In the shadow of the past

Abandoned homestead,
Tatooine,
35 ABY

Kylo stood on the ledge of what had once been the common area of the Lars homestead. Now, it had lain abandoned for so long that the desert winds had covered it in a growing dune of sand. Some openings into sections of the home could still be seen, but they would one day disappear beneath the sands of Tatooine.

Ben Solo had been told of this place, even if it was the first time he had visited. His uncle had spoken about where and how he had grown up, unaware of his ability or even his true lineage, but conscious that he was meant to be elsewhere. The young man hadn't said it at the time, but he couldn't have imagined anything better; the idea of being forgotten on a backwater world like Tatooine, not having to live up to the high expectations placed on the son of war heroes. He had imagined himself with a completely different name, not the one his parents had given him and which he had always hated.

Much earlier…

After Rey had left him, Kylo had stayed at Beggar's Canyon for longer than he cared to remember, sitting in the sand. And then, he had just begun to walk. He wasn't sure where he wanted to go or even if he really meant to get anywhere, but he just knew he needed to move.

The first few steps had been agony; his stump still hurt, and the effects of the Force lightning still rang through him. But he didn't care. He wanted to get away. But get away from what? He wasn't sure he knew the answer to that yet. In the past, whenever he had felt uncertain, he had turned to the comfort of the life of obscurity he had imagined for himself, the one where his name was Kylo and nobody knew what it meant or expected anything of. Not the way Ben had been known in his parents' circles as the one taken by the great Obi-Wan Kenobi as he protected his former apprentice's son from the Empire's scrutiny. How could little Ben Solo ever hope to live up to the unbelievably high expectations his parents had placed on him with such a name? He couldn't. So he had found comfort in Kylo.

But now, Kylo was no longer enough as his thoughts still churned from the memory of his mother's final moment.

As he walked, he felt aimless and soon begun to tug at the clothes he wore as Kylo Ren. The singed cape around his neck fell to the desert floor. Then, the frayed leather jacket the Knights of Ren had given him so long ago, and the belt on which the blaster he had so seldom used, but liked to keep close, was strapped. Soon it was only his black tunic and pants which remained.

But as he walked further into the desert, he felt something.

When he did, he turned to find the lightsaber he thought he had lost hovering beside him. As he noticed it, it fell to the ground, laying in the sand.

He briefly wondered why this had happened, but his thoughts were still in too much turmoil. He simply turned away from the lightsaber and left it in the sand.

The hours passed, the sun blazed down up him, and still he walked, even as the heat leeched the moisture from him. At some point, he knew, his body would have none left to give and the heat would take him. Never had he felt such intensity or desperately wished he could just stop. But he didn't. He kept going. Maybe if he walked long enough, and far enough, he would forget that he was now a one-armed man, alone in the galaxy. Maybe he could forget the fact that the last person who cared for him was gone, and that he hadn't realized that she had never truly left him. Maybe he could forget that he was a son who had killed his own father. Maybe he could finally outrun the things he had always tried to run from and finally disappear as he had always so fervently desired. And maybe, maybe, maybe, he could finally leave Ben Solo behind for good and all.

He was aware of them as he walked. He didn't turn around, but he could sense them, in a part of his mind. The Force was still binding them together in a way he couldn't quite understand. The lightsaber, the jacket, the belt with the blaster; dragging themselves through the sand to reach him. The pieces of Kylo Ren.

Once upon a time, he would have welcomed them as he always had when the allure of Ben Solo grew too strong. The life he had built for himself; the lie he had created to deny a destiny he had never wanted. Kylo Ren had been easy. But, as he walked through the desert, his steps getting slower and the dragging effects getting closer to him, he realized that Kylo Ren had not just been an escape. In fact, he was no longer sure it really had been an escape; rather a prison. A fortress he had built to protect himself from all he had feared.

As he kept on walking, he felt something touching his hand. He looked down to see the lightsaber hovering near it, eager to be taken; to be reclaimed.

Kylo shooed it away, as he would an eager pet. But the saber just returned.

He tried to force it away again and resumed his march. But it wasn't just the saber which wanted his attention. As he turned, the jacket sprung on him, trying to cover his frame. The cloak was hovering behind it like a wraith of darkness in the light of the twin suns. The belt twisted around his waist again.

No. He didn't want them.

'No,' he wasn't Ben Solo anymore.
'No,' but he didn't want to be Kylo Ren either.

'No,' the cloak settled itself onto his shoulders as the belt tightened around his waist. And the lightsaber slipped into his hand.

'NOOOOOOOO', he yelled, both with his voice and with his mind.

And the Force exploded around him, repelling Kylo Ren as it tried to reclaim him.

-0-

He didn't know who he was, as he stood in a crater of sand, Kylo Ren's personal effects expelled from his presence. He was weary in mind and body, and the exertion of the Force as well as his long walk had taken its toll.

He collapsed into the sand.

The last thing he was aware of was a shadow falling over him as the cloak and the jacket covered his face, plunging him into darkness.

When he woke, he felt movement beneath him, a deep rumbling from a large mechanical structure. And he also felt cool. Or cooler, at least. And he felt moisture on his face. Drops on his lips told him it wasn't sweat. Never had anything felt sweeter to him after the scorching heat of the desert. But his throat was still desperately dry. For a time, he wasn't sure just how long, that was all he could think about; the moisture siting on his skin, teasing his arid throat. All his focus was on drink. And eventually, he felt the pearls of moisture detaching from his skin and, although he could not see it through eyelids which refused to open, he could feel them gathering into a large ball of suspended water. What little strength he could muster was able to force his mouth open and the water soon carved blessed streaks down his parched throat. Never had anything felt so delicious to him!

As he felt strength return to him with the water, he heard scurrying and whispers of an alien language he didn't understand around him.

His eyes opened, and he saw mechanical surroundings. Rusted metal walls which contained multitudes of broken pieces of what had once been various functioning machines. Some were being rebuild; others just lay in random, chaotic piles around the floor. And between them, small figures like children in rough, ochre-coloured robes. A small group of them stood before him, conspiratorially chattering about him in their language. They seemed weary of him.

Kylo realized that a bowl sat next to him.

A bowl filled with water.

He reached for it… with a hand that was no longer there.

Dragging his other arm around him, he grasped the bowl and brought it up to his mouth, and then drank his fill. A small part of his mind told him that the water was dank, lukewarm and unpleasant. But he didn't care. He drained ever last drop of it.

His mind cleared, and he turned his attention back to the aliens before him. He had heard of them; the Jawas were scavengers of the desert. Present not only on Tatooine but on barren worlds throughout the Outer Rim. No one was quite sure what their world of origin was or how their diaspora had begun. But, judging from the appearance of their gigantic mobile fortresses, they were quite capable of incredible (if rough and slightly primitive, by galactic standards) engineering feats. These Jawas seemed unsure what to do about him; a sentiment Kylo could relate to.

One Jawa approached him, holding a container of some kind. He moved slowly, and Kylo could sense both caution and curiosity mixing together in his emotions. He poured more water for him. Kylo reached for it and the Jawa pulled away quickly.

He drank more slowly this time. He was still heavily dehydrated, his eyes aching to close against the glare of light and a furious pain splitting his head, but he nursed the drink; savouring every gulp until he started to notice the acrid taste of the liquid. Was it simply all the Jawas could get from Tatooine's moisture farmers, or was it their own preference? Kylo wasn't sure, nor did he much care. He was simply glad that he had water to drink again.

As he drank, he realized that his jacket lay on his lap. The belt had been slung on a hook next to him; the blaster was gone. The singed cloak lay around his shoulders, unfastened. And the lightsaber was nowhere to be seen.

A sharp awareness came over Kylo's mind. Where was it? Where was his blade?

He didn't understand why he had such a sudden desire for the weapon he had tried to rid himself just… moments? Hours? Days ago? He wasn't sure. The hand he once had, and which he still felt attached to his wrist, was empty without it.

The Jawas muttered among themselves, watching him and sensing. They could sense the agitation growing in him and it concerned them.

Kylo's mind raced through the room, seeking the lightsaber. But he couldn't find it; every time he sensed his presence, all he saw in his mind's eye were spare parts. Why was the Force guiding him to spare parts? He didn't understand…

… and then, he did.

He had found his lightsaber… in several parts.

Anger roiled in him, familiar rage that these creatures had dared tear apart his weapon.

A cry of surprise went through one of the Jawas as a small satchel at its side pierced, and a small, red glow shot through the air to slow before the stump of Kylo Ren's hand. He had extended his sword hand to reach it. As it floated there, Kylo cursed his reflexes for the reminder of his loss and took the crimson kyber in his left hand. As the crimson glow vanished into his fist, he remembered when it had not been red, before he had corrupted it to silence the visions it cast into his mind: his mother had given it to him; it was all he had left of her.

The Force was not necessary to tell him that the Jawas were truly anxious about him now.

Within moments, they had brought out weapons, large blasters with cords connected to energy packs and stun sticks of crude design, but undoubtedly effective. Kylo wasn't yet strong enough to face them all in a fair fight.
But he didn't need to fight fair.
Gulping down another sip of water, he extended his mind with the Force and pulled the weapons from their grips. The Jawas shrieked and recoiled as the guns and stunners clanked against the bulkhead of their crawler. One of them, braver than the others, pulled a large knife from his satchel, and made to lunge for Kylo. He soon flew back, his knife lying beside the other weapons of the Jawas. After that, none tried to attack him again. Instead, they wearily gave him a wide berth.
Kylo had not doubt that they would try again, but only once they had figured out a new strategy… or until he had grown so weak that they could easily dispose of him. His mind cleared as his existential problems were replaced with something easy, a situation he had found himself in too many times to count in the past. A situation of life and death.

He needed to get off the crawler.

And he knew where he wanted to go.

He would need to use the Force again, insinuating himself into the minds of the Jawas. Not for information, but for control. He had done it before; using the power of the Force to compel an unwilling mind into obedience was easy.

Once he had reached his destination, it would be far harder.

Now

The sandcrawler was still visible in the distance, rolling away from the abandoned farm of the Lars family.

Kylo's mind had been so clear when he had forced the Jawas to take him to the home where, he knew from the stories his parents had told him, and those he had heard at the Temple. This was where his uncle had been hidden from the prying eyes of the Empire, where he grown up unaware of his lineage. Much as Ben Solo had been kept unaware of his grandfather's identity. Because his parents had not believed he could handle it. Instead, he had been forced to find out when the truth had been revealed to the galaxy in a scandal that had ended his mother's political career.

He remembered the rage he had felt at the time.

And the satisfaction. After sacrificing everything to it, his mother's precious New Republic had turned on her in an instant when her deception had been revealed. But the satisfaction was no longer enough.

Kylo Ren wasn't enough anymore.

As he stood above the deserted farm, the sun begun to set.

And the boy who had once been Ben Solo, the man who had once been Kylo Ren…
…didn't know what to do.

-0-

'Hey, kid.'

The voice surprised him, not because he hadn't expected it. But because he had been expecting another. He had never heard it before. But, for some reason he could not quite explain, he recognized it.

He turned to find the figure standing beside him on the ledge. A pale, translucent man in the robes of the Jedi Order. His face was young, younger than Kylo was now, framed by wavy dark blonde hair. A scar cut across his right eye, and he was quite sure that the blue of his irises wasn't the light of the Force, but the colour they had been when he had been alive long before Ben Solo had even been born. He had a sad smile on his face.

A face he had lost hope of seeing, but kept hoping he would.

'Grandfather.' He said as he turned to face the ghost of Anakin Skywalker.