Ailsa was a child of one of the largest clans on Skye. Her family orchestrated a great deal of technological advancement for the planet and held trade deals with the rest of the galaxy together. Their little rock in space was profitable, and it's little cities and windswept towns flourished.
The economic viability of the place was offset by the hardness of many of the clan leaders – their grim faces and difficult dealings driving many shady characters away from Skye. Only the good remained; only those who the people themselves would come to for trade when their own were not available. This meant that their port, though small, offered a high quality repair service. Many craft whizzed in and out, some clunking on arrive before leaving in silence, others tattered and torn before flying out with a brand new sheen. The training of the Force Sensitive children happened far from this port, but for two weeks in summer the children were sent home to their families. Their system was not in the business of removing family and attachment from ability; family, clans, the life of a unit was the core of Skye's power. It brought great loyalty, great joy, and great love.
"Ailsa was barely seven when she had her first trip home. She'd been gone for half a year and was tired. She slept a lot before chatting brightly to all who would listen of her training. Such animated adventure slipped from her voice, her eyes alight with curiosity and mischief. She was so young, so sweet, so innocent. And she wanted her life to be full of stories – to never run out.
"Be wary, Ailsa." The elders would say to her. "Good stories are never without hardship."
She would nod as if she knew what that meant. Hardship to a child of seven was impossible to comprehend. The group of children who had been training was small. There were only 4 of them, and the other 3 were far older than the girl. She had been lonely. Ailsa's old friends had spent time with her, but she was now a Force user, and that meant she was different – she was not just a little girl anymore. So when a man with a dark mop of hair and a crooked smile entered the port her curiosity spiked. Not for the man, nor his tall Wookie friend, but for the boy they travelled with who seemed not much older than herself.
He had the force, that much was obvious about him. In the six months she had been training, Ailsa had learned to feel it. She was no master, and still her touch was clumsy and rough, but they felt the same. Her little grey eyes watched from behind her father's great form. The boy seemed to watch her with the same gaze, both of their smiles awkward and shy, both not having grown into their own expressions just yet. She was all eyes and limbs, he was all ears and nose, and both wore grins that seemed far too large.
The ship they came on was very damaged; a father-son adventure before he was sent to train with the Jedi had gone awry when an asteroid field had 'ventured into their path' (or so it had been described). It would take a few days to repair the vessel, and the father and his Wookie friend offered their hands on other tasks to help accommodate the cost.
They were brought into the home of Ailsa's clan; one house in a circle of many around a great fireplace. The women brought them cooked food, the men brought them firewood and blankets. Little Ailsa brought her mischief, arriving at their place with a kite. As soon as the boy opened the door she grabbed his hand, dragging him over the threshold and leading him up the hill.
"I'm Ailsa." She said it so simply, as if such a thing were assumed. "What's your name?"
Still running behind her, hand caught in hers, he replied. "Ben. Ben Solo...I do not think that I can pronounce your last name."
His tone held the same mischief as her eyes, his fingers closing on her palm as he took over on the pace. They ran to a field not far from their homes, the sun high and the breeze full of salt.
"You have The Force?" He asked, his height a full head above hers. "Do you have Jedi here?"
"We do not have Jedi here." Ailsa's reply came brightly, breath a little behind her words. "We do have some who are Force Sensitive."
"If you do not have Jedi, what do you have?"
"We call them the Abhainn." Such a word referred to the mountain streams that carried water towards the Lochs and the sea. It was a flow from the heavens toward the earth, a movement of energy, and an encapsulation of what the people of Skye believed about The Force. To the common tongue they were simplyr referred to as Skylanders or even The Grey after the colour of their sea."We don't train in the Light or the Dark."
Ben's brows knit together. "Then what do you train in?"
""The Force." Ailsa laughed a little at his expression and at the difficulty Ben had at comprehending such a simple reply. To her The Force was an expression of life; a religion of light and dark and grey. You had to accept it all in order to master it. That is what she had been taught; that is what she knew. "Do you want to fly my kite?" The little girl asked, dark hair whipping around in the wind. "My mentor made it."
It was a circular kite made of silk and yarn with no string to tie it down; a training item for young people who were learning of The Force. They had to use their ability to set the kite into the sky, and then focus to keep it there and move it with the wind or keep it against the breeze. Ailsa explained this carefully to Ben who took the object with gusto. He was skilled with his abilities, his guidance under Skywalker having benefited him greatly.
Together the pair ran through the field all afternoon, tossing the kite between their powers, circling it around trees before finally getting it stuck and having to climb up to fetch it. They returned to the ground with scraped knees and dirty hands, their hair a mess atop each of their heads and their cheeks flushed with the sun. They were just children playing in the universe; just a pair of mischief-makers trying to keep a disk of yellow silk in the air and hang it in the sky like the sun. The wind pushed against them, a natural and invisible enemy that they fought together as the light began to fade.
After many hours they came to sit side-by-side on a crumbling stone-wall, the kite held above their head by the long fingers and the Force of Ben Solo. He spun the object this way and that, it's lightness making it hard to control in a field beside the sea. Ailsa had pulled some blackberries from a nearby bush and both of them soon wore stained fingers and tongues, laughing at each other as each attempted to the other's cheek or arm with berry juice. It was so simple. It was such a beautiful afternoon. Han Solo stood at the window of the house they were given, smiling as he saw his son enjoying the pleasures of childhood. Ailsa's father did the same thing, but his smile was in the comfort of knowing that his daughter was no longer so alone on their planet – that she knew she had a friend.
They were friends indeed, Ben and Ailsa. In the moment when she had taken his hand they had become the best of each other. Best friends, best companions, the best person to argue with about who would take the blame for a blueberry stain on a white blouse… They both had mud under their nails and cuts on their legs, and both had spent so much time laughing.
Finally they came home. Ben's clothes had to be given to Ailsa's mother to get the grass stains out, and both got in trouble for the mess they had made. Both were sent out in darker hues the next day – her in navy, he in brown. They explored the streams near the port, climbing up into the mountain to view the small city from up high. They took the kite and lost it, finding it only the next day as they adventured up a similar route.
Ailsa took Ben swimming in the sea, telling him the stories of Kelpies and Selkies as they went. She told him the tale of each mountain, of the magic in each stream. They sat lay on great rocks after swimming to dry in the sun, their skin chilled by water and heated by the day all at once. He would find long pieces of seaweed and throw them at her, and she would yell at him in reply. They fought over who got the biggest piece of cake and ended up splitting both pieces in half to make sure it was fair. They climbed cliff faces, walked mountain paths, and wandered barefoot through icy streams. Ben tried to climb aboard some of the farming animals, big hairy four legged things with three twisted horns. They were docile and he could not make them move. He and Ailsa had lunch upon the back of one such beast, facing each other as the herd wandered across hills of Skye.
Oh, it was good. It was good to be young and it was good to be free. It was good to have such a thing as a 'best friend' and know that they would tease you and love you and fight beside you whenever the time was right. Gender did not matter, neither did politics, religion, or any other matter relating to such things. They were children; they played and they knew each other. They did not suffer the insecurity of adult vulnerability, and they did not care for it at all.
The friendship was tightly bound, wrapped up on stony beaches and bare hillsides. Each child slept soundly at night, both with a smile. Their parents heard them chatter one each night about their adventures, and the adults had to put up with the little pair constantly playing even at evening gatherings. They ate side by side, they argued with each other, and for every waking moment they were inseparable. He'd prank her with The Force. She'd tell him scary stories about the creatures that supposedly lurked in the waters of Skye. The adults would have to carry them off, both usually fast asleep by the time it came to part.
Yet, such things cannot last long. Before a fortnight had passed, the Millennium Falcon was repaired and paid for with the work of Han and Chewbacca. They had to go – Ben's mother was not impressed at their gallivanting. Ailsa went to their house one last time, dragging Ben from the door once more and rushing with him up the cliffs. From there you could see the ocean of Skye, you could see two small moons glowing vaguely against a blue sky. She gave him the kite with a silent smile, the kite and a bag of blueberries.
"Write to me." Ailsa said simply. "I want to know how you get trained; I want to be sure I am better than you when we meet again."
He laughed out loud. "You will never be better than me. I have Luke Skywalker training me after all."
She shoved him playfully before looking out to sea. "You said you would miss your parents. Maybe you could train here – I get to see my parents. You could see me."
"I want to be Jedi." Ben answered honestly, his small anxieties about leaving for the Jedi Temple known to her heart. "Leaving is part of it."
"You'll have to leave me behind too."
"Yeah."
It was silent for a long moment. "I'll miss you, Ben." Ailsa had not let his hand go since they left the house. It was not romantic, but it was love. She loved this boy as a child loves their friend. She held onto him as a puzzle piece might hold onto its image.
"I know." He replied before looking at her. He would miss her too.
Ben Solo left the planet of Skye with his father and his adoptive uncle Chewie. He left for a system far from hers, and for a training regime that held different beliefs despite utilizing the same Force. Ailsa went back to her teachings; she went back to her training knowing that somewhere, many light-years away, he was learning of the same Force as she. The girl did not find a friend like him as she grew, and he did not find one to match what she had been. They wrote, talked when they could, grew up whilst remaining the child the other had so fondly known. They were friends, the truest friends they would ever know. It was a bond not unlike that between Chewie and Han; an everlasting link that was not affected by time or space. Children can form such bonds - they have that talent. It is rare in grownups, but it is something they never forget.
Despite the talk and letters, it would be many years before Ben and Ailsa saw each other again - and the little yellow kite would never make it back to Skye.