Leap of Faith
by Suchlostcreatures (aka Sorrow Reminisce)
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The trackless desert pans out before Rey in a vast expanse of crumbling sand. Panting hard, her mouth as dry as the grit beneath her feet, she scans the horizon; knowing somewhere amidst the distant wind-sculpted rock formations, lies the answer to a question she's spent the better part of her lifetime asking.
It's an answer she's determined to find. Though perhaps not today. Something - a sandstorm - is coming. She can feel it in the air.
A mechanical shriek suddenly punctures the air, sending an echoing shudder down Rey's spine. She holds herself straight and calmly unclips the lightsaber from her belt as a dark speck appears on the horizon. A determined frown settles upon her brow as the speck hurtles towards her. It's size growing and taking shape as it cuts across the desert floor.
Not a sandstorm.
Five, four, three…
Igniting the saber, Rey remains steady as the harsh desert sunlight glints off the unmistakably sharp lines of a TIE Silencer. Timing is everything.
Two, one.
Spinning on her heel, she drops into a 3-point stance, the hint of a smile touching her lips as she glances over her shoulder. Defying the pilot to do his worst. The whine of the machine shifts as it picks up speed. She'll never be able to outrun it. But she'll give it a damned good shot.
Adrenalin surging through her veins, Rey finally throws herself into a headlong sprint; the ignited saber whirling in her pumping arms as her long strides carry her across the open desert. The TIE is closing in. The pilot is reckless; steering the craft so close to the ground she can hear the desert floor tear asunder in its wake.
Soon the starfighter will be upon her. Soon, her thumping heart tells her, she too will be shredded beneath it. Still, Rey holds her course straight. Straight - even though her instincts beg her to bank left. Towards the nearest rock formations. Towards the chance of refuge.
Finally, with every hair on her body tingling with the warning that it's now or never, Rey feels the Force burst from within her as she vaults high into the air; her body jackknifing as the sleek black vessel cuts through space she just occupied.
Space she still occupies.
Because now she's dropping onto the transparent canopy of its cockpit. The hilt of her hastily extinguished lightsaber clenched awkwardly between her teeth - she cannot hope to wield it when she needs her fingers to fight for purchase upon the vessel's frame. She underestimated just how much the sheer pressure of G-forces would threaten to send her careening over the back of the craft and into the furnace-hot path of its ion thrusters.
Force help me, this was a foolish gamble.
Gathering every reserve of determination, Rey clings to the cockpit frame as the pilot maintains his relentless speed; hurtling across the barren landscape as if his intruder's presence is no more a threat than a bug on a windscreen.
Finally, after gaining enough hold to risk letting go of one hand, Rey clips her saber back to her belt and presses a one-fingered salute against the transparisteel pane below. Then she throws back her head and laughs into the searing wind - even as the effort snatches the breath from her lungs. She's no bug on a windscreen. She vaulted onto the back of a beast. Now she will tame it and claim it for her own.
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As the distant mountain range becomes not-so-distant and the open desert gives way to rocky outcrops, the TIE pilot relaxes his hold on the throttle and allows his craft to slow. Above him, his passenger rises from her belly-flat position into a half-crouch. Arms extended for balance as if surfing the wind itself.
He grimaces against the sudden burst of admiration that swells in his chest. She's nothing if not stubborn.
A modest campsite comes into view. Soft tendrils of smoke rise from a dying cookfire. Two nerf-hide tents stand unobtrusively at the base of a sheer cliff. There has been no sign of a sentient being for a hundred miles. But they're out there somewhere. Hiding the crevices of the cliffs. Sheltering from the desert heat in underground caverns.
Without warning, his hitchhiker leaps from atop of the Silencer and hits the ground running; reaching the campfire and spinning to face him with her lightsaber ignited once more. But it's the gleam of her teeth set in that triumphant grin that holds his attention. She is reckless and feral and more comfortable in this environment than anyone should be. He'll more than likely have to kill her. And it bothers him to realise that he's not as comfortable with that as he should be.
With a sigh of resignation, the pilot extinguishes the thrusters and draws his craft to a halt. He allows himself a moment to school his expression into a mask of absolute neutrality before punching the control to slide the canopy open.
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"Took you long enough, Ben Solo!" Rey cries defiantly as the black-clad figure leaps from his craft.
"You know that's not my name." He strides across the sand towards her, igniting his own snarling red saber as she switched to a defensive stance.
"Besides," he continues, arcing the blade with a flick of his wrists, "you cheated."
"How so?" Rey juts out her chin in defiance as she casually deflects his mock blow, "I beat you back to base, did I not?"
"By hitching a ride? That's a draw, at least," pulling back his hood, Kylo Ren shakes out his mop of raven hair and flashes a rare smile, "or do you hope to contest me with a duel?"
The smile catches Rey off-guard; transforming Kylo's usual aloof expression into something soft and boyish and uncomfortably attractive. Ducking her head, she wills the heat to leave her cheeks least it encourages him to smile further.
"I think we've had enough training for one day, don't you think? Besides, a sandstorm's coming."
Extinguishing her saber, Rey turns her back and busies herself with checking the tent poles and fastenings.
"If you say so," the erratic crackle of Kylo's blade is silenced, "but it'll take more than the ability to Force-vault, to defeat Darth Sidious."
"It will," Rey glances back to him, "that's why I'll have you at my side."
She holds her breath as his expression grows austere once more - but for the muscle that twitches beneath his left eye. The subconscious tic that lets her know he's grappling to keep some long-repressed emotion under rein. The tell that reminds her he is, after all, human.
She wonders if she's made a mistake. This fragile pact that exists between them has never been spoken aloud. Their mutual hatred for Darth Sidious - the Sith Lord who was long thought dead but who has in fact been Snoke's puppet master all along - is what drew them to this planet. Each on their own separate journey that, by some cosmic accident or design, saw them forced to work together. The enemy of my enemy, and all that.
But Kylo Ren has never agreed to fight at her side. That he's here - training her upon the wind-swept desert of Pasaana at all - is just as likely a scheme to weaponise a Lightsider for his own use. She'd be fooling herself to hope that his efforts are a genuine play for redemption.
Especially while he still insists on being called Kylo Ren.
"I'm sorry," she says finally, "I just assumed…"
"Yes, you did." Kylo interrupts; tone cool and clipped. Expression unreadable.
Rey nods wordlessly and turns away. Interacting with this man is like trying to tame an injured ripper-raptor. She attempted that once - and wound up bitten for her efforts. It's really quite stupid to make that mistake again.
"Snoke was right about one thing." The words burst from the Darksider so unexpectedly, even his own eyes widen in surprise. He stays her with one hand upon her wrist, pulling her back towards him. His touch surprisingly warm for someone whose demeanour is so often glacial.
She waits for him to continue. Waits as that muscle twitches frantically beneath his left eye until it's all she can do not to reach out and smooth her hand against his cheek. Remember the ripper-raptor. Her fingers curl in her palms.
"Snoke was a manipulative puppet who sought to make a puppet out of me in turn." Kylo bites his lip and Rey can feel the fury such an admittance has evoked as it sends ripples through the Force.
"But he was right about one thing. Darkness rises, and light to meet it. We are each other's counterparts, Rey. We are the darkness and light that will rise together to defeat anyone who crosses our path."
"Darth Sidious." Rey states. The flutter of hope within her chest tangles within stomach-coils of warning. The earnestness in Kylo Ren's voice is almost her undoing. But she still remembers that same earnestness as he told her to let her friends die and start anew. She has seen little change between Snoke's rule and his own, since then.
"Darth Sidious." Kylo reiterates. "I will stand by your side, Rey. We'll fight him together."
His hands have slipped into her own, his grip light. Hesitant. She stares at their entwined fingers. Unable to bring herself to meet his gaze.
"And what do you want in return?" she manages, afraid of the truth. Afraid of the lie. Afraid of not knowing how to recognise one from the other.
"You know the answer to that," his breath brushes the crown of her downcast head for the barest instant before he pulls away.
She thinks, perhaps, this is the leap of faith Leia urged her to take when she left for this journey. When the General's eyes were saying, 'bring my son home' every time their gaze met.
"I will never join Kylo Ren," she says pointedly, "but I will fight at your side because, right now, Sidious is the bigger threat to our galaxy."
Kylo bristles at her words; fingers tightening against her own as he prepares a rebuke.
She presses on before he can gather momentum, "and then, when this is over, we can go back to being enemies - to trying to kill each other."
Disappointment sits like a lodestone in her gut as she envisions a future where they're enemies once more. Kylo's expression is inscrutable, but she sees that muscle twitch beneath his eye and wonders if he feels it too.
"Or," a nervous smile falters upon her lips. She thinks of Leia, draws in a deep breath, and takes the leap.
"You can join me."
Chapter Note: Hands up who else thought the TIE scene was a training exercise from the moment they first viewed the trailer? I've re-watched it a billion times since, and still feel Rey gives a little hint of a smile or challenge or something before she runs. Like, she's expecting this TIE to appear. In my head canon, she's eventually gonna be up there practising her lightsaber combat forms like when Mr Miyagi had Daniel LaRusso practice his stances while balancing on a boat in Karate Kid.
Though it could be that Kylo isn't firing at her because his weapon system is disabled, and she's leaping up to slice her saber through the TIE like she's carving a Sunday roast... Aw, I'll have to take a shot at writing another story from that angle now...