It's a cruel burden, to know where she comes from. To know who she truly is, why she's here, and where she's destined to go.
The knowledge has gnawed at him since he first touched her outstretched hand. The horror of it is an inescapable thing. A waking nightmare. A thrashing dream. A steadily-growing tumour that threatens every last small shred of himself until he fears it will consume him entirely.
Awakened now, amid an all-too-brief and troubled sleep, he relives the vision once more. He sees her in a cave. Her physical form duplicated again and again and again. Her hands reaching towards a rock wall so well polished, its glossy surface is like a mirror. But rather than offering a reflection, it hints at something else. A sneak peak at a higher purpose. A glimpse at the answer to one's greatest longing.
"Let me see my parents" she pleads to the indistinguishable figure that approaches from that other side. She trembles with hope, apprehension, and the blooming excitement of learning the truth at last. But when the haze draws back, the reflection is, after all, only her own.
He alone understands the truth of her journey into that cavern of darkness. Though it wasn't obvious at first. He knows what the repetition of her own self means. Just as he knows now, who pulled the strings of his once-Master, Snoke.
A cowled creature. A once-mighty Dark Lord of the Sith. A life essence cast adrift without a host.
Until she tumbled into a dark side cave, reached out, and touched it.
Within the private quarters that once housed Supreme Leader Snoke, Rey slips into meditation.
The Force surges around her. Inside her. A part of her. Thousands of threads. Thousands of tiny veins. Pulsating through her. Vibrating against her skin. Thrumming inside her head. Dark and powerful. Undulating and seductive. The more she taps into it, the further she falls into its lure. And the stronger she grows. The stronger it grows. Until she cannot remember who she once was. Only that she was empty. Cast adrift. Alone.
And now?
Now she is a vessel. She is the cup of all knowledge. The one true conscious. The singular truth. Every star, every planet, every living thing that once was, is now and will become. She is all of these things. She is the Force.
The cave of Ahch-To calls her. Whispers in honey-sweet tones. Compels her to return. She feels its reassurance. The promise that this is where she belongs. At last.
Drawing her awareness back to her immediate surroundings, she feels the Force settle upon her shoulders like a mantle. A beautiful burden she will bear for all time. She understands now. When she reached out to that reflection, she was conceived. When she returns to it, she will be reborn.
Unable to rest, Ben swings his legs over the side of his sleeping pallet and cradles his head in his hands. Composure does not come easy, but soon he finds his way to his feet, and then he reaches for the pale grey cloak that has come to replace the black.
He will spend the next few hours pacing the dirt floor of the stone hut he has borrowed until he's worn a track in the firmly pressed ground. Soul-weary with the knowledge of what he must do. Who he must destroy. How much more of himself he will lose because of it.
"Master Luke, I could do with your guidance now," he mutters to the empty room. But Luke has long fled this place. And besides, who is he to beg the aid of the Master he once betrayed. It takes more than the wielding of light to prove he has turned from the dark.
He sees the Darkside now for what it is. He sees the poison fed to him throughout his life.
And he sees the malignant blight that stood behind Snoke and manipulated them both.
The probing essence has relinquished its hold on him and turned to a new source of power. A new mind to control. A shell that was created for this very purpose.
The cave was the key that opened this box. And now he must turn to the light to close it.
"Supreme Leader, shall I have your shuttle prepared?" Even over the intercom, Rey can feel the resentment of the red-haired general. But he stifles it well. Sucking it up with the guile of one who knows how to bide his time.
She gives him the affirmative and draws up the hood of her obsidian cloak. The First Order are nothing if not pragmatic. No one questions her demand to be transported to a near-abandoned planet in the midst of the Outer Rim. Just as no one questioned her claim for Supreme Leader when she stood atop of Snoke's broken corpse; the bodies of his elite guards scattered in pieces across the throne room.
Smart, she acknowledges to herself.
Sweeping past her entourage of stormtroopers, she senses their confusion as she boards her ship. Perhaps they expected Kylo Ren to take the throne. Not this small slip of a girl in an oversized cloak.
It matters not. This army is a means to an end. And their end is nearly up.
As the shuttle descends towards the largest archipelago, she extends her awareness deeper into the vast web that is the Force; her mind probing the threads for the beings who live on the islands below. She feels the ripples and thrums of the few strange, small inhabitants. Of Kylo Ren, however, there is no trace.
With his presence buried deep within the Force, Ben waits.
If he survives today, he'll take what ancient wisdom he can glean from this place, and build a new order. One that is neither Jedi, nor Sith. One that embraces the Light and the Dark, to learn from them both.
And perhaps, if he can save Rey from the pernicious rot of that once-Emperor's essence without killing them both, she'll join him.
Perhaps.
As it did the last time, the shock of the cold water rips away her breath. Though she's gained new strengths and knowledge since she last came to this cave, none of it can help her swim. It is, a small inner voice whispers calmly as she flounders towards the rock pool's edge, a tiny part of the greater test.
Reaching the edge and pulling herself from its depth, she checks the lightsaber at her side and makes her way through the passageway. Gone is the illusion of herself repeating over and over. Clones, a tiny voice whispers inside her mind. Empty shells waiting to be filled.
Gritting her teeth, she smothers the sudden flutter of doubt. Swallows back the old self that tries to protest against what she has become - what she has yet to further become. No. Her life before was nothing. She was nobody. The symbolism is correct; she was but a shell. A pathetic, hollow thing. And now -
"Rey!"
She startles at the baritone that cracks off the cavern walls. A tall figure steps out from the darkness to block the passageway.
"Kylo Ren." She struggles for a moment to comprehend how he can be here. Struggles to tap back into the absolute connection with the dark side of the Force that comes so easy in meditation. "You hid yourself from me. Clever trick."
"You'd be surprised by what I can do."
His tone betrays nothing but, oh yes, she can feel his presence in the Force now. Anguish and regret collide with determination and resolve. The spikes and ripples send up a storm around him.
"Always so conflicted." She murmurs. "Perhaps you'd care to join me? Together we could -"
"I'd join Rey in a heartbeat." Ben interrupts, stepping forward so she can see the haggard shadows beneath his eyes. "But I'll never join you."
The hiss of a saber reverberates around her. She looks to Kylo Ren's hands in alarm, but they remain empty. Half-raised in entreat. His face reflects her own startlement. He, too, has been caught off-guard by unexpected company.
Recovering himself before her, a protest shapes on his lips as he launches himself forward - to pull her into the safety of his embrace. A wordless plea forms into the name of their former master. The Jedi who trained them. Who rejected them. The Jedi they both thought dead.
Too late.
Pain slices through her. Paring her spine. Searing her torso. A heat so fierce and all-consuming, she cannot find the breath to scream. Her knees buckle, tearing the blade towards her heart as she collapses.
She is a shell.
She is nothing.
No one.
But she was everything.
To him.