She could feel it. And it only gave Celestia more reason to want to get out of there as quickly as possible, even if that meant leaving Rey behind.

Finn sent Chewie to retrieve Rey, wanting to leave as badly as Cel did. Chewie obliged and hurried out. "You think this thing can still handle jumping into hyperspace?" Poe asked Celestia, his hand brushing over hers as she pressed buttons on the dash to prep the ship for takeoff.

Celestia pulled her hand away from him. She was refusing to give in so easily, to return back to normalcy so easily. But, it was hard to stay away from him. They just worked well together. They felt like they belonged to one another. "Cel..." He sighed, taking notice of her action.

She tore her eyes away from him, but he grabbed her face and turned it back toward him. She felt submissive under his strong grip on her jaw, making her heart beat faster. "You know I love you. I just need you to forgive me, to know I'll never do what i did again. It was a stupid mistake, and I've apologized already. Why are you being like this?" He asked her.

They didn't have time for this. For and intervention. Nor was it the right place to do it, with so many of their other friends on board. She was simply being stubborn and wanted the perfect moment to make up, not while on a dangerous mission where their full focus was needed. Also, she kind of liked seeing Poe chasing after her, it gave her the confirmation that she needed to know that he was the one, that he would stick by her side until death did them part. "Not now, Dameron."

"Yes, now, Djarin." He let go of her face and clenched his jaw.

"We have other things to think about right now--"

"Yet I can't seem to focus when all I'm thinking about is whether I'll ever see your face again after this mission." He cut her off.

Her face softened, her eyes flickered around, and noticed no one was around. They were busy trying to get ahold of Rey. "Sheesh, fine. I forgive you!" She spoke the words he wanted to hear so that they could get back on task.

Poe smirked a bit and wiggled around in his seat to get comfortable. "Good." He spoke, satisfied.

"Good."

He turned and looked down at her lips. "No." Was all she said and he pouted. She widened her eyes. "Have you forgotten we're in the middle of being tracked down by the First Order in an abandoned ship that might not take off and our friend--Rey--is out there taking a nature walk when we should be fleeing?"

Poe sighed. "Fine. Where the hell is she, anyway?" He took a peek out the window.

Finn hurried into the ship to begin shouting frantically at the two. "It's Ren! They took Chewie!!" Finn exclaimed.

Celestia's heart dropped to her stomach. Instant guilt flooded her veins. And all this time they were fooling around in the cockpit. Ironic, wasn't it? Cel looked out the windshield and pointed a slender figure at the fighter jet charging at Rey in the mdist of the desert. It was Kylo Ren coming for her. Rey managed to dodge the crash and disable the ship so he'd have a crash landing.

Finn sprinted outside to shout at Rey about them taking Chewie. With all her might, she tried to use the Force to hold back the ship. However, Kylo took notice and began using his power to pull on the transport ship carrying Chewie in the middle of the air. The fight when on for a few minutes until the ship exploded into pieces.

Celestia took notice of another figure next to Kylo after he had exited the crashed ship. It was a woman. Celestia hadn't heard anything about her or who she was. She must've been one of Kylo's playthings or someone irrelevant. But, the energy she possessed as she walked along was striking. She acted as if she were more important and more powerful than Kylo himself. A name kept crossing her head, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it. Lara. Mara... no... Cara? Yara. The name conjured itself into Celestia's mind. It was the first time the force had worked with her... and it was used to conjure a name.

"Yara." She whispered breathlessly, so low that no one but herself could hear. She didn't know why that name was important or why she managed to figure it out. It must've been just the mere power the woman carried that anyone that neared her would learn her name. Still, Celestia couldn't see her face, only the tight brown curls that fell right past the hood of her cloak.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

okaayyy crossover. if you don't know who yara is, she's in this star wars universe with celestia and other characters such as Tara and Celeste :))) the link in my bio on my profile shows you the complete guide of all my book universes, including my star wars universe :))