Education
Rey begins her training. The days pass quickly and she learns fast. Time on Ahch-To is limited and there is a lot to do.
After that difficult morning, Luke felt that a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was worried about Rey's enmity towards Ben, which she was carefully trying to conceal. However, after her initial flash of resentment at her father for being unable to prevent Ben's fall, she had tapped into some well of serenity. Luke could sense no lingering blame aimed at him. He hoped that he had opened enough of himself to show her that he had done everything he could. Could she feel his profound regret for what had happened? She must have known that he would have given anything and everything to go back in time and find a solution before disaster had overtaken their family.
They spent the rest of that day just talking. It would take a long time to fill in all of the blanks of their 15 year separation, but Luke felt they were making a good start. He finally had his daughter back, safe and sound, and he had her forgiveness. She was dealing admirably with the impact of discovering that half of the family she'd never known had been dead and gone all this time. Sorrowful, but not bitter, the comfort of finding Luke gave her an aura of contentment she'd never owned in her life. She asked many questions, and he shared his memories openly with her. They laughed at his precious anecdotes about their family life. She learned a great deal about her Mom and Owen, their likes and dislikes, talents and quirks. Luke told her about her early years: her toddler antics, first words and favourite stories. It really helped her to be able to piece together a past she'd known nothing of until now.
In the following days and weeks, they began to divide their time between Luke's home up top and the Falcon down below. They went for long hikes, exploring the island, and sat for hours discussing the wars of thirty years ago and the Rebels' struggles against the Empire. He told her about the battles he'd been involved in and taught her about tactics and flight formations.
Slowly, carefully, step-by-step, he began to teach her everything he knew and had discovered about the Force. He tried to pass on his knowledge subtly, in quiet, indirect ways where she wouldn't even know he was training her. She was an intelligent and astute learner. It began to feel as if they'd known each other for lifetimes. They were becoming so comfortable together that they could easily read each-others' thoughts and they began to finish each-others' sentences. Some days, they hardly needed to speak aloud at all.
They would sit unmoving, feeling the energy lines of the planet and sensing the animate and inanimate around them. She began to judge the density of different substances and to discover how easily objects and creatures could be manipulated. She improved at communicating with Chewie from a distance, which was really useful, as she could give him and Artoo advance notice when they were planning to spend time down at the Falcon. Luke trained her in using her power to control objects around her, although her natural ability astounded him. On one of their first days of training, she thrilled him by calling her lightsabre to her hand without difficulty. She got better at moving things, starting with making pebbles rattle and irritating seabirds by distorting air currents around them. Down by the ocean, she began lifting Chewie and Artoo into the air a few inches, then setting them down again. She was beginning to feel quite pleased with herself. Sadly, this came to an abrupt end the day she tried to demonstrate to Luke how well she was getting on. She deftly lifted him a foot into the air. He was smiling his encouragement until she got overconfident, tried to translate him a few feet to the right and ended up dumping him clumsily into an unusually deep rock pool. That ended the lesson for that day.
Another day, they compared their lightsabres. Hers had a story, going back two generations, which he shared with her. She accepted that this sabre had a chequered past, but true to her nature, this only made her more determined to make it her own and to carve a path, hand in hand with this weapon that had come to her. She also took secret satisfaction from knowing how much Kylo wanted her sabre. Luke's sabre had been made by his own hands when he was a new Jedi Knight, and he was still rightly proud of it. "Even my father was impressed," he told her wryly. They practised combat arts and sabre moves, in all weathers, for hour after hour: move after move, form after form. She was keen to improve her fighting skills after what she felt had been a clumsy defence against Kylo.
"It sounds to me like you more than held your own," Luke consoled. "Ben was never my best sabre student. You will easily surpass him. You're not hoping for a re-match, are you?"
She didn't answer. He let it lie for now but remained concerned by her silence. She hadn't mentioned her cousin since that day when they'd stood together at the graveside.
There were odd moments when the shadow of Ben Solo stood imposingly between them but, on the whole, the days passed in a steady and fulfilled rhythm. Luke couldn't help but notice, time and time again, the similarities between his daughter and his memories of his wife. Rey had taken after her mother as a child, but as an adult, she looked so much like Sami they could have been twins. He was quietly glad, in a self-deprecating way, that all she seemed to have inherited from him was the Force.
But what an inheritance it was! He fell somewhere between impressed and awestruck by her power. She had no idea, yet, how strong she was. Luke wasn't sure that he knew the full extent of her capabilities either and he was frustrated by his ignorance and inexperience at training padawans fully. His own training had not been thorough or extensive: begun by Obi-Wan and completed by Yoda. It had been a hasty business – interrupted by events of the war. Luke had worked hard in his time to educate himself: searching out old records, experimenting with techniques and meditating deeply on the nature of the Force. He wanted wholeheartedly to pass on everything he knew to his daughter but he couldn't shake a sense of inadequacy and a quiet fear that whatever he could teach her, it would not be enough.
He still wished Yoda, Obi-Wan or Anakin would make an appearance. It had been many, many years now since any of them had spoken to him. He wondered if there was something wrong with him, with them, or with the Force. Or perhaps this was some kind of test. That idea scared him most of all, having failed once before with such harrowing consequences. He struggled to recall everything that the Jedi Masters had taught him, and he shared his thoughts and experiences with Rey. Although she was young and untried, Luke had come to respect her strength and uncanny insight. They spoke often of Luke's days on Dagobah. He was embarrassed to confess to Rey his petulance and impatience at his failures under Yoda's tutelage, but she often saw the funny side of his stories. Her teasing and sense of fun brought him out of himself when his mood threatened to turn dark and helped him to be more forgiving and tolerant of his past mistakes.
"Dad, you judge yourself too harshly," she would scold. "You are human. None of us are perfect. Not even the great Master Skywalker."
He gave her a look of chagrin. "Rey, I should have been – not perfect, but so much better than I was. I was the last. I had responsibilities."
"And you carried them out with heart and diligence. You built a new school up from scratch. You put everything into it - more than any mere mortal could be expected to, and it wasn't your fault that it didn't work out. You can't keep kicking yourself forever. Don't you think fifteen years is long enough?"
He thought long and hard about her words. Blaming himself had become a way of life; guilt had come to define him over these years of his exile. What had it achieved, other than leaving him weak and incapacitated on this rock at the back end of the galaxy? As difficult as he found the idea of returning to an active, useful role with the Resistance, he knew that the time had come. He had to step up and do his part, and he couldn't do that if he was still punishing himself with self-doubts and remorse.
From that day, his attitude changed subtly. Rey began to notice less frowns and more smiles. Her father's attitude became more positive and resolute. He was a little less inclined to dwell on his weaknesses and more purposeful in his advice to her. The time he spent on his own drills and exercises increased and his physical fitness began to improve. They spent long hours out of doors and Rey became totally captivated by the beautiful island. Even more than this, however, she was quietly elated to witness the slow, steadfast recovery of this incredible man who was her father.
He began to show her the many cells and chambers of the old Temple, and the few aged and insignificant relics he'd found among the ruins. The strange buildings were peaceful and atmospheric, with indescribably beautiful views of the ocean and islands. Rey liked the old Temple immensely. She was amazed at the stillness she could find within herself just by sitting in one of the old cells and contemplating her place in the cosmos. It felt completely right to her that the earliest Jedi had built a temple at this magical location.
On odd days, she would go climbing around the cliff-faces. She usually did this at dawn, before her father was awake. This was after he had given his opinion on her climbing, the first time he caught her doing it: "Rey, for pity's sake! I know how brilliant you are at climbing but it's a three hundred foot one way slide if you fall from there!"
"I'm fine!" She called back cheerily, with total confidence in her ability. Of course, Luke had never seen her swinging high up in the carcass of an old Imperial star destroyer. He was forced to walk away, unable to watch, but equally unable to forbid his adult offspring from doing something she'd clearly been doing very well - without his blessing – for most of her life.
One day, they took the Falcon for a test flight. Rey showed Luke her uncanny skill at flying the old freighter. Luke took a turn, throwing the ship into spirals and loops. It had been so long; he'd forgotten how much he loved flying. He whooped like a teenager at having free reign to pilot the Falcon, for the first time in his life, without Han frowning over his shoulder and patronising him. A hunk of junk she might have been, but the old ship could certainly move! Rey laughed at his exuberance. "Enjoy yourself! I know how Han was. I could hear him grinding his teeth at me too. He had to be the boss, didn't he? I showed him though! I don't know why I know this ship so well. Must be all my years of scavenging."
"I think it's more than that," Luke replied. "You probably picked up more than you realised when Han used to sneak you on here as a tot, when he thought Mommy and Leia weren't looking!" Chewie yodelled his agreement. Rey smiled wistfully, wishing she could remember even the smallest snippets from her earliest years.
Shaking off her melancholy, she brightly said: "You're a great pilot!" She had come to love his endearing habit of tilting his head to one side when he was thoughtful.
"I wasn't bad. I destroyed the original Death Star." He shrugged with modesty. "We lost a lot of good pilots that day. We were using computers to sight the target, but I heard Obi-Wan telling me to use the Force, so I did. It worked." She felt so proud, not having fully realised what a hero he had been.
Later in the summer, he taught her to fish; down on the rocks, using a rod and net. She was as brilliantly instinctive about this as about everything else. A natural talent. They had competitions for fun and she was soon netting far more than he could catch. One morning, he emerged from the Falcon to see her bringing in a good catch without any tackle: she was using the Force to locate and raise the fish from the ocean. They had a huge, succulent crab for breakfast as well that day, brought up from the sea-bed by Rey. She grinned and made constant references to her fishing expertise for the rest of the day. Luke thought he might begin to go off seafood.
It was summer, and as warm as these islands ever got. They spent nights in the open, rolled in blankets, up on the heights. She cuddled up close and they shared warmth. He pointed out the constellations of this system. She counted meteorites burning up in the atmosphere and they saw nocturnal creatures fly over, softly illuminated in the amber glow of their campfire. She slept the solid, peaceful sleep of the young. Many nights, his shoulder would stiffen and ache from lack of movement as she pillowed her head against his chest; but he meditated to block out the pain, kissed the crown of her head and left her to sleep on undisturbed. He was so grateful to be here with her, right now: protecting and comforting his girl. The months were ticking on and he knew they would have to leave this idyll soon. Late Autumn would bring the storms and they must move the Falcon away from the gales and high tides before the bad weather set in. He didn't want to risk stranding themselves by losing another ship.