Chapter Text
Ben wakes in the dead hours of the morning, called to rise by a dull throbbing headache. He swings his feet over the side of the bed and touches down on the cool stone floor. He pauses for a moment, taking in the sounds of his room and the temple beyond. He reaches with his senses and feels Uncle Luke fast asleep next door.
Since Ben's incident, Uncle Luke has moved rooms to be closer to him. Ben is deadly quiet as he gets dressed and gathers a small bag, filling it with essentials only. The point of this is to leave behind attachments. Still, without thinking, he pauses in front of the large platform that makes up his Dejarik. It is modeled after the set Chewbacca used during his parent’s adventures, before and after the fall of the Empire. Ben had grown up on the Falcon learning to play, particularly how to lose perfectly so that Chewbacca didn't feel patronized. To take it would be like carrying a piece of his mother and father, of Chewie and Luke. A ripple of a thought invades and interrupts his desire. It is heavy. It will weigh you down, just like your family. Ben hesitates for longer than he should before stealing out into the dark empty handed.
He closes his eyes and calls out only once, with his whole soul. Immediately the dark hooks in. There is the feeling of a cold hand beneath Ben's chin. Praise flows through the contact, coaxing him forward. He stumbles a few paces before finding his footing through the trees. Deep in his chest he feels another specter hand test a coil of shining green thread that has been pulling thin of late. When it doesn't give, the twinge fades and the hand withdraws. He picks through the trees, blindly following his guide. Ben doesn't know what he will find when he arrives. He still isn't entirely sure if he's doing the right thing, or blindly making a mistake that can’t be taken back. There is a reverberation in his chest, a budding warmth woken by the intrusion. Ben stifles it as best he can. Being in the forest always makes the light shine clearer in his thoughts, but he can’t afford to fumble for the thin sliver that calls to him now.
Ben tells himself this is simply what he needs to do. People always speak of facing their fears, of facing their darkness. He reasons that this is a test on the road to becoming who he's meant to be. That he also needs to know the darkness to begin piecing together a way forward. The light had its time with him, and if the call to the dark is never ending, maybe this is the only way he can hope to achieve balance.
After surviving himself, Ben made a silent promise to be more resilient. Ben knows he doesn’t really want to die, but rather to find peace in the possibility of a happy future. Once again he affords himself a glimmer of hope that the sides of the force aren't as starkly divided as the Jedi like to think. Maybe he does not have to choose between villain and hero after all, and can become something new, neither Sith nor Jedi. A neutral party between the pillars of light and dark, something like a grey knight.
That's why he's optimistic despite the planet’s growing tug to turn tail and run. Why the sight of the ominous matte ship, that flashes into existence mere yards from where he climbs—waiting, quiet like a predator—only makes him falter for a moment.
As he crests the hill, the low-grade buzz in his head becomes a louder drone. Though it hurts, Ben powers through like usual, wondering if the pain will go away once he follows its call to that final mystery source. The ship's companionway is open and waiting. Ben acknowledges that he still has time to turn back, that he has the power to make the decision to walk in the opposite direction. He raises his hand to the back of his head and rubs the base of his skull, remembering what that choice feels like.
The ship's interior is minimal. Shiny black upon matte black. The design is unlike anything he's ever seen, almost organic in configuration. Seamless, close. The gangway closes behind him, and the connection to his guide vanishes, prompting Ben’s heart to start hammering in his chest. His eyes scan over the intimidating architecture, seeking out a window to soothe the claustrophobia he suddenly feels.
He moves through the ship, scanning it. There is no pilot chair or command center. Only an alcove with seats arranged around the observation window. There is a bathroom facility and a small kitchen corner with most free space dedicated to a store of water and ration packs. As far as he can tell, the ship is absent of life. It must be a transport shuttle programmed to retrieve him. Ben thinks about what that means, how the expanse of space extends above him. Infinite, beautiful. Horrifying, dark. He could be going anywhere, to anyone, or anything. Visions of monsters skirt his outer thoughts but Ben chooses not to indulge them.
The ship shifts under him and Ben has a wild moment of vertigo as the ship prepares for takeoff. He places his face to the cool glass of the observation deck and looks out at the planet. He can see a gathering of light in the distance from what must be the Sun and Moon rising North on the Jedi temple. He settles into a seat closest to the window, and secures himself for takeoff.
What sounds like the drone of an enormous winged insect turns out to be the roar of the engine. The ship lifts and hovers over the surface of the planet for a moment. Ben barely has time to blink, and then the planet is a blip of green and blue, far, far out of his reach. Ben’s stomach drops out, brain not able to process quickly enough. He lunges forward, as if to catch the retreating planet. Panic dances in his chest. No. This isn't how his last moments are supposed to happen. He was going to watch the planet fade slowly, he was going to meditate, to let go of things gradually the way Uncle Luke had explained. Instead the whole affair feels cut short, any closure he had hoped for, taken away. Panic forms around the feeling. Not ready. Not yet. He didn’t get to say goodbye.
Ben shuts his eyes against the speed of the transport as it travels through light. The ship must have one hell of a good particle modulator to keep them from being torn apart at the atomic level while it hurdles through space. He grips the edges of the window, makes it hurt, makes it feel real. He rushes to reconcile the abruptness of his departure, tries to revisit every detail of his life before this moment. Ben strives to memorize the lines of his father’s face and the shape of his mother’s brown eyes. The crookedness of Uncle Luke’s smile and the melodic murmur of Chewbacca singing him a lullaby. He can feel them slipping already, already a memory supplemented by his imagination, something soft and fuzzy about the image, something shifting in the details.
The ship exits warp and continues moving at a quick but stable pace. Ben immediately realizes he has landed in some new system, far beyond the reaches of any map he’s ever seen. As the ship moves through the system, planets that appear habitable dwindle, and satellite outposts decrease in number until eventually they stop appearing at all.
Panic rising, Ben resorts to holding his head between his knees and breathing deep. Big gulp of air. Hold it-ten-nine-eight-seven. Exhale. Slow. Calm. Ben sternly tells himself that he chose this. That his current situation is a consequence of that choice, and certainly one he should have expected. He isn't a young Padawan anymore, he can’t give into the fear or the panic. He has to be stronger than that.
When he’s finally talked himself down from his state, Ben explores the ship. It doesn't take him long to exhaust himself invesitaging every corner of the small transport, only to still have no inkling of where it is taking him. By the end of the first twenty-four hours he's slept, eaten, and tried to chart his position twice without success. Frustrated, he sleeps again.
By the second day, Ben has taken up a spot on the floor. He cracks open a packet of rations and wedges himself further into the corner near the window. He swaths himself in emergency blankets and eats as he stares into space. This quadrant doesn't seem to hold much of anything, a planet hasn’t come into range within 36hours and the light of the stars is nothing but a spattering of dull points against the oppressive black.
62 hours pass.
Ben staves off another round of quietly building anxiety. Despite counting, holding, and exhaling, he is having trouble regulating his breathing. He clings to Uncle Luke’s teachings to help keep him calm. He practices mindfulness, keeping awareness of his body and acknowledging his fears, not letting the later overwhelm his objective mind. The grated metal beneath the soles of his bare feet is slightly warm. The glass between himself and the expanse of space is cold. His back touches solid metal, and the ship’s internal mechanisms create vibrations that travel through his legs and up his torso, reverberating gently beneath his teeth and up into his hairline. He mentally scans his body and breathes in the small discomforts, he takes stock of his entire person, working to stay grounded and present.
Eventually Ben manages to fall into shallow meditation. It's a simple exercise that has always been abnormally difficult for him. Ben’s mind rarely empties fully, rarely lets thoughts or feelings flow through with ease. Images, and snippets of conversation stick in the mud of his consciousness, memories and emotions trip over one another, vying for his attention. Small and trivial upsets cut his heart too deeply, and easily overwhelm him. It doesn’t help that he is always faced with two resonating lines of energy, paths that beckon him, never able to commit to walk down one or the other without consequences.
There is a ladder in a wide emptiness that spreads out around Ben. If he makes the choice to climb up, it feels as though weights have taken hold of his ankles, bent on dragging him down, calling sweetly to him from below. If he climbs down, suddenly his body is weightless and he begins to loose his grip on the ladder as he floats upwards.
His concentration is easily broken when the ship slows its trajectory and comes to a halt. The ship begins moving in an unnatural way, flight pattern disrupted, and Ben recognizes the directionless feeling of being pulled by a tractor beam. Anxiously he stands, pressing his face to the windows in an attempt to see who it is that has picked him up. He hastily stows the blankets that made up his little nest, along with the scattered rations packets. His mind races for ways to conceal his presence on the ship and he scans for places to hide in the event that he has been picked up by slavers, or other, equally unsavory company.
The transport slides to a halt and Ben sees space give way to the interior of a mothership. He dives under a storage bunk, cramming himself in and holding as still as possible. He barely dares to breathe, making do with the silent and shallow panting that confined space allows.
The cabin depressurizes and the gangway lets loose a stream of air. Ben goes deadly still, holding his breath. Images of horrible monsters, human and alien alike, bubble to the surface of his mind before he tells himself that darkness does not always mean evil, that appearances are not always all-telling. His grandfather was proof of that in the end. Ben assures himself he will be too.
Still, Ben is a jitter of tightly contained nerves as the gangway lowers fully, and slow footsteps begin making their way up the ramp towards him. The cabin becomes more oxygenated as its contents are swapped for the better regulated air of the mothership.
The gangway is wide open and Ben fights with himself over whether or not to face the intruder. It’s not as if he could escape. They would only need to scan the ship for life forms. Maybe he shouldn’t hide, waiting to be found like a coward. He should meet his fate regardless of if it’s favorable. Feeling stupid and with his cheeks burning in embarrassment, Ben slides out from the storage compartment and moves to stand in plain view, just as the shadow of a form consumes the entrance of the gangway.
The being steps into the dim artificial light and a ripple courses through Ben. It starts at the soles of his feet and races quickly under Ben's skin until his head is a crashing of conflating sounds and images.
The figure in front of him is tall enough that Ben needs to crane his neck to meet its face. It is not human and it is old as space is wide. Glassy blue eyes assure Ben that this is the creature that has been guiding his waking moments while haunting his dreams. Where there was once terror, there is nothing. An absence of feeling. Overrun, Ben has the sense of being in the presence of something so much larger than himself. The feeling of his personality being drowned out in preparation for something so much more. His sense of self is off kilter, he doesn’t know where his mind ends and the presence of the beings' begins. He tries to recall why he was so afraid back at the Jedi temple, what exactly felt so wrong about the presence of this creature in his mind. And yet…and yet now that it is in front of him, Ben can do little more than to remember to breathe.
“Hello Ben. My name is Snoke,”
Snoke’s voice quiets Ben’s world, brings a stillness to him he didn’t even know existed. He has enough awareness to feel wetness on his cheek, and brings his hand up to his face to find he is crying. Very empty, very cold inside. Abruptly his mind feels scrambled, as if, faced with something too overwhelming to comprehend, it is trying to peel apart. Ben lets loose a sob. He staggers forward, impossibly drawn to the being in front of him.
“Come here child,”
Snoke holds his arms out for Ben and it’s like a prayer. Ben rushes into them, swept up in so much feeling. He hugs this creature that he does not know, and yet knows so well. Whether he screams in anguish or relief, Ben can not tell.