Willow enjoyed every second of the flight. She held onto Cal tightly, not wanting to let go of him ever again. The landing platform came closer and closer and the girl sighed heavily. After landing on the platform, Willow let go of Cal and climbed down. The two teenagers bid farewell to their majestic ride. Without exchanging another word, they moved into the Mantis.

Once inside, they found Cere and Greez in the kitchen, their backs turned to the entrance and the smell of cooked food reaching the young witch's nose. The two crew members hadn't noticed that Cal and Willow were back. Willow glanced skeptically at Cal, sensing the tension returning to him.

BD-1 let out a few chirps in greeting, drawing Greez' and Cere's attention. They immediately turned to the teenagers, and Greez stared at them in disbelief.
"What happened to you two? What were you up to now?! I don't want any mud tracks on my ship!"

Willow glanced down at herself and had to admit she looked terrible. Her clothes were covered in mud from tumbling down the slope. Cal, however, looked a bit cleaner, having not rolled in the mud the way she did.

The young Jedi just glanced at the older woman, visibly annoyed for a moment. He moved into the kitchen, and Willow hesitantly followed.

"Cordova believed the key to the vault is on Dathomir," he began, ignoring Greez' complaint.

"You find your Wookie?"
Greez looked at the redhead curiously.

"Yeah. Things are bad down there. Empire's everywhere," Cal explained and took a seat at the dining table. Willow sat next to him at the set table, where Cere and Greez had dished the food.

"Inquisitors?"
The former Jedi avoided looking at the boy.

"Well, Trilla, the Second Sister," he started, giving Cere a meaningful look, though she kept her eyes on her plate.
"She's gone for now, but she's still chasing us."

Cal took a sip from his water bottle and almost casually mentioned, "I defeated the Ninth Sister."

BD-1 tapped excitedly on the table, Cere breathed a sigh of relief, and Greez reached for the salt shaker.

Silence fell as they all focused on their meal. Willow sensed the conversation wasn't over yet and hesitantly reached for her utensils. Cal poked at his food, and Greez, perhaps sensing the tension too, kept adding more salt to his meal.

Then Cere spoke, "Cal, when I was captured by the Empire..."
Willow paused in her movement. She debated whether it was rude to be the first one to just eat. Her hunger after today was immense, and she didn't want to be deterred from eating. On the other hand, she could not rule out losing her appetite within the next few seconds.

Cere continued, "I resisted. I swore to myself that I would die before I would talk."

The pilot wore a forced grin, which looked almost frozen. He kept adding salt, his gaze shifting between his two friends. Willow glanced at Cal, who turned away from his food and irritably let his utensils fall back onto the table. This sealed it; she wouldn't eat anymore today. Frustrated, she looked at the plate in front of her.

"But then this... dark shadow came. And it was worse than any nightmare I could've imagined," Cal leaned back in his chair, and Willow wasn't sure if he was about to explode with anger. He continued to avoid Cere's gaze.
"And I still fought! But in the end, I came apart. And I gave them Trilla." The silence hung heavily over their heads; Willow felt it with every cell of her body. The only sound was Greez' salt shaker.

"And I know there's nothing I can do to make that right. But Cal, there's still a chance we can save the others on the Holocron," Cere concluded.

Cal interrupted her monologue with a hand gesture and looked her directly in the eyes.
"Okay, look. The Ninth Sister said something about becoming an Inquisitor like... Like it's inevitable. But you went through the same thing she did, and you didn't join them."

"Cal-"

"It's okay, Cere!" He stood up, and a small salt mound had already formed on Greez's meal.
"We'll find Cordova's Holocron."
With that, he walked to the rear of the Mantis.

"We're staying here tonight, though," Greez quietly added in a questioning tone after a moment of heavy silence. Since Cere didn't object, they would likely fly to Dathomir tomorrow. It slowly dawned on Willow that she was traveling from planet to planet.

BD-1, as curious as ever, scanned the overly salted food, prompting the pilot to finally set aside the salt shaker.
"Hey! Get your lasers off my lunch!"

Even without Cal at the table, the mood was uncomfortable. Willow felt the urge to flee from this situation and cleared her throat.
"Excuse me, please. I'm sure the food is fantastic, but with everything that's happened today... I'm not really in the mood to eat. Still, thank you," she explained and stood up.

She received no response and hurried, with heated cheeks and guilt-ridden, to her room.
She hated herself for just walking away from the table but she couldn't handle such situations.
Without further ado, she went to take a soothing shower. Her body was so exhausted from all the climbing and fighting that she doubted she'd be able to move tomorrow due to muscle soreness.

After the shower, she decided to put on some comfortable clothes. She slipped into knee-length shorts and a shirt. She was just about to grab a medkit when she remembered she had forgotten to take one earlier. So she snuck out of her room again, grabbed a kit, and disappeared back into her bathroom.

Willow's entire body was covered in bruises and cuts here and there. Just as she had expected. First, she tended to the small gash on her temple. Then her arms, and finally her legs.
Since she didn't know what most of the items in these medkits were for, she was now covered in various bandages. This would have to suffice for now.

With her wounds fully tended to, she took care of her clothes. After a few attempts, she managed to clean and deodorize them, so she could wear them again tomorrow without any problems.

Unsure of how to spend her time now, she sat on the bed. A glance at her watch told her that around 50 hours had passed. Meaning, she had been away from Hogwarts for two days and a few hours. Although the time seemed short, so much had happened. To Willow, it felt like at least two weeks since she joined the crew. Much was still new and unfamiliar to her, but she felt she had adapted well. Not to mention the familiarity she started to feel around the crew.

Suddenly, she had an idea. If she was already missing a bunch of schoolwork, she could at least practice some spells she hadn't yet mastered. The student went to her leather bag and pulled out all the books she had brought with her. Since she had performed the portal ritual immediately after class, she carried both the books from the library and her own schoolbooks. She chose her copy of the spell book, a fundamental reading material they used in their lessons.

As the sun was still shining on Kashyyyk, Willow decided against changing her clothes. Her current outfit was suitable for the planet's climate. So she grabbed her wand and headed outside. In the Mantis she encountered no one, which she did not mind at all.

Once outside she soon found a quiet, sun-lit spot on the platform. With Accio! she pulled a few small, slightly damaged boxes towards her. She placed her book on one of the boxes, open to the page that most sparked her ambition.

The Patronus Charm was a difficult spell. It was used to ward off Dementors. Dementors were soulless, evil creatures. They hovered above the ground, taking deep, rattling breaths. They brought out the worst memories in their victims and sucked the happiness out of them. If you encountered one, you supposedly felt it immediately in the temperature. Dementors felt like death, cold and without a proper face, shrouded in tattered black cloaks.
Dementors were guards and used as torture in the wizarding prison Azkaban. Almost all of the inmates there went mad or severely depressed from this torture.
A shiver ran down Willow's spine, and she had to shake it off. She was fortunate never to have encountered a Dementor.

Besides repelling Dementors, the Patronus Charm also helped send silent messages. The Patronus was individual and took on a unique animal form for each witch and wizard. Therefore, the spell was not only extremely useful but also very beautiful if mastered.

In class, they had briefly discussed it, and Willow had practiced it with Ominis and Sebastian several times. So far, none of them had successfully cast the spell, which greatly frustrated Willow. She usually learned quickly and was always precise in her work, but she repeatedly failed with this spell. She wasn't sure why she was failing, but she hoped for success here.

Willow read through the incantation and the accompanying wand movement once more. Then she took a deep breath, fixed her gaze on the slowly setting sun, and closed her eyes for a moment. She repeated the deep breathing several times until she had calmed her mind. With a clear head, she opened her eyes again and held her wand ready. Then she performed the movement and spoke the incantation: "Expecto Patronum!"

The tip of her wand glowed light blue, but the light flickered and faded after a few seconds. This was similar to her previous attempts; she couldn't manage more than this.
Without losing her composure, Willow tried again: "Expecto Patronum!"

After the tip of her wand dimmed again, she tried a third, fourth, and fifth time before she let her head fall back in frustration. Patience had never been her strong suit, but she needed it now.

Willow read the page in the book thoroughly once more before trying again. Suddenly, she stumbled upon something she had apparently overlooked before. The text reiterated that Dementors sucked out one's happiness and only let them see bad memories. It mentioned that additional strength could be generated by focusing on precisely the opposite memories.

The text didn't state it explicitly, but Willow assumed she needed to think of happy memories. But which memory should she choose? She mentally rewound time to the day Professor Eleazar Fig took her from the orphanage. That memory would be a good start. That day marked the beginning of an entirely new life for Willow, one she would never forget.

With newfound determination, she closed her eyes again and focused on the memory, trying to see it as clearly as possible.

She was fifteen and dressed in her finest victorian attire with a simple beige coat. Young Willow had been unbearably excited and hadn't been able to sleep the night before. Bidding farewell to the other orphans had been easy for her, as she had never really made any true friends there. She was labeled a weirdo, even tho she never did something to rightfully gain that title on purpose. She just was an outsider (who happened to be magically talented) with no huge interest in other people.

Willow shook her head at the detail in thought; she couldn't let that distract her now. She focused instead on the feeling of stepping outside the walls of that dreadful place for the first time in nine years, with Professor Fig by her side. The professor had welcomed her so warmly that Willow felt a warmth in her heart with the memory. With a small smile on her lips, she opened her eyes and spoke, "Expecto Patronum!"

The tip of her wand glowed noticeably longer this time, but aside from that, not much happened. That probably was not the right memory.

After some thought, she decided on the next memory: her first day at Hogwarts. Fig and she had arrived late to the sorting ceremony due to complications, which resulted in Willow being presented like a showpiece, walking to the front under the curious eyes of the other students and seating herself on the old stool. It had been uncomfortable for her at that moment, but she had been very happy to be accepted at Hogwarts.

With another attempt, she swung her wand: "Expecto Patronum!"
This time, she seemed further from success than with her previous memory.

A third attempt started with the memory of her first ride on a Hippogriff, but that also didn't suffice. Slightly disheartened, she sat down on one of the crates next to her book. She needed a moment to think.

Willow didn't understand. All these memories were ones she would recount if someone asked about the happiest moments in her life. How could they not be enough for the Patronus charm? Because of her past, she found joy in even the smallest of things.

Before she could sink into her thoughts, she heard footsteps behind her. Frustrated, she buried her hands in her hair and closed her eyes once again. She wasn't sure how she felt about company right now.

The person sat beside her on the crates, and from the scent alone, Willow immediately recognized who it was. With a light bumb against her shoulder, the person made themselves known.

"Don't hang your head, Lills. It doesn't suit you."

The girl looked into her companion's eyes and couldn't help but grin a little.
"I try, Kestis."

"What's got you sitting here so frustrated?"

She exhaled irritably.
"I'm trying to cast a spell I couldn't manage back in school. I thought maybe now that I've had some distance, I could do it. But apparently, my memories aren't happy enough," she rolled her eyes.

Cal just looked at her, a big question mark written all over his face. Willow straightened her back once, then explained the spell and its effect to her friend.
"Maybe I just don't see or feel these memories enough. If only I had a picture of each one-" she broke off mid-sentence, realisation hitting her. "Hold on, I'll be right back."

With that, she sprinted back to the Mantis, to the guest room. She confidently grabbed the blue corset and pulled out the picture of her friends. Motivated, she hurried back outside. Upon reaching Cal, she proudly held the picture up to him.
"Maybe with this!"

He took it, looked at it, and tilted his head in confusion. The sight was endearing, and Willow had to giggle. She sat back down next to him and introduced each of her friends in the picture. She also explained that the picture only moved because it was enchanted. With an understanding nod, he handed the picture back to her.
"Well then, give it a try."

Willow took it back, stood up and held the picture close to her heart. With her back to Cal, she closed her eyes once more and focused on her breathing. Then she thought back to the day the picture was taken, to all the wonderful memories she had gathered with each of her friends. Then she called out the incantation: "Expecto Patronum!"

And indeed, much more happened this time. The light gathering at the tip of her wand shone brighter, and azure-blue mist enveloped not only her but also Cal. He let out a delighted laugh before their eyes met for a moment.
"That was almost right," Willow exclaimed happily. "Although no animal formed, it was a huge step forward!"

Cal simply smiled at her for a moment before replying.
"That's great, Lills! Hey, maybe you should keep practicing with that memory and the picture?"

The student nodded eagerly, and with Cal by her side, she practiced until the sun set behind the horizon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2.671 Words,

what do u think of Willow's try to form a patronus? Do u have a memory in mind that could work for her? Let me know!

Until next time,

~Alice