"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy.
- William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Why did you do it? Asked a part of his soul to the other…
Kylo Ren contemplated the empty void of the universe, standing in front of a huge bay window in his dark chambers. Stars were twinkling. Others were dying. Supernovas were born.
Snoke had crept and filled his mind ever since he could remember. Since he was a child, he always had echoing voices whispering in his sleep, in his daydreams, and in his nightmares. The empty space before him bore a strange resemblance to his own mind. Silence. He had never felt so at peace – and yet, never had he felt so disturbed.
He kept playing the scene over and over in his head…
Why did you do it? A part of his soul kept asking, tapping on the doors of his thoughts.
He knew the answer partly, and a repressed memory filled his thoughts.
"Snoke is using you for your powers" …"He will crush you," echoed his father's voice.
It was his birthright to rule the galaxy. He deserved to be Supreme Leader because it was his destiny . He was the true heir of Darth Vader. It was his path to overcome his former Master. He had known then, but hadn't fully accepted it until he heard it voiced clearly before him in his father's words. That's when the sole idea of overthrowing Snoke and fulfilling his true destiny had finally solidified. However, without him fully realizing it, floating soft hazel eyes entered his
mind…
Or… had it been, had it been for… her?
His gloved fists clenched at his side. He recalled everything …their conversations through the Force Bond…the way she had stared at him when he appeared shirtless in front of her – oh, so disturbed - the way they had touched hands…and what he had seen beyond that, laying behind the veil of their own future…Rey as his partner in the Dark Side, glorious and fearless, standing next to him as they both ruled the galaxy…
His fists clenched harder; they were almost shaking. A familiar feeling surged within him. Wrath.
She had betrayed him. She had abandoned him. Like his mother. Like his father. Like his uncle.
Like everybody . They all despised him, the 'Fallen One.' He had dared to think she was different . He had offered her the galaxy, the spark of a new order, a life written anew. And for the second time, she had slapped him in the face. After she had looked at him with those insanely intense eyes in the elevator, after she had said she was there, saying she would help him. He had begged her to join him. How dare she humiliate him like this? This… nobody, this… scavenger, the desert rat of that junkyard called Jakku.
It was far worse. She had helped the last of the Resistance to flee, leaving him to cope with his own failure…the failure to convince her, to stop her, and to destroy the last of the disgusting rebels. Hux hadn't failed to scold him, blaming him for everything.
His jaw clenched, anger building dangerously high once again. She was going her pay for this, her and those she dared to call friends. Those murderers and traitors...
But his fists loosened up at once. He let out a long sigh, and his features crumbled in defeat. He swallowed heavily as his pained eyes looked up at the universe through the bay window once again. He lifted his gloved hand and rested his long fingers on the cold glass. His body gave in to gravity and he lowered his head, his long dark hair covering his face as his handsome features contorted in a mix of pain, despair, and loneliness.
He couldn't feel her through the Force anymore. He felt cold. Empty. He asked himself if the bond had been broken after Rey had left Crait, after their connection had reopened again – proving that Snoke was not the one who had created it. And then, before he realized, his thought followed another path …
"Where are you now? Will you ever call my name again?"
But suddenly, a low grunt and way-too-familiar voice tore through his inner silence, making him jump and shaking him to the core.
"You pitiful, pathetic soul!" growled the voice impatiently. Kylo turned around quickly, his eyes widening in utter fear. It couldn't be , he was…
Snoke was standing behind him, gleaming in shades of red light, his whole body encompassed by a strange crimson aura. His features were menacing and distorted by rage.
A Force Ghost.
Impossible! How could this be? Force Ghosts could only stem from the Light side of the Force … But Snoke sure seemed real, and he was now walking slowly toward him, his usual golden robes flowing behind him. Kylo found his feet unwillingly taking several steps back. He hit the bay window with a loud thump as he pushed his whole body against it, but there was no escape.
"Look at you, you miserable wannabe heir of Lord Vader," Snoke hissed at him, alarmingly close to his face. "You really thought she was going to take the bait of your ridiculous offer? And you betrayed me for that ?" he spat at him. "Look at you. Without me, you are nothing . A poor soul in an empty shell. I made you what you are. She will never join you in your despicable dreams. She lured you yet again, as do all children of the Light," he all but screamed, pointing a finger at his scar. "But soon, I will have my revenge," he whispered to a quivering Kylo, an insane look in his blue murderous eyes, only to disappear in a cloud of smoke as quickly as he had appeared.
Kylo fell to his feet, gasping for air, his face covered in sweat and his heart racing as if he had run the Kessel Run himself. His whole body shivered in terror. He tried to control his breath. Had this been real? Had he imagined this? Had the ghost of his former Master come back to torment him or was it a ploy of his own fractured soul? He trembled on the ground for what sounded like an eternity, terrified by this vision. He clenched his eyes shut in panic as his whole body and mind screamed helplessly.
"Rey…!"
"Rey, are you alright?" asked a concerned General Leia. Rey blinked. She thought she had just heard her name cried out in the distance, and she was sweating heavily. She looked back at Leia. Was it the hot and humid planet of Akiva, where the remaining members of the Resistance had fled after the Battle of Crait, which drew on her energy so much? Or had it been something else?
"Yeah, I'm alright, it's just…" she looked again haphazardly around her.
"Rey, what's wrong? Your face went blank and you turned white for a moment,"
"It's nothing. I thought I heard something…it was probably an echo coming from the tunnels," Rey explained, not believing a word of what she was saying.
Leia eyed her with a suspicious look on her face, clearly not believing her either; nonetheless, she didn't push it further.
Well, part of it was true. The Resistance was indeed hiding in the gloomy labyrinthine catacombs of the jungle planet of Akiva, and the sounds echoed so strangely in this place. It had been Leia's idea to flee to the Outer Rim, to this deserted planet where not so long ago an old ally, Norra Wexley, had fought the Empire. They were hiding underground, since Myrra, its capital, was too exposed to possible attacks.
Akiva offered very little strategic advantage or interest to the First Order, which was why it was the perfect hideout until the Resistance could gather their forces again. It had borne the spirit of the Resistance in many ways and offered, apart from old Rebellion facilities, an abandoned droid factory in its labyrinths.
Rey had spent the last few days trying to fix some old droids, her scavenger abilities and her knowledge of mechanics earning her applause from everyone in the crew. They had been working hard, trying to restore the place a bit, to give it a new life, to reorganize and prepare to fight, and to send messages to old allies.
Anything not to think of … him.
It wasn't easy. Each time she encountered Leia's gaze, she was reminded of him. Of his eyes, fierce, ruthless, but also, as she had seen through his cracks in his facade, so soft . She remembered the last glimpse she had of him through their bond in the Resistance base, kneeling like a dark, shattered knight…Their connection had not reopened since then. Would it ever?
Shake it off! He's never coming back. He tried to destroy all of us; he tried to kill Luke and is partly responsible for his death, after all. You gave him a chance and he didn't take it, the Supreme Fool!
Rey sighed, a defeated look on her face as she lowered her head.
"I better go back and help the others," she told Leia as she rose to her feet, but Leia grabbed her hand with that look in her eyes, the specific one that reminded her so much of her son ; it was an inquiring look, as if she was reading her mind, as if she knew her better than she knew herself.
"Something has changed in you. I can sense it. Do not forget that I, too, can feel the Force," Leia said, a bit defiantly.
Rey considered her. Of course she knew something was wrong. But that wasn't the point here. She felt an unknown feeling rising through her veins. It made her guts twist in an uneasy fashion: guilt.
She hadn't told Leia anything about her son. Kriff , she hadn't gotten the courage to face her about anything, not even what had happened with Luke, what she had discovered about Ben's training. That Luke had even contemplated the idea of murdering his own nephew for a brief second. She feared the pain would be too much for Leia, the last straw that would make her collapse. Although elegant, Leia's wrinkles reminded her that she was aging, and that those were the remaining marks of a tormented and torn-apart life. Leia was almost the last member of a broken family. She had lost her son. She had lost her husband. She had lost her brother. She was no one to confide in. Actually, it should have been the other way around. Leia already had too much on her mind to take anything else in.
"General, I fear that there is not much to say." It was a blatant lie, but she had no choice. It was for her , to protect her. But Leia, the everlasting queen of sharp retorts, responded with a soft but resolved voice .
"Cut the 'General' thing. If you ever want an attentive ear, you know where to find it," she offered, before adding with a faint but nonetheless generous smile, "I'm not saying this in a professional way. You know, you could be my own daughter." Rey's heart sank.
Daughter . The word rattled her so deeply . She could have a lost mother. She had waited for her parents for so long, clinging to the hope that everything was a nightmare, that she would wake up, that they would be back one day… only to have a confirmation of her worst fears… by none other than Ben himself.
But something else had made her heart drop. It was Leia they were talking about. Leia. Ben's mother. She could have been her daughter, if only she had accepted Ben's open hand and offer. She quickly recalled that she couldn't have anyway, as she now understood that their destinies were meant to be apart and she had been oh so wrong to think she could turn him. He had disappointed her in ways she was ashamed of confessing to herself. The vision of their common future still unsettled her to the bone…as did another most uncomfortable and intimate vision of him she had seen through the Force Bond, but she was not going to think about that now, not in Leia's presence.
She shook her head slightly and took Leia's hands in hers, her eyes glistering. "Thank you. Thank you, Leia." And she quickly ran out of the small conference room.
She left a very pensive Leia behind her, who looked at Rey as she ran through the door. She kept wondering if her son had any influence in Rey's sudden changes. She was certain of only one thing: something was going on.
Rey ran throughout the long, still poorly lit tunnels of Akiva's catacombs. She didn't want to think about all this. She didn't want to see anyone. She crawled to the surface, climbed up a ladder, and popped out of the earth right into the planet's dense jungle.
The forest was so dense that the Millennium Falcon was completely covered by its huge trees and vegetation that displayed so many shades of green she could only marvel at it. Strange birds chirping and other sounds were constantly resonating through the trees, and sometimes a bush would move, only for her to discover yet another species of animal she had not seen before. Her favorite until now had been a sort of big jungle blue-and-yellow feline that was running through the forest with her cubs. If someone had told her something could be cuter than the Porgs only a few days ago, she would not have believed it. But those cute kitten-cubs with their distinctive yellow marks made her heart fill with a sense of childlike wonder.
She climbed through the entranceway of the Millennium Falcon and went straight to the 'fresher to put some water on her face. She was sweating heavily and had never felt such humidity in all her life. Jakku was nothing compared to this. Jakku's climate was more of a dry heat.
She opened a closet door and retrieved the old Jedi books she had stolen before leaving Ahch-To. She didn't quite know why she had done it, but an inner voice had told her to do it. And if there was one thing she knew, it was to always listen to that voice. If no one could teach her, perhaps she could teach herself.
But the task had proven to be far more complicated than she initially had thought. Even though she was gifted in languages and could understand many idioms, including droids and Wookies, she didn't comprehend a word of anything written on these manuscripts. They were more ancient than anything she had ever encountered. The main problem was that the textbooks clearly used symbols and signs instead of a true 'language.' The books were embossed with beautifully drawn blue and yellow moons, suns, stars and cosmic symbols. She felt she held so many truths in her hands, yet all of them were escaping her.
Her deep sigh betrayed how defeated and empty she felt.
It's all a big mess. I'll never figure this out , she thought, looking upward as if there was something there apart from the stars, which were starting to twinkle with the curtains of darkness falling onto the horizon.
Maybe he would know...?
"Ben…?"