"I don't think you should go, Rey," '87 said, his voice low as he leaned in towards her. "You don't know this guy. He could be a serial killer or something."

Her bags were already packed and her paintings and supplies stowed aboard the ship. Rey looked at the vessel before steadily meeting '87's eyes and lying through her teeth. "I checked into his credentials through Waldreg. He's the real deal," she said—and she had checked. What little information that could be verified did check out, but it would never be enough to assuage 2187's protective streak, and if he thought for a second that she wouldn't be safe, he would probably lock her in a cell at the remote office until Gilas left.

The 'trooper shook his head in agitation. "He might be a real art dealer but that doesn't make him not a terrible person who snatches girls on the side," 2187 said tightly.

It was something she'd thought about but Rey couldn't let herself not take the chance. "If I don't, I'll be stuck here forever," she said.

'87 swallowed and she knew his feeling were hurt, but he plowed on anyway. "It won't be forever. I'll eventually be able to get you an ident chip and when I get discharged we can leave. I'll be able to protect you. You made a decent life for yourself here. Just wait a little longer."

Rey shook her head. "No, I'm sorry. I promised myself I'd make it home. If I leave, I have a better chance of selling more art and making enough to buy a ship. I'll learn to pilot it and then I'm going looking for Earth."

2187 looked almost mutinous. "I told you before, you could look for years in the uncharted zone and not find your planet."

"Then I'll look for years," she said heatedly but at his dejected look, she deflated. "I'm sorry, I can't stay here. Every day I look at the sand and yellow sky, I'm reminded that I was left here like garbage. Just dumped out of a chute by a man who felt he had the right to snatch me up and then drop me when he was done."

"He does," '87 said desperately, "He does have the right. He's the Supreme Ruler. He can do whatever he wants. That won't change no matter where you go."

She grimaced. "Yeah, but I'd rather not spend the rest of my days on this miserable planet."

The stormtrooper sighed and she could almost feel his heart breaking. "I thought . . ." he began quietly, but she drew him into a hug before he could finish.

Rey kept her voice low and tried to keep her own emotions in check as she whispered. "I don't mean you or anyone else here, '87, but I want to go home. This isn't my home." She continued to hug her friend tightly, endlessly grateful to him for his kindness while she'd been on Ord Canfre. "I'll come back and visit if I can," she whispered and he nodded as they pulled away.

"Comm me when you get there, Rey," Breeka said and Rey nodded quickly

"Thank you for everything," she said as she gave the rodian, Maelin and Caladon their own hugs—much to Maelin's confusion at the gesture.

The twi'lek nodded anyway, though. "Good Luck, Rey. We'll definitely miss having you around," Maelin said sadly.

"This won't be the last you see of me," she said with a smile and hugged them all.

Caladon sniffled a bit but managed a watery farewell as she boarded the ship.

The journey was only a day or so through space and she spent it casting furtive glances at Gilas and eyeing the ever changing star map on the wall that showed their location. After they'd left, Gilas had told her their destination: Takodana. It was a jungle planet, according to her pad, with no native sentients. She'd made sure to keep an eye on their location as they moved through the mid rim and into the western reaches.

The journey had been quiet, as Rey wasn't entirely sure what to say, but about halfway through, she finally spoke up. "I tried to look you up. Your commune, I mean. But there's no record of you in the imperial database." She'd kept that from 2187, and even now she was not entirely sure what that meant. How did they pay taxes?

Gilas looked up from the pad he was reading but didn't seem bothered by the statement. "There wouldn't be," he said, "We keep our commune well off the net."

She'd figured that out. Security was obviously very important to Gilas and probably to the artists he represented as well, but what she didn't know what why. "Why is it so secretive?" she asked.

The chagrian looked away for a second, as though recalling a painful memory before he responded. "It wasn't always like this. When the commune first began we were on a beautiful planet called Falleen. Our group was smaller with only fifteen artists doing various types of works." He paused and Rey watched as the muscles in his jaw clenched a bit. "Around twenty years in, one of our artists, Valin Breme, a carver who created the most beautifully intricate figurines you've ever seen, began receiving threats. We weren't so exclusive back then, you see, and anyone could come into our public establishment and see the artworks. Valin had a . . . fan."

Gilas trailed off again, and Rey could tell it was a difficult story to relive but the chagrian continued, "The man was obsessed with Valin's work and bankrupted himself and his family buying as many of Valin's pieces as he could. When he ran out of money and he couldn't buy any more, he decided to track down the commune and go to Valin himself." Gilas stopped once more to take a breath. "No one knows exactly what happened but Valin was killed and the man killed himself afterwards."

"So you moved to another planet and disappeared," she said with a nod of understanding.

The chagrian gave a small insincere smile. "Yes. Only very well vetted and selected clients even know the location of the gallery showroom on Coruscant. We've never had another incident with unwanted visitors again."

It was obviously something that Gilas still felt deeply about, and Rey nodded as she sat back to think over what he'd said. It would be hard to keep such a secret from 2187 but the secrecy and security of the commune seemed to take precedence over most anything else—at least to Gilas—so she would adhere to their rules.

The journey was quiet once more and Rey slept for a good chunk of the remaining hours, too tired to stay awake the full day it would take to get there. The ship shook the slightest bit, waking her, as they came in for a landing. Rey jerked in her seat in abject fear, a low whimper escaping her as her nails bit into the seat. Gilas reached over and covered her hand.

"Are you alright, my dear?"

She swallowed as the ship continued to shake but nodded. "Just um . . . my last . . . landing didn't go so well," she said finally.

Gilas didn't seem to know what to do with that information or how to interpret her fear, so he just continued to hold her hand until the ship finally stopped moving, and then everything was still. Rey continued to take deep breaths as she struggled to get herself under control

This isn't the same as what happened before, she told herself. You're safe, and now he'll never find you.

Rey was not afraid to admit that she was terrified of the prospect of ever seeing Kylo Ren again. Those burning eyes hating her, and wishing gleefully for her slow and painful death. The secrecy of the commune appealed to her on an almost cellular level. She knew that the likelihood of Kylo Ren ever returning to Ord Canfre had been next to nothing, but even so, she was glad to be even further off his radar. She could hide on Takodana and wait until she could afford her ship. Perhaps it was cowardly, but Rey was, before everything else, a survivor.

Her eyes were still clenched when Gilas patted her fingers. "We're here, Rey."

She took a slow breath and cracked an eye open. The chagrian had already gotten up from his seat and he was pulling the viewport shielding aside so she could see that they had, in fact, landed. Gilas had described the planet to her and he'd said it was a lush planet but . . .

"It's so green," she said as she got up and all but plastered her face to the viewport. Perhaps it was only that she'd been on Ord Canfre with its eggshell and mustard color pallet for so long, that so much color was nearly overwhelming her.

Gilas chuckled behind her. "Yes, being so close to nature can be very inspiring so we settled here on Takodana about two hundred years ago."

Rey heard the hiss of the hatch as it opened behind her and she sighed. Here we go, she thought as she turned around and picked up her small bag of personal belongings. They walked out of the ship and into the sunlight. It was hot here, just like Ord Canfre, but rather than the dry arid heat of a desert, there was a dampness that clung to her skin. She looked around, but there wasn't much to see on the landing pad besides other ships and a large ancient looking structure in the distance.

Gilas already seemed more comfortable in the humidity of the planet, and his step was a bit lighter than before. The rest of her things were already being loaded into a land speeder and Gilas was gesturing for her to come.

Rey pointed towards the building. "Is that where we're headed?" she asked.

Gilas followed her line of sight before shaking his head. "Oh that? No. That's Maz Kanata's palace. She runs a bar out of it now, but she's been around a long time. We just use her landing pad. I don't like to disturb the artists with loud ships coming and going so we're taking a speeder to the commune. It's about thirty minutes away."

She nodded and was about to say something else when Gilas abruptly turned from her. "Careful with that!" he said as a crewman began stacking her paintings in the back of the speeder. They were all wrapped for a bit of protection, but if one fell out of the moving vessel, that would be it.

The man was trying to be careful, she could tell, but the wind picked up suddenly and a blew one of the canvases off the pile before he could strap them down. Gilas looked like he was going to have a heart attack, but really, Rey thought as she walked over and picked up the fallen image, it was her least favorite.

"Rey!" Gilas called as he came up behind her. She turned and watched as Gilas' normally rather friendly expression melted into something . . . else. It was only for a second, and it passed so quickly that Rey was unsure if she'd even seen it. He didn't say anything else as he walked with her and she re-wrapped the painting before handing it to the crewman who promptly secured it in place.

Gilas was quiet during the trek to the commune. Something about him was off, she could tell. He hadn't liked her painting, which Rey could safely admit, she wasn't so fond of it either. Still, though, even with the slightly tense atmosphere, the journey was beautiful with green for as far as she could see and clear blue waterways running through it like vines in a forest.

The trip seemed too short, and Rey would have loved to see more of the planet, but she was also still exhausted from the traveling. Gilas helped her down from the speeder and she could see a path leading from the tiny landing pad into the forest.

The chagrian seemed to have shaken off whatever had dampened his mood before because he smiled and held a hand out to her, "Come, my dear, I'll introduce you to some of the other residents. Not all of them will be around now but the ones who live closer to you will no doubt be eager to make your acquaintance."

'Eager' seemed a bit of a stretch, especially when she could see a few of the other residents watching from a distance but making no move to come and meet her. They seemed to be perfectly content to watch and some even simply turned away and went back to whatever they were doing.

"Yes, I can see that," she said in answer.

Gilas snorted. "The commune voted on whether to pursue you for admission. It was an overwhelming majority. It's only that . . ."

"What?"

"Well, we don't get very many humans here," he explained as they walked along the path.

Gilas had been surprised to see her, Rey remembered, surprised that she was human. "Really? Why?"

The chagrian looked slightly uncomfortable but he spoke anyway. "Humans are actually our biggest customers and they make up the vast majority of the empire, something like seventy percent of all sentients are human."

Her eyes widened. Was humanity really that widespread? On Ord Canfre, it had been more fifty/fifty. How were there so many humans? Why was Earth so isolated from the rest?

Gilas continued speaking, taking her silence for acceptance. "It's interesting but humans as a whole don't usually buy human-made art. If they can afford to commission pieces and import their style and design, they prefer artisans and crafts from other races. It's a symbol of wealth."

Rey blinked. That didn't sound good. "Oh. When it's discovered that I'm human, will the value of my work drop?"

The chagrian pursed his lips. "Well, I intend to keep you quite mysterious for the time being," Gilas said diplomatically, "We're going to work on making sure you are fully established before you go public. As of now, you're simply known as 'The Artist' because no one could identify your mark on the paintings."

She'd just signed RG in a stylized way. Apparently it was a bit too stylized for the nanites to translate.

Still, Gilas tried to be supportive. "You are a unique person amongst the art community. No one will ever disparage you here but be cautious when you leave the commune. Sometimes people can be less than kind when they think there is competition for clients."

She nodded and they eventually entered the main area of the commune. It was almost exactly as Rey had envisioned when Gilas had described it. Lush, and somewhat overgrown with studios and homes of varying styles dotted around the landscape.

"Artist!" a feminine voice called and Rey looked up to see a purple twi'lek girl hurrying down a path towards them. The building she was coming from was a massive white structure that sort of reminded Rey of a conch shell.

The twi'lek wore a fluttery white dress that moved like water around her and as she neared, Rey suddenly felt more than a little bedraggled in her stained and faded work clothes from Ord Canfre.

The girl didn't seem to notice as she sidled up beside Rey and she smiled, "You're finally here!"

Rey blinked. "Uh, yes?"

Gilas sighed. "This is Kord Mondrachia, your possible neigh—"

Kord cut him off, her bright eyes meeting Rey's. "Of course, I'll be your neighbor. Where else is she doing to live? Out in the jungle by herself like the other shut-ins?"

Gilas looked less than impressed, "What each person chooses—"

"Yes, yes, I know. Still . . ." Kord trailed off and looked at Rey questioningly, and it took her a second to figure out that she was supposed to say something.

"My name is Rey—"

"Rey here will be just fine in the center."

Gilas finally looked at Rey and she could tell that she just needed to indicate that she was uncomfortable and he would put a stop to the whole thing, but really, she didn't actually want to be alone in the jungle anyway.

"I'd like to stay around here," she said finally and Kord made a pleased noise while Gilas looked somewhat pained.

"Mog," the twi'lek said before pulling Rey away from Gilas, "You can live next door to me." she paused before calling back towards the chagrian. "Bring her things to the blue house!"

Gilas made no response but Kord seemed happy enough dragging Rey towards the plot of land on the other side of her own massive home. The house was quite a bit smaller and completely different in design from Kord's seashell house.

"I'm sorry if I startled you, Rey. In my line of work, big personalities are what sell," Kord said as she looped her arm around Rey's and the two walked up the path towards the house. It was blue, as was indicated by the moniker, 'blue house' and reminded Rey of a sort of overgrown beach cottage, though it was a round building rather than square.

She pushed the door open and looked around the dim space. It was a bit musty inside so she left the door open to at least attempt to air the place out. The front half of the lower level opened up into what she thought would be a lovely studio space with fully duraplast doors.

Rey looked around for a light switch before remembering herself. "Lights on," she said and the place instantly illuminated. It was an almost rough dwelling but had the type of character that humans on Earth spent a fortune recreating.

Kord pointed off toward a set of narrow stairs. "The bedroom and second 'fresher are up there and your kitchen and dining are in the back." The main living area would be used as her studio and she thought that had been the intention of the original builder anyway. It was almost what she would consider a sunroom but rather than just windows, most of the outer wall was covered in duraplast doors instead, letting in a ton of natural light.

"It's beautiful," she said and Kord smiled.

The twi'lek looked around fondly. "I always thought so. This was my first house here, as well. A lot of great artists have come through this home. It was one of the first built when the commune moved here."

For being two hundred years old, it seemed in pretty solid shape, at least to Rey, but then who knew what the home was actually built from.

"Gilas will have someone down here in a couple of days cutting back the brush," Kord said, eyeing the vines that had begun to grow up one of the doors.

"I'll take care of the gardening," Rey said as she looked over the thicket of plants. There were a few flowers buried beneath the weeds, and she had enjoyed gardening back on Earth.

But Kord shook her head seriously. "Let someone else take care of clearing out the plants, Rey. There are several species of poisonous flora on Takodana. You don't want to get sick before you sell your first painting."

Rey blinked. She hadn't thought of that, but the twi'lek was right; best to let someone more knowledgeable have a go at the overgrown foliage. She could come back with flowers later. She was about to respond when she spotted a couple of men coming down the path towards the house carrying her things. Kord promptly began helping her unpack, more curious to see her things than to actually help Rey, she thought.

"Please tell me these aren't the only clothes you brought, Rey," Kord said after going through the one and only bag containing any kind of clothing.

"What else would I wear? I just paint," she said in exasperation. "I don't exactly need super nice things."

Kord looked at her for a long moment before she began to laugh, "Just paint! That's a good one! You know I have one of your pieces in my home. I simply had to have one after one of my clients was crowing about it at one of his soirees."

Rey hadn't let herself quite buy into the hype that Gilas was trying to sell her before—about her art being something special or even good enough to warrant a spot at this commune.

"You have one?" she asked hesitantly.

Kord nodded "Of course, I was the one who recommended you for the commune. I have one of your Lovers hanging in my sitting room."

"Oh . . ." Rey said, a touch of wonderment in her voice.

"'Oh' is right. We need to get some nicer things for you to meet your clients in."

Clients? That hadn't been in her game plan. "But Gilas—"

Kord cut her off with a wave of her hand. "He'll keep you under wraps for a little while but you can't hide out here forever. You need facetime so your customers have a face to associate the talent with. Thankfully, this will also give us enough time to get a bit more meat on your bones."

With the exception of crispics and twispas, the food on Ord Canfre had been quite bland and not terribly appetizing. And with the nanites, she'd found that she just wasn't as hungry. Rey was aware that she'd lost weight, her cheeks not quite as full as they'd been on Earth, but she hoped she didn't look too underweight.

The twi'lek sighed. "Don't get that look on your face. You're still beautiful. We just need to maybe take a trip to a few resort planets where you can meet clients and get some decent food." She paused with a raised hairless brow. "Maybe a facial peel or two as well."

Rey reached up and touched her face, but she wasn't able to give Kord's words much more thought as the last of her things was placed in the sunroom. Rey thanked the two men who had carried it all. Her paintings and supplies weren't exactly light or easy to carry.

She crouched down and began to unwrap one of the paintings—one of 2187 with his fellow squad-mates. "I don't know if I'm ready for all that," she said finally.

Kord unwrapped a painting of her own. "Of course you are," she said as she gave Rey a knowing look. "I know the eyes of someone who wants to be anywhere but where they are."

Rey walked up and resisted the urge to rub her fingers over the painting that Kord was holding. Poe smiled bashfully in his flight suit while covered in grease. "I just want to get home."

The indigo twi'lek seemed to sense the change in atmosphere, because she put her hand on Rey's arm and met her eyes. "And you will. But you're not from around here are you?"

She snorted. "Am I that obvious?"

"Not so much, but it's my job to read body language. Outer Rim?"

Rey shook her head. "The uncharted zone. My planet is somewhere in the uncharted zone."

Kord nodded thoughtfully. "You'll need to know about the galaxy itself before venturing off into the unknown. It can be quite dangerous out there, even within imperial space. You aren't a citizen?"

"No."

The twi'lek didn't seem surprised. "Gilas is probably already working on getting you a transient ident so you can pass through the empire unaccosted."

The idea of being able to go wherever she wanted . . . she'd never let herself even really contemplate it, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad. The Supreme Ruler and his fleet were sort of hard to miss and it was a big galaxy, after all. "I could actually go to other planets?"

Getting on a ship had never been the issue, getting off and arriving at what passed for 'customs' was the problem. She would be arrested and held without some kind of ID.

Kord unwrapped another painting. "After we get your ident squared away, you'll be able to come and go freely. We just need to show residency within the empire and that you are generating some kind of income. Eventually, you'll be able to apply for permanent citizenship."

Rey hoped she wasn't around there long enough to do that but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. The continued to unwrap her paintings and put away her supplies, but after a few minutes, Kord stopped, her eyes glued to a piece that she held almost delicately before her.

Rey could see the edges—could see the color bleeding off and knew which one it was. She really needed to get rid of that thing—especially now that he'd unmasked himself.

Her nightmare man, as Caladon had called him.

The twi'lek was silent for a beat. "You must not like him very much," she said finally before setting the painting down on the floor against the wall.

"What?" Rey asked, her voice slightly strangled.

Kord continued looking it over. "The Supreme Ruler. He's a handsome man and he almost is here but the way you've painted him . . . He's . . . painful to look at."

"I—I wouldn't know," she said turning back to her pigments.

Kord apparently decided it was better to drop it because her tone lightened and she changed the subject. "I'm going off-planet next week to choose fabrics for my next collection. Would you like to join me?"

Rey blinked. "I can't go anywhere."

The twi'lek wasn't to be deterred. "Oh, We're just rendezvousing with a merchant ship that's passing through a few systems from here. No imperial dock checks to worry about because they're only open to professionals like you and me. Until you get your ident, I'll vouch for you. "

She also needed fabric, but not for clothes. "Would the place you're going to have canvas materials?"

Kord nodded. "Oh they have every kind of fabric."

Rey finally looked at Kord—really looked at her. She was incredibly beautiful with bright indigo skin that was set off perfectly by the white dress she wore. It fit her perfectly, clinging to every curve of her body and it fluttered as she moved, giving her an ethereal quality.

"What is it that you do, Kord?"

The twi'lek tilted her head and smiled. "I make clothes."

Ah! So Kord was the fashion designer that Gilas had mentioned before. "I guess you're pretty good at that," she said finally.

Kord paused and her eyes moved over Rey in what might have been an almost clinical way, except for the way she lingered on certain parts of Rey's body. "I think so. You'll have to let me . . . fit you later."

Rey swallowed and nodded. "That would be great, thank you."

Kord raised a brow. "Think nothing of it. This place is full of old fuddy duddy artisans. You and me gotta stick together or we'll fossilize like they have."

Rey snorted and laughed.

Almost 50K words later, she's finally off Ord Canfre . . . And won't someone be surprised to find her NOT where he left her.