Rey builds her saber with Ben't help.
Also - this is a gentle and delicate chapter about our two crazy kids lost in this crazy world. I wrote it while listening to beautiful rendition of an old German troubadour poem called: "In such a high feeling of delight" (In so hoher swebender Wunne) written by Heinrich von Morungen in 1225, performed by Helium Vola. It is an extremely tender song, full of yearning, hope and melancholy. Check it out – it's really worth it.
What beauty I look upon
reflects the joy I experience.
Air and soil, woods and meadows
shall share my joy.
I'm overwhelmed by a happy delusion
and wonderful comfort
which strengthens my resolve.
The villa Varykino is a vast and lavish place that somehow, although it clearly shows the signs of rampage and chaos, retains the sense of intimacy and welcoming.
Finn whistles in amazement, taken aback by the size and elegance of the building. However, Poe was here once while the New Republic still resisted the attacks of the First Order and remembers all the fighters that were lost in the war that ensued.
And now, Ben Solo – Kylo Ren is here with them, in the middle of the emptiness he helped create.
Poe frowns. There is a large stencil of the First Order crest on the door right before him. It feels like a desecration: that black spoked wheel spat over the door that once held the hope of the galaxy - it led to the emergency Resistance command center. Poe can almost feel Leia's physical presence behind that door, her husky and energetic voice and the light that she emanated. The general lets his rucksack fall on the floor with a bang that resonates through the empty house.
"We can't stay here for much longer", he almost snaps. "The First Order may be thinned out, but we're exposed in this place. You take some time to rest. Tomorrow, we're outta here".
Ben nods. He complies with the Resistance general. The stencil mocks him too, and his old disdain against the First Order and their misguided, filthy ambitions pains him as much as his involvement with them. On the other hand, Rey and Finn share the same sentiment – they suspect both of them will just wake up from a very strange dream. A dream that has become so dear to her.
They pass hallways and abandoned rooms. The First Order seized then vacated the manor in a rush. The walls are scratched and the medical equipment and trashed droids lie around. Ben is silent. The image of this place torn apart, no matter how welcoming it is still, pains him visibly. He rushes to the end of that corridor and opens a blast door that reveals a long and relatively narrow terrace overlooking the lush greenery of Naboo bathing in late sunset, with glistening stars appearing above the horizon. He breathes in like a man who long struggled to breathe.
The scenery is so beautiful despite all, so much so that Rey has to stop and gasp.
"If I was born in a place like this, I would never want to leave", she says without even thinking.
Ben turned his head to her – she obviously said something that both amazed and startled him.
„I was coming here as a boy", he said. „During the summer season, during the holidays. When I was still... a Jedi apprentice".
„Some of my fondest memories are buried here", he added. „We drank coffee on this terrace. We observed the light sculptures on the Intergalactic Day of Peace from there. She told me her war-time stories and listened to my Jedi academy nonsense and fears. I was... happy. And she was too, I think".
But Rey can hear the thundering regret in her mind.
The last year before everything broke to pieces was full of downpours with thunders and full of misery. Even the nature itself recoiled at the thought of what I was about to do – about to become.
"Don't", she says. "I remember what I saw. It was not a lie. You won't bow your head to anyone ever again. You'll be free. You are already free".
He turns to her with his face reflecting sorrow and doubt. "Do not trust the visions too much, Rey", he says soft-spoken, again like a peer to a youngling. "Better yet, don't trust them at all. Let things happen as they come. And trust no one but yourself".
He lets the fresh air come in and expulse the stale atmosphere of the sealed place. Rey realizes this is probably the first time in a long time that both of them had enough space and time to just breathe in, not being cramped in small wood cabins, enclosed in hermetically closed space-ships or shut off in a claustrophobic position of power none of them ever wanted to begin with.
"I left all my manuscripts and my data-pads behind", he said. „Everything there is to know about bleeding out the Dark Side from a saber. Everything about Ahsoka Tano. Everything there is about the construction of the activation matrix. The maps of planets with kyber ore. The list is shorter after the First Order, but we'll think of something".
He gestures at her to come with him. They enter an anteroom, then a smaller room that looks completely stripped down. But he has a purposeful, focused stride this time that shows her he knows exactly what he's looking for. His fingers inspect a corner of the wall and find a hidden touch screen, undetected by the enemy. A small fragment of the wall moves and protrudes in a shape of an antic crate.
He made this as a very young boy and she can't help but smile at his elaborate geekiness.
"Yes, I made this", he says, crouching above the make-shift shelf. "I fantasized about being surrounded by the imperials and hiding my saber and my holocrons in a hidden compartment".
He makes a weak attempt to smile, but the smile fades even before it reaches his face. "It was almost prophetic, when you think about it", he adds, bitterly, and reaches for the datapads and meticulously written scrolls, some of them looking almost as ancient as the books she took from Ahch-to.
„You probably find me sappy", he said and made a low ironic laughter. „Pathetic and foolish. What could possibly go wrong so badly to make me what I was? Many children have busy parents. Many children grow up in far harsher conditions. You – I saw what they did to you".
„Nevermind that", she whispers softly. „It's all in the past".
He inspects her for a moment, datapads and scrolls stacked in his hands.
„I would never leave you, Rey", he whispers back. „No matter what – no matter what happened".
„I know", she says and fights against the urge to kiss him on that hurt cheek again. She takes some of the scrolls from him.
He was right; she has to be considerate to the rebels. They made their camp in the large medical bay that is still cluttered with beds and some remaining equipment that they may have some use from. She hears the weak echoes of their voices behind her. They still don't trust Ben, but they tolerate him for her sake and for the sake of him taking down the dreadnought.
"Rey", he says, catching her last thoughts. "I didn't take down the dreadnought. It was Luke. He appeared in the TIE silencer and destroyed the ship. I don't know how. I didn't know a Force ghost was capable of what he's done".
Rey is startled. A scroll falls from her arms, but she is oblivious – why didn't she sense Luke's presence? Is she really so weary and so weak? On Jakku, she had recurring (and prophetic) dreams about the island, and now she couldn't tell her master was present from a mile?
And then it dawned on her – she was so consumed by fear and by anguish at the thought of losing him that it clouded her judgment and blocked even that raw power of hers. Rey feels her face turns to red as another dimension of her compassion unravels before her.
But there is something else, too. Something that balances out her failure.
"Ben", she whispers. "He showed himself to you. He decided to help you because the Force willed it".
Ben could stare at that smile that forms on her face for days on end without even noticing.
Rey would gladly kiss him again, this time long and foolishly and recklessly, but her shyness and the manuscripts in her hands and the task ahead prevent her from leaning into him.
Rey pulled the Jedi books out from her rucksack and then a glow rod. The power was cut from the building and the night on Naboo is deep and dark, so that little light source barely covers the space in which she and Ben are sitting, legs crossed.
Rey has a small set of mechanical equipment with her, always, ever since Jakku – she doesn't know if it will suffice to fix Luke's blade, but one thing she is certain of – the saber is not built by mere technology alone.
Rey eventually takes out the broken shards of Luke's saber and lets Ben inspect them. He shudders at the recollection of how the saber was broken, just like she did the first time she was left alone with the aftermath.
But a small smile of reassurance breaks on his face.
"Nevermind", he says. "It took a Skywalker to build this, a Skywalker to break it, and then the new Jedi to bring it together".
Rey's face is caught in the middle of a beam from a lighthouse – she looks at him, amazed with his kind and optimistic words. He became so gentle in these past days, but she never sensed so much optimism from him, not until now.
She smiles – this is, after all, a house of Light. He came here for a reason. He didn't destroy this place as Kylo Ren for a reason, just as he couldn't bring himself to destroy Leia on "Raddus".
They lay out everything in front of one another – where Jedi texts are cryptic, Ben's manuals are written under direct supervision by Luke and very meticulous. Rey is not only eager to construct the activation matrix: she is acutely curious to find out something more about his past. Something before the whole tragedy – the life of Ben Solo as a Jedi apprentice. She admires his discipline – she notices he is ambidextrous, and that his handwriting is ridiculously neat and precise. She almost giggles at the fact how fond he is of calligraphy and pens.
She senses another powerful Force wielder – Ahsoka Tano. Luke obtained her own notes on the bleeding of kyber ore and constructing two sabers from one. If only they could figure out how to do the same, only in reverse – to make the two-bladed saber from the broken kyber core.
"You could grind the crystal to pieces, it would still be unbroken", he says. "That's what Empire always failed to realize. The core of the belief is indestructible".
It is early morning when they finally manage to reconstruct the hilt. The glow rod blends with the dim light of the dawn.
The Jedi texts instruct the wielder to meditate over his or hers saber before the final activation. It will take a lot of concentration on Rey's part, but she knows the credo and the incantations by heart by now. She read it over and over again, etching the words into her mind.
"I'll leave you alone", he says, flexing his numb feet under him. "You need to concentrate on it. I don't want to stand in your way".
He bites on his lip and adds, playfully: "Not that it was a problem for you anyway".
"That's not true and don't pamper my vanity", Rey smiles. "Stay. Just… stay".
She needs his guidance as a senior Force user just as she needs his mere, human presence. He can't be a hindrance – he is becoming what he needs to become, a beacon of light.
Rey focuses and starts with the Jedi credo, reaching out with both her body and soul.
Ben can almost see the Force swirling around her alongside with the ends of her tabard and her hair, millions of fine tendrils spiraling upwards, reminiscent of the light sculptures, but much more refined.
She will make it. He had no doubt in his mind and now he feels honored to be able to witness this. It happens once in a thousand years for a Jedi master to create a new blade, which this one will be. His own experience with bleeding the Light Side from his ancient Mandalorian saber was more than underwhelming – it almost mutilated and killed him, and the end result was the constantly unstable plasma beam.
Once she has her weapon, he will revert his saber to its original state. Only a small shade permeates his mind – but what if he can't? What if he is still stuck too close to the Dark Side for comfort? He turns his attention to his own weapon – it holds still. The light of this place holds it in obedience. It usually hisses and murmurs almost dementedly at his hip, but now it feels like a slick rock at the bottom of an ocean – eternal, perfect and undisturbed.
But he can't think for long about anything else but her – with each passing moment, she holds even greater power over him and he willingly lets her to. She looks so beautiful now, even more beautiful than she usually does, if that is even possible. He observes how that light around her turns from white to the color of pale rose petals and swirls of grey, and into shimmering white again. She appears almost weightless as her incantations become a soft echo of ancient language in his mind, a breeze in this room filling with light. And now he sees why – she starts levitating slowly and elegantly. Ben smiles – levitation was a sign of a mature Jedi master, of control and of balance.
She will be the undoing of the First Order – and a promise of a new one that is yet to come. He knew it on Coruscant, and now he realizes it in its full potential.
"My love", he whispers absent-mindedly, like his heart suddenly has a language of his own. Only for a moment frightened that he'll somehow disrupt her ascension, he tenses in his place. But no – she can't hear him in this state and nothing can harm her now. Not now, or ever – and he will be at her side all the time to make sure it stays like that.
Melancholy returns, however.
He didn't tell her everything that happened on Dagobah. She doesn't know all – and better still. When the Force wills it, she will know everything. The knowledge will be passed on to her. But not now. And certainly not in this place.
As he ponders on the future that waits ahead, the saber activates on its own, without her even touching it. It springs from both sides like fountain of pure energy and its light is bright white.