**for previous chapters, please refer to the Table of Contents**
Daytime, glimmering, with trees of gold and sparkling waterfalls of crystal, filling pools of limitless depth.
Nighttime, filled with burning rain, howling wind, and grand, jagged bolts of lightning that set fire to everything they touched.
Days and nights, one after the other, flashing by, years upon years of time piling into moments that disappeared instantly.
Flat planes of waving grass. Peaks of rock, reaching staggering heights. Dense, lush forests. Deserts of suffocating dryness. Animals and life forms of every shape and kind imaginable, appearing out of the mists, forming and re-forming, their shapes never seeming to hold for more than an instant.
Rey could not say how long she had been here. She was sure she had not moved her feet once since activating the beacon (no, she couldn't have) and yet her heart pounded and her blood raced as if she had darted halfway across the galaxy herself. And still the landscape before shifted and moved, filling her eyes and overwhelming her senses with a palate of colors and sights and images beyond anything she had ever dreams of. It felt as if the entire universe was rushing along before her, and she was a mere stone caught in the torrent of the stream.
And through it all, the Force. It streamed through her body even more completely and thoroughly than her own blood and nerves. Évery inch of it this place was alive with it, overflowing. She felt thrilled, exhilerated, and....strangely, not afraid. She had not forgotten her friends. She was fully aware of the mission, of the battle that must surely be raging over Coruscant right now (or was, perhaps, long over). They must be worried. But Rey was not.
She couldn't explain why. She only knew that she must be here for a reason. She opened her mouth for the first time, surprised a bit at the action, as if she had forgotten her own ability to speak. Not knowing who or what might possibly be listening, her voice finally asserted itself against the muffled silence around her:
"Where.....am I?"
"In a placed called the Mortis," a grave, familiar voice responded. Her heart filling with joy, Rey turned around to behold the sight of her master, Luke Skywalker, his ghostly form moving towards her.
"Luke," she smiled, so relieved to see him that she forgot any irritation she'd felt before at his absences.
"Hey kid," he responded, his face cracking into that lopsided grin she'd missed so much.
"So...what is this place? I...was on Coruscant...I should be there..." she glanced around as the light around her faded once more into darkness, and the golden chirping of day gave way once more to an angry dusk. "...how did I get here? The Beacon? The Force?"
"Yes," Luke responded, looking around her at the shifting scenery. "The Mortis is a strange place that the Jedi of old had heard of, but never found. It is the nexus of the Force. Everything in the universe flows from it, and back to it. Including," and here he gestured to himself, "the souls of Jedi who manage to unite with the Force upon death."
Taking all this in, Rey tried to calm her racing heart, to allow herself to think a little more clearly. "And time? If I'm on the Mortis, when am I here? My friends might need me in the battle. What if the First Order wins again because I'm stuck here?"
"A Jedi does not worry about that which they cannot control," a new voice, older, more formal, more clipped than Luke's, suddenly sounded out, as another figure in Jedi robes materialized beside Luke. Rey had never actually seen him before, but after hearing the stories from Luke and Leia, there was only one person it could be.
"Master....Kenobi??" she said quietly.
The elderly, bearded figure smiled gently at her, then bowed slightly, "One and the same. It is an honor to finally meet you, young Rey."
Rey bowed reverently back.
Master Kenobi continued, "Time within the Mortis is not like what you are used to. Like the Force, it is an endless mystery, always in flow. You were brought here for a purpose, and if you can open yourself up to it, it will guide you back to the place and time where you need to be."
Rey considered this for a moment, her concerns diminishing noticeably. "Am I here to train, then? Can you and Luke continue my instruction here?"
"No more training, do you require," came yet another voice, gravely and even more ancient-sounding. Rey spun around to see a tiny, bent, green figure hobbling towards her, a gnarled walking staff in its hand. "Surpassed us Masters, you already have. Nothing left to teach you, there is."
Rey had thought she'd already seen so much here that nothing else could shock her. Clearly, she was wrong. "I can't believe it," she said quietly, gazing at the figure before her. "...Yoda?"
At that the figure laughed, a staccato sound that, notwithstanding its rough tone, was filled with mirth. "Quite sharp, you are. Far less time than young Luke, you needed," and with that Yoda began laughing anew, Luke chuckling as well and Kenobi smiling amicably.
Yoda then looked into Rey's eyes, his own shining with age and wisdom. "On equal footing, we stand. Walk with you now, we can. Advice, we can offer. But certain knowledge of what you must do and what is to come, none of us have."
Yoda turned and gazed at the ever-shifting landscape around them. "Ever-shifting, the future is. Great, the dangers you face are, yes. But equally great, hm, the possibilities."
Rey reflected for a moment on the swirl of ideas and worries that had been eating away at her for months. "I've been trying so hard to imagine what the right balance will be, Masters. But I still can't see a way."
"Be careful with that word, 'balance,'" a fourth voice, filled with powerful depth, reached her ears. Behind the images of the other Jedi came the form of a human with curly, shoulder-length hair and a scar over one eye. Rey couldn't quite place it, but his face struck her as incredibly familiar.
This new figure now stood between Luke and Kenobi, with Yoda immediately before him. Noting the puzzled expression on her face, the figure spoke up again. "I, too, am happy to meet you, Rey. My name is Anakin Skywalker."
Understanding at why he had struck her as familiar rushed through Rey. "Anakin...so....you were.."
"Luke's father, yes, and Ben's grandfather. And..." here Anakin's voice became soft and sad,"...Darth Vader. As a child I was told I was prophesied to bring balance to the Force. But like the Jedi of my time, I became stuck in set ideas about what balance, the Force, and my duty to both meant. Through fear, and pride, and stubborness, I was nearly lost forever. In the end, thanks to Luke, I was able to help bring balance. But by first trying to make the Force shape itself to my ends, I corrupted it, and myself, and caused unimaginable harm."
The figure of Anakin moved closer to Rey. "Ben believes he is fulfilling my legacy, but he is stuck in thinking that my legacy consists of the darkness of Vader, rather than the light that the Skywalkers should have meant to the galaxy. Rey," his voice rose again, gaining in strength, "the galaxy can't afford another Skywalker to fail like we have. Not again. Whatever path you choose, it will go through my grandson."
Rey struggled with this for a moment. This was exactly one of the quandaries that had been eating away at her insides for weeks now. She had flown off in the midst of a battle, ended her training with Master Luke, in the fervent belief that Ben Skywalker was still there, that Kylo Ren could be defeated through love and not the saber, like Luke had managed to do with Anakin. It hadn't worked, and the Rebellion was still feeling the damage done as a result. She was still feeling it, a shame and sense of failure greater than just about anything else she had ever experienced before.
"Master Skywalker..."she said in a pained voice, "you believed yourself lost and were still saved. Do you really believe the same can't happen with Ben?" She turned to look at the other old masters as well, all remaining quite still in a semi-circle around her. "If I kill Ben Skywalker, how am I better than a Sith?"
"That, too, none of us can say, young one," yet another voice reached Rey's ears from behind. Seeing the eyes of the others shift to behind her, she turned around to see yet another robe-clad figure, one with long, brown hair streaked with gray and a sharply-trimmed goatee. "You will know how to deal with Kylo Ren when the time comes."
Seeing the confusion in her eyes at his appearance, this newest apparition smiled, filled with as much warmth as Yoda's. "Oh! Forgive me, you probably don't know who I am. I admit, my fame in life did not match those of my more illustrious colleagues." At this he bowed reverently to her, "My name is Qui-Gon Jinn. I was a member of the old Jedi, the one who discovered Anakin on Tatooine and first trained him. Though far more credit for his development must go to by other dear Padawan, Obi-Wan."
At this, Obi-Wan chuckled, a sound as deep and comforting at Yoda's. "Oh, don't be so modest, Qui-Gon. You never were in life, after all." Obi-Wan driften into Rey's line of sight as she turned to him. "You should know, Rey, that Qui-Gon was the first of us to discover a way to bind the self to the Force after death. Even I hadn't suspected he'd managed it until Yoda told me."
"Taught us the secret, Qui-Gon did." Yoda had now sat himself on a small patch of stone protruding from the ground around Rey. "So that remain, something of the old Jedi could."
"To be there and help guide the next generation." Now Anakin was speaking again. "The greatest irony of my own life; I joined the Sith in a search for immortality for myself and my greatest love. Yet the Sith way, embracing and glorifying the self, only leads to your own disappearance in the end. It was only after Luke reopened my eyes to the light that the door was finally opened for me."
For a moment, silence descended. Around them, the Mortis shone in the full glory of a summer's day, plants lush and colorful and sunlight like a thousand crystal gems.
"Masters..." Rey struggled to finally find the words to convey all that was rushing through her head. "Thank you. All of you. For being with me. It means more than I can say. So...." she took a deep, calming breath, "what can I do now?"
Qui-Gon spoke first. "For now, simply open yourself up to the living Force. You are here at the center of it all. Let the stream carry you, and see where it leads."
"And remember, you're not alone," Luke was now speaking behind her. Rey turned, and saw his eyes shining with pride and encouragement. "Like the Force, we are with you, always."
Rey stood for a moment, the last remaining Jedi in a circle of the old masters. Around them, the Mortis continued to swirl through rapid cycles of night and day, light and dark, years and eons stretching by as grand landscapes rose and fell. But in the small grover within which the Jedi stood, a quiet peace abounded.
A swell of strength and determination welled up within her. Nodding to the masters, she sat down cross-legged on the grass, closing her eyes and opening every bit of her being up to the glorious Force around her.
Breath, she thought to herself, centering herself within the vortex around her. Just breath. She opened her eyes.
At first, she seemed to be looking into a mirror image, that of her sitting form, surrounded by the ghosts of a handful of past Jedi. She felt two great weights pressing on either side of her head. To the right, the ages to come, glimpses of possible futures. To the left, the ages past, all the generations of Jedi and other Force-users that had gone before her. She could choose, in this moment, in which direction she wanted to look.
Slowly, she turned her head slightly to the left, and the image before her dissolved, carried away as if she were gazing into a rushing stream, and Rey found herself being swept back in the currents of time. She saw herself in her time training with Luke. She saw images, ones that she only partially understood, of Luke's life in reverse; his struggles with Ben, his fight against his father and Palpatine, his own training with Masters Kenobi and Yoda. Then further; the galaxy cast under the darkness of the emperor, legions of older Jedi battling hordes of soldiers that all seemed to have the same face. Here she recognized Yoda, and having now met them, Anakin and Qui-Gon, but the others were unfamiliar to her. And yet, she could feel her connection to them through the Force. These were the Jedi of the past, of the Clone Wars and earlier crisis that had led to the Empire.
And time ran still further backward, and she saw governments rise and fall and the Jedi and Sith fight for supremacy the whole while, a grand cycle of light and dark.
Eventually, she seemed to be gazing at visions of a past before any of the Republics, or any of the empires of the Sith. In fact, she seemed to be before the Sith or Jedi as she knew them existed. Instead, her vision seemed to draw itself and slow into an image of the entire known galaxy, before moving towards planets deep in the Core. Coming in, she saw the first races that began to form complex civilizations simultaneously seeming to attain their first awareness of the Force. No Orders yet, no formal doctrines; just the first explorations of a universe beyond the normal senses of biological life.
Curious at this, Rey focused with her mind, and the rush of images slowed down, and she felt herself suspended in a time deeper in the past than she'd ever imagined. Looking at the figures before her- humans, Wookies, Noghri, Sullustans, Bothans, and a host of other races- she watched as the settled into a meditation to draw in the Force....and to Rey's shock, proceeded to draw on both the light and the dark side in equal measure. Instead of only focusing on one aspect of the Force or another, she watched as the first generations of Force-users trained themselves to balance both sides within themselves, a careful cultivation of the whole spectrum of emotions, rather than allowing one part or another to seek domination or control over the other. When calm judgment was needed, the peace and clarity of the Light. When danger threatened and violence was needed, the rushing passion and fighting fury of the Dark. And in between, a constant, active striving for balance.
It was as if a clear, cold breath of air was entering her lungs for the first time after an eternity underwater. Cold shock flooded Rey's senses, and she drew back to herself, the universe before her rushing back to the present, and she once again found herself in the quiet glade, surrounded by the old masters.
Breathing deeply, her heart racing, Rey opened her eyes. The masters watched her with patient expressions while she tried to gather her thoughts. "I saw....well...they weren't Jedi, not yet. The first users of the Force. I saw how they engaged both the light and dark side. They balanced it within themselves first, then balanced the world around them. Could," she looked up at Luke first, "could that be the new way for the Jedi? The one I've been looking for?"
Luke was silent for a moment, contemplative. "When you first came to me, I was terrified at how quickly you drew both sides of the Force into yourself, without hesitation. It reminded me of what first made me worry about Ben. The same fear that led to my failure with him and the other Jedi I trained."
"Too rigid, the old Jedi became," Yoda spoke up now, still sitting. "Too quick to divide all into light or dark, black or white. Blinded us, this did."
Then Luke spoke again, "I tried to change some things about the Order. How we trained, how we were organized. But I now see that, in the end, I was still haunted by the same fears, the same limitations."
Now Qui-Gon spoke. "We told you, when you first came here, that we now stand together as equals. You have the examples of how we fell short, and you now see what came before us. The arts of the first Force-users have been lost over millenia, but what is lost can always be found again, with enough dedication."
"The Force showed you this history for a reason, young Rey." Kenobi stepped forward, standing alongside Anakin. "Nothing is ever guaranteed, but if a path through all aspects of the Force, not just the Light, is the way you think is best, we know you are more than capable of finding it."
Rey felt a warm confidence bubble up in her. All the doubts and worries that had been eating away at her insides for months now finally seemed to be melting away. She may not have ever known her parents. Her time with Luke might have been cut short. Maybe Ben could not be brought back to the Light. But if her fellow Jedi could believe in her like this, then, one way or another, she would find her path.
She knew that now, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
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