As the last embers of the Rebellion begin to fade, Kylo Ren (Ben Solo) and the brave, budding Jedi Rey continue to wrestle with their mysterious connection. Rey remains disgusted by Kylo Ren's murder and darkness, but holds hope that Ben Solo will e...
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They didn't need to appear to her. Leia could feel the men she'd lost, and all their complicated choices. She felt their love in the silence of the ancient Jedi tree of Ahch-To, now burned to brittle charcoal. Leia preferred silence for summoning strength.
Leia, Kylo Ren will kill you, echoed the voice of Luke on behalf of the soul group.
"Don't be so dramatic," she mumbled aloud.
She turned her face to the sky as the popping sound of Ben's shuttle broke the atmosphere. Patiently, she waited for him to park, exit the craft, and amble up the steep island rocks. By the time his floppy, black hair could finally be seen in the distance, the whole situation of waiting to be killed became ridiculous, and Leia couldn't help but smile and chuckle softly.
Ben's scowl was seething with anger. The mist condensed on his clammy skin and clustered in his hair. As he had practiced countless times in his dark training, Ben conjured all the hate he could muster for his mother up into his heart. He compounded the hurt he had felt all the years Leia had channeled her attention and energy into the Rebellion while he was left with caretakers who were numb to the Force, and deaf to its mode of communication. He remembered the resentment he had felt every time Leia would explain that there was a cause greater than Ben she was serving. Ben was never loved as much as she loved the Rebellion. Ben concluded that she had never really loved him at all.
And then it emerged; that last little sliver of weakness within him. The only solution was to exterminate it. Harden himself to the light forever, so that he could have the power to unite the galaxy once and for all. Now only feet away from Leia, who stood unarmed at the top of the stone steps, Kylo Ren unleashed his blazing light saber.
They had always shared such a profound connection through the Force, the two were most often beyond words. Leia understood his precise motive. The closer he came, the more of his field merged into hers.
Finally, Kylo Ren aligned with the cold determination to do it. The earth trembled and he air became dense. His senses deadened, blind to everything but the tip of his light saber, raising the blade to plunge it through Leia's heart.
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A huge arc of energy ignited. The blade dug deeper, became shorter, and the resistance increased until his arm could no longer bear down and gave up strength. It was then he realized that though the blade was breaking, it had not even slightly singed the breast of his mother. The light saber sputtered, shorted and gave out. The crystal inside cracked, and Leia snatched the useless hilt from Ben's weak hand as he fell to his knees.
Leia's eyes were glowing white-hot. Her hair had loosed from its plaits and pulsed like fluorescent filaments. She tossed the hilt to the ground and reached a finger out to Ben as he begged her not to touch him. The tip of her finger melted a hole through the black armor over his heart. Ben was utterly consumed by fear, and a moment later, relieved at the thought of annihilation. He closed his eyes, and finally surrendered. There was a silence, a nothing that he thought was death. And in that silence, his mother's voice:
"Ben," she said, her cool fingerprint pressed on the tender flesh beneath his armor. "I gave you life. I'm not letting you out of it that easy."
When he opened his eyes, Ben looked upon the unglorified face of his mother, gentle and wise. Her finger retracted, and with it, the veil of darkness left. Suddenly, Ben just wanted to breathe, and everything covering the upper half of his body felt like a choke-hold. He tore off his cape and his gloves, his armor and vest. He ripped open the neck of his shirt, and finally took in a few deep breaths of moist air. His breaths were heaving, as if he had been struggling against ocean waves for hours. Light-headed and confused at first, Ben's perception finally cleared and his heaving breaths became sobs. He toppled over onto his hands. His elbows eventually buckled and his forehead met the stone at Leia's feet.
"What have I done?" he said.
"Oh, my boy," said Leia, lifting his torso and head up to her strong, yet diminutive frame. She smoothed his hair as he wept. "I forgive you, Ben."
"How can you forgive me?" Ben stumbled back and awkwardly stood on the hill beneath his mother, the elevation bringing their eyes nearly level. "I took everything you loved away from you!"
"Not everything," she said.
"Just admit it," said Ben. "I'm a worthless murderer, an evil snake, a complete failure!"
"Lies, Ben," said Leia.
"I killed," his voice broke. "I killed my father. Are you trying to say that I dreamed it?"
"All your elders failed you, Ben, especially me," she said. "I knew, somehow that the Order was wrong for you, but I didn't know what else to do until Snoke attacked us. At the moment I was drifting in space, it was instantly clear to me."
Ben's attention was still vibrating with emotional fatigue. His face was desperate and irritated as Leia deftly pulled the last few fibers of Kylo Ren from Ben's heart and severed her son's connection to the Force.
"What do you know?" he insisted. "Tell me!"
Leia collapsed.
"Mom!" said Ben, finally void of vitriol, scrambling to catch her body.
There, as he sat on the damp ground, he pulled her face close to his chin. A gust of wind blew over the island and a storm swept in. Ben heard the wind bellowing through the dark caverns at the base of the island and whistling through the hive-shaped stone huts. Leia's breath became shallow, and when Ben reached out his extra senses to her, it was then he realized what she had done. Words failed him. He looked into her dimming eyes.
"Ben, what you have seen for the future is right, but it's incomplete."
"Give me sight again," he said. "I'll create a new order and bring peace."
"No, Ben," she said, placing a hand on his cheek. "You may think your rule would be just, but the fear in your mind will poison every intention, every relationship, until finally you become like your grandfather--a shell of a man, with hardly a shred of humanity left."
"I'm too weak without the Force," he said.
"Oh, Ben," Leia chuckled. "You're not a little boy anymore. You don't need magic powers or a light saber to make this right."
Leia's body became heavy and limp in his arms. Stunned by the powerlessness of this moment, Ben stroked her face, wet with rain and his own tears.
"I love you," he said.
"I know," Leia smiled.
And as Ben blinked the rain and tears from his eyes, he found himself alone, cold, and wet with a lap full of Leia's clothes and her ornamental lapis ring.
