Author's Note: Please check out my other SW fanfic, Living Silence, which serves as a canon-compliant prequel to this longer story. It's not necessary to read to enjoy this story, but is only 9k words so I hope you'll take a look.

I envision Rey as unrelated to Luke, Leia and Ren. Fingers crossed she's a Kenobi!

Please note that double quotes " " always imply spoken dialog, while single quotes ' ' always imply mental dialog.

Following the destruction of Starkiller Base,
the First Order has launched a vicious
propaganda campaign against the Resistance.

With the power of the New Republic broken,
the Resistance struggles to acquire allies and
support in its fight against the First Order.

The Awakening has caused new Force users
to emerge all over the galaxy. Both factions
race to recruit (or enslave) them to tip the
precarious balance of power in their favor.

Chapter 1

The Resistance base was never quiet, and it irritated me.

Starship engines constantly rumbled on the main landing pad. Metal machinery clanked in the repair bay and pressurized hoses hissed in the walls. Footsteps passed by my room no matter the time of day. Occasionally their pace was calm and leisurely, but most often they were hurried. The conversations that accompanied them were the same: sometimes calm, but usually frantic.

Had the base still been on D'Qar, the brightness of the forest would have soaked up the excess noise the same way endless dunes of sand had on Jakku. But eight months ago, soon after the destruction of Starkiller and the Hosnian system, and mere days after Luke had reunited with his sister and we had officially joined the Resistance, we'd learned that the location of our base had been compromised. D'Qar was abruptly abandoned. We now resided on Emmett II, a rocky and mountainous planet where noises perpetually ricocheted and echoed against the stone.

The excess sound had driven me out of the base numerous times, and tonight proved to be no exception. My supple happabore-hide boots pressed soundlessly against the stone, for as much as I hated the noise, I had no desire to contribute to the problem. I passed through a perimeter door and escaped the industrious cacophony of the base's massive cave system into clear and crisp night air. The guard nodded at me, my presence no longer unexpected, and I tipped my head in return.

My feet traversed the mountain path in much the same way I had walked the stone staircase of my island in my dream. Soon after arriving on Emmett II, I had sought out a place where I could be alone with my thoughts. It aggravated me that I yearned for the solitude of Jakku even while striving to shake off the mannerisms I had carried away with me from that barren planet.

I knew deep down that the physical noise of the base was not the only thing I escaped from.

The mental noise was what truly kept me awake at night. Bravery and hope permeated the air, undercut by the stale stench of worry and fear. Luke had taught me how to maintain a mental buffer from the minds surrounding me, but I was always exhausted at the end of the day from training and lacked both the energy and diligence to do so.

And I suppose that if I really wanted to be introspective, I would admit to hiding from a great deal of other things... Luke's doubts over my Jedi training, anxiety over not fitting in amongst the Resistance, and fear that leaving Jakku in the first place had been a dreadful mistake.

For now, my solution was as simple as it was effective: distance myself from the Resistance base.

Rocks crumbled under my feet as I made the final ascent to my hiding place – a clearing nestled in the shadow of the tallest peak on Emmett II. Skybreacher, it was named. I dropped to the earth, folding my legs underneath me, and calmly rested my hands in my lap. One hand cupped the other, and as I focused, energy began to accumulate in my palms.

"Your mind is crowded," Luke had told me during one of the first days we had trained together. "This leaves no room for the Force. Release your emotions and thoughts. If it helps, envision letting them drain out of your mind..."

I closed my eyes and sat very, very still, pressing emotions out of my brain like sludge through a sieve. The Force soaked into my skin like warm water into a dry sponge. My senses expanded to the environment around me, supernatural in their strength. I perceived things that normally escaped my notice: the hum of the air, minute trembling of the rock underneath me, weak ripples from the direction of the Resistance base as people exchanged words or ideas with each other.

Meditation was one of the many tricks Luke had taught me, and though we clashed on numerous fronts, I couldn't deny that his training had made me more attuned to the Force than I ever thought possible.

I sank into my mind's essence, a beautiful starscape where my memories and emotions manifested as light in a calm, black sky. Slipping deeper into my meditative trance, I continued to funnel all extraneous thought into my palms, where I instinctively smoothed the energy into a sphere. But then a memory floated to the forefront of my mind that stung like a thorn in my brain, and was too painful to dislodge.

Luke would have disapproved of how quickly I lost my focus, defeating the point of the exercise. Instead, I drifted toward my memories from the disastrous meeting we had had earlier that day.

"We will not offer the Resistance our support," the Vwalii had said softly. It spread two of its four scaly arms wide before us in apology. "At present, there is balance between yourself and the First Order. It is against all tenets of our social order to cause any disruption."

The Vwalii, Luke had explained, were one of the few that remained neutral in the war between the First Order and the Resistance. Their race followed a fiercely secretive and strict philosophical code that discouraged – if not outright forbid – involvement in galactic politics. Their fanaticism was rivaled only by their desire to be left alone. They had countless centuries of experience avoiding alliances, as well as defending themselves from those who didn't take 'no' for an answer. The two Vwalli standing before us were the equivalent of a king and queen of their people, though the exact rules of gender among their race remained a mystery.

"Even if you judge us as equals now, a day might soon come where the First Order gains an overwhelming advantage," Luke replied. "If you will only render aid at that time, it could be too late. Pledging support to the Resistance now will maintain the balance longer. Surely that aligns with the goals of your people?"

The Vwalii tilted their heads toward each other, communicating silently. Luke had also explained that their entire race could speak telepathically. I wondered if they used the Force in some manner, and pressed my power toward the air between them. Though I listened carefully, filtering through the peculiar sounds that the Force delivered to my ears, I heard no discernible words. I retracted my power, disappointed with my failed experiment.

In any case, the Vwalii's body language forecast their decision, as their hands slashed at the air and their shoulders slumped in unison. "We cannot offer the Resistance our support," the Vwalii repeated. "Your factions lie at opposing ends of a moral equilibrium. Our race has survived for aeons by existing in the Vwarren'voda - the 'middle ground.' If the equilibrium falls out of stasis, we have been known to guide it back to a balanced state through interference with galactic affairs. But now is not one of those times."

Luke frowned, but maintained his poise despite losing patience.

"Once the balance between our factions is lost, it may very well be irrecoverable. And should the Resistance lose this fight, the First Order will decimate your planet. Snoke will enslave you through the dark side and bind you into an alliance against your will. The First Order will forcibly enlist your warriors as mercenaries. And if you resist, they'll send their army of stormtroopers to overpower your entire race. You must see that an alliance with the Resistance would only strengthen the Vwarren'voda, and protect your people from harm."

"Jedi, we hear your words, but they are one voice amongst many in our mind. We cannot turn you into an exception, no matter how strongly we respect your Order." One of the Vwalii's bulbous eyes swivelled, independent of the other, to look at me. "On the subject of respect," it continued in an admonishing tone, "your apprentice needs a lesson on eavesdropping."

My stomach dropped, unaware they'd sensed my mental prying. Luke didn't look at me, and instead bowed his head. "My most sincere apologies. It will not happen again." Though his words were simple, I knew he was embarrassed of me and my face flushed in shame.

We left the audience chamber, crossing underneath a cloudy, green sky toward our starship. Luke and I were often sent to secure alliances as political emissaries of the Resistance. Depressingly, our offers were also often rejected.

"I'm sorry for being rude to the Vwalii," I said once we'd boarded our ship – an aging but sturdy cruiser with a nuclear fission reactor and a tendency to veer to the left. "I simply wanted to understand them better."

Luke sat at the ship's console and did not reply. I sighed to myself. It was becoming distressingly easy to disappoint Luke.

"At least they've not pledged support to the First Order," I continued as I flipped switches and prepared to lift off. "They could change their minds."

Luke shook his head, his frown carving deep grooves into his face. "They deem us too powerful to require aid, yet in truth we are too weak to have a chance without it. They will only help us once we have already lost."

His bitterness soured the air around us, and my mood dipped further. After the thrill of destroying Starkiller, finding Luke and beginning my training, I had expected more things to fall into place, both for the Resistance and myself.

The memory faded as I pulled away and released it back into my mindscape. I returned my vision to the physical world, where the glowing patterns of the Force materialized in the air around me. They danced and twisted together, pulsing in time with some ancient, primordial heartbeat. A living web of energy, Luke had told me, that bound the galaxy together.

The sight renewed my focus and I resumed my meditation. As I peacefully listened to time passing around and through me, I sensed a thread of dark energy approach. It coiled around the symmetrical beams of light before me, and the beams trembled and dimmed at its touch. I willed strength toward the weakened parts of the Force web, bolstering them against this strange visual assault. The dark energy dispersed like smoke but immediately reformed around my wrist like a cold, metal bracelet.

Then a deep, familiar voice spoke so clearly in my mind that I jumped in surprise.

'You've been practicing, scavenger,' said Kylo Ren.

Over the past several months, during moments when I was strongly connected to the Force, I had felt his blooms of anger raging from across a vast distance. Though many in the Resistance rumored he was dead, I knew the truth. To my shame, I kept this information to myself. My relationship with Luke was already strained, and revealing my tenuous connection to his nephew – to General Organa's son – would not improve things. But hearing Ren's voice in my head was infinitely more alarming than sensing his tantrums on the opposite side of the galaxy.

My immediate instinct was to close my eyes and throw as much power into my shields as possible. I sensed Kylo Ren haunting the air around me, but he wasn't actually inside my head – yet.

'Be calm. I'm not here to fight you,' he told me, sounding a bit exasperated.

'Then you have no other reason to be here.'

'As the apprentice of my old master, my interest in you is warranted.'

'I'm not telling you anything about Luke nor my training. Leave me alone.'

I directed the Force to surround the dark band of energy around my wrist. Light beamed from the airy symbols and obliterated the intangible bracelet. Ren's presence hissed and evaporated along with it. Alone once more in my head, I strove to slow my heartbeat and calm the trembles that shook through my hands.

How had Kylo Ren managed to speak to me through the Force? I had meditated like this before, though perhaps not quite so deeply, but had never sensed Ren's mental presence so close to my own. Perhaps… perhaps this time, Ren had been looking for me. The thought made me shiver, and when I looked up I was dismayed to find the fragile web of Force light had died out and I was alone in the clearing.

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