Chapter 2


Rey found herself turning her blade in her hand, her finger running lightly over the sharp edge as she watched the fire murmur. She hadn't realised she'd been doing so until Luke put a hand over hers and took the knife from her.

'Pay attention,' he said cautiously, not liking how her mind would wonder; especially with a weapon in her hands.

'Sorry Master.' Rey's voice was hardly audible over the crackling of the flames.

She knew she had been distracted. Her dream from the previous night plagued her most immediate thoughts, to the extent that she wouldn't have been surprised if Luke could sense exactly what gripped tightly onto her attention.

The day of training had left her wrought with more wounds than usual and she had so easily fallen back into her old manoeuvres, leaving herself open to Luke's attacks. Even then, the pain of the practice saber striking her ribs or the back of her legs, did not make her falter more: The pain kept her standing, though she consistently found herself being struck by Luke.

Luke could sense the lack of co-ordination in her attacks. All the training they had completed, she was forgetting within the space of a few hours. He had decided to cut their training short and allow Rey to meditate instead, so she could focus herself more.

Once dusk had come, Luke had set out their dinner and watched as Rey had played with her knife as she stared into the fire. He had been quick about taking the blade from her hands, but that did not divert her attention towards him.

'Do you have something on your mind, Rey? You have been distracted all day.' There was slight annoyance tinged into his voice, though Luke tried to keep his tone level.

Rey looked up at him. It would have been right to tell him what she saw, what she felt. How even as she sat with him, she could feel charged anger in the back of her mind which did not belong to her. It was anger that was followed by pain and loneliness. The feeling of loneliness, however, she was never quite sure was hers or his – Kylo's.

'I had been thinking on what you said yesterday, Master,' she responded. 'About being susceptible to the light and to the dark.'

Luke nodded and allowed Rey to continue.

'Is it truly the light or the dark that calls to you? Or is it your actions? If your actions are affiliated with the dark, do you assume darkness as your ally? Or can it not be like that at all?' She spoke slowly, trying to perfectly articulate her meaning.

Her master did not respond for some time. He seemed to be thinking heavily on what she had said.

'Do you mean that if one revels in anarchy, anger and pain, yet they feel in their heart that they are of the light, they would be?' Luke questioned.

Rey considered his words and chewed on her lip. 'I suppose it is not possible. I just wondered that if you felt you were acting for the light, regardless of what you did, would you be of the light or of the darkness?'

'Whether we believe ourselves to be of light or darkness, it is our actions, their effect, what side we feel grips us wholly and what side we are seduced by, that is conducive to whether we are of light or darkness.'

She nodded. 'So those who are seduced to the dark side are more disposed to developing those horrible characteristics. It influences you, even if the side which you take is against what you might have originally believed in or how you might have originally acted. The fall takes place after the seduction and not before.'

'That is what I believe,' Luke responded. 'Much like you can be born only knowing the way of the Sith and being surrounded by darkness, you may not wholly be of the darkness and may not become truly allied with it.'

'And vice versa?'

Luke nodded. 'Though things can change. There come many stages within our lives when we might find ourselves falling either way, which is why we must find balance within our own emotions. You must know yourself.'

'So being of the light and feeling it within you means your actions will most likely reflect your allegiance.' Rey paused for a moment and looked into the fire again. 'Would that mean, Master, that it is impossible to ever truly find permanence in either the dark or the light?'

'Perhaps, young padawan. We will never know whether even those with the darkest of hearts had moments of light, or whether the brightest of Jedi found themselves compelled towards darkness, even if it were for a brief time.'

Luke straightened up then and picked up his canteen of water. He drank slowly and put it back down and looked squarely at Rey. 'To be a Jedi, a true Jedi in adherence with the code, you must find yourself within the light. There have been many who have been unable to do so, yet have not fallen to the dark either. They found their own balance within the force, but you must know Rey, that those individuals had no interest in control or balance of their emotions. They were not true Jedi, and I cannot teach you anything other than the true Jedi way.'

'I understand, Master.'

Rey stood then and bowed her head before heading towards her quarters. Her heart felt heavy. She knew what Luke had meant when he said he could only teach her the way of the Jedi. He had seen into her conflicted mind, he knew that she was thinking beyond the scope of the light.

She was disappointed more than anything. That she was unable to get a grip on her own mind. She knew she felt the light, no matter how desirous the darkness was, she knew she could never bring herself to inflict torturous pain or anarchy like the darkness wanted, but the light still seemed so distant. Rey wanted to follow her heart and not the Jedi interpretation of the light. She wanted to do what she thought was right, regardless of darkness or light.

As she sat in her cot, removing her shoes, she could sense the anger creeping up on her again. It was frustrating knowing that they weren't her emotions, yet she felt like it deeply affected her. If Kylo Ren's emotions leaked into hers, she could never truly be a Jedi. And what would that mean? Would Luke tell her to leave? Would she have to take that middle line? And truly, it didn't sound like a terrible decision to her.

Rey had lived so long on Jakku fighting for her life that the line between dark and light, good and evil, blurred so often. Was she wrong to beat a Crolute near to death to take back her rations, which had been stolen from her? Was she wrong to value her fist over her words when it came to the outpost? Was it wrong to use underhand methods when the time came for it? To protect herself? To protect those around her who needed protecting?

'I am more than just my actions,' she murmured to herself as she removed her tunic. 'I will not let my actions define my allegiances.'

Rey lay on her cot, stripped down to her undergarments as she stared up at the curved stone ceiling. In that moment she felt the warmth of light amongst the dampness of the dark. It was a strange juxtaposition, yet the darkness she could sense in her room was nothing like the raw darkness she had encountered in the dream the night before. That darkness seemed to become a fantasy, almost. Her mind was anthropomorphising darkness when darkness was merely a manifestation of centuries of thought. Much like the light possibly was. There had to be the same for the light.

She wondered as she looked at her fingers – unwilling to fall asleep and fall into dreams that weren't hers again – whether there was a time before light and darkness and what it had been like. When the Force was just the Force and no allegiance had to be made. When Force-users had begun to label emotions and actions as inherently dark or light, that is when a division had begun. By giving it a name, the true fight began.

Her hands came together against her stomach and she concentrated on that dissonance between the two sides. Rey focused on bringing them together, rather than apart. So she could feel nothing but the Force within her and surrounding her. So she could find a balance within the light and dark rather than within her own emotions. There could be strength within the light as there was in the dark.

It wasn't long before her concentration gave way to her fatigue and Rey fell into a wary slumber. As she fell, she could feel ice against her skin, so cold that it was almost warm and then hot coals at her feet: Both burning her skin. Rey imagined what it would be like to have the feeling of ice under her feet as she walked on the coals and to have the two cancel each other out.

Her eyes opened then and she felt Jakku's blazing sun baring down on her. It was with discomforting familiarity that she looked around her to scope out where she had landed. The ice and fire had melted away and it held no control here. The sand could hold no bearing on flames and the strangely warm ice just as quickly would melt.

There was nothing but dunes around her; no destroyed AT-AT, no Star Destroyer's blistering metallic stern glimmering in the heat of the desert.

Rey wondered why she was here, standing on her own in this huge expanse, no hint of dehydration on her tongue, just a sense of balance around her.

She began to walk, no clear place in mind as she went. Rey could hear echoes, though she didn't understand the words or where they were coming from. She wondered whether it was the darkness, or even the light, attempting to reach her and overpower the other, yet neither could win.

Rey felt the most sure of mind in that moment than she had in many weeks and even as she felt the burn in her own imaginary muscles as she climbed a dune, the idea of home clung fast to her. The desert wasteland was her home, no matter how much she wanted to deny it.

'Here again?'

The familiar voice had Rey frozen in place at the top of the dune. It seemed to appear within her own mind, but as she looked over the slip face of the orange formation, she could see a figure at its base. He was without a helmet and his raven hair blew in the coarse desert wind. His flaringly obvious anger was written into the grim line of his mouth.

'It's a shame I can't kill you here and I can only express my frustration at having you pollute my mind.' He spoke.

Before Rey could say anything or move, his hand moved out in front of him and it tightened into a fist. The dune gave way, dragging Rey into it and she found herself sinking beneath the sand. Rey was no fool when it came to the dunes, she knew how to escape and wouldn't allow herself to be made a fool in her own imagination: Even if he was really there in front of her and not an apparition, even if she could feel his Force signature pulsing within her head.

She slid down the collapsing slip face and landed on one knee at the base, metres from Kylo Ren. He seethed and she remained still and silent.

Whether this was her dream or his, she felt no desire to let his anger and hatred influence her actions. If she couldn't stop his influence outside her dreams, then she would do the most to do so when she was the master of her own emotions.

'How are you doing this?' he questioned, his voice growing tighter at her lack of an answer.

Rey straightened up, looking up into his face and squaring her jaw. She could see his familiar dark eyes skitter and the way his jaw moved as he grit his teeth. He began to charge towards her then and his gloved hand gripped her throat. She could see the darkness swirling around him. It had suddenly surrounded him and she gasped at its appearance, despite his hand trying to squeeze the air from her lungs.

Whilst Rey had not been able to distinguish the dark from the light in this dream world, he had called it to him like a beacon. Was he even aware of it? Rey wondered.

Seconds passed and his grip did not falter, though Rey did not grow weak and she did not feel herself crawl closer to death. All she felt were the tendrils of darkness that surrounded him, licking out at her skin again, burning wherever they touched.

Does it not cause you pain to have darkness surround you like that? The question Rey had thought was loud in Kylo's mind and his hand loosened.

'Or do you see the pain as a healthy trade-off for your regrets?' she croaked as he freed her windpipe.

His eyes narrowed. 'What pain?' he spat.

Rey tilted her head slightly and his hands released her neck completely.

'Do you not feel the flames against your skin? I can see them, they grow more and more attached the more emotional you get.'

'And you feel no emotion?' he questioned.

Rey took a step away from him. 'I would rather take advantage of my ability to be the master of my own emotions whilst I am here. Not when you poison my waking self with your anger.'

'I poison you?' His voice was filled with incredulousness and he seemed as if he were about to laugh in Rey's face.

Her expression grew more guarded as she saw the emotions shift on his features. Even the darkness licked further out with the outburst and Rey stepped away again, further from the toxicity of his emotions.

'That foolish Jedi ideology that Luke Skywalker has been ingraining into your mind must have driven you mad.' He continued to mock her, but Rey stood firm.

'Do you not feel my emotions?' she questioned. He paused and looked at her, his eyes peering into hers. 'I see now what my Master meant.' Rey smiled as the muscle in Kylo's cheek twitched and she felt her skin cool. 'Being born of the light is in itself your weakness. It takes all your will to fight against it, yet it stays in the back of your mind, eating away at the darkness: To the extent that you can't differentiate between the light which calls you and the light which is reflected from my emotions.'

He grit his teeth again and his nostrils flared. 'You have no place in my mind,' he said through his teeth.

'Then why do we share this space right now?'

Kylo was left unable to answer Rey and her arms folded across her chest.

'I find no comfort knowing your incapability to escape the light. I know that is the reason you killed your father and I cannot say I do not hate you for it, but I feel your hateful emotions whenever I'm awake and it has a horrible influence on me. You are toxic, but I don't know what this connection is or how to break it. So please, sever it. I do not wish to feel remorse if I have to kill you and I do not want to be somehow drawn into the darkness because of it.'

Rey nodded briefly, maintaining her composure so the flames had no interest in reaching her – no interest in attaching to her like they had the other night, merely because of their shared lust. She wasn't a fool, she knew why Jedi's strived towards celibacy. Lust and passion had more hold on a human's basest emotions than anger or pain ever could.

She readied herself to walk past Kylo and continue her dream walk alone when he finally spoke.

'You are wrong.' His voice had normalised. Though it held disdain, it was overrun with confusion and frustration. 'I have no control over this link and I haven't the ability to break it.'

Rey's eyes met his quickly and she tried not to show her fear, but failed miserably.

'You should take this as a sign from the Force. It knows your allegiance, it beckons you towards it. Even if you mask your desire for the darkness here, I felt it yesterday. I saw it in your eyes and the darkness will take you, one way or another; through your body first or your mind.'

She couldn't help herself. Her hands screwed into fists and she found herself hurtling towards him, her arms swinging out and meeting his jaw and stomach. Kylo merely dropped back a step, absent of pain. Then Rey felt the flames lick at her – displace themselves from Kylo and then she screamed.

Rey screamed until it echoed throughout the desert, throughout her mind and then she jolted up in her cot, her throat straining as the sound continued into the real world.


Thanks for reading.

You know I'm going to apologise if anything I write is against canon, in terms of the jedi-code and so on, because my knowledge of it is not as expansive as I would like.