She was still on Starkiller. It was dark and snow, cold and unfamiliar, fell heavy from the sky. She was running. She could feel her heart beating frantically in her chest. Her lungs ached as she gasped for air. She was a small thing, a white thing, insignificant and frightened. She was a hare. A small white hare, barely noticeable against the snow, but she was noticed, she was hunted.

She could feel the dark presence chasing her through the snowbound woods. She could hear it howl in the night, she could almost feel its breath upon her. Faster and faster she ran. Bounding over fallen trees and through snow banks and the gnarled limbs of trees, and still the beast chased her. It was a black beast, with teeth like knives and jaws hungry to snare. It knew her scent, no matter how she tried to dodge the beast, it always stayed on her tail.

Finally cornered, trapped! Nowhere to run, nowhere to escape. She turned, terrified, and looked into the eyes of the beast as it sprang for the kill.

She woke up screaming again. She had been on this planet for over six months now. And in that time the dreams never stopped, never let up.

Her master rushed through her door without knocking. He too, was used to this nightly ritual. He sat next to her and put an arm around her as she cries.

"He won't stop! He won't stop!" She cried between sobs as her mentor patted her gently with a robotic hand.

"The harder I ignore him in the day the worse the dreams get at night," she continued.

"Come, you need meditation," he offered. It wasn't much, but for the time being it was one of the few things he could do to help her. Helping her sooth her mind and block out the fear, the dangerous fear that could so easily seduce to the darkness. She was already walking a rocky path. He could feel it in her so strongly when she arrived - the hatred.

She had not always hated, but she had learned it, she had learned it from him, from her master's former pupil. She had watched a man she admired, a man who had offered her a place, a sense of belonging, for the first time in many long lonely years, be ruthlessly cut down before her eyes. She watched her first true friend be maimed and left for dead in the snow, falling to protect her, a sacrifice so noble. No one had ever done so much for her before. He had murdered and he had hurt, he had taken all that she cared for, and thrown away all that she would have given anything to have, and she hated him for it.

He had warned her against such hate, warned her that if she did not forgive or let go, that she would not be able to stay on the path to become a Jedi. He had already lost one student to the darkness; he could not bear to lose another. But it is hard to let go of hate and fear when every day, and every night, she faces the same demon.

At first she had not been sure what she was feeling. She had felt rage, anger, pain, such horrible pain and suffering that it sent her to her knees; soon the truth was undeniable - it was him. He was inside her head, and she was probably inside of his as well. Sometimes when all was well, when she was finally getting a grasp on a moment of peace, she would feel his terrible rage and hatred burn her like an invisible sun. But what troubled her most was the sadness, the loneliness; she resented how in those moments he could almost pass for human. Her master and General Organa believed there was still good in him; even after all the unspeakable evil he had done. She knew she felt it even as she watched him take the life of his own father. Even though she felt that deep down they were right about him, she still could not forgive, she still could not let go her hatred of him for what he had done.

She did not hide the bond from her master, he was the only help she had, but she feared him rejecting her for it. She feared that such a bond made her impure, unworthy, and she wanted so desperately for Luke to accept her - to understand.

In time she had learned to ignore him, somewhat, which only made him angrier, and now the dreams grew more and more real. He was lashing out against her, battering against the barriers of her mind almost constantly. Sometimes as she would stand alone in the night, watching the stars shine across the waves of the ocean, she could almost hear his voice in the wind.

Rey!

She never called back to him, never dared let him know that she could hear. She did not want to encourage him by letting him know just how much she was able to hear.

Luke was training her in the Jedi way, but every day she felt guilty and ashamed because she knew she was not pure enough, she felt it coming, soon she would disappoint, and it killed her on the inside because her master had been so good to her, and he had been disappointed enough in life, she knew he couldn't handle another failure, and it ate at her very soul. She knew there was dark inside her. She fought hard against it, using every Jedi technique she could, but she knew there was a shadow cast over her heart. Whenever she felt herself slipping, she could feel him gloat across the bond, the only time she ever felt anything resembling joy from him, twisted though it was.

She was changing. A part of her would always be the lonely abandoned Jakku scavenger, but now her life was going in uncertain directions. She knew what was expected of her, what people wanted her to be, what she wanted to be, but wanting and being are two very different things.

Master Luke had taught her how to swim, and she thrilled every day to bathe in the ocean. She was growing accustomed to regular meals, though she still insisted on never wasting even the tiniest scrap of food. She traded her three buns for a neat braid that she allowed to grow longer now that her hygiene was easier to manage. Her golden Jakku tan was fading, though not entirely, as she still spent most of her time outdoors on Ahch-to. She learned to meditate, despite the unwelcome distractions invading her mind. She learned to wield a saber with greater skill and accuracy, though she never felt entirely comfortable with the saber style. She could levitate great rocks, and even Master Luke, while doing a one-handed hand stand. In these areas, she did not disappoint. She was smart, resourceful, and consumed new knowledge and new challenges with a gusto that would have made any teacher proud.

Luke was proud, but he was also worried for her. He knew she did not want to disappoint him, and he did not want to be disappointed in her. When he had discovered Ahch-to it had taken him years to find the first Jedi temple, only to discover that it was not truly a Jedi temple at all, it was something else entirely, something vague and foreboding. It called to him as a force user, but its purpose was so alien, eventually he was forced to abandon it. But he did have a suspicion as to its purpose. Rey had asked him if he had found it when she first arrived on the ocean planet, his father's saber stretched out to him with begging eyes. She wanted to know everything that she could learn; anything to help her friends in the Resistance, anything to bring him back.

He had given serious thought to returning. He missed his sister, and longed to comfort her in her time of loss, but after meeting Rey, with her bright eyes and her pure intentions, even though he knew he was setting himself up for heartache again, he instead decided that they must remain, and that she must train in the Jedi way, and only when she was strong enough would they return.

She had been devastated when he had told her they were not going to immediately return to the resistance.

"They need you!" she had begged.

"No, they need you, and you are not ready."

Every week she would go down the long stairway to where the Falcon waited. Poe had come after her first week, to give her news on how Finn was holding up, and to take Chewie back to the Resistance. Only R2D2 remained. She had cried bitterly seeing them fly away, knowing that it could be years before she would see them face to face again, if ever.

In time the ex-stormtropper and her first friend woke up from his medical coma. "He asked for you, first thing," said General Organa. A highly secured long range communication had been established aboard the Falcon so that Rey could keep in touch with her friends in the Resistance while away with her training. She had cried tears of joy to see Finn's face, at long last, through the com screen. They had had to fix him with an artificial spine, which had a slow and painful adjustment period, but Rey was pleased to learn that Poe stayed by Finn's side during all his trails. It made her feel horrible inside to know that she could not be there in his time of need. She had not had much time to get to know the pilot Poe Dameron before leaving to find Luke, but for all the kindness and care that he had shown her friend Finn, she had developed a very high opinion of him, and cherished the times she would speak with him on piloting techniques. Then she would feel burning hatred and jealousy through the force, from him. She would do her best to brush it aside.

General Organa was warm and motherly, encouraging but strong, everything Rey would have wished for in a mother for herself. Whenever she would finish speaking with the general she always had to fight back the boiling hate that came along with knowing that her own son had broken her heart - twice. She would feel nothing but brooding disappointment from him in those moments, and perhaps just a tinge of something she didn't quite believe could really be there, and chalked it up to being confused in with one of her own emotions.

Luke had tried to help her unravel the mystery of what had happened to her parents. Why they had abandoned her to never return. Luke was only aware that as the First Order had started to gain power, around the time of the destruction of his Jedi Academy, Snoke had been sending his Knights of Ren out to hunt and destroy any and all force-sensitives who refused to swear allegiance. They were not his regular soldiers; they were specially trained dark-side users whose only purpose was the capture, control, and elimination, of any possible force user who would not bend a knee to their dark master.

"Do you think Kylo Ren could have done it? Do you think he might have been the one to make sure that my parents never came back for me?"

She watched as Luke sighed and scratched his beard. "The only one who could possibly answer that question, is him."

It was just one more thing to eat at her. One more reason to hate.

Finally, at long last, the time had come for her to take the next crucial step in her training. "Do you see that peak up there?" Luke pointed to a lonely island with a tall and jagged land formation out on the horizon.

"Yes," she replied holding her hand above her eyes and focusing past the glare of the sun bouncing off the waters.

"That little island is one of the few places in the galaxy where you can still find kyber crystals. The time has come for you to forge your own weapon. It will not be an easy task, getting the right crystal alone is challenge enough, then you must temper the crystal with your force energy, a feat that takes days."

She suddenly had a terrifying vision of the red saber that had once hunted her through a snowy forest.

"What...what will my blade be like?"

He guessed her meaning as he sensed her radiating fear seep through to him.

"The one you've been using was made by my father, Anakin Skywalker. His blade was blue because, at the time that he made it at least, his force signature was still that of a true Jedi. Mine is green, also a very common occurrence for a Jedi. There are some other rare occurring spectrums. Perhaps you will consider a double-bladed saber, which will suit your fighting form to better purpose? You've never entirely acclimated to the saber style."

"Do you think it will be red?" She hadn't dared to speak such an insecurity out loud in the near year that she had stayed on Ahch-to, but deep down she knew there was no hiding her failings, not from Master Luke, she knew that he knew.

"I know the uncertainty in you. I have seen such uncertainty before."

She suddenly felt as though he had taken out a saber and stabbed her right in the gut with it. It was the one comparison she just couldn't bear.

"I lost Ben, but I know that I brought back my father. He had once been where Ben is now, and he still came back. I know you think my nephew a monster, and while he is Kylo Ren, he certainly is, but while Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader he was an equally cruel, if not worse monster. You don't become notorious throughout the whole galaxy for no reason. There is always hope. I know you fear the darkness within you. I know you think I'm making the same mistakes all over again, and that you fear becoming something twisted. But there is one thing I am doing differently this time, the one thing I didn't do for Ben, and by not doing, I failed him. I did not accept him for who he was - both the light and the dark. I tried to stamp out the dark, and it backfired on me. I would not fail you so. A bit of darkness does not make you entirely evil. It makes you human. I don't want it to consume you, but I don't want you to suppress it entirely either. I don't know if balance within the force is truly possible. I really could be making all the same mistakes again, or making worse mistakes, but I also believe that the force has been split in two and that the two sides should never have been divided. You fear being like Ben, and in a lot of ways you are like him. I can't help that you've given up on him, but please don't give up on yourself. It's time to find a better way."

She slept fitfully that night again. The same taunting dream as always, but now the hare was grey and just a little bit faster than the beast.

The next morning as the sun began to rise. She set out in the small fishing boat that Luke had made, and paddled toward the island.

A note from your humble author: YAY, thank you guys so much for the reviews and follows! They really brighten my day! I hope to keep you entertained and I hope you keep the reviews coming.

For those who signed on with the promise of smut, don't worry, it will come, but these two have a lot of issues to work out in their relationship before I get them in the sack, so give me a few more chapters and we'll get to the juicy stuff. The Rey I envision will be a force to reckon with!