She sits on the metal shelf which serves her new cell as both bench and bunk, looking at the bulky handcuffs looped around her wrists, feeling foolish. Is foolishness a path to the dark side, she wonders?

She suspects she would be feeling foolish even if he wasn't standing beside the doorway, a stride and a half away, tall and strong in his long cloak and dark costume, but unmasked to show the scar she gave him. And he has two lightsabers now worn together on his belt - the bright hilt of his grandfather's weapon alongside the dark grip of his own one.

She has the sense that he's waiting for her to say something. Sighing, she looks down at the shackles. She could use the Force to remove them, she reminds herself. But that seems like the wrong step, creating an imbalance.

How did she get here? She was on Tatooine, with her new lightsaber. She remembers strange, half-formed imagery. Blown desert dust, reminding her of Jakku. Shadowy hands, gathering her, as if she was buried in the sands. Voices. And a presence, silhouetted against brightness.

The man who now stands with her once again. This is no vision, no dream, no hallucination.

But how?

She looks past her curled fists, down at the bright, scuffed metal floor, and thinks back, using her Force skills. They've never felt more rudimentary than this. They seem completely inadequate. But somehow, the answer is there, rising up from somewhere she wasn't even looking. "The quicksands. On Pasaana."

"A sarlacc pit," his voice confirms. "You were lucky that I found you."

That just makes her feel even more foolish, even more annoyed. She isn't sure what to do with the funny sense she should be thanking him.

She tries a small smile.

"My pleasure," he notes, ironically.

The smile flashes bigger before she can hide her reaction. Does his being there make this better?

"You know what a sarlacc does?" he asks, questioning. Strangely gentle. She likes that.

Rey nods. She's heard of the sarlacc on Tatooine. Stories about Boba Fett, as well as the ones about Han, Luke and Leia. And there were stories about a sarlacc on Jakku as well, not that anyone ever found one. "They live underground, in the desert. Big plants that eat people, like a cactus the size of a spaceship, with tentacles and teeth. And they can mess with people's minds. Cause hallucinations. While they're being... digested?"

"A sarlacc takes a thousand years to digest a human being," he says, with a flat tone that might just disguise amusement of some sort. Her eyes flash up at him, and his look back at her. "You were only in there for three days."

Three days? That should have been important.

"Some interesting hallucinations?" he asks

Rey looks down again. "You could say that." Pasaana was real, or the first part anyway. But the abandoned ship, the ice asteroid? Did she imagine them? She feels more certain about the rest - the ruined Death Star, her return to Ahch-To, the impossible X-wing, the duel, and Tatooine. All just images from a very strange dream.

She's a girl who thought she was a Jedi, who fell into a sarlacc pit, and was rescued, by the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

As identities go, that doesn't feel too bad.

She's all out of fight. Or maybe she just changed, in some way she doesn't fully understand yet. Maybe sarlacc hallucinations are like detox for a Jedi.

She looks at Ren again, and realises he's about to leave. Did he misinterpret her silence as refusal? At least he's not talking about the dark side any more.

"Ben?"

Her new companion pauses, and turns back. "Yes?"

"I'm not... I'm not Palpatine's granddaughter, am I?"

At that, he laughs. The look suits him. The smile that follows does as well. "No. No you're not."