A/N: Kylo is the point of view character for this chapter.

Trandoshans are a canon race. They have twenty-five named, introduced individuals listed in Wookieepedia. Quite a few. All but one are male. Why do you get such a ratio? I know the real reason – they're listed as highly aggressive, warlike hunters which tends to code MALE! in the eyes of most people. The lone female was one of the very rare Force sensitive Trandoshans.

But I like subverting things. Plus these are cold-blooded, egg-laying reptiles. I say they overwhelmingly tend to identify as male when it comes to human gender assignments, because none of them have breasts, suckle young, produce live young, or take a primary role in child-rearing, regardless of their egg-laying capability. Tark's gender presentation does not match his anatomical sex.


As they approached the tree, Kylo came to understand Luke's quote from Yoda about 'luminous beings'. Not that he'd ever doubted it, because he could feel people in the Force and one could easily characterize their presence as glowing. But he'd always imagined it was basically metaphorical. Beings didn't literally emit Force energy. They were channels that pre-existing Force flowed through, with some of them being more endowed than others in how well they could manipulate that energy. This creature, though …

He looked up at it with his full awareness and felt in awe. It wasn't the tree's size, but the way it shone. It was no 'channel'. It was a headwater. A font. It was the strongest vergence that had revealed itself to him, more even than Ahch-To.

Yavin IV was dotted with ancient temples built by the long-since extinct Massassi people. The largest temple had been used briefly by the Rebellion as headquarters during the war. It was that Rebel presence which had led to the targeting of the moon by the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, which had, in turn, led to the targeting of the Death Star by one Luke Skywalker, self-proclaimed Jedi. He'd launched out of the Grand Temple. If you stood on the right ridge, you could see the top of it from here, as the Damerons had settled in easy distance of it.

Luke had chosen this planet out of all the ones in the galaxy to plant this sapling on. It wasn't a sapling anymore. In reverence, Kylo knelt before it. His knights followed him and a few moments later, Rey joined them in paying respects. Hux, who had so far been at Kylo's side, waited a beat more then removed himself to a nearby picnic table to sit. Poe went with him. BB-8 followed.

That was fine. The tree knew them. Kylo could feel that in the ebb and flow of its attention, how it peered into the past and future of himself and his group, but ignored Poe and Hux out of familiarity. When it had finished its inspection of them, the sense of forbiddance lifted and a feeling of acceptance replaced it. He raised his head, then stood.

Caspire moved forward to the trunk of the tree, resting her hand on it. It's hollow, she thought to him, which explained the tree's absurd bulk. The structure they saw as the exterior was just a scaffolding to support branches and leaves, with an aggressive root system underneath. In that respect, it was more like a self-supporting vine than a tree.

It was definitely sentient, although before their arrival, it had only met two other beings it regarded as similarly intelligent – Poe and Hux. Kes, who had come out of the house and carried a tray of drinks to the picnic table, didn't count. He was just another dumb animal like all the rest. BB-8 didn't even register, other than as a moving object.

It's a baby! Caspire continued, making a more thorough mental connection with it than the rest of them had yet attempted. He would have liked to have cautioned her but it was too late and she wouldn't have listened anyway.

It's as big around as one of Luke's huts, Tark thought back to her. Kriffing big baby. And with this much Force energy coming off of it, can you imagine the devastation it could cause if it threw a tantrum?

Steel asked, What are we talking – pull a star destroyer out of orbit kind of power? Or just knock the Falcon around? He wasn't seeing the tree as the rest of them were. He was having to rely on mental echoes and what he was intentionally shown.

Probably that first one, Tark thought.

The Force does not lend itself to clever calibration, Kylo thought. He put forward Anakin Skywalker's famed landing of a capital ship on a runway on Coruscant, mainly using the Force to do it.

Yeah, Tark responded. That sort of power. Wish we could have seen him in his heyday.

He's still with us, Caspire said, stroking the smooth bark, in the Force. They're all still with us. That's the beauty of it.

Hss. Tark was unimpressed. He'd rather have seen Darth Vader in the flesh than knowing some vague impression of him as part of the everything.

Nera projected to all of them a mental image of joining herself with the tree, then moved forward with several rapid steps to leap fluidly into its branches, propelled by the Force and her own innate, ape-like athleticism.

Wait! Kylo called after her and Steel lunged forward a step in a protective impulse. But she was gone, swinging through the branches with the ease of a species which had been arboreal much more recently than humans. It was a little frustrating that they all agreed he was in charge, yet then didn't consult with him before doing dangerous stuff.

Oh yeah, Tark thought. She's been looking for a power coupling ever since Snoke died.

You don't need to be rude about it, Rey thought, addressing a disparaging implication to Tark's thoughts that he wasn't quite bringing to the surface. We all want someone in our lives. There's nothing wrong with that.

I don't.

That's cuz you're weird, Steel offered, still staring upward with concern as Nera navigated the branches toward the center. I think you're part Hutt.

Flattered by the allusion rather than insulted, Tark bared his teeth and waved his head side to side to show them off. He teased Steel, What are you going to do if that tree eats her?

I have a light saber. It can't move, Steel projected, thinking about how easy it would be to slice up stationary wood of the relatively thin layer of trunk as Caspire had revealed it.

Tark chuckled now, a clucking noise in the back of his throat. Do you really think a thing that can pull a star destroyer out of orbit is going to let you do that?

Oh. Steel frowned. The idea of the tree using the Force to push him away (or tear him apart) had not occurred to him, but Tark helped him out with some graphic mental images Steel would have preferred to not have.

I'm going up there, too, Rey thought to them, having been communing with Nera nonverbally as the others projected thoughts to one another. There's a chamber in the middle of it, like in the one on Ahch-To. Also, she wanted to calm the concerns of the others about Nera. Even Tark had them, although he wouldn't admit to them easily.

Kylo sighed, not bothering to ask her not to go, because she was right. Rey was confident of her abilities in climbing, but as Nera had, she used the Force to boost her into the branches to start with. After that, she made her way without it. Caspire stared up the trunk, moving around and looking carefully at the lower branches. There wasn't anywhere she could leap to and grab anything to pull herself up, not without using the Force to jump higher than she was physically able. Her intent to follow was clear, but unlike Nera and Rey, she didn't couldn't use the Force in that particular manner.

Making a show of his own proficiency, Tark followed Rey and Nera into the branches, with a thought thrown Kylo's way that he wasn't going to let them discover anything without him being involved. Because Tark definitely felt the need to justify himself. There was no way he was going up there just to make sure they were okay. Kylo managed to keep a straight face.

Are we all going up there? What the hell? Steel thought. I can't get up there. Neither can Casp. What happens if this thing's dangerous?

Caspire thought to him sulkily, I'm not going. She wasn't happy about Tark rubbing her nose in the holes in her mastery of the Force. She certainly wasn't going to clumsily clamber along in his wake. Kylo stayed where he was, stayed quiet, and stayed in tune with the Force.

Good, Steel thought to Caspire. Neither am I. They aren't talking to me anymore. Are they okay? Steel didn't have enough power in the Force to initiate mental contact (much less fling himself upward). The others up in the tree weren't projecting to him. If there was a problem, I figure Tark at least would be screaming. He glanced over at Kylo, taking reassurance from his presence and that Kylo was unbothered.

They're fine, Caspire told Steel. It'd be too crowded in there with all of us anyway.

Kylo turned and walked over to the picnic table. The more relaxed he looked, the more relaxed Steel and Casp would be. Also, Rey would warn him of danger. Poe was looking up with consternation. "Where did they go? I've lost sight of them."

"They're inside it," Kylo said off-handedly.

"Inside it?" Poe chuckled uneasily. "They just used the Force to go inside … a tree?"

Kylo smiled at him, realizing Poe had no idea the main body of the trunk was hollow and the void within it could be entered from above. "Yes. The Force is capable of many things." The look on Poe's face was worth it. He believed him.

Kes offered, "Would you like a drink?"

"Yes, thank you," Kylo said, taking a glass. Following Kylo's lead as intended, Steel wandered over, Caspire along with him.

"Koyo fizzy," Kes said, gesturing at the tray.

Steel and Caspire took a drink, both glancing at Kylo for introductions. Kylo said, "You met Steel at the wedding. This is Caspire Ren."

"Caspire." Kes inclined his head. "Good to meet you."

"The other you have not met before is Tark." Kylo made a small motion behind him to indicate where Tark was.

"He's the … he's a Trandoshan, right?" Poe asked. Kylo nodded. "I thought most of them were bigger than humans?"

Kylo shrugged. "I suppose that depends on the human." Though yes, Tark was small compared to those from Trandosha.

"Okay, true," Poe admitted.

"Tark," Kes said with a nod. "Like Tarkin?"

Kylo smiled slightly. "Yes, the name is in his honor." Kes eyed him. Kylo explained, "Such names are more common in the Order and among the imperial remnants."

"Yeah," Kes said slowly, "but he wasn't born there. Hatched. Whatever."

"He chose the name shortly after joining."

Kes was quiet for a moment, then said, "If I may … I don't mean to be rude … but it would help me with something I've been struggling with. Your name is Kylo Ren. It's not the one you were born with. How did you get that name?"

"I chose it for myself, to honor my parents as they should have been. I had no desire to be named after a Jedi whose most remarkable trait seemed to be, to me at the time that I renounced my old name, that he had failed to protect his student from the dark side."

Kes raised his head slowly. "Ah," he said softly. "Now it makes sense." He smiled warmly. "I didn't want to call you what the dark had labeled you. I thought Snoke had given you that name." Kylo shook his head. Kes asked, "What about Ren? It's not a rhyme, then, with Ben?"

"No. Ren was the idea of one of our members who is no longer with us, Jophesta. She died in the war. It's a family name."

"Gotcha. Well, that makes me much happier."

Kylo shrugged slightly and drank, glad Kes was overlooking that his mother had been left out of the equation. The conversation was already much more personal than Kylo wanted it to be.

From where he was sitting on the bench, Poe asked Kylo, "You thought there was something wrong with falling to the dark side? People should be protected from that?"

Kylo chuckled. "As anyone who is on the dark side could tell you."

"It's not that bad," Steel said with a smirk. "Once you get past the self-loathing and depression."

Caspire snorted and thought to both of them, According to Tark, those are goals to aspire to. Steel choked on his drink at how ridiculous Tark was at times.

"If you are having outward responses," Kylo said, "then you should say it aloud. To do otherwise is rude."

Steel coughed to clear his throat. Caspire shook her head. "It only makes sense if you know him."

Poe asked, "Snoke?"

She shook her head again. "Tark."

"Ah," Poe said. He'd been with Steel and Nera for months as they broke up slave rings, but Tark and Caspire had been off on their own adventures elsewhere for all that time. They were strangers to Poe. Looking to Kylo, Poe asked, "Are you still on the dark side?" He leaned forward. As though a matching oscillator, Hux leaned back at the same time, looking at the back of Poe's head maybe warily. They were still holding hands.

Kylo kept his observations about their body language to himself. "More or less. Since I met Rey, it's not strictly necessary that I call on the dark side, but it remains easier. It might stay that way forever. I don't know. Among the knights, only Caspire has renounced the dark side. It is not an easy process."

"Frankly," Steel said to her, "I thought you were going to die."

"Tark helped," Caspire said. "We joke about him, but he knows exactly where he stands."

"In the dark side?" Poe asked, still leaning forward, listening with interest. Hux was listening, too, but Kylo was reading a lot of uneasiness from him that Poe seemed to be ignoring or not noticing. Or maybe, Kylo realized, Hux was hiding it from him. He wondered how that was possible if they were really bondmates. All three possibilities were strange: that Poe wouldn't care, wouldn't notice, or that Hux would lie. Maybe there was a fourth option. Caspire nodded to Poe. Poe said, "He's happy that way?"

"I think happy is a bit of a stretch," Steel said.

"He's not a happy person," Caspire said. "That's not who he wants to be."

"Who does he want to be?" Poe asked.

"You'd have to ask him," Caspire said. She changed the subject off her teammate who wasn't here. Poe was a stranger to her, as well. "I am not, by the way, a follower of the light. I am a practitioner of the Living Force. It's different."

"Ah, here we go," Steel said. Kylo shot him a dirty look for the disrespect. Steel pretended he hadn't seen it.

"What's the Living Force?" Poe asked. "I've heard of it, but whenever the Church of the Force mentioned it, I thought it was the same as the Force itself. How is it different from the light side?"

Caspire sunk to the ground, sitting cross-legged to explain. "You see, the Force itself is an entity. It's alive. It has a sentience that is often beyond our understanding. You can fight against it – any of us can – but it's bigger than we are. It has always been here and it always will be. We can learn its will through meditation, observation, and living in the moment. We must trust our instincts and our intuition. The Living Force isn't here as light and dark, but as life – life itself. It is the thing that gives all existence meaning."

"According to her," Steel said. Kylo didn't bother repeating his admonishment. Doing so would only make Steel double-down on it.

"I've been on the light side," Caspire said, looking up at Steel. "I've been on the dark. So have you. They are artificial constructions. You know this."

Steel shook his head and grimaced. "Doesn't feel artificial to me. Feels real."

"We have proof," Caspire said, gesturing to Kylo. "Kylo and Rey. Now these two."

"If they're so artificial," Steel said, "why do we keep ending up with light/dark pairs?"

She asked back, "Why are these pairs able to transcend the limitations of our masters?"

"We don't even know that." Steel shook his head and turned to Poe and Hux. "What about you two? How do you function in drawing on the Force?"

Hux was silent. Poe glanced at him, then said, "I have no idea. We're just doing it and it works. That's why I asked to talk with you guys. It would be nice if I knew what I was doing before I end up accidentally picking the wrong side and losing my soul or something. The Church of the Force is not ambiguous about what happens if you willingly go dark."

With that, Hux's concern made perfect sense. He was channeling the dark side and bonded to someone who thought he was (or might be) inherently evil and damned for doing so. He'd thought Poe was more open-minded than that. Kylo said, "It's not a matter of the sides of the Force being right or wrong."

Kes said, "I don't know if you'll listen to me having an opinion on this, but don't you think as a professed dark side user, you might be a little biased in saying the light or the dark doesn't have anything to do with right or wrong?"

"No," Kylo said bluntly. "The key word was 'willingly'. That's where the moral choice is made." And so Poe's father was in the same boat as his son. He began to understand the nature of support Hux needed from him. If this was the attitude, then anything Hux might say to defend himself to these two would be dismissed or undermined. Knowing Hux as Kylo did, he doubted Hux had said much of anything.

"Then," Kes said, "someone has to choose to get out of there if they can, once they figure out where they're at." It was more a question than a statement of fact, but he wasn't quite asking.

Kylo appreciated Kes' lack of certainty – it was a good sign. But Kylo's voice still held a growl as he said, "There's no inherent virtue in the light."

Hux leaned forward, suddenly taking part in the conversation, but not with Kes or Kylo, whom all the others were looking at now. Hux looked to Steel. "Steel? You said, 'according to her'. Why is that? It sounds as though you believe her point of view to be flawed."

Steel glanced from Kylo to Kes, then to Caspire and started to settle to the ground as well. Kes said, "Why don't you guys come on and sit at the table like normal folks?"

Steel straightened back up and took a seat on the bench next to Poe. Hux was on the other end. Caspire took the end across from Hux, which left Kylo in the middle next to Kes. They glanced at each other uneasily, with Kylo still uncomfortable about the implication that the dark side of the Force was immoral. He wasn't thrilled with the other implication that sitting on the ground as they commonly did for meditation or discussing spiritual matters, wasn't something 'normal folks' did. It said a lot about Kes' views. Kylo mulled this over as Steel spoke.

"The thing is," Steel said, "she personalizes the Force. According to her, it has opinions, it can get frustrated, it can get angry, it favors certain people and snubs others. I don't know if you know, but I don't have much of the Force. I don't like the idea of some god out there intentionally giving me less than it gave others. I prefer the idea that some of us just happen to be better at it randomly, because that's how it works. Trusting your instincts is fine and all, if your instincts pan out. For most people, they don't."

"I … actually agree with you," Hux said slowly, "but I don't think your preferences would have anything to do with it."

"They don't," Steel said, "but the Force doesn't have preferences either. It's up to us, the ones using it. We're making decisions and acting on them and we succeed or fail based on us. Not based on the Force. If I fail at something, it's because I didn't have the ability or didn't try hard enough. Not because the Force willed it."

"They're the same thing," Caspire said patiently, "if you take a long enough perspective. It just seems that way because you inhabit your body. The Force is beyond that."

"Neither of you have the answer," Hux said. "That's what I'm hearing."

Steel shook his head. "No." He chuckled. "Did someone tell you we did?" He glanced at Kylo, who shook his head with a pursing of his lips to emphasize he didn't say that.

"I have the answer for me," Caspire said. "And that answer is the Living Force as it has revealed itself to me."

"As well you had to," Kylo said quietly. "Such certainty is a requirement for surviving a renunciation of the dark side."

"Or the light," Steel said.

"That requires desperation," Kylo said. "That's different."

"Felt the same to me," Steel said.

"You renounced the light," Kes asked, "intentionally?"

Steel shrugged. "Sort of. It was that or die. Not a tough decision."

Kes opened his mouth, but Kylo added to Steel's words, "And let our friends die." Kes shut his mouth, which was the confirmation Kylo needed that Kes' problem was principled religious extremism – individuals must be willing to die for the cause or their morals. But it became more complicated when the whole group was involved. He still didn't regret cutting down Lor San Tekka. He suspected that was part of Kes' problem with him, too. Probably best to leave that on the list of things to not discuss.

Hux looked between Kes and Kylo, then said to Kes, "They were hostages against each other, I'm sure. That's how Snoke operated." Hux was trying to back him up, Kylo knew.

"Now," Steel said, "going back to that thing about what we know and what we don't know, since I've gathered that's half of why we're here – the other half being that one," he pointed up at the tree, "you've got to keep in mind who our teachers have been. Luke interacted with a grand total of two Jedi, maybe three depending on how you count them, and maybe two Sith, again depending on how you count them. And I don't think the Sith gave him much in the way of long conversations, though I might be wrong. He didn't have much to say about them for obvious reasons."

"Why don't you call him master?" Kes interrupted. "That was his title. You were his students."

Steel snorted softly. "That would be a sign of respect. We all agreed that was done with after he tried to kill one of us." Kes frowned. So did Kylo, but because he knew how badly that was going to go over with the guy who had served with Luke in combat. Unfazed by Kes' attempt at a guilt trip, Steel went on to Hux, "Luke told us over and over that he didn't know what he was doing. Standard Jedi training started … young."

"As near to birth as they could do it," Hux said, "or pre-verbal at least. I know a little about Jedi training."

'A little', Kylo thought with humor. But this wasn't the time to renew their (now entirely theoretical) argument about short-lived, single-purpose clones vs regulars trained for the same thing. He might, though, benefit from actually learning what Hux had to teach about the matter rather than sparring with him over it. Kylo made a note to revisit that at some point.

"Right. Young," Steel said. "They spent a couple decades learning stuff and Luke didn't even know what they learned. He supposed it was a lot of important stuff. Stuff he missed out on. Now he went around and tried to put together everything he could after the war-"

Kes nodded at this and said, "He talked about those missions. I went with him on a few before I retired."

"I'm sure he did his best," Steel agreed, glossing past that dismissively. Kylo winced. "But anything you could find in a directory was gone – the emperor wiped it out. Luke ended up with bits and pieces. Then we have our other teacher, Snoke, and you'll notice I don't call him 'master' either. I mean, I called them both master to their faces, because I happen to like my face the way it is, but Snoke doesn't get any of my respect either now that he's dead."

"Opinions on that vary within our group," Caspire said.

"You respect Snoke?" Hux asked with a polite tone Kylo heard as a very quiet threat.

"No. But-"

Kylo interrupted. "All of us realize he ruled us by exploiting our fear and lack of options." Caspire shrugged and let Kylo's explanation stand. Hux eyed her warily.

"Yeah," Steel said, continuing. "My point about him is that he didn't exactly sit us down and explain things. He'd teach us how to do stuff and occasionally he'd monologue about how wrong we or someone else was, but when you try to look back on what he'd said and make it into a working philosophy for your life, or how the Force is, it fell apart."

Caspire said, "Tark doesn't think so. He thinks most of what Snoke said made sense if you took it from a dark side perspective without Sith trappings."

"I think he wants it to make sense that way," Steel said to her. "Not that it actually does." He turned to Hux. "See, I disagree with everyone about everything." He smiled.

"How does it work for you, then?" Hux asked.

"It doesn't. Maybe that's why I don't have much influence over the Force," Steel said with a short, bitter laugh. "I can't talk myself into this blind faith the others find so easy."

"It's not blind," Kylo said quietly. "But faith is a large part of it."

Caspire said, "We have each found our own path, or are still finding it."