Disclaimer: I don't own anything. I am but a broke college student.
Prologue
I am the Force
For my entire life, I have not felt pain. I would burn, and feel nothing. I would break bones, and feel nothing. I would grow sick with fever from infection, and feel no pain from it. It frightened my parents, but they loved me all the same. When the planet was still unaligned, doctors now long dead said congenital analgesia. My parents kept it hush hush as best they could, and taught me to manage a life free of physical pain.
We lived on a world of no consequence; small and of little strategic value to either the New Republic or the budding First Order. When I was a baby, the First Order settled on the planet and took over. Father found affinity in their teachings, and readily joined up. I was ten when he died in a battle against the Resistance. We were told it was a glorious battle, one that ended in the First Order's favor, and that my father was a hero. But even that young, I could tell he was no hero. He was a foot-soldier who died for his beliefs.
Soon after, the Resistance pushed and took over my planet of no consequence. The order and strictness imposed by the First Order was gone. With it, came freedom. With it, came lawlessness. There was an order to it, of course, but everything moved so slowly. Needed to be talked out, debated, checked with a half dozen people before things got done. Mother took much better to that ideology, the one of freedom, and joined them. I stayed on my planet of no consequence as she left. She died when the planet was reclaimed by the First Order, when I was a teen.
When the First Order came and demanded my enlistment, I agreed. Not out of any belief in their ideals - I was ambivalent to both - but merely seeing that I would die otherwise. Not that I would feel the pain of however they decided to torture and kill me.
I was too old for proper indoctrination as a stormtrooper. I was too small and thin, anyway. They didn't know my mind, my skills, nor did they care. So I was given the background jobs. Cleaning, cooking, serving meals. The same sorts of things I would do for the Resistance while mother was away for meetings. Same job, same boss, different dressing.
It was strangely fascinating. So many had died in defense of, or to take over, a planet of no consequence. Both sides believed themselves just and correct. Both sides lost men, women, resources at the end of the day. And the people who remained, who called the planet home, didn't really change much. Colors changed, expectations changed, but people just went on with their lives regardless.
Occasionally, more high ranking members of the First Order would pass through this area of space and stay at my planet of no consequence. General Hux, members of the Knights of Ren (occasionally the infamous Kylo Ren himself), Captain Phasma, among others. They never came to the little outpost in my little town, but the soldiers and officers were a constant presence. And I served them with the same blank face and placid smile that I'd used serving General Leia years before. At least the general of the Resistance smiled and acknowledged me - even thanked me - when I served her.
But when I was alone, when I was home, I was myself.
I could feel the world around me. The crashing waves against the rocky shore outside, wild and corroding the slate. The wind beating against the trees. Words of the First Order blaring through loudspeakers installed on posts around the port. But through it all, something else. Something not evil, not good, not even both. But a... a Force through everything, inside everything. Not just peace, or just passion, not order or chaos, but everything added together to equal more than the sum of the parts.
And when I opened my eyes in my tiny requisitioned apartment to see how everything floated around me, saw through it all to the Force that lied between, I smiled. Because it was in everything, between everything, including me.
The Force is all things and I am the Force.
Author's Note: Yes, I went to go see The Last Jedi yesterday and it beat up my muse. :D