Updated the previous entry to include a bit of scary dream. Let’s see what Maz has to say about all this:
…
They behold a room with a domed ceiling open to the stars. The gas giant and its moons hang above them. The room is richly furnished with the spoils of many plunderings and artifacts from across the galaxy. The bird flies to the domed ceiling where it perches on a realistically rendered metal sculpture of a fruit tree. The chest from Maz’s castle sits unobtrusively in a corner beside the bed clearly meant for a creature much larger than the current captain. A semicircular couch wraps around the lowered center of the room, and to this Maz goes to sit on a stack of pillows. She ushers them to the couch before her and they sit. She asks them if they would like refreshment and Rey shakes her head, but Ben nods that he’s actually quite thirsty. She rings a bell and a droid with three replacement limbs enters the room with a tray of drinks. Ben takes one and drains it without stopping. Maz sips daintily at hers. Rey asks what she will do with them. Maz lowers her drink, clearly not in a hurry to answer. Finally she speaks. ‘I have seen your eyes.’ She looks at both of them in turn, settling on Ben. She says that these eyes are not those of an evil man. She sees eyes that are changed, that see beyond this world. But, she cautions, she also sees the Sith. With this word Maz turns to Rey. Rey averts her eyes as if Maz were gazing into her soul. Ben frowns, looking to Rey as well.
Maz changes the subject somewhat. She says that she has felt what has been happening in the Force, this return to balance. She is reminded of such a time in her youth before the rise of the Jedi and the Sith. Rey stares. She asks how old Maz really is, and Maz demurs, tsk tsk’ing Rey for asking a woman her age. She continues that the Force has begun a return to balance after a thousand generations of the Sith, but this balance is not complete. She says that in Ben there remains a way for the spirit of the Sith to return. Ben says that perhaps it would be better if Rey had not brought him back, and Maz says that what’s done is done. There is a connection between the two of them, a symbiosis. What happens to one affects the other, the abilities of one become the abilities of both, and this can either be a terrible weakness or the greatest of strengths.
The serving droid enters the room again and informs Maz that the delegation has arrived. Maz says that this is the delegation from Higara. Rey makes as if to rise saying that she should be there, but Ben says that as the former master of the Knights of Ren he can give them a proper greeting. Maz agrees to this and Ben excuses himself.
With Ben gone, Maz focuses all her attention on Rey. She says that she sees true helplessness in Rey’s eyes and Rey breaks down before the wizened alien for the second time. Maz comes to the couch and sits beside her, laying a hand on her lap. Through her tears Rey says that Han, Luke, Leia, Denya, Chewie…they all died because of her. They all saw something in her that she no longer has. She has failed them. She has failed the galaxy. She pulls out the broken pieces of the saber, apologizing for breaking the heirloom that she gave to her. Maz says that the Force coming into balance is not to be mourned, but instead should be celebrated. Rey says that the victory of the First Order doesn’t feel like a victory at all. Maz informs her that Denya has survived. The group from Higara is simply here to take her home to recover.
Maz says that perhaps it’s time to tell Rey the story of Luke’s saber. She says that she’s always been able to find things thought lost, which is why Luke came to her before he founded his Jedi order. ‘He came to you?’ Rey asks. Maz nods, saying that she helped him find many artifacts of the Jedi through her centuries of contacts.
She says that Han Solo also helped her in the effort to find these artifacts. Based on a lead provided by an old friend, Han and Chewie went to investigate a family of scavengers who had found Luke’s saber on Bespin. They found the scavengers and eventually negotiated a price for the legendary weapon, but Han and Chewie had grown concerned at the treatment of the parent’s infant daughter. They were abusers in deep with unsavory people, and Han was so concerned for the child’s safety that they stayed for weeks trying to help the entire family. Eventually however, he realized that the family had no interest of changing their ways, and so was willing to let the man and his wife have the Falcon in exchange for the girl. They agreed, but at the last moment they absconded with ship, girl, money and saber, leaving Han and Chewie stranded. Solo tracked them to a man called Ducain, who said the parents pulled a similar con on him. After that the trail ran cold, and they went back emptyhanded. Chewie in particular was devastated by this loss.
Maz says that she tracked down the saber much later, after Luke’s new order had fallen apart, presumably sold to the highest bidder for drinking money. She was at first unsure that Rey was in fact the same girl from Bespin, and Han was adamant that this sort of luck just didn’t happen, but when the saber called out to Rey Maz was convinced, as was Leia when Maz told her. For, Maz reveals, it was the infant girl who found the saber on Bespin. Rey sits in amazement. She can’t believe that she knew Han and Chewie once upon a time, and Maz asks if Rey can understand Wookiee, a notoriously difficult language to simply pick up on one’s own. ‘Not a lot of Wookiees on Jakku’ she adds. She connects the two halves of the saber, saying that the saber is Rey’s by right. Maz continues that Han and Chewie didn’t die for the promise of Rey’s great power, but because of who she was as a person, a child who deserved better than what the galaxy had in store. Force or not, Rey always had family who cared for her, always searching the frequencies for the Falcon and the child.