Rey grabbed the railing of the lift, steadying herself as she descended into the planet's rocky core. If the oppressive darkness of Mustafar had borne down upon her before, the sensation had only intensified as she drew nearer to its center. She and the general had spoken not a word between them since they'd boarded the elevator. For Rey, it was a challenge simply to keep from surrendering to the fit of nausea that constantly threatened to overtake her. Meanwhile, the general kept her stare focused straight ahead, solemn and unperturbed by their ominous surroundings.

Hours before, when Leia had revealed her intentions to Rey, she had bulked at her superior's suggestion. "General," she'd insisted respectfully, "I can barely keep myself on my feet while standing on the planet's surface. I fear I'd break if I tried to delve even deeper into— "

"Rey," Leia interrupted her gently enough, but with a hint of impatience. Although she was a collected, professional woman, it was clear that had she been any less refined, she'd likely have returned the girl's protests with an exaggerated eye roll. "You're expending all of your energy trying to push the darkness away. You're trying to snuff it out like a plague."

Rey was taken aback. "Well, what are you suggesting? That I welcome it in? That I let it run rampant within me?"

Master Luke had offered her few lessons, but one thing he had been very clear about was the importance of shutting out the dark and resisting its siren call at all costs. She had refused to heed his admonitions before and the price of her insolence had nearly been her life.

The general took a step toward her young companion, her voice composed and thick with deliberate purpose. "I'm not asking you to surrender to it, Rey," she heaved a heavy sigh before continuing. "Luke and I both felt a strong connection to the Force, but we each ultimately chose to embrace that gift by walking different paths. He became a Jedi and I..." she hesitated a moment, fixing her eyes firmly on Rey's captivated stare. "I chose to wield it at times when a dire need demanded it."

There was something cryptic in the general's tone. Rey shot her a quizzical look, wordlessly urging her to elaborate.

"The truth is," she continued at length, "in many ways, you remind me of my son."

The words crashed into Rey with the savagery of an iron mallet against a tenuous house of cards. She wanted to be angry, to protest the bitter notion in a frenzy of unrestrained objection until she'd sucked the venom out of the biting accusation. But there was no denying the reality of the general's assertion. Rey had long recognized their mutual similarities, though she had refused to acknowledge them fully, burying her feelings deep within the chasms of her mind. The truth cut at her like the edge of a fresh shiv.

"I...I once thought as my brother did," Leia stumbled slightly over her words, struggling to keep her composure. "I thought that the best way to keep…" her voice rebelled against her in stubborn defiance with an audible crack, "...keep Ben from succumbing to the pull of the darkness was to drown it out in light." She winced. "But I was wrong. We both were."

"General Leia," Rey began, "you cannot hold yourself accountable for what Ben did. You…"

"I don't. I don't hold Luke responsible either."

"Then what—? "

"My son made his choices, yes," she insisted firmly. "And for him, it appears what's done is done. But in all experiences, we ought to take a piece of wisdom away to apply to future trials." She hesitated a moment, centering herself before adding, "It was only after I lost Ben that I realized the truth about the dark side of the Force…"

Rey felt a shudder slither up her spine. A part of her— one that she was more content to conceal under a comfortable blanket of denial— already knew what the general was implying.

"It's always going to be there, Rey."

The words lingered in the air between them for a moment. Often, simply acknowledging a disturbing reality had a way of undermining some of its power, but somehow the realization became all the more potent as Leia breathed it into life.

"I believed, as Luke did, that the darkness was something we had to strive to annihilate. What I didn't come to appreciate until it was too late for my son, is that the darkness is the eternal complement to the light of the Force. You're not supposed to spend a lifetime trying to purge the darkness from existence. That battle is futile."

"General!" the young scavenger gasped, stunned at the princess's words. This was the most hopeful, most unshakable woman in the galaxy. How could she of all people believe that the battle against the dark side was an inherently lost cause?

"Just listen," her voice was a whisper as she reached for her young companion, placing a comforting hand on the girl's slumped shoulder. "The darkness isn't going anywhere. It's always going to be in us and around us. But our primary mission cannot be to demolish the darkness outright..."

Rey shifted anxiously as the gravitas of the general's words began to take root.

"...The real challenge is to learn to live with the dark side— to allow it to exist and even to thrive in its own right, but to temper it and moderate it."

The Jedi novice opened her mouth to protest, but Leia raised a gentle hand to still her as she continued, "The Force is among us always, but it does not control us. And the dark side is just as much a part of the Force as is the light. We're not supposed to smother it, but neither are we meant to become it."

Rey raised a suspicious eyebrow, pondering the full implications of this revelation. "You've used it before, haven't you?"

"Yes," Leia responded matter-of-factly.

Rey returned her nonchalant admission with a scowl of disapproval. To her great surprise, the general let out a quick, good-humored laugh.

"Oh my, Rey!" she exclaimed through her chuckling. "I'd always wondered how Luke would respond if I ever told him my thoughts on this. Looking at your expression now, I no longer have to wonder!"

"Respectfully, General," she replied skeptically, "I don't think it's terribly funny."

"Well, Rey, my dear, that's because it isn't really," Leia affirmed with an acquiescent shrug. "It's difficult— intensely difficult— trying to walk the balance between the dark and the light without letting the darkness consume you. It's much more difficult to practice balance and moderation than it is to forgo something entirely."

"Then why even subject yourself to the temptation?" she insisted, her register growing slightly shrill.

"Because walking in the midst of despair without surrendering to it isn't a new feat for me." A veneer of sadness enveloped the general's tone now.

"How do you mean?"

"Rey, when I was a young woman, I watched on helplessly as my home planet was obliterated in front of my eyes. Everyone I had ever loved, every beautiful memory I'd ever had, blasted into pieces and reduced to dust in an instant."

The young scavenger stared at her companion, a solemn, reverent silence washing over them as Rey contemplated the legendary woman's unparalleled hardships.

"Since then, I've lost the only man I'd ever truly loved, my twin brother, and even my son: my only child." Her voice had grown tense now, a paradox of strength and sorrow in duelling competition and yet woven together in a singular, tight-knit band. "With each loss, I've had to make the deliberate choice to cling unyieldingly to hope. I've had to work to choose light over the darkness— a darkness that will never stop threatening to break me down. I've had to consciously make that choice every moment of every day. I've walked that balance, Rey. I know how to exist in the darkness and acknowledge its presence and power without letting it swallow me whole."

Her eyes narrowed in firm, unwavering resolve. "I messed things up with Ben. I didn't show him how to let the darkness be without being the darkness. But, Rey…"

She inched closer, her gaze so intense that it evoked a spark of both fear and awe in her young confidant, "...I will be damned if I'll make the same mistake with you."