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Despite his attempts to burnish the lightsaber pommel’s greyish finish to a silvery shine, it remained weather worn. It had straight, clean lines; the crossguard vents were smooth and unadorned, functional yet elegant. The heft felt right in his hand; it was well-balanced. Satisfied, he set the newly crafted pommel down and picked up the kyber shard, letting it rest on his open palm.
The crystal gleamed in the dim light of the room, quiet and contained. Slowly Ben folded his fingers over it, covering the shard and shutting his eyes, concentrating; reaching out with the Force.
A slight glow shone through his closed fist. The crystal vibrated and hummed with a high-pitched, sing-song voice. You have suffered...
"I have," Ben answered, through the Force. He was quiet in thought and in his emotion, placid as he communed with the kyber.
...and you have caused suffering in turn. The hum rose and fell. You have broken one of our own before, cracked and shattered it, to bend it to your will.
"I have," he confessed. He knew he could do so again, if he wanted, but he didn't want to. He had not been who he was now when he had made his previous weapon; that had been Kylo Ren. The kyber crystal inside a lightsaber was a living thing, a partner to the one that wielded it, willingly or not. They were also the reflection of the one who placed them within the casing, through the Force. Ben wished to have this crystal to willingly power his lightsaber, in a balanced symbiosis. He would wait and let it decide for itself.
You have been broken yourself, riven to your core, shattered by the conflict that you once contained... but no more. The glow grew, warm and bright. You are whole once more, balanced. You are powerful, too...We accept your offer. The glow dampened down as Ben opened his hand. He took up the pommel and slid the crystal into the housing, carefully closing the access panel and sealing it.
Ben stood, took a deep breath, and ignited the new blade.
Cold points of light flared out, sparking to life in a glittering shower. Two short beams flowed from the vents to form quillons, while a long central beam coalesced into a single humming blade. Ben lifted the lightsaber aloft, admiring the shimmering violet blade, and smiled.
Rey stood in the doorway, grinning wide. "It's perfect," she declared, watching him spin it experimentally. "I didn't know lightsaber blades could be purple. Does it mean something?" she asked, drawing closer, touching his shoulder gently.
"It does," Ben replied softly. "It reflects a conflict...followed by resolution." He looked toward her. "Balance."
"Red and blue combined is violet... and your old lightsaber when you were with Luke was blue, right?" she asked. She'd seen visions of a much younger Ben before, but she hadn't really paid much attention at the time to the color of his blade.
Ben nodded. He watched the violet blades trace gentle arcs of light in the air for another moment before shutting down the saber and going to the doorway with Rey. "How's yours coming along?" he asked.
"Pretty well. Just need to figure out how to connect the two sabers together in a way that will allow me to break them apart when the need to dual fight arises." She paused, then laughed at herself softly, "That is... should needing to fight at all ever happen again. I guess it's unlikely either of us are going to have fight another person with a lightsaber."
""There's more to lightsabers than just being weapons. Even if it's just symbolic, it's important to keep the tradition of building them as part of the training," Ben observed. "And there are others out there who will need training."
"Assuming they want training" Rey reminded him. "Not everyone who can use the Force actually wants to. Look at Finn."
"I'm aware of Finn and his Force sensitivity. I meant, training for ones like us, who want to channel and control their abilities." Ben turned toward her. "We're not Jedi, Rey; we don't need to follow that way anymore. But there are others that will need a steady foundation, somewhere to start for themselves--if they so choose."
She nodded. "I know. How will they find us though? We'll need to settle somewhere. Somewhere that's... not here." She squinted up towards the suns to make her point.
"No, not here," he agreed. "The Force will guide us, just as it will guide the others to us in time." He leaned against the doorway. "In the meantime, you need to build your lightsaber."
"Right," she nodded heading back down to the workshop. They pommel was done, save for the whatever connecting mechanism she decided on. Magnetics might work, but she needed to be sure it wouldn’t interfere with the crystals. "OK, you two, behave yourselves for a moment, all right?" she said, putting the two crystals on the work table. Passing a magnetic coupling over them seemed to have no effect on them. There was no way she could test it properly until they were properly installed though.
That meant she would have to make the two lightsabers separately, make sure they each worked independently, and then try connecting them.
Taking one crystal in each hand, she sat on the floor, cross-legged one hand on each knee. Closing her eyes, she took deep, even breaths, settling herself and concentrating on the crystals.
There is darkness in you... a soft voice said.
And there is light... another voice said.
Perhaps she should have been alarmed by body-less voices in here head, but after all she'd been through, very little surprised her. Still, these were not the voices of Jedi souls of the past, or the voices of other people at all. These voices belonged to the crystals themselves.
"Yes. There is Dark and Light in me," she responded. "I was born a Palpatine. I was not raised one."
Dark and light are not inherited. You strike a stable balance between the two. She didn't know which one of the two was speaking, but the tone seemed pleased.
A balance that suits us. You may wield our power.
"Thank you. I will strive to remain equal to the task." she responded, opening her eyes and slowly returning to the bench.
With careful fingers, she placed one crystal in its place. Then, the other. Once secured, she lifted the first blade, the one she intended for her dominant hand, and ignited it; a spark and a vibrating hum and she found herself looking at a golden blade.
Apparently, it was still possible to surprise her. Of the things she might have expected, gold was not one of them. A repeat test found the second lightsaber to match perfectly.
In short order, she had installed and tested the magnetic couplings to her satisfaction. There wasn't enough room in the workshop for her to test the full staff, so she headed outside to where Ben was sparring with the air, not unlike how she used to on Ahch-To and Ajan Kloss.
"Done," she announced.
Ben swept around in a storm-like pirouette, violet light fanning about him like waves of electricity. He came to a stop, facing her. "Gold," he observed as she ignited both her blades.
"Yeah, I know!" She was unable to fully contain her excitement. "Do you think it means anything? Like the purple lightsaber you have does?"
"Each color has meaning," Ben said solemnly. "Yellow - especially a deep yellow like that; golden - that denotes protection and devotion. The Jedi sentinels had gold sabers." He tilted his head. "It fits you perfectly."
She blushed in response, trying to cover it up by twirling it, testing the balance to make sure she'd calibrated it correctly. "I like it. It feels right."
Ben lifted his hand, urging her to join him in the lightsaber forms.
She smiled and disconnected the two sabers, clipping one on her belt and wielding the other. "All right. Going to teach me?"
Ben's face widened in a grin. "We both know that you don't need me to teach you, Rey."
"Maybe not. But you still have a bit more experience than I do. And we learned from different teachers," she pointed out, standing beside him and matching his stance.
"No." Ben shook his head. "Different lightsabers, different moves. This isn't about routine; it's about feeling out your individual weapon." He brandished his crossbar pommel, forming fan-like swirls of violet light around him again. "Just move and let the Force guide you; feel the lightsaber in your hands and join with it." Demonstrating, Ben began to move again in a sort of internally-driven dance, the saber weaving complex patterns in the space surrounding him. It was a graceful and organic movement, the larger man moving effortlessly, the lightsaber merely an extension of his arm as he flowed through the forms.
With another admiring glance at her new lightsaber and its glowing golden blade, Rey stood parallel to Ben, positioning her arms in the first form and closing her eyes. She didn’t imitate Ben or shadow his movements; rather, she reached out with the Force, feeling the lightsaber in her hand, the crystals within them, her own position in the space around her, even Ben’s motion nearby. Taking a deep breath, she began to move. Soon she added the second blade, clicking the two. At first, she merely went through the motions she remembered from wielding her staff on Jakku, making sure she never accidentally grabbed the blade. It quickly become second nature to swing and wheel the blades around her in a whirlwind golden light. This was different from wielding Luke's old saber; it felt stronger, more fluid and natural. She could feel where the end of her blade was, even with her eyes shut.
The double blades forming the bulk of her lightsaber - or more accurately, lightstaff - felt natural in her hands, and she began to adapt her form to accommodate them. Ben and Rey circled around each other, moving in their own orbits like the twin suns setting behind them. There was no sense of the passage of time as they became lost in the motions; the hum and whine of the blades slicing through the air, the scrape of their feet on the sand, the sound of their breath enveloping them.
Rey turned on her heel quickly and jumped forward, putting herself in the path of Ben’s blade. The resulting crash of their weapons connecting thrilled through her and she grinned at him. “I think I might prefer actual sparring,” she laughed, the light of the suns highlighting her flushed cheeks. “You up for it, old man?”
Ben's eyes blazed back, catching the gleam of their crossed blades, as he grinned back at her. "I'm up for anything," he growled, pushing back and spinning his lightsaber with a flourish. Falling into a defense stance, he urged her forward with a sharp nod.
Calculating quickly, Rey charged forward, but instead of bringing her blade down on him, she jumped over him in a flip and made to attack from behind.
Ben's violet blade slid back over his head, colliding with Rey's golden one to block its descent path toward his neck. Crouching, he spun away until he faced her again, darting forward to catch each end of her staff as Rey jabbed them at him, knocking them aside. He pressed on, forcing her to step back as he attacked with rapid blows.
Rey deflected each of his strikes just as cleanly as he had blocked hers. She had to drop to one knee to block a low strike, his physical strength out-pacing hers. A quick glance to be sure, and Rey rolled forward through the gap between his legs, his stance just wide enough to allow her through.
In response Ben barreled forward out of her reach, turning around to face her as she rose from her tumble. "Now you're just playing," Ben remarked, lightsaber held loosely at his side.
"I'm experimenting!" she retorted, though her delighted smile gave her away. "Artoo has these old holos of Jedi fights and they used a lot of jumps and flips and stuff. I thought it looked fun in a way."
"Fun? This is serious business," Ben answered back. "Besides, I thought we weren't calling ourselves Jedi anymore." he nodded towards her double-bladed staff. "Looks like you're handling your new weapon well, though; getting a good feel for it."
"I didn't say we were Jedi. I said I liked the fighting technique," she corrected him. "Don't argue with me on semantics, Ben." Still, she was smiling and pleased, twirling her staff in front of her, creating something of a shield that would have protected her from any blaster hit or saber strike.
Ben shut down his blade, sinking to the rocky sand in a meditative pose. He was suddenly quiet, calm, at ease in the light of the setting suns. It was a startling, abrupt shift from the combative stance, one that showed nothing of his previous exertion.
Rey straightened; a bit confused by this sudden change of direction. It looked like he was listening for something. Or just gathering his strength. Well, she wasn't going to attack him while he was somewhat defenseless. She kept her lightsaber ignited, pacing lightly in front of him, measuring her breathing and coaxing her shoulders to relax.
A soft smile slowly spread across Ben's face as he opened one eye.
"I can see you," she reminded him, keeping her attention focused on him even as she sought her own balance.
"Of course, you can," Ben replied serenely, closing his eyes again. All around him the sand began to shift. Pebbles and stones surfaced and rose into the air around him, forming a kind of rocky star-map around him. Ben began to rise in the center of the display, legs unfolding, until he was floating in the midst of the miniature asteroid field he had created.
"Show off," Rey observed, though there was no annoyance in her tone. "What are you looking for?"
"I'm not looking for anything," Ben answered. "This is just...for fun." He smiled broadly as he descended, the stones showering down around him as he landed.
"Ah... I mean I've done that too... but it was while I was trying to make contact with the old Masters. Never worked though. Not until Exegol, at least," she explained, powering down her staff and clipping it to her belt.
Ben's expression grew serious as he joined her, walking back toward the Kenobi homestead and the Falcon parked on the ridge above. "I thought I had connected to them, or, at least, one of them in particular," he said quietly. "But I was mistaken."
Rey nodded. "Yeah... I know. Leia... told me, sort of. Not in words, but... in feelings." she admitted, slipping one of her hands into his. "I'm so sorry, Ben... he never should have targeted you... he wanted me and he couldn't find me. All of this darkness and despair... wasn't even meant for you."
There was thick emotion in his voice when he responded. "Don't you dare apologize for him, for what he did. I don't know who put those thoughts in your head, but they're not true. He wanted--no, needed--us both, for different reasons." He gripped her hand tighter, and through their bond, she could feel the sincerity behind his words.
"No one put these thoughts into my head," she assured him, squeezing his hand tighter in response. "I just... it made sense to me. He's been after me since I was born. And at that same time, you would have just come under Luke's tutelage, right? You were ten?"
"Rey, listen to me." Ben stopped, turning toward her. "He was manipulating me from before I was born, years before you even existed. I wasn't the substitute for his finding you, and you weren't a replacement for his manipulation of me, or my mother, or my uncle, or any of us. He simply saw the opportunities as they occurred, and seized them."
"True enough. I suppose I'm just still grappling with the idea that that... that THING shared blood with me," she sighed softly. "I wanted family for so long. To find out that the only family I had left was someone as vile and evil as Sheev Palpatine is... was..." she broke off, shaking her head. "I know it means nothing. I know I'm not like him. I know it shouldn't bother me. But it does."
"You're nothing like him, Rey. And he's no part of you, regardless of who your parents were." Ben drew her into a loose embrace. "You are far more than your genetics, you know that. Whether or not you call yourself a Jedi, you are the heir to that legacy. Hell, you're more a Skywalker than I am, when you think about it."
"We're BOTH Skywalkers," she insisted. "You through blood and legacy. Me through training and legacy. You are I are one and the same."
"Yes, we're a dyad in the Force, Rey, but you are the true heir to the Skywalker legacy, from both my mother and my uncle." Ben shrugged, a self-depreciating gesture. "There's too much of my father in me for that."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," she smiled, reaching up to touch his cheek. "You got the best from both of your parents, I think... now that you've come into your own."
"Now that I'm Ben Solo, you mean." He nodded. "And I know it's not a bad thing." He echoed her touch, brushing her cheek. For a long moment they shared a knowing look, each understanding the other perfectly. Dropping his hand to her shoulder, they turned back toward the Falcon. They both waved to BB-8's strident burbling welcome as they returned to the ship that for now, they called home, just as the stars began to shine brightly above them.