1/21/2
Waking up in Lirium, after their "fun" night, Kylo and Rey are still facing the issue they were trying to avoid with said "fun" night.
It's not exactly the proverbial bantha in the room, but it's still there, threatening to poke through the quiet morning of making breakfast and getting ready for the day.
Kylo decides to nudge it from the side. "What's on for your day?"
She smiles at him, sitting down on the bench next to him, and forking over half of the scrambled eggs onto his plate. "As Jon would say, 'Force stuff.' Got a few hours cleared to spend with the teens to work on applied focus."
He nods at that. "Bending them into weird positions and then making them think hard about things?"
"I tend to do the bending into weird positions for everyone all together. This is more sitting comfortably, and then trying to really feel it and settle into it. Magiit wants to join in, too, and… I don't know what she'll get out of it, but I don't see why she can't come, so… It'll be interesting."
Kylo shrugs a bit, and eats a bite of the eggs before saying, "I can't image it'd hurt her. Just seems sort of boring and frustrating if you can't really touch the Force."
Rey nods a bit at that. "I'd think so, but… We're not low on room. It's not like there's any reason she can't sit in."
"Is she… okay, with just being there?"
"So far. I don't get the sense that she's jealous or frustrated… I think… I don't know exactly what she gets out of it, but I think she wants to get closer to her friends, try to understand them and what they're doing better."
"Okay."
She eats a bite of her eggs, and reaches for the salt. "How about you?"
"Still clearing out my backlog of everything I didn't do while gearing up for the First Year party. Meetings with Kinear and Schiff… Probably a half dozen other things that C8's keeping track of and I'm not."
Rey nods at that. "New Alderaan?"
"Maybe? Supposedly my legal team is getting things into place, but they've never gotten a first draft of a contract back to me in less than a month. Sometimes two." He adds a little jam to his porridge, and notices it's the last of it. "Need to get more of this."
She nods. "Finn and Chewie are due home with fresh fruit and veg soon. Once they're back, it's cooking time."
He nods at that, and then takes a bite of his breakfast. Finally he says, "Do you… want to do that?"
That also, touches, sideways, what they're not exactly talking about.
"Take the treaty to New Alderaan…"
"Yeah…"
She bites her lip, thinking. "That'd probably involve getting dressed up and looking regal and…"
"Being Lady Ren…"
She nods, still chewing on her lip.
Kylo strokes her hand. "You know, my mom was their actual princess."
"Until they booted her out."
"True… But… I mean… They didn't boot her out for her manners. They booted her out because someone else wanted her job."
"But she was good at the manners stuff, right?"
Kylo shrugs a bit. "I imagine she must have been, but… Poe's got stories of her cracking dirty jokes, and when Luke and Dad got her out of that cell, the first thing she did was grab a gun and start shooting. She wasn't exactly polite to them. I think the first thing she ever said to Luke, and bear in mind she was still in an Imperial prison when she did this, was, 'Aren't you a little short for a Stormtrooper?'"
Rey smiles a bit at that.
Kylo nods and continues on, "So… It's not like they aren't used to someone who's willing to speak their mind, or shoot first and ask question never, when they feel like it."
"But they're also used to someone who knows which fork to use, and how to… I don't know… what's a big deal on New Alderaan?"
He half smiles, a little. "Love, I'm the last person you want to ask about that. I know what I was raised with, but it's not like she ever pointed it out. This is Alderaanian culture, and this isn't. Threepio knows. He could tell you."
She sighs at that. "He could. He'd probably like doing it, too."
Kylo smiles at that. "Yes, he would." He takes another bite. "You want me to speed this up? Explain to legal we want that treaty sooner rather than later?"
"Ellie would probably like that."
"Yes, she would. That doesn't tell me if you'd like it, though."
Rey look frustrated. "I don't know. If I screw this up, it's going to go so wrong. This isn't just… I don't know… Some tiny little thing. This is 'go take a treaty to a bunch of people you don't know, and try to get them to sign it,' and… It's big. It's planet-spanning big."
Kylo strokes her hand again. "Yep. That said, there should be absolutely nothing in there, at all, that'll raise even the most finicky of eyebrows, and they did ask us for a non-aggression treaty, so…"
"So… This should be… playing on the kiddie level or something?"
"Well… Taking a non-aggression treaty to a planet known for pacifistic governance probably has an awfully low chance of backfiring on you. I mean, they're not going to respond while you're there. You deliver it, spend some time with their people, their legal people will go over it, and eventually send a marked up version to my legal people… I think you go just to look pretty and make some sort of… Image… while offering it."
"Reminding them all that if they don't much love… Who's actually in charge there?"
Kylo thinks about it. "You know, I'm not sure. Not Organa. He's attached to the royal court somehow, but not in charge of it."
"That's the sort of thing we're supposed to know, right?"
He sighs. "Probably. You were saying?"
"I'm going there to hand this thing over, and remind them that you're still an option, right? They don't like New Alderaan the way it is, they can come to you."
"Probably. Granted, that's true if you show up or not. That's true for everyone in the galaxy who can get to a recruiting station."
"True…" She stares out the window. "It's not quite the same for New Alderaan though, is it?"
He half inclines his head, and then kisses her shoulder. "Probably not." He ponders for a moment. "I suppose part of what you could be bringing over is me officially dropping myself out of the running. They'd probably like that, too."
"Probably… I mean… You never actually want to rule New Alderaan, so it's not like you need the birthright…"
"Not like I'm used to thinking of it. She signed it away before I really knew it was a thing."
Rey raises an eyebrow at that.
"I knew she was the first senator of New Alderaan. Dad would tease her with 'Your Worshipfulness' or 'Your Highness' so I knew she was Princess Leia… I just… never put that together with the idea that it meant anything for me. Not like I grew up in a palace with people calling me Prince Ben. I was probably intentionally not raised on New Alderaan for that reason. So, the first time it was real, that it mattered, was Snoke whispering in my head about how she'd struck me from the succession. How I wasn't good enough to be Prince Ben, how…" He's looking far away, at the snow pouring down outside their window. She can feel what he doesn't say, that he was never good enough, for anything. Even as a baby he wasn't ever Prince Ben. "That was one of the few times I called her, and yelled at her, and… And instead of anything useful, she got all huffy about how I could have known that had happened, like it's my fault she's got to explain to me that apparently Darth Vader was her father, and oh, by the way, we're actually, really, royalty, and yes, there's this community which used to be a planet and she's kind of their Queen, or would be if she bothered to sign up to do it. Instead of even touching that, she's getting into my dark voice again, and…" He shakes his head. "And then Luke's hovering around, pestering me about shutting the voice up, and no one thinks I'm being remotely reasonable because I'm angry I wasn't even consulted about her throwing my birthright away, or not mentioning who my grandfather was. They're all focused on how I could have known."
She rests her head against his shoulder. Then quietly says, "Do you want to be the… handsome prince? Play the role?"
He kisses her forehead. "I… maybe… Or…" There are so many emotions swirling around him right now, it's hard to pin down any given one of them, but eventually he manages to snag one. "I'd like to at least have people not outright laugh at the idea. I… want to be worthy of it? Or… turn it down for myself?" He didn't quiet mean for that to be a question, but she gets what he's saying.
"You never got to be Prince Ben, for reasons completely outside of your control, and now it might be back, and…"
"And if I toss it aside, I want to toss it aside for me. Because I choose not to do it. Not because it's being ripped away from me."
Rey nods at that. "Control. That's always going to be a thing for us, isn't it?"
"At least for me. Probably. You?"
"I think so, but from the other side. It's easier to just get swept up and flow along, you know?"
He kisses the top of her head. "Dark and light. No, on that front, I really don't know. But a lot of the things I've been swept up into also weren't attempting to take me anywhere I needed to be, so there's that, too." He fiddles with his eggs. "Maybe it's easier to get swept up if the current takes you where you need to go." He eats a bite. "Luke talked about that. Letting go with the Force. Sliding into it. Letting it carry you and take you. I didn't want to just be some sort of passive thing floating around bound to a destiny I couldn't control."
Rey looks out the window. Waiting on Jakku for… years. Finally going with Finn, joining the Resistance, going after Luke, coming here… How much of that had she chosen for herself instead of just floating along?
"If I don't want to do this?"
"Then don't."
"That's easy to say."
"It's easy to do, too."
She looks away, and pokes her breakfast. "I feel like I'm letting you down if I don't."
He closes his eyes, and kisses the top of her head. "Love, you made it abundantly clear that ruling the galaxy with me wasn't part of the deal. I'm dense about some things, but you pulled a lightsaber on me when I suggested it, so I got the message. If you do this, I'd love it. But you don't have to. I… want it, but I don't expect it."
She touches the Order of the Maji pendent on her throat. "You asked again when you gave me this."
"I know. And you didn't knock me out then, which I appreciated."
She snerks a little at how dryly he says that. "Sometimes it feels right, and sometimes it feels wrong, and sometimes it's terrifying, and… I don't like feeling… unsure about everything all the time. Like I don't know what I'm doing, or if I'm doing it right, or not knowing how things will turn out, and… It's just scary."
He smiles at that, and snuggles in closer to her. "Yeah, it is."
"And I feel like I should be certain about this. Like I should just do it or not do it and once I've made the decision feel settled and ready and… It doesn't feel that way."
He kisses her ear. "Nope. Luke told us Yoda said 'Do or do not, there is no try.' And I guess from a how things work out perspective, that's true. Either you do it or you don't, but from a thinking about things, and working toward them perspective, it's not really helpful."
"All black and white."
"Or light and dark… It's okay not to be certain, or immediately feel like this is exactly what you want to do, or not do."
"And is it okay if one day I want to do it, and the next it's too scary?"
He kisses her again. "Yeah, it is."
And neither of them mention that the Handsome Prince needs his Lady for the story to work. That this is either an all-in or not-at-all sort of thing.
Though they both feel it.
Rey feels like she should have a better name for this "class" than "Somewhat More Advanced Force Stuff Than What I Teach The Little Guys," but, well, that's exactly what it is, so…
It's after lunch. Right now Rose and Poe have the aforementioned little guys, and they're all working on making sure the rope lines between the cottages are in good shape and the Faviers have a lot of feed on hand. Cassie says a big storm is coming tonight, so… They're making sure they're good and ready for it.
Meanwhile, Rey's got Jacen, Critt, Elias, Savarah, and Magiit. Right now, they're in her cottage, because the chapel's just too cold most of the time, and it's not like they need a lot of room for just the six of them.
Sitting in the main room, on the floor, some of them cross-legged, some lying down, (Though Rey poked Jacen when he stretched out, reminding him this was thinking time, not napping time. He rolled his eyes at that.) they're settling in to just flow with the Force.
Rey's cross-legged on the floor, back resting against the comfy chair, letting her eyes close. "So the point of this is to just reach out and let yourself feel it. Sky above, ground below, life within and out, death waiting, feel all of it, feel the balance. Let it cradle and support you, and find your own spot in it, where you balance with it."
Some of the kids, like Savarah, slide into it easily. Critt has a harder time calming his mind down. It's bright and jittery in still moments like this, so Rey touches his hand, and quietly says, "If it's easier to move or bounce around when you do this, try moving around. It's probably easier for me to do this still, because I bend more light. You might need to move or pace or something, and that's okay."
He stands up and jitters a bit, while pacing, and she can feel his mind settling easier into the flow. She makes a mental note to mention that to Kylo, and ask more about how it was easier to meditate when he was writing.
Once she feels them all, even Magiit, and that surprises her, she's not sure if Magiit's riding the experience of the others around her, or if… normal people… (she doesn't like that term…) non-Force-sensitive people… (that one is clunky… finding something else to describe the difference between her and Magiit goes on the to-do list) can meditate that deeply, or… Maybe she's just imagining it very intensely, however it's working, Magiit's falling into it, too.
But once they're all settled, Rey lets herself settle, too.
The first time she saw the line of a billion versions of herself stretching into infinity… or at least the mirror, Rey wasn't really paying attention to where that line was.
She remembers the smell though. The feel of damp air. Everywhere on Ahch-to was damp.
The line is gone. She looks behind her and sees the billion Rey's behind. The line ahead of her is gone. The air, the damp, the grayish non-distinct background, that's the same.
She doesn't remember the cave. She couldn't draw it from memory, or describe it for a story. None of that matters, she knows she's there again.
She looks behind herself, and behind, there are a billion Reys all turning to look behind them. She looks ahead… The mirror appears again. And like last time it's grayed out, blurred, useless. She doesn't need a mirror, she needs a… Rey's not sure what to call the thing she needs, but she knows it's not a mirror.
She turns away from it, and the billion Reys behind her start to turn. She rolls her eyes at them. She doesn't need the visual, she gets that right here and now there's only the present and past, and the future is not yet written. The billion past Reys vanish.
Rey sits down, glances at the mirror again, even if it were to clarify, she knows what she'll see, just her.
Luke sits next to her. "I never came down here."
She shrugs at that.
"I had my own cave. On Dagobah."
"Did you find it enlightening?"
"Scary mostly. At the time. Eventually it became enlightening. Or I became enlightened. Or… Enough time passed and I grew up some, and developed some perspective."
Rey nods. "What did you see?"
"Myself. I was there to face Vader, and under his mask, it was me. I went looking for purpose, and I killed him, and for a second I felt like I'd vanquished all my demons, lived up to the man I was supposed to be, and… The mask burst off, and my own face was underneath." He looks around the cave. "What did you see when you were down here?"
Rey gestures to where the line was. "Myself. A billion versions of it, stretching on through time. I begged the mirror to show me my parents, and where I belonged, and what my purpose was, and… It just showed me, me."
Luke nods. "According to Obi Wan, there was a dark Force well under the Jedi temple on Coruscant. All of the Padawan would go, visit. Sooner or later they'd feel pulled. It… always showed you yourself. He thought that it was a warning, of what could happen if you let the dark inside take over."
"You don't think that, not anymore."
"Not anymore. When I first saw the vision, I thought it was telling me that if I killed Vader, I'd become him. Now… I can see what that vision literally showed me, that if I had killed Vader, I would have destroyed myself, too. The… things… that make me myself would have died if I'd ended him. My survival as myself was tied to finding a way to go to Vader that didn't involve destroying him."
Rey nods. "Okay."
"You looked for purpose, meaning, family, and found only yourself. What did you take that to mean, at the time?"
"That I was alone. Just me. Always just me." She shoots Luke a withering look. "It's not exactly like you were leaping up and down to offer me any assistance."
"I ended up hiding out, alone, on an island in the middle of nowhere, cut off from the Force, having attempted to kill my nephew and, by doing so, putting a future into motion where he then turned around and murdered all of my students-"
"One."
"One?" Luke look surprised by that. He'd been unconscious when Ben went after the rest of the school, and when he came to, everything was on fire, and he was the only living person on the planet. Of course, they didn't leave corpses. But some of the clothing he found was burned or cut by lightsabers… And… well, he knew who had a saber, and the skill, to have done that.
"Tash. The only one he killed was Tash. Some of the others joined him. They fought alongside him. They killed the others, who were attacking them, because when you went down, Tash made the same decision you did, and rallied a number of the rest, but apparently she didn't hesitate to strike."
Luke's eyes are tired. "No, she wouldn't have. Still, the larger point, namely that I'm not someone who was in any position to be giving anyone any sort of life advice, stands."
Rey inclines her head. "So…"
"So… What do you take from it now? It's been a few years. You are, clearly, not alone. What was the cave showing you?"
Rey sighs. She inclines her head a bit, and looks to the mirror. "It's always going to be me. My purpose, my power, my… destiny… It's me. I've got to find it for myself."
Luke nods. "You have others who will help you, and support you, but… It's always going to be you." He shrugs a bit. "Now ask me about figuring out who you are?"
"Really?"
"Yeah, it'll be fun."
She rolls her eyes at that. "Tell me about figuring out who you are?"
"It's not easy."
"Really…" The snark coming off of her is strong enough to push Luke slightly back. "I could have never guessed that."
He sniggers a bit. "Yeah, this part of it is so much more fun. Yoda knew what he was doing. Mentoring Force Ghost is a blast. Yeah, it's hard." Luke chuckles. Then he grows a bit more serious. "Especially if, say, you grew up in a world where no one had any actual plans for you, including yourself, and all you did was sort of drift along from one set of someone else's expectations to another."
Rey inclines her head and sighs. "That, I know."
"Uh huh. And then you get swept up, and everyone has an image of who you're supposed to be, and everything is immediate, right now, has to be done, and they keep talking about destiny, and…"
Rey's nodding. "Who were you supposed to be?"
Luke makes a dismissive sound. "Ask me again in a century. Maybe I'll have figured it out by then."
"If it's going to take you a century, how the hell am I supposed to figure it out, now?"
"You're not. None of us are. You just keep trying new things, and eventually, one of them will likely stick. That was something I always envied about Han. If something didn't work, he just dropped it and moved onto the next thing."
"But he kept trying new things?"
"Thief, pod racer, scavenger, scoundrel, smuggler, that was the one he liked best, I think. General, he dropped that one as fast as he could. Respectable businessman, Leia and Lando dragged him into that for a few years, and he got out of it pretty fast, too. Gambler. That was a good one."
"Father, husband?"
Luke half-smiles. "I knew a lot less about Han as either of those things. Possibly because, unlike Lando or Chewie, who he could talk with about that, I was neither of those things."
Rey's eyebrows narrow. "I know he's out there, but… You still haven't talked to him, have you?"
"No. It'll happen, eventually, but… The first lesson Obi Wan taught me was that he got too cocky, decided he could train Vader on his own, and failed miserably at it. And… I walked right into the same trap. I know I heard him say it, but I didn't listen. I was so sure that if I could just… get Ben, that I could understand him, and guide him, and show him where and how he belonged in the Force, and… Especially once I had Tash… I mean… she just flourished, soaking every lesson up like a sponge, and… Ben… He was Ben. How could it not work?"
"But Kylo was a person, not an extension of your will, or a mirror of your successes."
"A person with his own wants and needs and… I was going hard on Han about how he needed to be trained, how leaving him to his own devices, or Han's, was just setting him up to explode, and… Then I pretty much built the bomb and set it off, so…" Luke looks chagrined at this. "We'll talk, eventually. All angers cool, eventually, but… Probably still got a few more decades to go."
"Ah…"
Luke shrugs. "The one thing we've got is time." He nudges Rey's shoulder. "You've got time, too. You don't have to figure it out. Just… keep trying. Maybe it sinks in and works, maybe it doesn't. The worst you can do is fail, and… well… It's not like you won't have plenty of us to keep you company if you do."
Rey sniggers at that. "Uh huh." Then she grows more serious. "How many people die if I fail too badly?"
Luke offers her a half-smile. "Rey, everyone dies. You can't save any of them. Push it back some, pull it forward maybe, but you cannot save anyone. There is a perfect one to one ratio of births to deaths and you are not going to change that, nor should you try."
"That's not what I mean…"
"I know, but it's important to understand that. The universe, the Force, has immutable laws, and we are not above or beyond them. Sooner or later you will fail. It may, and given the scale we play on, probably will get people killed. Sooner or later you will succeed, and that may, and given the scale we play on, probably will get people killed. What was my greatest success?"
Rey shrugs. "Turning Vader?"
"I like to think so. You want to guess how many people died because of that? Arguably more than if I'd failed, he'd cut my head off, and the Emperor crushed the Rebellion then and there. Thirty years of civil wars, the rise of Snoke, and the destruction of the Hosnian system likely all flow from that moment. All of it ripples well beyond us and… There's no way to control the wave, no way to foresee where it's going to go, no possible way to even begin to contemplate how many people any one of your actions will touch, let alone how it'll touch them. So, yeah, you'll fail. People will die. You'll succeed. People will die." He sighs. "Unless you want to curl into a petrified ball of indecision, it's probably better to just take responsibility for the ones you are directly responsible for, and lay the rest of them on the Force."
"Uh huh, and did that work for you?"
Luke looks out over the pond in the cave. She's not sure what he's seeing, but her guess is those ripples from saving Vader, or destroying the Death Star. "Some days better than others. That said, I did absolutely no one, including myself, any good hiding off on Ahch-To, so… I have some experience on the petrified ball of indecision side of things."
"I suppose so." She pokes at the floor of the cave. "I'm afraid that if I fail, I'll hurt him. Make his job harder, discredit him... something. So many other people have hurt him, and… I don't want to be one of them."
Luke nods. "Han sung that song a lot, too. I don't recall Leia ever being particularly sympathetic to it. She wanted the harder road with him. Not the easier road on her own. I think Ben feels the same."
"I know. It's still terrifying."
"Yeah. It is. But like pretty much everything else, the more you do something, the better you get at it, the less scary it gets."
"Does it?"
Luke nods. "At least in my experience." Luke nods toward… Rey's living room. She can see it from where they're sitting. "They're stirring. Time to get back to them."
"Okay. Thanks."
"You're welcome."
Rey's pulling herself back to her body, when Luke catches her attention one last time. "Rey. The Guardians of the Whills. Chirrut Imwe. Look them up, and give Magiit what you find. She'll like it."
"Okay." And then she's back in her living room with a collection of kids, all slowly getting their feet under them and brains back in their heads.
1/23/2
It'd be easier if the decision just… went away.
She can feel that Kylo sees the value in this. Or at least wants to explore beginning to try it. She can also feel him definitively not pushing it.
It feels a lot like hiding who he was. He won't tell her to stop. He won't fuss at her for it. He will make it clear that this is something they're doing for her, though, and that he's not sure it's the best plan.
Granted, the timeframe on this feels a lot narrower. She's sure they don't have to make a decision on this right now but she does get the sense that the longer they don't do anything about it, the less effective eventually doing something will be.
She's between classes right now, an hour in which she's supposed to be reading and thinking about how the Divine Accord of Sepulchina understands the nature of the Force (though they call it Spirit) and why it does what it does.
The text in front of her is dry, boring… Written in dense verbiage likely to keep outsiders away.
She flicks off her datapad, closes her eyes, breathes deeply, and settles into the flows of the Force. She knows who she's looking for, though she's also a bit nervous about seeking her out.
When she opens them, the light blue glow of her… mother-in-law… though thinking of her as such feels odd, is filling the room.
Leia looks… wryly amused. That's likely it. She settles back so she's leaning against the workbench opposite Rey in the comfy chair.
"It's been a very long time since I used to imagine family chats with a daughter." She smiles. "And let me guess, having the mother-in-law over for a heart to heart is nothing you ever imagined."
Rey would have to admit that was true. "I didn't even know it was a thing when I was younger."
Leia nods. "I can imagine. I was raised with grandparents, who genuinely liked my parents, so… It was part of my map of what a family looks like." She holds her hand up, looking through it to Rey. "Granted, I was expecting to be a tad more solid when I did this. Maybe coffee or wine would have been involved."
Rey shrugs. "You're the one who chose to go."
"Maybe. The Force knew my time was over." Rey's not sure if that's true, but she also doesn't want to debate it. "So…" Leia leads. "Tell me about it."
And Rey does.
Leia listens, and nods, and winces from time to time, and nods some more, and asks good questions, and after about half an hour says, "So, in an effort to make the First Order—"
"The Order. It hasn't been the First Order for a while now. And in time it'll be the Order of the Maji."
"Uh huh…" Though Leia appears pleased that Rey's corrected her on that. "So, in order to get people to want to join, and go along with whatever it is your Order is going to do, which, as of right now, you don't yet know, you and…" it's only a second's pause, and Rey likely only notices it because she's listening intently, "my son," once she's said that, Rey supposes that's better than the Ben that was attempting to go tripping off her tongue, "will package yourselves as a pretty, shiny, storybook version of yourselves and try to win a public relations war before any shooting actually begins?"
Rey's not sure if that's right, but she can feel Leia's intent behind it, so it's close enough. "Yes?"
Leia thinks about it for a moment. "Honestly, I've heard worse plans. I've made worse plans. I've executed worse plans, and I've won with worse plans." She pauses. "And, really, it's not like we didn't… uh… try. For a while there… I mean, Luke was young and pretty and kind of like a Jedi, and… well, we didn't mind shining cameras on him when he wasn't paying too much attention. Granted, when he did, we had to stop, because he'd run away, but… There's probably footage of the awards ceremonies lurking around somewhere. And those were intentional to try and garner public support for the Rebellion.
"When we were trying to set up the New Republic… Well, it was obvious to any of us who were actually Rebels that restarting the Republic was the way to go. But… That wasn't obvious to a lot of other people. Just because they didn't love the Empire didn't mean they saw any reason for an overarching mega-government, didn't mean they thought democracy mattered a whit, and didn't mean that they didn't want an Empire, just run by someone else.
"And, looking back, the biggest thing I wish I could change was doing a better job of making them want a Republic. Power…" She rubs her lips together. "When I was young and stupid, I thought power was something we could vanquish, and then by coming up with the right answer, everyone else would just immediately see it was the right answer, and they'd all happily come skipping over to me and mine, and we'd just rule and it'd be great."
"And that's not how it worked."
"At all. I'd put so much into Rebelling, I, and most of the rest of us, didn't have much of a plan for what to do when we won."
"Did you think you were going to win?"
"I'd certainly hoped so, but… Judging by the lack of plans beyond: Restart Republic, it does appear very few of us thought we would." She taps her fingers on the workbench. "That said, we did win. And we were young and pretty. And I know some people joined us just for that. Especially after the victory over the first Death Star. People came to be on the winning side. It was enough to get them in the door." Leia inclines her head. "It wasn't enough to keep them. So, as a way to intrigue people, as a way to get them to want to know more, being pretty and lovey, the living fairy tale, that's not a bad plan, but you're going to need something of substance to keep them there.
"Which gets us back to power. Power is eternal. Maybe it shifts about some, wanders here and there, but at the absolute best you might smooth it out a little more, and make it a bit less concentrated, but you're not going to get rid of it, or end up with a situation where everyone has an equal amount. Force alone knows we tried, but…
"So, the question is, what do you do with your concentration of power? How do you get people to join you so you can keep said power? I suppose, if you get them to keep joining, your power grows. How do you defend that power? What do you do with people who don't want you to have it?
"You and Kylo can be as pretty as you like. You can make the galaxy want to be near you by using charm and good looks. It certainly never hurt Lando that he was pretty, smooth, and instantly likable. But, like Lando, and unfortunately, unlike the New Republic, you've got to have a plan of what to do with that power."
She stops there, thinking, and Rey can feel her imagining her 'old friend.'
"Lando had a great advantage over the New Republic. Two of them really. First of all, he was it. What he said, went, and if you didn't like it, you could leave. Or he'd fire you. The second one was he wasn't trying to run the entire galaxy. He had the Corporation, and it had its sub corps, holdings, shell corps, and, of course, the ghost network that didn't, officially belong to the Corporation, but we all knew it did. He was big enough that others didn't try to take him out, not directly at least, and he was small enough, and everyone working for him was working for one goal, that he didn't have to try to get everyone in the universe to go along with one plan."
"What was his plan?"
"He started with mining, and then moved into refining, and then moved into the engineering to make the things that do the mining and refining, and then shipping to get the stuff he mined and refined around, and then his miners, refiners, engineers, producers, and shippers all needed stuff, so he started to buy up the things that made the stuff they needed. He didn't have a perfect vertical monopoly, but only because every step of his operation needed so many things."
"Sounds easy to abuse."
"It is. History is littered with people who abused the hell out of that sort of a setup. But, scoundrel he was, he also needed to be adored, and didn't need to be any richer than he was, so not abusing it mattered to him. He made more money than a thousand people could ever spend in a thousand lifetimes, and well-paid employees tend to like their employer, so there was that, too. Plus… Scoundrel that he was, he was also part of the Rebellion, and he learned that lesson well. Even the Empire, backed by a trillion guns, two Death Stars, and a Dark Force wielding monster, couldn't keep an unhappy population tied down forever."
"I wish I had known him."
"I wish you could have known him, too. He was… One of a kind."
"You miss him."
"I do."
Rey's brows furrow. "Is he… not out there, somewhere?"
"If he is, we haven't found him, yet."
"Oh."
"He wasn't any sort of Force sensitive, Rey. I… Don't know, but I don't think they get to be here."
"I've talked to Han."
"I know. I have, too. I've… been thinking about that, a lot. Since… He's here. And so many others, just… aren't. And I don't know if he's here because he's not done, or if his constant, 'I've got a bad feeling about this' was a very low level of Force sensitivity. Maybe we missed his low light, because ours was so bright. Maybe he spent enough time in close contact with other Force sensitives it rubbed off. I don't know.
"Luke says no one is ever really gone, but… There are some people I'd like to see again, and as of yet, I haven't found them."
"Your parents?"
"Yes. Very much so. But that's not here or there. You're here for more than my opinion on if The Handsome Prince gambit can work."
"I am…" Rey looks shy. "How do you… be the Pretty Lady?"
Leia grins at her. "However the fuck you want to be. Don't let them change you, just… be a shinier version of yourself, and if that means telling a bugger to fuck off when a bugger needs to fuck off, well, you tell the bugger to fuck off, and you make sure your eyeliner is perfect while you do it. The people who want you will say you're forthright and honest, and the ones who don't will call you rude and uncultured. But the thing is, you will never, ever, no matter what you do, please the ones who don't want you to be there, so you might as well just be whatever version of you you want to be for the ones who do want you."
"That doesn't sound like being the Pretty Lady."
Leia waves that away. "There's a reason why so many people wanted me to be the face of the Rebellion, and it's not because I was the best strategist, sharpest pilot, or the highest ranked general, or anything like that. I'm… or I was… pretty. And a princess. And Alderaanian… And… That made an attractive image of a downtrodden, horribly abused people rising up to fight injustice and right the universe. And then we won. Sticking me in front of the New Republic was a PR victory all in and of itself. The little guy won, and I was the perfect 'little guy.' I was me, too, always me, but I was also an image, and ideal, a face stuck on posters, and twenty-second sound bites on news holos, and…
"And, if you are in public. If you chose to be… Mrs. Ren?"
"Mistress Rey of the Maji."
Leia curls her lip a bit at that. "You might want to work on that, people like catchy titles, and I'm not sure if that is one. Anyway, if you are The Mistress on any level, people will warp your image to fit their needs. There's nothing you can do about that. You will be all things to all people in all ways."
"And the only way to avoid that?"
"Is to hide. Han did an… okay… job of it. Once I stopped making him come to public events, he more-or-less faded from view. People eventually forgot about him, stopped asking about if he was going to be the Prince Consort of New Alderaan the way my father had been."
Rey feels that. "You're still annoyed by that."
Leia shrugs. "Politics is a difficult game, and… You can't do it alone. You need a partner. Someone who's got your back and just as committed to it working as you are. Someone who shares your vision, and will back your plays, or come up with even better ones.
"I had a great staff. Threepio was more of a chief of staff than anyone could ever ask for. But… I needed Han to be someone he wasn't willing to be and… Force knows trying to make someone be something they aren't is always going to be a losing battle, but… I lost, and it still burns."
Rey nods at that, noting Leia both saying Han wasn't willing to do it, and that he also wasn't who she needed. She decides part of the anger is that Leia hasn't yet let go of the idea that Han just wouldn't do it for her. Not that he was incapable of it.
Granted, Leia was married to him, and Rey'd spent eight hours with him, so she doesn't know if he couldn't do it, or wouldn't.
"Did he… have your back outside of the spotlight?"
"All fifteen minutes I was out of it? Yes." Leia rubs her temples. "There really wasn't an out of the spotlight. The New Republic needed more and more and more, and in a lot of cases, apparently I was the only one who could do whatever it was, and if I was doing it, people were watching."
Rey feels the regret at that. "That's something you would have changed if you could."
"In retrospect… The whole bloody thing wasn't going to implode if I, personally, didn't handle every third item on the list. But… I was always shit at delegating. Not being in charge makes me itchy in a way I don't like."
"I can see that."
"It doesn't make you itchy…" She thinks about that. "Never bugged Luke, either. He could just go with the flow."
Rey's about to say 'Light side versus dark' but she gets the feeling that calling Leia a darksider is not a good idea. "Will he fail without me?"
Leia shrugs. "I don't know. I do know going in lukewarm and resenting him for it will make everything worse. Either all-in or all-out. Maybe… I don't know… If Han hadn't tried at first… Hadn't gotten my hopes up that maybe he… could… have been my Prince Consort… Maybe it would have been easier. Or maybe I would have always been annoyed by it. I don't know.
"I do know what we did do, didn't work."
Rey nods. "Okay. Thank you."
Leia smiles a bit. "You're welcome."
It's later that night, after dinner, when Rey asks Kylo, "If I wanted to talk to Ellie, on my own, how would I do it?"
He beams at her as he hands over his comm. "I'll get you your own. Just hold the button, say who you want to talk to, and it'll connect you."
Rey nods. She doesn't say anything else about what she's been thinking, and he lets her hold her peace.
1/24/2
This time, they're on Ellie's ship. Part of, apparently, learning what a functional, attractive, politically feasible space looks like. And also, part of it is knowing the conversation will be private. Ellie doesn't know how secure Kylo's rooms are. She knows hers are airtight.
Rey sees the tea tray, and the pile of nibbles.
Ellie pours and serves her. "Rank isn't an issue in a situation like this. For private, friendly meetings, one serves in one's own home."
Rey nods. She's not sure if she likes the idea of eating with every serious conversation, but it does seem to help her settle her mind and nerves. She sips the tea, nibbles a cookie, and says, "Tell me more about the Handsome Prince and his Lady."
Ellie grins at her, a wide, warm, unreservedly pleased smile on her face. "The story varies from place to place and time to time, but the particulars tend to be the same. The Handsome Prince, who may or may not have taken a dark turn, depending on the story, is born to a good, pure, and most importantly just birthright. In some of the stories, he's the prince in hiding. His birthright stolen by whomever he's going to conquer."
"Bartered away by his mother?"
"Only if she's the evil-stepmother in the story. Otherwise, Mum'll be the long-lost, but well-remembered pillar of feminine good and honor."
Rey's got a wry look on her face as she says, "Well, reality is already biting the story."
"Hush. First of all, almost everyone in the galaxy thinks of his Mum as the well-remembered pillar of feminine good and honor. Secondly, we don't have to recreate the story beat for beat, just… give the impression of it. No matter what, the story begins with the Kingdom in ruins and some sort of evil sorcerer, king, tyrant, merchant, whatever has stolen control from the Good King and Queen.
"Now, our handsome prince is either actively trying to regain the throne of said kingdom or he's being held in sway by the Evil Tyrant."
"And that's the version of the story we're going to go with?"
Ellie sips her tea. "I'm thinking that's the one that will most readily mesh with reality."
"So, what is the Handsome Prince, who's currently part of Team Evil, going to do?"
"At some point, he's going to meet his Lady. Something about her, often how pretty she is, but not always... her looks, purity, goodness, lightcatches his interest, and he decides maybe he doesn't want to be the henchman of Evil Incorporated."
Rey flashes her a wry look. "All of his ambitions waylaid by his shaft?"
Ellie chuckles. "We tend not to put it in those terms. Especially not in the versions we tell to children."
"Ah."
"Now at some point, the Handsome Prince rescues his lady love from some terrible fate, winning her adoration and affection, and proving himself worthy of her. He will, of course, in the process of doing this, cease to be the puppet of the Tyrant, and reveal himself as the true heir to King and Queen Good and Merciful." Ellie smiles again, sips her tea, and says, "What can or will you do with that?"
Rey shrugs a bit, and takes another bite of her scone. "I mean… It… Fits. It's not like we'd have to… lie about what happened." She picks at one of the dried fruits on the scone. "The Pretty Lady sounds kind of passive."
"Yes, well, these are often tales told by men. We can, and will," there's a sharpness to Ellie's look, "make sure no one thinks you were just hanging about waiting to get rescued. Likewise, we'll make clear that any rescuing on the Handsome Prince's part wasn't just about… satisfying the desire of his parts."
Rey nods. "I certainly didn't. I bloody well shipped myself to the Supremacy to rescue his ass. And then he rescued mine. Maybe? He rescued me, that's certain. He killed Snoke… Maybe for himself… Mostly for me. Dark has a hard time staying put. Loyalty requires enough light to find getting into a pattern easy, and getting out of it hard."
"And of course, both Anakin, and your Kylo, were Jedi once upon a time. Enough light to take the training and succeed at it."
"Barely, but yes. I was facing Kylo. Snoke was going on and on about how he couldn't be betrayed, how he owned Kylo on every level there was to own him, and… hate, rage, jealousy, pain… Force, so much pain… All of it was boiling through his skin, and I was sure he was going to cut my head off. I was kneeling, begging him not to do it, and…" Rey's remembering that moment. "He has that very expressive face."
Ellie's nodding. "Everything he was feeling was right on it, I'd bet."
"The only bit he was hiding was who it was aimed at. That might have been the only time he's ever tried to bluff, and he pulled it off, perfectly, cut Snoke in half instead of me… But… Is that your rescue? I sent myself to the Supremacy to get Ben back. Threw myself into the path of the monster, because I was sure, like Luke with Vader, I guess, that he wouldn't sacrifice me to Snoke. And he didn't."
"But you didn't get… Ben?" Rey nods. "Ben back. You thought you were in the story—"
"I'd never heard the story at that point."
"Well, there's a reason they're archetypal narratives. Almost everyone has a version of them somewhere in their minds. In the story, your act of bravery should have gotten you the Good Prince back, or in this case, your Jedi?" Rey nods. "But you didn't get your wayward Jedi back.
"That's the story they told all of us, that when Vader killed the Emperor, that he returned to Anakin. He freed himself of his master, and the name of Darth Vader. You'll forgive that that might have been the official story, but very few people believed it. They were willing to give it lip service, because, after all, he was Luke Skywalker, and that was his father. And it didn't do to rub the unlikelihood of that story in the face of the only living Jedi.
"You'll note, though, Kylo's mother didn't breathe a word of being Leia Skywalker to anyone, until they forced it out of her. She understood that no one, really, believed that Vader died redeemed. Or that Vader could be redeemed by one last minute act of murder… or love… Your Kylo though, because he didn't die a minute after taking out Snoke…" Ellie sips her tea and corrals her thoughts.
"Redemption is a lifelong arc. Kylo has a lot of history to pay for, both his own," Ellie makes a bit of a face at that, indicating that Kylo's own, personal history isn't exactly as well-shined as she would have liked, but it's also not nearly as bad as it could be, "and a lot of history that he inherited from his family, his associations," which Rey takes to mean Snoke, "and grudges held against him for no good reason," Rey can feel Ellie thinking of Mirina Frakes, though she's a symbol of those who would hold the entire Rebellion against Kylo, not just his family.
"If he stays in the roll of the Handsome Prince, and continues along the path he seems to have settled on for right now, he'll go down as one of the great redemption stories. We can sell the idea of your love as the motive factor behind that story."
"I'm not sure if the love of me motivated this…"
Ellie just looks at Rey. "Honey, he cut the most powerful Force wielder the galaxy had ever heard of, in half, for you. He spent eight years taking everything Snoke dished at him, then you show up, and six days later, Snoke's been bisected by a lightsaber. Yes, Kylo benefited greatly from doing that. Yes, given the fact that you didn't immediately jump into his arms, and," she delicately clears her throat, "reward him for his service, amid the pile of corpses, it may have ended up feeling more like something he did for himself, but… He cut Snoke in half for you. His part of the story, where he saves the Princess from the Evil Dragon and proves himself worthy—"
"Saved. He didn't prove himself worthy… Well… Until he started freeing slaves and… R'Leah… They were giving him crap about the taxes, and… He wanted to just blow them out of the sky. It would have been so easy to just take them out, send a clear message to the rest of the galaxy. Your 'Do not fuck with Kylo Ren,' message. But… I told him I'd abide what he did, or not, and… He knew that was something I couldn't abide, so…"
Rey rubs her lips together. "I took the leap of faith before he'd 'earned me.' And he made sure I landed soft."
Ellie gives Rey's hand a little squeeze. "That's any good relationship. You'll take your leaps of faith, and trust your partner to catch you, and he does. Pat and I have leapt more times than either of us can count, and we've always had the other's back."
"He had my back. Literally and figuratively. And I've had his. And… I guess I got myself into a situation where he found the motivation to get out of a bad situation, for both of us. And then we spent about a year just sort of… growing up, I guess. Together, sort of. We'd talk. He was getting the Order into play, and I was figuring out where I didn't want to go, which isn't necessarily as good as where you do want to go, but is better than not having a plan at all."
Ellie grins at that. "Knowing where not to go is almost as good as where to go, and in many cases it'll save you even more trouble."
Rey shrugs. "Okay."
"I've been told you're the motivation for his slave-freeing idea."
"When he killed Snoke, he asked me to rule with him, and I… well… uh… pulled a lightsaber on him, and ended up knocking both of us out."
"Ah. So you turned down his first proposal."
"Technically, I think that was the second. He told me I needed a teacher before, and that he was offering to be said teacher was unspoken, but I knew he was talking about him."
Ellie continues to grin as she sips her tea. "It may not be exactly according to script, but this sounds like an epic romance to me." Another sip. "So, like in many of a different sort of romance, you say no, and run off. He still hadn't proven himself, or was still in need of some serious changing, or both… This is very common in redemption arc stories. That's the point of why no one in the wider world believed the Vader redemption story. Just one act of murder isn't enough. He didn't earn his redemption.
"So you separate, he had to go off and fix himself up, so he could win you. And then, well, you jumped the gun a bit on the full fixing up, but, well, it's not like you two would have been the first to get to the fun part before nailing down all of the niggly bits.
"In fact, it's generally only in stories that couples get all the little bits nailed down properly before jumping in, or at least jumping each other."
Rey smirks a bit at that. "Did you and Pat have… most everything nailed down?"
Ellie laughs at that, hard. "We had a raging case of hot pants for each other, a contract signed by our parents, and… a common goal of making our family as strong and stable as possible. The details worked themselves out over the next thirty years. By the time we were grandparents, we'd gotten mostly everything ironed out."
"Mostly?"
"Mostly. It's been seventy-two years, and, really, if we had everything sorted, it'd be boring."
Rey laughs at that. Then she touches her hair, aware of the fact that it's just sort of hanging there, and says, "How pretty does the Handsome Prince's Lady have to be?"
"You're more than pretty enough."
Rey looks at her nails. No polish on them right now, because she's been working and whatnot. There is dirt under them, because earlier today she was working in the microfarm, digging potatoes. "Do I… always have to be… polished or… elegant… I mean… A lot of the time I'm in ratty clothing, and tired and sweaty, and teaching kids how to do things like dig trenches for pipes or working hard on balance and flexibility and…"
Ellie sees the dirt under the nails. And the utilitarian hair. And the fact that her clothing is functional, hard wearing, and warm.
"On the downside, no matter what you do, someone will complain about it. If you're always proper, fashionable, and well-dressed, someone will fuss about you being fake, or spending too much money on clothing or… Something. If you are out and about like this, someone will fuss about you being dirty or plain.
"That said, that's a particular challenge no woman can win. Because you are a women, people will feel entitled to complain about what you wear and how and why. I know Jon's giving you ideas, and working on a look for you, and staying in it when you're in public is probably a good idea.
"And, honestly, take the time, set up an appointment, and talk with Mirina. Jon learned every trick he knows from her, but she's got libraries full of other ones he's never before seen. There are… Places… Understandings of power… Where men, and yes, I understand we're talking about Jon, but he's not an exception to this rule, just don't go. I'm sure his mother and sisters slipped a lot by him over the years, and he just wasn't even near equipped to begin to see what they were doing.
"Between the two of them, they can set you up with an image that I'm sure you'll be comfortable in, that will get a minimum of commentary from the wider galaxy."
More time with Mirinia is somewhat intimidating, but… Again, if she's going to do this, working with someone who wants her to succeed because her success will help her son succeed, should be fairly easy compared to the galaxy at large, who wants her to fail.
Ellie's continuing on. "On the other hand, because you are, to a degree, upending the traditional Prince's Lady, who's more of a prize than a person, you can likely get away with more range in how you look.
"And there's a wide range of people who seem to really approve of the idea of a somewhat rough-shod person, who happens to have a lot of good looks and personal charm, slipping into the upper echelons of power."
"Another story?"
"The orphan who ends up a queen? Yes, there are a lot of versions of that, too. I'll make sure a datapad with a lot of stories gets delivered to Kylo's rooms for you." Ellie takes another drink. "Did you look yourself up?"
"Not yet."
Ellie nods. "Rey… I don't know, but I can empathize, on why you don't want to, why it's difficult, and what you're afraid of finding. How both no one and a huge line of some ones are terrifying in different directions. But… If there is anything you need to learn from the family you've married into, it's that secrets make us vulnerable, and secrets you personally don't happen to know are even more dangerous.
"Since we're building an image, things that can damage that image can cause trouble. If you have family, and you don't know that, and they pop up, and decide to make a plausible claim that you're an ungrateful little tramp who ran away and joined the First Order…" Rey's wincing. "People will lie. They'll do it for money, power, kicks, attention, and sheer perverse cussedness. Unfortunately, your home world no longer exists and the people who can verify you spent your formative years in Jakku are gone. Though, given what you've said about them, that's likely to your benefit."
Rey looks uncomfortable about that. "People will just… forget… about what he did to Jakku?"
Ellie smirks a bit at that. "Oh, no. They absolutely won't. All in all, it likely was a good decision, at least as a power play, on his part."
Rey looks horrified at that.
Ellie shakes her head a bit, and takes a sip of her tea. "Tell me how you felt when he told you he'd done it."
Rey shifts, uncomfortably. "I… Sick?"
"Not how you were supposed to feel. How you actually felt. That first, full brush of understanding it. When you were just feeling, not thinking." There's a look on Ellie's face, and Rey's not sure what it means, but it almost makes her feel like Ellie knows her better than she knows herself.
"Pleased." Rey says it very quietly.
Ellie nods. "And for more than just revenge, I'd bet. Pleased that he'd done it. For you. Your man loved you so much he killed everyone he could find who'd ever done you wrong. Proud of his power. Your man could go kill everyone he could find who'd ever done you wrong. Strong. He laid his power at your feet, in your service. You liked that, didn't you?"
Rey bites her lip, and looks away from Ellie to the planets spinning beyond the transteel wall. "I shouldn't."
"That's likely true, if we were angels and not people, but we're people, so let's stick to what you actually felt. Pleased, powerful, cherished, aroused…"
Rey squirms a bit. She feels naked and open in a way she's normally not, especially with someone who isn't Kylo. "I'm not sure about that last one."
"Really?" The look on Ellie's face makes Rey wonder what, exactly, Pat's done in the past that involved having her back.
"Uh… we were… close… when he told me, so… I'm not sure how to sort that out."
Ellie grins. "Interesting pillow talk. That said, those feelings are… normal. Common even. If you chose to let that story out, billions of people will, just at the idea of it, feel those same sensations, or the desire for them." Ellie sips her tea again. Then she shakes her head a bit. "Beyond your own feelings of how 'moral' people are supposed to act, there is no downside on this story for you or him.
"You are literally a woman of such great worth that he'd obliterate an entire planet for you. And he is a man of such power that having desired a planet to cease to exist, he made it do so.
"For him, in many cultures he's done the absolute, base minimum of what honor demands in this sort of situation, and honestly, he likely should have sent a bunch of Stormtroopers down to grab the man who bought you so he could have personally disemboweled him in front of you, before blowing the planet up, and after hunting down anyone else who'd routinely done business down there around the time you were hurt, and dragged them back down there to die, too.
"In much of the galaxy, a huge part of what it means to be a husband is that you are a man who will provide for and protect your wife and children. Your status as such depends on how well you do those things, and how clearly you've taken care of what's yours.
"In wider parts of the galaxy, what it means to be a King, is that you are the man who will provide for and protect your people. Now, if he'll blow up a planet for you, the thinking goes that he will protect his people, too. The attacks on Qualee sealed that idea.
"If there is going to be an ideal of Master Ren, a sense of how to use his dark and violence in a way that makes people want to be near him, protector is it.
"So, no people will not forget Jakku. Nor should they."
Rey thinks about that. "And… The Prince's Lady… She's… the one who bends that violence toward protection, away from destruction?"
"Maybe. Did she?"
And again Rey feels the plasteel of the deck below her knees, and sees Kylo looking down at her, saber in hand, as Snoke droned on and on.
"Yes."
Ellie's pleased with that. "Like I said a little bit ago. There are spheres of power where men just don't go. Many of them don't even understand that these spheres exist, because when they're used well, they believe that the ideas and motivations and maneuvers are all their own. And sometimes, they mock these spheres, or say they aren't really power." Ellie rolls her eyes at that. "They're wrong about that, but, well, being wrong is rarely the sort of thing that'll stop a motivated man. Much, generally, to the detriment of all involved.
"But the wise man understands that power flows in many directions and through many channels, and he takes advantage of all of them."
"Pat?"
"The two of us wouldn't have made it this far if we hadn't understood, and valued, what the other one could bring to the table.
"Let's take our Jon for a moment, who, I understand, is significantly better-trained for this sort of job than you are, but, for reasons I'm certain you aren't immediately grasping, isn't suitable for this sort of thing."
Rey nods. That sums it up well. Though not entirely. "How about, I'm not seeing why I'm suitable for it if he isn't."
"Ah… Okay. Human societies, generally, not always, but generally tend to arrange themselves in one of three ways, patriarchies, where the people running things are generally, but not always, men. Matriarchies, where the people running things are generally, but not always, women. And egalitarians, where anyone might be in any place of power."
Rey thinks about that for a moment. She's been studying religions and that tends to go with history and politics, so… "I'm familiar with the ideas. The Order is egalitarian."
Ellie shakes her head. "The Order may eventually be egalitarian, but right now it's borrowing very heavily from the Empire which was a patriarchy."
Rey's eyes narrow. It's clear she understands what Ellie's saying, but not necessarily seeing why.
"It's not just that a lot of the upper echelons of the Order are, at this point, Empire left-overs, it's that the First Order's extremely top-heavy, highly structured, and rigid training mechanisms are still shadowing the Order."
"That doesn't sound like a sex difference."
"I don't know if it is one or not, but, in general rigid structures and patriarchies tend to go hand in hand. Matriarchies can also be extremely rigid and rule following, but they'll often go about it in a different way, and egalitarians seem to have a difficult time with rules and structures and whatnot, because they also seem to have a difficult time with the idea that some people are supposed to be followed without question."
Rey purses her lips.
"We'll get into this more, later. For the time being, the Order is a patriarchy. Part of that means it has rigid codes and rules and places for everyone.
"Thus, not only is Jon a man, but, he's got rank and you don't. As the Lt. Colonel, or the Grand Marshal, or wherever he chooses to end up, he is part of the official structure of the Order, and is known as a hand of the Master. Anything that goes to him goes through official channels, and is part of the record. Because he is part of the diplomatic wing, speaking, hinting, sleeping, or whatever with him, is seen as speaking, hinting, sleeping, or whatever with The Order."
"Did the people at the First Year Party know that?"
"Oh, absolutely. I'm sure all three of the ones who ended up with Jon understood exactly what they were doing when they shifted their focus away from Kylo to him. I'm sure Jon understood what he was doing with that, too. He knows how to play the game, he's just not… well-suited for some of it.
"An entreaty to Jon is… public, for lack of a better word. It's real and official. One state talking to another. Because that's how power flows between men of rank. An entreaty to you is unofficial, it's one person talking to another one, feeling things out, seeing if an idea is worth moving the men with ranks into place to make it official.
"This feeling things out… This is where most diplomacy, most deals, most of the work that makes states function, happens. This is where the role of the Queen comes in in a patriarchy. It's her job to get the players into place, so that when it's time to move the official people in, everything is set."
"That's what you do."
"Yes, and I do it spectacularly. And to do that, people need to be comfortable," Ellie nods to the tea set, and looks around at her very comfortable rooms.
"People are generally, more comfortable with 'their own type.' What that means will vary from person to person, but most women are more comfortable with another woman. A sense of shared experience or what have you. Jon can't… take advantage of that, and while I know he has much more experience with women-only places than most men, he's still a man, and when he's around, ladies will… tailor their words and topics of conversation, and now that he has rank, they will tailor it further, while playing whatever games they can with him."
"They'll see me, and… assume I… know these things."
"Yes. Our physical shapes effect how people interact with us. It's, again, part of sending the message, and managing how people relate to you."
"What if I don't know… How to… I don't know, be a woman? The way you mean it."
Ellie smiles. "That, too, can be useful. People will have a set of expectations for you, and defying them allows you space to maneuver, and put them off balance. Shift how they have to interact with you, and how they see you.
"Ignorance is a limited virtue. You can only play that card so many times before people become aware of that fact that, if you're still ignorant, you're too stupid to be in the game. That said, you can, if you choose, use it to your advantage. If you… intentionally misunderstand something, you can force people to make themselves 'more plain.' Say the things they'd prefer not to say, or in your case, get them to think about the things they shouldn't think."
"People who think I'm… rough and stupid—"
"Ignorant. Lacking in information. It's abundantly clear just by being near you, you aren't stupid."
"Okay, ignorant. They'll… let things slip. Say and think what they shouldn't."
"Exactly. Depending on where we are and what we're doing, Pat will play drunk at public functions. People will say things they shouldn't to a man in his cups, assuming he won't remember. Likewise, they'll trust things a drunk says, more than they should, assuming that he's letting things slip that he shouldn't."
Ellie pauses there, glances at the chrono, and then says, "Back to ignorant, and your family. That was a bit of a digression we took there. Information you don't have, don't control is dangerous. Which is why you need to look yourself up. Do a DNA search. If you find people, we're going to need to vet them. See who they are and what they've been up to and how they managed to lose you.
"I assume, that if you find someone, you want to be in control of how eventually meeting them turns out. It's one thing if a liar comes out of the woodwork and they're just full of it. It's an entirely different thing if they can prove a DNA link to you."
"If they can?"
"You search now. Before you're well-known. You find them. Then you have the power. You get to find out all about them, first, and then chose to seek them out, or not. Trust me, if you find any DNA links, by the time you're ready to do anything about it, we'll know everything from their shoe size, to which political groups they support, to the last time they flossed their teeth. You will not fly into a meeting with whomever you may find, blind. That's the least we can do for you."
Ellie reaches out and gently squeezes Rey's hand. "If you find a link, a parent or sibling or… whomever, and we do the legwork first, you'll know if you are the long lost daughter/sister/niece they desperately want to see again, and then you can go to them, and make the happily-ever-after come true. And if they are rank bastards who threw you away… Well, if that's the case, you'll get to decide if they are going to regret that decision for the rest of their extremely short lives."
"I… wouldn't…"
Ellie nods. "It's one thing if it's outside of your hands, something that's happened in the past. It's another thing to choose to wield the blade for the sake of vengeance." She lays her hand on Rey's. "Here's another angle of looking it up, first, and having us vet anyone you may find. Just because you don't want to murder whoever may have sold you—"
"It's not that I don't want to, it's… wrong?"
"Something you feel is inappropriate to your understanding of how a good person behaves?"
Rey nods.
"I understand. Now, do you think your Kylo will have any reservations about that?"
Rey's mouth opens and closes. She… doesn't know how Kylo might react to the idea that the people who sold her might be out there somewhere. "He thinks they're dead."
"And you hope he's right?"
"He saw… I've… They were people, and they sold me for alcohol, and they died. If they… weren't my parents… That would be one thing. If they'd stolen me or something… But… If they'd bought me or… I know, and he does, that they are dead. If there's another layer of betrayal behind that…"
Her eyes are bright, and quivering sadness is pouring off of Rey.
"Okay. We… don't need to go there. Not now. If you've both seen it… There probably isn't anything else," Ellie says. "Not on that level. But there may be grandparents or aunts and uncles, half-siblings. And there absolutely will be thousands of people claiming you are theirs, so… You need to look."
Rey takes the deep breath. "Okay." She glances at the chrono, too. "It's about time for me to get the kids together."
"Lessons?"
"Sort of. It's my night to keep an eye on them while they make up their supper. They cook for themselves, but it's a good idea for an adult set of eyes to be hovering in the background."
Ellie smiles at that. "A very good idea. One day, I'll tell you the story of the Pat, Eliza, Seirra, and James Jr. making my birthday breakfast for me."
"Eliza, Seirra, and James Jr.?"
"That was a long time ago. Those are the first three of the grandbabies. And Pat, Popop as they called him, was in charge of the 'babies.' They were six, four, and three. He and James Sr., our Elaine's husband, were 'letting the ladies have a lie in' and in charge of getting breakfast ready."
Ellie's quivering with mirth at the idea of this story.
"They didn't burn down the house, did they?"
"No. But, let's just say, it was a very good thing there was an adult eye on things, because James Jr., at three years old, decided that flour was white and fluffy, and had just grabbed the open bag of it, and was just starting to shake it around the whole house when his Popop grabbed it and him, saving them from a blizzard of baking material covering the entirety of the downstairs."
Rey does laugh a bit at Ellie's image of a much younger Pat, with a full head of dark hair, a significantly less round belly, a small child under one arm, and a bag of flour in the other hand.
"How long ago was that?" Rey asks.
"James Jr. is now Popop to James IV."
"Oh."
"James IV doesn't talk much. He's only got four words, and is barely toddling about, but… It's been a while."
Rey opens up the datapad, and brings up herself. And promptly finds that she can't access herself on this pad. She sighs at that, but… Well, they were going to put more security in place. She grabs Kylo's personal pad, and looks herself up.
This time it works.
The first thing she does is put her fingerprints in. The computer does its thing while she waits. And after a moment it tells her there are no matches.
Then she does her retinas. And, again, after ten minutes, there are no matches.
Whomever gave birth to her didn't register her. More proof, if it is that, that the people who sold her likely were her parents. Likely… Miserable drunks likely wouldn't have taken the minute necessary to put her finger marks and eyes into the system, along with a name and birthday or birthplace.
But… maybe… If you'd stolen a child, a young one, a baby, you likely wouldn't register her, either. Wouldn't want to make it easier for her parents to find her. Especially if they had their DNA in the system, waiting for someone to match.
Rey takes a deep breath. She finds a knife, pricks her fingertip, and lays a drop of blood on the sensor on the datapad.
That drop won't find her. If her eyes and prints aren't in the system, her blood won't be, either. But it might find others, related to her, who are in the system. It might find people who put themselves in the system, hoping one day she's match to them.
It whirls for a very long time, zipping along, comparing her DNA to everyone else in the system.
Rey tries to imagine people, a mother and father, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, all of them looking for her, all of them mourning the child they didn't get to raise.
But she can't imagine it. Her mind won't form the images.
"I'll be back, Sweetheart…" but… Like Kylo said, it's her voice in the memory.
She blinks as the datapad chirps at her. No match.
Of the hundreds of billions of people in this system, not a single one of them shares a single great-grandparent with her.
And she's not sure if that's heartbreaking or relieving.
A line a billion girls long, and they're all just her… How literal is that image supposed to be?
There were parents. She remembers screaming for them. She remembers… A voice… that wasn't hers. Not words, but… Her hair, she wore it in three buns. Someone had to put it in those buns the first time. Infants don't do their own hair.
There had to have been parents. Human beings just don't spontaneously generate in the desert.
And they had to have come from somewhere, but…
Apparently not the sort of somewhere that they left records of themselves.
1/25/2
It's dinner again. And this time, Kylo's chatting away, keeping up a stream of commentary on the meetings he's had.
He absolutely knows that Rey is, at best, only aware of his voice, but that's fine.
That's why he's doing it. Right now, she's thinking, and feeling, and just wants him nearby, not really focused on her.
So, he's more or less talking to himself, with her in the room, letting her think/feel.
And, as food wraps up, and as he's stretched out everything he's got to say about his meetings well beyond the reasonable point, he feels it when she's ready to say something, so he shuts up.
"If we're going to do this, I want something for us."
He nods. He knows what this is. She's been thinking about it intently for days now. "Okay, uh… What sort of something for us?"
"There's got to be some time when we're not The Master and Mistress. There's got to be time for just Kylo and Rey. Not… six minutes here and an hour there. We can't always be on all the time fixing every problem."
"Like… A few days a month off, something like that?" He thinks he can probably swing that. His people have off time, and off shifts. He could have off time, too.
"Yeah. Something like that. Just you and me, and maybe the Maji, or maybe just us, and… If we go somewhere, we don't get recognized, and we're not… being the Handsome Prince and His Lady."
"I'm good with that." He stops there for a moment. "I… Okay, speaking about saying things out loud, I assume you know this, but… I don't want to be the Master forever."
She nods. She's not sure exactly when he began to see a future where he wasn't going to be the Master, likely about the time he figured out that Lord and Lady Ren, The Emperor and Empress of the Galaxy wasn't ever going to happen. But she did notice it.
"I know."
"Good. Uh…" Pieces of the shape of The Master, what that means as a political reality, begin to take clearer shape in Kylo's mind. "There's a bit less than six years to the first elections. Then five years after that to the next ones. So… How about, we'll be the Handsome Prince and His Lady, and then, a year before the second election, I'll announce that I'm stepping down, let other people run, and, in addition to making sure we've got a few days a month where we're just us, come the second set of elections, we're done. We'll retire or… Whatever. Stick around long enough for the new Master to come into office, and then that's it?"
Rey thinks about that. "So… a bit less than eleven years?"
"A bit less than eleven years, and then we can… go be Maji, or… I don't know, travel. Just be Kylo and Rey. Get a good ship, make our money gambling, or something, I don't know, maybe the Master and Mistress have a pension or something, and take our children to see all the things we never got to see, do the things we didn't get to do, but think they'll like."
That's a lot more 'for us' than Rey was thinking, but she likes the idea. More than that, she likes the idea of a definite end time to Lady Ren. Eleven years. She can to anything for eleven years if she knows that at the end of eleven years, they'll be done.
If they'll be done. "Do you think they'll let us go?"
Kylo shrugs. "How would they stop us? I'll let them know I'm going, and if no one attempts to replace me, one day we'll just be gone, and… Kinear—"
"Who likely won't be alive in eleven years."
Kylo doesn't love that idea, but Rey's likely correct. It's not unheard of a human to live to be 105, but it's not common. It is unheard of for a 105 year old to have enough stamina and metal clarity to run something like the Order. "Or whomever will take over. I mean… If we do an even borderline competent job of this, someone will want to take it over when we leave, right?"
"I'd think so."
He lays his finger on her Order of the Maji pendent. "Eleven years?"
She nods. "Eleven years."