Thanks to LPK9, ILDV, and wavingthroughawindow for reviewing!
LPK9: Thank you! I hope you like this one!
ILDV: I'm glad you're enjoying them!
wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so much! Luke is one of my favourite characters in Star Wars (along with Leia, R2, Rey, BB-8. . . I have a lot of favourite characters) because I admire anyone with the sort of fortitude to be good and have the sort of faith he does throughout the films, like Elain Archeron or someone, so I really hoped the oneshot did him justice. I hope you like this one, too! :)
This is an AU of the Force Awakens, where Maz and Rey's conversation goes a little differently than in canon, and things change because of that. I don't know whether Maz would actually be able to invoke a Force vision, as all she ever said in the film was "I know the Force" but I'm going off that concept anyway.
Basically, I love Rey and I love Maz, so this was inevitable, really.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars, and therefore none of the characters or the world and barely any of the dialogue in this piece.
Maz's orange hand was extended to her, that infernal lightsaber resting comfortably in it, and for a moment Rey could swear she felt her hand twitch, like everything in her was urging her to accept the offered burden.
"Give that thing to someone else. I'm no hero."
Despite the lingering threads of horror still clinging to her after that. . . vision. . . Rey couldn't suppress a twinge of guilt when Maz's face flickered with something that might be akin to disappointment.
But Rey had to get home - or to the hollowed out AT-AT she called home. Had to- "I need to get back to Jakku," she repeated from earlier, looking away from the impossibly sympathetic look in the humanoid's eyes. "I've been away too long already."
"The galaxy needs you, Rey," Maz insisted in that calm, focused voice of hers that described the wisdom she'd no doubt accumulated, that made Rey so desperately want to trust her. "General Leia Organa needs you. Your friend who wants to run needs you. Although he will not admit it, even Han Solo needs you." Maz paused for breath, and Rey breathed with her; her chest seemed to have become a vacuum, and her lungs were caving in around it. "You are Luke Skywalker's last hope."
"I-" Rey wasn't even entirely sure what she was going to say, whether she would repeat her I am no hero mantra, insist on returning to Jakku again, or even just gasp for breath, leaving her sentence unfinished. But it didn't matter, because Maz shut her down anyway.
"Dear child," Maz began. For a moment, despite her diminutive height, Rey was struck by just how very old Maz Kanata must be. "I see your eyes. You already know the truth. The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead."
Rey had to wonder at that: How had Maz so easily reached into her soul and picked out the deepest, most desperate desire of her heart? Known about those days at the Niima outpost looking around at the scavengers with partners and even groups, who shared food and struggled to survive but enjoyed doing it?
Belonging.
Not even Rey had realised that was the reason she was so desperate for her family to return: she wanted to belong.
"I am no Jedi, but I know the Force," Maz went on. "This lightsaber belonged to Luke Skywalker, and his father before him. And now it calls to you." When Rey didn't say anything, she coaxed further: "It is your destiny."
"I am no hero," Rey repeated dully, and this time it was without the conviction she'd said it with before. Now it was with the dead-eyed despair she'd seen some of the older scavengers bear, the ones who'd spent too long in the desert and watched it suck the life out of them. She needed to see her family again because- because- because then she would be more than that.
More than just a nickname and a threat to others.
"I am a child."
It felt strange to say - she'd been living alone for so long, she was more self-sufficient than anyone her age had any right to be - but it was true. She was a random teenager from a backwater planet. Why should this all be her destiny?
"And do you think Han, Luke and Leia weren't all children once themselves?" Maz queried, and at Rey's silence she shook her head. "Leia, perhaps, never got the chance to be young and naïve - she was raised a princess of the most beautiful planet in the galaxy, before it was destroyed. The Last Princess of Alderaan. But Han and Luke, well." Maz took her hand again. "Let me show you."
Now that she was expecting the Force vision, it came gentler, like Maz was trying to ease her into it, rather than shock her the way the last one - the one her hands still hadn't stopped shaking from - had. The walls of Maz's castle dissolved around them in a shimmer of blue - the same colour as the lightsaber, Rey noted absently - and then they were standing in the living area of a ship.
A ship she knew very well.
The Millennium Falcon looked much the same as it had on Rey's flight to Takodana; the wear and tear of the years had clearly eventually given up on the ship that was more scrap than salvageable parts. But one thing different was that Rey was standing opposite two men, one young, one old, both unfamiliar to her.
They both wore the sort of robes she'd expect to see on Jakku or another desert planet, although she noted that the young man's sun-bleached garb seemed much more designed for that than the old man's faded brown relics. The old man was sitting down in apparent exhaustion, the younger one wearing an expression of concern, and Rey tuned into their conversation just soon enough to catch the words ". . .you better get on with your exercises."
The young man conceded, and returned to where he had some sort of remote hovering at head height. He lifted a lightsaber - the lightsaber I just held, she realised - and turned the remote on, where it started to fire bolts at him.
Rey could admit to watching this part of the memory with some curiosity - he was clumsy and inexperienced enough for her to wonder who he was, and why he was wielding that lightsaber in the first place - but she pulled her attention away when a stride she recognised came down the corridor, and Han Solo entered the room.
"Well, you can forget your troubles with those Imperial slugs, I told you I'd outrun 'em," he said, and took a seat next to the old man. Rey tried not to stare at how young he looked - he was in his mid-thirties at the oldest. So this event happened. . . thirty years ago, maybe?
At the lack of response, Han looked around the room and drawled, "Don't everyone thank me at once."
That didn't garner a response either.
He huffed. "Anyway, we'll be at Alderaan at oh-two-hundred hours."
Alderaan. . . Was this memory from before that fateful explosion that left the planet a cloud of debris? Or would they reach the place to find it gone? Rey shuddered at the horrors these people didn't know were coming for them - they knew the Empire was evil, apparently, but they clearly didn't quite know the extent of that.
A wail to her left dragged her from her thought and made her turn in shock, to see Chewie there facing against a blue astromech droid - an R2 unit - over a dejarik board. There was some rambling from a protocol droid and Han about why the astromech should "Let the Wookiee win!" before her attention was drawn back to the young man with the lightsaber, who was still facing off against the remote.
The old man chimed in, "Remember: a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him."
Rey started; they were Jedi?
"You mean it controls your actions?"
"Partially," the old man admitted, "but it also obeys your commands." It was just about then that a stray bolt collided with the young man's leg, and he yelped.
Han snickered. "Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." Rey had to agree, but. . . Han's attitude was so at odds with what he'd said to her and Finn on the Falcon and the respect in which he clearly held Luke Skywalker, and the Jedi. What was going on here? What had changed?
Thankfully, the "kid" addressed that question himself: "You don't believe in the Force, do you?"
Han's look was sceptical - borderline scornful. Or just outright scornful. "Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, I've seen a lot of strange stuff. But I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything."
I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo jumbo, a magical power holding together good and evil, the Dark Side and the Light, he'd said to them.
"There's no mystical energy field controls my destiny!" The old man was smirking, and Rey wondered what was going through his head even as Han finished, "It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense."
Crazy thing is. . . it's true. All of it.
The old man stood up, and removed a helmet from where it was hanging on the wall. "I suggest you try it again, Luke."
Luke. Rey's head whipped to look at the young man again, to take in the long blond hair and the blue eyes that seemed to swallow half his face. This was Luke Skywalker?
(There was something familiar about him as well, something that sang of an island in the middle of more water than Rey had ever seen whilst awake, but she pushed the thought away.)
"This time," the old man went on, placing the helmet onto Luke's head, "let go of your conscious self, and act on instinct."
Luke Skywalker chuckled a little bit, like he thought it was all a joke. "But with the blast shield down, I can't even see anything, how am I supposed to fight?"
"Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them," the old man said simply. Something told Rey that Luke was no more satisfied by that answer than she was, but he tried it anyway, reigniting his lightsaber and stood ready to deflect the bolts. One shot right past the blade and struck him in the shoulder; he gasped in pain, and the old man offered some more sage Jedi advice: "Stretch out with your feelings."
Luke tried again; this time, he deflected three bolts in quick succession of each other, with no apparent effort at all.
"See?" the Jedi said. "You can do it."
"I call it luck," Han objected, though Rey thought there might have been something in his face that suggested otherwise.
"In my experience there's no such thing as luck."
"Look, good against remotes is one thing." Han seemed adamant to get some sort of rise out of the old man. "Good against the living? That's something else." A chiming behind him caught his attention, and he glanced at the monitor. "Looks like we're coming up on Alderaan." He and Chewie left the room, presumably to the cockpit to land.
Luke approached the old man once they'd left, like he was afraid Han might mock his words unless he was out of earshot. "You know, I did feel something. I could almost see the remote,"
"That's good," the Jedi encouraged, placing a hand on Luke's shoulder. "You've taken your first step into a larger world."
At those words, the image dissolved into blue again, and she found herself on her knees in the basement of Maz's castle.
But she didn't care.
You've taken your first step into a larger world, the words had been. Spoken in the same voice as, These are your first steps.
Rey shivered as she glanced up at Maz. "Why did you show me that?" she whispered hoarsely.
"Because you did not believe that heroes are made, not born," Maz said. "Han didn't believe in the Force that day Alderaan was destroyed so many years ago; indeed, very few did, but that didn't mean it didn't exist. You can hide and wait on Jakku all you want-" She lifted the lightsaber from where she'd placed it on the floor, and held it out once more, "-but it will not bring you any manner of peace when the First Order come calling again."
Rey eyed the lightsaber with more than a little apprehension, but there was that thing inside of her as well, telling her to pick it up. Pick it up.
Pick it up and discover who you were meant to be.
She reached out and took the lightsaber.
Maz dropped her hand, smiling faintly. "Do you know where to go from here?"
The weapon was solid in her hand, warm from being held by Maz. Even when deactivated it seemed to hum against her skin. A feeling of warmth, of companionship, flooded her for a moment, and it was so potent she almost staggered back. There was a calling, too - a faint, distant calling across thousands of parsecs and billions of worlds. She felt herself almost subconsciously orient herself to that calling, and looked straight ahead, over Maz's shoulder.
An image of an island shone in her mind, a mirage bright enough to help her sleep at night.
She dropped her arm and clipped the lightsaber to her belt. "I need to find Han," she said. Her voice didn't waver. "And we need to leave this place." She took a deep breath. "I know where Luke Skywalker is."