—Chapter 24: Fireflies—

After crying for most of the trip back to Dendrokaan, Rey stepped out of the cockpit and felt like she'd entered a tomb. She had never experienced such utter stillness on the Millenium Falcon before, and had to suppress a nervous twinge as she investigated whether the quality of that stillness was serene or funereal.

In the lounge, she found Poe, passed out near a collection of sedatives, grim evidence of his state of mind. After making sure that he hadn't put himself into a coma, she cleaned up the mess he had left. She stowed the whisky back in the galley and the hypnocane back in the medkit, then dropped the debris from the numerous spent tabs in the trash.

After the experiences of the day, no one else was likely to get up for several more hours, though they'd be settling into Dendrokaan's airspace very soon. She realized she probably needed to let ground control know that they'd be loitering around in orbit for a bit. It would do no one any good if suspicions were aroused when a non-military craft, even one as famous as the Falcon, popped into orbit around a supposedly secret military base and proceeded to adopt radio silence because all of its occupants were sleeping. At a nearby comms terminal, she accessed the logs to begin composing, but discovered that Chewbacca had already sent them a message before putting himself to bed. Grateful for the Wookiee's presence of mind, she instead stole this opportunity to check up on Finn. She had not yet had the time to even consider her friend, much less see to him, and the guilt of that neglect weighed on her.

Rey inspected the injured man. He had a large bump and dried blood matting the hair on the back of his head. Biomonitoring indicated symptoms consistent with a bad concussion. She looked down at him, remorseful over how long he'd spent in this state. Laying a hand on his forehead, she whispered, "I'm sorry, my friend. Please forgive my selfishness." She then closed her eyes and channeled the Force into his damaged body.

The sudden change in his vitals prompted the biomonitoring equipment to sound a small alarm, startling Rey and causing Poe to stir in his medically induced slumber. She turned the alarm off almost immediately. It wasn't nearly as loud as it had seemed when her return had set it off hours earlier, but she worried nonetheless that it might have woken someone prematurely.

Heading into the sleeping compartments to check on everyone, her first stop was with Ren and the girls. Ren's leg was dangling out of the bunk, and his pillow was on the floor, but that was pretty much in keeping with how he normally slept. He was undisturbed by the noise she'd set off. Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked higher. Both girls were sleeping soundly.

Apprehensively, she advanced on what was supposed to have been her compartment—the one she shared with Chewie and Temiri. When she peeked through the door, she was relieved to discover that in the middle, between her empty bunk and the one overcrowded with Wookiee, was Temiri, sleeping with an anxious expression on his face. A shallow dive into his mental state revealed that he was unsettled, but not nearly to the degree she was expecting. When she'd last seen him, he had looked awful. She crossed her fingers that he would recover sooner rather than later. She needed to ask him about Ben. She needed answers, but didn't know how long it would be before Temiri was in any sort of shape to give them.

She would let them all sleep for a bit longer. Rey hadn't yet actually gotten any rest of her own, and though her sobbing had been cathartic, it had taken a surprisingly heavy toll on her. Yawning, she eased her body noiselessly into bed, closed her eyes, and let sleep wash over her.

—

"They're back!" screamed Prana, dropping her training saber to the dusty ground and seizing Fern by the wrist to drag him along. Shiroto and Geddy, who'd been observing their form, tried to play it cool, and merely shifted their gaze to the sky to take in the increasingly large speck as it flew closer and closer.

When the Falcon set down a short distance from the school promenade, the students met it with fierce anticipation, running up to it to greet their returning family. They'd received no communications letting them know to expect their arrival, and they'd had no idea when to anticipate their return. They didn't know what awaited them as the gangplank dropped down.

Rey was the first to step down to solid earth. "Rey!" shouted Prana, running up to embrace her. The boys were equally elated to see her alive and alert, but generously allowed Prana her time before stepping forward for their own turns at physical contact. Ren and Finnie exited next, followed by Malfi and Temiri. Poe and Finn, repaired and revitalized, remained on the gangplank, quietly observing.

"You!" blurted Fern upon seeing the three stowaways. "We were losing our minds with worry over where you three could have gone!"

"Yeah," admonished Geddy, agreeing with his younger brother. "Thankfully, Simeon sent us a message after he found you stowed away, letting us know not to worry."

"I could hardly believe him when he said you'd done that, but Mister Simeon doesn't tell jokes, so…" said Prana.

"Don't worry, you weren't missed," teased Shiroto. "We got lots done without you around to distract us."

Malfi really wanted to be able to joke back with her peers about the stunt they had pulled. Sadly, the others didn't know how difficult it was to listen to them talking about Mister Simeon as though he was still with them.

"What's that look on your face?" asked Geddy, his smile faltering. Simeon's passing had sent a ripple through the Force that some of them had felt, and though they didn't understand the meaning of it at the time, it had filled them with a nagging dread. That Malfi, someone so quick to laugh, would smile so reluctantly at her own homecoming, brought all that apprehension back to the surface. "Where's Mister Simeon?" Geddy asked, nervousness creeping into his tone. "Where's Ben? What's happened?"

"Malfi," said Rey, "why don't you take the others to the kitchen and find some food for everyone. I'm sure you must all be starved."

Malfi nodded and took Temiri's hand to pull him along with her, gesturing to Ren and Finnie to follow them. The other students watched them leave, tense and apprehensive.

Once they were out of earshot, Shiroto took a step towards Rey and asked in a confidential tone, "Rey, what happened? What's going on?" The others listened with rapt attention.

"We still haven't found Ben," said Rey, keeping the fear and sadness from her tone as she spoke. "And Simeon is… I'm afraid he's gone."

"No—" Prana gasped and covered her mouth.

The boys looked shell-shocked. "You mean he's… dead?" asked Fern.

Rey nodded.

Prana dropped to the ground and covered her face in her hands, sobbing into the earth. Geddy sat down quietly next to her and sadly hugged her, crying his own silent tears. Fern watched it unfold before his eyes, a disbelieving look on his face. Shaking his head, he whispered a defiant 'no'.

"No. No, that can't be," he said, a little louder. "You must be wrong. What happened, exactly? I'm sure you're mistaken."

"Did you see it happen, Rey?" asked Shiroto.

Rey shook her head. "No, I was still unconscious when it happened. But I can feel that it's true. Please, don't ask for any more details right now. Of me or of the others. There's too much trauma to deal with right now, and everyone needs time to recover. We need you to help us by just supporting us and giving us space."

Shiroto nodded. "I understand. We will do that."

Prana looked up from her tears, and choked out a plea between sobs. "Can we ha—ve a f—funeral for hi—him?"

Rey considered what she was asking. She agreed that some closure was probably necessary for them, something to honor their lost teacher, but she had absolutely no idea what sorts of rituals would be appropriate in this situation. She scoured her memory for ideas.

Shiroto could read the uncertainty on her face, and quietly volunteered an idea. "We have traditions back on Lothal. There are rites we can perform."

"Yeah," said Geddy, sniffling. "We send our last words to the dead."

"But we don't have his body!" wailed Prana.

"It doesn't matter," lamented Geddy, shaking his head. "We can still write our words, and throw them into the fire. His spirit is strong… the embers will carry our messages to him. He will get them."

"But we'll need something of his to burn…" she insisted.

"We can use the paper from his calligraphy set to write our messages on," said Shiroto. "It will work."

Rey nodded. "Can I…" she started. "How can I help? What do you need me to do?"

"During the rites," explained Shiroto, "it is customary for the village elder to read their message to the dead, out loud, before burning it. For everyone else, it varies by region whether or not they are expected to read aloud."

"I'm reading mine," said Prana forcefully.

"Me too," said Fern. Geddy nodded in agreement.

"We'll consider it optional for everyone else, then," said Shiroto. "Rey? Will you… That is, I can perform the elder's duties, if you…"

"No," said Rey, meeting him in the eyes. "I would be honored to perform the elder's function."

Shiroto smiled thinly, nodding his approval. "We'll build the pyre at the edge of the training promenade," he said. "I know where his paper is. I'll make sure everyone gets a sheet."

Rey nodded. "Tonight?"

"Tonight."

—

The next several hours were spent collecting wood and drafting messages to send into the fire.

Rey was grateful that everyone had something solid to focus on, to distract them. She did her best to be available to her students, but mentally, she was still in two places at once: managing the fraught emotions here on Dendrokaan, and scouring the very fabric of the galaxy itself for any trace of Ben's signature. Reaching out to him through their bond had proven fruitless, despite her numerous attempts to make contact. Tonight, she needed to be present for her students. If she was the only teacher they had left, she would need to be strong for them.

Poe's and Finn's muscles ached from their ordeal on Naboo, but in spite of the pain, they were grateful for the opportunity to have a job. Together, they chopped and carried firewood back from the forest again and again, creating a pile for the students, who stacked it up in layer upon layer of neat, geometric polygons. Once ignited, it would burn for hours, hot and bright.

Once the pyre had been constructed, those who hadn't yet completed their messages set to that task. Everyone, even Poe, Finn, and Finnie, wrote messages to be included in the blaze. Malfi didn't read the message Temiri composed, but she made certain he had one to contribute.

Rey stayed in Simeon's cottage with Ren, watching the others build the pyre while she mentally composed what she was going to say. She had written her note already, but she planned on elaborating a bit once it was her turn to speak.

"Mama, how do you spell 'there'?"

Rey looked down at Ren, pen and paper in his hand, proud that he too could participate in the final sendoff of his dear friend and protector. Handwriting as a skill wasn't something that was still done in many parts of the galaxy—even on Lothal, where ceremonies like these were still performed regularly, only people of status or advanced education bothered to learn. It had been a point of Ben's to make sure everyone at the school knew how to write, on actual paper, so in a way, it was like he was a part of the ceremony too. "Like this, sweetie," she said, scratching the word into the dirt on the floor of Simeon's cottage.

Ren studied the letters she'd written, and climbed down from his chair at the table to point at it. "What's this letter here?"

"That's an 'h', honey."

Ren cocked his head in confusion. "I thought that was like this," he said, adding an 'H' to the collection of letters on the floor.

"You can do it either way."

"Hmm, okay," he said, climbing back up into his seat to finish his note.

After another minute or so, he set his pen down and examined the words he'd drawn on the stiff calligraphy paper. Appearing content with it, he held it up for his mother's approval. "How's this, mama?"

She gently accepted the paper from his waiting hand, and studied the words. Reading them, she found her lip quivering.

Ren looked worried. "Is it bad?"

Rey shook her head vigorously. "No, sweetie, no. Not at all. It's perfect. I'm proud of you. This will make him happy, you've done well."

Ren nodded, satisfied with her response. "Should I fold it in half?"

Rey sniffed, handing it back to him. "I'm sure it's fine if you do, but it's also okay to wait. I don't know exactly what the tradition is, so I was going to watch and see what the others do before doing anything else to mine."

"That makes sense," he said, setting it on the table. "I'll just leave it here then. I'm going to see what the others are doing. Bye, mama."

"Bye, honey. See you later," she said, bending down to kiss him on the head before he could run out the door away from her. He had recovered well since his ordeal. Surprisingly well. But as she was learning, there was more to her son than she'd been able to imagine before now.

Her eyes followed her son out the door to the community beyond, taking in the somber activities of a group of individuals engaged in quiet reflection. Her heart swelled. With tears in her eyes, she looked back at the parchment laid out on the table, and recited the words in her head as she read and reread what her son had written.

THere is noe deTH THere is ThA Fors

—

That evening, after a quiet meal, Rey managed to lead her students in spite of her own uncertainty. She studied them for cues on what they needed, and she did her best to provide it. Shiroto alone amongst the students could see and understand that he needed to help her, but the others were clearly looking to her to keep them together.

"Is everyone ready?" she asked when the last of the clean up had been done.

Finnie, her dad, and Poe felt a little like spectators among the students, but they nonetheless planned to participate in the ritual with them. There was a camaraderie engendered by the event that they were glad to be a part of. They understood that this was more for the students than it was for them, though they were glad for the opportunity to honor their friend and ally in a communal way.

The assembled mourners sat around the unlit pyre in quiet contemplation, before Shiroto stepped up and got things moving. "I'll ignite the funeral pyre," he said. In honor of his teacher, Shiroto had spent the evening studying the art of pyrogenesis. As the others watched in awe, the wood began to smolder under his scrutiny, and the flames spread quickly.

Rey stood at the front of the group next to Shiroto, watching as the other students who had remained behind lined up nearest to the flames. Finn and Poe started a row just behind them. Temiri tried to keep his distance—he looked as if he might melt away into the trees. He might have managed to sneak off if Malfi hadn't been keeping such vigilant tabs on him. Through the subtle nagging of persistent eye contact, she'd made sure he knew he needed to stay. Finnie, following Malfi's gaze over to where Temiri was standing, walked over to him and gestured for Malfi to follow.

"Let's go," she said as she and Malfi stood on either side of him. Temiri looked uncomfortable, but allowed the two girls to edge him closer to the rest of the group.

Ren scurried up behind them and whispered to Finnie, "Are you going to read yours?"

"No," she said simply, looking down at her paper folded in her hands.

"Me either," he said, clutching his note possessively to his chest. Without another word, he moved to stand in between Finn and Poe, who scooted apart to make room for him.

Once the flames had spread evenly amongst the timber, Shiroto turned around and sat down in the dust. The other students took a seat on the floor next to him, and everyone else, prompted by their cues, sat as well.

Rey understood that she would be the last to speak, but didn't know how the service was supposed to begin. However, her worries were needless, for in this, the students were willing to take the lead.

Geddy leaned over and whispered to Prana, "Do you want me to go first?"

Prana shook her head, puffy-eyed and sniffling, but stalwart. "No. Thanks, I'd like to go first." She stood up and held her note firmly in front of her, reciting: "Mister Simeon. You were my teacher and my friend. I love you and I will miss you. I will never forget the many lessons you taught me. I am stronger today because of your influence on my life."

Moved by her simple and honest words, Malfi began to shiver ever so slightly. Temiri looked down.

Prana took a deep breath and crumpled the note into a ball, casting it high into the flames. Sparks rose from the pyre, and her eyes followed them up into the night sky. "Goodbye," she whispered, as she watched them burn out.

Geddy went next, followed by Fern, each of them reciting their words for the others to hear. Their messages contained words of love, of sadness, of promises to remember him and to practice all that he'd taught them. They vowed to give him new life by spreading his words to others around the galaxy.

It was as Shiroto was rising to take his turn that Temiri's ability to cope began to falter. He was quaking where he sat. Feeling that he might pop up and disappear forever, Malfi set her hand on his knee, as much to hold him in place as to reassure him that this was where he needed to be.

With his phantom limb, he nearly brushed her hand away, suddenly desperate to get as far away from here as possible. Sensing his anxiety, Finnie, sitting to his left, took his lone hand and looked him in the eyes. He stared intently back at her, projecting his thoughts into her mind. Please, I need to get out of here. I can't take this.

Finnie lacked the skill to be able to answer back, but it was clear from her expression that she had heard. She shook her head at him slowly, subtly, then gestured with her chin that his attention needed to be up front. She gave his hand a firm but gentle squeeze, then turned her own attention back to Shiroto, who was just tossing his paper into the fire.

Shiroto sat down, and Rey watched to see if anyone else was about to stand up. She looked out at the group, meeting everyone's eyes but Temiri's, who stared blankly ahead into the fire. Confident that there was no one else planning to get up, Rey held up her own parchment and took a breath.

"Simeon. I've come to know you as someone with few words, but the words you used always conveyed wisdom—and an overabundance of formality. Growing up, I always associated people who talked like you with noble status. People who talked that way always thought they were better than me. But with you, it didn't take long for me to learn that you didn't talk that way because you were throwing around some haughty attitude. You did that… out of respect. 'Lady Rey', you always called me. I never did get used to hearing you say that. I don't think of myself as much of a lady… But I rationalized your manner away by telling myself that it made you more comfortable, putting me on some sort of pedestal. 'It's his way,' I would tell myself. I regret now, that I let you do that.

"Whenever Ben or I needed something, you were there for us. You didn't demand anything in return. You offered your service, your wisdom, your counsel… freely and without judgement. You were an excellent teacher, a person of boundless patience and a surgical precision for assessing the nature of a student's misunderstanding and how to help guide them through their development. You were a mentor to us all. On top of that, yours was a heart open to everyone—though you were… spectacularly bad… at making that obvious to people. You showed us respect, but always… at a distance. I knew you loved us, in spite of the way you positioned yourself, but for all of your technically correct language, there is so much you failed to communicate. You never used any unnecessary words—except, perhaps, for 'Lady'—but there were other words that needed saying that you left unsaid.

"Not all of us have eyes for the subtext, Simeon. I wish now, that I had done more to draw you in. I am Rey. And I am your family."

Rey's words were met with some confusion by the students in the audience who had had eyes for the subtext, and who knew with utmost confidence that their departed teacher loved them dearly. But this was a speech intended for two different audiences, and one of them needed this pointed out.

Rey stared at the paper in her hands as the effects of her words permeated the viewing audience and dissipated into the spaces beyond. Nothing moved, save the dancing of the flames in front of her. There was no sound, but for the snapping of the wood and the buzz of insects in the distant forest. Moving her eyes from the paper to the inferno, she crumpled her note up into a tight ball and threw it underhand into the fire. The shifting of Shiroto's eyes from her to the remaining audience members was their cue to add their unread messages to the pyre, and one after another, their words were added.

Finn, Poe, then Ren. Malfi patted Temiri's leg before leaving him to add her note to the others. Finnie gave Temiri's hand an encouraging squeeze, and moments later, he was on his feet participating with all the rest of them. Finnie watched him approvingly before making her note the last bit of fresh fuel added to the bonfire that night.

Together, everyone watched as the fire burned. Everyone watched, as their last words to Simeon drifted up into the sky, and beyond.