For never having been on a ship, let alone been on a ship in space, traveling at lightspeed, Rey thought she handled herself very well.
She claimed the rear storage compartment of the bulky freighter as her 'space', trying and failing to recreate what she had experienced back on Jakku. She kept getting distracted by gleeful thoughts of imagining Plutt's reaction when he found out she was gone, feeling queasy from the insane speed they were going, and worrying about what she would find when she got to the Jedi Academy.
"What if they all hate me?" She asked R2-D2, Jedi Luke's blue and silver astromech droid, when he rolled past. He stopped and pivoted to face her. Shooting out a string of whistles, he shifted from side to side, his dome top swiveling every now and then. "All the other kids training to be Jedi! Who else?" Rey sighed, placing her head in her hands. "I'm going to be horrible." R2 trilled, his old joints sounding like rubber being stretched out as he moved. "Easy for you to say! You're a droid. What would you know about controlling the Force?" He let out a shriek and raced away, knocking into and bouncing off of a row of barrels. "Wait, R2!" She called out, standing and running after him. "I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!" She chased him around the dark interior of the freighter for the better part of twenty minutes, cursing quietly as he maneuvered around storage bins and crates filled with kriff-knows-what.
"Everything alright back here?" Luke asked, entering the room quietly. R2 immediately ground to a halt, causing Rey to ram into him and fall on her back. He tootled triumphantly and rolled away, earning a dirty look from Luke while he helped Rey to her feet. "Are you okay? What in the blazes were you two doing back here!"
Rey laughed to herself as she smoothed loose hairs away from her face. I just got here and he's already going to send me back. "I hurt the droid's feelings, apparently, and he wouldn't stop running away so I could apologize." She grunted and sat back down on the grimy metal floor. "If you want to turn the ship around and take me back, I understand. I tend to be more trouble than I'm worth." She glanced up sharply as she heard muffled laughter. He was laughing at her and trying to hide it! "What? What's so funny?"
"You honestly think I would send you back just because you chased my dumb old astromech droid around this wide-open cargo hold? No! I find it hilarious, actually." He gave her a hand and pulled her up. "I'm not sending you back, Rey. Unless you want to go, of course." He grinned as she shook her head violently, her loosened buns swaying with the movement. "I didn't think so. Why don't you come up to the cockpit and I'll show you the Skywalker way to fly a ship, hmm?"
Rey couldn't help the smile that spread on her face. "I'd like that."
_SW_
Her very first impression of Yavin IV—"the fourth moon of that orange-red gaseous planet you see over there. This used to be a secret base for the Rebel Alliance, back when I was younger. Now it's the Academy."—was that it was very, very green. In fact, from where they orbited, waiting for clearance to descend, it looked like a blob of green paint suspended in space. Or what green paint might look like, had she ever seen it. As they picked up speed moving through the atmosphere, Rey felt like she was being plunged into her dream world. Tall trees quickly came into focus as they rushed past verdant fields and over sparkling streams that wove their way through the jungle back to a large pool to the far side of the ruins Jedi Luke had pointed out.
"By the way," He said as he carefully positioned the craft for landing, his hands skillfully moving across the control console, "you don't have to call me 'Jedi Luke'. You can call me either Master Luke or just plain old Luke. Your choice."
Rey mulled it over for a long minute, nearly falling from her chair as the ship jostled upon contacting the ground. She steadied herself, ignoring Luke's I-warned-you smirk. "I think I should call you Mean Luke. It suits you best."
He let out a heavy sigh as he crossed the ship to grab his satchel and robe from the cargo hold, Rey trailing closely behind. When they reached the exit doors, he handed her the only belonging she had brought with her, the bowstaff. "We'll have to see about getting you some clothes," he explained over the hiss of the hydraulics lowering the heavy platform. "I'm sure some the older girls will have some they've grown out of."
The air hitting her in the face felt like she had just been sprayed with water. (It had only happened once, as a prank, but she never forgot the feeling—even if it had cost her two days of water rations.) It was hot on this planet, too, but not in the same way. Even though the sun was shining brightly, Rey didn't think her skin would blister the moment she stepped out in it, or that her eyes and mouth would dry out in she left them uncovered for too long. As the steam cleared, she was shocked to find a group of people waiting for the two. Or, more likely, waiting for Luke, as he was the headmaster of the Academy. She was just a little girl with a too-tall bowstaff and angry eyes—or so the old weaver on Jakku told her time and time again. Standing in the warm light, their clothes getting ruffled around by a light breeze, there was a woman with golden blonde hair and wide, friendly smile, a jaunty looking man with a crooked nose and ash brown hair, a tall Wookie with a bandolier across his chest, and boy about her age with dark curls and pale skin.
"Hello, hello!" Luke moved faster than Rey had seen him in the whole time she had known him—granted, it was about half a day with the space travel—as he went to embrace them. "I've missed you all so dearly! Oh, goodness, Ben! You've gotten so big! You're almost as tall as Chewie now!" He reached down and pinched the kid—Ben—'s cheek, which he wretched away from, blushing, but he did seem to hug longer and tighter than anyone else.
Rey stood on the platform for a few minutes, awkwardly holding tight to her bowstaff, feeling like everyone had seen her but chose to ignore her. Everyone except the boy. While the adults spoke, he made his way over to her, his face pinched, as if he were physical discomfort. "Um, I'm Rey." She said quietly, not really caring if he heard her or not.
"Yeah, I know." He dragged his amber brown eyes over her, his brown crinkled and arms crossed. "I don't like you."
"Excuse me?" she scoffed, hopping down to be face to face with him. He towered several inches above her, so she grabbed his shoulder and forced him down to eye level with her. "You don't even know me!"
He yanked his body away, his whole face red, even his ears, which seemed slightly bigger than they should have been. Now that she could see his face more easily, she noticed his nose was that way too. He had dark moles and freckles and downturned lips. "I don't need to know you," he sneered quietly, his voice low enough that the adults wouldn't overhear. "I know you stole my uncle away from me. He hasn't stopped talking about you. And now, I don't like you."
"I'm so hurt," she lied, rolling her eyes and shouldering past him, grinning as she heard his arm collide with the hard metal of the exit ramp. She moved beside Luke, forcing a small smile as he introduced her to everyone else—Terra, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and ("Oh, I'm sure you will be the best of friends!") Ben Solo, Luke's nephew.
As she listened to complete strangers ramble about their lives, where they lived in absolute luxury, compared to her, she realized something: if bratty rich boys were the worst part of the Academy, she would be just fine.