Chapter 8

The voyage and the party had taken their toll, and after a few hours, Tionne headed back to the hut, intending to speak to Luke, but when she didn't find him, she sat on his bed and drifted off. She awoke to a thunderstorm, rain, and additional, artificial ruckus outside.

The Force nearby pulsed with power and instability. She rushed, ignoring the water instantly soaking her to the bones.

Rey, anger blazing on her face, attacked Luke with her quarterstaff. The Jedi Master was defending himself with a piece of antenna, dodging her attempts to striking him. "Did you do it?" Rey yelled loud enough to be heard through the thunder.

Luke knocked the staff out of her hands and sent it flying off into the rain. Rey pulled in the Force and a lightsaber flew into her hand. She ignited it and prepared to strike. "Did you create Kylo Ren?!"

Tionne interceded by igniting her own lightsaber and placing it between Rey's blade and Luke.

"Tell me the truth! Tell her the truth!" Tionne raised her eyebrows.

"Leia," he whispered. "She was concerned with her son. Ben. He couldn't control his power in the Force. So she sent him to me, and I trained him alongside other students, and for a while, things looked well. But then, darkness would come upon him. Anger, fear-first sporadically, but more and more as time passed. I didn't understand, and Ben wasn't forthcoming, even when I asked. Maybe if I told Leia, maybe if she came, we might have done something together. But I wanted to know what I was dealing with first. So one night, when his guard was down, I went to see into his mind. I looked inside, and it was beyond what I ever imagined. Snoke had already turned his heart. I saw him bringing destruction, and pain, and death and the end of everything that I love because of what he would become, and I reacted. For the briefest moment of pure instinct, I thought I could stop it. It passed like a fleeting shadow, but Ben woke up and saw me right there standing over him with a lit lightsaber while I saw the eyes of a frightened boy whose master had failed him. I was left with shame... and with consequences. He turned to the dark side, calling himself Kylo Ren. My students dead. My academy destroyed. Ben fled to the First Order..."

Tionne shut down her lightsaber, reeling from shock. A moment later, so did Rey.

"You failed him by thinking his choice was made," she declared. "It wasn't. There is still conflict in him. If he turned from the dark side, that could shift the tide. This could be how we win."

"This isn't going to go the way you think."

She preferred Luke the lightsaber.

"How do you know that?" Tionne demanded. What Luke said didn't ring false, and she certainly understood how the temptation of the dark side was ever present, and that perfect control was impossible.

"I saw his future. Just now, when we touched hands."

"What?" Tionne asked. "You touched across the galaxy?"

"I don't understand it," Rey admitted, "but-yes. What matters is what I saw. As solid as I'm seeing you. If I go to him, Ben Solo will turn."

"Rey... don't do this."

"He is our last hope," Rey said.

"No such thing as last hope. There is always light remaining. But that does not justify throwing away the hopes we do have. You really won't come with us?"

"Us?" Luke staggered to his feet. "Of course. You're leaving."

"I will come back," she snapped.

"Even after..."

"You-the other you-taught us that a Jedi does not defeat the dark side once and lives free of it forever. She faces it every day. Especially from within herself. I am not the one who can forgive you."

"Ben-"

"Not Ben," she snorted. "You need to forgive yourself. I would help you," she said, before glancing at Rey, who'd stepped a little away to find Chewbacca and was now standing with him next to the Falcon's ramp, looking up at the two of them. "You are a Jedi Master. She needs me a lot more than you do, and you know it."

She took a deep breath and kissed him. "May the Force be with you, Luke," she said, and headed down the stone steps. Glancing back when she reached the Falcon, she saw Luke hadn't followed. She didn't really expect him to.

"Let's go. And tell me about this Kylo Ren on the way."

"What did you mean 'the other you'?" Rey asked. "What other Luke?"

"It's a long story. But we should learn about each other if you are to be my apprentice."

Rey flushed. "So what do I call you?"

"Tionne is fine. Master Tionne if you want to be formal."

"Do you have a surname?"

"Do you?"