She can tell this one hasn't been on the planet long. Rey clatters a durasteel arm down onto the table, one of the struts from a TIE fighter buried in the desert, and the scrap dealer narrows beetle-black eyes under oddly rubbery, scaled brows. Asks, "Are you from around here?"
At first, she doesn't say anything.
Rey doesn't say: I was hip-deep in sand and TIE this morning. I spit out the grains that worked their way past the cloth over my mouth. I have probably eaten some of them.
Rey doesn't say: You're not the first one to catch the Coruscanti accent. It makes people think of shining halls, of starched uniforms, of hair bound in fanciful knots. Even if they don't know they're thinking it, they feel a little bit like they should be cleaner.
Rey says, "Yes. On the edge of the wastes."
The scrap dealer nods, because she isn't from around here either, and maybe she was looking for someone to sympathize.
She names a price for the salvaged strut, and Rey haggles.
"You'll bring more of this, yes?" The scrap dealer begins wrestling the strut off the table on her own. That means she doesn't have a droid or an employee, not yet, so definitely new. It goes propped up with motivators and house poles and what might, Rey thinks, be the thoroughly broken shards of a hyperdrive.
Rey doesn't say: I can't help but do anything else. It's the best source of income on the planet for me. It's all that's left.
Rey doesn't say: Maybe. If you raised your prices along with the competitors and stopped talking about my accent.
She has a thoroughly love-hate relationship with Jakku, and she knows, like all the others who have eaten that much sand in her lifetime, that it is a place where things go to die.
The vendor nods, her shoulders slumped. Maybe the sudden impression of alien shame comes because she's struggling to find her feet, or because she mentioned Rey's accent. It isn't her fault, Rey thinks. It isn't the fault of the alien's family or her mouth that she's waiting here on Jakku, trying to set up a business that might fall into the sand and get swallowed up like so many wars and so many regimes.
The alien slides Rey the credit she's due, and Rey examines the chits in her palm for a moment. Thumbing along the sides, she can feel the grooves that prove they're real. The vendor is so dour that Rey looks back as she turns away.
"Goodbye," the vendor croaks.
Rey doesn't say: Trust in the Force.
She brightens her voice. "We'll have to see what the desert brings up."