Author's Note: I'm back! I've been away for a while working on original writing projects. (See my blog for details, link on my profile. You'll have to take out the spaces, because ff-net is a pain that way.) TLJ is polarizing fans, half of whom see it as changing too much of the established nature of the force, and the Skywalker Saga. Well, to those fans I say: You're right. I also say: That's the whole point. This fic is about that.
The New Republic had been decapitated by Starkiller Base, and the First Order was quick to capitalize. Leia would have had a case for taking charge if she'd stayed a Senator, but the revelation about who her father was had driven her from the Bureaucracy. She'd tried to form a Resistance to what was building, and her government allies had all agreed to talk about it more later. Later had never come, for many of them. Leia had pulled an army together through sheer force of willpower.
It had been a powerful move, and an impressive one. And it had failed. With the Resistance all but wiped out, except for one last ship-
His ship. That miserable hunk-of-garbage ship.
-the time had come for Kylo Ren to turn his attention to the Galaxy as a whole.
The Senate had been wiped out with the Republic Capitol. That still left a billion worlds looking for a leader. Kylo Ren had cleaned up the throne room and ordered Hux to get representatives of each world on the Comms. The throne room was filled to bursting with holographic representatives from each system, like being in a real-time holo of the Senate Chamber.
"The ultimate Flaw of the New Republic was that it was too big, and tried to respect too much. Everyone having an equal voice doesn't work when a billion voices all want different things." Hux declared to the assembled leaders of worlds. "The First Galactic Empire made the mistake of thinking that the opinion of one man was all the disparate worlds of the universe needed; and anyone else was a slave."
Kylo Ren gave Hux a look from behind, though he didn't speak. Declarations like this were a waste of time. Nobody would believe it, and if they did, it didn't matter. Kylo had no interest in micromanaging the affairs of a billion planets.
"We have no intention of smothering your worlds with permanent garrisons of stormtroopers, or overtaxing your people as Palpatine did-" Hux continued.
This much was true, Ren reflected. The Rebellion grew because the Empire smothered it's subjects too much. Oppression bred resistance. Far better to keep the various Worlds afraid and let them police each other, than trying to maintain a military of billions. Though the taxation would come, no matter what Hux said.
"-Nor do we plan to restore a bureaucracy that so bloated and overstaffed that it just couldn't work." Hux added. "So, those of you with authority over your worlds, rest easy. You work for us now, and that means you are now Sovereign Governors of your respective Regions; with all the privileges and… personal benefits of your position."
Ren didn't react, but he wanted to laugh at the naked interest on the faces of those watching. Every member world in the New Republic had a Monarch or an elected Representative. Declaring the galaxy to be a Feudal System meant they could have anything they wanted, as long as they didn't want something the First Order wanted, or something more than their own world. After thirty years trying to co-rule with whatever Senator was assigned to the New Republic; as well as not doing anything to offend any other member world, this was a good deal for them.
"And in return for your help funding your own superiors, and rooting our traitors to the legally recognized authority, you enjoy the protection of the Fleet, and the rights to call on it when you need help pacifying your own sedition. Make no mistake, it can spring up everywhere."
On his throne, Ren translated in his head: 'You can strip, pillage, rape, and live in as much luxury as you can squeeze from your worlds, and as long as you do as we tell you, there'll be a legion of troops to keep you in power.'
Kylo Ren despised them. Neither Skywalker, nor Snoake held any interest in luxury. He was Supreme Leader over the whole galaxy now. He could have a throne of pure diamond, or a harem of thousands on call. None of that interested him.
"Remember, this isn't about Power or wealth. It's about Order. About keeping a billion chaotic systems in peace with each other, and doing so forever. World without War. First: Order!"
"Order!" The various holographic leaders all declared.
"In the name of the Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren; I thank you for your loyal attention!" Hux beamed, enjoying the moment of reflected glory.
"Thank you, General." Ren spoke for the first time. "And now, if you would; set a proper example for our Governors."
Hux spun, looking askance for a whole half a second, before he recognized he had no choice in the matter. "Of course, my Lord."
Ren could tell it burned him, but Hux turned, and bowed, forehead scraping floor, an inch from Ren's boot. "Long Live the Supreme Leader."
Ren let him grovel, before looking to the holograms. An instant later, they all realized what he was waiting for and mirrored the pose, some of them faster than others.
"First: Order!" Kylo Ren declared.
"Order!" A million voices declared.
The holograms winked out, leaving Kylo and Hux alone, with a replacement contingent of Praetorian Guards ringing the room. Hux remained prostate, waiting to be dismissed, or told to rise. Kylo gave him nothing, returning his gaze to the stars outside the window.
Hux could do nothing, just hold the pose and wait.
"I imagine as little as ten percent won't take the offer." Ren said quietly. "The rest will accept the… benefits of being a Feudal Lord. You will ensure that that last ten percent will be taken care of?"
"Any who do not inform their people of the new reality will be taken care of within the day, sir." Hux nodded, still bowing.
"Good." Kylo Ren returned his gaze to the stars. He attempted to enter a Force Meditation, but there was something that made it difficult. Something nagging at him. Unbidden, his hand went to the side of his throne, and the small piece of debris there. Half the lightsaber that he and Rey had broken in two. He never found the other half. Part of him thrilled at the idea that she had taken it with her.
The fact that it had broken so cleanly in two equal pieces was a testament to how evenly matched they were. A thought that should have concerned him, but he wasn't entirely sure that it did.
He heard a slight whimper. On the hard, polished floor, Hux was weakening, the unnatural pose starting to make him hurt. The weakness disgusted Ren on many levels. Snoake had made him hold that position for days during early training. Skywalker could hold a meditation pose for hours under a raging waterfall.
And there was one other who didn't concern herself with comfort…
"You may go." He told Hux. The man nearly collapsed, trying to make his limbs work enough to stand up again.
"Guards, you as well." Ren ordered. A symbolic gesture. They'd go no further than his line of sight. It didn't matter. The Praetorian Guards were fanatically obedient. That's why he and Rey had to fight through so many of them the last time he'd been in this room.
"Ben?" A familiar voice intruded on his thoughts. "Is that you?"
Kylo sighed, giving up on his meditation, and turned to face her. "I can't see where you are."
"I know." Rey nodded. "I wasn't sure if this connection still existed, but I thought it best to take precautions."
"You're learning."
"So are you." Rey gestured at the new flags in his chamber. "Social politics isn't the sort of thing the Dark Side is famous for."
"Ruled the galaxy for two generations and counting, didn't it?"
Rey smirked. "I told Leia what happened to your Master. She thinks it's funny as kriff."
"I'm sure she does." Kylo snorted. "Does she know we're speaking?"
"I think Leia suspects. Nobody else does."
"If they plan to pour all their hopes into you, then having us linked like this would be… difficult for you."
"Worse for you, I suspect." Rey commented. "You got your wish, Ben. Heir to Darth Vader. Including his last act in the universe: Betraying his master's throne and tearing him down."
"I wondered if Luke would tell you that story."
"Luke didn't tell me."
"Who did?"
"Anakin Skywalker."
Kylo lurched so hard he almost lost the link. "I don't believe you."
"I know." She said softly.
"That name is… is…"
"Is dead? Like Luke Skywalker, or Ben Solo?" Rey challenged. "You told me once to kill my past, if i had to. Did you mean that as a way to grow stronger in my present, or as a way to… avoid looking back?"
Silence.
"That saber we fought over belonged to Anakin Skywalker. He killed thirty younglings with it. His last act was to save Luke and bring down the Empire he had risen to the top of. What would he say to you, I wonder?"
"Vader never quite succeeded. The Rule of Two is the way of the Sith. Snoake knew I would do it eventually. Palpatine knew it of Vader. It is the cycle."
"And me?" Rey asked quietly. "If I had gone with you that day? If I'd accepted you as my teacher, would you want me to follow that Cycle too?"
He said nothing to that.
"I'm not afraid of you, Ben." She told him softly. "I was once, and I'm not anymore. And I think that's a problem, because you're just a little bit worried about me." Her head tilted. "Maybe more than a little bit?"
He slammed their connection apart, and she was gone.
The argument had been going around and around for almost three hours, since the Millennium Falcon landed. The Rebel Alliance had a dozen bases that had never been found by the Empire, or by the First Order. Leia knew where they all were.
But once they had landed, the unit had more or less fallen apart.
"I know you mean for us to recruit, but the fact is we've got nothing to recruit them to." Was the argument against. "No matter how desperate or hopeful a starry-eyed moron can be, the math just doesn't work. We can't build a Rebellion with... What? Twenty guys hiding in the jungle?"
Leia was calm as a mountain lake against her detractors. "We built it with far less, once before. Successfully, and victoriously, I might add."
"General, I know I'm on thin ice with you already, but the point isn't a terrible one." Poe put in. "You know I'd follow you anywhere, and so would all of us. But the last time you had to start a rebellion, you had the support of half a dozen cell members, inside the Senate. The Imperial Senate. People who could provide ships, provide funding, provide soldiers..."
"Poe, you should know by now. Weapons and ships don't make an army. Certainly, they don't decide a battle; let alone a war. People do that. Real people." Leia strode over to Finn. "You were a stormtrooper. Tell them."
Finn looked terrified. "Tell them what?"
"Why you stayed, even after you knew Rey was safe."
She had just come out and said it, and despite herself, Rey blushed a bit as every eye went to her. They all recognized her of course. They said she was Skywalker's Apprentice. It was rumored that she was his protege, even his daughter. She let them think that.
Finn, on the other hand, had finally spoken up. "Um… Well, the First Order doesn't recruit. It takes. They never even gave me a name. Just a gun. I was never supposed to ask why I shot people, or who they were… I was trained not to care about anything, including myself, and I never have before. I'll be honest with you, I can't even tell you what other Stormtroopers look like with those masks off. They aren't clones, I don't think. But then Rose nearly killed herself trying to keep me alive. Stormtroopers don't do that for each other."
To his chagrin, every Rebel left alive was watching him as he poured this all out. Leia took it in stride. "Why do you think she did that, Finn?"
Finn knew the reason, but only told part of it. "Because she wasn't looking to destroy. She wanted to protect someone she knew."
"Someone she cared about." Leia added. "And that's why you stayed?"
Finn looked halfway between pained and awed. "Nobody had ever saved my life before. Nobody thought it was worth saving, to be honest. Stormtroopers are expendable. But… I guess I'm not, anymore. Not to Rose, anyway."
"Not to me either, Finn." Leia promised.
"Or me." Rey spoke up.
"Or me." Poe added.
"And that, right there? Is the difference between People who decide the outcome of a war, and Stormtroopers who don't decide anything." Leia said seriously. "Everyone here has someone they'd fight for. Someone they'd kill or even die to protect. Everyone in the galaxy has at least one person like that, and that's how we win this thing. The Rebel Alliance was founded on hope. Hope makes one man fight like fifty. One person trying to protect something they love will say 'no' when it is hard, and 'yes' when it is impossible. That's how we win the next war, by appealing to people's hearts, instead of the fear."
Even Darth Vader. Rey reflected.
"When the Rebel Alliance was on the ropes, we had nineteen year old kids in thirty year old snub fighters against the Death Star." Leia told them. "Twice. But we still won."
"The nineteen year old you had in a snub fighter back then was Luke Skywalker." Someone said quietly.
Rey snorted and quietly left the meeting, pretending not to notice every single person watching her do so.
Leia let her go without comment, focused on her people. "You know what we're going to do today? Nothing. Today, I want each and every one of you to take a few hours and remember every time one of you saved another's life. Every time someone did it for you. And then I want you to remember the reasons why. The reason why you came to join The Resistance. Because I promise you this: Those reasons haven't changed, just because it got harder. If anything, they're more important now!"
"You found the old texts."
Rey looked up. He was there, looking over her shoulder. "You've seen these before?"
"Yes. Dusty, dense, hard to read, and full of self-aggrandizement." Kylo observed. "Like their authors."
Rey chuckled. "Well… You're not wrong."
"My spies tell me that you're trying to recruit. You won't succeed. You think we didn't hear that distress call? The galaxy heard you call for help. The Rim heard Leia saying that the time to act had come, and they didn't care. Not one voice answered you. Hope of Resistance is… dead."
"Yes. That was disappointing." Rey said, unconcerned.
"Luke's gone too. I could feel it just as you and The General could. The only thing he could throw at me was an empty shadow of someone who used to be there. Just like the Jedi. All that's left of them is an illusion of an old hero." Kylo murmured. "I meant what I said, Rey. We're the only ones left."
"Yes, we are. That's the point."
"What do you mean?"
"Snoake went on and on about the 'heir to Darth Vader'. That was how he sold you, right? I saw the mask in your chambers. Vader's mask. I didn't realize what it was at the time, but it was thick with darkness. You modeled Kylo Ren on it, including that mask."
"I smashed the mask to bits a week ago." Kylo told her quietly. "Before you came to me. The past is dead. I'm free now. No strings."
"So Kylo Ren is no longer trying to be Darth Vader." Rey summed up. "That's good, Supreme Leader. You've got your own name to make now." She flipped the page. "So do I."
"That doesn't bother you? What's left of your pitiful band of fighters is looking to you and hoping to see Luke Skywalker."
"A man none of them had ever met, except your mother and her droids." Rey pointed out. "The difference between you and me? You were desperate to fill the legend you follow. I'm not. That was Luke's whole point."
"You were with him less than a week. What did he teach you?"
"Three lessons." Rey said. "The fourth was the important one, and I didn't learn it from him." She sensed a presence growing closer. "I have to go."
Poe arrived a moment later, almost standing in the exact spot where Kylo Ren had been a moment before. "The others are hedging. They trust Leia, but they're scared. They need you to declare."
"They need to believe." Rey corrected him. "Not in me."
"They believed in Skywalker."
Rey didn't look away from the books. "That was what made him go into hiding."
"What about you?"
Rey shook her head and put the ancient books away. "I'm no legend."
"You floated half a mountainside without touching it, Rey. I don't know you that well just yet; but it seems pretty damn legendary to me."
Rey smiled a bit. "What about you? You're Rogue Flight Actual, which is pretty much the only offensive option left."
"More than two thirds of Rogue Squadron is gone, Rey. And Force forgive me, it was my fault." Poe commented.
"Yeah, I heard about the 'secret mission'." Rey said sympathetically. "I'd judge you, but it's exactly what I would have done in your place."
Poe winced. "Listen, I'm here for more than trading war stories."
"Recruitment." Rey predicted.
"I need to put Rogue Squadron back together, and Finn can go on for hours about your piloting skills…" Poe was leading her. "Frankly, if there was anyone left with half my talent, The General would have me shot. So I'm kind of hoping you aren't that good; but Jedi make great combat pilots."
"Anything I can do to help." Rey nodded. "But you understand I have an… alternate mission."
"Yeah, well." Poe rubbed the back of his neck. "Between you, me; and those books in your hand, I think we'll all be doing six jobs each for a while. At least, until we get some more 'starry-eyed morons' in here."
Rey grinned. "We should talk later, about putting together a halfway decent Combat Simulator. Right now, I have to meet Chewie. The ventral cannons on the Falcon got sheared off on Crait; and I promised to help patch things up."
"Good luck." Poe agreed. "That thing's held together with positive thinking as it is, and her weapons rating is just plain illegal."
"I know." Rey said with affection. "Chewie and I like her that way." She found her toolbox. "Ah, here it is. You want to come along? A combat pilot should be able to put together a fighter."
"I agree, but I can't right now." Poe sighed. "I have to convince Finn to sleep."
Rey nodded. "Go. I'll spell you in two hours."
"You know Rose?"
"Never met her." Rey said without blinking. "But she matters to Finn, so I'll spell you in two hours."
Poe rose. "I don't mean to be indelicate, but… when Finn woke up, he walked the halls wearing nothing but a leaking bacta-suit, looking for you. The only thing he wanted to know what where you were."
"His last conscious memory was me out cold at his feet, and a saber duel with an enemy that he knew he lost." Rey reminded him. "Of course he wanted to know what happened to me."
"Granted, but… I sort of expected that you two would have found your way to the nearest flat surface and had a proper, extremely thorough, reunion by now."
Rey just looked at him. "This is you 'not being indelicate'?"
Poe shrugged. "I just want to know where things stand, is all. Because the way he's looking at Rose, it's… He looks completely blindsided. And there's only five things that can make a combat veteran look that stunned. Three of them involve a woman."
Rey scoffed. "I have work to do."
"I'm going." Poe raised his ahds in surrender, not pushing it.
Rey kept her word, taking over the vigil at Rose Tico's side from Poe two hours later. There was little to do but wait for her to wake up... Or not.
Just like when I left Finn to find Luke. Rey considered attempting a Jedi Healing Trance, but hadn't tried such a thing on herself yet, let alone someone else.
"What did you mean, before?" Kylo asked. "When you said that us talking like this would be worse for me than you?"
"The minute you took over the First Order, you lost." Rey told him. "Because the Resistance's top fighter and the new Supreme Leader are connected across the universe now. If anyone in your hierarchy knew it, what would they think?"
Kylo didn't answer, but he didn't have to. Hux hated him just a little less than feared him. If he saw any weakness, any sign that his new Supreme Leader was compromised, he'd use to to start a Coup.
"If The Resistance manages to win, you're lost." Rey told him. "If the First Order wipes us out, you'll have a Kingdom of terrified people, a Royal Court of people looking for the chance to knife you in your sleep, and you won't have me."
"Would I have you in any event, Rey?"
"Who's asking? Ben Solo, or Supreme Leader Ren?"
Ren couldn't hold her gaze. "You still want to bring me back, then?"
"As long as that conflict is there, I always will." Rey promised.
"What makes you think there's still conflict? I don't. Luke didn't. My own mother doesn't think I can be saved."
"You said 'please'." Rey said simply.
"What?"
"When the fight with those Red Guards was over, you asked me to stay with you. You said 'please'. Name one Sith Lord who has ever done that."
"And I'm sure you've met so many."
"Rey?"
She turned, and the link to the other side vanished instantly. Finn was there, looking at her with concern. "Who were you talking to?"
Rey smiled easily. "Just thinking out loud." She moved on immediately. "You were supposed to be sleeping."
"I tried." Finn admitted. "Couldn't get there."
"I thought a soldier could sleep standing up."
Finn scoffed. "Yeah, that's the idea, but I think we've established that I'm not the most elite of Stormtroopers." He looked to Rose. "Any change?"
"I would have come and gotten you if there was." She promised. "You care about this one." It wasn't a question.
Finn sat down next to Rose and took her hand. "I… don't know."
"You do." Rey insisted. "But I don't think you know how much, or in what way." She took his free hand. "You can say the same about most things right now, I guess."
He looked at her, eyes red. "I'm really glad you're back, Rey."
She smiled through welling eyes of her own and put her arms around his shoulders. "I missed you too." The position was awkward with both of them sitting, but she breathed him in happily. "When I left on the Falcon, you were still wrapped up in that bacta-suit, and… You had a slice that was an inch wide and an inch deep drawn almost the length of your spine… I'd never seen a saber wound before, but I swear it nearly made two of you." She wiped her eyes quickly over his shoulder. "I didn't want to leave you like that."
He pulled away from her arms a bit, and she released him. "I don't really know what you went looking for, but… I hope you found it."
"I did." Rey promised. "What about you?"
Fin turned his chair away from her enough to face Rose, still unresponsive. "We're Rebels now, aren't we? We aren't survivors, or escapees anymore. We've chosen a side, haven't we?"
"I have." Rey nodded. "Have you?"
Finn let out a slow breath. "I would have done it. Their kriffin' Bunker Buster gun? I would have taken it out."
"And died doing it." She reminded him. "Don't expect me to be okay with that. It's an awful thing to say, but Rose took the hit for you. And I don't know her at all, but I'm glad to know you're okay."
He acknowledged that, and she rose from her seat. There was a small table there, and Rey pulled out a small bag of scraps and parts, sorting them.
"Did Poe tell you how Rose and I met?" Finn asked her suddenly.
"He did." Rey said sympathetically, giving him her full attention again. "I don't blame you for trying to get yourself away, Finn."
"You did once. At Maz's Cantina."
"That was unfair of me." Rey admitted. "And I'm long over it. I was over it the moment I saw you again."
Finn didn't remark on that. He knew how long she'd been waiting for someone to come back for her, and he had been the first one to do so. "You never know. Your family might yet come back."
"My family's gone, Finn." Rey sighed. "They were never coming back. They were scavengers that sold me off because they wanted to get numb on moonshine more than they wanted a daughter to love; and they're almost certainly in a shallow grave in-"
Finn interrupted by coming out of his chair and returning the embrace she'd given him a moment ago. Finn had been the first person to give her a hug, and she found she enjoyed it. She reached out to the Force a little, wanting to know how to add to the experience as her arms came up to match his. She felt like holding him was the most important thing she'd done since opening the pass on Crait.
She could feel the exhaustion coming from him in waves, and broke the hug. "You need sleep." She told him briskly. "Come on. If you can't sleep in your bunk, there are beds here."
This was true. There were wounded other than Rose, but none in this state of convalescence. All hands were on deck. Rey had heard one or two of the tech's say that they could really use someone with Rose's technical skill out there, even comatose. Finn started to protest, but she pushed him gently and he didn't have it in him to fight her. The med-bed she put him in was across from Rose, giving him a clear view of her as she pulled his jacket over his torso. "She thought I was a coward when we met."
"Shh." Rey told him, and sat herself at the foot of his bed, holding his hand.
"She thought I was deserting. Zapped me unconscious before I could launch the pod. I tried to tell her about the beacon, but she thought I was just trying to escape." He looked up at Rey beseechingly. "I wasn't. Please, believe me?"
"I do." She told him soothingly. "You bluffed your way into a mission to Infiltrate Starkiller base to get me back. There's nothing cowardly about you. You're just more loyal to your friends than to any Army or Cause."
"Stormtroopers are nothing but loyalty." Finn groaned, unable to keep his eyes open. "When I left them I didn't have loyalty any more, and that meant I was less than nothing."
"Shh." Rey told him again, trying to summon the Force to soothe him. "Rose thought you only cared about yourself. She doesn't get that 'yourself' was the only thing you had when you left the First Order. Poe was the one that gave you a name and the clothes on your back…"
"I'd never had a friend before you and Poe, and when we met; I thought he was dead…" Finn was finally drifting off. "Why did Rose care about me, Rey? The Rebels fight out of love? It's insane. Why did she do it?"
"Because that's what heroes do, Finn." Rey told him. "Rose is a hero. And so are you. Stormtroopers kill and die because someone tells them to. Heroes do it even when they're told not to, because that's how they protect things they love."
He was finally asleep. She held his hand a little longer, and slipped away without waking him, going back to the little desk, and returning to her own project.
Assembling a lightsaber was a tricky process. The components were easy enough to find, except for the focusing crystal, and she had kept that half of the broken Saber. The Millenium Falcon had no shortage of bits and pieces. She had assembled all the parts she needed while helping Chewie make repairs, and set them out in front of herself, with the crystal in the middle.
The texts said that the lightsaber was a deeply personal thing. Creating one was a demonstration of Force Affinity; and often a reflection of the wielder.
Rey fiddled with the pieces carefully, letting the Force hold the crystal in place as she assembled the case around it.
"The refractor lens is out of alignment."
"It's not out of alignment, it's just not secured yet." Rey said quietly without turning. "And you are hardly one to tell me about lightsaber construction. Yours always acts like it's about to fizzle out."
"Don't let the sparks fool you." Kylo mused. "It's the most powerful saber ever made. Stronger even than Vader's."
"Strong, and barely coherent because of it. And I notice we're back to him again." Rey needled. "You told me to leave the past behind. Can't you do the same?"
"You started your journey because you found Anakin Skywalker's Lightsaber."
"I started my journey because of Finn." Rey told him, glancing over at him. "Remember? The guy you nearly cut in half?"
Kylo followed her gaze over to the med-bed where Finn slept. Rey wondered if he was looking where she was, or if he had actually found a way to see her sleeping friend. "He's a Stormtrooper that couldn't shoot; and a Rebel Hero that spent half his time trying to escape the Rebellion. This is the connection that matters so much to you?"
"You talk about me clinging to disappointing Role Models like Luke and Han. Anakin Skywalker would never have lasted as a Jedi if not for some sithspit prophecy about 'The Chosen One'. The last all-powerful king of the Galaxy would have snuffed Luke out in an instant if he didn't see a potential trade-up on the slave who needed a mask to breathe. Even Snoake looked at you and saw nothing but another Vader."
"That's not a slight against me, Rey. I come from a bloodline that turned the galaxy on a pivot for three generations."
"And I don't." Rey said simply. "You were right, I'd been hiding from it for over a decade, but I'm nothing from nowhere."
"Not to me."
"Not to myself, either." Rey said honestly. "Part of me had hoped I was wrong about it. I felt the Force simmering away inside me, and I had hoped it meant I part of some grand quest. There were some crazy rumors flying around the Resistance. Some people thought I was Leia's long lost kid, that I was the illegitimate child of someone named Kenobi, that I was a clone of Vader, even." She almost laughed. "But not one of them considered the truth: That a scav from Jakku could somehow be just as powerful, just as special, as the Emperor of the First Order; without being related to any of them."
Kylo had nothing to say to that. "The Prophecy was true, Rey. He wiped out the Jedi, and the Sith. Brought balance."
"Yes. But now that's gone. The past is dead. The Fourth and Most Important lesson; and I didn't learn it from Luke. I learned it from you, Ben." Rey said softly. "The Skywalker Saga is over now. Maybe forty years ago we needed a Chosen One to save us, but that time is over. It's our turn to save ourselves."
"You will fail."
"Yes, we will. We'll fail and fail again. But that's why you'll never win this war. No matter how powerful you are, there will always be an infinite supply of nobodies from nowhere. The Force demands balance. When Darkness rises, Light rises to meet it. It's not coincidence, it's The Force, trying to balance itself. When Vader had the galaxy by the throat, his son rose. When the Jedi Order started to grow again, there was you and Snoake. When you conquered the Republic, I finally left Jakku."
Kylo was silent a moment. "You talk about the Force like a Jedi Master. This is what Luke taught you?"
"This is what the Force taught me." Rey explained. "Luke only taught me how to ask."
Kylo watched her for a moment. "You could do more than just save yourself, Rey."
"I don't know that Jedi and Sith are any different anymore. But I do know that Light does not demand control. Light understands Balance is good." Rey turned to look at him. "Ben, the more you take, the more the Force will try to balance it. When you rose, so did I. You're raising an army against yourself; and you'll never win that way. The time of the Chosen Ones is over, Ben. Nobodies From Nothing will defeat the darkness by a thousand tiny cuts. That's our Light now."
As if to make the point, Rey hit the button on her little project, and the universe's newest lightsaber flared to life between them.
Temiri Blagg swept out the stables.
His dreams told him stories. Stories of battlefields, where huge war machines tried to slaughters the ghosts of legends. Battlefields where salt could bleed where heroes drove across them, sending fountains of color where they raced.
When he woke up, his owner pushed a broom at him, and slapped him for sleeping late. The Fathiers were all being recaptured or replaced after the Rebels had come and set them free a week before. Temiri still had the ring, with the concealed Rebel insignia inside, but he hadn't shown it to anyone.
Oniho was his friend, and loved telling stories. Temiri told him what the dreams showed him, and Oniho told the other boys, dressing up the takes with exciting impressions and lots of dramatic acting. Oniho told the story of the Jedi Legend, returning from nothingness to fight evil once again… While Temiri looked up at the racing animals, sad in their cages.
"We should set them free." Temiri said suddenly. It was unplanned, unexpected, and Temiri felt like the impulse had come from somewhere else. Somewhere… powerful.
"They'll just catch them again." Oniho countered. "And we'd be beaten to death for doing it."
"Not if we escaped with them." Temiri said, and again, it was like the vice had come from somewhere else. But the conviction was real. The desire to be free, and to free other living things to be safe and happy instead of caged; all those thoughts came from him. But something new had been added. Something was helping him now. "We can do it, Oni! We can do something good, and try to help!"
"Who do you think you are? Luke Skywalker?" Oniho laughed.
Temiri was already reaching for the broom, breaking off the handle to give himself a staff that came up to his shoulder. "No, I'm not Luke Skywalker. But I don't have to be, do I?"
Oniho bit his lip. "It's too dangerous." He said, but even as he said it, Temiri was inching his way over to the Fathier pens, reaching out a hand to them, trying to send soothing thoughts.
Temiri was small enough to slip into the pen, and climb up on the Fathier's back, feeling the beast's mood shift, coming to trust him, growing excitement. "Let's be free together." Temiri whispered.
"You'll never get the doors open." Oniho hissed, even as he climbed a mount of his own. "After last week, they wired all the pens into the main switch in the control room." As if to make the point, the boy pointed across the racetrack, where the security switch was visible, barely.
Temiri took a deep breath. He'd learned he could do this with a broom, and even then, only when it was just out of reach. But it couldn't be harder to throw a switch, could it? Even from so far away? A switch was smaller than a broomstick, and Temiri was able to see it… so he reached…
Far beyond them, the large security lever started to move.
"How are you doing that?" Oniho breathed in awe, even as the pen doors all swung open, and the Fathier's roared, charging again, breaking through the new barriers, on their own quest for freedom.
Delighted, feeling more right than he'd ever felt, Temiri held on with one hand, and looked to his Ring with the other, off on his own adventure.
AN: (Edits for typos). Read and Review!