Star Wars: Duel of the Fates

Chapter 14

Alone in her room, Rey was meditating. She was sat cross legged, her downturned palms balanced on each knee and her eyes closed.

Inhaling deeply, she held the breath in before letting it out slowly through her mouth.

"Be with me," she whispered.

Another slow breath.

"Be with me."

Her mind was at peace, enjoying the stillness of these snatched moments. Right now there was no galactic war, no fighting, no conflict. All she could feel was the force, the warm reassurance of it binding everything together. She felt light and unburdened.

"Be with me."

Every day she tried this and every day she couldn't quite reach the Jedi that had come before. She felt herself stretching out beyond everything else, into a safe darkness speckled with stars. They were there, she sensed it but there was some impassable barrier. But she wouldn't give up. Leia said she needed to learn patience.

She refocused herself and took a steadying breath. Something at the corner of her mind tugged at her thoughts.

"Rey..." a voice spoke softly in her mind.

"Master Skywalker," she said, a smile forming.

Silence followed but she could feel his presence.

"...Rey..."

She started to see flashes, visions of things past and future.

The desert world Tatooine appeared its twin suns close to the horizon.

A young man came out from the spherical building half buried in the sand. He paused at a rise, staring wistfully at the sky. Rey recognised him: a young Luke as he glanced down for a moment.

She'd stood there herself once.

Next a Jedi temple burnt before her eyes, its rounded central building beginning to collapse. The orange flames were startling bright against the night's sky.

Ben Solo stood looking on as ashes fell from the sky around him, his blue lightsaber still ignited. The smell of burnt flesh and fresh blood hung in the air. A crushing sense of anger and loss hit Rey as the vision shifted away.

She saw herself as a child, held in place by Unkar Plutt's firm grip under the intense sun of Jakku.

"No!" her younger self shrieked at her parents as they climbed aboard the waiting shuttle, "Come back!"

Her father didn't pause, striding in without a backwards glance. Her mother hesitated for a second before following him.

The shuttle ascended into the sky.

"Come back! No!" Rey whimpered but the shuttle crossed over the sun and out of the atmosphere.

Unkar threw her to the ground. She looked older now, as she picked herself up.

He tossed a net at her, "Get out there and scavenge something useful."

She sniffed loudly, wiping her nose on her armbands and starting to walk away into the desert.

It flashed to her makeshift home in the old AT-AT walker. Her younger self made a mark on the wall amongst the dozens of others already there. She clutched at her Rebel Alliance doll as she tucked herself into a tight ball on the sleeping hammock.

The whine of an imperial siren bled from the next vision.

An older Luke was helping Darth Vader take off his mask to reveal a pale face marred with red scars. Luke's hand went to his shoulder.

"Now go, my son," Vader said with a cracked voice, "Leave me."

"No you're coming with me. I'll not leave you here. I've got to save you," Luke said, the hope radiating from him in a way Rey couldn't reconcile with the older man she had met.

"You already have, Luke. You were right...you were right about me. Tell your sister...you were right."

His eyes closed.

"Father...I won't leave you."

Vader collapsed back and was still.

The sound ceased as she saw a tall, triangular monastery built out of a rocky mountain.

There was a single white diamond shaped light hung just above the monasteries tallest peak, glowing over the dark world below. Slowly the light lowered and broke into a million shattered pieces. The night sky erupted into purple and then yellow light that spread out from the top of the tower, before becoming impossibly bright.

Rey had to look away until it faded.

Blinking, she found that she had moved inside the large rounded arena in the middle of the monastery as everything began to grow dim.

In the dying light of this decimated world, Rey saw a single dagger at the centre. It was a large, triangular blade with a wide hilt. Without knowing why, she reached towards it.

From the darkness, a deep voice spoke to her, "Find the dagger: it is your destiny..."