The largest moon of Kirien's Planet was once a hideaway, a travel destination for young lovers. After the battle, it was nothing more than a plain of dead bodies. After a year the soil would be rich for planting, but no one was left on the moon to do the farming. No one would come back here for a very long time. The only harvest for years would be the bones and armor of the Resistance fighters and stormtroopers who fought at this, the last battle of the war. First they used with the massive weaponry of their respective groups, then with the individual guns, then hand-to-hand, like savages.
Two people were left standing in the mud made of dirt and blood. The same two people who were there at the start stood facing one another across the Paradise Fields, which in the center of the Yalla Mountain Range. Once upon time the Paradise area was generally agreed upon as the most beautiful stretch of land on the moon, with the cliff that overlooked the Lake of Yallalin and the warm breezes and the rushing waters of the waterfall. Paradise was left a charnel house.
The man, all in his usual black uniform, cape, and mask, waited at one end of the fields. The woman wore a white uniform of the Resistance troops, but the fabric has gotten so dirty and mangled her clothes resemble rags.
How many times have they done this? How many times have they fought each other using graceful movements and brutal sweeps of the arm? How many times have they fought one another's mental dominance off? How many ways has this gone?
She cleared her mind and prepared herself. She knew this time would be different, because centering herself felt almost redundant — she was already as centered as she could be. She was ready. Her mind was quiet and empty and she had no attachment to the outcome of this duel, because what will happen has already happened and the past is the future and she knew, in a way that she'd never truly understood before, that she cannot use the Force without being used by it. Using the Force made the cycle continue.
He flicked his lightsaber on. The red blade glowed, the crossguard casting a red light against his black-gloved hand. He walked toward her.
She turned her lightsaber on, and she waited.
It is not just the two of them any more. It never had been, really. The third member of their party — the Force, in all its incarnations — was there too.
This time, Rey was waiting for the third to join them as well.