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They meet less frequently now. Master Skywalker has taught the ex-scavenger how to meditate and find peace within the reaches of the force. She listens. Rey keeps quiet about her encounters with the dark shadow haunting her mind. The shadow still dances behind her eyes, but visits her less and less.
On the other side of the Galaxy, Kylo Ren breathes in the crisp morning air until his lungs have had their fill. When his eyelids fall he sees her, the sand princess. He sees her smile so relentlessly that the grin reaches her eyes and she runs a hand through her wavy brown hair hanging below her chest. Something in his stomach burns, aching, yearning for her. When he contemplates the force he can feel her, her radiance and the light she illuminates to the dark world around her. He has to find her. Ren swears on his life he will make her see his way.
Rey lays down to rest too late for her liking tonight. Her master has drilled her all day on simple, frustrating tasks. The young apprentice knows she is new to the force, but learning how to summon a small pebble to her hand is trivial. Letting her hair down, Rey changes into her nightly attire; a pale, white robe that falls to her knees. She does not realize how exhausted she truly is until her body hits the soft, somewhat soft at least, firmness of her bed. Her eyes flutter shut.
“You’re even more powerful than when we last met,” his voice drips off his lips as he approaches her from behind.
Rey inwardly groans, she has not encountered him since she began training under Skywalker. This was not something she was expecting. Wind whistles through the desert dunes they stand upon, flecks of sand flying around them.
“I can sense it,” he places a hand on her shoulder and she shrugs him away. “Tell me about Skywalker,” he prods, “what has he taught you?” Kylo Ren takes a step away from her, his lips curled into what Rey can now recognize as his thinking face.
“More than anything you ever could,” she smirks, proud. The Knight of Ren suddenly produces his saber, its red, messy, unstable blade flying from the hilt.
“Show me,” he whispers.
Rey tugs her own blade from its place on her belt and readies her stance. He is on the offensive, charging at her and pulling his blade down towards the top of her head. The young girl meets his red saber with her blue, spinning away from him so he no longer has the upper hand on her. She slashes downward towards him, he catches the end of her stroke.
This is the girl’s home, and if he thinks he can beat her in her homeland then he is gravely mistaken. Using the heel of her foot, Rey kicks the sand below them up, raising her hand to direct the grains into her opponent's eyes. Ren hisses at the invasion of his sight. Before the padawan can strike again, Kylo Ren extends a hand towards her direction and forces her away. “Good,” he says, his vision beginning to focus again, “use your surroundings to your benefit.” Rey grits her teeth and can feel small pieces of sand against her tongue, it’s not a foreign feeling but still not a good one. They approach each other again.
It is an endless cycle of dodging, thrusting, and ducking until their blades meet together. The dark lord and the new apprentice are now face to face, their lightsabers locked. Ren’s eyes flicker to hers and she catches him.
“Well?” Rey asks mockingly, as if she cared to what he thought of her. The man opposite leans further against their tied blades, shifting the power to be in his favor.
“Close,” he remarks, with one motion he pushes her down, her lightsaber falling with her. “You’re still obviously new at this,” his voice does not contain any malice. The Knight reaches a hand out to help her up, she refuses it and leans back against the warm surface. “I seem to recall you begging me to allow you the opportunity to train me just a few weeks ago,” her words are like vipers.
He laughs bitterly, it is a deep noise, one she cannot compare to any other thing she has ever heard. “It is an invitation I still hold out to you,” he closes his saber.
Now it is her turn to laugh, “so you no longer are threatening me?” Rey scoffs. Kylo Ren pulls a glove off his hand with his teeth and leans down to comb through the grains of sand below them.
“I will do whatever means necessary to get what I want,” he reminds. Sand falls through the spaces in between his fingers. “I see now why you prefer water to this,” he murmurs.
Rey lazily begins to trace a finger in the desert, sitting back up and leaning her torso against her legs. “You stayed out of my head for so long, why are you here?” she doesn’t look at him.
“The texture is so rough, yet soft when used collectively. I’ve never lived on a desert planet before,” he looks like a young child as his gaze shifts from her to the ground below them and back again.
“Don’t avoid my question,” she looks up at him, squinting from the sun’s rays beaming down at her. The Knight joins her on the ground.
“I don’t sit for just anyone,” he remarks.
“I didn’t ask you to,” she says quietly.
Kylo Ren releases a sigh, “Rey, you are on a path that can only lead to tragedy and pain. Your friends, those liars, are following you down a road that will not end well for any of you, surely of this you are aware.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she cups her hands around the sand and pulls it to form a small hut, he looks at her with a trace of amusement.
“The Resistance cannot prevail, nor can they show you your full capabilities, you will only be limited. Come with me, I will show you what you can become, what you can do,” the man lifts a finger and adds more onto her creation.
She continues working with him, both forging their new masterpiece. “You cannot tempt me to the dark side, Ben. If that is why you have invaded my mind tonight then you have no purpose here.”
He draws a circle around their house, “you invade my mind as much as you claim I to invade yours.”
Rey’s eyes quickly meet with his and she feels heat rush through her veins. When his eyes stare into her, she cannot remember anything else. “Ben, quit that,” she firmly orders.
“Ben Solo was destroyed, do not be a fool,” his gaze returns to the sand hut he has so diligently worked on.
“You are the fool.”
Her voice silences him and he begins a rhythm of breathing in and out. Rey reaches her into belt and finds an old leaf she had stored during a nature training with her master. Proudly, the apprentice drives the leaf onto the dome of the structure they’ve completed. “It’s an antenna,” she announces.
Ren’s hand reaches out and he angles the green blade towards the sun, “now it is a solar panel to maximize the amount of energy converted to needed materials.”
“You’ve never even lived on a desert planet you don’t even know what that is,” she smiles softly as she rolls her eyes.
“It’s better than a useless antenna,” he shrugs.
“Hey! That antenna will connect them to the rest of the desert, perhaps the entire galaxy,” Rey defends passionately.
Kylo Ren looks out to the great dunes surrounding the two beings and motions to them, “who else would they be looking for? They are alone in the universe.”
Rey’s hand brushes against his as she moves the leaf back into it’s antenna position, “maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re waiting for others and they just can’t see them right now.”
Silence falls over the two and she moves one last time to adjust something, but his hand catches hers as she reaches out. “You and I will be unstoppable, Rey. With our power, our will, it is my birthright to rule this galaxy. I want you by my side. You are everything that the First Order needs.”
“Don’t say that,” she turns her face away.
The Knight of Ren reaches his free hand out her pull her chin back towards him, “you are like pure light, Rey. You’re bright and everyone can see her radiance from far away, it’s in your very soul. You are the only person to ever be enough to be seen as my equal, that is something monumental.”
“Ben,” his hand shifts from her chin to the side of face and she covers his hand with hers and she speaks. “You are delirious, I will be trained by Skywalker and I will not be seduced into joining you.”
The man pulls her closer to him, studying her face. “You’re lonely-”
“So are you,” she cuts in.
Rey becomes so near to him that he can see every last freckle on her face, “resisting your skin is the hardest trial I have ever faced.”
“Saying sweet things to entrap me will not work in your favor,” she warns, though she feels her resolve slipping the further he gets to her. She is the sea and he is the sand, she swallows him whole. They will always be on the opposite end, and she knows this like an old memory.
Ben runs his thumb over her fingers, her hand still in his possession, “I would never be reduced to that.”
“You never answered my question,” Rey’s gaze falls to their now entwined hands, “why are you here now?”
“Now?”
“You used to appear every time I closed my eyes and then you just, stopped. Why now?” Rey looks back to him.
The Knight furrows his brow, “you called me here. I was meditating and your force signature pulled at me, beckoned me.”
The padawan shook her head, “I didn’t.”
“Rey,” he breathes and leans forward so that their noses are resting against each other. Her skin begins to grow hot, her heart skipping a beat. Rey’s eyes flutter closed as she waits for him to make his move.
Ben begins to move as if he is going to kiss her cheek, but stops, pulling away completely from her. “You don’t want this,” he states.
Rey’s eyes open and she immediately can see that his features have pain written all over them. “What?” She tries to hide the disappointment she wishes she didn’t feel.
“You don’t want me to touch you,” he repeats.
“I don’t-”
“From the beginning, I’ve sensed it. You still see me as a monster,” he untangles his fingers from her hand and stands.
Rey quickly jumps to her feet, “stop looking into my mind without my permission.”
“I don’t need to look into your mind to know you don’t-” he lowly states, choosing not to finish. “But trust this, you will not flourish unless you choose what is best for your capabilities. When you are ready, I will be waiting.”
Before can respond, the scenery changes and she is left alone on the shore in a pool of water. Small waves push at her knees, the tide then pulling her in. Rey remembers her training and synchronizes her breathing to the shifting ocean. This world is only her connection with the force, she knows. He only appears here because they are tied, their fate and destiny entangled into a mess only her master would understand.
Ben has taken too much from her already. She was vulnerable to him, allowed him to see her weakness and he acted upon it. Yet, when he is gone she misses his presence. “If you can hear me,” she calls, “I know that you are not purely made of darkness. I feel your force signature and it has not been overrun completely, Ben.”
Rey whispers, “Kylo Ren is not who you are.” He’s right, she doesn’t want Kylo Ren to touch her. Kylo Ren is a monster. But when she looks into his eyes, she can see Ben Solo fighting, tearing, at the boy’s soul. She can hear the whispers, she will be the one to free him.
Kylo Ren is not who you are.
The words ghost across his mind as he rises from his meditation stance.