A/N: Revised October 15, 2016

Chapter I: The Drop

For as long as she could remember, Rey had been hungry.

There were memories there, buried deep down in her childhood; so far back and under so much sand they were basically impressions of the wind and nothing more. Ghosts of the desert, those winds were. Warm winds, that told her things hadn't always been this way – starving, both for affection and food – but the memories were so small and tenuous they were almost negligible. Most times, she ignored them. Life was easier that way. Moved along quicker.

Rey had been hungry since the stars had been born. She'd been abandoned on the endless, arid wastes of Jakku, and for her, hunger had become a state of being. It was a mindset, where one lived their days from one moment to the next. Never taking anything for granted, gobbling down whatever scraps came your way. A scavenger's mindset, they said on Jakku – bakka ja thu, in the local tongue – and Rey had come to terms with it. She'd come to terms with a lot of things in life. Scavenging was just what she did, and shame was a foreign concept to her. She didn't have the time nor the resources to devote to such a luxury. All her brainpower simply went towards surviving.

Waiting. Waiting and surviving was what Rey did, and for what seemed like ages she'd lingered out there on the edge of the Western Reaches, clinging to half-remembered promises as she'd fought off a growing sense of abandonment. A swelling notion of loss. Time got jumbled out on the wastes, and the only way she'd remembered that time was passing at all was through the marks on her wall, scratched out in white. Endless, they were, one after another; like grains of sand in a desert.

There was a memory of hers that came to mind more frequently these days, of an incident several months prior to finding BB-8 and Finn. Rey had gone to the Niima Outpost first thing in the morning, and the junkyards had been busy. Several small-to-mid sized freighters had landed in the settlement to unload supplies and pick up spare parts, and Rey had possessed the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time to see them intermingle. The freighters had been the highlight of her month, and probably one of the best things she'd seen all year. Nothing changed on Jakku, except the monotony grew more monotonous and the sands got deeper. Unkar Plutt grew stingier. So maybe it had been misfortune instead, that she'd been in Niima that morning. Misfortune peppered a lot of Rey's life, mixed in with determination, but she didn't like to think about it in such a manner. Always, she tried to be hopeful.

She'd liked the noise and the chaos of life in Niima that day; the intense heat of the star hadn't been so bad when she walked beneath the faded brown tarps, and the local junkers had been so busy bartering goods to pay for much-needed supplies that they hadn't told her to scatter. Rey was a friendly person. Self-sufficient and extremely wary, to be sure, but she liked being around others. She loved hearing voices and seeing people smile. The feel of warm hands on her face and strong, encompassing hugs bloomed like the light within her childhood memories, mingled with the sensation of someone much taller picking her up, balancing her atop their shoulders. It'd been so long since she'd had an iota of affection that Rey had been starved for it. As she'd walked, there'd been the clang and whirr of hovering transports sliding down ramps from freighters as they unloaded their goods into the junkyards; the clatter of spare parts hanging from nets and the blipping of droids skittering in between luggabeasts like steelpeckers. Not far off, there was the nasally, baritone snort of a scavenger's bantha, its giant feet shaking the ground as it ambled towards the watering trough. Rey had shielded her eyes from the glare of the star, her right hand clenched tight around her staff. Her booted feet had slipped through the coarse, warm sands of Jakku as she'd cautiously made her way forward.

Unkar had disappeared into the back of his shop, and so had his goons, so the only unpleasant thing about that morning had been the smell of the food. At a nearby shop one of the merchants had been cooking a meal, their wok sizzling with the heat as they tossed what looked like some sort of ginger root and long white paka worms together. Rey had been forced to cover her nose with a scarf and press a thin, trembling hand to her mouth to stop herself from gagging with hunger. She never stole unless she had to – she knew what it was like to have so little – but it had been a bad couple days before that, at least when it came to scavenging. The parts she'd brought back had been no good, Unkar had said, so he'd given her nothing. Rey had been made to return to her half-buried Walker, belt tightened and hungry. The next day had been much the same, and she'd been forced to return even hungrier.

Always Rey had been thin, but in those final months before she'd met BB-8, her rations had been cut down to such a point that thinness had essentially become a defining characteristic: an unsettling tininess that was noticeable. Her hands were small, but if she put those same hands on either side of her waist and spread her fingers, she could almost span it. That day in Niima, Rey's belt had been wrapped three times around her middle, and her insides felt had felt hollow. There'd been the zing of stomach acid in her mouth, rising up her gorge after she'd smelt the wok, and all day she'd been feeling faint because of it; the heat was affecting her more than usual. She'd been too hungry to sleep and forget.

Up ahead, Rey spied a light freighter. A smuggler's it looked like, long and rectangular with a wide nose and a fat hull made for hauling ore and spice. Smoke had been rising out of its forward ventilation chambers, and the main docking bay to its cargo hold had been opened, the ramp leading up to it sticking out like a metallic tongue. There'd been Gamorrean smugglers gathered around the smoking chamber, grunting away to one another as they'd pointed to the mess. A repair droid had bleeped piteously, trying to zoom in close to get a better look, but it was unsuccessful.

Rey had grown up salivating over stories of the Millennium Falcon. She loved ships, and was handy with them, and dreams of escape through the hum of a Hyperdrive had eventually becoming a lifelong obsession. Rey hadn't flown any true ships before – at least into orbit – but engines had always been her thing. Her insatiable curiosity had peaked. From the color of the smoke and the sparks flying out of it, Rey had assumed it was the auxiliary drive that had broken. Unkar didn't like her interfering with outsiders, and he hated it when she messed with their ships, but he'd been gone that day and Rey couldn't resist.

She hadn't planned on interacting with the inhabitants of the freighter too much. She'd planned on skirting around the edges for a bit – maybe listening in on a convo or two to find out what was happening with the rest of the galaxy – before heading back. Her arms had wrapped around her narrow waist to try to stave off the feeling on unending hunger. As she'd neared, the fat-bellied freighter had turned hulking: a good two-hundred feet long and at least fifty feet high around the middle. It was big enough that it had probably required a tug while breaching atmo, and the ship was old, scorched by plasma fire. The words Bmola Mazen – Space Queen in Huttese – were written along the side of it. All in all, everything had looked normal about the smuggler's transport. The Gamorreans hadn't paid any attention to her as she'd neared, and as Rey had gotten close the repair droid had bleeped, trying to swerve in to fix the busted component. It was pushed aside, and the machine wailed in despair. One of the Gamorreans turned and roared at it.

Rey had known how to fix the ship, but she didn't want any trouble, so she'd bit her lip and stayed silent. She'd taken another step closer however, and then another, her narrow feet sinking into the sand. When she was fifteen paces away from the repair crew beneath the shadow of the fat-bellied freighter, she heard the voice.

"Is there something wrong with my ship?" someone asked in Galactic Basic. Rey had turned around to see a Twi'lek standing behind her.

It was a female; tan like the sand with strange red speckles running down either side of her neck. Her lekku had been weighed down by a rather large, ornate headdress and a metallic-looking chain hung from her nose to her lip. The Twi'lek's nails were long and black, but her crimson-colored robes were longer, pooling around her in waves. She'd had the look of Other about her, and not because she wasn't human. Rey had thought it might have been something about her eyes; they'd been cold, and distant. A pale shade of grey that was almost colorless.

"Oh no," Rey had said, taking a step back from the Twi'lek and raising a hand. She waved it in front of herself self-deprecatingly. "The auxiliary drive is broken. I was just curious to see how they were going to fix it. I didn't mean to get underfoot. Sorry."

She'd taken another step backwards, intending to walk away, but the Twi'lek had spoken, tilting her head to observe her. Her Galactic Basic was smooth – almost bland – and oddly without accent.

"Can you fix it?" the Twi'lek had asked. A gust of wind had whistled through the junkyards, rustling her robes. When the crimson folds lifted, Rey had spied a hint of metal; a cylindrical object attached to a low-slung belt hanging off the Twi'lek's hips. The sight of the metal object had tickled something at the back of her brain, but she hadn't been able to place it, so she'd simply smiled and shrugged.

"Sure I can. It's the drive itself – you'll need to rip out the tertiary cables, then reroute it."

"How much?" the Twi'lek had asked. It had taken Rey a moment to catch on.

"How much what?"

"How much do you charge?"

"Ten ration packs." Rey said immediately. There was zero hesitation to her words. She'd known what she'd wanted, but the Twi'lek had scoffed and rolled her eyes at the request, turning towards the damaged ship. Her crimson robes had trailed in the tawny sand behind her.

"Only ten?" she'd said, and she'd sounded amused. "Really, if you're going to give it away for free, just say so."

"Will you pay me more?" Rey had asked eagerly. She was hungry – always hungry – but she wasn't greedy. She took what she could get. Bakka ja thu. The scavenger's mindset.

"Fix my ship, and we'll see."

Rey hadn't asked any questions after that, skipping alongside the Twi'lek with excitement. The promise of food did that to her.

The auxiliary drive was more busted up than initially expected, and Rey had needed to use the droid for help, but she was determined and good with machines. Pulling her belt an extra notch or two tighter, she'd crawled inside the component and set to work; humming as she'd gotten into the guts of the ship and replaced certain parts with scavenged ones, while ripping out others entirely. The Twi'lek had stood just outside the hole in the ship, her head tilted as she'd eyed her. Her eyes had definitely been eerie, but Rey had thought the paleness of them was kind of nice. In her mind's eye, Rey decided the stranger was some sort of fancy lady. A really fancy lady, from the Core Planets.

After some time, The Lady began talking to her again in her strange, colorless voice. "You're a bit thin, child," she said. The meaning behind her words had been obvious.

Rey had shrugged and smiled again as she continued fiddling with the ship, up to her elbows in grease and just happy to be talking to someone. Just happy to be busy. It kept her mind off the hunger.

"The Junkboss is feeding me fine," she'd said, even though it was a lie. The Twi'lek would leave but Unkar would not, and if The Lady said anything to him – and she seemed the type, despite her smoothness – the blobfish would hurt her for spilling the info. Rey was friendly, but she wasn't an idiot.

"Hnh." The Lady said, and she hadn't sounded like she believed Rey's words in the slightest. Rey could read between the lines easy enough, and knew the Twi'lek was deeply displeased. She'd still chosen to ignore it.

After she got the drive working again, The Lady handed over sixteen ration packs instead of ten, causing Rey's heart to beat with excitement.

"Thank you!" she'd gushed. The Twi'lek's expression had been unreadable, but she watched Rey's face like a raptor.

Rey had washed off her hands with a bit of sand, then she'd sat down in the shade of the freighter, consuming three ration packs in one go. The repair droid had taken a liking to her, and as she ate it buzzed excited circles around her. Rey's mind had blanked while she'd gorged herself on the food – she felt happier than she had in weeks, and being around people was wonderful – but as she did, the Twi'lek had come and sat down across from her. She sat so close their knees were touching. Gracefully The Lady lowered herself onto a metal crate, like wind eddying over the sand. Her crimson robes fluttered around her, her heavy headdress glittering in a stray beam of light. She folded her long-nailed hands in front of her and stared, watching Rey eat with an unfathomable expression. Her eyes were endless, and empty. Like the dark, deserted spaces between planets.

When Rey caught her staring, she smiled shyly through a mouthful of food. The Twi'lek's tan-colored lips pinched into a thin, unhappy line at her expression, her long black nails clicking together in agitation the longer she stared in her direction.

"How old are you?" The Lady demanded. Rey blinked a bit at the abruptness of the question. At its force.

"Nineteen." she said, taking another bite of her rations. The Twi'lek tched.

"Nineteen," she murmured in that smooth voice. "Only nineteen." Everything she said was so cryptic.

Rey shrugged, because she hadn't known what else to do. What passing strangers thought of her had meant little before BB-8 rolled along, and until it had she'd been convinced that being unimportant – forgotten, alone, and abandoned – would be a constant. It was easier not to care about others when no one cared about you.

When Rey started chowing down on her third ration pack, the Twi'lek spoke again.

"You should not eat so fast," she said. She seemed displeased. "You might choke. You are too thin."

"Have to," Rey mumbled through her food, not bothering to wipe the crumbs off her lips. "'dun know when I'll get to eat again."

Without warning the Twi'lek reached out, placing a sharp-nailed hand against her forehead, her palm flat. Rey stopped chewing, looking up, and for a second she'd basked in the warmth of another's touch. Rey didn't like strangers touching her, but she hadn't minded The Lady too much. The warmth reminded her of her half-forgotten childhood: of somebody else so much taller than her. So did the thrumming, and the dense, almost electric presence that pulsed along her skin from the Twi'lek's fingertips.

For a brief, infinitesimal second, The Lady's expression had been sad as she stared at her, her lekku weighed down with metal and gold. Her crimson robes had twined idly around her feet with the wind.

"Oh dear," she'd murmured. Her gaze had been a million miles away. "The link is damaged. You poor thing."

Rey had known others pitied her, and she hadn't thought much of it – scavengers were at the bottom of the food chain, after all – but the expression in the Twi'lek's eyes had been unsettling. Nothing changed on Jakku, except for this.

"What link?" she'd asked, but The Lady had drawn back, gathering the loose length of her robes in her lap and hiding her hands amongst them. She hadn't answered the question.

"When you meet again, remember to breathe," she said, standing up to tower over her. Rey had glared at her in confusion.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she'd asked, then an indignant "I'm not going anywhere! I'm waiting."

The Twi'lek looked down at her, and her smile had been cold. Strangely amused, almost, as if she were privy to some sort of inside joke that was horrible. "I know." she said. They'd been talking about different things.

"What's your name?" Rey had asked as The Lady walked away. The food had become less and less appetizing, and there was a tingle up her spine that she just couldn't shake. The Twi'lek turned to her when she spoke, her expression the slightest bit predatory. When the light hit her eyes just right, the colorless grey seemed to darken to red.

"No one special." she'd said. "A merchant, passing through."

"Where are you going?"

The Twi'lek didn't answer that question, either, and she didn't even give her name. Half an hour later – after shoving her rations into her bag and scavenging along the junkyard for errant parts – Rey had left the market and headed home. She'd entered her walker, feeling tired and unusually achy. Once she'd hidden her rations away, she'd fallen asleep for the next eighteen hours. She had a hard time sleeping, so the fact that she had was a blessing. Good things were few and far between for her.

Rey hadn't run into the Twi'lek again, and by the time BB-8 rolled around, she'd all but forgotten The Lady. She'd forgotten the Twi'lek's words as she'd saved the droid. She'd forgotten the strange, colorless eyes that glinted red in the light as she escaped the First Order and left the wastes of Jakku with Finn. Rey had misplaced the sense of unease that tingled along her spine with the clicking of nails when she met Han Solo, and it was only when the Force Vision came to her – at Maz Kanata's den – that she began to recall the incident, trickling back to her in bits and pieces.

Then, she'd made The Mistake.

Rey had made several mistakes, and she realized this when she woke up in the belly of an Upsilon-class shuttle, cold and bruised and shivering. She'd made the mistake of leaving Jakku; of leaving the Millennium Falcon and Maz's fort soon after. She'd made the mistake of running into the forest, alone and angry, but her biggest transgression by far was staring at a Sith-in-Training just a little too long when she'd been strapped to an interrogation table. Of picking up that lightsaber and egging him on. She hadn't shut her mouth when she should have. Her scavenger's mindset had deserted her, and now she was paying for it dearly.

"LET ME GO!" she'd screamed when she jolted awake in the belly of Kylo Ren's ship and realized where she was. Han Solo's erstwhile son didn't. When Rey struggled out of the small bed she'd been carefully tucked into – her vision blurring with a burgeoning concussion, her limbs trembling – she'd fallen to the floor, only to discovered she was locked to the wall with a heavy chain around her right ankle. There was a thrumming sensation coming from it, and the Force felt dead.

Her captor had dark eyes beneath his mask, Rey remembered; brown eyes that took on a sheen of red when the light hit them just right, exactly like the crimson-clad Twi'lek's. When Kylo Ren stared at her, he was a bit too hungry in his gaze, and it made Rey shudder. It made her shudder because she knew that look. Vader's grandson was all ink and snow, his skin ghostly and his hair tousled. He made her feel small. Tall, he was – so much taller than her – looming over her like a shadow of death. He wielded his crackling red lightsaber akin to a mace, all primal movements mixed with brutal efficiency. He terrified her.

Rey had tried to escape on Starkiller – she really had – and she'd thought she could, but there was an ache in her chest. A terrible pang around her heart when she'd woken up in the interrogation chair, like a great hand squeezing. It had gotten worse when Kylo hadn't been near; when she woke up on the ship. She remembered the Twi'lek's words then in the belly of the shuttle, and Rey thought maybe, maybe, she understood them. She breathed deep. She gasped. It was useless.

"I know where your parents are." Kylo Ren had said over the roar of Starkiller's destruction, and the Sith-in-Training had known exactly what to say to throw her off balance: to swipe her lightsaber out of her hand and knock the wind from her chest with the Force. Rey hadn't felt much after the fall, except for the thud. There were memories there. Tangled bits and pieces that made no sense when placed together. A warm hand on her hair, cradling her head; the world spinning beneath her and an erratic heartbeat beating next to her ear. The scent of leather, the wetness of blood. It hadn't been hers.

Rey didn't know where they were, or where they were going, but Kylo Ren was hungrier than her, and a scavenger too. Rey could sense it, like the sand scraping along her skin over the silts of Jakku. There was an ache in her chest and a pain in her heart, and her memories felt hollow. She felt faint.

"PLEASE," Rey begged, slamming her fists against the wall. Her breaths were ragged, and she couldn't reach the door with her chain. Her captor didn't answer. Kylo. Kylo. Kylo Ren. The winds were full of ghosts, and he was a living one.

Rey remembered. She trembled at it.

Author's Note

And here's January's chapter, down for the count. I don't know when I'll get to another one in February, but I shall try my best to do so. A huge thanks to everyone who reviewed/favorited/followed, and I'm thrilled you're all enjoying it! For those I can't PM:

Waterinks: yes, yes, I ship Reylo. Honestly it came completely out of left field, and I wasn't expecting it, but I'm in love. Ghost Gal: I'm thrilled that you're thrilled! I have Icarus Ascending all planned out, and I'm itching to post the whole thing too. And YES. The Kylo/Ren tension in the movie is haunting.