Chapter 14: These are Your First Steps

SUMMARY: Padawan Ben Solo gets a peek inside Maz Kanata’s curio box and into something else entirely. Maz takes a good look into Ben’s eyes and suggests that Luke start his Jedi training temple without his nephew.

He had it. Ben Solo had his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the lightsaber. His lightsaber. It was just lying there, collecting dust, waiting for him. It was old, had seen many battles, but the design was flawless. He wouldn’t have to build his own, and considering kyber crystals were scarce now, that was a relief. Inside the hilt and perfectly centered, the blue kyber crystal called to him. It was bonding with him. He could sense it.

And then it was gone.

His fingers curled around nothing.

Ben sat back on his heels, blinking stupidly, feeling foolish. He looked over at Luke and Maz, then at R2-D2, thinking one of them had snatched the lightsaber from his grasp. The droid was beeping merrily, sizing up a shiny new universal computer interface arm found in a pile of scrap. Neither adult held the laser sword, but both were looking at him with concern.

Luke came to stand over his nephew, reaching out a hand to him. “What is it?” He peered into the wroshyr-wood chest and saw a diatium power core along with an ancient hyperspace sextant wrapped in a cloth, but nothing alarming.

“It was right there!” Ben wailed, his fingers splayed over the wrapping Luke had replaced, covering the sextant again.

“Take that,” Maz told Luke with a nod to the sextant.

“I’m not sure that old thing would do us much good when we’ve got a new nav computer,” Luke pointed out.

Maz held up a finger. “New for now. Never get caught in the Outer Rim without one of these,” she cautioned, retrieving the instrument from the chest and handing it to him.

Ben got to his feet, fuming. They weren’t going to ignore and toy with him any more. “What did you do with it?” he cried, balling his fists at his side.

“Do with what?” Luke set the sextant aside, turned, and gripped his nephew by the arms.

“You don’t want me to have it! You took it for yourself!” he snarled.

The Jedi Master gave his Padawan a little shake. “Ben, what are you talking about?” He glanced down at the sextant. “You’re welcome to that old bit of history. R2 can teach you how to use it.”

Ben shook his head, biting his lip. Luke could sense the struggle building within his sister’s son — a struggle to remain in control.

Maz stepped closer. “He see what few others can see. The Force — it has revealed something to him.”

“Ben,” Luke said more gently, “tell us what you saw.” He caught his nephew’s lithe body as the boy went limp and eased him down on an overturned crate.

Maz Kanata followed and sat down on the dusty boards beside Ben, laying a hand on his forehead. “Close your eyes, Ben Solo, and feel the Force surround you and cradle you. Feel its essence lift and carry you in its current.” She looked up at Luke, adjusting her goggles. “He is in good hands for the moment. We can talk now.”

Luke gave her a dubious look, but he could sense the boy’s heart rate slowing and a calm washing over him. The Jedi Master pulled up a crate. “Do you know what he saw?” he said in an eager whisper.

Maz’s alien eyes were huge behind her goggles. “More importantly, I think, is what found him on Jakku.”

Luke sighed and ran a hand over weary eyes. “A Sith holocron. I thought it best to leave it there and seal the lab. I’ll go back and destroy it when I understand what it may have done to Ben. We may still need it.”

“His eyes,” Maz said gravely are not entirely his own. Sometimes Ben Solo is there behind them, and sometimes there is another — old eyes that spy through the holes in the galaxy.”

“A Sith?” Luke breathed as a cold chill ran up his spine. “We all believed the Emperor was the last.”

Maz closed her eyes, searching her memories back through the thousand years of her life. “There are beings more ancient and more deadly than the Sith. They lurk in the Shadow Realm beyond the edges of the galaxy and get through when there’s a tear in the Force.” She looked down at Ben and stroked his dark wavy hair. “There is a tear in this boy, but he is strong, like his family. The Skywalker blood flows through him.”

Ben stirred and struggled to sit up. “Where is it?” he mumbled groggily. He sounded exhausted, defeated. “The lightsaber — the one constructed by the Chosen One. The one given to the Last Jedi.”

“Ben?” Luke leaned closer and took his nephew’s face in his hands. “Where did you see this lightsaber?”

“In the chest.” The Padawan’s eyes went out of focus and threatened to roll back in his head. He struggled to concentrate on his uncle’s face. “She was reaching for it. She was going to steal it.”

“Who, Ben?”

“The girl.” The words were heavy on his tongue. “The scavenger in the AT-AT…on Jakku.”

Luke frowned. “The one in your vision?”

With great effort, Ben nodded.

Maz wasn’t going to pry. This was a private Jedi matter between a Master and his Padawan. Still, the sweet boy — the son of her favorite smuggler — so full now of anger and confusion, was the focus of some rarefied attention in the galaxy. She’d be damned if she was going to let the darkness win.

“Take him” she urged Luke, “to New Jedha. There are Guardians there. If anyone can help you make sense of this vision, they can.”

Luke got to his feet and lifted Ben, unconscious and making soft fretting noises. “We were headed there next.”

“And, Luke –” Maz Kanata laid a hand on his sleeve — “leave this one to train with the monks there. Start your school in the most hidden place you can find!”

“I won’t abandon him,” Luke told her flatly. “He’s my sister’s son.”

“If the teachings of the Guardians can focus the light in him, you won’t have to.”

 

@MyKyloRen   1 June 2018

Chapter 13: Fulfill Your Destiny

CHAPTER SUMMERY: [ABY 18] Luke Skywalker brings his Padawan Ben Solo to Maz Kanata on Takodana for a bit of rest and advice after a scare with a Sith Holocron…and for an evaluation. The layover proves to be anything but relaxing.

“Master Luke!” She stretched out her lanky arms to him, the gold bangles clinking and clanking their own joy. “Now that’s a name that’s soft on the ears.”

“Maz!” Luke Skywalker was on one knee now, folding the powerhouse little being into his robes. “I told you I’d be back this way before long…and with my first student.”

Maz Kanata — pirate, smuggler, and wise-woman extraordinaire — pulled back to look up at him with a wide grin, adjusting goggles too big for her tiny, wrinkled face, her hand dropping to grip his. She looked over his shoulder with great anticipation. “Where’s that boy who used to run into my arms?”

“On the Falcon. I’ve got him cleaning the air-cooling intakes, so we can talk.”

Maz let go of Luke’s hand and took a few steps down the stairs leading from the grand doors of the place folks referred to as her “castle.” Flags of every color flapped in the breeze, heralding its owner’s bigger-than-life personality…and her underground connections throughout the galaxy. She stopped and pointed at the Millennium Falcon nestled in the shadows of the Takodana forest. “Guess again.”

Her eyes twinkled as she watched the dark-haired boy laughing at the flock of purra-bird hatchlings at the foot of the ramp. The baby avians had come to inspect the ship, chirping up at it and giving the landing gear a friendly pecking. Ben reached out and touched a finger to one of the fuzzy heads. A second later, it was cuddled in his arms like a kitten.

“The heart goes where it wants,” Maz informed the Jedi Master with a grin, “and the soul follows.” She grew silent for a moment and folded her thin arms. “That one there has his father’s heart.” She looked up at Luke. “Why do you worry? Han Solo is a good soul.”

Luke sighed and sat down on the step beside her so he could look her in the eye. “It’s not that.” He made a helpless gesture. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“At the beginning, Master Jedi,” Maz encouraged.

He nodded and took a deep breath. “Ben Solo possessed a strength in the Force I’ve never seen before.” He glanced briefly about. The castle was a haven for shady characters — most harmless undergrounders, awkward and marginalized, and all on the run from the law — but the Jedi and pirate were alone in the cool spring air. Luke went on, “He’s learning to control and use it in ways I haven’t taught him.”

She place a diminutive long-fingered hand on his. “All masters fear and rejoice the day their apprentices grow beyond them.”

“Maz, he knows about Vader and the Emperor despite all the New Republic had done to classify Imperial propaganda.” Luke’s flesh-and-blood hand went suddenly cold. “When I search for it on the deep-space nets, I come up empty-handed, but he’s found it.”

To his surprise, Maz chuckled. “He’ll grow up to be a rarefied slicer, that one.”

Luke found himself chuckling too.

“That’s a skill that might come in handy in your quest for the first Jedi texts.” She poked a good-natured finger at him.

He smiled and nodded, but his expression grew serious again as he watched his nephew scamper about the Falcon, dodging and laughing with the purra-birds that had clearly imprinted on him. All twenty little birds wanted to be cuddled. R2-D2 was there now, clearly protective of Ben in its attempt to lead the hatchlings off with beeps and whistles that mimicked their chirps. The droid’s failed pied piper ruse only added to the comedy.

“You once tried to tell me Vader was my father, but I wasn’t ready to listen. You said, ‘You have the courage and strength of Anakin Skywalker. Remember that when you face Vader.’” He looked at her long and hard. “How did you know?”

Maz squeezed his human hand. “When you’ve lived long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. I knew Anakin Skywalker before the dark times. I wish you could have too.”

After a moment, Luke said, “I need you to tell me what you see in the eyes of Ben Solo.”

“If, my boy –” she held up a long, leathery finger — “you are ready to listen.” Her smirk was sweet and the smells wafting through the heavy old doors were welcoming as she pulled them open. “Come, Lost Luke, and let’s see if we can aid you in your quest for dinner.”

#   #  #

Ben Solo had been in a lot of spacer cantinas, dingy diners, and pompous banquets, but he’d never visited a place quite like Maz’s castle. Where he’d normally keep to the shadows and eye every face with suspicion, he sat with Luke and Maz at the table she reserved for her favorites and laughed, sampling everything on his plate and more.

“I haven’t seen you,” Maz told him, her eyes bright, “since you were my size, but I’d recognize that laugh anywhere.”

Han’s thirteen-year-old son grinned. “I came here with Dad and Chewie,” he said, remembering. “You had all these droid parts in your storage rooms.” He didn’t miss a beat. “Do you still have them? I want to build my own droid.”

Maz laughed. “When you collect the galaxy’s junk and trade off the good stuff, what you’re left with is droid parts.”

That comment earned a retort of resentful beeps from R2.

“She didn’t mean anything by it,” Luke told the droid, rolling his eyes. When R2-D2 went on, indignantly rocking from side to side, Luke said, “I know. I know. You can use a new linear actuator.”

Maz got up from the table and motioned them to follow, leading the way down wide stone steps. Ben jumped them two at a time, while R2 ignited his rockets and met them at the bottom. “Child, you are welcome to anything in this room,” she told Ben, opening the door at the end of the hall, “if your uncle gives you a smile.”

“Got any spare actuators?” Luke grumbled but enjoying the scavenger hunt.

The storage room was full of recovered treasures and not-so-treasures from various smuggling routes, antiques the Hutts had stolen long ago, and forgotten bits no longer desirable for collateral or trade. Ben eagerly dived into one box after another, holding up trinkets and whatsits for a better look. He carried around an old fusion cutter head until he knelt and opened a wroshyr-wood chest. The tool fell from his grasp as he peered inside the trunk.

A voice. A cold voice said inside his head as he reached for the lightsaber in the box, “Take it — the Skywalker legacy — take it up and fulfill…your…destiny!”

 

@MyKyloRen   25 May 2018 

The Story in Your Eyes

Maz Kanata felt the young Jedi’s presence long before she heard him coming up the path behind her. She was well concealed from his view, seated cross-legged against the low stone wall, but she knew he sensed her too.

“It’s a peaceful view,” she called out to him, her eyes still closed behind her magnifying goggles. “I come here for some good thinking.”

Inwardly, Padawan Ben Solo started. He hadn’t expected her voice to come from below — from out of the depths of the lake itself. Outwardly, he came to a halt and folded his arms, considering a respectful reply, but she didn’t give him a chance.

“Of course, it wasn’t always this peaceful. Back in the dust of time, the Jedi and Sith were at each other’s throats here.”

“The Force is strong in this place,” he acknowledged, gazing about him at the ancient fortress grounds. “Fallen Jedi rest here.” He was still unnerved that he couldn’t see her. Before coming to Takodana, he’d done his research on Maz Kanata, but the holonets had turned up no images of the woman. He didn’t even know what species she was. But everybody who was anybody in the underground knew Maz. If you needed a loan, if you needed information or connections, if you needed to disappear, you came to Maz. No questions asked.

“This has always been a place of refuge despite what the Darkness would make of it.” She stepped onto the path in front of him — a little long-armed thing no larger than a scrawny urchin, with wrinkled skin the color of citrus gone bad. But her eyes were as sharp and bright as coals, enlarged behind the huge goggles she wore to aid her ancient sight. “But come,” she beckoned, the bangles at her wrist jangling merrily. “You are hungry. Tell me over a plate of baked cushnips what brings you here.”

Ben gave her a diplomatic bow, as he’d been taught to do, and followed her into the noisy, dimly-lit stronghold. The wave of gamblers, smugglers, collectors, spacers, pirate captains, deck hands, and grifters instantly parted for her as she lead him to a corner table. Calling out to the kitchen staff in a surprisingly strong voice, a plate quickly appeared before her newest guest.

“You have come seeking treasure, I think, but you are not a collector.” Her eyes narrowed with understanding. “You seek knowledge from what you hunt.”

You young man gave her a nod, taking up one of the cushnips. “Knowledge is power.”

She gave a little snort. “I won’t argue with that, but power always collapses in upon itself.” She looked at him more closely, adjusting the lenses of her goggles. He wasn’t yet twenty, she thought, not yet mature for his species. Giving a little nod as if confirming something to herself, she refocused the conversation before he had a chance to reply. “I’ve seen those eyes before — in a young woman when she was about your age. She faced a great evil and lived to give you those eyes.”

Ben stared at the wizened little woman, his food forgotten. “You knew my mother?” he guessed.

“That good woman, yes.” Maz’s eyes lit up as she climbed off her chair and brought a pitcher of chilled muja juice over from a side table and poured him a glass. “Many here still do.” After a moment, she added with a chuckle, “And if I didn’t know you by your mother’s eyes, I’d know you by your father’s swagger. You tell that scoundrel,” she said in a mock-scolding tone, “he still owes me. He can make it up to me by sending that sweet Wookiee with the payment.”

Ben grinned. “I’ll do that.” He took a drink, growing serious again. “Did you know my mother’s father?” he nearly whispered.

Maz shook her head and a finger. “No. That one I never knew.” She watched him take a bite and swallow, watched the hope fade from his eyes. “But it’s he who has brought you here. The stride of his shadow is long, but your stride is even longer as you stretch to walk in his footsteps.”

The young Jedi took a deep breath. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. He felt like this little withered being could see right through him, but he needed answers. He decided to get to the heart of the matter. “I’m looking for something that belonged to him — something that belonged to my uncle after him. I’m hoping you can help me.” He held her gaze.

“The lightsaber that was lost on Bespin,” she returned, nodding.

“You have it in a chest in the crypts below.” His gaze intensified. In case she misunderstood his intentions, he quickly added, “I’m willing to pay well for it.”

She sighed. “Come.” She waved him to follow her down a curving stone staircase and along a dusty corridor to a storage room. “You have seen this chest in your mind, have you?” She motioned him toward a box made of ancient wroshyr wood.

He stepped forward, barely able to contain his excitement. “Yes, this very one.”

“Have a look. What’s mine is yours. I do not sell the treasures that come to me for a reason.” She looked on sadly as he carefully picked through the old chest. “A relic from the past may someday make a difference in the future.”

Ben looked up, empty-handed and bewildered. “It’s not here.”

She gave him a warm smile and beckoned him closer. When he crouched down in front of her tiny frame, she gave his cheek a soft pat. “Force-visions are a funny thing. They can show us the past, the present, and all the possibilities of the future. The lightsaber you seek is still lost, but in your search for it, you have overlooked something that seeks you.” She felt him watching with great interest as she bent and pulled out a squarish pendant carved on a snippet of Japor ivory wood.

As if in a dream, he took the Jerba leather cord in one hand and laid out the pendant in the other. “Tatooine sand carvings,” he heard himself say just before the vision nearly knocked him off his feet.

The voice belonged to a young woman, her dark hair wound about her head in an elaborate braid. “It’s beautiful, but I don’t need this to remember you by.” She held the Japor snippet in her hand and smiled at a sandy-haired little boy. The scene shifted, the same carved pendant entwined in the resting hands of the woman, now lying in a casket. The imaged blurred and wheeled until she was standing right in front of him — a spectre of brilliant blue light.

“Ben,” she called from across the void. “Don’t do this! You’re still a good person. Don’t follow this path.”

Ben Solo blinked and she was gone. He looked down at the crude necklace in his hands. He had a million things to say but couldn’t find his voice.

That trinket was taken from your grandmother’s grave and now it calls to you,” Maz told him gently.

Ben stared at it again, dumbfounded. “It was carved by my grandfather.”

Maz nodded sagely. “Yes.” She laid her tiny hand on top of his. “The belonging you seek is behind you. Stay. Rest for a while, and then go back to your family.”

@MyKyloRen   4 January 2017