AN: I have my vision back, the semester was hell, and it took some time for this other medication to kick in. What is life, everyone? Well, it's writer's block and Star Wars.
This has been brought to you by one of the many theories going around tumblr.
Also, this is short because…um. Motivation is dead? How do I write? How does writing work?
Disclaimer: Ha. I just watched all of Star Wars for the first time, I am so not the owner.
Title: this is the candle
Word Count: 758
Summary: Those eyes, they've gone through this before.
The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back.
Love is more than a candle.
Love can ignite the stars.
The need for the stars gnaws at her bones.
Rey feels it creeping at the edges of her mind when she wakes from a restless sleep, her heart full of galaxies and hope. In her dreams, she sees oceans of deep blue and planets full of creatures and things that don't exist in Jakku. And when she wakes, the wanderlust feels almost physical.
(One day I'm going to visit all the planets, she tells herself one morning. I will leave with my parents and I won't look back. She can already see it, a planet dwindling away as she now has family and a purpose.
She'll be free.)
On other days, Rey sits on the roof of her makeshift home, the helmet on, and she stares at the stars through the broken lenses and dreams. She dreams about aliens with long ears or colorful markings on their faces, about planets full of flowers or nearly melting with lava, she dreams about people.
This is where it hurts the most, a feeling deeper than the want to leave this dessert place.
Were they her parents and old friends? They feel like it. Those clips of hazy images of a bearded man whose face is full of pride, an old woman with a weary face, but what about the other woman that Rey thinks about in the back of her mind?
(She must be an angel, Rey says to her doll. She's not sure where she heard the tales of beautiful creatures that drift somewhere beyond space—those beautiful creatures that fill her with love and warmth. The girl has to be.)
But were those people always happy? Rey remembers other things, just snatches of phrases or the associated emotion of fear curling up inside of her.
Those are her nightmares. Fire. A woman dying in her arms. Another collapsed on the floor. Fire. Pain. People everywhere—dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Fire and more pain. She's trapped and everything is lost and dead and it hurts.
It burns.
(She digs her nails in the sand and ashes. She can't breathe and—she can't breathe—why can't she breathe?)
There is metal.
(Rey screams out at night, wanting to rip it all off.)
And there is lost.
(Father! a different voice echoes in her dreams of pain. Father, please!)
She wakes up covered in sweat, her heart beating loudly in her chest and she refuses to look at her hands.)
Then everything changes There's a droid and she meets him, he takes her hand, and they all run. They run from the monsters and fear and into the unknown.
Rey's hands work miracles. She feels reenergized; her fingers moving quicker than what her mind can comprehend. The machines speak to her in ways that humans cannot. The gentle hum and soft beeps are a language as familiar to Rey's own, guiding her through the networks of wires and parts.
Finn wants to know how she was able to do that.
She has no answer, except for the ones that are half-hidden in her forgotten dreams.
There is memory in the mechanics of the ship and the droid, the stars and planets that move around her, the gentle tug of a power that she can feel resting in the back of her mind, and in the eyes of the people that she sees.
Rey knows those eyes. She has seen them before in different faces, but the expressions are always the same: defiant, hopeful, wanting, courageous, and more. Emotions are tied with people and in their eyes, and Rey is overwhelmed with things she cannot explain.
She knows those eyes.
She knows the stars.
What Rey needs to figure out is how.
(A voice whispers in the dark, you are the chosen on.)
Chosen or not, Rey knows that what matters most to her are the comfort of knowing Finn and Poe by her side, and together they will form new wonders. She will still hold those half-forgotten ghosts in her heart, but she also needs to remember how to live.
Rey knows that she is made of galaxies and stardust; that something that connects the universe can be shaped by her will. She knows destiny has plans.
But first she is going to fly.
She will see the stars.