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Trust
I shut my eyes and turned my back to the steaming water falling from the showerhead, allowing it to heat my muscles and soothe away the aches that came along with compensating for the ineptitude of the people whom I had the misfortune of directing. Swirls of suds trailed down my body and disappeared into the drain, washing away the dirt of the day but not the stress. I shrugged my shoulders, rolling them from side to side, until I felt a pop behind my shoulder blade that made me wince.
After a lifetime of leading and speaking and controlling, I suddenly understood why my mother had gone grey so early. I touched my own hair, slicked down on my skull and neck.
Since I had received the news from Rey, the scavenger, I hadn't had a lot of time to reflect on her death. Mostly because I had little desire to linger on those who had become the Force, especially when those people had a habit of abandoning their children in favor of their own careers. I felt the familiar hostility growing at just the thought of it, festering like something rotten, but despite that, what I had told Rey had not been a lie: I did love my mother, but I expect not in the way most children love their mothers. Other children developed a dependence on their mother that led to trust as they grew, and then a sense of responsibility as the mother aged and became reliant upon the child. My own childhood began in much the same way, but just as my trust was growing, my mother's trust in me waned. She became afraid of me. For a while, I feared myself, until I learned that the problem was not with me but with her. After that, I felt only anger towards her for leading me astray for so long.
This is also why I loved her. Despite her incompetency as a mother, she had been a good teacher: she taught me that the only one a person may trust is oneself, and that strength comes from within, not without. A person may have the best of intentions, but in the end he or she will take the path that most benefits them.
Knowing this is why I am strong, and I owed her my love for that.
The water ran cold suddenly. A shiver shook me out of my thoughts, so I shut it off and dried myself with a towel. The steam chased me as I left the bathroom and changed into my bedclothes. After towel drying my hair, I prepared myself for bed, which is when I heard the ringing again. My eyes rolled upward.
I quickly found her. Rey was sitting across the room, now staring at me like she wasn't sure whether to run or not. I noticed a piece of the broken lightsaber in her hands, and I understood why she seemed apprehensive.
To torment her, I deliberately eyed the saber until she swiftly put it aside somewhere, out of my vision and reach.
"Good evening," I greeted. Her posture relaxed a little. Attempting to be discreet and failing, she glanced over her shoulder at something. The Wookiee, I guessed.
"Hello," She replied in a hushed voice.
"What are you working on?"
Rey looked again like she didn't know what to do. "Nothing," She said quickly, felt guilty for her obvious lie, and then corrected, "Trying to fix that blasted thing. I don't… I don't know what I'm doing."
Unable to sleep with someone standing in my quarters, I tried to take advantage of the connection and moved across the room to sit opposite her. "It's not easy," I replied, "I can help you."
The girl shook her head as I expected her to. "I can do this by myself."
"No, you can't."
Rey glared at me. I could almost see her fleeing back behind her defenses. "Thank you for your support," She mumbled unhappily.
"So let me help."
"Why?" She asked insistently, obviously distrusting me. She was smart to do so. Despite our concessions the last time we connected, my goal had not changed: the Resistance must be stopped before it could continue disruptions of the First Order's objectives, and the first obstacle in my way was this scavenger from Jakku, just as Luke had been before I was ever made aware of her existence.
I had no reason to hide this. "Once we learn how to circumvent this link, I need you to be able to defend yourself. I want our match to be a challenge, not a slaughter."
Rey stared at me incredulously. I stared back, unblinking.
And then she laughed. A melodious sound to anyone else, but it made me sit back, affronted. How could she laugh?
"Maybe you're forgetting," She said, grinning from ear to ear, "But I beat you when we fought."
Rey laughed at my glare. I didn't care that she found the situation amusing, but I did care that her recollection was incorrect.
"You didn't 'beat' me," I informed her, "The planet was dying and split us apart. It was luck."
"Luck," She repeated with a dismissive nod, "Right."
"Are you going to let me help you with the lightsaber or not?"
The girl sobered quickly and leveled me with another suspicious stare. I held out my hand, waiting for her to make a decision. I had the fleeting thought about how her neglected upbringing had served her well: she knew not to trust too carefully, just like I had learned from my mother. Trust was such a delicate thing, so strong in its face, but behind the mask it was the weakest of all emotional facets. I suppose that's what made the moment when she tentatively placed the two pieces of the broken hilt in my outstretched hand so powerful, that it made the currents of the Force ripple around us, like a leaf touching the surface of water.
Feeling the cool metal, warmed slightly by her grip, in my palm was exhilarating. This saber was an heirloom meant for me but was broken by her defiance. My fingers tightened around the two pieces, and I felt her eyes on me.
I set the halves on the table beside me and started prodding at the wires.
"Your kyber crystal is cracked," I observed, taking quick stock of the parts still intact and what would need replacing. Which was most of it.
Rey hesitated, then asked with the naivety of a newborn, "Does that mean it won't work?"
I looked at her with some incredulity. Surely had the know something about… any of this? My eyes belied my thoughts, and her cheeks flushed from embarrassment.
"It will," I told her slowly, "But imperfectly."
"There weren't many to choose from. This one was… the biggest."
I couldn't help it: her ignorance made me smile.
"The size is not what drew you to it. Kyber crystals are directed by the Force to choose who wields them," I explained, remembering back to my earliest lessons with Luke, when things had been simpler. My path clearer. When I had just begun assembling my own saber, when my crystal was uncracked. I wondered how the one she had found had become cracked as well, and what about her it found so attractive. Continuing, I said, "At the height of the Jedi's rule, younglings were taken the same cave you found this one, but it was stripped clean of kyber crystal when the Empire began building its superweapons."
I pulled a few wires from the bottom half of the saber and it spit sparks at me.
"I don't know any of this," Rey murmured after some time. My attention was drawn back to her, whose expression had become drawn, her body tight from uncertainty, "All of it… I spent my life scavenging the 'superweapons' you're talking about, but you're talking about it like it's history and I talk about it like… a means to an end. My next meal. I never once thought about what they were."
I didn't really know what she wanted me to say. I never had much practice consoling people. "I was born into this. You weren't," I said, "It's not your fault."
"Maybe," She replied, "But it's now my responsibility to know."
I nodded in agreement, "Yes, it is."
Rey looked at me, then away, like she wanted me to say something else. Mind reading. I remembered my father complaining about my mother in that way. Women, he had said to me after every fight. Women. I had never had use for them in the context of being women, but some made fine officers. With a sigh, I studied the girl's expression and body posture and how they may be related to our conversation, and the scene hearkened back memories of the stone hut, of her wrapped in the thick, woolen blanket to chase away the chill of a rainstorm. She had looked so afraid and lost, thrown weaponless into a war that had been going on right in front of her, and now she was expected to carry the banner without any explanation why.
I understood.
"You're not alone," I reminded her, echoing our conversation on Ahch-To. Rey looked at me, drawn like a moth to light. I implored her, "Let me help you."
Her brow creased like it always did when that question came up. "How many times are you going to ask me that?" She said.
"Until you realize you need me."
Rey's face flushed again and her eyes dropped a little. Something about the gesture created an instinctual twist in my stomach that I could immediately identify and just as quickly reject.
"I do need you," She admitted softly, "But how can I trust you?"
"Trust is the most fragile gift you can give," I replied honestly, "But I have been truthful about my intentions. The best thing you can do is prepare yourself. Remember what I said about Luke and Leia: they denied their weaknesses, and now they're dead."
Rey frowned in thought. I was honestly a little surprised that she didn't outright reject me as she had in the past, but the look she had given me just now might have been an indication that she wasn't thinking entirely rationally about me and what I was, which I could and would use to my advantage. While she pondered my offer, I continued to tinker with the saber hilt.
"Can you promise one thing?" She eventually asked.
"What?"
"Don't hurt me again."
I almost scoffed, but I kept it together. "No," I replied matter of factly, "Were you listening? Once your saber is fixed, I'm-"
"I know, I know," She cut me off with a sigh, "I mean, until then. If I know it's coming, that's okay, but… no tricks. No manipulation."
I didn't see the point of this. We weren't friends. But it seemed this little thing was enough to get me what I wanted and took no additional effort from me. Just patience. "Fine," I replied, "In return, you become my apprentice."
"No," She corrected harshly, "You're helping me learn the basics and you're helping me with my saber. That's it."
"That sounds like you're my apprentice."
Rey growled in frustration and tried to kill me with her eyes. I couldn't help but crack a smile.
"Here," I said, handing her the pieces of the saber, "There's not much that can be done about it right now. I'll get some replacement parts and show you what they're for, but it's up to you to put it together. Like a Jedi, if that's what you're insisting."
The surprise of my offer shocked the scowl off her face and turned it into a smile. She reached out and I expected her to take the saber, but instead her hand covered the top of mine. Her surroundings flashed into view, and I naturally took in everything I could: it was night, and her face was illuminated by a generous fire that licked at the underside of some root-like plants roasting on a stick. It was hot and humid, and I could hear the trills of night birds and orchestra of insects. The leaves on stunted trees were broad, shiny, and bright green with shocks of yellow.
"Where are you?" I asked curiously, "I don't recognize this place."
"Good," Rey replied with a sly smile. I smiled back.
"A quick learner. Excellent."
