Sorry for the three-chapters-at-once dump, folks; I only just realized how far behind I am on updating this story over here. If there's anybody actually reading it here on FFnet let me know and I'll try to do better about catching-up and cross-posting. Otherwise I may just stick to AO3 and save myself the formatting headache. I don't want to abandon anyone who prefers reading on FFnet though, so speak-up if that's you!
Ahch-To, Unknown Regions
Rey hit the ground face-first, barely catching herself with her outstretched hands before her nose plowed into the dirt. In one hand, she gripped the empty hilt of her borrowed lightsaber. Sweat and dirt streaked her face and plastered the escaping strands of her hair to her forehead. Her white undertunic was damp and muddy; her outer vest had been discarded an hour ago. She looked exhausted.
"Again," Luke said mildly.
Rey rolled over and sprang to her feet, dropping quickly into a fighting stance and holding the lightsaber out in front of her, both hands wrapped tight around the hilt. She took a deep breath and toggled the button to ignite the blade.
It sprang to life with a snap-hiss , a rod of blue light buzzing out in front of her.
Luke stood roughly two meters away, his own green bladed lightsaber held one-handed at his side. He had removed his outer robe but the other layers still looked neat, if somewhat frayed from time and repeated washings. He looked like a man who had been lightly exerting himself - flushed, but not sweaty. His hair was mussed but his robes and cheeks were free of dirt.
He wasn't even breathing hard.
Rey gave a little growl of frustration and launched herself into a powerful overhead strike. Luke stepped neatly to the side, dodging it without lifting his blade. As she moved past him he swung his saber towards her unprotected back and Rey had to throw herself forward into a roll to avoid the emerald beam.
She came smoothly to her feet and spun backwards, thrusting her lightsaber in a backhanded grip as though it were a staff. This time Luke had to raise his own blade to knock it away, at least, although he did so without apparent effort. Rey continued with the spin, moving forward into a fresh attack. Luke lifted his saber, somehow anticipating every move before she could make it, his green blade always there seconds before she struck, waiting and ready to deflect her blows.
"You're an excellent fighter, Rey," Luke told her.
"Thank you." She gritted the words out between her teeth as she battered at him pointlessly with her humming blade.
"It's impressive how quickly you've adapted your knowledge of the staff to the blade instead," Luke continued. He didn't sound condescending. He should have, but he didn't. Rey found that even more frustrating. "But all you're doing with it is fighting me."
"Isn't that - what I'm - supposed to be - doing?" Rey asked, her words battered into staccato snippets between the clash of their energy weapons striking and rebounding.
Luke smiled. "You're supposed to be using the Force," he said. "See, like this."
And then he closed his eyes.
Rey widened hers in shock and impending horror, trying desperately to reverse the swing she had just started, the image of her taking off Luke Skywalker's head with her lightsaber burning itself across her imagination like a brand - but she didn't. Luke's blade came up once more to knock hers away, the deflection seemingly as effortless as before.
As Rey gaped, Luke went on the attack. Now she was the one trying to anticipate and block his blows, and she was barely keeping up. He drove her steadily backwards as she tried desperately to move her lightsaber fast enough to meet his, and all the while he did not open his eyes.
Luke moved as though he and the blade were one, transformed somehow into a gliding whirling liquid, his robes swirling around him and his emerald blade dancing through the air. Rey, by contrast, felt like she was nothing but gangly limbs and knobby joints and one stiff blue blade that wasn't nearly fast or agile enough to get between her skin and his saber every time.
Fortunately, Luke seemed to anticipate that as well: each time he got a blow in past her guard, he stopped it dead centimeters from her arm, her stomach, her face; each time she swung wildly at him he stepped aside or knocked her blade away as though it were nothing but a child's toy. Rey's lips curled back in a snarl and she threw everything she had into one hard, fierce strike - and as she swung, she swept out with her leg as well.
Her foot caught Luke across the ankles and he fell backwards. Instead of hitting the sand like her, though, he turned in a neat somersault in midair and landed easily on his feet again.
"Well done," he said, and opened his eyes.
Rey panted, sweaty and gasping, staring at him. He finally looked rumpled from his flip at least, but he still wasn't breathing hard.
"How?" gasped Rey.
"The Force," Luke said simply. "Just as you can use the Force to enact your will on the galaxy around you, so too can the Force guide your actions - not just in battle, but as you can see it's certainly useful for that too." Luke turned off his lightsaber and hung it at his belt. Rey gratefully did the same. "You felt it before," he reminded her. "On Illum, when you were fighting Ben. I know you did."
Rey nodded, a little unsure - but she did remember how she had felt on Starkiller Base, when she'd allowed herself to sink into the Force like Maz Kanada had described; when she had opened herself to a Light so much bigger than herself.
"You just need to learn how to do that anytime, not just when your life is in danger. Eventually you'll strengthen your connection to the Force so much that there will never be a time you don't feel it."
"And then I'll always know what's going to happen before it does?" Rey asked.
Luke shook his head. "Not exactly, no. The future isn't fixed, so the Force can't show you a path that's certain - but it can help you anticipate immediate actions, and sometimes it will show you visions of more distant things that might come to pass."
He started climbing the long stone steps to the top of the island. Rey grabbed her vest, wiped her brow, and followed.
"My first real, full vision was about my friends," Luke explained as he settled himself on a rock overlooking the choppy ocean. Rey climbed onto a stone beside his and curled her legs up in front of her. "Leia, Han, and Chewie." Luke's smile was soft and sad. "They were in danger. I went rushing off to their rescue, of course, even though it was a mistake."
Rey frowned. "I thought Jedi didn't make mistakes."
Luke laughed so long and so hard that she thought he was going to fall off of his rock.
"Oh, Rey," he said and shook his head. "Jedi make so many mistakes. And when we do, the consequences can be...enormous."
"Vader," Rey whispered. "Kylo Ren."
Luke nodded, his laughter gone and his expression sober. "Yes," he said. He mustered a smile for her and Rey could tell that it was an effort. She couldn't explain to him how much it meant to her to have someone force a smile through their pain for no other reason than concern for her feelings, but she had to swallow hard to keep control of her own.
"But the important thing - the most important thing - is to find a way to learn from your mistakes, to do better each time. We're all of us flawed, imperfect beings - Jedi too - no matter how strong our connection to the Force," Luke explained. "Don't put pressure on yourself to be perfect, Rey. Recognize that the only thing you can do is the best you can in each moment, and take responsibility for any damage you do. Fix your mistakes when you can, and try to make up for them when you can't."
Rey nodded, her face pinched and drawn with the intensity of her listening.
Luke managed another smile for her, then turned to look out over the water again. "So. What about you?"
"What about...what?" Rey asked, caught off-guard. She blinked. "You want to hear about all the mistakes I've made?"
Luke chuckled. "No," he said. "Tell me about your friends."
Rey blinked, even more startled now. "My friends?"
"Back in the Resistance? Or on Jakku, even?" Luke shook his head. "No one is an island, Rey." His lips quirked sideways into a wry smirk. "Even when they're trapped on one for eleven years. Who are your friends? Who matters to you?"
"Um...well, uh, there's Finn," Rey said. She fidgeted with the cuff of her sleeve, struggling to find words for something she had spent her whole life longing for but had barely begun to experience. "He's the one I told you about, who ran away from Jakku with me? He's...well, aside from BB-8, he was the first person who ever cared about me as a person. I - I mean!" She jerked her head back up, wild-eyed, and quickly added, "I mean that I remember! Obviously you and Leia cared about me, and Han and Chewie, and everyone...but I don't...I don't have those memories anymore." She swallowed. "Kylo Ren took them. So...so Finn was the first person I knew who...who cared. Who came back for me."
Luke nodded, his expression pained but there was no blame or recrimination in his eyes. "I understand," he said. He mustered another sad little smile for her. "He must be very important to you."
"He - he is." Rey ducked her head, fiddling more determinedly with the frayed edge of her cuff. "And...well, and there's Chewie, of course. Leia." The word came out as a hushed whisper, almost reverent. Almost frightened. Rey had so many feelings about her mother, all of them so strong, and all of them completely beyond her capacity to explain. Instead she hurried on to add, "Uh, and BB-8's pilot, Poe. He's friends with Finn, too, so we...we talked a lot, when we were waiting for the medics to figure out if...if he was going to be okay…" Rey had to stop and swallow her feelings again. When she resumed speaking her voice was small and wistful. "And...and I didn't know Han - my father - long, but...I felt like...I don't know, felt like I'd known him for years somehow, even after just meeting him." She looked up at Luke again, her brow knit in a pleading frown. "Does that even make sense?"
"Oh yes," said Luke. This time his smile was more natural. "I knew Han too, remember. I had the same experience when I met him. In just a few hours it already felt like we were old friends - or sometimes antagonists." He chuckled. "Han was always good at getting under people's skin - for good and ill. Very charismatic, but also incredibly annoying."
Rey gave a little laugh. "I can see that," she said. "He...he didn't annoy me, though." She bit her lip and looked back down at her callused hands. "Maybe he should have. But when I was around him I just felt...okay."
Luke nodded again, just as slowly as before but this time the sorrow on his face was tempered by love. "Han was good at that, too. When he decided to accept somebody, he did it with his whole heart. Even when he was mercilessly teasing somebody, he never turned his back; never flinched away from who you were even at your worst. Never faltered over being your friend." Luke glanced over his shoulder towards where Chewbacca and Artoo were working unseen on the old X-Wing. "There's a reason he managed to earn the loyalty of as honorable and compassionate a being as Chewbacca."
"He offered me a job," Rey said in a tiny voice. "On the Falcon . With him and Chewie. He said…" She had to stop and swallow back a sudden lump in her throat before she could continue. "He tried to make it sound miserable, but it sounded like the most wonderful thing I could imagine. Like a place to belong. And I…" She heaved a heavy sigh. "I said no."
When Rey looked up at Luke this time, there were tears dancing in her eyes. "I said no," she repeated in a broken whisper. "Han...my father...offered me everything I'd ever wanted, and I said no. Because I thought I had to go back to Jakku."
Luke reached across the gap between them and held out his hand. Rey took it without thinking, sniffling hard to hold back her tears as he squeezed her palm reassuringly. "Han would have understood," he said. "He wouldn't have taken that personally. I promise."
Rey nodded. She didn't seem to be able to force any more words out.
Luke studied her for a moment, then asked, "Do you still feel it? The call to return to Jakku?" he asked. "The one Ben planted in your mind after he wiped it?"
Rey hesitated, then admitted, "Yes. But I'm not going to listen to it, of course!" she hurried to add.
"Let's make your life a little easier and get rid of that," Luke said. He released her hand to turn and face her, spinning as easily on his rocky seat as if it had been a hoverchair.
"You can do that?" Rey asked, her whole body radiating eagerness.
Luke nodded. "I can, but I'm not going to," he said. As she frowned he explained, "You are."
Rey's eyes widened. "Me?"
"It's your brain," said Luke. "Who better?"
Rey swallowed.
