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Rey presses hard, harder, hardest, her muscles trembling as she looks at her shadow self. In the hidden room of the decaying Death Star, their saber blades lock together, electric blue against double sided red, casting an eerie glow in the shroud of black around them. The air is frigid and moist, sticking Rey’s fine hairs to her skin and making them cling. Her shadow self is a solid stone, though. Poised, immovable, and unfazed.
Why had Rey’s first choice been to fight? The woman had opened with just a few simple words. “Don’t be afraid of who you are.”
It ignited her fury.
Rey has tried so hard to become a Jedi, but it’s a constant struggle against her instincts. Jakku and survival came with violence, sadness, paranoia, greed, envy, and a crushing loneliness. These are emotions all sentient creatures share, galaxy wide, and yet the Jedi are supposed to detach. Not feel it. Let go.
Rey has never been able to let go. Her first inclinations are always the wrong ones. She didn’t go to the top of the mountain in Ahch-To to bask in the Light. No. As Master Luke said, she went straight to the Dark. She didn’t repent for her sins, either. She embraced her sadness, let it rule her, and let in Kylo Ren, calling to him from across the stars. When she’d learned his secrets, her first instinct wasn’t to mediate the problem, but to attack Master Luke instead. Blame him. Force his hand. She’d given in to rage. She’s never fit into this glove of self-restraint, but the woman drenched in black before her looks calm as a still pond. Confident as a dark goddess.
Why does Rey fight so hard?
When the apparition hisses at her, bearing pointed teeth, Rey stumbles back, landing on her rear and skidding, the Wayfinder tumbling from her hands...i nto the hands of the awaiting Kylo Ren. Another Darksider who appears confident, at ease with himself, even though he’s not. He’s split with the Light. If he could just embrace one side or the other, could he finally find peace? If Rey could cross that line, run over it, tumble over it, be shoved over it, would all this pain end?
He feels her wavering. He always feels it.
Not for the first time, she lets herself be awash in just being known. She should stand, she should fight, but the thought of lifting her saber now would be like dashing herself against the spiked, derelict edges of this metal, planet-killing monstrosity before tumbling down to drown herself in the churning sea.
Seeing his black gloved hand holding the Wayfinder, cradling its pyramid shape in his palm, she wants to spit out the words “Give it to me!” Instead, she holds back tears and says, “I’m so tired, Ben.”
Whatever he was about to say dies on his tongue. Moving in soft steps, as if afraid to spook her, he stands above, his cape drifting in leather whispers across his boots. His plush lips press close together before he intones a low, “Then stop running.” The ocean waves pound outside and mist-filled sunlight filters in through a shattered transparasteel window, bathing him in a brightness that makes him too real in this moment. He's almost ethereal. A prince of the Dark Side.
“From you?” she asks.
Never pounds in her mind, but she knows it’s just bravado. It’s what she’s supposed to say. The Light can’t come to the Dark, and Rey must be the Light. Leia has tried so hard to keep her that way. She’s done such a good job fighting it down.
“From everything,” he says. “You feel. Don’t fight it.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me ‘The Dark Side is in our nature.’”
“Yes,” he says simply. “It is.”
Laying on the ground, staring up at his halo of hair, she knows she’s giving him power over her he shouldn’t have. She is his equal. What had he called it? A dyad. Two that are one.
As if he hears her thoughts, he kneels beside her, his cape pooling like blood in a half-moon around him. “What do you feel right now? Tell me.”
She closes her eyes and breathes deep. “I feel the ocean. I feel the energy of this place. I feel—”
“No,” he cuts her off. Keeping the Wayfinder out of reach, he taps the center of her chest, over her breastbone, gentler than he has any right to be. “Here.”
Lies want to come. She lies to him all the time. With words, with silence, with glares and glowers. But Rey is like broken pottery right now, and her secrets slip through the fissured cracks. “I’m sad. I'm tired. I’m confused. I want to fight but I want to give up. I’m angry and I hate you. But I don’t hate you. I can’t hate you.”
Something softens in his eyes. “Why?”
“Don’t you hate me?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I’ve only ever wanted to catch you. To make you see.”
“What do you want from me?” she asks, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. She’s so vulnerable like this. He has every opening. She should grab her saber and gut him, slice the other side of his face in half. She grits her teeth, trying to force herself to do just that.
If the Jedi are supposed to detach, why do they fight at all?
“I want you to temper me,” he says.
Her laugh is raspy and wet. “What does that mean?”
“When I feel the pull to the Light, I need my passion for you to root me in the Dark.”
“Passion.” She scoffs. “What passion?”
“Chasing you across the Galaxy has dragged me deeper than I’ve ever been. Obsession. Need. I have no one’s will to cater to but my own now, and my will is for you to stand beside me.”
“As your puppet?” she grits out, lowering her hands to give him that standard glare, one that comes so naturally. “You’ve wanted that since that night in the snow. The one where you threw me into a tree.”
“The one where you split my face in two.”
She pauses to look at his scar. The one the First Order could have definitely healed, yet he chose to keep.
“I wanted to be your teacher,” he says, “your confidante, your partner.”
“You want me to give up the Resistance.”
The yes goes unspoken.
“War ends the minute they stop fighting,” he says. “It could stop now. Who is the one sending their ranks to die as they throw themselves against the mountain of the First Order? Numbers are numbers, Rey. And I have them.”
That rage comes back in full flare and her saber is on in a flash of lightning blue. He doesn’t even bother to get his weapon in his hand. Instead he dodges her, straight faced, but goading her anyway. Her strike sizzles to the side of his head, burning a lock of his raven hair. He twirls around her next strike, making a fool out of her. He’s stronger, better trained, more agile. He’s been at this a long time. Rey only bested him once, and it was a fluke. His guard was down. He was too convinced he’d win.
But his guard is up now.
Leaping to a distance, he stands upon a toppled throne, the Wayfinder in his hand. “If you go to Exegol, you go with me.”
And he crushes it.
Her mission, her purpose, everything drains from her like the blood from her face. What has he done?
She screeches, jumping to land a blow that will kill him, but he dodges once more, catching her around the waist and tossing her backwards.
“I’m not saying no,” he growls. “I’m saying yes. I’m saying I’ll take you there. But only with me.”
She rights herself in a single bound, lightsaber sizzling with unstable energy. It pours from her heart in waves. “Why?”
“Because he’ll kill you.”
“He who?”
“Palpatine,” he says, his stance ready to dodge another blow. Why doesn’t he fight? She wants nothing more than to fight.
“My so-called grandfather,” she states.
“Together, we can defeat him.”
“And then what?”
“The numbers we have multiply by the thousands. The weaponry we have will keep the Resistance at bay.” His dark eyes, amber brown when the light catches them just so, tighten slightly. “Then I don’t have to kill her.”
Leia.
“Understand?” he says. “Fall with me and save me. Save her. Save your friends.”
“They’ll never stop.”
“They will,” he insists. “You and I—we don’t have to be what you think. We don't have to tear everything to pieces. Right now, in this room, who’s fighting, Rey? Who knows what they want and who’s in chaos? In the Dark side, there can be peace.”
“How?”
“Self-acceptance. Know your faults. Embrace them. Let them fuel you instead of crush you.”
“Ben, stop.”
“Why?” he says, rocking on the balls of his feet as if waiting for her to snap like a rubber band. “Does it sound too tempting?”
It does. It really does.
“What does the Galaxy look like then?” she asks, eyes narrowed to slits. “Order is control. Warlords keep all the credits. People like me starve under people like you.”
His pretty mouth pulls to the side in a half smile. “I’m the son of a princess, Rey, I know nothing about people like you. But you do. At my side, what could you change? What good could you do? The Dark Side allows pity and sympathy and sadness. What could these emotions bring to the people under our rule?”
Her saber zips off, the electric sound hushing to silence. There is doubt in her, but his words seem like truth. The potential seems endless.
“You think Jedi stealing children to raise as their own allows for pity and sympathy?” he continues. “Think of the families split apart, like mine. Is that what you’ll do, Master Rey? Pry children from their parents and supply them with new, detached ones who aren’t supposed to care if they live or die?”
That’s how it could be. Death is just being one with the Force, after all. But as once being a little girl terrified to die, she can’t accept that.
“You’ll put me beneath you,” she says, shaking her head and looking to the ground. “I won’t be your equal.”
“You’ll be my empress,” he counters, making her eyes snap to his. “Two halves of a whole, Rey. I don’t want to rule you. I want to stand beside you.”
Temptation tugs. “I don’t believe that.”
His smile turns sly. “Oh? Don’t you?”
He never lies to her, she knows. He hides things, shows only half of the story, but he never lies. And she wants what he's offering. Even in times of peace, even with Leia fighting the Senate, things were bad for people like her. The unwanted. The forgotten. The enslaved. If she went with this plan, there would be no fights between varied planetary interests and hidden corruption. She could just make a wish and make it so.
“You see the potential,” he purrs. “I know you do.”
“You’re the devil,” she says.
“The Dark Side isn’t evil, Rey. It’s power.”
That word is seductive, rolling around within her like a song. That confident woman who looked like her dark mirror had stood so tall. So steadfast. Even her fighting style was calm compared to Rey’s desperate thrashing.
“Equals?” she asks.
That sly expression turns sincere. “Always.”
“If I say yes, what happens?”
He nods, firm and determined. “Just like Snoke, we beat him.”
“And if we can’t?”
He takes a deep breath. “Then all is lost.”
Rey twitches, her hand flexing on her saber hilt. Her brain dips and weaves over scenarios. “What if we get the Resistance to fight alongside us? They want what we want.”
His eyes glitter. “And what do we want?”
She stands, rigid, letting the lust for power tingle through her, encouraging her to move forward. It feels stronger than ever before. “We want him dead.”
“And for the First Order to force change for people like you,” he adds, twisting her heart.
“Yes.”
“Is this a promise?” he asks, voice dripping with a dark hope.
Resolute, she puffs out her chest and straightens her back, rolling her shoulders and standing tall. The words caress her tongue, feeling right and righteous. “Yes.”
The smile that curls his lips is one part joy and one part self-satisfaction. He approaches and takes her hand. Giving her all the time to pull away, he tucks her into his chest, warm, broad, and with a heartbeat beating like a rabbit’s. His face tips down until his lips caress the shell of her ear. “Well then, Rey…welcome to the Dark Side.”
Unwilling to back down, she wraps her arms around him. If her neverending pull can lead her towards that power, then selling her soul may well be worth it.
Empress, indeed.
It’s time to take her birthright.