A few things changed for them over the next few days. They had to move their camp deeper into the tunnels that wove themselves into a natural labyrinth. Even though Rey told him that she didn't trust Kylo Ren, she still felt a flicker of faith in his word to not bring her to the First Order. He often offered to cook and carry the backpack further down the caves where the crystal clusters were as tall as her knees. He even opened up a little more on his past when asked.
"How long did it take for you to find you crystal with Luke?" she asked during one of their descents in a tunnel wide enough for them to stand shoulder to shoulder.
"Only a few hours."
She stopped in her tracks. "Only? Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"I don't understand it. You were trained by Luke Skywalker, you found your crystal in only a few hours—why did you turn to the dark side in the first place?"
"Snoke reached out to me, made me an offer as an apprentice, and I accepted."
"But why though? What is it about the dark side of the Force that's so appealing?"
He rolled his tongue in his mouth as if weighing his next words. "Answer a question of mine first, and I think that will help answer yours."
"All right."
"Your life on Jakku restricted in many ways, correct? Couldn't leave the planet, couldn't trust the other citizens in case they tried to steal from you, couldn't do much except scavenge in order to survive. So when you were given the choice between the light and the dark sides of the Force, you chose the side where you continue to constrict yourself. No attachments, no emotion, just order. Why would you choose that sort of life?"
Rey pursed her lips a moment. "When I started training with Luke, for the first time I felt like I was doing something with my life. And we don't leave all emotion behind. There's still compassion and empathy for others."
"Those are actions, not emotions."
"And you've only given me questions, not answers."
A smile flickered across his face. "I don't remember exactly why. I was angry and Luke told me to let go of my anger, but I couldn't. Snoke told me to embrace it, to embrace my destiny as Darth Vader's successor. I succeeded him when I killed Han."
His eyes glazed over, his face grim. Rey tried to swallow the hot welt growing in her throat, and they remained silent until they were both exhausted and set up the tent. However, he left the tent to meditate a few feet down the tunnel. She peeked from her tent as he sat bow-legged and closed his eyes as she did when she meditated, but the air around him grew humid with hatred. The humidity lasted for a few minutes before chilling into what she guessed was fear. She realized her consciousness was reaching out to him and she pulled all the way back into herself.
An hour later he returned to the tent, sweating and spent. They both had full portions that night. After all, if it only took him a few hours to find his crystal, surely it wouldn't take her that much longer to find hers.
Two and half weeks of searching the tunnels for crystals that grew sparser and sparser finally broke Rey's optimism.
"I'm never going to find it," she said as she sat down on the hard stone.
"Don't say that just yet. Yours is probably somewhere deep," he said as he sat down next to her and looked down the steep barrel of the tunnel ahead of them. "Very, very deep."
"It's been weeks. Yours took only hours."
"Rey, you aren't me."
"Thanks," she scoffed.
"What I mean is—look, we're completely different. The Force has been strong within my family for generations. I used it since I could walk, and my first teacher was Luke Skywalker. I found my crystal easily because everything came to me easily."
He held her gaze with his own, even though it was hard to see him through the film of tears over her eyes.
"Luke trains me now, and it hasn't made any difference."
"There is a huge difference. You survived Jakku. You survived Starkiller Base. You found your power when I was at the end of my training with Luke, and you've grown even stronger since then. When you find your crystal, it will be the rarest to be found only because someone like you was persistent enough to find it."
She wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, genuinely touched by his words. He leaned away from her, looking taken aback at himself. She took a deep breath, let out out slowly, and felt a bit better about her predicament. Or at least, she could think much more clearly about it.
"I must be missing something, though," she said. "Luke told me to reach out with the Force, and my crystal would respond. I'm stretching my consciousness as far as it can reach, but nothing."
She looked up at the shining blue crystals that dotted the smooth black roof of the tunnel. The light that contrasted with the dark. Were there crystals hidden within the rock? She stood up at ran her fingers over the bald, black stone on the nearest wall.
"I've been relying on the light side of the Force this whole time," she murmured, feeling hesitant about what she might need to do.
She turned when she heard Kylo Ren stand. He stood up straighter and didn't wince now that his wounds were mostly healed. His brown eyes practically glittered between his long scar.
"You can always try the dark side of the Force," he said.
She couldn't help but smile. "You're tempting me."
"Maybe."
He joined her at the wall and spread his hand next to hers.
"I can teach you the basics."
She bit her lips together, her stomach starting to hurt.
"What are you afraid of?" he asked gently.
She glared up at him. "What sort of Jedi am I if I could only find my crystal by using the dark side of the Force?"
"A unique one."
She chuckled at that and rested her forehead on the warm rock. Her thoughts went to Finn, and how his training was going with Luke. Finn would truly be the last Jedi. Her? Maybe she would be the first to use the dark side of the Force without completely submitting to it, but to do so would mean she couldn't be completely in the light anymore. She needed be squarely between the two. The blue gems above them hummed safely from the support of the silent rock. Balance between the light and the dark achieved naturally.
Balance could be possible within herself. She had seen it in her meditations with Luke at the beginning of that training, but later on she would see only the light. She couldn't just simply try to gain equilibrium: she had to trust herself to accomplish it.
"Train me," she told him, pushing herself off the rock with a new rush of energy. "But just until I can find my crystal. Just the basics, as you said."
"I can do that," he said, smiling at her.
"Good. Let's get started."
