Time passed as it always did, somehow slipping by without foresight and only rendering itself apparent in hindsight. Ailsa trained harder than she had in her whole life and soon earned herself a place amongst The Grey Nameless who lived upon the ship. They floated through the sky, complete ghosts to the universe.
Yet one thing lingered in the Skylanders mind. One place called her back more than any other. Her homeland cried out to her in dreams, The Force showing her images of fire on windswept hills and waves crashing upon a silent shore. News had been filtering in that the First Order was hunting those with The Force. Surely they would not go to Skye; they had been so quiet for so long, and now Ailsa knew why. They were supposed to be grey; invisible like the salt spray that ended up everywhere before anyone knew it had come off the sea.
But her heart was heavy. Of all those in the Universe, the one many who knew of Skye was the one who led the fight against Force Users who were not on the side of Darkness. Kylo Ren. Ben. Kylo. Not Ben. Ben would never do such a thing.
Ailsa had been moved from the medical ward when she resumed her training in The Force. She had been given a small room with a big view. She had a window that took up most of one wall and looked out over the galaxy. A single bed, a chair, a desk, a bathroom that could only fit one. It was enough. It was a room for one person, and only one person ever inhabited it.
The woman spent a lot of time meditating in front of that window instead of sleeping. She could see through The Force better that way; she could see and feel Skye and touch it's vast fields. It was a happier time. It reminded her that though she had healed from the injuries sustained at The Jedi Temple, she had a scar over her soul that never quite knit itself shut. This was why Jedi did not love. Love left such marks that could not be ignored.
She had loved him. She had loved him with such a full heart. She had loved him as a friend and did not think she could care for anyone any more than she did. Yet he had shown her otherwise, and she had shown him. Ailsa was sure that Ben had felt the same. Her mind recalled long nights talking, telling stories. First they lay in the open, then side by side, then with skin on skin. She remembered what it felt to have the flesh of his body pressed so tightly to hers that she could not tell where he ended and she began.
And that was without the sex. That was just lying there tangled up; two heads of dark hair on a pillow made for childhood trainees. When they did make love it was as if time itself stood still. All there had been was breath and scent, the feel of a hand upon a shifting leg, entwined fingers, low gasps, blissful highs, and the simplicity of nearness and exploration. Even laugher
How time changed things.
How easily it influenced life.
Time had chipped away at Ben, moving in whispers, creeping up like the night on a summer's day. It crawled up to him, appearing beautiful at first before ensnaring him completely in darkness.
Ailsa stared out at the stars from her room. She sat on the floor and held one of her new lightsabers. It had to be cleaned. The other was pristine and lay nearby. She had been sent to a planet of sand just hours before and the little grains got in everywhere, ruining the feel of the weapon in hand, making it rough when it should feel smooth.
She had been tracking The Resistance and The First Order. That seemed to be all they did now. It was all that the large ship seemed to focus on. Two forces that shaped the universe. So black and white they did not see the grey lingering between them, watching from the center and surveying both sides.
A knock came at the door. It was Smith. He always knocked in a Wagnerian manner. "Ailsa, it's me." He also always spoke through the door.
She had to smile at that. For a man made mostly of mystery, he was exceptionally obvious. "It is unlocked."
The room opened with a silent whoosh, the man whose true name had never been given entering the room. He sat himself at the desk, folding himself into the space with the ease of a man who had lived on such a ship for many years.
She was becoming like that too.
She was becoming a nomad. A rumour rather than a real person. It was what the ship shaped them to be. They had to become nameless, and as war stirred anew, it became more important to stand in the background and watch unseen. All wars had spies. All wars were made up of grey areas.
Ailsa rose and set her lightsabers upon her bedside table before leaning a shoulder against the window. Smith watched her. She'd grown a little since she arrived; or so it seemed. He'd first seen her when she was sitting on the brink of death, breath so shallow and heart so slow it seemed impossible to bring her back. She was touched by ice. She had survived it.
"Are you alright, Ailsa?" Smith spoke with an odd smoothness, one that you had to get used to.
"Hmm?" Her brows raised to him, attention wavering. "Yes. Why?"
"You seem distant. Even, um, your trainer – I can never pronounce his name right – thinks so."
"Keir?" She responded, the corner of her mouth lifting as she pronounced the Skye name without fault. "I am surprised he conveyed such a thing to you at all. You and I both know he isn't here for whatever this nameless order is – he is here for the Skylanders who find themselves on board."
"Yes. I know. It just so happens that your Skylanders are the ones who need the middleman."
"Oh?"
"Don't pretend like your culture isn't a bit…rambunctious at times. We once had one Skylander throw a table clear across the room because he lost a drinking game."
Ailsa snorted in an attempt to hold a laugh back. She could see that happen. She had seen that happen. Her people had a great spirit in them, a red fire that burned in the cold. "Have I ever thrown a table?"
"No – and it worries me."
"Oh, so I should throw furniture?"
"Ailsa, please don't." He knew she could use The Force to her advantage, but he also knew that she understood where he was coming from. "You don't tell people about yourself. You don't…you don't smile a lot and when you do it is never that convincing."
She was silent. One person and one person alone knew what a real smile and a fake one looked like on her. That person was…she didn't know where he was. "I'm fine, Smith. I just need to be kept busy."
"You haven't talked about what happened at The Temple."
"I'm not going to talk about it."
"Why?"
"Would you? It is not something worth…revisiting." The death, the smoke, the chill so painful it felt like a thousand knives breaking her skin from within her flesh itself. So many bodies. So much hurt. He had betrayed her, cast her aside, intended for her to die. He had done the same to Ben Solo. He had thrown it all away for some whispers and a pull of power.
"Look, Smith. I am here because…I was never going to be a Jedi. You allow me to use The Force in the way I was trained to use it; you encourage it even. Let me do that. I am good at my job. I am good at the job you gave me. I owe this place my life, and without my life this place would not know about many beyond its reach."
Such words were very true. Ailsa had been very active in her time on board The Dauntless. She was an effective agent, slipping in and out of places without being noticed, going as a ghost and returning with harsh realities. They had information that could sway the war.
She had even assisted on a few assassination missions, standing as a lookout and finding proof. One death for the lives of many. Balance by removing a faltering force. It made sense to her. The deaths were quick and painless. As the saying went – their victims were in heaven thirty minutes before the devil knew they were dead. Yet, for most of them, the devil would surely come and claim them. If they believed in such things.
"We need you to go back to Skye." Smith leant forward in the chair.
"For what?" Ailsa hesitated.
"The First Order has been there."
Her posture stiffened a little. They had found scattered news of The First Order seeking out and finding Force Users, snuffing their lives out before they could turn to The Light. If they had been to Skye…
"You know the land and the people better than anyone. We need you to go."
"Okay." Ailsa replied a little too quickly. "Okay. Send me."
"Wait. You don't understand – you cannot go as yourself. No one can know it is you. If anyone hears that you survived…"
It was a great advantage to have Force User who was thought of as dead. No one looked for Ailsa. No one knew she lingered. No one knew she stood watch and waited for god-only-knows what.
"My family…"
"See that they are alive, but do not go to them."
She started to form words but faltered.
"Shall we send someone else?"
"No. You cannot afford to send anyone else. The First Order has their side of The Force. The Resistance has rumours of Luke Skywalker. You…you need me for balance. You need me."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
It was almost funny how time had not changed the little planet. Its folded cliff faces seemed unmoved, the waves the same hue, the wind the same bitter texture. Even the air tasted the same, the scent one of memory and childhood.
Ailsa landed a small craft on the planet, hiding it away in a sea-side cave and climbing the rocks as she had a thousand times before as a child. She had a hood up, hair tied back in a braid to hide it from any who may look. She was just a figure moving about. Folk had secrets on Skye. They did not bother those who looked like they were keeping some of their own, especially if that person wore the clothes of the planet and obeyed their customs. She knew what side of the road to walk on, she knew where to step on the path as not to slip. Nothing about her screamed stranger so they thought her one of theirs.
She was one.
She had been.
Once.
The first thing that shocked her system upon her return was the skeletal remains of a house near her own. It stood there, charred right down to the ground. It looked like a gaping tooth in a weathered smile.
It had been Ben's house. It had been their place for a fortnight. All others in the circle stood untouched, but that home had been leveled. It was so obvious that it had been there. The texts of it's history were gone, but the gap was telling. It's vacancy screamed to be noticed.
The woman stood in front of the remains of the home, the ashes damp and stirring. Cold. No sign was posted there, just a single First Order flag. Everyone knew that Ben Solo had stayed there; the nephew of Luke Skywalker. He was a Force User. He had been such a wonderful boy.
The school for Force Users had been leveled too, this time by gunfire. Its remains were jagged and hollow. It had been empty for some time.
Kylo Ren knew the stories of Skye. Ben Solo knew the stories, and Kylo Ren had used them. Word travelled in the voices of that planet, things became so obvious there.
Do not use The Force. Do not teach it. Do not think it. Do not be it. If you do – you will burn.
They all thought Ailsa dead. This was confirmed by a plaque under the family tree. It had her name on it, it had the date of her birth and the date of her death. Already the engravings were lined with sea salt blown off the water. Flowers lay there; fresh ones too. They had been set that day.
Ailsa looked to the houses she had known as a child. She looked to home. If she returned her name would not be the only one on the tree. They would burn a fire for her on the solstice. They would sing for her. She was dead.
He had killed her. He had killed what she had been and removed her from the life she had led like one might cut a bough from a tree. So be it. If that is what kept them alive, then so be it.
Ailsa found she was crying as she stood there, fingers touched upon her own name. She wandered up the hill to the filed she and Ben had first played in. She picked some wildflowers and carried them down, setting them beside those lain for her and mourning the loss of that boy.
The First Order had been there. But they had not killed anyone. No Force User died upon that place. No child was cast down. It felt as if only one had set foot upon Skye, and that no others had known. It felt as if the burning had been a secret. It felt as if that fire had been a protection. They could say they had been there, the residents could claim it so.
And yet they lived.
It was a bitterly confusing state. It did not make sense after the events at The Jedi Temple.
Maybe it was because they were grey. They were not light. There was no light there to be snuffed out, just a little glow. Sometimes a glow was enough. Sometimes it was enough to be left alone.
Ailsa left that place easily. She left Skye knowing she could not leave herself. She hoped to be back when the war was over. It would take years. But they would be safe; Skye would be safe and so would everyone she had loved and everything that had shaped her.
"What comes next?" Were the first questions Ailsa asked when she handed in her report to Smith.
"We have more information on the general of The First Order."
"Hux?"
"Yes." Smith leant back, this time in his own chair in a room lit by lights and not the stars. "Yes, Hux…" He spat the name a little, it irritating his tongue. "I do not like him. He is…too fanatical."
"Do we not wish to end this war?"
"We wish to keep balance."
"War is not a balanced thing."
"Yes. But we cannot be a player in this game, Ailsa. You know this."
"So how do we cheat?"
Smith smiled briefly. "You want Hux?"
"I want to be part of this. This is it now."
The man nodded, the heavily gelled strands of his hair not moving. "We know that Hux and his counterpart, Kylo Ren, have some animosity toward each other. Their actions go against what our sources suggest. They oppose each other, even overstepping bounds to out pace the other."
That did sound like Kylo. Ben. Kylo. Fuck. Ailsa blinked. "Is that not good though?"
"Loose cannons are never good." Smith hesitated. "I do not want to put you in a position with Kylo Ren that could compromise your…actions."
"Kylo Ren is a mask."
"The man behind it…you have a history."
"The man behind it and Ben Solo are not the same."
"That is rarely the case in these situations. Even Vader came returned to The Light."
Her jaw tightened a little. "It won't be a problem."
Smith leant forward with a sigh and offered the woman a piece of paper. "Good. We need to know about Hux. We need to know about this base they are building; where it is, how it is operating, any weaknesses in design. He is leading this charge. Find out about it. Don't let them find you. Be a shadow, be a ghost. Speak only to this com line, and do only as we tell you."
She nodded. Understood. That was that. That was how it all went now. She trained and she worked and she was a ghost. On Skye she was dead, at the Temple she was murdered, and to Ben Solo – who knew. Perhaps they were ghosts together. Only time would tell what would happen when ghosts found each other once more.
A/N: Hello lovely folk! Thank you for reading. Please feel free to leave a review - I'd love to hear from you. Constructive criticism is more than welcome!