I Need a Teacher

Chapter 3 complete

By TheOneAndOnlySlayer

Ben Solo is unraveling.

He grips and flexes his hands to forget the smell of blood on them. It's a testament to his care for his appearance that he does not put his hands over his ears, because the screaming won't go away. He can't shake off these sensations.

The old priest on Jakku. The star Resistance pilot (still alive, thank the Force). Countless others he doesn't have the strength to revisit individually. All of them, gone because of his blindness, his worthless loyalty…

The chilly weather makes his face sweat. He's convinced he's tricked himself into a fever. It's as if he's experiencing withdrawal from his attachment to the Dark Side.

And of course, there's still Snoke searching for him, calling him back. Ben's strength is draining because of this attempt to unconsciously divert Snoke's search for him through the Force. It's like learning how to breathe without thinking about it. This is why his surrender to the small Resistance band led by his mother has been so unexpectedly cooperative; he hasn't the energy to maintain a sense of pride.

His pale form shudders. He wants to punch the wall until his knuckles are raw. He can't because self-inflicting any harm would be a loss of control. Giving in to pain to center his anger and confusion is not the way anymore.

He must concentrate. He will not admit he's lost.

But he needs it. He needs just this one distraction.

Ben stills his mind, calms it. He stills it so much so that the other Force-sensitives downstairs won't sense what he's about to do.

There is a set of knives he procured from the last training ground of the Knights of Ren. Ben Solo had been searched for any weapons before being held in this "cell." He can easily escape it. He can either jump off the cliff outside his window (which he could climb out) and swim to the beach. He can also climb along the high edge and along the peninsula. Or he can even use a Jedi Mind Trick against the two Resistance men guarding the entrance.

A child could escape them. Ben's staying put because it's the most obvious form of his promise not to betray them.

That doesn't mean he won't draw up shields to give himself some privacy.

Whenever Rey, his mother, the former Stormtrooper or the others have the inclination to see him, Ben will sense it. He knows that for tonight he has hours' worth of time alone.

He knows that what he is dying to do is not right, but he's desperate. His mind is all over the place, rampant and nervous like a cornered animal. The only thing he knows to clear his head is pain.

It's just a small…arguably unrelated figment of the Dark Side's training.

The set of knives he did not let the guards confiscate are under his gloves. He takes them out, each a varying length and style, and lays them out in front of him. These are used for many purposes: they are first introduced in a Knight of Ren's training as a form of torture. The master uses each knife to inflict pain, preparing them for the (at first) minor injuries in battle. Moreover, the pain inflicted acts as an anchor of a Knight's rage, lust for power, and desire for dominance.

The second purpose in a Knight's training is the act of causing pain on an innocent, a victim outside of war.

Ben is familiar with both exercises.

Luke Skywalker, if he were here, would know about Ben's thought process immediately. He has spent years learning about his father's journey as Darth Vader, and would be attuned with Ben's churning mix of doubt and disorienting guilt. He would have confiscated these tools in an instant and forced Ben into a purging of emotions.

If only his Uncle were here. Ben would forsake everything, his arms and legs, his tongue for Luke's help. He will never be free to ask Luke's forgiveness, not in a thousand years of penance.

He wants to die. He actually considered throwing himself out the window like the tragic old stories, but he had scoffed because it felt too dramatic. Also his self-preserving instincts would kick in halfway down the descent.

He now had his uncle's lightsaber, and wouldn't that have been even more poetic? Driving it into his traitorous heart.

Get it together, he tells himself. He's not even sure he can call himself Ben yet.

The lightsaber stays in his robes. He just has to make it through the night, and he'll be fine.

Just one thing…

He removes his cape, his tunic and shirt until his chest is exposed. The turgid misty air does not cool him down.

Taking a deep breath, he selects one blade and feels around his torso for a discrete spot. There are many older ones; he decides on the tender stretch of skin on his side. He can't go too deep. If they notice he favors his right arm whenever he extends it, they'll pry.

He grits his teeth and slides the blade through, just an inch. It's an awkward place to have a wound, even a pinprick like this, but it does the trick; he directs all the conflict in his head into that one spot and lets it burn exquisitely. Black clothes become practical in this moment because it hides the mess he's made.

The faces, the cries all go away for a moment. He exhales.

Only a few stick, like stains: His mother (Leia Organa Solo; he doesn't think he can ever call her what he's called her his whole life, ever again) and the young Jedi, his equal, the rival he will never best but has pursued half a dozen times anyway.

Kylo Ren's fighting prowess had hungered for such a challenge. Beyond marching around looking menacing, his career in the First Order had been executioner of anything Jedi-related. After the massacre, his energy dulled.

Then he found her in the woods and was fixated on this living, breathing Jedi vessel. For so long he had been collecting and extinguishing relics that he was almost clueless on what to do with her.

It did not matter in the end because she escaped him and continually, teasingly evaded him.

It was tiresome in some degree. It eventually became tiresome to Snoke, the way Kylo Ren would perk at her presence right before an ambush or in the middle of a skirmish. He always promised to bring her to his master, to sway her to the Dark Side as one of their own, a prized pupil, but every time he had to say he failed to capture her… Snoke must have known Kylo Ren's efficiency was beginning to wane.

She would whisper to him, try to beat me this time. And every time, they slipped into a world where it was only the two of them, dark and light. They could never land real killing blows. Rey may have claimed in her mind that she could not kill her leader's only son, but there was a faint hope that she, too…

As he bleeds, the dark-haired man picks up the lightsaber. His own crossguard lightsaber is here, too, but he won't dare touch it.

Rey's request stuns him, even now. Does she have any idea what she's suggested? She almost died. He could have shaken her in her bright, it's-so-simple attitude.

The way she pleaded with him. I need you. So manipulative. And she knew the way he offered to teach her in the first duel, so ecstatic in his rage and energy to fight someone with as much vigor as him.

He is disgusted with himself. To think, he had tried to have her brought under Snoke's tutelage?

No, he corrects himself. His own. Kylo Ren would have been her master. He doubts, now that he reflects on it, that he would have allowed Rey to be exposed to Snoke. He probably would have avoided a meeting to keep Rey all to himself.

Well, there's an idea. She'll be expecting a lesson from him tomorrow. He has to think of something constructive to teach her.

He puts away the blades, patches himself up and meditates.