Author's Note: Update! Took a little longer than I wanted but there was a reason for that! Happy reading.
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Never have, never will. I simply play in their world.
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"And in those moments
when you feel afraid to trust love,
remember that I have crossed
a great ocean of loneliness to find you.
Mine is not a fair-weather heart.
It was built to outlast storms."
-John Mark Green
Kylo Ren
"REY!"
Echoing silence inside my mind, the lilting cadence of her voice an absence that rends sharp claws through my soul.
I've pinpointed the last known location where the scouts signal terminated and I see the wreckage of the crafts that Rey and her companions were using to flee my forces but there is no other sign of her.
Nothing but rolling black sand and scattered bits of wood still being consumed by fire.
Again I reach for her mind, the brilliance of her soul and I am blocked by a wall of darkness.
She was either unconscious somewhere or...
My fingers clench hard around the controls of the TIE.
She wasn't dead. I will not believe that until I see her body with my own eyes.
I will find her.
"Ap'Lek where are you."
"The Forbidden Valley Lord Ren."
"Have you gained control of the Falcon?"
"Yes. No crew aboard the ship. Commander Syr is ready to send it to the Steadfast. Your orders?"
"Continue as planned. I am on my way."
I needed to retrace her steps, find out why she was at the Festival of Ancients and why she has disappeared.
Ben...I'm sorry I should have sa-
Her last words reverberating in my head.
What was it that she had desperately wanted to tell me?
The Night Buzzard is easy to spot. A carapace of dull black metal against the dusty orange and red sands that make up this world.
I set my TIE next to the ship and move towards the Valley that played host the their festival.
Ap'lek and Ushar are waiting for me. The others have foraged into the crowd, looking for anyone who witnessed the Resistance fighters and their flight.
"Report. What have you discovered."
"The scavenger and her allies passed through here only hours ago. They met with someone before taking the skiffs and fleeing."
"Who?"
"He is called the Hermit. Commander Syr is certain this person shot down several fighters in an effort to aid the Resistance's escape."
So Rey has found herself another ally.
"Where is the 'Hermit' now."
"In custody."
"Take me to him."
We move through the frightened crowd, signs of a battle still littering the ground and air.
Small huts smoldering, fallen Stormtroopers being hauled away.
Mothers clutching their children tightly to them and averting their faces as we pass by.
A cacophony of emotion buffering me and I turn them all .
There is only one person I want to feel and her mind is silent to my calls.
Rey where are you? Answer me!
Nothing but the echo of my own thoughts.
"Sir!" A Stormtrooper in polished armor, the red line across the helm and and left shoulder marking them as a Commander and not an ordinary ground trooper.
Commander Syr.
"Where is the Hermit Commander?"
"This way Supreme Leader."
We move pass a throng of people and yet something grapples for my attention, strange echo's from the Force that resonate around a small child native to this world.
She is female from the way she is dressed. A festival gown of vibrant green that wraps around her tiny frame.
Bright, curious eyes that have no fear gaze up at me.
She pulls away from from the adult clutching her hand and runs towards me.
My Knights along with Syr move to stop her.
"Let her pass."
"Nheti sooma! Rey ishti due'r?"
I don't speak the native tongue of the Aki-AKi but I recognize Rey's name.
"Get me a translator now."
"She wants to know why you have Rey's necklace."
A familiar voice speaking, recalling a childhood memory from my past I thought I had left behind.
"Uncle Wanwo!"
"There's my little Starfighter! What has your beautiful mother been feeding you? I swear you weigh as much as a Wookie!"
Han Solo's other best friend and fellow Rebel.
Lando Calrissian. A frequent visitor to the home of my parents and reoccurring figure of my childhood before my parents gave me away.
I refuse to look at the man and keep my eyes on the child as I pull the necklace from the folds of my cloak.
I hold it in my hand and she looks at it with glowing excitement.
"Ask her how she knew I had this."
Lando translates and she is quick to respond.
"Chide gymeti! Konno des shutyr tu Rey ahmpi!"
"She said she made it and..."
Lando pauses and when he does not continue I grow impatient.
"And?"
"...that you must be the one to make Rey...happy."
He doesn't sound pleased and yet my heart is a painful beat in my chest.
She looks up at me and there is no guile in this innocent child.
"Tell her to go back to her mother."
Lando quickly translates and the child nods and runs back to her parent, waving at me...as though I were not a monster.
She is not so different from another girl that Rey befriended on Pralis.
The little Twi'lek we saved from slavers.
I tuck the necklace back into the hidden pocket and wonder, yet again, what forces are at work in my life to set such children in my path.
Rey...where are you. Let me hear your voice. Tell me you're alive.
Nothing but deafening silence in my mind, a hollowness in my soul that will never be filled if something has happened to her.
I will tear this world apart to find her if I must.
I turn to Lando Calrissian, a man who was rumored to be dead.
He is no longer the figure of my childhood memories. That easy smile that had charmed so many of the senators who frequented my mother's home is absent. There are heavy lines around his eyes and his hair holds more gray than black. The cane at his side makes me wonder what injures he sustained during the purge of the old rebel leaders.
"It would seem you've risen from your grave to fight a war already won."
"I see no victors here. Perhaps it's you who are fighting a war that has already been won."
I am not in the mood to be lectured by a man from my youth.
"Tell me where you sent her and I may yet let you walk away with your life."
He shakes his head at me and despite being surrounded by my troopers, seems unafraid of the danger he now faces.
"I lost my life a long time ago. But you already know something about that don't you kid?"
He still speaks to me as if he were my honorary 'uncle'. The man who used to lift me onto his shoulders so that I could be as tall as Chewbacca and make my father growl in warning.
"I have no times for riddles Calrissian. Tell me where you sent Rey now."
"She's chasing ghosts Ben."
I clench my fist at the name he uses. I tolerate Rey calling me that but no other.
"That boy you knew is gone. I am Kylo Ren now."
"Whatever you say."
Commander Syr points his blaster at Lando.
"You will show the proper respect to Supreme Leader Ren."
"Respect has to be earned before it can be given."
Calrissian looks at me with a heavy sadness that I find disturbing.
"I told your parents your defiance would shake the stars," weariness and quiet sorrow in the words he speaks, "I'm sorry to learn that I was right."
"Spare me your platitudes, I have no need of them. Will you tell me what I want to know or do I have to take it from you?"
He sighs and seats himself among the carnage, leaning heavily on his cane.
"Sure, I'll tell you, not that it will do you any good. I sent Rey and her friends to Lurch Canyon. Seems they've taken an interest in an old relic hunter called Ochi of Bestoon. He disappeared around these parts some ten years ago. As I said, she's chasing ghosts."
Ochi of Bestoon. I know that name and now I know why Rey has come to Pasaana.
She is looking for the Emperor's wayfinder and the way to Exegol.
My mother and her ragtag rebels still believe they have a chance of winning this war.
"Ap'lek go and gather the other Knights and head for Lurch Canyon. You'll find on the cliffs a ship that belonged to the relic hunter. Set your trap accordingly."
"As you command Lord Ren. Ushar, with me."
My Knights depart and I am left with another relic from the past that should have stayed dead.
"What shall I do with this rebel scum?"
"Leave him to me Command Syr. I want the Faclon aboard the Steadfast before I leave this planet."
"It will be as you command Supreme Leader."
It is just Lando and myself and the old pilot looks up at me and I now see what had eluded me earlier.
Grief covers him like a death shroud. What was once a proud, daring pilot and leader of the Old War now sits a broken man.
"Where is your wife, Jamissa and your daughter Jenirah?"
I glimpse the open despair in his gaze, the smoldering embers of rage that have not burned out over the long years.
"Dead," harsh, guttural words that are at odds with the persona I knew from so long ago, "Jamissa died trying to stop the First Order from taking our child. Jenirah...," a laugh that sounds more like a broken sob, "she...gone. My little girl...I haven't seen her in nearly fifteen years. I don't even remember what she looks like..."
He stares up at me and lays his cane across his lap and opens his arm.
"Here you go kid, you'll never have a better shot that you do now. Take my life. You've already taken the best of me so why should I care what you do next?"
I hadn't known about his wife...or his daughter.
I take my hand away from my saber and shake my head.
"What threat is a broken man to me? Why should I kill someone who is already dead."
He stares at me, a frown on his weathered features.
"What trick is this? Kylo Ren...showing mercy?"
"This isn't mercy, you're already in hell. Why should I change that?"
A faint whisper in my mind...the scent of a midnight bloom ensnaring my senses...
It's gone before I can grasp it but it doesn't matter now.
Rey is alive.
I don't need Calrissian anymore.
I know where to find her. I've already seen what she is hunting for.
I look once more at this remnant of a great leader and something close to anger smolders within me.
"Do all parents give up so easily on their children or is it just you Rebels?"
Lando looks at me as though I just dealt him a death blow.
"You have no idea of what you're talking about. I loved my daughter, I would never abandon her!"
"Yet here you are, your head buried in the sand...my Troopers must have been mistaken thinking you were General Calrissian. He never gave up on anything that mattered to him. You are just a weak, old man."
"She's dead!"
"Is she? You saw her body, tore apart the galaxy just to make certain that your life had no more meaning before giving up?"
His cane falls off of his lap and he stares at me, eyes wide with shock and I turn away in disgust.
Is it any wonder that so many children come to the First Order if this is all the effort parents like him make to find them?
I'm done here.
My TIE is where I left her and I ready my ship for flight. I need to get back to Lurch Canyon and pick up the missing trail.
There was something odd about that black sand in the middle of a desert.
That is where all the wreckage is centered around, I will start there.
She has to be close by.
Sunlight in my veins but weak and fading, notes of a midnight bloom that is but an echo of a far more evocative scent.
Ben...I don't know if I can do this...
Anguish and fear that pushes the air from my lungs as her voice resounds inside my head after so much silence.
Her thoughts crash into mine and my vision doubles and I see a creature wounded and feel her desperate need to heal it.
She is afraid.
Afraid that she will fail and do more harm than good and she is reaching for me in that fear.
Yes you can, I touch her thoughts with my own, that wall of darkness that had been blocking us somehow lifted, you are stronger than you know.
Her only limitation is the ones she puts on herself.
If only she could see what I see when I look at her.
I feel her trembling in the dark and reach out to offer her my strength.
For a moment I feel the weight of her hand beneath mine.
Help me, he is pain...there is so much pain...
She is too close to the creature, too wrapped up in its emotions.
I use our connection and see through her eyes and feel her surrender to our bond.
There, a gaping wound that will not close. I don't know why she wants to heal this creature but I will not deny her my help.
The creature screams and I feel her shudder in resonance to that pain.
Calm, I remind her, using my own strength as a buffer, to heal you must be calm.
I feel her trying to separate herself, to let go of the pain so she can focus but the creature screams again and I feel her slipping away from me.
Center yourself Rey, I channel my power through her, letting the darkness in me sweep all other distractions from her mind, let the Force flow through you...
Our minds merge, the kiss of her soul like a sunburst as it touches mine and our powers in the Force become one.
Light and Darkness intertwined.
There is a calmness to her mind now. Like a placid ocean no longer turbulent.
Now she is ready to begin the healing.
Channel your energy...focus your will into your intent...feel the blood stop flowing...the flesh to knit...
Our hands move as one and she follows my instructions without hesitation and the wound begins to close and I gently pull back my power.
She has to be the one to heal the creature. In this I can only guide her.
I feel her spirit begin to waver, her trust in her own abilities fading.
Ben...I don't have the strength...
She has the strength, it is her own doubt impeding her now.
I close my eyes and cross the distance that separates us.
We are somewhere underground. A cavern that is cold and dark and reeks of old blood and reptilian musk.
The glow of a saber in the dark makes her seem almost ethereal.
She is shaking, her skin chilled and I wrap myself around her, feeling her lean into me.
She has her own strength but that doesn't mean I won't be here to catch her when she falls.
Yes you do, I am here to encourage her not tear her down, believe in the impossible Rey and it is no longer impossible.
That is what is means to be a Jedi. To overcome obstacles that seem to have no solution.
Her soul blazes into fractured light and I am dazzled by the beauty of all that she is.
Her power runs like rivers of light into the creature and the wound that gave her such fear closes seamlessly.
Not even a scar remains behind to show where it had been injured.
I have never seen such a clean healing for one so new to it.
That glorious blaze of light gutters as the healing takes its toll.
I catch her in my arms, cradling her body closer to mine. She is vulnerable after such a healing.
Something I had forgotten to mention until now.
Ben...I...
Hush Rey, I pour my own strength into her already feeling the fatigue weighing us both down, you healed him.
I have to find her and I can't do it like this.
No...please...
Such anguish in her, I feel her soul reaching for mine and ruthlessly I cut the connection between us, ripping my soul once more in half.
I come back to my senses.
No longer underground but back in the cockpit of my TIE.
"I'm coming for you Rey. Our parting will not be long."
My ship roars to life and I race over the desert and back to the woman who calls out to me.
This isn't over between us.
