PROMPT POST #2 - CLOSED

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prompt post one


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Comments

Fill: Rey/Darth Maul - Grey!Rey (1/2)

[(Anonymous)]

The plinth in the centre of the room was untouched by the erosion and weathering that affected the rest of the ruin. The carvings around the base were deep and written in some arcane script. Rey approached. Her senses hummed with the Force as she strained to detect any threats.

On top of the plinth rested a long metal cylinder. The artefact would have been recognisable as a lightsaber even without the low-key ripple in the Force that surrounded it. Rey reached out to it, hesitating at the last moment. Her heart was beating too fast. She scowled and scrubbed her sweating palms against her robes. Then she snatched up the lightsaber.

The ruin stayed silent around her. Rey let out a long breath that she hadn’t noticed she been holding. As she turned to leave, a blue glow flickered in the corner of her vision. She spun around. There was nothing there, though something plucked at her sense of the Force. Rey stared at the empty room for a long moment before finally leaving.

///

Rey left the ancient lightsaber untouched for a full day. She spent her time building up a fire-pit and crude shelter before scouting the surrounding forest. The distractions eventually ran out. There was something about the weapon that made her uneasy, but the way it fitted together was fascinating and appealed to the mechanic in her.

Rey turned it around in her hands, noting the extra heft and its symmetrical design. It almost looked like two lightsabers. Rey frowned and attempted to activate it. Twin beams of red light appeared at either end, but instead of crackling, they were as unwavering as the one from her blue lightsaber. She held out the weapon for a better look, noting the similarities between it and a staff. Master Skywalker had begun teaching her lightsaber katas, but after years of relying on her staff, using another weapon felt wrong. A weapon like this one, however…

Rey let out a slow breath to centre herself. Her body moved into the first position of a simple set of exercises that she had developed for using her staff back on Jakku. The weight of the saberstaff was different, but the reach was familiar and her body sang with the welcome strain. Rey moved through two more sets and was just starting a third when she was interrupted.

‘Jedi.’

Rey swung around, pointing the lightsaber staff at the intruder. Pain flared against her rib as the other beam grazed her side. She yelped and swung the weapon out from her body. The figure standing before her gave an unimpressed look.

‘Who are you?’ Rey demanded.

The figure crossed his arms so that his hands disappeared inside his voluminous robes. Everything from his face to his garments was glowing blue and almost translucent. ‘Who are you that feels like a Jedi, but would wield a Sith weapon?’

Rey grimaced. ‘I’m glad someone thinks I feel like a Jedi. You still haven’t told me who you are and I asked first.’

The figure stared at her for a long moment. ‘I was the maker of that saberstaff.’

‘You were the maker?’

‘Yes. I died.’

‘Oh,’ Rey said. She powered down the saberstaff and took a step forward. ‘So what are you?’

The figure shrugged. ‘A ripple in the Force.’

‘Do you have a name?’ Rey asked.

‘Darth Maul.’

‘A Sith.’

The figure nodded.

‘I’m Rey.’

‘A Jedi.’

This time Rey shrugged. Darth Maul was silent for another moment. When he spoke again his words carried a hard edge. ‘Go back to the katas, but stop treating that weapon like a staff.’

‘Then how do I treat it?’ Rey asked, but Darth Maul had faded away.

///

On her second day Rey was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping roll. She breathed in and out to a steady beat. She extended her sense and tried to feel the Force. The threads surrounded her like a comfortable glow, but she couldn’t quite seem to settle.

‘What are you doing?’ Darth Maul asked. Rey opened one eye and tried to glare at the Sith.

‘I was meditating.’

‘You were not very peaceful, for a Jedi. I could feel your emotions.’

Rey glowered. ‘I know. That’s what Master Skywalker tells me every time. Why do you care, isn’t peace a lie?’

Maul’s eyes widened and then narrowed. ‘You know the Sith code?’ he asked sharply.

‘Master Skywalker says that forbidding knowledge of a thing only increases curiosity. I’ve heard your code.’ Rey smirked. ‘Is everything the Sith believe just the opposite of Jedi beliefs, or do you have original ideas?’

Maul tried to scowl at her, but one corner of his mouth twitched up in a reluctant smile. ‘The Sith evolved from Jedi. That is all.’

Rey stood up and stretched. ‘It looks like I’m not going to achieve inner serenity today.’

‘Why are you here, Jedi?’

‘I told you, my name is Rey.’

Maul met her eyes and shrugged. Rey glared. ‘I’m here because I needed a break from training,’ she admitted.

‘Were you called here?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. I just needed to get away for a while.’

Maul regarded her for a long moment before he nodded. ‘Good. Pick up the saberstaff. I have better katas to teach you.’

Rey folded her arms. ‘And what makes you think I’m going to listen to you?’

‘It’s my weapon and I know how it works. You would be foolish to turn down instruction.’

///

Maul’s lessons quickly strengthened Rey’s ability with the saberstaff. She hadn’t burned herself in days and her body was adjusting to the gruelling katas that blended staff technique with lightsaber skills.

‘Better,’ Maul said as Rey finished the next exercise. He hadn’t needed to correct her grip or stance at all. ‘It is time to spar.’

Rey raised an eyebrow. ‘With you? How?’

A smile flashed across Maul’s face, briefly baring his teeth. He closed his eyes and drew a long, slow breath. His robes flickered and were replaced by tighter garments more suited to combat. A saberstaff, identical in form to the one Rey held, appeared in his hand. He engaged it and twin beams of light appeared from the ends, though they were limned in the same blue glow of the rest of Maul’s spirit. ‘Hold out your weapon,’ Maul instructed.

Rey slowly brought the saberstaff up in front of her. Maul raised his own weapon and slowly swept it through one end of hers. Rey blinked. She hadn’t felt anything physical at the contact, save for a brief ripple in the threads of the Force.

‘We cannot touch,’ Maul said. He brought his saberstaff back up and held it a hairsbreadth from hers. It almost looked like the beams were locked together mid strike. Then he began the first attack from a simple kata, still moving slowly and deliberately. Rey positioned her own weapon for the countering block. They both pulled their strikes so the beams from the mirrored lightsabers shimmered together. ‘But we can work on your control,’ Maul continued.

This time Rey initiated a strike and watched the way Maul flowed into the counter-block. They both held the final position, saberstaff to saberstaff, almost touching, but slightly apart. Maul held her eyes and gave the barest nod. Rey grinned at him and moved into the next strike.

They traded strikes and blocks, counter-strikes and dodges. It was taxing work to pull back at the last second every time and Rey’s arms soon ached with the strain. Every blow she landed through Maul’s insubstantial defences counted as a loss and merely highlighted a lack of control.

Maul never slowed for a moment. He didn’t seem to tire and instead commented on their bout. It was the most talkative he’d been since he had first appeared to her. ‘The saberstaff is a powerful weapon, but it requires absolute control.’ Maul blocked her next strike and then lashed out at her shoulder. Rey dodged.

‘You cannot treat it like a staff. You cannot let it touch your flesh.’ The katas gave Rey a foundation of moves to use, but against an opponent, her control started to slip. She hissed as her lower beam caught her calf. It was the sort of stupid mistake she never made during the exercises.

Maul frowned at her. ‘Feel the Force and use it to remain hyperaware of your weapon. Feel the way the crystals align to the Force. Hear their hum.’

Rey tried to empty her mind so she could focus on the Force, but the adrenaline of the fight was making it too difficult. Instead she felt a ferocity building inside her. Each strike she made began to express her aggression. This was everything that Master Skywalker had reprimanded her for again and again. That frustrating knowledge only fuelled her anger. She tried to back off and disengage but Maul pressed his attack with a renewed vigour.

‘No!’ he snarled, ‘don’t run from it, use it!’

Rey snarled back and turned her block into a counter strike half way through.

‘Good,’ said Maul.

The Force swirled around Rey, and with it came the awareness that Maul had spoken of. She felt the way the lightsaber crystals hummed in the Force and her awareness narrowed to the blades of her staff and those of her opponent. A knife-edged balance subsumed her. It was like standing in the eye of a storm. Emotions battered at the walls of her mind, but inside she had reached a harmony. It wasn’t the peaceful silence of Jedi meditation, but nor was it the dissonant notes of her anger. For now it felt like some great entity was plucking a chord through her whole being.

For the next span of time, she didn’t land a single strike. Instead, every movement of her saberstaff was fluid and precise. Time blurred and she only came back to herself when Maul stepped back and disengaged. Rey stumbled as the pattern dissolved around her. Her entire body was aching and she was drenched in sweat. Maul’s saberstaff powered down and his sparring gear flickered back into his usual robes. He nodded to her once. ‘Good.’

Rey gaped at him. ‘What was that?’

Maul shrugged, suddenly looking uneasy. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘It wasn’t Jedi fighting, but I would have felt it if you had reached out to the dark side.’

‘Well whatever it was, it worked.’

Maul nodded again. ‘Yes. That is what matters.’

///