The first time they meet up, after, it's in some shitty dive bar on some shitty backwater planet. Mara's drinking the shitty house ale when she feels someone hop up onto the stool next to her. Of all the people who'd both recognize her and want to drink with her, she wasn't expecting Cr-- Caliista.

Mara took a sip of her beer and looked her unexpected companion over. She looked better than when she'd last seen her. Her hair had grown out past its awkwardly shorn state, and her face had finally settled into something unique. Wholly Callista. Not anything to remind Mara of a dead acquaintance.

She waited til Callista had finished ordering before trying to start any semblance of conversation. Or, well, she would have, if Callista had been any less chatty.

"Nice to find someone with taste out in this part of the galaxy," she greeted.

Mara snorted into her drink. "Once you get your drink you'll wish you weren't, trust me."

The server handed Callista the same local swill that Mara had, and Callista took a quick swig and wrinkled her nose.

"I warned you," Mara joked. Callista rolled her eyes. "But, not that you're not a great drinking partner, there's gotta be a reason you sought me out."

Callista grimaced. "You're right. I need your help with something."

The something that she needed help with turned out to be an expedition into an old, abandoned Jedi temple. It was designed so that only those with the Force could open it up. And, despite all her tries, Callista was no longer someone with the Force.

The temple exuded a weird, almost nauseating aura out into the Force. It didn't feel like the blindinly consecrated sections of Luke's temple on Yavin IV, or the revolting remains of the Temple on Coruscant. It felt wholly its own, unidentifiable, and Mara didn't like feelings she couldn't identify.

She and Callista shined their torches down the dusty corridors they found, but couldn't identify any artifacts that necessitated removal. They dusted off the first frescoes and mosaics they found, but stopped once it revealed some pretty explicit scenes. Mara cringed to think about a Jedi temple reserved just for eroticism, but judging never served anybody well, either.

Finally, after hours of exploring, they found the central room of the temple. There were corroded faucets on the walls over empty channels that led to the center of the round room. Mara didn't even need her torch in this room, because a skylight in the center of the domed room illuminated the whole room. The beam of light coming through it, however, shone right on a short altar, with a small bottle of a mysterious substance on it.

"This is it," Callista breathed. "This is what I've been looking for."

She walked over and cradled the bottle in her hands like it was more precious than anything. It even might have been, if it was the Force-granting substance she'd been looking for all this time.

Callista poured some water from her flask into the bottle, to make whatever was in there actually drinkable. She swirled the bottle around to mix it, and it shone pink and purple and orange in the light. The power radiating from it was lovely to feel, but it carried a sense of danger with it, too.

All Mara could do was watch as Callista took a drink from the ancient bottle filled with an ancient substance. The light in the room seemed to change, and Mara found herself stepping forward as Callista held the bottle out to her.

Against her better judgment, she took a drink.