D'Qar might have, in a time of the utmost peace, even been seen as a beautiful planet with its vast variety of terrain. There were vast green clearings, lush forests, rivers, lakes, and finally, make rocky caves and chasms.

It was in one of these cold, quiet caves that Luke Skywalker found himself after unsuccessfully trying to find his way as Rey's teacher and mentor. He couldn't have continued to face her in that moment in any case, not when she had done more in the way of teaching than he had.

He had hidden himself away in this cave out of shame - because he could not face anyone in the light of his inadequacy but at the same time was unwilling to add to his failures by again abandoning those who counted him in their hour of need. Perhaps here in the dark, far from everyone and having given the direction not to be followed, he could again remember the true nature of the Force. He had lost sight of it long ago in his own self-loathing. But perhaps now he was needed again - even in light of all things, this gave him some small glimmer of help. But first, he needed to find himself worthy to again serve those who he had worst failed.

Luke Skywalker had wanted nothing more and nothing less than to be enough for his students - to guide them in their journeys as others had done before him. He had once been so immensely proud of his two strongest students. Now, neither of them were the Jedi Knights he had wished them to be. But even worse, there was one person who he had failed even more sorely, and someone who, by the course of the events of recent days, he still continued to fail. He needed to rediscover himself - though he no longer knew how, because his years of solitude had not fulfilled that purpose.

Meanwhile, disappointed and disillusioned, Rey had wandered off in another direction in the woods. She too felt clearer when she was alone. She had, after all, been alone for so much of her life up until recent weeks, and even if she highly valued the new people that had come into her life since then, there was a considerable part of her that still valued the peace that was to be found in solitude.

A small part of her also admittedly missed Jakku - not the nights spent with an empty stomach, or the long hikes through hot desert, but certainly the familiarity. A small part of her missed the daily fight to survive, because it was purposeful and somehow always attainable. Their goals here on D'Qar on the other hand were rarely quite as clear.

"Rey!" a familiar voice came from back in the direction of the base, accompanied by the sound of footsteps and snapping twigs. "Hey! Been looking for you."

Rey chuckled slightly at the sight of Finn jogging in her direction with what looked like a steaming bread roll in his hand, which he held out to her once he had caught up. "Didn't see you in the dining hall today, so I didn't want you to miss out on them while they were fresh," he said with a lopsided grin as Rey accepted the offer, taking the roll and biting into it eagerly. She hadn't even realized that she was quite so hungry. At the sight of her eating without so much as a hesitation, Finn gave a lopsided grin, crossing his arms over himself.

"The General said you were out training with Skywalker today," he said, but was quickly surprised by the exasperated roll of Rey's eyes that followed. "Guessin' it didn't go well?"

"It didn't go at all," Rey said, raising her eyebrows as she spoke. "All he tried to do was have me sit with my eyes closed and... and feel the Force. It was a waste of time," she said with a breathy, humorless laugh as she tromped ahead a few steps on the forest path. "It's ridiculous, all of it. Maybe there's a good reason why the Jedi are gone."

"I think you need to give the guy a fair shot first," Finn spoke up hesitantly, following a few steps behind while Rey made her way farther into the wood. "He could surprise you -"

"He already has," Rey retorted, not turning back to face Finn as she continued onward. "And not pleasantly."

Grateful that Rey wasn't facing him, Finn couldn't help but roll his eyes and shake his head a little at her obstinance. There were times where he thought that he had come to be normal, despite a lifetime of hard wiring. Certainly, he felt accepted here - never as though he were some kind of threat, or some kind of machine. But, especially when it came to Rey, there were times that he could make neither heads nor tails of what was going through his head. He was a Stormtrooper by training - he wasn't trained in understanding people this way. He certainly wasn't trained in understanding women.

Meanwhile, on Tatooine...

The first sense that seemed to wake up in Kylo Ren was his sense of hearing - the roar of wind and the occasional thud of debris hitting wood and metal immediately ignited his awareness that indeed, the sandstorm was still roaring onward in full force - rumor had it that on Tatooine, sandstorms could last for days without so much as relenting.

The next sense was touch. He first noticed that he was not being bombarded by the storm. He was still in some kind of shelter. A new sensation now, however, invaded this sense in particular, with something tight and unfamiliar wrapped around his waist.

Finally, sight. He forced his eyes open to glance at his surroundings and realized that he was lying on a crate inside the old desert shanty that appeared to have been once used to store supplies, and sitting asleep on the floor in the opposite corner was Yasha Faygill. A quick glance over her now bare arms and the tattered margins elsewhere on her clothing led his to look downward and reassess himself as well. She had removed his shirt, and torn off her sleeves to use as bandages around his waist. And then, he remembered the excruciating pain of when he had last been conscious - the considerable wound in his side, which had never fully healed to begin with, had begun again to bleed after their battle. Another glance around. Both his and her lightsabers sat side-by-side on the nearby table, as well as both shards of Marelignium.

She could have killed him and taken the prize for herself, and she did not.

Oddly enough, this realization ignited anger in Kylo Ren - his hands no longer gloved, balled into fists at his sides. First, he was enraged that again, Yasha's mercy had outweighed his. Again, she was the better Jedi.

It was not that he still had aspirations of being a Jedi. Certainly not. He had shed those aspirations when he had shed that horror of a name he had been born with. But the fact remained that the knowledge of never having bested Yasha in the knowledge and the art was an anchor that tied him to his prior life, kept him from fulfilling the grand plans that the Supreme Leader had for him. He had long felt the call of the Light and attempted only to drown it out. It had never worked. But if he could instead harness and defeat it, then he could be what the the Supreme Leader had promised. He could be a master of all aspects of the Force.

He could kill her. But it would not be enough, because it would come with the knowledge that even in death, she was a better student of the Light. That, he could not allow. So, it would not be enough to merely destroy her without truly, at her best defeating her. Killing a sleeping maiden was not power in the same way that killing a formidable warrior was. Kylo Ren would need to bide his time in order to purge himself of Yasha Faygill.

His anger also billowed from the knowledge of his own vulnerability. The fact that she had helped him, had tended to his wounds, was evidence that she felt he needed help at all, and such a circumstance was not acceptable, Kylo Ren reflected, unconsciously banging his fist against the crate he was lying on. His vulnerability when it came to this woman was unparalleled - because he had not found a source of anger to harbor towards her, and therefore had no source of power against her. Against his father, his mother, against Master Skywalker, he could level a great deal of accusations, and find a great deal many weaknesses. In his old life, under his old guise as Ben Solo, they had all in his mind wronged him and as such deserved whatever suffering delivered to them by Fate.

He remembered, for a flicker of a second, the expression on the legendary Han Solo's face as the searing blade of the crimson lightsaber pierced his chest. The appearance of light draining from the old man's eyes, the insistence to the end of showing love and mercy for his son, was another reason why Kylo Ren knew that simply killing the woman would not purge him of her. The image of his father remained with him in the recesses of his mind. The image of Yasha Faygill would only do the same.

The loud thud of his fist against the old wooden crate, however, seemed to have been enough to gain the woman's attention, even in her sleep. Yasha's eyes smoothly opened, and she rolled her shoulders and neck once before finally looking up to see that Kylo was awake as well, staring at her with both rage and confusion distorting his features.

The only reaction either could manage was silence, staring at one another with intensity and determination. Both knew and felt what the other was attempting, because they were doing the same.

"You're keeping me out," Kylo said in a near-snarl, tapping his finger to his temple and disclosing that he had in fact been attempting to get into her mind, the way he easily did with many others. "You've improved."

"I've had quite a bit of time," Yasha replied sternly. Indeed, she'd quite a few years hidden away on an island with very little else to do. She, too, attempted to get into his mind, only to find herself turned away at the gates. For the moment, they were deadlocked, both attempting to scale the walls of each other's minds, and neither opening the way. "You know that if we keep this up, no one's ever going to know we're here."

"I presume you're aware that sandstorms don't last forever."

Something behind the caustic tone in his voice carried such familiarity that Yasha went rigid upon hearing the short statement - something in his voice sounded too painfully similar to someone she knew to be gone. Shuddering slightly, she got to her feet so she wasn't left in such a vulnerable position, and was instead standing with her bare arms crossed over her torso. It was in this shift of position that Kylo Ren noticed one particular detail.

Yasha Faygill wore her hair cropped close to chin length, doing very little to tame the deep brown waves. She'd worn it this way for years. He saw, however, that the single adornment she had ever worn remained the same - a thin tendril near the nape of her neck left long and braided with red cord. His jaw clenched slightly at the sight of it. Suddenly aware of where his gaze had drifted, Yasha quickly reached up and tucked the small strand away so that it was for the most part hidden behind her neck.

"Your sentimentality is what makes you weak," he said with a blank stare, though his upper lip threatened to curl. "You keep the mark of a promise you made to a boy who has long been dead?"

"I'm no longer the girl who made that promise either," Yasha said, her expression going flat in a way that was uncomfortably similar to the blank, placid expression of a Jedi that they had both learned together, many years ago. "I need to remember that more than I need to remember him."

A/N's

Holy smokes, the support that's popped up since the last update has been great. Thank you, everyone! As always, I love and appreciate your feedback, and definitely take it into consideration as the story moves forward. Until next time, cheers!

Next Time: On D'Qar, the Resistance begins to show signs of restlessness as Finn becomes further involved in the ranks. General Organa seeks to bring her brother closer to the truth. On Tatooine, the unrelenting storm begins to take its toll.