A/N: For itspileofgoodthings on Tumblr, for her birthday.
"The Force will sap your strength, in mind and body," Luke tells her. "You must rest."
It is no difficult task, to obey. Sleep is heavy in light air. Even with nothing more than a few cloaks on springy grass, Rey falls into a near-stupor each night.
The dreams are what haunt her.
He haunts her.
.
Each morning, over the same squares of foodstuff and waterskins, Rey recounts her dreams to Luke. It is part of her training; it is all part of her training. But for the hours each day she spends scouring the island with Chewbacca, whose language she is beginning to understand, she is never allowed to break focus.
Sometimes she feels that she is barely allowed to smile.
Luke never smiles. His eyes and scars seem weather-beaten, as though he has wasted years like crumbling bricks, trying to rebuild something.
He has not yet told her why he left. He has told her little of anything, save the Force. Save what she must do.
Rey misses Finn, Han, Leia. She does not miss Jakku, but that is because she cannot bear to think of it.
She does not miss him, either, her enemy.
She only dreams of him.
Only.
.
Luke is his uncle. This she knows, but it is only her story that she tells: I dream of the duel. I dream of fighting back. Luke's eyes are always weary, and his questions always change.
Rey doesn't know exactly what she is doing. She came to find him, she found him, she turned over the lightsaber, she began her training.
And the worlds—all the worlds—they go on.
She is a child left amidst desert sands. She is screaming Han's name. She is burning bright in a snowy forest.
One night, the wound across his face begins to heal.
.
Why do you always torment me? Her voice snaps out in the grey fog.
His voice is taut and anguished as it surges back against her. Don't you know? It is you who torment me!
You killed him, Rey cries, reaching for her weapon. In her dreams, it always is at her side. You killed your father.
He sinks to his knees. The scar fades, and he is a boy. A boy with another name that no one knows anymore.
I had to let him go. But he is lying; he is in pain.
Rey will not pity him. She closes her fingers around the cool metal of the saber. You are a traitor.
I know.
You know. Then why do you return, night after night? Let me go.
His lips form soundless words, but she can hear them, strung through the air, through the fog.
You're my only hope.
.
"I did not dream last night."
She is lying, as he lied in her dream.
Luke's brow furrows; he says nothing.
Chewie makes a sound low in his throat.
.
There is silver sand under her feet. This is no sea-bound isle; it is an endless plain hemmed on one side by midnight water.
Rey.
She spins, hampered, for a moment, by the gossamer folds of a gown finer than anything she has ever seen.
He is still all in black. The scar is fading.
I don't want to see you.
Please.
What do you want?
He holds out a hand; he draws it back when she does not take it.
Walk with me?
There seems little purpose, in a dream, to stand still. She holds up her skirts and walks, not looking at him.
I know you hate me. His voice is a sigh itself, but deeper. Richer, though she would not own to that by night or day. He is her enemy, a nightmare, a void turned in upon itself in all-consuming agony and vengeance.
There is no man left. That first moment between fear and shock, when she saw his face—so young—that moment is blotted out. He pierced any hope, any sympathy, when he ran his father through.
I try not to hate anyone. But what am I to think of you?
There is something between us. He has stopped short. The waves are behind him, lapping at his boots. His face is ivory against the darkness of his hair, of the sky behind him. This is no dream, Rey. Not what you think. We meet—against both our wills. For some purpose. I know not. You haunt my every waking hour.
If I had finished you off, she says, with a harshness she did not know she possessed, then you would have never had to spare a thought to me again.
She does not want to hate anyone. She does not want to think him beautiful. But he is, and she hates him. Maybe they are all the void, all those who know and use the Force, anguish for eternity, hands out to keep the world at bay.
You feel it too. You cannot deny this forever, he says. His voice is like a broken echo of her own heart. Power touches differently, but it touches all.
Deny what? Rey demands, defiant, and reaches for the weapon she knows will be at her side.
But it is gone, and then he is gone, and then she wakes.