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They’re fighting because he won’t listen. Or maybe he has listened to her, but there’s a disconnect. There’s something that’s not clicking and the conflict explodes the very second he outstretched his hand, severing the connection. She neglects to feel the rain as her anger sparks beneath her skin.
Twirling, her staff whips through the rain, teeth bared at her opponent. He won’t listen, so I’ll make him listen.
“Is it true,” she yells, “are you responsible for the creation of Kylo Ren?”
He doesn’t respond, his attention solely focused on the fight.
She stumbles, but summons the saber in a blink, the solid blue illuminating her anger.
They’re fighting because-
The memory of Ben in their last force bond plays beneath her eyelids. Blinking water out of her eyes, she remembers his own holding her with a steady gaze.
“This is got going to go the way that you think,” he says, figure prone on the floor, “Rey-”
But she only stares on, chest heaving with her exhales, lungs shaking with the exertion.
No.
This is not going to go the way you think, Luke.
Weapon prone in position, she holds it steady.
The cooling energy of the force is usually there to anchor her, something that she now recognizes has been with her her entire life, even if she didn’t know. However, this time, her emotions only grow with Luke’s silence.
You went straight to the dark.
She shudders, and she knows she cannot hold it off forever.
Like calls to like, and she willingly answers the hail.
Luke watches the young girl, Rey, struggle within herself. The dark steadily pulses, the island storming in response. After being cut off from the force for so long, everything is so, so loud. Soon after, he had discovered the vision he so feared, she who was to be the last jedi, her hand out in supplication to her dark incarnate, and Luke knew he was done for. After, she had immediately zeroed in on him, domineering nature a mirror of his nephew’s flowing through her, she who was now silently holding his father’s saber to his neck.
He knows what she is going to ask, but he can’t, he can’t leave. He watches as it comes to her realization. Smoothly, she straightens out, but-
She doesn’t disengage the lightsaber.
The storm continues, and Luke knows he has lost her too.
But still, he’ll try.
Her mind struggles against the tide, and only waves of the dark crash against her subconscious. She realizes, in Luke’s silence, that for a moment he considered going back, maybe even calling upon her to make haste towards leaving the island, but the vision in the hut was whiplash, and he had reverted to his stance towards staying.
There was nothing on this island for Rey. She had come for the Resistance, for Leia, and he still lays concrete in his refusal. She tries a different approach. Directly mentioning what he was trying to avoid, she brings up Ben. How could he not see that this was so essential?
His small slump at her speech had told her all. He does see how important it is, and yet, he does nothing.
“I can help,” he starts, “I will help, but not in your way.”
“It is the only way!” she angrily shouts, “If I go to Ben, he will turn! This could be how we shift the tide in the war; this could be how we win!”
The only way.
Her choice of wording echoes through Luke, and he begins to worry. Her anger is careening her towards a cliff, and he simply isn’t strong enough to help her. While on the island, Rey’s grip on the force had only tightened, had only sharpened, and with the connection he had discovered Rey and Kylo to have, Luke could only guess who helped.
A piercing feeling shatters something in his brain, and he looks up to see Rey’s intent look on her face. A fist tightens around the saber. No.
“You think I am helpless against the dark,” she questioned, the words leaving a bad taste on her tongue, “that I can’t defend myself against it?”
“It’s not defense against the dark Rey,” he scrambles to explain, “it’s more of a fall. It’ll bait you, and push you with nothing-”
“I can handle myself,” she spits, “I’ve taken care of myself-”
Loneliness stretches in her subconscious, and she instantly bares her teeth.
Flashes of the island come to Rey as lightning strikes. Luke had subjected himself to isolation since that fateful night with Ben. He had been miserable, but Ben had suffered ever since.
If this, loneliness and isolation, was the only thing the Jedi had to offer, she didn’t want it.
You’re not alone.
Neither are you.
He makes no move to defend himself when she swings up.
The brilliant arc of blue slashes down, and his eyes remain open the entire time.
His father’s saber, a Jedi’s legacy turned to ash, over and over again.
Ben, Rey, he thinks, Leia.
Forgive me.
Chewie says nothing when she boards the ship, and R2 remains silent. Power thrums beneath at her fingertips, however, it feels like lead, letting the gravity of the ship sink her body to the floor. Killing him was not a freeing act and she feels her bones ache. Showering under the spray of the fresher nozzle, she is born anew. However, instead of life, Rey only feels the silence in her head. Ben’s end of the bond is silent, and the force only flows around her.
The strings of fate are aligned. Crooked, but connected nonetheless.
Killing another was nothing she took lightly, and yet, the energies in that moment were screaming, and for a building moment came to head, she had wanted to kill him, and she did. I killed him, I killed him, I killed him.
Something unpleasant entered her thoughts, a rasping voice laughing at her expense.
My dear apprentice, it drawled, delight oozing from the cracks and spaces in the dialogue, come join us at the forwarded coordinates. Numbers flashed in her vision, she grasped the force to maneuver the levers in the cockpit at the destination.
Rey frowned. Apprentice?
Yes, young Rey, the voice continued, there is much for you to learn. She can almost hear the sinister smile in the voice’s next word. Kill Kylo Ren, and you shall have his place. She feels him recede from her head, and she only frowns deeper.
I’ve gone to the dark so I wouldn’t be alone.
A plan to kill the voice, Snoke, she then realized, began to form in her head.
Carefully changing into an available clean set of tunic and leggings, she reached out with the energy weighing at her fingertips.
Ben.