3 years after Casper and Malarus joined the First Order- Nimma Outpost, Jakku
Rey looked up from the scrap she was cataloging for Unkar's next off-world buyer to check the chrono lying on a shelf in the back of Unkar's "concession stand." It was a broken model, always 6 minutes slow, but it did the job. If any sane person actually wanted to buy it, it would have left Jakku long ago.
For as long as Rey could remember, she was Unkar's. He made it clear that her parents had sold her to get off Jakku. He wouldn't say anything more. Rey liked to imagine they had a very important reason to leave her behind, like saving the galaxy important. Some situation where bringing her with them would be worse than leaving her. Maybe they were rebel pilots, called to fight some great evil. Regardless of what her current picture of them was, she knew one thing, as inherently as she knew Basic. They were coming back. And that's why she had to stay o n Jakku. How could they find her otherwise? All she had to do was wait.
She was too young to scavenge. The Blobfish had made it clear as soon as she was big enough not to be easy prey for bandits or even animals, she'd be out there in the graveyard as well. He just didn't want to waste his investment by having her die before she could bring him anything. So instead she took inventory for the non-human, hiding in the back of the stand while people traded whatever they had to survive.
Well, not right now. Unkar had agreed, for the sake of her being able to manage inventory better, that every week, a few hours after midday, she could be taught how to read and do basic math by a religious wanderer, a former anchorite named Amid. Rey actually enjoyed those sessions. Well the lessons were bearable, but Amid was one of the few people actually nice to her. And he'd tell her stories about rebels, Jedi, and other heroes. Right now he was telling the story of Luke Skywalker, a rebellion hero, over the course of several sessions. Amid had stopped at a really clutch moment, and Rey couldn't wait to find out what happened next.
"Unkar?" Rey asked, placing the old datapad neatly by her work.
Unkar replied with an affirmative grunt to show he was listening.
"It's time for my session with Amid."
Unkar turned his giant head to look at the chrono. He knew it was 6 minutes off. It was all something they were used to.
"Don't waste my money," He turned back to looking at his messages. That was code for don't get killed and the best she'd get as a goodbye.
With that, Rey left through the back of the stand towards the Bazaar.
It wasn't too hard to find Amid. When he wasn't back at the Church of the Force village of Tunaal, he was meditating on a blanket at the same spot. He'd teach reading to anyone who wished to learn, or offer cryptic Force based advice.
Despite his religious fervor and enigmatic nature, Rey really liked him. One time when some other kids were sharing what happened to their parents, she lied and set Amid was her dad. Before that, another kid had said that he never knew his parents. The other kids, most of them orphans, all agreed his parents were dead. Rey just didn't want to have to argue how she knew, inherently, her parents were alive. A lot of the human kids doubted her because of the differences in their appearance, but some of the alien kids accepted it. It didn't matter, Rey had to rush back to the Blobfish at that moment.
"Rey," Amid said as she approached his blanket, raising his head and opening his eyes. His regular eye was fixed on her, while the dead one was stuck to the side.
"Amid," she replied, smiling as she joined him cross-legged on the blanket.
"So," Rey began as Amid searched for something in his pack, "Can you tell me what happened to Luke on Endor?"
Amid smiled and handed Rey a datapad. This one was new, she'd hadn't seen it before. But at least that meant she wouldn't have to read from religious texts.
"You know how this works. You have to read something, then I'll continue the story."
"No math work?" Rey was really excited. She hated arithmetic, more than reading. And this new datapad might actually have some interesting documents on it.
"I thought I'd be nice."
She powered up the datapad and looked at the document folders. She read each title aloud, waiting for Amid to tell her witch one contained what she'd be reading. Oddly, these folders were not military related. They weren't inventory lists or medbay reports. The closest she found were the ones labeled Pre Endor reports, Endor battle records, MIA, Next of kin notices, and similar. But there were also folders titled Holonovels, Stupid jokes, Cool ships, and Home.
"There's a file in Home I'd like you to read. It's the only text file, the rest are images. Thought it might be a good break from our usual material."
Now Rey was intrigued, although she wished she could have gotten a chance to see what was in Cool ships. Usually, it was just military records and Force stuff. The only text file was a small holonovel entitled The Legend of Rica.
It was a fable about some kind of local animal called a slip-marmet. Rica and her sister Nica were found by a pack of snow-wolves when they were starving and orphaned. The wolves raised them, and in exchange, the sisters swore loyalty to the pack. Some of the other wolves didn't like have marmets in their pack, but the chief was kind, if strict.
Years later, a carrion-bird had begun taking the pack's food, rather than only taking from sky burials(they reminded Rey of the ripper-raptors that plagued Jakku, but these seemed to normally have honor, helping with disposing of the dead). Rica and Nica were small enough to follow the carrion-bird up the mountain he lived, so the chief tasked them to confront the bird who wouldn't follow the Order of the Beasts. When Nica and Rica arrived, the bird blocked them from entering his nest, but claimed he took the food because the rest of his clutch-mates were sick and needed the prey.
Nica believed him, and tried to convince her sister to pretend that they never found the bird. Rica (and clearly the narrator of the story) said that even if the clutch-mates were real, he was still breaking the Order of the Beasts and they'd sworn an oath to the pack to protect it and remain loyal.
When Rica wouldn't relent, the bird attempted to kill both of them. Nica was too slow to fight back and died, but Rica's strength came from her honor and she killed the bird. When she checked the nest, she discovered there were no clutch-mates, just piles of rotting food the carrion-bird didn't even have time to eat. Rica's loyalty was rewarded and she returned to her pack as a hero.
While reading the story to Amid, Rey stumbled a bit. There were a few local phrases they had to guess at the meaning of, but she understood most of the story. There was something she didn't like about it, but Rey couldn't put her finger on it. It didn't matter. Now instead of tediously reading, Amid would finish the story!
"Very good," Amid said as he took the datapad back.
"Now it's time for the story!" Rey exclaimed.
"Ah yes. Now, where were we last time? Was it the story about the deep space explorer and her Jedi friend?"
"No!" Rey replied in mock anger, just stifling her giggles. This was something they did every time. Amid pretended to forget what he told her last time and Rey got him all caught up. "It was the Skywalker story! The rebels had just found out about the second Death Star and saved Han. Luke, Leia, and Han were going to go to the moon and shut off the shield generator."
"Ah yes..."
Our quartet of heroes- don't forget Chewbacca was there as well- had been entrusted with the most important mission. If they couldn't destroy the shield generator, the Alliance would be unable to destroy the half-finished Death Star and the Empire would spread terror across the galaxy, wiping out the rebellion. They used a stolen Imperial shuttle and codes to get past the blockade and land on the moon.
But as they landed, Luke sensed something. Darth Vader, the man who had killed his father, had found him through the Force. Their bond, forged through combat and adversity would give the mission away. But Luke could sense something else. There was still light in Vader. The Jedi he once was, the man who loved and protected and lost, was still there. It was the Emperor who had twisted and manipulated him. Vader had been close to Anakin, and that love was still there. And if called upon, could protect Luke.
So he made a plan. If he remained with his friends, Vader would track him through the Force and ruin all chance of stealth. Skywalker surrendered to the imperials at one of their bases on the moon, after being sure to give his friends enough of a head start.
He willingly handed over his lightsaber and went forth without fear. Vader came and escorted him to the Emperor. This sith lord warned his former padawan's son that he should fear the power of the dark side. His friends were doomed and the only way to survive was to bow to the Emperor.
And the Emperor, a cruel old man, crueler than Unkar or the sun, sat on his throne on the second Death Star and looked down upon Luke. He used the force to free Skywalker from his bonds and tasked Vader to destroy him. The two fought, but Luke made no move to attack. As the Emperor urged the Jedi to use his anger, but Luke trusted Vader- and trusted in the Force. He would not strike down Anakin's son in this moment.
And he didn't. As Luke lay on the floor in the throes of Force Lighting, Vader made a choice. He grabbed the man who had manipulated him all these years and threw him down a shaft.
But Vader had already suffered so much from the lighting of the Emperor. His life support suit had been damaged and he would not survive. Vader knew this. As Luke crouched by his burned body, Vader removed his mask. With his real eyes, he looked into the face of his best friend's son. Light was in his heart. He had gone from being the Sith Lord himself to the savior of the galaxy. And he died a hero and a Jedi.
The Alliance was able to destroy the second Death Star when Han, Leia, and Chewie, taking on a whole garrison of stormtroopers destroyed the shield generator protecting the monstrosity. The heroic rebel pilots flew through the web of durasteel and doonium and destroyed the reactor, removing the face of imperial terror from the galaxy. Luke escaped with a new purpose- that of restoring the Jedi Order.
"But that wasn't the end of the war, right?" Rey asked, interpreting Amid. "There was still Jakku."
"Of course," Amid said, "but that was a victory of tactics and machines, not one of the light."
Rey pouted. A story on Jakku would be more grounded, and feel more real. Something she could relate too. Not one involving a planet of green she could barely imagine.
"Well, I do have one story about Skywalker on Jakku."
Rey perked up. Then she realized she'd have to wait a week to hear it.
"And I'll tell you it now. It's not that long." Rey almost jumped into the air cheering.
Skywalker had come with the New Republic fleet to Jakku. He could not resurrect the Jedi Order while the galaxy was still at war. But he didn't command it from the bridge of the Starhawk. With the removal of the Sith, Luke's powers had increased exponentially. He hopped from ship to ship, the Force sustaining him in the vacuum of space. He struck down TIEs with his emerald lightsaber and danced among the stars.
Despite this, the scattered elements of the Imperial Fleet were winning the space battle. The Ravager took down two Starhawks, and only one remained. It was from on top of the Concord that Luke devised a plan. He knew he could very well die, but he wasn't afraid. His life was an easy sacrifice for bringing peace.
He reached out into the Force and felt the Star Destroyers. Their hyperdrives bending reality, their engines moving them through realspace, their gunners intent to kill, and the cruelty of their commanders. And reaching into the Force, he sent lighting coursing through them, completely disabling them. Then he pulled them down. Six star destroyers and the Ravager plummeted towards Jakku. The power of their landing shook the planet to the core, threatening to tear it apart. That was what caused the Great Shakes towards the end of the battle.
And Skywalker survived. His risk had allowed the New Republic to push back on all stages on the battle; ground, space, and atmospheric. After the battle, he traveled to the surface. There Luke found an imperial gunner, addled and afraid. The gunner was from one of the ships he had brought down, and the only survivor.
Luke led the gunner through the newly created graveyard. The gunner was afraid of Luke. He'd heard the lies the Empire told about rebel heroes, and believed them all. But eventually, they reached a now abandoned imperial garrison.
The gunner ran to get help, expecting an imperial force, but only found scavengers taking what they could. But then disaster struck. The reactor core of a nearby ship had exploded. And like lava from a volcano, a molten wave of glass and metal flowed towards the garrison. It was fast approaching and the walls would not hold forever. Most of the scavengers believed they would die that night.
Skywalker tried to keep them calm, but soon realized it would be a waste of time. Instead, he looked for heat-resistant metal. From those, he constructed covering for his feet. Like the kind people say can get you across the Sinking Fields. They were wide enough to keep him above the lava and wouldn't burn up.
To the people's disbelief, Luke was able to walk across the lava. He trusted in himself and the Force that his invention would not fail him, and went without fear. Once he succeeded. the gunner and the scavengers were inspired. They made their own inventions and crossed the river of fire. But when they had escaped it, Skywalker was gone.
Rey's jaw was slack. Someone the second story, the more extravagant one, felt the most grounded. The most real. And if Skywalker could really do those things, he really was a real hero.
Amid smiled and chuckled. "You're welcome."
"Oh right. Thanks for the extra story." Rey looked down at the datapad in her hands. The other files on Home were pictures. Pictures of a family. She moved to open the first one, but realized she should probably head back to the Blobfish. If Amid didn't have anything else planned, she might have some free time.
"I can tell you want to keep the datapad. Probably want to look at those ships."
"Uh, yeah," Rey lied. She hadn't even considered that.
"You can have it. I've already copied all the texts. Not many in there."
Rey beamed and clutched the datapad. She was going to thank Amid, but he then fixed his eyes at something behind her and spoke. "Ah. Looks like the first scavenger is coming back."
Rey turned around to see the vague form of a Twi'lek riding a happabore and groaned internally. Echar was a half-crazed scavenger, yet still a pretty good one. But his schedules were unusual. The reason Unkar allowed her this time was because almost no one brought in salvage at this time. This wasn't the first time he'd interrupted her lessons. And Unkar would fly into a rage and cut an entire meal if she wasn't there when scrap was traded in.
Turning on the datapad and tucking it under her arm, she dashed back to the concession stand, barely making it in before Echar began ranting about the spirits of the pieces his was handing in. After properly appraising the pieces for their worth in real credits (Rey was honestly astonished that some people thought Unkar calculated an accurate value with the few moments he was given to look something over), Rey was sent back to work on the shipment she was preparing. With all the work, she couldn't look at the datapad until night.
Rey snuggled under another rough blanket as she lay in the middle of the seemingly massive hammock she had strung up in the back of the concession stand, attempting to block out the cold of a Jakku night. Unkar had left for who-knows-where to sleep and Rey was alone. She pulled out the datapad and activated the brightness so she could see in the dark. Instead of opening the Cool Ships folder, she opened the one labeled Home.
There were four pictures, none of which were taken by a proper holocam, not that datapad seemed to have a functioning projector anyway. The first one was grainy and sepia colored, as if the camera that took it was already decades old and close to breaking down. It showed a small human infant with dark skin wearing a small brown nightdress. The child was sleeping on a pile of soft looking furs and a rope bracelet was tied around their fragile wrist.
The next was a photo of similar quality, just now with color, showing what looked to be the same child, now a toddler and recognizable as female. Her dress was in the same style, and the long sleeves could easily have been hiding the bracelet. She was sitting in the lap of an older woman, who had a kind of tired kindness in her eyes. She looked to be the child's mother. Standing with his hand on the woman's shoulder was a tall man, who Rey assumed was the father. Even with the small smiles on the adults' faces, it looked like a formal occasion. The barely visible stool the mother sat on and the blank background made Rey think this was some kind of family photoshoot. The toddler didn't seem to realize this, as she looked to be in the middle of bouncing around.
The next showed a teenager, clearly the infant and toddler from the earlier pictures, wearing some imperial-ish uniform. Her bushy hair was now braided back and she stood at attention. But Rey could see a smile and cheer about to break the facade. The picture clearly wasn't some formal registration thing. It was the same quality as the first pictured, while countless people moved around in the crowd behind her. Some people wore similar uniforms, while others wore the same earthy colors and her parents had years before. But most wore what looked to be brightly colored cloaks, but the image quality meant Rey could easily be wrong.
The last image was of excellent quality, even if it was clearly zoomed in and cropped. It showed the same girl, now a couple years older, wearing what was clearly an imperial officer uniform, the lieutenant rank plague carefully pinned to her carefully ironed uniform. On both sides were processions of similarly ranked officers. The young woman was clearly proud and excited. Maybe it was a graduation ceremony. Rey had no idea what an imperial cadet uniform looked like. That could have been what she was wearing in the last picture.
This gave Rey some mixed feelings. In her child-like mind, things were still black and white. The Alliance were heroes and kind people, like Amid. The Empire was full of cruel people and bullies. An entire galaxy of Unkars. But the girl looked so nice. Maybe she defected. That would explain the Endor reports and personal files on the same pad. The image of her graduation was to remind her what she'd grown beyond. Either way, the shell of the pad was so worn and scratched, Rey couldn't make out any markings.
But that wasn't what entranced Rey. It was this beautiful image of a family. Rey wished with all her heart that she had a picture of her parents. She didn't realize she had been crying until she tasted the salt. Lying there in the dark, with only the screen visible, Rey felt she could almost reach out and enter that world. She went back to family portrait and traced the face of the mother with her finger, then the father's. She only stopped looking when she could no longer keep her eyes open. Then she turned the pad off and placed it carefully on the floor under the hammock. And then she dreamed.
Rey was standing in the usual place. She barely remembered what it looked like when she awakened, but now the details were clear. The island was green, a beautiful vibrant green she'd never seen in real life. A rich dark gray was scattered between it. The air held more moisture then Rey thought possible and she tasted salt on her tongue, as water stretched away all around her.
The water was not clear like the small amounts scavengers traded for. It wasn't the murky brown of a happabore tank. Nor was it the blue she often heard water described as. It was gray and chaotic.
She knew the path. She always knew. She wasn't sure how, but her feet moved away from the cliff and towards the place. There was the tree. The mist floated up to her ankles. Rey didn't know what she'd find inside. Sometimes it was a void. Sometimes it held nothing but pain. Sometimes it was the battle between things she could not perceive. Once it was nothing but a thousand voices chanting "Wrong." But sometimes it was good things, a sense of belonging. Or a vision of her parents finding her.
This was one of the good ones. As Rey stepped into the hollow tree, there were the parents from the datapad. Except they were her's. And the girl was her older sister. They were sorry about leaving her, but they had to. And now they could be a family again. The girl taught her how to fly ships and explained how she had left the Empire and been a rebellion hero.
The years marched on and things changed. In only a month, Rey was deemed strong enough to scavenge, although she was lent out to other scavengers to assist them. She learned how to survive. Her lessons with Amid stopped entirely, and he began to fade from her thoughts. She didn't think of him when word of the massacre at Tunaal reached Niima. Rey's abilities grew and she struck out on her own, still waiting. When fate brought her away from Jakku, in a similar way to the one meant to raise her, she had found a new purpose. She was more than a scavenger or a failed plan.
She was Rey.
A/N: Both of Amid's stories played a specific purpose when it came to how Rey acted in TLJ. The retelling of ROTJ was what put it in her head that Kylo could still have light in him. Since the whole "Vader is Anakin Skywalker" thing was kept on the down low up until six years before TFA, I didn't think Amid would know that, even if he picked up the part of Vader being redeemed from Lor or those who knew Lor at Tunaal. So that's why I went with Anakin being Vader's padawan (basically replacing Ahsoka as everything except for being Fulcrum). The second story is pretty much bullshit, but it's based on the second story of Legends of Luke Skywalker. Amid would have heard it from the concussed gunner who told the story in the book. This painted Luke as a perfect hero in Rey's mind, especially since the real message of "We are all Luke Skywalker" wasn't in this retelling. And if it wasn't blindingly obvious, the datapad belonged to Ciena Ree. The personal files were sent to her by Nash. Ciena barely read them.
Also since getting Rey's Survival Guide, I realized that there's a group of what seem to be insane stormtroopers guarding an Imperial base on the Carbon Ridge. In this fic, so Malarus and Casper wouldn't have to fight past them, they're guarding the landing platform were the Eclipse was located. They just haven't realized there's nothing there.