Rey had seen lots of flowers in her life… probably. At least in the few years before she'd been left on Jakku- the two native breeds there were really more animal than flower, with fuzzy, thick blossoms. She had certainly seen many since she left Jakku, on Takodana- tiny white ones with lots of petals just barely pushing their heads above the grass, even smaller pink ones that were nestled in the mosses of the trees. Some of the patrons of Maz Kanata's watering hole had been wearing large, multicolored blooms pinned in their hair, although Rey couldn't tell if they were real or synthetic. She had even eaten a yellow flower at the watering hole, surprisingly bitter compared to the sweet fruit that surrounded it. She hadn't been sure if it was for eating or for decoration, but its presence in the fruit bowl seemed to indicate the latter, and she wasn't one to turn down food.
She called up the taste of the succulent fruit- the flower, not so much- as she gazed out upon the apparently endless expanse of sea that stretched out around the island of the Jedi temple. Master Luke had called the place Ahch-To, and Rey wondered if it had partially been named after the sounds of the waves crashing on the rocks below. Life on the island was often harsh with Master Luke. Its isolation was extreme, even for Rey, and it was often battered by wind and rain- neither of which Luke allowed to interrupt her training. There did not seem to be any flowers here, just short green grass and brown, wiry tufts of what seemed to be some relative of grass.
Lots of birds, though, Rey thought hungrily, casting her eyes skyward at the circling creatures, none of which she knew the names of. The birds of Jakku were flightless, and had developed an appetite for hard-shelled bugs, not possessing a home of such abundance as this one. She wondered if her control over the Force was sufficient enough to knock one of the sea birds out of the sky. What a meal that would make!
"Jedi do not use the Force to hunt living creatures, no matter how hungry they become," a smooth, measured voice said behind her. Rey's eyes widened and her back straightened as she realized she had become so preoccupied that she hadn't noticed the approach of Master Luke. She was embarrassed that she had been broadcasting her thoughts so freely.
He chuckled at her sudden tensing, putting her slightly more at ease. "Besides, those kessels are tough and salty from their time at sea. No delicacy by any stretch of the imagination. Trust me." He patted her shoulder as he came to stand next to her, and offered her a small fabric packet.
Rey thankfully accepted the packet and undid its button, pulling out a brown piece of cured meat which she began to gnaw on. Suddenly remembering herself, she blushed and pulled the meat out of her mouth and ate it in bite-sized pieces instead.
This elicited another chuckle from Luke. "You have progressed so much in your training in these two months, Padawan, but you still eat like a scavenger! Which reminds me," he cast his eyes out to sea as well, squinting slightly. "It's about time for me to go fetch more supplies from the mainland. While I had foreseen your arrival, I had not foreseen your appetite."
Rey gulped down her last chunk of meat, unable to tell if Luke was giving her a playful ribbing or if she had really caused him inconvenience. It was an unfortunately familiar feeling, and one she tended to misread, so she decided not to respond to it directly. "The mainland…?" she asked quietly. "But how will you get there? I saw it when we flew in on the Falcon, but it must be a hundred miles away! Much too far to swim."
Luke grinned at her then, suddenly looking like more like a mischievous young man than a grey-bearded Jedi master. "I have my ways," he said, turning to walk toward one of the stone temple outcrops. "One of which is a heavily modified A-wing Interceptor. How do you think I got here in the first place?"
Rey's eyes nearly bulged out of her face. She had seen scraps of A-wings in the junk piles of Jakku, but never a functioning one. And the way Master Luke had intoned the words heavily modified, she half-expected there to be a ship the caliber of the Millennium Falcon stashed on the island somewhere. She trotted after Luke eagerly…
… Only to be sorely disappointed by the ship he led her to, parked in a tidal cave. Her upper lip curled in thinly veiled disgust as she considered what could only be called a rusted hunk of junk with a freight conversion. Still, Luke seemed to regard the ship warmly, and he patted its hull as if it were a familiar pet. "She's something, isn't she?" Luke said, checking the ship over. He brushed the beginnings of barnacles from the belly of the ship, evidence of its long residence in the cave.
"She… sure is something," Rey said, only partly able to disguise her disappointment. She walked around the opposite side of the ship, wondering if there was something she had missed that so endeared it to Master Luke.
"Now Padawan, you know appearances can be deceiving," Luke called to her. She heard a hiss of air as he popped the hatch. "She's gotten me out of a fair number of scrapes in her long life!"
And it shows, Rey thought, rounding the back of the ship. Her eyes traced along its thoroughly scuffed underbelly to its landing struts, which looked as though something with large and powerful jaws had tried to use them as a toothpick. But there, next to the pad of the strut, was something fresh and beautiful. Something glowing.
"Master?" Rey called, kneeling next to it. It was some sort of plant, but one the likes of which Rey had never seen. It was a squat thing, and looked like it was only just surviving in the cave environment, its leaves crinkled and stunted. But despite its apparent discomfort, it had produced a single turquoise flower, its petals pointed and very slightly curled at the edges. At its center was a cluster of brilliant purple seeds, which seemed to sparkle in the gentle glow that emanated from the petals.
Rey heard the crunch of Luke's boots on the cave floor as he approached from behind. "What is it?" he asked gruffly, aware of the confusion in his student's voice. As he rounded the ship he stopped for a moment, then came to crouch next to her, apparently only slightly less surprised than she was to find such a plant. "This… this shouldn't be here," he said quietly, his voice touched with amazement. "Palomella don't grow in this system!"
The presence of the flower's glowing bloom seemed to suggest otherwise. "Palomella…" Rey repeated, tasting the word on her tongue. She enjoyed the way it rolled off her lips. "I've never seen something like this before… I didn't know flowers could glow!"
Luke turned fractionally to catch her expression in the corner of his eye and, chuckling, shook his head. "Jakku is so like Tatooine in its climate, I'm not surprised by your fascination. Sometimes, I am still struck by the variety of plant life that exists." He stood, brushing his robe straight. "Dig it up."
Rey's head snapped up, a horrified expression painted across her face. "Wha-? But, Master, it's alive!" she choked.
Luke arched an eyebrow at her. "Then dig it up carefully. I'm shocked the poor thing found any purchase on this rocky cave, let alone that its seed must've travelled through the vacuum of space on my strut. It needs to be moved to sun and soil, or it won't survive."
Rey nodded emphatically, understanding her Master's meaning. She tugged at the base of the plant, hoping that it would easily pull free of the loose pebbles it had taken root in, but found that it clung stubbornly to the ground. She gently brushed the pebbles away, and dug a finger into the shallow dirt below, loosening the plant's grip before giving it another tug. This time, the plant came away, trailing a number of spindly white roots behind. Rey cupped it in her hands, feeling nearly hypnotized by the glow of the blossom.
She and Luke returned to the crest of Ahch-To, Rey choosing her steps carefully on the slick stone stairs. She didn't want to drop the Palomella, which had done very well for itself in the cave, all things considered- it would be particularly tragic if she killed it in a failed rescue attempt. She watched her master assessing the temple grounds, eventually finding a suitable place near the ruins of a short stone wall. He beckoned her over.
"This flower will be the source of a valuable lesson, Padawan, so make sure to plant it with care," Luke said as he began to dig a hole in the soil near the wall with his hands. Rey immediately recognized the change in the tone of his voice- this was no longer the young, adventurous owner of the modified A-wing, this was a Jedi master- the last Jedi master- with important knowledge to impart. She collected her thoughts and focused on the moment, kneeling next to her master and gently placing the Palomella and its ball of roots into the new hole. She glanced up to him for further instruction.
"Cover it loosely with the soil, don't pack it down too much," he said. "Its roots will struggle to adapt to their surroundings if the pressure of the soil does not allow them to be flexible. You see, plants are not so different from us- forced into situations that do not allow us to grow and develop properly, we expel so much effort trying to survive that we cannot live to our full potential. Hopefully, just as you have left your harsh existence on Jakku behind to train as a Jedi, this Palomella will thrive in this more enriching environment."
Rey nodded, her brow furrowed as she inscribed Luke's every word on her mind. A hint of pride tickled her stomach at his comparison of her and such a beautiful, determined flower, but she suppressed it. She did as he said, sweeping the dirt over the base of the plant, making sure it could stand on its own without being forced into a rigid position. Luke disappeared momentarily as she did so, reemerging from a stone building with a canteen of water. He handed it to Rey, who, guessing his intention, unscrewed its lid and made to empty the contents onto the plant.
"Ah!" Luke said, holding up his hand and shaking his head. "Don't drown it. Just as you cannot absorb all my teachings in one day, Padawan, this plant would be overwhelmed by so much water all at once. Just moisten the soil around it."
Rey blushed and nodded vigorously, embarrassed by her mistake. She sprinkled water around the Palomella until the soil around it was a rich, deep brown. She sat back on her heels to admire her work, quite pleased that the rescue mission was successful.
"We will return to the plant tomorrow, but you've done good work. Now, I must prepare to head for the mainland before the day progresses any further," Luke said, a hint of a smile on his lips. "Hopefully we won't find any more surprises in or around my ship, or tonight's meal will be quite minimal indeed."
Rey wanted to ask to accompany him on his trip, if only for the chance to experience the cockpit of an A-wing (even if it was just an antique with a freight conversion), but she refrained, sensing what the answer would be. So instead she watched from a cliff as the ship sputtered out of the cave before making a surprisingly smooth path west, low and fast over the sea. As it disappeared from view, Rey began to run through the Force exercises Luke had advised her to practice. She mentally lifted a medium sized stone using her Force energy several times before retrieving her staff, twirling it around her body as she sparred with an invisible partner. She sent Force energy to her feet as Luke had taught her, and by the end of her exercise it felt less like fighting and more like dancing on air.
She mopped her brow with her arm and sighed, casting her eyes out to sea again. This was the first time she had been truly alone since coming to Ahch-To, and it was strange. She hadn't realized how accustomed she had become to Luke's Force signature being in her vicinity all the time, and now that it was much more distant, she understood how lonely the island could really be. She suddenly had much more respect for her Master's years of self-induced seclusion. No wonder he had looked so shocked to see her when she arrived.
Rey wandered over to the low stone wall and her plant, crossing her legs as she sat down next to it. "I guess it's just you and me for now, Palomella," she said, smiling down at the flower. She admired it for a moment before facing forward and closing her eyes, entering a meditative state.
…
Luke returned just as the sun had dipped below the horizon, his ship full of food. Over dinner, he regaled Rey with tales of the mainland settlement and of a near-miss with a large aquatic beast on the journey back to the island, and she hung on his every word. Dinners were her favorite part of being on the island- although Luke was her Master, over meals he spoke to her like a friend. She never realized it could be so nice to share food with someone.
That night Rey dreamt, as she often did, of the fight with Kylo Ren on Starkiller base. But when she ignited her lightsaber, its blue blade was not a burning beam of energy, but a collection of glowing Palomella blossoms.
She rose before dawn, just as she had most mornings on Jakku. It was a useful habit, as training tended to commence shortly after sunrise, ready or not. This morning, she dressed and washed more quickly than usual, eager to check on the health of her flower. This must be what having a pet is like, she thought as she flung open the cloth hanging that served as a door for her stone hut. It vaguely reminded her of the time she spent with BB-8.
Rey trotted over to the stone wall, vaulting it easily. But as she spun to inspect the Palomella, her heart sunk. The bloom had faded to a sickly brown, its glow completely extinguished. Did I do something wrong? she wondered as she knelt down to inspect the tragic plant. She brushed one of its petals with her fingertips mournfully.
"It is a pity," Luke sighed behind her. Again, she hadn't heard him approach- she wondered if Force-sneaking was a Jedi skill that she would learn at some point.
Ignorant of his student's internal sarcasm, he continued. "Palomella blooms don't last long in the best of conditions, but their fleeting time in this world only adds to their beauty, don't you think?"
Rey nodded and pictured the earlier glory of the flower. She knew she should be happy to have had the opportunity to see it at all, but she still felt like she had somehow failed the plant, and her Master as well. She looked up at him, forcing a smile.
"Now, Padawan, look again at the flower," Luke said, crouching next to her. "Even in death, it holds the possibility for more life."
"The seeds, of course!" Rey exclaimed, her smile genuine this time. She had forgotten about them in her despair over the wilted blossom. But the seeds remained, twinkling in the growing light of the dawn.
Luke nodded gently and tapped the stem of the plant several times, the cluster of seeds eventually falling into his hands in a clump. He held the clump up to the sun between his thumb and forefinger, turning it this way and that. "When dried, these seeds make lovely beads. My aunt had a bracelet of them when I was young- took my uncle a month's worth of credits to buy it for her," he chuckled at the memory.
Rey regarded him with curiosity. He hadn't once mentioned his childhood in her time on the island, although he had said plenty about Leia, Han, Chewie, and others that Rey had never heard of or met. The combination of nostalgia and deep sadness she felt in his energy indicated that his time with his aunt and uncle had perhaps ended too soon for his liking, and more abruptly than it should have. But she didn't pry, and Luke didn't elaborate. Instead, he passed the seed clump to Rey and stood. "Break the cluster into individual seeds and plant them a short distance apart."
Rey did as she was told, squeezing the cluster slightly. The seeds all but exploded apart in her hands, and she fumbled to not drop any. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Luke was amused by her awkwardness, but he had stopped short of laughing at her. She smiled as well, in spite of herself, and evenly buried the seeds along the same wall as their parent plant.
As she inspected the uniform little mounds of dirt that now covered the seeds, she wondered how long it would be before they sprouted. "Water?" she asked Luke, feeling confident of the answer but still desiring reassurance. By the time he gave his affirmative, Rey was already in the process of vaulting back over the wall to retrieve her canteen from her hut.
She moistened each of the little mounds, careful not to overdo it and drown the young seeds. When she was done, she stood and dusted the dirt off her hands, feeling proud but slightly nervous- this was her first time planting seeds after all, and after the death of the adult Palomella she was a bit concerned about her gardening skills (even if it had apparently been the end of the plant's life anyway).
She tried to force the worries from her mind in order to focus on the day's training Luke surely had planned for her. But as if he had read her thoughts, her Master shook his head as she turned to him to receive instructions on what skills they would be practicing. "The first thing on the agenda this morning, Padawan, is assisting the growth of these plants," he said.
Rey cocked her head in response, unsure of what else could be done with the seeds. "But… they just grow don't they, Master?" After brief consideration, she added, "With water, of course."
"They do, yes," Luke nodded, closing his eyes and folding his arms over his chest. "But they can be helped along with the Force."
"The Force can do that?" she asked. She knew it could be used to sense things, to fight, to influence thoughts- she had really had enough of that aspect of it to last a lifetime- but to make things grow?
"There is much for you still to learn about the Force, and some aspects cannot be taught," Luke said quietly, his brow furrowing slightly. "But you must learn them slowly. The power it can grant you can easily overwhelm a new student."
Perhaps that was where I went wrong, the thought drifted to Rey as if he had said it aloud. She fought to keep her face neutral as she waited for him to continue.
"The Force is life-giving at its very heart, both as the Light and the Dark," he said with a sigh before opening his eyes again. A hint of a smile showed beneath his beard. "When a Sith uses the Dark to encourage life, they are doing what basically amounts to a complex Force pull, without allowing the thing they are influencing to grow in its own way. They compel it to bend to their will. But in using the Light to encourage life, the Jedi reaps the benefit of a deeper understanding of the flow of the Force through living things. And this morning, we will be gardening with the Force."
Luke's final sentence sounded so absurd that Rey couldn't help but chuckle. Before leaving Jakku, she had understood the Force to be either a mystical, powerful weapon, or legendary nonsense. And now, here she was on an island with the last Jedi, who was telling her that it could also be used for agricultural means. If she could somehow tell her past self this is where she would end up after years of loneliness in the desert wasteland, she was certain she wouldn't believe it.
"Come, this will work better the closer we are to the seeds," Luke said, approaching the little mounds and kneeling. Rey knelt beside him and watched him carefully. "I will perform the actions you must take, but it will only be a demonstration. The rest will be up to you."
She watched as he placed his hands on either side of one of the mounds, his fingers wriggling slightly into the dirt. He closed his eyes. "Reach out with your mind and feel right below your hands with the Force. There are lots of insects and other life in the soil of Ahch-To, but imagine the Palomella seed as you work, and it will be easier to find."
Rey mimicked his movements on an empty patch of ground. With only the slightest effort, her mind lit up with the presence of hundreds of tiny lives, everything from worms to beetles to fungi that had not yet pushed themselves up through the grass. She withdrew her hands slightly in surprise, but slowly slid her fingertips back into the dirt.
"When you find the life of the seed, embrace it with the Force. Bring it into yourself, so you may feel it as it grows," Luke continued. "And be patient. Only give it as much energy as it wants to take- respect the pace at which the seed wants to grow. Undue force used to bend something- or someone- to your will can very easily open a path to the Dark Side."
Rey gulped, recalling the use of her newfound power of Force suggestion on the Stormtrooper on Starkiller Base.
Luke's eyes popped open and he sat back with a grin, falling backwards to sit cross legged a short distance away from the line of seeds. "Before you get too concerned, the Jedi have been using mind tricks to get their way for generations. I'm guilty of it myself," he laughed. "The key is to convince rather than to impose. But that is a lesson for another day. Now, you try with this seed."
Rey shuffled over on her knees to where Luke had demonstrated the growing process. Using her still new meditation skills, she successfully pushed most of the doubt from her mind in order to concentrate on the exercise. She took a deep breath before closing her eyes and planting her fingertips in the dirt on either side of the first seed.
The life energy of the seed loomed large in her mind's eye, although she could still feel the presence of the other tiny lives she had so recently come into contact with. She pondered how she should go about "embracing" the seed with the Force. She worked her fingers deeper into the soil as she considered, prompting a tutting sound from Luke. "Use the Force, Padawan, not your body. Reach out with it."
Rey gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes back shut, trying to slow her racing thoughts. She took several more deep breaths before trying to find the seed again, but found she remained at the same impasse. So instead of wriggling her fingers, she tried wriggling her energy, mentally projecting the image of her hands in front of her. To her delight, her imaginary hands responded to her commands, her ghostly fingers wiggling before the light of the seed.
She reached out mentally to cup the shape of the seed in her palms, finding it quite a bit larger than it was in the physical world- it was nearly melon-sized in her hands. As her fingers encircled it, her senses were almost flooded with its strong desire to grow. Its potential to become an adult Palomella filled her mind, as if it had already taken place- she could almost see the flower emerging directly from the shell of the seed.
Cautiously, Rey sent her Force energy to the palms of her hands, in the same way that she had with her feet when she was practicing with her staff. This only served to levitate the orb of the seed slightly, and she pursed her lips.
Embrace it with the Force, Luke's voice rang in her ears. At a loss of what else to do, she took her Master's words literally and hugged the oversized seed to her chest, encircling it with her arms.
She sensed its energy change immediately- it was as if the seed were overjoyed to be in her arms, and she felt her Force energy effortlessly weaving itself with that of the seed. It brought to mind the way she had felt when she hugged Finn, the way they fit together so easily and how happy and warm she had felt in their embrace after a lifetime of loneliness. She smiled at the memory, and tried to send the feeling to the seed through her energy.
She felt a small push against her chest, and drew the seed away slightly. She was delighted to see a small, pale green sprout pushing through the sparkling purple shell of the seed, and with a laugh, she pushed more of her happiness into it with her energy. The sprout responded in kind, filling her heart with a feeling of pure joy- joy to be alive, joy to be surrounded by moist, warm dirt, joy to be a part of the milieu of lives on Ahch-To. Pale roots descended from the seedling as its sprout pushed up and up, growing thicker and greener all the time.
Rey laughed again as she felt the seedling break though the dirt, feeling the sun on its leaves for the first time. It grew and grew, its leaves unfurling and widening, absorbing both the sunlight and her energy. But now there was something else, a ball of confined energy that seemed to sit uncomfortably in the middle of Rey's chest- a bud!
"Open your eyes, Padawan," Luke said gently and quietly, modulating his voice so as not to break her concentration.
Rey slowly did as she was told, peering through her eyelashes at what had so recently been an empty mound of dirt. A flash of green caused her eyes to snap open fully, and a broad grin spread across her face as she took in the sight of the young plant. It was much larger than its predecessor, its leaves wide and flat, with a thick, teardrop shaped bud at its center. Maintaining a now somewhat clumsy energy connection with it, she watched as the bud twitched slightly and burst into a beautiful bloom, glowing fiercely even in the morning sun. The combination of her own happiness and that of the plant brought tears to her eyes.
"Wonderful, Rey!" Luke exclaimed from behind her. He only used her name when she performed a task especially well, and she allowed herself to take some pride in her work. She removed her hands from the soil and put them on her hips confidently. The joy of the young plant was still coursing through her veins, and she laughed.
"The happiness you feel is present in all living things, no matter how dark things may become for them," Luke continued. "Sometimes, it can be buried under layers and layers of anger and resentment, but once a life enters this world and is surrounded by the Force, it always carries the potential for joy."
Rey wasn't entirely sure about the accuracy of that statement- she had met some decidedly not joyful characters on Jakku, not to mention Kylo Ren and the Stormtroopers of the First Order on Takodana and Starkiller Base. But an image of General Leia flitted through her memory, sick with despair that her own son had killed his father, but still carrying a spark of hope beneath it all. It may have been extremely dim, but it was still there. Surely it wasn't misplaced? She supposed she would find out for herself one day, when she next faced the black-clothed wraith with the unexpectedly sad eyes- what was left of the man who used to be Ben Solo.
Luke cleared his throat. "Do you want to grow another one?" he asked, purposely breaking her out of her reverie. A smile returned to Rey's face, and she nodded so vigorously in response that she nearly shook her hair buns loose.
By the beginning of the afternoon, a row of Palomella had bloomed with Rey's help, illuminating the wall behind them a soothing blue. And after the sun set that night, she could see the glow faintly through the fabric of her door. She fell asleep smiling.
That night, Rey again found the menacing figure of Kylo Ren in her dreams, stalking through the snow of Starkiller Base, his ragged lightsaber ignited. But instead of igniting her own saber in response to the threat, her dream self somehow deactivated his red blade and embraced his lithe form in the process. As if he were a Palomella seed, Rey let her Force energy flow into him, envisioning it taking root in his heart and illuminating his darkened soul with joy.