On Balance

by Drosoph1la

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. This story recounts how Ben Solo became Kylo Ren became Ben Solo again and retells the events of the sequels as well as what happened in their past to make the characters as we know them.

3. Chapter 3

3. Takodana

I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams — like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.
Each man's life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can.

Hermann Hesse – Demian

x X x

3.1. Run for Your Lives: in Maz Kanata's castle on the planet Takodana, ABY 30/06/01, 03:16 GST

And sidelong glanced, as to explore,
In meditated flight, the door

Sir Walter Scott – Rokeby

Their instructors had always warned them of the Republic's pernicious decadence, so the first time Finn entered a taverna, he had some wildly exaggerated expectations of what it was going to be. Facing reality, he found he was both disappointed and thoroughly beguiled. Also, he wondered whether he had entirely grasped the meaning of the word 'decadence'.

There were just so many things to see! A full-frontal assault on the senses! There were people he'd so far only ever seen in manuals, and then some he couldn't even attribute at all to any species he knew. The sheer number of languages! The overwhelming smells! The loud, bizarre music! Not to mention the suspicious nourishment their host urged them to try.

That host, General Solo's 'old pal', was very short, very wrinkled and alarmingly shrewd. She also was entirely orange, and wore goggles that magnified her penetrating eyes just as disconcertingly. Her name was Maz Kanata, and from what he gathered, she was supposedly over a thousand years old. She certainly looked her age. Also, Solo had told them she had, for many years, been a pirate. That a Rebellion general had criminals among his close acquaintance seemed to support what Finn had been taught. On the other hand, he was increasingly doubtful of anything he'd ever learnt, so maybe he should reserve his judgment.

Incapable of bringing himself to eat any of the served food, he observed Rey on the other side of the table. She seemed just as amazed with their surroundings as he felt, without his reservations though. When she gobbled down even the stuff with tentacles, remarking every twenty seconds how delicious it tasted, Finn didn't even suspect her of trying to be polite any longer. She must be ravenously hungry.

Meanwhile, General Solo and the orange female discussed whether it wouldn't be better if Solo shipped back the droid himself.

"Go home, Han."

"I am back home! I've finally got the Falcon back."

"A ship is a means of transport, not a home."

"You must know I can't go back to her, Maz."

"You should know you can't keep running away from her either."

"I'm not running away from her! She gave me the boot."

"After you've been running from her for twenty-five years, you mean?"

"Trust me, Leia doesn't want to see me."

"You've lost your son, Han. Do you think anyone is more qualified to share her grief than you are?"

Finn was acutely embarrassed to involuntarily listen to the general's marital problems, all the more since he'd realised that the spouse in question was none other than General Organa herself. He'd pretty much blown his cover over that one. Solo had all but called him out, telling him in private with a very poignant look, "Women always figure out the truth. Always."

In a way, it was almost a relief. He couldn't have kept up that ridiculous charade much longer, if you thought about it. But that would mean he'd have to admit to Rey that he had lied to her. Not only did he foresee that she wasn't going to take that dishonesty well. She'd no longer have any reason to hold him in high esteem either. He knew very well how pathetic this was, but… No one, especially not a girl like her, had ever looked at him like that. Even when he'd been at the top of his class in pretty much everything, the best he'd gotten was a clap on the shoulder, or a perfunctory 'Well done, cadet'. Their instructors had warned them of spice, and alcohol, but no one had ever mentioned the dangers of instant addiction to admiration.

"Not only are you running away from your wife, you're skirting your responsibilities altogether," the orange one said and slapped the table with her hand.

"Yeah? I don't see you putting up conscription tables."

"That fight is upon us all, Han. Even the Senate no longer denies it."

"'ua figh?" Rey threw in, mouth full.

"The only fight! Against the Dark side! It makes no difference which name they give themselves, the Sith, the Empire, the First Order. We must face them and fight them off. All of us."

Someone was walking over Finn's proverbial grave. "There is no fight against the First Order!" he gasped. "Not one we can win. Look around. There's no chance we haven't been recognized already."

He gazed around wildly, spotting at least a dozen likely candidates for betrayal. Gosh, had he really been sitting around here forgetting them? Worrying more about the food than the bloodhounds they'd sent after him?! Deluding himself that the girl Rey's opinion of him was what truly mattered, while the First Order was probably already warming up their ventral cannons?!

He turned back because he heard the sound of breaking glass, only to find the Kanata woman scuttling across the table towards him like a four-feet-tall spider, and not giving a damn how much crockery she kicked down.

He shrank back until his head hit the wall. She closed in until her face was only inches away from his, and lifted a hand. For an absurd second he thought she was going to kiss him, but she merely adjusted her goggles until her eyes were twice as big as before, peering at him like an X-ray.

"If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people," she said ominously.

"Yeah? And what do you see in mine?" he asked with fake bravado. That woman was scaring the heebie-jeebies out of him.

"You want to run."

"You don't know a thing about me! Where I'm from, what I've seen!"

"I don't pretend I do. All I know is that you're frightened."

"With the First Order at our heels? You bet I'm frightened! Though I'd call it a healthy sense for self-preservation."

"You can run away, it's your choice. See those two smugglers underneath the window? The Fluggrian and the Britarro with the red scarf? They'll trade work for transportation to the Outer Rim."

Finn threw Solo a helpless look – among men wanting to run, so to speak, but the old man just shrugged.

"Finn!" Rey cried. "You don't seriously –"

"Come with me."

"What about BB-8? We've got to get him back to your base."

"I believe General Solo fully capable of that. Come with me, Rey."

"No! I've promised him to bring him back to his owner, and then I'll go back to Jakku."

"Jakku! Why does everyone want to go back to freakin' Jakku?!"

"Mind your own business."

"Got a boyfriend there, uh? A cute boyfriend?"

"None of your business!"

With a heavy heart, he took that as a yes, got up and handed back the blaster Solo had given him earlier. But the old man just shook his head.

"Keep it, kid. You may still need it."

He made it to the smugglers' table when Rey caught up with him. His heart was soaring, but only for a second. Time to come clean at last. If she still wanted to go with him then…

"Finn, what are you doing?" she demanded. "You can't just go."

"I'm not who you think I am," he murmured. "I'm not with the Resistance. I'm not a hero, I… Oh, to hell with this. Until – I guess it's only yesterday – I was a Stormtrooper."

Her jaw dropped open.

"Don't give me that look! It's not like I had a choice in the matter! I was taken from my family like the rest of them. But my first battle, I did make a choice. I wasn't going to become a killer for them. I came across Poe and we escaped together."

"You lied to me?" she exclaimed, a deep furrow between her eyes that now struck him as fierce rather than pretty.

"I didn't – not really. I mean, technically –"

"Technically?! Are there any other ways, then!"

He wiped his forehead. "Look, it was you who assumed I was Resistance – and you looked at me like no one ever had – so I just ran with it."

She shook her head in disbelief but without speaking, so he tried once more, "Rey, come with me. I know the m.o. The First Order will slaughter them all."

"Run, then," she said, plainly disgusted. "I made a promise and I'm going to keep it."

Thus, she turned away and walked back to where General Solo and Maz Kanata were still sitting, pretending they hadn't tried to listen. Fat chance, over this hubbub!

"Take good care of yourself!" he called after her, but she didn't turn around once more.

x X x

3.2. Absolute Annihilation: aboard a transport in the orbit of the planet Takodana, ABY 30/06/01, 04:08 GST

Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;
I look far out into the pregnant night,
Where I can hear a solemn booming gun
And catch the gleaming of a random light,
That tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing.
My tearful eyes my soul's deep hurt are glassing;
For I would hail and check that ship of ships.
I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud,
My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips,
And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing.
O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing,
O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark!
Is there no hope for me? Is there no way
That I may sight and check that speeding bark
Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?

Paul Laurence Dunbar – Ships That Pass in the Night

Motionless, Kylo stood in front of the large panoramic window. Anyone spotting him (though staff knew better than go anywhere near him if they didn't have to) might have been justified to assume that for once, he was perfectly calm, but such an assessment could not have been more wrong. On the outside, he was frozen; on the inside, he was shaking, not with anger, not with fear, but with intense, numbing regret. This ought not to be happening. He'd tried to prevent it – but had he done enough? There was nothing he could think of to dissuade Hux from wanting to try out his new toy – but the master? Snoke was strong with the Force, he must know what this meant, he might have been persuaded not to do it… Kylo had tried, he really had, but Snoke had waved off every opposition as mere squeamishness.

Being the gigantic ass that he was, Hux had seized the opportunity for some self-aggrandizement and organised a huge assembly on Starkiller Base within sight of the weapon's outlet in order to make a speech. Scratch that. He was having a screaming fit which was broadcast to every First Order ship; in this moment he was sputtering out of every loudspeaker including the one on the bridge where Kylo was.

"Today is the end of the Republic! The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder!"

Kylo had always automatically assumed that he would jubilate on the day the Republic was vanquished, only to find that he felt as far from rejoicing as from considering Hux a decent person.

"All remaining systems will bow to the First Order and will remember this AS THE LAST DAY OF THE REPUBLIC! FIRE!"

Seconds later an enormous beam of concentrated red light shot through Kylo's field of vision, split up as it approached its targets, blew up the outermost planet as if he hit an egg with his lightsabre, blew up the next before finally hitting Hosnian Prime. Kylo staggered as the rift in the Force hit him, as every fibre of his being was screaming in protest; this was what 'annihilation' meant, exactly this, not demolition, not destruction, but utter obliteration as if something had never even existed, and this sudden and complete disappearance of a handful of celestial bodies, each of them far too big for human consciousness to ever fully grasp, made him feel as if something vital was cut from his own body.

He wasn't aware that for the first time in who knew how many years, underneath his mask tears were running down his face.

x X x

3.3. BREAKING NEWS: SENATE WIPED OUT

HoloVid Transmission, ABY 30/06/01, 04:10 GST

We stand now at the turning point between two eras. Behind us is a past to which we can never return …

Arthur C. Clarke – Exploration of Space

"Yes, Talulah, our craft is currently in what was the Hosnian system still half an hour ago. As you can see, the only thing remaining of its five planets are occasional clumps of smouldering debris spinning through space.

We do not know what has happened here to bring about this unprecedented catastrophe. Eye witnesses report of red beams of light that some have dubbed 'death lasers' hitting the planets and causing them to blow up almost instantly."

"What will worry our watchers most is the fate of the Senate, JC. Have you any pertaining information?"

"Take a look at that empty bit of space, Talulah! That is where Hosnian Prime was situated, and ask yourself what happened to the Senate! It is annihilated! And so must be a great part of the Republican Navy, which was stationed on Hosnian Prime and its neighbouring planet Courtsilius!"

"Surely, JC, you wouldn't want to alarm our viewers –"

"Alarm?! Grump, spin this thing around so they get a full picture. See this, Talulah? Or rather – tell me what it is that you do not see!

I cannot state this plainly enough: in this moment, the galaxy has neither any kind of government, nor forces to protect it!"

x X x

3.4. Bane: on the planet Kuat, ABY 28/03/04

Delay in vengeance gives a heavier blow.

John Ford – 'Tis Pity She's A Whore

The killing of some of the old Jedi – weak and kindly old men he had known all his life – had rattled him exceedingly. He foresaw no such qualms with this foe though. Philante Helianthus had been the bane of his existence for seven horrific years. That idiotic saying about sticks and stones breaking bones, 'but words can never hurt me' must have been brought into circulation by someone either much more thick-skinned than Kylo Ren had been as a kid, or a complete moron. He would have chosen a beating with a lightsabre anytime over five minutes in the same room with Philante Helianthus.

On the surface, the two of them had had much in common. They were almost of the same age, of prominent family, each had a parent in politics (Helianthus Senior was a minister of something on the planet of Kuat where government positions where more or less heritable) and Philante's Force abilities were second only to Ben's own. But that's where their similarities ended. The Helianthus family was stinking rich, Philante was very handsome, and very smart, and fluent in eight languages even at the tender age of nine. Basically, he was convinced to be the galaxy's bright centre.

'Vote brightly – vote for Helianthus' a gigantic billboard flashed in gold and blue, followed by a high-res picture of an impossibly attractive man with golden blond hair and piercing blue eyes, a sun-kissed complexion and the shiniest smile orthodontics could provide. Kylo felt nauseated just looking at the guy, until noticing that Philante seemed to have aged rather prematurely, because that man up there could impossibly be in his early twenties. He must be thirty at least. Ah, but there had been a whole bunch of them, hadn't there? Philante had been the youngest of four or five brothers. So this must be one of them. Hopefully, his youngest sibling had retained the splendid family looks, because Kylo itched to bury his fist in that toothy grin, break that patrician nose, claw out those shiny eyes and make him swallow them!

The huge house (or would the more appropriate term be 'medium-sized castle'?) of a family spawning at least one minister and one candidate for hell knew what was for obvious reasons guarded like it contained untold treasures (and not the scum of the galaxy). In a way, this made it even more fun. He left the guards at the gates unharmed, using the Force to make them allow his entry and continue with their game of cards. Also, he merely threw off the anooba – they had been primed to attack, it wasn't their fault. He even offered the four thugs at the front door a chance to walk away. Foreseeably, three of them ignored this (the fourth, however, was clever enough to understand that facing down a black-clad stranger in a mask spelling death was far more than his salary's worth) and whipped out their blasters, only to find their weapons move as if on their own account to blow off their comrades.

Upon stepping inside, he found himself in a hall big enough to park a small freighter comfortably, with the chandelier and portraits of cliché, the deep-piled carpets, the ancient weapons on the walls, and four more guards. With some movements of his fingers, he dislodged the old halberds and swords and axes and made them fly at his opponents, curious if the old blades were still sharp and realising that yes indeed, they were, and they made a much bigger mess than a lightsabre would have.

Some floors further up, a pretty young woman in sparse, sportive dress peered over a banister and either she was very confused by the sight of the bloodied bodies, or she was as callous as the rest of the brood for she said in a bored voice, "What's all this? Clean that up and go away, or -"

"Or what?"

"Or I'll call the guards."

He gestured at the dead men around him. "You think they'll fare better than their colleagues?"

She rolled her eyes and withdrew, leaving him to wonder if an invasion like this was really such an ordinary occurrence for the Helianthus family – in all likelihood it was; he couldn't possibly be the only one yearning to murder them.

He had a certain gift of sensing the proximity of another Force-user if they were close enough, so he followed that inner navigator upstairs, struck down some more guards, until he arrived at his destination – another stupidly large room, as stupidly kitted out like the rest of the house with all the insignia of power and wealth, and four defiant men inside who had some semblance to a clone army. He recognised Helianthus senior instantly; he was as elegant and arrogant as his own portraits. To distinguish between the three wonderboys was a little harder, they were all blond, blue-eyed, good-looking and – one had to give it to them – no cowards. They challenged him with their poses as much as with their chins.

He smiled behind his visor. Finally. At least this lot would fight back without being begged to.

"Theophrast junior, Elysander, Philante, right?" he snarled and pointed at each man he thought he recognised by their respective age. "And, of course, Your Excellency."

"What do you want?" the old man said calmly, almost curiously.

"I've come to kill one of your offspring. Your youngest, I believe. Philante. The rest of you are free to go, but I reckon you will want to waive the offer anyway."

"Good guess," the heir to the traditional forename snarled.

"Yes. One may think of you lot what one will, but at least you are no quitters."

"And may I ask what – problem – you have with my son?"

"Too many to name, really, it would take me all day to spell out what a piece of slime he is. Suffice it to say I am on a mission to kill all Jedi."

Philante laughed out loud. "It's been a long time since anyone called me that. Alas, if you already know I once was a Padawan of Luke Skywalker, I am surprised at your spunk."

In this second, a small troop of heavily armoured guards appeared from a hidden door next to the fireplace, their blaster rifles at the ready. Kylo tried the trick his master had taught him to freeze their shots in mid-air and was delighted to see it worked almost perfectly. It also confused the guards to a degree that made killing them embarrassingly easy.

He turned back to Philante. "And your question was…?"

The young man had a good trick of his own going, namely not to bat an eyelid, no matter what he was witnessing. "Ah, I see," he said with a little smirk. "Will you allow me to fetch my own lightsabre?"

"Naturally. Please don't regard it as a discourtesy if I finish off your brothers while you are gone. I presume they will not want to wait so long."

Of course they didn't. Their bravery was easy to mistake for foolishness, or maybe it was simply foolishness. Junior tried a shot out of a concealed blaster (that blew up in his pretty face), Elysander threw a knife at him that he was happy to allow to hit its target. It stuck in his armour right over his heart.

"Perfect aim, I've got to say, and very poor judgment. Want to try again?"

Helianthus senior had meanwhile seized the opportunity when the intruder's back was turned to him to dislodge the crystal chandelier, which would have crashed down on Kylo if he hadn't sensed the movement through the Force and by the same means made it explode. Fragments of crystals zoomed in all directions and pierced both his opponents like needles in a needle cushion.

When Philante returned (the moron hadn't even tried to flee – Kylo didn't know whether to admire him or think him ludicrously silly), he saw his oldest brother missing his head, or most of it, his father choked by a large shard of a Nova crystal stuck in his throat and his other brother sharing a similar fate, pinned as he was against a tapestry that slowly soaked up his blood.

Again, the young man seemed not too impressed. He just asked, "Are you a Sith?"

"Oh, come on. Didn't you pay any attention in school? There are no more Sith."

Philante slowly ignited his lightsabre and took a fighting stance. "Talking of school – I know you, don't I?"

He took his helmet off.

The other man tilted his head and started giggling. "Bucky Solo. Now I get it. For a minute there, I was at a loss why you would take this so personal."

"I've changed my name. It is Kylo Ren."

"Wanted to get rid of that petty criminal's name, eh?"

"You have not changed a bit, I see."

"Yeah. To me you shall always be old frog face Solo."

"Seriously? We're back at name-calling?"

"Why not? It was always such fun. Are you going to start crying like you used to?"

"Speaking of fun – I am going to have so much of it with you, I can tell." He began with a light attack, textbook stuff, to draw Philante out.

"That's it? I had expected more of you, Vrobal. But then I always thought your alleged skills were widely overrated."

Secure in his own superiority, Kylo felt all the old familiar insults missing their mark and kept on toying with his prey, and he could tell by Philante's increasingly desperate attempts to provoke him that he knew he no longer had a hold over his former victim. Until –

"How is your dear traitor mother?"

His reaction outpaced his will to remain calm and he cut off Philante's left arm with one precise strike. For the first time, the other man screamed, more in shock than pain possibly, and lunged forwards to retaliate, but he didn't get far. Kylo's next blow slashed through his right wrist and chest. Philante dropped to his knees, staring at him in utter bewilderment. Kylo took a deep breath, trying to will his pulse to slow down. Then he chopped off the bastard's head.

x X x

3.5. Follow the Voices: in Maz Kanata's castle on the planet Takodana, ABY 30/06/01, 04:13 GST

Someone take these dreams away
That point me to another day
A dual personality
A strange but true reality
They keep calling me
Keep on calling me
They keep calling me
Figures from the past stand tall
And mocking voices ring above
Imperialistic house of prayer
Conquistadors who took their share
They keep calling me
Keep on calling me
They keep calling me

Joy Division – Dead Souls

Rey didn't know where to go. At their table, Han Solo and Maz Kanata were wrapped up in a conversation that somehow turned around Han Solo's dead child, if she wasn't mistaken. At any rate, she found it wasn't her place to eavesdrop if she didn't have to. She had a feeling as if the other guests were watching her, but whenever she looked, she found them avoiding her gaze. And Finn – Finn was gone. But even if he hadn't been, she was in no mood to talk to him at present. To lie to her, and then somehow make out it was her own fault!

The day had started so great. Han Solo (Han Solo!) had offered her a job, and told her he liked her. She'd discovered the wondrously green world of Takodana, and this place, which offered more excitement than a whole lifetime on Jakku. And Finn… She'd thought he'd liked her. How nice it would have been to have a friend! Someone to talk to, confide in even (maybe). Yes, she had only just met him and yes, he had lied to her all that time, but she had felt comfortable with him all the same.

Another one who just walked away from her…

She had successfully repressed the memory, but now it washed over her full throttle, that day when she had seen her parents leave. The spaceship slowly rising -

And as if in response, she did hear the cries of a child, for a second she thought she was imagining it, but even when she snapped out of her sad recollections, the sobs were very clear and coming from… There…

But once more, she found all the other customers pretending to be deaf. Why, even Han Solo was so lost in his own worries, he didn't bat an eye.

'NOOO!' Let me go!

There it was again! It came from there… She went into a side corridor and down a flight of stairs – more steps – faintly noticed that BB-8 was still at her heals making metallic pong-pong-pong behind her.

She had never seen a structure like this cellar before, grander than the few brick-built houses in Niima Outpost. Almost wasteful for what appeared to be a row of simple boxrooms. She ended up in front of a massive door. The kid was in there, she was sure, so she pushed against the door without really expecting it to open. But open it did. The room beyond was a kind of storeroom, too, only lit by the lights streaming in from the already dim corridor. But she thought she recognised broken furniture, paintings whose canvas was slashed, chests and boxes of all forms and sizes, baskets with bits and ends, chipped vases, warped barrels, rolled-up carpets, a brass chandelier (that would have fetched at least two portions back in Niima Outpost), outrageous hats, dusty bottles that seemed to be empty, stacks of books and a beautiful orrery that would have fascinated Rey on any other day. Heck, under different circumstances any scavenger worth their salt would have looked at this room like the explorers who first opened the tomb of King Tus-Whan.

"Hello?" she called, but not too loudly. Who knew what was lurking inside here? Nevertheless, she had to help that child. "Hello, can you hear me? Is there anyone?"

Slowly, she stepped further into the room, her eyes fixed onto a wooden chest made of Wroshyr wood if she wasn't mistaken (she had an eye for valuable materials).She knew in her bones that the child must be inside, but was uncertain whether someone had locked it up or if it had tried to hide there.

"Don't be scared," she said with a firm voice, trying to calm the child as much as herself. "I'm going to open the lid now."

But the chest was empty. Well, almost. The only thing inside was a metal cylinder, a little longer than her hand and perhaps three centimetres in diameter.

Curious, she reached out and picked it up.

In the very moment when her hand made contact, whatever little light there was in the room went out and she heard a heavy thud. Neon lights flickered into existence, outlining a trapezoid-shaped, dark corridor. At its end, she saw two men, pointing glowing swords at each other. Then the corridor collapsed and she was lying on some muddy surface. In the distance, a huge building was ablaze. In the foreground, she saw a hooded figure kneeling on the ground, sobbing over what looked like the body of a boy. She tried to get up in order to go over and see if she could help them, but once she had gotten to her feet, her surroundings had once more changed. Water was pouring down on her, it took her a moment to grasp that this must be rain – she'd dreamt of rain, but never actually seen any… There was a group of masked people, and though she couldn't be sure because of the visors, she thought one of them – the tallest in the middle – was looking straight at her. There was something unsettlingly familiar about that image. Like the rain before, it gave her the idea that she knew who this was, if only she could remember the name... Another shape came towards her from the side, some kind of soldier wielding a blaster, but before she could decide who he was aiming at, the tall man had whipped out a blade of fiery, snarling red light and speared the soldier with it.

In shock, Rey ducked away, only to find herself in the desert. This time, she saw the child at last, a small girl of three or four, crying heartbreakingly.

"No! Come back!" she screamed.

"Quiet, fry," a well-known voice grunted, and only then Rey realised that the creature yanking on the kid's arm was Unkar Plutt.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

He rolled his eyes and dragged her behind like a broken doll.

"Come back to me!"

Was that – her? Rey wondered, but before she could even contemplate the answer, the bright hot desert sun vanished and instead she was standing in a – forest? Yes, a forest. The ground was covered in cold, white stuff that might or might not have been snow. Again, there was no time for pondering that question because the man with the mask appeared out of the blue before her, his sizzling sword in hand and ready to strike. She got such a fright, she fell on her behind and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again though because nothing happened, she was back in the storeroom in Maz Kanata's castle, still holding that cursed metal cylinder in her hand.

Speaking of the old pirate – she was hurrying into the room towards Rey and switched on the lights.

"I know I shouldn't have gone in there," Rey blurted out, trying to bite back tears she couldn't explain even to herself.

"That lightsabre was Luke's," Maz said, apropos of nothing. Or… Rey cast a confused look at the cylinder. This was a lightsabre?! That's what they did?! "And his father's before him. And now – it calls to you!"

"It called – but not for me. I must get back home to Jakku."

Maz nodded. "Han told me. Dear child…" She reached out for Rey's free hand, and out of courtesy, Rey sank to her knees to be at approximately the same level as the old lady. "I see your eyes. You already know the truth. Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku – they're never coming back."

No longer could she suppress the tears. She tried pulling her hand away, but for such a tiny old lady, Maz Kanata had surprisingly much strength and didn't let her go.

"But there's someone who still could," she added urgently.

Rey frowned. "Luke…?"

"The belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead."

"I don't understand… Are you – are you a Jedi?"

Maz smiled. "No. But I know the Force."

The Force. Rey froze in abject terror.

But the old woman didn't seem to notice and went on, "It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it. The light – it's always been there. It will guide you."

Rey merely goggled at her. She had no clue what the old woman wanted from her. But the mention of the Force made her even more uncomfortable than the thinly veiled hints at her parents.

"The sabre. Take it."

Oh! This time, Rey managed to pull her hand free and jumped to her feet. "I'm never touching that thing again!"

"But –"

"I don't want any part in this!"

x X x

3.6. Presence of Mind: on the planet Takodana, ABY 30/06/01, 04:25 GST

By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune —
Now my dear lady — hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I find my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.

Prospero – The Tempest

"Sir, planetfall in T minus one minute."

Still reeling from the aftereffects rippling through the Force, Kylo drew himself up and away from the window, out of which he had been staring for the last few minutes without seeing anything. The image of Hosnian Prime blowing up was burnt into his retinas and played over and over again in his head.

"I want that droid, Major. Nothing else really matters," he said quietly.

"Yes, sir."

"Just so we understand each other. No carpet bombings, no ion explosives. If that hard drive is damaged, I will hold you directly responsible and so will the Supreme Leader."

"Yes, sir," the officer repeated, a little tremble to his voice now.

Landing on Takodana didn't do anything to lighten Kylo's mood. Takodana! Maz Kanata! Good heavens. He remembered the old pirate and her 'watering hole', as Han Solo had insisted to call the taverna, from way back. He had loved the place then; now he returned to see it destroyed. This entire day was nothing if not a disaster and though that seemed impossible, it could only get worse.

When he dismounted the transporter, he was hit by a presence through the Force, much like had happened on Jakku but harder, and grinded his teeth. He had already known his father was here, but he wouldn't have fathomed how strongly his presence would register; it was almost tangible, as if Han had suddenly tapped into the Force itself. And if they met, he'd have to kill him. If they met.

He looked for the Nightcrawler. There it was, and there were the Knights of Ren. He drew some solace from their presence. Squaring his shoulders, he saw them approach and, as was their habit, each of them rapped their breastplate with their left fist for a greeting and bellowed, "Master!"

"Yes, yes. You know the drill. Get me that droid in one piece. No disintegration, you hear me?"

"Master!" they repeated and pummelled their chests once more. It was a kind of joke about which he might have chuckled under different circumstances, but between his only chance to find Skywalker and the risk of running into his father, he was woefully out of humour.

"I'm serious! Also – does any of you happen to have a shellava?"

Barius peered out of his hood with a mystified look; Ushar opened his visor a little. "A – shellava?" he asked.

"Is that a code or something?"

Kylo gave himself a little shake. "Never mind. Can you feel it, too? The strange presence in the Force?"

Nico and Soven nodded, the other four shook their heads. Of course, Nico and Soven knew Han Solo.

They turned to enter the actual battle raging behind them, but Kylo hadn't gotten far when he was approached by a Stormtrooper.

"Sir! The droid was spotted heading west. With a girl."

And yet, and yet, the entire battalion was here, scuffling with pirates! Kylo rolled his eyes. "You stay here, maybe it's just a ploy," he instructed the Knights of Ren. He wouldn't deprive them of the pleasure of a good old fight. He on the other hand once more turned on his heels to march right out of the battle and into the woods, instead of seeking, and finding, (and killing,) Han Solo.

Or maybe he was mistaken in this regard, because the further he walked, the stronger he felt that certain presence through the Force. He had trekked through the trees for half a kilometre when he finally discarded the notion that this was caused by his father. He could tell if his parents were close because they were his parents, but Han Solo had no own connection to the Force. What had the soldier said? With a girl?

Maybe he had gotten it wrong… Maybe it wasn't the Stormtrooper whose awakening to the Force he had sensed… Hadn't Mitaka spoken of a girl accompanying the deserter and the darned droid? That girl in the woods must be the girl, the person whose Force-awakening he had felt, whose advent the Force had foreshadowed to him if only he had been smart enough to comprehend. And she had fled once again with the droid that carried the map to Skywalker. Well, if the child had only come into her powers within the last thirty-six hours, she was unlikely to know that he could sense her, and she might be feeling his presence without understanding what it meant, too. Excellent! This was going to be so much easier than he'd figured.

He tuned into the Force to locate her. Shellavas and chimes and sparkling water indeed!

x X x

3.7. The Architect: aboard the Supremacy, ABY 28/01/21

I will teach you your destiny.

Virgil – Æneid

Long before I decided to try my hand on ruling the galaxy, I already dabbled in politics here and there. The galaxy was much smaller still, hyperspace travelling was still in its infancy, and supreme domination of a single world was the highest ambition one could aim for. So I gave it a try and, naturally, succeeded. I became the King of Xorth, King Kamuthe I. to be precise. And my people fell over themselves to present me with my royal palace, an ancient fortress and seat of kings for thousands of years.

Geez, what a dump that was. The location was excellent, strategically, climatically, it even offered some not entirely ugly vistas. The palace was built of choice materials, too, the finest marble to be found on the planet, korendum in spades, chunah and aurodium. The builders had spared no expense to honour their king, but being the dirty peasants that they were, they hadn't added a dram of taste to the mix. There was nothing else for it – I had to break it all up and build it anew.

So, you see, I'm an expert of long standing with the matter.

My latest project in breaking apart and rebuilding is the silly boy. When I've finished with him, he'll be my uncontested masterpiece. He's got the choice materials by nature – oh, whom am I kidding, he's got them from me (it was me, after all, who brought his entire line into being when creating his grandfather). I spared no efforts on Skywalker senior then, but even I must admit that Skywalker III. is a particularly auspicious blend of darkness and light, unbridled power and raw talent. Of course, like my castle then, he was put together by idiots and laymen, but I can fix that easily.

When he arrived at my doorstep, he could sense other people's feelings like other mortals recognise the colours of their clothes. It comes to him so naturally, he relies on his skill over any other information available. He's also totally illiterate as far as interpretation is concerned, and as a consequence takes everything at face value, or draws from personal experience. When he senses fear in someone, and sees nothing else to be reasonably afraid of, why, he'll think the person is afraid of him. Because he's been scared of himself for half his life. That's one of the reasons he's struggling with certain social conventions, too – when someone accidentally steps on his toe (this is just an example, nobody would dare – even officers three times his age give him a wide, respectful berth) and says sorry from habit and custom, not because they actually repent – the boy will only feel the indifference and lash out, not because of the original offence, but for the perceived insincerity.

That gift's what he got from birth, like a gaudy aurodium pillar. I melted that pillar and remoulded it into a key, and a weapon.

I taught him how to use his innate talent to access what will never be available to 99.9999% of humanity, or any other species. I taught him how to read not only their emotions, but their minds. Being the diligent little sucker that he is, he's spent the last two years practising, now he can rummage through another person's memory and thoughts like other people leaf through a photo album.

I sometimes wonder why his former master – that blackest sheep in that whole family of disappointments – didn't make more of the child's unique skillset. Didn't he recognise what he had in his hands? Maybe. Vader was an idiot, perhaps Skywalker junior took after him and not his much cleverer mother.

At any rate, Skywalker junior failed as much with the boy's education as with everything else. Can you imagine he didn't even teach his students how to mind-control someone else? There are a thousand generations of Jedi turning in their shallow graves with vicarious embarrassment, I bet. They could do it at the drop of a hat. Being the dissembling dunces they were, of course they pretended they were only using it 'for good', but honestly, 'for good' is such a blanket term, you can stick it on any crime you please. At least I am honest. In this regard, anyway. But where was I? Ah, yes. Ben Solo is a dark horse, a blank slate, a raw recruit – yet on his very first attempt, he managed to make a Stormtrooper shoot himself in the foot.

By now, we're practising on ever increasing distances. The captain he is supposed to handle today is on board of a ship far out in the Western Reaches, seen only through holoprojection, and not to be talked to aloud. I wanted to see how far he can take it just by the power of his mind alone.

Captain Cummings so far has eaten his hat, sung a bawdy song and publicly admitted to having poisoned his predecessor in order to get this job. Well-meaning underlings have done their everything to make him shut up – in vain.

"Now kill him."

Obediently, the boy raises his hand, but instead of choking him as I expected, he makes a quick move, breaking Cummings's neck. Over such a distance! At his first try!

"Excellent!" I commend him and turn off the projector. "Very well done indeed! See, I told you you could do it."

"It wasn't hard, master. By his own admission, he was a murderer."

Granted. That one got me a little stumped for an answer.

x X x

3.8. Meet Destiny: on the planet Takodana, ABY 30/06/01, 04:29 GST

When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.

Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy

He had calmly followed her trail in the Force for another half kilometre perhaps when he was greeted by blaster shots fired by a girl – and it took him a moment to process that this girl in her late teens or early twenties must be identical with the girl, which for some reason he had pictured to be about four or five. He deflected the shots with his hands and blade but she simply wouldn't stop, gaping at him as if she was attacked by a Silan, until he had no other choice but to freeze her.

"The girl I've heard so much about," he murmured incredulously, trying to square his expectations with reality. So the girl helping the droid escape from Jakku – that 'irrelevant civilian' that Hux and his useless goons hadn't thought worthy of closer attention – was identical with the kid whose awakening to the Force had been so powerful he had felt it across lightyears. But she was much too old for that, wasn't she? On the other hand, his own uncle, the supposedly mightiest, at any rate only, Jedi left in the galaxy, had got the calling when he was nineteen. Kylo had always doubted that claim, but maybe it had been true after all?

He surveyed her closely, wondering why she seemed so familiar. She was of medium height and slender, athletic built, dark-haired and fair-skinned with large hazel eyes made even larger by panic. Scanning his memory, he found he couldn't place her at all; then again, he had felt similar about damned Dameron, and that explanation had been simple enough.

Don't get distracted, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is finding Skywalker!

He tore himself away and walked past her. "The droid – where is it?" he asked and ignited his sword once more, holding it close to her throat for a moment, then felt like a jerk and put it away again. The kid was frightened out of her wits already, there was no call to make it worse.

"I don't know," she replied pathetically.

"You're lying."

"No! I – I don't even know what you're talking about! You must be mistaking me."

He walked back around her and once more contemplated her face in puzzlement. He was sure he knew her from somewhere. "I don't think so. How many girls from Jakku do you think are in this forest?"

"J-jakku? You are mistaking me, I – I've never been to Jakku – that old junkyard –"

He couldn't help it, he had to laugh. "Kid, there's sand trickling off your clothes still. It's in the stitches of your boots and under your fingernails."

"There's lots of sand in the galaxy," she replied bravely.

He rummaged through his recollections and found Mitaka's memory of the interrogation of a witness from Jakku. "Your name is Rey. Just Rey, no surname, and you fled from Jakku on board of the Millennium Falcon less than thirty-six hours ago. See, there's really no point in you trying to lie, or playing the dumbbell. Tell me where that droid is, and I'll let you go."

She hesitated for a second, and he could already tell she was going to lie again; dishonesty wafted off her like flies off a carcass that suddenly started to move. "I sent it further west," she said very earnestly, visibly trying to sell him this falsehood best way she knew how.

He sighed. So it was back to the old favourite – simple extraction. Why mess around, after all?

Without a clue what was happening to her, she didn't put up the least resistance, and he could easily trace the droid, until coming across a recollection of it projecting a star chart – good heavens –

"The map – you've seen it!"

While he was still staring at the girl in happy disbelief, he was interrupted by a Stormtrooper squad leader jogging towards him and reporting, "Sir, Resistance fighters! We need more troops."

Well, that was an undeservedly lucky break. He might not have the map, but he had someone who had seen it, which was almost as well, and aborting the mission now had the additional advantage that he wouldn't accidentally run into Han Solo either.

"Pull the division out. Forget the droid, we have what we need."

He went back to the still petrified girl, waved his hand before her face and caught her as she was going out like a light.

x X x