The bad news is that something about the electromagnetic field of this planet interferes with the function of almost all other forms of electricity. Circuits short. Droids shudder to cold, lifeless silence. Even lightsabers won't activate, denied the flow of power from the crystal to the blade. Rey can't figure it out, nor how life continues on here without trouble. All living beings are just sparks of energy from one neuron to the next, or so she's always believed. The Force is one means of connecting with that energy. She can connect with the Force, but she cannot use it to lift so much as a stick. She cannot contact home, or wake the astromech assigned to her fighter.
The good news is that the indigenous sentient life forms of this world mean her no harm. They find her a curiosity, and treat her like a child just learning their melodious language. She's been patted on the hand and even the head more times than she can count in the last two weeks. Gently. Encouragingly. Understanding that without a second tongue, she will never be able to pronounce their names. Despite the language barrier, they are sure Rey will grow accustomed to life here, and will flourish.
They are far less sure about their second visitor from the sky.
She's staring again. She drops her eyes, but he's already noticed. "What do you want?" Kylo Ren demands, glaring at her from where he sits. There's a metal collar around his neck, and a strong chain holding him to a thick-trunked tree. He has enough slack to stand and pace a few steps, a place to sleep, even a modest shelter where he can hide from the rainstorms which regularly thrash this part of the planet. Otherwise, he is tethered to one place. Their hosts do not trust him.
"Nothing," Rey says, after too long. She stands and walks away from him, enjoying the knowledge he cannot follow.
For the first day after their ships crashed, they fought each other using whatever tools they could find. Only the intervention of the purple, wood-like creatures who lived here prevented one from killing the other. As soon as Rey proved herself harmless to them, they freed her. Her adversary can't maintain a civilized conversation for more than a few minutes without flying into a rage. At first, she was terrified he would break free anyway, and would kill her as she dozed. Then she was angry with him, blaming him for the crash that marooned them. Now she's just tired, and Kylo Ren is the closest thing to another human she may ever see again. It is the only reason she can think of why she continues to linger here when she has this whole planet to explore.
They have been here a month. Rey isn't fluent in the local language, but she can carry on a conversation. She can help with the daily tasks to keep the village running, gathering fruit and the occasional egg from the tree tops, or joining a hunting party in the brush. She lets the chatter of the villagers wash past her, picking up words here and there like a stray leaf passing in a dust storm. Her eyes have grown used to the dim light here among the trees, bright sunlight only ever viewed when filtered through high leaves. This is nothing like her former life, and nothing like the life she was learning to build with the Resistance. She misses her friends there, but she only knew them a few months. They are fading into grayscale memory. She would believe her entire past is a dream, except for the one dark, brooding reminder chained to the tree. When she returns from a hunt, the dream shatters, and she remembers it was all real. Out there, beyond the electromagnetic field of this world, her friends will be searching for her if they have not yet given up.
She hates Kylo all the more for being the one to remind her not to lose hope of rescue.
She brings him his food tonight, refusing to let her own fears and sorrows stand in her way. "Here," she says in a short tone. "It's dinner."
Kylo doesn't thank her, and he doesn't eat immediately. He sets the bark plate aside. As he turns, she sees where the metal collar has worn the skin of his throat into angry red welts. Worse, now that she's looking, scarlet gnarls creep away from the wound, winding like worms underneath his skin. For one second, she forgets who he is and what he's done, feeling empathy for the pain he must be in.
Then she remembers.
He turns back to her, perhaps reading her thoughts on her face. "It's nothing."
"You're lying." She lets herself step closer, aware that he might seize his opportunity to attack, even attempt to strangle her with his chain. It isn't as though he doesn't have precedent, if the stories are true. Kylo takes a step back as she approaches, then allows her to place her hand against his skin. She can feel heat radiating off him. He's been sick for some time. "You need an antibiotic." There was a medikit in her ship, which was destroyed when she crashed. She doesn't know if his ship has one.
The flash in his eyes may be from the fever, and it may be from whatever fever settled into his brain years ago. "Does it matter?"
There are people out there, people whom Rey cares about deeply. Two of them love this man, no matter his crimes. If he is here, then they are real, and Rey will not disappoint them. "It matters enough."
She doesn't know the words for what she needs. Her new friends gradually lead her to the word medicine. She has to return to the brush with a guide, collecting orange, feathery fungi from the base of particular trees deep in the darkness of the forest. She fills a basket within an hour, more than enough for her own needs, and enough to resupply the village. The healer, who is also the head cook, mashes everything in a nutty-scented paste.
"You can't keep him chained," she tells the chief. The words are difficult to understand and to make herself understood. Kylo Ren should be a prisoner. He cannot be trusted. But he also cannot heal if he keeps wearing the collar. She agrees with both sentiments, and the chief only agrees with the first.
"He is dangerous," says the chief, in the Basic he has learned from Rey. He's extremely intelligent, Rey has come to learn, taking his post not as an inheritance but as a chosen leader for his people. He will not be cowed with force, only persuaded with logic.
"I have to keep him alive. Bind his hands instead."
The chief makes a disturbingly clear gesture. A hand can be removed at extreme need. "If he is not bound to the tree, he must be bound by you."
"Yes," she says. She can fight him. She's proven that more than once. "He can be bound to me."
Kylo sits up from the thin pallet where he sleeps, watching the approaching guards with wary eyes. Rey says, "They're going to remove your collar. Don't do anything stupid. I realize that might be difficult for you."
His glare turns to her, but he doesn't struggle when the guards reach for his neck while the chief snaps another chain onto one wrist. He can't move. Rey approaches with the salve, and hopes this works as she applies the orange paste to his throat.
"It will be easier if you let me die, you know."
"I know." She completes the application, wiping her fingers against the side of his shirt. This is a bad idea. She should let them keep him chained this way. She nods to the guards. The chief affixes the other end of Kylo's chain to her left wrist.
Kylo lifts his arm with a gentle tug on hers. "Are you joking?"
"The agreement is that if you are no longer chained up, you have to be chained to me."
"You're my guard? You know I could snap your neck."
"I am your guard. You know I could gut you like a froggle."
Threats made, they both relax. The chain is long enough to allow him to walk a few paces away from her. She glances at his sleeping area. "I don't intend to spend the night here. Bring your bed and come on." The tug is unpleasant as he gathers his thin pallet, and the pieces of armor he's removed during his confinement. "Leave the helmet."
"No."
Arms full, he follows Rey to the small hut where she's slept for the last month. It's fully enclosed with a leather flap for a door. Her own bed isn't much thicker than his, and the entire room is only big enough for the two beds side by side. She hasn't even considered how she'll have room to stretch, or to meditate. Kylo will be next to her the entire time.
This is a bad plan.
She lets him settle his things. "There's a fire tonight. I'm going back out."
"What if I want to stay here?"
"Too bad." She goes to the door, tugging him behind her. Instead of the villagers spending their evening by the fire, many of them have gathered outside her door. "What's this?"
"You are bound," says a tall woman, whose name reminds Rey of a song she heard once back on Jakku, back when she had lessons in the outpost's school.
Rey lifts her wrist. "Yes. He's safe. He won't harm you." She goes to step outside, and is pushed back in by the mass of bodies.
"You are bound," another says, and the rest give that odd twitch of shoulder that Rey has learned means agreement. "You must spend tonight here."
Kylo joins her at the door. He says, in a bad attempt at their songlike language, "We are bound? To each other?"
Another shrug of agreement.
Kylo breaks into a grin. "Rey, do you know what the word 'bound' means?"
"You're chained to me."
The chief stands there, arms folded. Kylo asks him, "How long are we bound?"
"The tradition is one season. After the season, you may choose to be bound permanently."
"Permanently?" Rey says the word in Basic, and Kylo's grin turns into a bitter laugh.
In Basic, he replies, "The translation isn't 'chained.' The translation is 'married.'"
to be continued