The contrast between The Jedi and the way of The Abhainn was vast. Their study of The Force was so different. The Jedi were very formal; they had a strict code, a disciplinary system that worked within rigid lines. They became Jedi; they followed the path of light and went on to work as Jedi. Those who trained to become Skylanders ended up freelancing; they became mercenaries. Drifters. Their place in their own society was limited. They could become teachers for younger generations, but most of the time those with the Force bled off Skye and unto the universe.
Ailsa did not know what to think of Luke Skywalker and his methods. He had obviously been trained rigorously and spoke often of Yoda – the master who had taken him on in a time of need. He had his students running, doing handstands, balancing stones with The Force as they meditated upside down.
The girl could find no peace or connection to The Force in such a state, only a rigorous addition to her physical training. To meditate she needed to be in silence. On Skye she had sat in fields of long grass, peering over the edge of a cliff and out to the sea. The breeze, the motion, the brush of grass against her skin. Meditation was a time to look internally at her connection to The Force. Meditation to the Jedi was part of looking outwards, of connecting to the universe.
Yet Ailsa felt connected in all things; it was what they were taught training under the Abainn. Everything in their power flowed through the galaxy, everything they felt was part of everything else. It was only through embracing it all that they could achieve power, it was only through embracing it all that they could find balance.
The Jedi and The Sith were the opposite of that. They were light or dark, one or the other. The line between them was solid. They sought power on opposite sides of the same picture – or at least that was how Ailsa saw it.
She was explaining this to Ben when they finally had a moment together. The pair were perched high in a tree, legs dangling down, the scent of pine staining their clothes. They'd hidden from Skywalker and the younger students, clambering away for some peace and a moment when they wouldn't have to be asked to help with anything.
"Okay, so you don't think that The Dark Side or The Light Side are more powerful than each other?" Ben leant back against the trunk of the tree, eyes on the view ahead. The Temple was on an island in the middle of a lake on a planet made of mountains and freshwater. It was a beautiful, peaceful place. It offered the space to learn. It was a world away from the former Jedi Temple and the cityscape where Order 66 had seen so many Padawans killed at the hand of Anakin Skywalker.
"Hmm?" Ailsa blinked. "Well, history has shown us that The Dark Side wields great power, and that The Light Side had held peace in the universe for a great period before…"
She did not know if she could mention his grandfather; if she could mention what happened and how the fate of the universe had been tipped by one man and a great coup.
"So – how is what you do any better?" Ben turned his head, looking at the branch beside his to meet her eye. "Is this path of the Skylander any better?"
"The path of the Skylander." Ailsa repeated with a smile, half laughing, half teasing his wording. "I don't know. I don't know if it is any better. The universe does not know of us; they don't see us that often, they don't hear of us. We do what we do for balance, not to be known. We have no great order, we have no army…we just have a little learning center and a few old people who have felt The Force with such simplicity and power that they cannot help but teach it."
"Yes, but can they wield that power?"
"Did I not kick your ass this afternoon?"
"Oh! Oh, you kicked my ass?" Ben laughed brightly. "You did nothing but cheat."
"Cheat? I did no such thing."
"You cheated. It was just hand to hand combat – NO use of The Force. You used The Force."
Ailsa paused and looked guilty for a moment. "Well…oh, come on, Ben. You were always going to beat me. You're bigger, you can reach further, and you've been training more intensively than I have been able to. The men on Skye learn how to fight as you do. The women become spies…what was I supposed to do?"
"Be quicker? I don't know. Not cheat?"
"You face-planted pretty hard." Ailsa laughed, reaching out to touch a new bruise that was forming on her friend's jaw. "I'm sorry. It is how I was taught. This is what I was seen as being good at. You are a fighter, you are built for it...I am..."
Ben swatted her hand away playfully. "You're a cheat. Did they seriously teach you to be a cheater on Skye?"
"No. No, we just…I guess it became instinctive. We were taught so much to do what we had to in order to maintain balance – even physically. Stay upright. Not fall over. Self preservation. Whatever."
He promptly shoved her hard, sending the young woman falling from her branch and scrambling for something on the way down. She hit the ground hard, winded for a long moment as Ben laughed above her. "Good instinct, Ailsa!" He called down. "You stayed upright for sure."
She cursed at him and rolled over onto her side, gasping for air before sitting and looking up at the young man. She scowled at him. Her bruises would be far better than the one on his jaw. "That was not okay! Agh. Ben!"
"As not okay as hitting me in the shins with The Force and making me faceplant?"
Ailsa sighed and threw a stone up at him, the rock falling far short of its mark. "Okay. Okay. Are we even then?"
Ben dropped down beside her, a hand offered to help his friend up to her feet. "We're even."
She drove the palm of her hand into his sternum, setting him as breathless as her. Both were half doubled over, chests aching from the lack of air. "Now." Ailsa breathed. "Now we are even. That hurt. You're an asshole."
He pulled pine needles from her hair before petting her shoulder. "Chin up, tough ass."
"I'm the smart ass. You're the tough ass."
"Are you saying you like my ass?"
"Ben, do you want me to like your ass?"
He was panting still, his chest feeling bruised, aching hard. "I don't know. I think I'd like anyone to like my ass."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
She lifted her hands above her head, stretching her ribcage out. Her new clothes were marked with dirt and tree bark and dirt. A hand rested on her side, the ache drifting away. They were well into puberty; well on their way into discovering the future of their bodies and how they fit into them.
"You have a nice ass. Is that what you wanted to hear?" The girl looked up the tree. It was so different to the ones they'd climbed on Skye. On Skye the bark was smooth and pale, the leaves sparse. At the temple things were rough, the views more open, the water less angry, the sun warmer, the air softer.
"Thank you. I am glad you enjoy looking at my backside."
His smile was toothy, his hair a mess. She had to shove him teasingly, his figure stumbling back just as the horn from the Temple went off to signal the start of another class. Their opportunity to enjoy each other as friends was waning, and now they would have to discover one another as peers.
"Come on." Ben turned his back to her, offering a ride.
"What am I? Five?"
"Do you want it or-"
She was already on him, legs looped around his waist, arms above his shoulders. One hand messed his hair up even further, the other pointing down the path back. "Do I want a piggyback? Do you even know me?"
Ben laughed hard, the sound reverberating through his chest and into her. At such times things were as simple as they had been when they were children. At such times there was nothing expected of them. They were so raw.
It was perhaps the best thing she could teach him of her world. The rawness of the Skylander way with The Force is what set them apart. They were not afraid of their power, they did not shy from their link with the universe. They did not feel the need to organize a religion, to navigate light and dark. Some would call it rustic, others pagan, others heathen. They called it the way of The Abhainn – the flow of the river from lakeside to sea.
Luke Skywalker watched them coming up the hill, appearing from between the trees with his arms buried within the sleeves of his robes. A little figure stood beside him, her smile so obvious and her eyes so large behind her glasses. Maz Katana had come for the same reasons as Ailsa; she felt The Force in a different way. Skywalker needed all the help he could get, and Maz was a friend.
"Stop scowling, Luke." She spoke with such an even pace. "Why scowl a them?"
"You know why." He glanced down at the little figure. "You know the way of The Jedi."
"So do you, Skywalker. It did not stop your grandfather, and it did not stop you…"
He brushed off the last part of her statement, ignoring it completely. "Anakin's choice did not lead to a very good outcome."
"He did not know The Force as he should have."
"And how should he have known it?"
Maz pointed a long finger at the girl upon Ben's back. "Maybe like that. Maybe that one is onto something."
"You would say that. You are not a Jedi."
"Neither is she, but she can use The Force. She can feel it. Don't try to turn her into one of yours, Luke. She's not a Jedi."
"She's a Skylander, yes. Maybe it was a mistake to invite her."
"Was it? Ben's eyes have been dark lately. They had started to belong to someone else. They are light again with her. Can you see it?"
Luke let out a sigh and set a hand in a warm manner upon his friend's back. He said no more on the topic; there was no more to say. Skywalker was there to rebuild what his father had torn down. He was there for The Temple. He was there on the side of Light. Having a young woman there who wavered between and saw no good nor evil in such a balance…it felt dangerous. And yet, it also made him smile. Seeing Ben with the weight off his shoulders for a few moments each day was good too. He had always been the son of a General, the grandson of Vader. His family had a direct hand in the immediate past, and they played heavily into the future. His blood line was weighted, his fate on a knife edge, and the pressure immense.
Ailsa helped. Ailsa allowed him simplicity. She allowed him vulnerability. She gave him friendship.
Her training methods were helpful too. Her abilities in information gathering and spy work was far greater than what they knew. The Jedi were knights – they had lost their connection to other arts. Ailsa had not. She fought with her sabers, and she lived with a different set of skills. She was different, and yet so much the same.
She undertook all their challenges without complaint, took their classes, performed their moves. Perhaps Maz was right; perhaps she had something they could find good in. Perhaps they had something that they could utelise. Something they could use for Light. Ben had a lot of his grandfather in him; so much potential, so much potential to waver toward the Dark Side.
Skywalker headed down to meet his students with this in his mind. He watched as Ailsa showed the younger students how to use The Force to mask their footfalls, to make their motion more silent and their movement more fluid. She moved like water, sometimes still like the surface of a lake on a windless day, sometimes fast and powerful like a wild surf. The way she used her powers was like the ocean itself; sometimes calm, sometimes scary, and always changing and adapting.
That was perhaps the starkest contrast. The Jedi stood as mountains, as guardians. The Skylanders did not stand at all. They moved.
Ben watched her, his back still warm from her presence. This girl…her misshapen smile had followed him from childhood until that point. He had to teach her how to hold a stance to fight, how to be strong, how to be confident in battle.
She watched him back. Watched his eyes. He had such lovely eyes. Ailsa needed Ben to teach her what her people could not. She needed Skywalker and the Jedi. She needed The Force. Knowing such power and not being able to access it was a great shame. It was like learning the most beautiful thing in the universe before being shut off from it completely – you had to keep up with it. It was why The Force was so dangerous, so seductive in its flow.
It was why Luke worried for his nephew and why Ailsa looked up to him.
She taught them motions to feel The Force. Movements based off ancient Tai Chi, ones that the group could follow and feel together in harmony. She was taught how to fight with a blindfold; multiple droids firing little shocks at her as she tried to seek them out with the Force. Ben laughed at her constantly, teasing her whenever she leapt from a shock. She got hit a lot at first, but finally Skywalker stepped in. He had been hit a lot at first too. That was when Luke began to like her, it was when he remembered why she had been invited there in the first place. She could show them a side of The Force that strengthened their own, and teach them where her abilities failed and needed their path for strength. The Light Side was coming together through them whether she knew it or not.
The pair of friends took ten minutes each day on her first week to sit in the tree. It was all the time they had; the only window to just be friends. Sometimes they said nothing at all, sometimes they could not speak fast enough. Sometimes Ben would play with the new Kite she brought and they'd pass it up and around the branches of the tree. Whomever got it stuck had to climb up higher, often setting a new seat and precedent for the view. The view was one Ailsa began to love. All lakes and mountains covered in trees. It was lush and soft. It was a kind place. It was a quiet place.
He kissed her for the first time up on that tree. She had been mid story, focused on it so in depth that she did not notice anything until she felt his lips on hers, tasted his breath lingering through the air and mixing with her own. He'd kissed her at the end of that first week and smiled a new smile. Embarrassed, a bit shy. Both emotions she had never seen him wear. His hand went behind his neck, his ears still too big for his head. He ruined everything with that kiss. She ruined it further when she kissed him back; so unashamedly, so unchecked. They smiled against each other and knew that they were breaking the Jedi code. She knew she was pulling him from the path Luke wanted, the path his family saw him upon. She knew and he knew and neither stopped. They just…touched upon each other, mouth to mouth, breath to breath, and that was the beginning of the end of it.
Neither knew what it meant. They were young, they were learning. They were kissing in a tree before having to throw punches at each other and study a fate that ran in their blood and had come unchosen.
Neither mentioned the kiss again for a week to follow. Time caught up with them. They had been a fortnight together in Skye as children, standing on the cusp of their learning. They had been a fortnight together in The Temple, standing now together as they headed toward becoming apprentices to masters that did not yet exist.
Nothing changed. They teased, they sat beside each other at every meal, they even snuck out at night to look at the stars and speak of nothing except how awful the cantina meals were, and at how Maz Katana's gaze was the most intimidating thing about the temple.
Ben wanted to ask her about that day in the tree. He knew if he did that it would open the floodgates. She wanted him to ask. She was not able to bring it up herself. She wore a smile that went straight when she was embarrassed and he could read her like a book. Instead, her fingers found his and they just lay there. Just two people who knew each other without knowing why.
A/N: Hi all! Thank you for reading. I hope you are enjoying the story so far! Please let me know - all constructive criticism is welcome and I will try to reply to each review as soon as I can.
I wanted to really explore Ben as a young man here. I always saw him as mischievous - a bit too much like his father. Ailsa helps remove the pressure of who he is in his blood; a Skywalker, the son of a General/Princess, the grandson of Darth Vader, and nephew to Luke Skywalker. It is a lot. Ailsa is not much at all really - sure she is from an important family on Skye but her value is measured to Ben in friendship, not in expectation. She is not a saviour, she did not come from a broken family, she is not wealthy or a leading power force. She's just Ailsa and that seems to be more than enough. I created her to explore the universe, not to change it in any way. I hope you are enjoying her.