goddessofroyalty

Things my mind gives me to make me sad:

Ten year old Ben Solo being handed a baby Rey Skywalker and being told, “This is your baby sister. It’s your job to protect her.”

Twenty years later Kylo Ren fighting Rey (who has no last name) in a forest after he had killed their shared father trying to ignore the words that echo through his head: “This is your baby sister. It’s your job to protect her.”

Imagine if Rey was Han + Luke’s kid (blame Fork in the Road for this stuff being on my mind). Ben would be ~10 when she was born. He would be ~10 and Luke’s near constant shadow (during the day - its when he tries to go to sleep at night that the darkness creeps in, is when Snoke tries to pull him away from his family towards his grandfather’s footsteps). Ben who can use the Force and trails after Luke as if he is idol (he is his idol currently).

He is there the whole time as Luke’s stomach swells. Can feel her kicks and (near the end) her consciousness that’s starting to form. Luke allows him these things (encourages them) because it helps Ben learn how to use his powers, show him the blessing they can be. Teaches him how to sense presences and feel out minds (a not fully formed infants mind cannot put up any mental barriers like an adults). So Ben lies next to Luke, his head by the full stomach, content to just feel the presence of the baby. To feel the presence of his sister (technically half-sister and cousin but Luke has always been like a third parent to him and Leia will be a third parent to her and they are as close to full blooded two children can be without actually having the same two parents).

Ben is one of the first to hold her (fifth actually, the order goes Leia, Luke, Chewie, Han then Ben). She is presented to him as his sister (he logically understands she’s not really but emotionally accepts it to be true). He is careful with her but near giddy at the excitement of seeing her after so long of knowing about her, of sensing her and her mind.

Of course he changes his mind once she finds her lungs but he will forgive her that because she is a baby (the screams both help and hinder the darkness creeping in - it can feed on his annoyance of the noise but they also help to draw him back to reality and the light).

Luke takes her with him when he starts training the next generation of Jedi (he’s been working on-and-off towards the goal for a while and the pieces have finally fallen into place). Ben trains and when he isn’t he spends time with Luke and her. He knows he probably shouldn’t stick so close to his uncle, that the other children might accuse Luke of favoritism but he doesn’t care. He is special: he is the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, the nephew of Luke Skywalker (the grandson of Anakin Skywalker). If the others are mean to him because of it they are just jealous (jealous of what he is going to achieve one day).

Rey isn’t a particularly needy child so Luke can easily attend to his duties as teacher while also completing those required of him as parent. She grows at a healthy, steady rate. Her first awkward steps from Luke’s arms are to collapse on her half brother’s back while he is reading. He smiles and praises her because that is what good big brothers do. Soon enough she is following him around as he does Luke, a trail of shadows coming of from his uncles light.

The darkness inside him still grows stronger by the day. Around the time Rey starts talking he stops listening and starts plotting the completion of his grandfathers quest. He still plays the part of the good big brother, amazed at how her mind has grown from a barely-there consciousness to an individual person.

Eventually everything comes to a head and he slaughters all of Luke’s other students. He had made his peace with the fact he cannot kill Rey before he started. Justifies it that she may not inherit the powers, that she may take after her father (his father, their shared father). He knows it to be a lie but still pretends. However he also knows he cannot leave her for Luke to find. They will just close in around her, protect her and raise her in a way that will keep her light (learn from the mistakes they made with him) and then she will be a danger to his plan. She will become something that has to be taken care of.

He has to isolate her from his parents and hers (which is only three people in total). Has to isolate her from the chance of learning about the Force. If she doesn’t know about it she cannot use it and if she cannot use it she will not become a threat.

So he abandons her on the desert planet that is only populated by a small group of scavengers. Abandons her and tries to forget her and focus all his energy onto the tasks he has to complete next (she cries for him not to leave her but how knows this is the best choice for both of them).


Many years later he meets her again, fully grown and ready to fight to protect the droid that carries the map to his uncle. Suddenly the plans he’s been working on for years don’t seem as capable of succeeding as they did two days prior.

(He can do a lot of things but cannot kill her. When he sees that all his precautions were for nothing and she is still (scarily) powerful with the Force he wants to teach her. He is supposed to teach her. That is the job of a big brother is it not?)