Ahch-To, Unknown Regions
The suns were high in the sky above the little island. Chewbacca and Artoo stood before the ancient X-Wing, discussing its condition and the best method of repairing it in low barks and soft beeps. Rey looked at them and the familiar tools sitting ready at the snubfighter's side with longing. She understood starships - especially wrecked ones - and how to put them together again.
The Force, on the other hand…
Luke smiled at her. "Focus," he said.
Rey gulped, nodded, and closed her eyes again. She was sitting on a moss-covered rock, legs folded in a loose tailor's seat, arms resting loosely across her knees. Luke sat on another rock facing her, his hood down and his graying hair waving loose in the breeze.
"Reach out," he said, his voice soft but insistent. "Feel where life connects, the places where the Force weaves it all together. You, me, Chewie...even the porgs."
A smile tugged at Rey's lips. She quickly schooled it away.
"Reach further. To the oceans - beyond them. Feel the life within, the life that waits beyond the borders of this world. Feel how the Force connects it all, person to person and planet to planet and system to system, a whole galaxy built out of the connections of life to itself…"
Rey's breathing slowed. Her eyes fluttered beneath their lashes then went still. She sank deeper into herself, deeper into the web of something that she could feel somehow beyond the edges of her skin, beyond the reach of arms or eyes or ears. She felt the same way she had back on Starkiller Base, when she'd reached deep inside herself to find - the Force? It had to be.
It felt...warm.
"All right, Breha - "
Her eyes snapped open. "Rey," she interrupted Luke quickly, "please. I...I know it's my name, my real name, but...I'm just...I'm still getting used to it." She laced her fingers together and tugged at them, clearly uncomfortable. "I was Rey for all my life - at least, all the life I can remember," she explained apologetically. "I'm not...I'm just not ready to go by Breha yet. Please." Her voice was a plea, far more desperate than such a small request merited. Luke could hear the guilt that underscored it. He understood: she felt like she was betraying Leia by eschewing the name her mother had given her, for all that it was still the name of a stranger to her.
"Rey," he said, nodding kindly. "Of course. All right, Rey, let's try something a little more active now."
"Active?" Rey dropped her feet back to the ground at Luke's gesture, her face anxious. "Does that mean - do you want your lightsaber back?" Unspoken at the end of her sentence lurked the word, finally. Rey had only flown from one end of the galaxy to the other to give it back to him, after all; it was about time for him to actually take the thing.
She reached down to where it lay at her side on the rock, her fingers hovering just above the sleek metal, waiting for permission to pick it up and hand it over.
Luke stood and smiled down at her. "What for?" he asked.
"What - " Rey blinked. "What do you mean, what for? This...it's your lightsaber." She snatched it up and held it out, shaking it impatiently as though trying to get a stubborn pet's attention. "I brought it back to you, your sister sent me to give it - "
Luke was shaking his head. "Leia didn't send you to give that saber back to me," he said. "She sent it for me to train you with."
"But it's - it's yours," Rey said, her voice as raw with dismay as though Luke had just committed some cardinal sin contrary to all the social mores of her world.
"It was," Luke said with a shrug. "And it was Anakin Skywalker's before it was mine. Jedi are often trained on lightsabers built by others - but in order to learn how to truly wield the weapon, they must build one of their own."
He moved his faded outer robe aside, revealing the long black-wrapped metal cylinder that hung from his belt.
Rey's eyes widened. "Oh," she said. "But that's - "
"My lightsaber?" Luke said mildly. "Yes, it is. So it's very convenient that you've got one to use too so that we can spar together until you're ready to build your own."
Rey slid off her rock, lightsaber clutched nervously in both hands. "Spar - together?"
Luke smiled and held out his metal hand, beckoning her. "Come on," he said. "Follow me."
