AN: I cannot thank the reviewers enough, thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts with me.
Chapter 8 - Butterfly
Senator Palpatine sent a genealogy test to Master Jinn, requesting that Rey's heritage be proven.
She was more than happy to do this, and watched over his shoulder as he inserted her blood sample into the computer.
She didn't know what to hope for, either the Senator really was her father, and her life on Jakku was a lie, or her memories from her childhood were a lie.
Or something else that Rey couldn't begin to understand.
Regardless, she was pretty certain that Senator Palpatine was Emperor Palpatine. Maybe she really did have foresight like Master Sifo-Dyas, or maybe the Force had just tipped her off to Senator Palpatine being a bad person.
The screen finished loading; the genetics checked out.
Senator Sheev Palpatine was her father, and her 'time travel' experience was more complicated than a child's false memories.
She sank into a chair, her mind reeling.
She slowed her breathing, and drew on the Force, it shined around her like sunlight on a rushing river.
The Force was real, her connection to Master Jinn and Obi-Wan were real.
The rest…
Did her past matter? Did who she was depend on how she recalled history? No, her experiences were what mattered.
She was a scavenger and a Jedi apprentice.
She had been a daughter who loved her parents.
Rey followed that thread of suppressed pain, dim because the pain of their separation wasn't the only pain to be found there.
Fear.
They had lived on the edge of a town, Rey and her mother had spent more time in the jungle among the plants and playing in streams than wandering the architectural beauty of Naboo.
Her mother had been as gentle as she had been strong.
And strong she had needed to be, her father, as kind, as loving as he had been, had lived in fear. She remembered him always looking over his shoulder. Deep into the night, long after Rey had been tucked into bed, anger had coloured his voice when he spoke with her mother.
What had her father feared? Why had he been so very, very angry?
You will be safe here, was the last thing he had said to her.
Her mother's arms had held her one last time, We love you.
-Then why did you leave me? Rey wanted to ask them.
Rey dug deeper into those old memories, long ignored for the sorrow they carried.
Her mother kneeling before her, pushing her hair back from her face, Never be afraid of who you or where you came from. One day, my daughter, the galaxy will remember your name, not for the horror you caused but for the light you brought them. Rey Palpatine, you will be counted among the brightest of stars.
A large hand touched her cheek, wiping away the tears.
Rey opened her eyes, to find Master Jinn kneeling before her. She put a hand over his, and said, "My name is Rey Palpatine, and the galaxy will remember that name when he has been long forgotten."
Her Master smiled, "Padawan Palpatine, I could not be more proud than to call you my apprentice."
She left her chair to hug him, he wrapped his arms around her.
She let the pain go. She let the unanswered questions and the doubts that had ravaged her soul go to the Force.
And in turn, the Force gave her freedom.
No matter what the future or past might hold in store for her, she was home, the Jedi were her family, and the Force was her shelter.
She was Padawan Rey Palpatine, and no one could take that from her.
Qui-Gon was far more angry than he had anticipated being. So angry in fact, that he was forced to give up hours of sleep in order to meditate in the attempts to relinquish that anger.
But as soon as he let go of his emotions, something would remind him, or the Senator himself would remind him anew about what he had to be angry about.
Qui-Gon didn't particularly like politicians to begin with.
And if he had one fault as a Jedi Master, hating slavers would be it. Well, probably he had many faults, he knew he did, but his emotions on this matter, he knew were actively breaking from the Jedi Code.
He could not for the life of him fathom why Senator Palpatine would sell his own child.
He also was sick of the man's constant endeavours to reach out to his Padawan. Especially, as he denied to tell them if he knew who the mother had been. Rey, despite taking on her surname, had relinquished her kinship to her biological father in the way of the Jedi. The Jedi were her family. Her name she acknowledged, the Senator she did not.
Qui-Gon was beginning to run out of ways to phrase that to Naboo's Senator. His responses of late had been curt and far from his usual diplomatic tones.
He wondered if his summons by the Council today was in any way related to that. He hoped not.
Quinlan Vos would be arriving tomorrow evening, and he hoped this summons would be an upcoming mission, not the Senator trying to reach Rey by going over his head.
The room he entered was one of Yoda's mediation places, there the Grandmaster and Mace sat waiting for them.
Qui-Gon bowed before taking a seat set in a loose triangle before them.
"Master Jinn," Mace began, "We've received an interesting request from Senator Palp- Why are you making that face?"
Qui-Gon sighed, tried to speak, then sighed again.
"Upset, you are," Yoda remarked, "Angry even. Well respected, Senator Palpatine is. Teach his daughter, you are, the right to meet with her, he has."
"Not if Rey doesn't wish it. She is one of ours, she will be a Jedi Knight. Her family relations mean nothing."
"Mean something if his name she claims," Yoda said in turn.
"It's her name, her history. Would you have me give up the name Jinn, if I turned away my sire's summons?"
"Why are you so bothered?" Mace asked.
"The matter is complex, but Rey has made her choice, the Senator must accept that."
"More to this story there is," Yoda surmised.
Mace leaned back, crossing his legs. He had an irritatingly superior air to him as he said, "You must tell us, Qui-Gon, your emotions betray you in this I think."
He wanted to deny it, but hadn't he been thinking the same on the walk here? "Sheev Palpatine and the mother, whoever she might be, sold their daughter into slavery. How or why I cannot begin to guess, but Rey says that she was about five years old. She has resolved to hold no ill will against Senator Palpatine, but she wants no further contact with him."
The atmosphere in the room had gone cold. Qui-Gon suppressed a smile, they were angry too.
"Disturbing, this is."
"But why?" Mace asked, "Five? We've taken her blood test, her midi-chlorian count is higher than Yoda's. It is a wonder the Seekers didn't find her, and Naboo is within the Republic. Why would he sell his own kin? What possible reason could he have when he should have given her up to the Jedi Order? She belonged with us."
The last was said with more heat than Qui-Gon had ever heard in the Vaapod Master's words before.
It had only been a year, but Qui-Gon hadn't realized how Rey had won over the hearts of the others.
Yoda, who had accepted Rey at the first, had a dangerous look in his eyes that belied the power his small stature contained. "Senator Palpatine, more insidious he is than imagined. Padawan Rey must be kept from him, a closer eye, in turn, kept on him. Hid this child he did, hid from the Jedi, when so powerful she is…"
Qui-Gon felt his breath leave him, had Senator Palpatine sought to make a weapon out of his own daughter? Was it possible? Hide her in the Outer Rim, until what, she could be salvaged by a Dark Sider?
At any rate, it seemed a more likely scenario than gambling, of which Senator Palpatine had no known history of.
"You think this is something darker?" Mace asked.
"Wrong something is," Yoda said, "Like that he would request a meeting with her from the Council, I do not."
"He hasn't stopped sending me requests to meet with her," Qui-Gon informed them.
Mace uncrossed his legs, and Qui-Gon felt a ripple of his anger, as he said, "Then the Council's reply to the Senator's request will be a restraining order. Padawan Rey Palpatine is of the Jedi, and though we are under the Republic, we dictate ourselves. Qui-Gon, you are her Master, and that means more than being her sire. She is past the age where he might have any legal foothold."
"A darkness growing in the world there has been," Yoda said, "A light our young apprentice is, and the darker that shadow grows the brighter a target she will become. Mind this, Qui-Gon. In great peril, Obi-Wan and Rey they might be."
"From the Nubian Senator?" Mace asked.
"Harm he caused, past or future, say I cannot. But know that many perils there will be, I do."
Qui-Gon's chest was tight.
With great power came great danger, as it seemed with great light there would follow great darkness.
And no greater lights could Qui-Gon imagine than his Padawans, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Rey Palpatine.
Obi-Wan had been uncomfortable about Rey taking her father's name. It was charring to hear people address her as Padawan Palpatine when only he, she, and their Master knew what evil the Senator had done.
But that feeling passed soon enough, because with the name, Rey didn't change much. Yes, he felt a conflict brewing in her, but he realized that it wasn't anything that hadn't been there before.
Rey was an indescribably wonderful person, but she was still human with as many faults as the rest of them.
Obi-Wan didn't think less of her for it, quite the opposite when she moved forward with her life with as much zeal and compassion as she ever had done.
Today, the Temple guards were visiting them.
Rey wasn't taking all that well to saber training, she tried, Force bless her, she really was trying, and her motions for the basic forms were not wrong but-
"Quit stabbing the air," Obi-Wan corrected. "It is a beam, not a single point at the end of a stick."
She wiped her brow, they were warming up as three members of the Temple guard conferred with Master Jinn.
"These motions are easier without the saber."
"No shit," he said, taking his own saber and twirling through the basic motions. She followed, her footwork was good, her arm positioning, not so good.
Rey was using Qui-Gon's saber at its lowest setting, and-
"Rey, I swear by all that floats in zero gravity, do not hold the lightsaber like that, it isn't a staff."
She huffed, powering it off, "I know we have plans to go to Ilum, but I would really like to find a more comfortable alternative than a hilt like these."
"Comfort comes with practice."
"You may try one of ours," said a voice from behind him.
Obi-Wan turned and bowed to the masked Temple guards.
Rey bowed as well, grinning at them, "I did hear that the Temple guard have dual bladed lightsabers. I was also told they require more skill."
"We each have our personal sabers," the central guard said, "Few among us prefer the dual blade, but their uncommonality serves as an extra trial for our foes."
She nodded.
"Let us see what Padawan Kenobi has learned over the last year before we try our staff inclined Padawan," Qui-Gon said.
They all bowed, and the guard to left remained on the mats with Obi-Wan as the others retreated to watch.
Obi-Wan held his lightsaber at the ready, he had been practising more and more with Master Dooku as Qui-Gon mentored Rey in the basics of Shii-Cho.
When Dooku got bored of him, Qui-Gon often left that part of Rey's training to him. As much as he loved Rey, Obi-Wan had truly taken to learning Soresu. Practising Shii-Cho at this point was like mediation exercise, though picking on Rey who for once wasn't automatically advancing had its high moments.
The Temple guard swirled his or hers, they hadn't spoken yet, double-sided saber, and Obi-Wan had to admit it was impressive.
He could only thank his insane training regiment for his ability to keep up with the flowing hits that came at him. Unlike with a single blade, the Temple guard was able to build a near endless momentum.
Obi-Wan couldn't have gotten in a strike if he tried.
Good thing the point of Soresu wasn't attack but defence.
His endurance long outdid the guard who was using a variation of the Form V. And the fight was called before either won, it was the anti-climatic fault of Soresu in a practice duel. Most people wouldn't have wanted to continue over ten minutes much less an hour.
They bowed to each other, and Rey and another guard took their place.
They bowed to one another, and Rey ignited her first dual sided lightsaber.
She looked as if she had fallen in love.
Obi-Wan exchanged a quick smile with Qui-Gon, and what transpired then was much more interesting than his own duel had been.
Obi-Wan had assumed that Rey had picked up on his Form and Qui-Gon's with such grace because of their Master and apprentice bonds.
But what he watched unfold before him was something else entirely. He could see the progress of her form from one minute to the next. She made subtle adjustments that mirrored the guard's handling of his saber.
Swift on her feet, she remained defensive, but with each clash of the yellow blades, Rey met each blow with more and more solidness.
One with the Force, no blow came close to hitting her, and she was never in danger of her own blades.
And Obi-Wan had quite a few moments of holding his breath to have that be proven to him as she executed Ataru flips with that saber. He saw that she was completely in control of herself and her weapon.
The Temple guard for his part was also using Form V, and he seemed to be struggling with Rey's imperfect knowledge of any formal form.
She dodged with the priority of Soresu and she jumped like a Hawk-bat as taught in Ataru, but she didn't have the blade work of either, she didn't even have a simple grasp of Shii-Cho which all the Jedi at the Temple fell back on.
No, Rey used her elongated saber like a staff, her stabbing motion actually having purpose here with that longer reach. The Temple guard was having trouble matching her.
It was a bit like watching a racing stead go after an unbroken beast of burden that had been running to survive predators all its life not win a competition with rules.
And Rey had very, very slim understanding of the rules.
At an opening she saw her opponent waver on pressing the attack, more or less the whole idea behind Form V, she turned off her pike.
In a fluid moment, before the guard knew what was happening, she had the folded weapon on her belt and had grabbed ahold of her opponent's lightsaber hilt.
The Temple guard tried to turn one end toward her while simultaneously pulling the hilt from her grasp, but Rey followed effortlessly.
They then got to witness the most high-risk form of hand to hand combat. With a saber beam to either side, the hilt between them, any slip would be the others doom.
Rey didn't let go of the saber as she moved with the Temple guard, her feet kicking at the man's ankles.
And as the minute passed, Obi-Wan saw just how fast Rey had become over the last year, and how brutal.
She caught the guard's in-step, and he raised one hand off the saber to try for a head blow.
That was his mistake, Rey took the saber with her with a perfectly executed backflip spin, the Force lending her more strength than her stature alluded to. The guard had to let go or be dragged behind and cut with his own lightsaber for his trouble. Rey followed through with the Ataru hand to hand training Qui-Gon had been drilling into them for months on end.
The Temple guard avoid the foot swipe but was caught by a kick to the solar plexus as she came back round in the spin. He landed on his back, his own blade at his throat.
She had won.
Obi-Wan was left wide-eyed.
She had won against a Temple Guard.
The Force be damned, Obi-Wan looked at Qui-Gon who was fighting not to grin as he and others clapped.
Obi-Wan looked up to see Masters Windu, Dooku, Sifo-Dyas, and Yoda watching from above.
Qui-Gon had been right all along. It didn't matter that Rey wasn't a trained fighter, that she was so much older than the rest of them when she started training, nor that she didn't know the basics. Rey had grown up fighting, her staff had been her life, far more than Obi-Wan's training saber has been his growing up, even if that was the mantra they gave him. He might have not become a padawan if his blade work was lazy, but he had never been in real danger of dying.
Her past wouldn't guarantee her a victory in all things, but it meant in a duel with the unsuspecting, she had much more than prayer.
She came over to them, practically skipping, as she handed back the pike to the Temple Guard who had lent it to her, she said, "I am definitely making one of these."
Obi-Wan crossed his arms, "Of course you are, or we will all be spending the next five years trying to teach you how to do something other than your stabby-stabby motion."
She punched him in the shoulder, and he laughed.
Dooku's life had changed significantly since Qui-Gon had re-entered his life. He had never imagined Yoda would ask him back into the Order without making him surrender Serreno.
It went against everything it was supposed to mean to be a Jedi.
But something had happened with his Master. Some dark shadow had crept into his Master's visions that convinced him of what nothing had in over 850 years.
If the Jedi wished to thrive, they must change.
Dooku knew this, knew it because he had studied the Sith, had explored the Darkness.
And he had found it changed. In the chaos, he found invention. When the Sith were defeated the Jedi stopped advancing.
Sure, some of their lightsaber forms had changed, but even the lightsaber itself was a Sith invention.
In Dooku's personal opinion, the galaxy was too vast that the numbered Jedi could not account for all the Sith being destroyed.
And finally, finally, Yoda had admitted as much to him and Mace last night.
The Darkness was indeed growing.
-Prepared we must be.
-What are we supposed to do differently? Mace had asked.
-Unsure, I am, but we must be ready.
-Is this because of Rey?
-No, because of the Darkness accepted Padawan Palpatine, did I.
Mace had made a face at the name 'Palpatine' which Dooku had asked about, and found that had Senator Palpatine been a Sith Lord, Dooku would have been more sympathetic.
But selling one's child into slavery?
Dooku didn't ask why, because there was no explanation good enough. Dooku's own father had left him as a babe to die in the elements unless the Jedi picked him in time, but even that he saw as a more humane action than a politician giving his five-year-old daughter to slavers.
As many faults as he saw in the Jedi Order, it was not a poor place to call home. Rey would have been welcomed as Dooku had been, with open arms.
He had cut contact with the Senator, almost swearing that he would kill him when next they met.
But Dooku was officially a Jedi Council member and such threats were frowned upon.
Besides, if Rey could take on her father's name and still smile as brightly, then Senator Palpatine was beneath their vengeance.
Unless, Dooku reasoned, the fool got in his way, then it was just putting the creature out of his misery.
"Greetings, Council member, Master Dooku," Qui-Gon said with perfect civility and still managed to sound teasing.
"Greetings, Master Jinn. Your Padawans were quite impressive this morning. I hear the Temple guards have begun to question their training."
"Sometimes I wonder if we would be just better off giving Rey a staff that couldn't be cut through by a lightsaber."
"She won today using a lightsaber."
"No, she won today using a Jedi's own lightsaber against him."
"True enough, but if that had been a real fight, the moment she jumped at him, he could have sliced her through."
Qui-Gon sighed, "Patience, I suppose, a great tree is not grown in a year, no matter how rich the soil."
"Yes, her powers are deceiving. Her connection to the Force is not yet equalled by her skill. Just as her happiness is deceiving of her past."
Qui-Gon tensed, and Dooku felt his anger through their bond, as his old apprentice said, "You heard then."
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"I thought you were friends with the Senator."
"Did you think I would defend him?" and Dooku's voice held real anger.
"No, I- did Yoda tell you his theory?"
Dooku raised a brow, "A theory of why a wealthy man would sell his own child? Do enlighten me."
"Yoda thinks he was hiding her from the Order so she might be used as a weapon later on."
Dooku's mind spun. "Her midi-chlorian count," he breathed.
"She's Nubian, she would have been found by the Seekers, unless-"
"Unless someone interfered."
"I still don't understand why she was on Tatooine of all places."
Dooku mulled that over. If someone were trying to make a weapon of a child, why would they place her in the Outer Rim?
To invent tragedy.
"You saved her, you found her and brought her here. How sure are you that if it had been someone of a less generous spirit that she would have turned another way?"
Qui-Gon was silent.
"You sense the darkness in her."
"There is darkness in all of us, and she is not Xanatos."
"No, she is incredibly loyal to her friends and family, fortunate that she sees both in the Jedi."
Dooku saw Qui-Gon's lip thin, he had once defended Xanatos against all reproach, Qui-Gon did not make the same mistake here.
"Another problem I see in this," Dooku mused.
"What?" Qui-Gon asked voice sharp.
"A midi-chlorian count is easy enough to hide. But Rey shines in the Force. Not all Jedi, nor all Force sensitives would feel her, they might not notice if they weren't looking for it."
"Your point?"
"If the daughter's midichlorian count could be hidden, why not the father's? Why hide her out of the Republic's reach if all you know to hide are any possible blood tests?"
Qui-Gon's blue eyes went wide, "You think Senator Palpatine might be a Force sensitive?"
"I think it best we don't discount the possibility."
"Yoda said as much," he said, pulling back his long hair. "I'm getting her off Coruscant as soon as I can."
"You are on your way to meet Master Vos soon, are you not?"
Qui-Gon checked the time, "Now in fact, he said we could meet him at the docks. Obi-Wan is with Rey now."
"What are your Padawans up to in the evenings?"
"I don't know anymore, I used to give them instructions, but Obi-Wan knows her limits better than I do now."
"Is she your Padawan or his?"
"Obi-Wan will be as much her Master as I am soon enough," Qui-Gon said as they began walking.
"I do not know who to reward as more maverick, you or Rael."
Qui-Gon laughed, and Dooku had to suppress a smile at the familiar timbre. "Rael has been away too long."
"I wish to lock Rey, Rael, and Mace in the same room together."
"Someone would end up dead, probably Rael, Mace likes Rey."
Dooku smiled, "Everyone likes Rey."
Qui-Gon had been sure that this evening would be accented with Quinlan Vos's usual swagger and Rey's curiosity of psychometry.
Vos's swagger he got as the man with dreadlocks and a golden strip across his nose and cheeks departed his ship.
But his roguish smile faltered when he spotted Rey, "You? Your Qui-Gon's new apprentice. I didn't realize the Order's standards had sunk so low in my absence."
Rey's response was equally hostile as she readied herself for a fight, "You're a Jedi? No, I'm sorry, I don't believe it. A hilarious joke, really. I thought we were here to meet a Master."
Vos glowered at her, "I assure you, little scavenger, I have more reason to be here than you do."
"And I assure you, that your ship has been docked in the wrong port. As far as can tell, Coruscant's underbelly is many levels lower."
Qui-Gon saw true rage spark in Vos's eyes, and he didn't have time to pull his weapon as Rey went flying at the Master Jedi who had reached for his saber.
Rey's staff sent Vos's saber skittering across the platform before he could ignite. That, however, didn't stop Vos from going after Rey with brutal kicks and punches.
"You little scavenger bitch!" he shouted as Rey swore at him in a language Qui-Gon didn't immediately recognize.
Vos pressed the attack which Rey met unfailingly with her staff.
"Oh good," Dooku remarked, "They know each other."
Obi-Wan turned to Qui-Gon, "Should we stop them?"
Padawan Aayla Secura waved a blue hand at them, "They'll wear each other out, Quin has been wanting a real brawl with her since she saved our hides when we crossed the wrong representative of one of the Hutts."
Obi-Wan looked at her baffled, "She saved your lives? Then why are they-"
"What are you, a fucking butterfly now!?" Quinlan shouted as he hopped on his own ship to go after Rey.
He got a hold if his lightsaber again, and a green streak followed after Rey who stayed well outside of his reach.
"We saved her life, she saved ours, we maybe got her into trouble, and she maybe got us out of it. Let's just say that our mission on Tatooine was… eventful," Padawan Secura concluded.
Rey came speeding back toward them, and Obi-Wan's blue saber met green, as Quinlan came at them.
While locked, Rey swung her staff just below Quinlan's knee, and he went down with an expletive.
He turned off his saber and towered above Rey, and they began swearing at each other in a long stream of words in a language only found in the Outer Rim.
After a minute, they were rendered to simply glaring at one another.
If Rey wasn't small, she might have been intimidating, as it was, her expression was a bit comical in compassion to the muscled man who had likely scared a beast or two more savage than a scavenger with his current glare.
"Great," Obi-Wan said, "now that you two have kissed and made up, either of you care to explain how you two met?"
"He lost me a week's worth of work," Rey stated, turning her glare Obi-Wan.
"I saved your life from those Sand people."
She turned back to Quinlan, "You saved me? If memory serves than I saved you and that was after I rescued you from the-"
"We would have been fine without your hel-"
"Without my help, you would have been blasted into smithereens!"
"Alright, alright," Qui-Gon interrupted. "Rey, this is Master Quinlan Vos and his apprentice, Aayla Secura. Master Vos, this is my apprentice, Rey Palpatine."
"And here I thought you were going the opposite direction with Obi-Wan. Your scavenger is another Xanatos in the making."
Qui-Gon stepped forward in front of Rey, Quinlan backed up, his face showing that he regretted his loose tongue. "Are you going to help my Padawan with her psychometry or did I need to search elsewhere?"
Quinlan shook his head, "My apologies, Master Jinn. I said I would help, and I meant that, even if your apprentice is-"
"Quin," Rey stated in a harsh voice, "I swear, I will beat your ass and send you back to the Hutts wrapped in a ribbon if I have to."
Quinlan laughed, the tension dispelling between them. "Even if your Padawan is a massive pain in the ass."
"I guess not everyone likes Rey after all," Dooku said.
"I mean he isn't wrong," Obi-Wan said cheekily, receiving a glare from Rey.
Qui-Gon sighed.
It was going to be a long month.
Rey trained with Master Quinlan Vos every single night for a month.
He was as irritating as he had been when she met him on Tatooine, but not, she admitted even if only to herself, as bad as she had made him out to be.
She still didn't like him.
Throughout that month, she had five minor seizures and had more headaches than was pleasant. But the headaches she wasn't certain came from the psychometry or Quin.
Apparently Quin came from a race of people for whom psychometry was hereditary, while Rey's own ability was purely related to her connection with the Force, Force Echoes some called it.
She was no tracker, and her ability was precarious at best. It was something she would have to keep practising, but Quin gave her the foundation to keep herself from falling prey to any object she touched.
Everyone still warned her about being in places with tragic histories, and touching weapons or objects related to bloody horrors.
Rey was all too happy to heed that advice.
But through practice, she found that she could call upon the ability, the Force seemed to intermittently obey her requests for this skill.
To her, it seemed like she had the ability so the Force could talk to her more directly rather than it being a tool she could or should try to call upon for her own means.
She was okay with this, unlike Quin, she really didn't care for the ability, even as useful as he made it sound.
But her month was up and Quin had been thankfully reassigned to a new mission.
They ended up parting from Coruscant on the same day. Quin saluted Rey as she made to follow Obi-Wan and Master Jinn up the ramp.
"Be careful, Padawan Palpatine," Master Vos called to her in parting, "butterflies do not thrive in the ice and snow."
In return, she saluted him with a vulgar hand gesture, that had the man laughing as the hatch closed between them.
Ilum was cold.
Colder than cold.
Rey huddled in her layers that Qui-Gon insisted she wear. Now she wished she had more.
"You poor desert flower," Obi-Wan cooed.
"Obi-Wan, one day I'm going take you across the desert at high noon, and we'll see who is the wilting flower then."
He grinned at her, "I have been to desert planets other than Tatooine before."
She muttered something, but let it go. She swore to herself that she would spend the next month meditating for at least an hour before bed. Quin had rubbed her nerves down and she found herself cranky with her own irritability.
"We are almost there," Master Jinn said, his voice amused.
"So how do I tell which crystal wants to bind with me again?" she asked.
"Follow the Force," he said, as they reached the cave.
They stopped, waiting for her to enter first.
If she thought it would be warmer in the cave, she was mistaken. She looked back at them, "Aren't you coming?"
Obi-Wan shook his head, "This is a journey you must make on your own. You will have a vision, Rey, don't be afraid."
She looked down the long dark tunnel that yawned into a blackened unknown, then she back at her Master.
"What's in there?" and she didn't mean the kyber.
"Only what you bring with you."
She turned her back on them and followed the Force into the darkness.
oOo
She walked in darkness for a long time until she found the first kyber crystal, then the tunnel opened to a carven.
White kyber glowed like caught stars in a shimmering dome above her. She closed her eyes and the Force sang to her in a siren's call.
She was led to an off shoot, and through two more winding passage ways, before she found the two crystals that beckoned to her.
They were high on the ceiling and it took her a half an hour to climb up to them. She would have jumped up to them, but there was nothing to hold onto to displace the kinetic energy of the jump.
So climbing it was, not so different from scavenging star destroyers. She used the Force to work them gently from the stone, the two crystals had grown next to each other, never touching, but twins nonetheless.
Palming them in her hand, she flipped off the wall, landing lightly on the ground.
So much more fun than sliding down a rope.
Crossing her legs, and getting to work on her dual bladed saber right there, she closed her eyes.
The pieces she had found for this flowing the Force between her hands. Even with her eyes closed she could see the light of the kyber. She opened her eyes not to direct the pieces but to see the light change from white to a deep blue as the metal-encased them, joining the kyber together into an unbreakable unity as they were meant to be.
She let her eyes slide back shut as the final pieces found their rightful place.
Standing, she turned on the lightsaber.
A weapon only the Jedi could use, the blue light sang to life, humming through the air she danced with the saber that belonged to her.
And out of the darkness came red to match her blue.
She squeaked as a laugh echoed through the cavern, followed by the strange sound of someone breathing into a microphone.
"Belong? Is that what you think, young Palpatine?"
The red saber came down at her with unimaginable strength.
Trying not to panic, she called on the Force that came to her, allowing her to avoid the superior dueller.
A black mask shown in the blue and red light.
He was huge, and she let the fear he invoked in her go to the Force as she followed its instructions to avoid being sliced to bits.
She needed to get to Master Jinn and Obi-Wan, she reached for them in Force.
Again, that disturbing laughter, "You do not belong here, girl. This is not your time, they are not your Masters."
"Who are you?" she managed as she retreated further and further from the paths she knew.
"Do you think Qui-Gon Jinn loves you?" he asked, "You think you can trust them? Obi-Wan Kenobi was my Master and he betrayed me."
The stone beside her glowed molten as he slashed through it. She was losing, it was all she could do now to dodge his heavy blows.
"Jinn took you only because he thought you were the Chosen One, but he was wrong." His voice echoed around her, touching fears inside her she didn't know she had. "You are nothing."
"No!" she said, lashing out at him.
He laughed, "An abomination, a mistake. I am the Chosen One, you are the false hope."
She felt rage build in her, and she attacked him.
He Force pushed her, and she screamed as she fell back into a deep nothingness.
She hit the ground before she could slow her fall.
When next she opened her eyes, she found herself looking up into a sky of lightning without thunder.
Silence.
Perfect, obsolete silence. As an armada of arrow ships silhouetted against a sky of clouds. The lighting struck smaller targets, little bursts of flames, through the Force their cries of despair shimmered like a distant trill of chimes.
Then darkness consumed her. And from that darkness formed a throne of stone, herself dressed in black upon it. Her darker kin rose, her hips swaying, her foot falls heavy, resonating with enough power to tremble the stone beneath their feet.
From her side she pulled a duel hilted saber, igniting it into a blaze of red light and sweeping open into a pike. She held it out to Rey.
She did not know to be afraid until they both held the pike.
Fear, anger, hatred, and a wild sense of satisfaction.
This woman was not powerful.
She was power.
And yet she was in all her self-assurity and vindictive pleasure, nothing but a slave to that power.
Rey had known slavery, and she had known freedom. She had only ever found freedom in the Force.
She hadn't understood that the Force could be both the guard against subjugation as well as the slaver.
And then her reflection was gone and Rey held the pike two handed, casting everything in a red glow even as the lightning above continued to make a mockery of the blackened shadows.
She wanted to let go of the weapon, the kyber stones themselves seemed to be screaming, bleeding as if tortured by the same emotions savaging the limits of her own sanity.
Before her, between one lightning bolt and another, materialized a centipede of robotic parts, its head the corpse of a man.
"Strike me down!" It cried to her in jubilation.
She raised the red pike, it would be a mercy. Death was a natural part of life, whatever this thing was, it was not natural. As she brought down her weapon, he hissed, "And the Sith will live on through you."
Her sight left her, and she drowned in agony, in loathing, and in an ecstasy so cruel it shouted in victory.
A thousand lives breathed through her, the Sith, their power, their fear, the unwavering belief that death was beyond them. In her, they lived, and through them, she lived their betrayal. They had been offered everything and instead had given everything in return.
She tried to pull the Light to her, tried to comfort them as the pain threatened to destroy her.
She did not cast the Sith aside, she pulled them in so that she could moan who they had been.
She tried to offer comfort, strength, solace.
But her own heart was broken.
She could imagine no worse fate than to believe as they had that their hatred was their salvation, when instead they had damned themselves to eternal bondage.
Rey came to herself on the cold ground, curled around the unignited saber hilt. She twisted her fingers into the ground, the Darkness having followed her out from her vision
She still felt them, the Sith, and she began to cry, then sob into the ground beneath her. She took their pain, took it as her own and shoved it all back into the Light. The Force lashed back at her, crushing her flat until she felt as if her bones might splinter, but Rey did not reliant. She made the Force accept their pain, that hurt, those lost souls who could not believe in their own death. She forced into the Light what the Light had left to rot and fester in the Darkness. She gave the Living Force everything, gave it the dead it had turned aside, hoarded away to be forgotten.
By the time Master Jinn and Obi-Wan found her, she was unresponsive. She felt them, felt their worry, heard their voices wash over her like a gust of wind, but she could give no answer.
What was the point? What did she have left to believe in?
The Force sang at her in a mounting crescendo, begging for her response, beckoning her back into its embrace.
But Rey did not rise, did not reach for it. All her life it had been there for her, and these last few months… she had never known love or happiness such as she learned at the Jedi Temple.
But what faith could she have in the Force that would just as soon break her as cherish her?
AN: Reactions, thoughts, theories, please? The 100k challenge is still going :D