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The coarseness of the sand grounded her—Rey breathed in, out, slowly. She felt her body respond; felt the contraction and expansion of her rib cage.
'Rey.'
She breathed, centering herself. Focused. The arid environment seemed to dry her lungs progressively with each breath.
'Rey, please. Talk to me.'
A distraction—she ignored his voice, keeping her eyes lightly closed—merely a distraction akin to the sandstorm she could feel brewing just outside the little cave. Her skin prickled with impending danger.
Unlike the desert elements, Ben Solo couldn’t touch her. No matter how he implored, she needed only to remain unmoved.
“Ben!”
He couldn’t hear her voice—even for a Jedi, the space separating them was too great—but her emotion reached him. He turned, battered and drenched, and met her gaze too briefly before the torrential rain obscured him from view. She pushed harder, ran faster—lost the sense of her feet striking the sodden ground, called upon the Force to fly through the dark navy storm. The wind buffeted her in all directions, first bolstering her at her back and then slamming into her from the side, knocking her off-coarse. People screamed as the typhoon ripped their home apart around them.
She should have been helping them—the Force told her so in the battering gale. She fought it.
“Ben!”
Through their Bond she tracked him—felt him, in a far more harmonious state, virtually ride the surface of the deluge. The family he’d gone after was still alive, too—she caught glimpses of them through his eyes, two terrified children and an elderly guardian clinging to debris that had once been their roof. She felt Ben’s anger at the terrible unfairness, as powerful as the storm and just as blinding.
“Ben, no!”
He sat beside her—not in meditative stillness, but fidgeting like a restless youngling. She recalled a time when he'd been the better student, sitting pretty and attentive during lessons. She’d always felt itchy and restless, causing no end of headache for their mutual Master Skywalker.
She let him remain. The Barash Vow dictated total solitude, but old Jedi laws rarely accounted for the anomaly of a Dyad in the Force. They had broken enough conventions—at times willfully, and at others because it was unavoidable—that one more hardly mattered.
… … …
Jakku was naught but burning sand and solitude—desolation and raw Force. Rey had once sworn to never return, but now recognized such a pledge as hopelessly ego-driven. For a Jedi, there was no refusing the Force’s call.
'This isn’t right, Rey.'
She imagined him as an embodiment of her own doubts—her selfishness and worldly desires given a voice, her personal Dark. On Jakku, people died for want of precious drops of water; her craving for him, with that in mind, was easy to put into perspective.
In the wake of the sandstorm, the already barren landscape seemed a slate wiped clean. She tugged her scarf further up over her nose, squinting at the blazing horizon. The Force had sustained her in this place throughout her youth; it would do so again. She reached out to its ancient wisdom—as impervious to decay as a body mummified in the arid sands.
He walked beside her, though he left no footprints.
When she had gone a seemingly interminable distance, she turned back to gaze at the tracks she’d left. Though their path appeared straight, from where she stood, she lacked the proper perspective to judge that. If viewed from above, would they in fact slant crookedly across the landscape?
Just like my path with the Jedi… she thought, and realized she was alone; at some point, their connection across the Force Bond had faded. She knew he would return—dogged, troublesome, beloved—sooner rather than later. She breathed deeply, relished the solitude, and leaned deeper into her own connection with the Force. Jakku’s scouring winds had carved her; she asked them now to wear away her weakness and doubt.
A bright breeze rose up, a contrast to the murky gale of the typhoon. Even the blazing Jakku sun would have been blotted out by such a storm—enveloped in the Dark.
Ben’s anger seethed dark crimson, staining the rain the color of corrupted blood. He called upon the fury, harnessed it, and closed the gap between himself and the small family; Rey screamed his name again.
“Ben, stop! You’ll fall!”
He heard her, across their Bond—ignored her. Fighting through the driving wind, Rey felt herself gaining. She itched to draw her lightsaber, to have some feeling of control, but nature itself wouldn’t be beaten back with a mere weapon. She lost sight of him, in the Dark, and cried out without sound.
Rey descended the ancient steps into shadow. Within the buried alcove, she knelt on dusty stone, lightsaber hilt laid in her lap; she pulled down her scarf as she turned upwards. Dry, perfect stillness surrounded the statue, extending to encompass her as well. The deity—androgynous, worn thin and immovable, but with kind lines around their mouth and deep-set eyes—held her gaze. Their name and sovereignty had been lost to time, but their visage persisted, and Rey had often spoken to them as a child. It had been too long since she’d thought of them.
The Force reached me through you, before I had any other name for it. The deity’s statue gleamed pale in the dim, as though the sun had at some time bleached it pure. Please, guide me now.
He had always been the one to test boundaries—always toyed with visceral emotion and temptation and the Dark Side more than was wise, and he always got away with it. He'd been the first to kiss her, on that day in the temple gardens. He was the one who should have—
'Rey.' He sounded pained, and she knew he’d heard her thoughts.
'Go away.'
'I won’t. You shouldn’t have to figure this out alone.'
'That’s the whole point of the Vow!' she snapped, anger flickering up from dry tinder. She chastised herself. 'Leave me alone.'
'It was for my sake. If anyone should—'
'No! You found a balance—I felt it! The darkness I thought was about to consume you… it was mine, after all.'
'That’s not true.' But his objection was soft, lacked insistence. He knelt beside her, his movement disturbing no sand but casting a faint shadow beside hers. 'Please. Come home.'
She ignored him, looking again to the deity and asking, pleading for its insight. It smiled, but offered no answers.
… … …
The howling of wind roused Rey. She pushed herself up against the stone, twisting to look back up the steps. Any light of dawn was obscured by flurries of sand, and the flickering candle at the statue’s feet did little to illuminate even the alcove. She turned from the deity, drawn as if in a trance, and forged out into the storm.
The abyssal waves swirled around them, the refugee family swept ahead and plunged toward death; Ben leaped after them, Rey almost upon him in turn. Ben’s lightsaber ignited in a blaze of violet that threw razor-sharp patterns of light and dark across the torrent. With a sweeping arc of the blade, he battered back the rain for precious seconds; landing in a crouch beside them, he bundled the family close to him.
Light and Dark, prismatic in the deep navy vortex of the storm, whirled to protect them. Rey’s breath caught as she felt it across their Bond: the entirety of the Force, embodied in the ferocity of nature and channeled through her Ben.
A wave crested; Rey saw it, saw it’s trajectory, and knew that Ben couldn’t stop it. She launched forward, seized with fear, with desperation, and raised her hands—
The sand whipped her skin, scouring it raw in places. She pressed on through the dull gray, the interminable fury of nature, and cried out for an answer.
—heat, turning the stinging rain to scalding steam, surged forth, and lightning struck the wave. It exploded in a super-heated burst, blinding—white light shattering the colorful gyre. The remnants pattered down harmlessly over Ben and the family, although the children shrieked in terror, and in the moment of stillness Ben met her gaze. Across their Bond she felt amazement, gratitude, love, but also—
… … …
Rey woke beside a pool of clear water, the oasis deafeningly silent in the golden dawn. Trembling, parched, she pulled herself to the water’s edge; she paused.
Her reflection so resembled that ancient deity’s visage, dust-coated and weary, but with mirthful wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
“Rey?”
She glanced up, saw him crouching on the other side of the pool. He lacked the Jedi robes he always wore so handsomely; instead dressed in traveling leathers, he looked ready for a long journey. When he reached out she took his hands, without thinking, and relished the feeling of his folding around hers. He lowered them into the water, gently cleaning the sand from each of her fingers, and then nested her hands in his cupped palms. He raised them back, filled with water, and pressed them to her lips; she drank.
“There…” he breathed, smiling with relief. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Rey replied, catching her breath. “But better, now.”
He moved around to her side of the pool, sitting beside her. She leaned against his shoulder.
“Why couldn’t you leave me be?”
He shook his head. “What would that’ve fixed?”
“The Vow—"
“Is extreme, cruel even,” he cut in gently. “Isolation isn’t helpful for everyone—even the Council knows that. And you've been alone for too long already.”
She closed her eyes. “I summoned lightning, Ben.”
“You saved me, and that family. The Force just used lightning as its form.”
“That power came from fear. You must have felt it.”
“You were afraid to lose me. I felt it.”
“Fear and anger are the Dark Side, Ben.”
“And I suppose it’s even worse that it made me happy, hmm?”
Rey turned to him in surprise; he looked almost playful, now. “Happy?”
“That you were that scared of losing me. That you summoned lightning to protect me.” Ben kissed her, softly, and then drew back. “It was thrilling.”
She felt his thrill deep in her core, a heat that coiled tight in her hips. Begging permission across their Bond—receiving it, unspoken but sure—he kissed her again, passionately. She had a fleeting worry for how gritty her mouth must taste, but then returned the affection. One of his powerful arms wrapped around her back, supporting her.
'Leave the Order, with me,' he said within her mind, his eyes closed. She thought to pull away, but the suggestion didn’t rattle her like she might’ve thought. 'I love you.'
'Don’t be an idiot,' Rey scoffed.
'An idiot?' Mildly cross, he pushed her down into the sand. 'I’m trying to be romantic…'
'You just sound like a moony youngling,' Rey replied, tangling her fingers in his thick hair.
'I’m serious, though,' he whined, and she twisted beneath him. With an effort, she kicked him up and over her head; he landed with a splash and a yelp, thudding onto his back in the shallow water. Rey scrambled around to crawl up onto his chest.
“Let’s not jump straight to that” she said, crossing her arms across his collarbone.
“But I can stay with you, here?”
“You wouldn’t leave me alone, anyway.”
Ben frowned. “If you really want me to—"
“I don’t. I don’t.” Rey sighed, sinking into him. 'Reconnecting to the Force will be good, I think. But we’re a dyad. I can’t work with the Force while trying to shut you out. I know that.'
“I’ll help, if I can.”
“I know you will.”
“I love you, Rey. Whether we leave the Order or stay, I’ll always be with you.”
She felt his certainty and scoffed. It wasn't that simple, and never would be—but he was, and his conviction grounded her. She kissed him, felt him arch beneath her. Static energy surged between them—a different sort of lightning, just as frightening in its way but wonderful, too.