I do not own Star Wars, the characters or the plot taken from the films!
This story takes most of the plot from the films but will diverge in places.
Chapter 15: Ajan Kloss
Sunlight filtered through the lush greenery of the jungle, the flowing rays lighting up patches of the ground. Almost searching. Seeking.
But they could not find her.
With her legs crossed, she held herself midair, rocks floating around her as though they were planets and she was their sun.
Content, Rey peacefully continued her meditation until a familiar beeping broke through her focus. Cracking open one eye, she looked down at the white and orange droid that rolled towards her, insistent like a puppy.
She sighed, opening her eyes, ready to get her feet back on the ground. As she did, however, she locked eyes with the mask that had plagued her in her sleep, sometimes even when her mind wandered.
He disappeared before she could decipher any other details, before her feet even reached the ground.
Still staring at the vacant space where he stood, it was the beeping from the small droid now at her feet that broke her out of her reverie.
"Sorry, BB-8," she apologized, crouching over to look at him where he was tilted up towards her. "They back?"
A high pitched trill from the droid was all the confirmation she needed, a grin lighting up her face as she turned to pack up the Jedi texts from Ahch-To into her bag before taking off into a run.
As the adrenaline took over, she let all thoughts of that mask, of that connection, fade away.
Her friends were home.
That's all that mattered to her right now.
Rey reached the clearing just as they began disembarking the Millenium Falcon, Poe scooping her into a bear hug that lifted her off her feet.
Finn, a few steps behind him chuckled and gave her a half hug when she was put back down.
It was startling, how much she felt like a little sister to these two.
In the few months they had settled on the Jungle Moon of Ajan Kloss, they had only grown closer. Although tensions were high and supplies were scarce, they supported each other through the hardships, both personal and shared.
The girl Rey had spotted Finn caring for after the Battle of Crait, she now knew as Rose. An engineer with medium-length, black hair with bangs. She was shorted than Rey, but she had more than enough attitude to make up for it.
It had startled Rey at first, struggling to strike up a friendship with the girl. That had changed, however, when Rey had trained with Finn, knocking him clean on his ass.
Rose had ended up on the ground laughing until Finn had stormed off and tears were running down both girl's cheeks.
They were as thick as thieves now, playing pranks to keep morale high, but mostly to pester Rey's pseudo brothers.
Rey sighed as she turned to face the Falcon, a panel falling off as smoke billowed from the opposite side of the ship.
Chewie appeared at the door, growling at Poe as he threw an arm around Rey's shoulders.
"What did you do this time?" she questioned, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Oh, you know," Poe shrugged. "It just doesn't fly as fast as my ship did."
That earned him a growl from Chewie, that made Poe take a step back, pulling Rey with him.
Rey smirked at the scoff that Chewie replied with, as she shrugged Poe's arm off.
"Now, now, little one," Poe drawled, chuckling as Rey pulled a face at the nickname. "I got you a lil something."
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a small sack that he placed into Rey's awaiting hand. Opening up the leather material, Rey gasped as she studied the pair of clear crystals now in her palm.
"How did you find it?" Rey gasped once more a sunray hit the crystals and made them iridescent.
"Well, let's just say we were searching for supplies, may have got attacked by a bear-looking creature," her eyebrows raised at that but that didn't deter him from his story. "Ran into a cave to hide, may have ended up being said bear's cave. With him blocking the entry wave, we squeezed through a gap in the rock that opened up into a chamber that may have once been filled with the damn things-"
"Kyber crystals," she reminded him, only him to wave a hand in dismissal.
She wasn't surprised. She had been going on about the crystals for the last month alone, showing them a picture of them from the sacred texts.
She was sure she could hear Luke's spirit yelling in horror as she did.
"Anyway," Poe continued, Chewie rolling his eyes as he eavesdropped. "Some of the chamber had started to crumble and collapse in on itself, so there wasn't many left. I managed to swipe two, just in case one didn't work, before we saw an opening to go back through the gap and make a run for the ship.
"So, a bear did all this damage?" Rey questioned incredulously.
"It was a big bear," Poe defended, while Chewie laughed, causing the pilot to glare at him.
"Mhm," Rey shook her head, smiling at him. "Thank you."
"You're welcome, kid," Rey groaned at that, only making him grin.
They had been searching for the crystals for the past 2 weeks, but not as a priority over the supplies for the rebel base.
Their people came first.
Always.
Rey had tried to send them to places the texts had indicated as densely populated, or at least as close them as she could without hindering their supply stocking.
Poe sighed next to her, making her follow his gaze to Finn and Rose.
"I miss when he used to look at me like that," Poe said, dreamily, earning an elbow to the gut from Rey for his sarcasm.
They giggled together before strolling with the crowd to the meeting to recap their adventure.
Rey kneeled on the jungle floor, the two pieces of Luke's lightsaber laying on the ground before her. She could still hear the his words, the echo of the surge in power as they both reached for the blade, the scream they both unleashed as the force shoved them away from one another.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head to shoo the thoughts away, trying to focus instead on the task at hand.
With the sacred texts before her and no master to guide her, Rey tried to follow the instructions as best she could, but it took her a few tries before she could feel tendrils of the force beginning to guide her. She continued to meditate, lifting herself a few inches off of the ground in the process, as she tried to embrace the energy of the crystals in her hands.
Keeping her eyes shut, she focused all of her energy onto the crystals, feeling a surge in the force before she felt her knees meet the mossy ground once more. Cracking her eyes open, Rey took a moment before she finally opened her palms, revealing the crystals but now with a yellow hue.
Rey frowned as she had only seen blue and red in person, and green mentioned in one of the texts before her. Doing her best, she placed each kyber crystal into each section of the split hilt of Luke's saber, before soldering the two pieces together and covering the fracture with a tied piece of leather. Rose had given her a few electrical pieces for a new button to activate a blade, which Rey wired up with her own scavenging experience alongside some advice from the engineer.
Rey felt the buzz of the force die down entirely as she began to admire her work, an indicator that the process was done.
Rising to stand on her feet, Rey looked over the hilt once more before pressing the button to activate the blade, its yellow hue glowing in the undergrowth of the jungle. Admiring the blade, Rey got excited and pressed the original activation button of the hilt, another yellow blade igniting.
Standing in a hue of yellow, Rey held her double-ended lightsaber, a grin lighting up her face.
Of course, the force had to ruin the moment.
It's buzz echoed through the forest, rendering the breeze through the leaves, the chirps of the animals and even the distant sounds of the rebel base, into silence.
Out of that silence, the Supreme Leader appeared before her, as though he stood in the forest with her.
With her new lightsaber in hand, Rey froze as he tilted his masked head at the sight. With a glare, Rey focused on shutting down the connection, her enemy vanishing with a blink.
Yet, once he was gone, she could have sworn she felt an echo of pride through their bond.