Day 18: Let's Break the Ice | Treading Water

The hum of his lightsaber was loud in the eerie silence. It moved in great sweeping arcs, a blur of blue so vivid it looked alive in the dead, quiet desert.

Because it is alive, Rey thought. The lightsaber was an extension of the man who held it. An immutable part of him, more than his own flesh and blood. The pulsing blue light cast odd shadows on his face, making him look unnervingly remote, almost predatory, as he met her blows with ease.

It was mesmerizing to look at. Almost hypnotic.

So hypnotic, in fact, that as their weapons clashed in a blazing burst of sparks, she braced her feet against the ground a beat too late, and the force of his parry sent her tumbling backward through the air—

A crackling flash of light. A sharp, slashing cut. A rush of air, torn out of her lungs.

Blackness gnawed at the edges of her vision. Fluttering. Flickering. And then his face swam into focus, set in a scowl as his gaze flicked from the humming blade hovering at her neck to the severed arm lying in the dirt, still gripping her lightsaber.

Rey knew she should be in pain. Knew she should be clutching what remained of her right arm to her chest, screaming. But she could only stare, her heart pounding, at the man standing over her, silhouetted against the suns.

"What have I always told you?" he said. The angry disappointment in his voice burned her more than the lightsaber poised beside her neck, so close she could feel its searing heat, blistering her skin. "Keep your eyes on your opponent, not on your feet."

Teeth gritted, muscles burning, she forced herself to hold his gaze. "I did."

"Not well enough."

"I'm sorry," she said, and she meant it.

His expression softened. "I know you are," he said, more gently now. "You're young. You're still learning."

Rey would have thought it was an odd thing to say, had it been said by anyone else. The man looked around the same age as her, maybe a handful of years older. But for a moment, as he withdrew his weapon and pulled her to her feet, it looked like there were lines and scars across his face, faint sprawling marks like the branches of a rotting, withered tree. He looked old, then. Older than he should have been.

Breathing hard and trying to find her bearings, Rey straightened and watched the man summon her discarded lightsaber with a flick of his wrist. He turned it over in his hands, a considering look on his face.

Maybe that was the strangest thing about this all: her lightsaber. She knew she had one. She must have. But if anyone were to ask her what it looked like—if there had been anyone at all to even ask her—she would have been hard-pressed to describe it. She could see it, look at it, grip it tightly until her knuckles turned white, but she couldn't hold the image of it in her mind. Not the color of its blade. Not the design of its hilt. It was gone the moment she looked away, and the only knowledge she retained was that it was here, and that it was real. The most real thing in all the world.

Her lightsaber was as much a mystery to her as the stranger in front of her.

Who are you? she had asked him once. Or maybe she had asked him a dozen times. Maybe she had asked him every night, in every dream.

Your teacher, I suppose, he had said. But not your Master. Never your Master. Remember that. You can forget everything else, but not this—we bow to no Master.

The man—her teacher—turned to her and said, thoughtfully, "You're used to fighting with a quarterstaff, aren't you? Perhaps a saberstaff would suit you better."

"You think so?" Rey said.

He shrugged. "We can certainly try it. I know enough Jar'Kai that there is still a thing or two I can teach you."

He held out her weapon, and she reached out to take it—where there should have been a charred stump at her elbow, there was now a mechanical arm, gleaming black and gold.

"We match," she said, smiling.

"Let's hope not," he said dryly, and she ignored his grimace as she took the proffered weapon. Her new fingers closed around it, feeling its weight.

It should have been impossible—her arm, her lightsaber—but there was no such thing as impossible in her dreams. Rey didn't remember how they started—but that was the way of dreams, wasn't it? One moment, she was in the belly of the rotting, rusting AT-AT walker that had become her home, looking out at the empty night sky; the next, she was staring out at an endless carpet of sand, twin suns shining overhead with a bright, hungry glare.

And always, there was the man—her Master who wasn't, who'd rattle off pointers to improve her form as they sparred. You're small, so use that to your advantage, he'd say, without pausing his feints and parries, each one as blindingly fast as the last. Make the enemy come to you. Tire them out. Get too close, and they won't need their lightsaber to kill you.

For all his lethal grace, for all his sure-footed certainty when he moved across the shifting dunes, she knew he didn't belong here any more than she belonged on the wastelands of Jakku. She didn't know how she knew, only that she did, in the same way she knew that this was all a dream.

"We'll have another go," he said. "Try not to lose any more limbs, this time."

Rey thumbed her lightsaber into life—a saberstaff now—and gave it an experimental swing. "Any more advice?"

"Don't rely too much on your weapon—that's the problem, fighting double-bladed. In my experience, you end up focusing too much on your blades, and too little on the Force."

She nodded, planting her feet and letting her attention relax and broaden—the way he had taught her to do before every dueling bout.

"Make sure to keep your distance, as much as you can," he was saying, matching her step for step. "Your next opponent won't be merciful enough to let you go with only a missing arm."

"Are they ever?" she couldn't help but ask. "Merciful, I mean."

"Sometimes. But you can't rely on mercy."

"You did."

He laughed. It was a jarring, bitter sound. "Not really. Not at all."

Rey waited for him to say more, but he didn't. She frowned at him. "Isn't this the part where you tell me to put my faith in the Force? Trust that whatever will be, will be?"

A faint smile curved the corner of his mouth. "I should, shouldn't I? But the way I see it, trust is too fine a thread to balance the lives of many." He paused, then snorted. "I am probably wrong about that. I have been wrong about many things. It's your turn, now, to choose."

"Choose what?"

He didn't answer; his eyes were now fixed on her prosthetic hand. He had activated his lightsaber, and in the blue light of its glow, his young face was grooved with lines that shouldn't have been there. Shouldn't have been, but somehow they suited him, those lines of weariness—of fear. As if they belonged there all along.

"A better teacher would tell you that your weapon is your life," he murmured. "But you are no weapon. If I have learned anything at all, I have learned that. You are more than your weapon. You are a person and you—"

He stopped, but she knew, instinctively, what he meant.

"My name is Rey," she said.

He looked up at her then—and grinned. "Yes. It is."