He didn't have to wait more than a few hours. They arrived into Tattooine airspace, but without a central flight control, Lump could only choose a settlement at random to aim for. He hailed the local hangar, and a crackly voice responded. "We have room for you," said the disembodied voice on the other end. "But no in-and-out privileges. And no sleeping on board. We don't take no trouble here."
That seemed reasonable enough, so he accepted the docking bay assignment and landed the Falcon.
"This is your stop," Rey said to Alik as the ship settled down. He nodded. It was clear that Alik didn't like the thought of leaving, but what else could he do?
"Thanks again," he said, and he picked up his satchel and made his way down the boarding ramp and out of the hangar. Lump snorted after him and Rey tried to ignore it. Alik had only been trying to make a connection; Rey wasn't really interested in making friends with a man from Naboo, but she didn't feel the tick of annoyance with him any more. He'd done as he'd said he would and left her alone on the flight, and now he quietly left her and Lump behind, retreating into the town. She was almost – almost – sorry for him to go.
Rey opened up her pack and took out the clothing, laying it down over the benches in the main room. She chose one book of the several and put the rest into the compartment under the floor. There was no need to take those with her. She hung her blaster and her own lightsaber on her right hip and put Luke and Leia's on her left. Over it all she drew her camouflaged poncho and lay the hood over her braided hair. Then she put her canteen of water, a nutriment bar, and the one book into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
The two of them disembarked, and Lump locked the Falcon up tight.
"Two credits a night," said the rough-looking human man who kept the hangar.
"One now and one when it's still here in the morning," Rey countered, briskly. The man nodded, after a moment, and accepted the coin she removed from her pocket. She and Lump moved out into the street and the burning light of the twin suns. It was nearing the end of the day, but it was hot out still. To Rey's dismay, it reminded her more of Jakku's Niima Outpost more than she had hoped.
She led her companion toward a market trader under a tent. He was human, but his skin was deeply wrinkled from the sun and the desert winds. She'd met him a thousand times before in her life, beaten down by hard living in a hard place. The man wore a light-colored robe that reflected the suns' rays and covered him well, a good adaptation for a place like this. His head was covered with a faded orange cap, underneath which his eyes shone warmly.
"Do you know the Skywalker farm?" she asked him.
"Skywalker?" he repeated, thoughtfully. "Can't say that I do. Doesn't sound like a name from these parts." Rey nodded; they'd chosen this spot randomly because she didn't know anything more specific about where Luke had grown up. Was it even on this hemisphere of the planet?
"Thanks," she said anyway.
"You know," the old man said, "If you're new here, you should know to be careful for the Sand People."
"Thanks," she said again, appreciating the warning.
"And the Jawas," he said. "And the sarlaccs."
Rey felt her brow furrow in concern. "Okay, thanks." She and Lump exchanged a look of worry.
They wandered around the marketplace, which was more lively than any market where she'd grown up. No one had every heard of a moisture farm owned by the Skywalkers; most people denied knowing anyone by such a name at all. To one or two, it seemed to ring a bell, and one woman even asked if a Skywalker hadn't been a famous general in the Clone Wars. Rey had to agree that yes, one had been, but after that the woman still didn't know where the farm might be.
They walked and asked everyone who would give her the chance to ask them. At one point, Rey felt a tiny hand lift the corner of her poncho; she looked down to see a small Rhodian child attempting to pick her pocket. She reached out with one hand and the child's hand froze; Rey gripped it in the Force and held the child still. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said, and then she released the child so that it ran, crying, back into the crowd.
As dusk began to settle on the town, the traders packed up their goods. Rey and Lump bought a bit of food for dinner just as the seller was getting ready to go home. He gave them the meat raw and told them to cook it themselves, as it was too late to start up his fires again. Then he was gone, and Lump and Rey moved out into the edge of the desert.
He kept brushing at his fur as sand became stuck in it. A child of the jungle, Lump hated the feeling of sand under his feet and gritty in his fur. Rey could only smile; she didn't even notice as it encroached into her hair and clothes. Her entire lifetime had been spent in sand.
She wrapped her bag around itself in an attempt to make a pillow, with the book in the very center, her poncho laid out flat on the ground. When she turned back to Lump, she found that he'd lit a fire. A quick bolt of panic ran through her and she reached out with the Force, snapping her fingers and extinguishing the flame.
"Everyone will see the fire," she said to Lump. "It's not worth the risk."
How are we going to cook the food? Lump asked, with real concern. I'm not an animal; I'm not going to eat it raw.
Rey sighed. If there was one good thing about decades-old Imperial portions, it was their utter lack of need for cooking. She touched the cut of meat with just her fingertips and closed her eyes, letting energy flow out of her and into the food. When she opened them, it was browned and done, and she offered it to Lump, who ate.
She could not help but wonder just who, exactly, were the Sand People, or what was a sarlacc, but she stretched out with her feelings and could sense not another sentient being nearby them. Only when she felt safe did she eat her ration for dinner, setting the little leftovers aside for morning. Though she didn't feel terribly tired, Rey did feel the weight of her task. It was a bit of a fool's errand, she knew, finding the one small moisture farm where Luke had grown up on this big, dry planet. She stretched herself out on top of what had to be her bed and let herself think, for the first time in a long time, about the stars above: the Jedi of generations past, guiding her. Were they out there? Or were they, like the rumors of monsters in the night, just a figment of her imagination – a product of her deep desire not to be alone in the galaxy?
Rey didn't realize she was falling asleep until she opened her eyes to see it was daybreak. Lump was already awake, nibbling the last bits of meat off last night's leftovers.
Sorry, he said, when he realized what he'd done.
"It's all right," she said, even as her stomach rumbled. She'd make do with her nutriment bar rather than pay for more food. They needed to conserve their credits to get themselves out of here when they were done.
She packed up their things and put her hood back over her hair. There was no reason for anyone on Tattooine to know her, and she wanted to keep it that way. She was just a scavenger again, a desert mouse, nobody.
"There's no point in going back to that settlement," she observed. She gestured over to a nearby hill, where a collection of tents stood in the morning sun. "Maybe we can try that one before we go back to the Falcon."
Lump had no better ideas, so they set out. The Skywalker farm had to be out there, somewhere, and she meant to find it. The sand was still relatively cool under their feet, and Rey was grateful for that. Lump was not graceful on the shifting sand, slipping and sliding, while she moved with ease.
He fell behind her, but only slightly. Perhaps the farm was just over the hill; she could find Luke's childhood home and return his lightsaber and Leia's to their ancestral land. She would bury them together, side by side, as they'd come into the world. She would honor them and ask them to be proud of her.
Lump's scream broke into her thoughts. Rey spun around, nearly losing her footing on the shifting sands.
He was gone.