- W. B. Yeats: The Two Trees

He can hardly be called a padawan, as he walks along the ruined coastline.

A padawan is a thing of the past - a child or young adult already full of poise, the ceremonial braid a visible signifier of their rank and station among the apprentice is young, but he is definitely not that. For one thing, his face is much too alive; it is an incredibly open and honest face, but a shade of grief hides on its edges. It is the face of someone whom life has aged a lot in a very short space of time.

Then there is his companion, an R2-unit, which he regularly addresses with genuine affection and care. It meanders a ways behind, intent on its own exploration of the broken surroundings, chirping conversationally back at its master.

No, this is no padawan. The Holy City of Jedha is ashes in the desert, its ancient order all but gone.

Still, some things do not change. Some traditions survive. His master (and an old master that is, old as they come), has sent him on the quest for the one khyber crystal that will speak to him.

The galaxy is a big place, and khyber crystals fit for the crafting of lightsabers are both very small and very rare. So he drifted, his droid for company, and threw the clutter of his mind out and into the dark stillness between the stars, and listened. For several months he listened, and heard only silence, until he had come as far as the Outer Rim.

And there, he heard the Song, and he came to this planet. He approached warily, taking counsel with his droid, noting the enormous circular crater, and on its edge, shattered remains of Imperial structure, But the place is abandoned. Whatever was once important to the Empire here, it is no longer so. The planetkiller was here, and the geography of Scarif is lost. He has heard the story of the many rebels who died here. This planet will never be the same.

To be honest, he is astonished that it is to this place, of all, that the Force should guide him. But he has already experienced enough, got to know the Force enough, to not question it.

Walking along the broken coastline, the saline waters lap at the apprentice's boots, melting away the sand and debris under his foot, as he listens.

Welcome home.

The apprentice thinks of his own home. It is a lost home, a warm and dry and very bright place, but he quickly identifies the thought as noise. It doesn't resonate with the true meaning of what he receives. He puts it aside, and leans in further.

Hope.

He thinks of his father, a man he has never known until relatively recently, within the last couple of years. It has been a complicated acquaintance, fraught with pain and strife. And very deep grief. Absentmindedly, the apprentice brushes one hand with the other. One of them is covered in a black glove.

He pushes that thought away, too, though something in it resonates closer to the Song he hears, or maybe it is just that he so desperately needs hope, has so desperately needed it since whatever occurrence took his hand away from him.

No. Not now. He remembers his master's teachings. He must be still inside, he must listen.

And then, all at once, he spots the glitter in the surf, washing back and forth across the wet sands. He stops, astonished and awed, and the R2-unit behind him exclaims jubilantly, giving voice to the moment. The apprentice raises his hand to ask for its silence, then sharpens all his senses, kneels down a few feet away from the glint in the surf, to make the acquaintance of what is now, without a shadow of a doubt, established to be a khybercrystal.

To pick it up would be disrespectful. It must come to him, or not.

He reaches out through the Force.

It is a strange one. It is so full of whispers, yet seems almost oblivious to his presence, as if it is satisfied just having its own conversation with itself, a small, insular unit wrapping around and in on itself. Indeed, it feels an awful lot like home, or rather the idea of home, and the apprentice feels abruptly self-conscious, like intruding into someone's house, or stumbling in on an exchange which he is not strictly privy to.

Very well.

He retreats to further up, to the vegetation edge, and throws down his backpack there. As dusk falls on the lonely beach, he and the droid set up camp, a small fire is lit and the apprentice eats his modest evening meal, travelling rations brought for sustenance, practical if not exactly regal.

The R2-unit settles in nearby, remaining quiet, evidently accustomed to staying in the background at times such as this. There is a curious, restful satisfaction to its round barrel-like shape, as the flicker of the flames play in its varnish. If a droid can doze, this one is doing just that.

The apprentice stokes the fire and looks up at the sky, basking in the beauty of the cloudless night. Then, as if sneaking up on it, he glances askance at the glint in the surf. Now that it's dark, the luminescense of the crystal really makes it stand out, like a star blinking at him, clearly visible against the much duller glinting of the water in which it is bobbing.

Satisfied that it is still here, the apprentice closes his eyes and settles into meditation, asking the crystal to tell him its story.

The roar is earsplitting just outside, but where the stone is, it is cushioned, locked in place. On each side of it, heartbeats. So loud as to drown out the din, make it inconsequential. They beat in time, those hearts. Their owners cling to each other, melt into one another, one set of lungs working like bellows against the other, hardening outwards towards the approaching destruction, the searing light. And within softening, softening, into the core. Into the home.

Never me let go. Never let go.

The Apprentice is awestruck, and momentarily again overcome by a sense of modesty, though he is unsure why. He opens his eyes. The crystal is still bobbing in the surf. It winks at him, as if to say, look what I have here. Behold the great treasure of which I am the keeper.

My edges are hard crystal, but inside is soft. Brittle things break, soft things are unbreakable.

The two trees are enormous, gnarled, vulnerable. At first they look like one, but it isn't so. The colours of each is slightly different: the bark of one is greenish, the other a light brown, smooth like soft skin.

They are so intertwined as to be inseparable, down to their very trunks, which spiral around each other, forming one single unit so indivisible that bark grows into bark where they meet. Into the sky their branches tumble and intertwine, a tangle of branches like limbs and twigs like fingers.

There is no wind here, yet They sigh, a deep, living sound, like the shared breath of lovers. (Welcome home!) There are names in the whispers (Jyn). Soft moans. Mumbling of words meant only for their own ears. Ears that are very very close (Cassian).

He teeters on the edge of the meditation, just about to withdraw, when the response from the centre comes. Suddenly aware, it - no, they! - direct their attention from within and outwards. The mystery at the centre remains hidden, but they, it, are relating now. Force streams. It is overwhelming in its softness, and the strength coming from exactly that softness.

Home.

Hope.

Home. This is home.

Hope!

Carry it. Wield it.

It is a short contact, before the centre turns inward on itself again, preoccupied with the mystery at its centre, tending to the softness there, satisfied, oblivious, yet connected to everything around it.

A brief taste of envy swells into the homeless apprentice's mouth. But his heart is, in essence, too large to hold on to it. And he may be young, and even sometimes rash, but he is not stupid. He realises the gift: The permission has been given.

As he opens his eyes, the glittering crystal is in his hand. It is vaguely drop-shaped, and white, and interestingly, the frilly remains of a leather thong is still attached to one end. He smiles. Playing his own part in a rebellion subsisting on scraps and remains and old, worn things, it seems very fitting that this crystal, too, should be second hand. Someone wore it. He wonders who they were, if they were perhaps Jedi, but knows that ultimately, it is not a question for him to ask. If the crystal wants him to know of any spirits resting with the Force inside it, it will tell him.

He knows, already, that the glow of it, of the lightsaber he will build around it, will be green, deep green. Green as hope.

He does not yet know that he will guide someone very lost home, by this very light. It is not necessary for him to know. The Force will work its own magic. He needs but carry Hope to its next destination.