34 ABY: 2 days before TFA
For years Rey had thought the shadow was the worst thing her youthful mind could imagine. He'd made quite a reputation for brutality within her psyche. Because of that demon she'd wet her blankets until she was nearly 10. The most frightening images were not what he did to her imaginary self, rather what he turned her to. In one dream she gazed at a man strapped unto a table, looking at her as if she was evil incarnate. To Rey's horror her imaginary self smiled as the Shadow electrified the man alive. Maybe that's why her family left her: because they knew what a horrible person she'd been. No sentient in their right mind could forgive her for letting that man die (the angel would, the angel could see every monstrous thing you've ever done and love you regardless of it, her mind whispers). Yet, for all his frightening demeanor and complete control over her imaginary self there was a sense of finality tied with the shadow. Somehow Rey felt she would never meet him. That he was gone from the realm of mortals. These images give no such comfort, if anything they harrow a dark, inevitable conclusion. It taunts her, laughs at her pain and rejoices upon the sight of her tears. A mask rooted in darkness, a jagged blade of power red as blood cutting San Tekka down. The old man's eyes always so focused and clear now staring lopsidedly with no direction, flames reflected upon overwhelmed irises that will never see again. Malignant pictures flashing within her mind: all leading to one irreversible truth. Lor San Tekka is dead.
Foregoing all caution she races to Lor San Tekka's village in the dead of the night. Someone has to bury him, her friend deserved a few parting words at the very least. Halfway across the path Rey catches a glimpse of stormtroopers patrolling the badlands. What are they doing this far out in the desert? She hides behind a dune to hear their conversation. The soldiers complain about lack of action in this worthless sandbox, one of them expresses his excitement for being stationed at Starkiller base. Wasn't that Galen Marek's codename? Why would the First Order name their place after a hero of the Rebellion? The young scavenger decides it's not important. Barring the space battle during the Galactic Civil War politics and warfare have no effect on Jakku beyond spacer's gossip. The Clone Wars changed nothing here, the so-called New Republic's biggest contribution was more junk, the next conflict will be no different than the others. Rey continues her Odyssey after double-checking the area is secure (as safe as anything can be on Jakku). Her heart nearly stops beating at the sight of Lor San Tekka chatting amicably with the middle-aged pilot who thanked her years ago for defending Luke Skywalker. Why would Wedge Antilles come to Jakku twice? Briefly, she wonders if the sands finally succeeded in driving her mad until Wedge tells Lor San Tekka they're being watched. This Antilles fellow must be a dear friend of Lor cause he's prepared ladalum* tea for him, something he'd never offer a mere acquaintance. Wordlessly, the Corellian rises from the ground and pours out a cup for her. He's careful not to spill a drop which means that someone taught him the importance of water.
"Hello Rey, it's good to see you again. This old geezer still stopping you from serving bucketheads a taste of their own medicine?" He remembered my name. Did Lor tell him about me or was I actually interesting for a Corellian pilot to bear in mind?
"Leave her out of this mess General. The force tells me the girl's part in this muddled conflict does not begin today."
"I'm not a general anymore Lor. After the arrest I handed those corrupt bureaucrats my letter of resignation. You'd know that if you didn't live in this Force-forsaken planet. Compared to this dump Tatooine's an earthly paradise."
"Better an unforgiving death world that wastes no breath on politics than a 'exemplary' system that crucifies pure hearted souls to satisfy a false appeasement."
There's a unspoken resentment in Lor San Tekka's voice in that moment. Rey doesn't like it: her friend is a man of peace, the path he walks is one of mercy and understanding. Whatever caused such wordless enmity within him had to be something unforgivable, something bereft of any common decency. Otherwise he would harbor no ill wishes against them. She turns her gaze to the pilot. Just like Lor, his hair is completely white resembling the ivory paint used in astromech droids but barring that he seems younger. As if the memory of youth still fuels him somehow, filling him with the strength to carry on. He's lean and sits in a position that would allow him to escape should it be necessary, his right hand hovers near the holster strapped to his waist. It's a safe bet to say the two blasters it holds are set to kill but whenever he speaks to her his tone is gentle and unassuming, indicating a respect for those around him. A true warrior if there ever was one. How do a pacifist and a ongoing combatant become friends? Under what circumstances did these two individuals with philosophical beliefs so starkly contrasting put aside their prejudices to break bread in amity? The mystery of Lor San Tekka has grown even more confusing and not for the first time Rey wishes she had the gall to ask him about the bygone days he keeps shut within the contours of his mind but she won't do it. Better one trustworthy friend who refuses to discuss the past than an former friend who has told her everything she wants to know. A villager shows up and rapidly tells Lor that he's needed in the healer's tent. He leaves immediately, the fact he doesn't warn Wedge that she's not to be touched further impulses her gut feeling to trust the Corellian. Well then, let's see if you share Lor's habit of secrecy.
"Are you part of the Resistance?"
"Why would you ask something like that?"
"When we first met I saw you mock the First Order in front of its stormtroopers. Only a rebel or resistance fighter would be brave or stupid enough to do so."
"Clever girl. You would have done well in the Rebellion."
"Not in the New Republic?"
"I'd sooner cut off my arm than send those blood-thirsty wampas an asset. However if you wanna join the Resistance, I'm sure they'd be happy to have you."
"So you aren't part of the Resistance?"
"I was a leader of the Rebellion but I'm not in the Resistance: my wife forbid me to join any group of freedom fighters unless another planet blew up."
"That's very dramatic of her."
"Iella already lost one husband to the fight against tyrrany and our eldest daughter Syal is on active duty as a starfighter pilot under Admiral Ackbar while our youngest is working on intelligence for CorSec. It'd be cruel to add more worries on her. Besides, I'm too bitter with the New Republic to defend it properly."
"But isn't the Republic good? The Rebellion fought to restore it because it was kind where the Empire was cruel. What made you so cynical towards the government your efforts made possible?"
"How old are you Rey? Twenty, twenty-one?"
"Nineteen standard years. Why?"
"That's a good age for dreamers. You've aged enough to act upon your ideals but not enough to grasp mortality. I remember the days before Yavin when we were all young, armored with the invincibility of youth and fired by the belief that Palpatine's evil Empire could not win. It didn't but the cost was more horrible than any of us could have imagined. Biggs died so they could put his childhood friend in chains."
Antilles seems unquestionably ancient when he says that name, olden grief disintegrating the rogueish smile he greeted her with. Rey's ashamed of the fact that she doesn't know who Biggs was for a nanosecond, then she reasons that it's impossible to keep track of every fallen soldier. But clearly he was important to Wedge, his loss must have been difficult to bear especially if he died in vain. Gone is the collected attitude that flirts heedlessly with death at every turn. In its place lies an war-weary man whose eyes are unfathomably sad to all appearances, selfsame to the angel's melancholy aura. Somewhat haggard and perhaps a tad gloomy but not wholly broken. Was it merciful of fate to kill his friend before he wore the same ragged expression? Or would he don a different, merrier look on his features had said friend's time been prolonged? So many perish during wartime, it's impossible to predict which unfinished life would have turned for the best. Maybe that's how Wedge and Lor's friendship began: bonding after the mutual loss of a loved one. Grief is a universal flag, blind to all distinctions. Stranger people have come together by it in Lor San Tekka's stories. Bo-Katan Kryze and Obi-Wan Kenobi had nothing in common except mourning Duchess Satine.
Ever so quietly she rips off a piece of her garments and ties the fabric around her hands; just in case he's insulted at her ugly, dry skin touching his clothes. Last time they hugged he'd been covered head to toe in a gawky orange jumpsuit that made her brain hurt for some mysterious reason she'd never uncovered. Also she was shorter, back then Rey only reached his chest so skin contact wasn't a possibility. Excepting Lor San Tekka, her most recent skin contact with a human was three years ago when she accidentally bumped into a Core-World highborn lady. The woman didn't help her pick up the radiator she'd dropped, she just wiped her grandiloquent dress and stared at Rey as if she was a carrier for the Festering plague.* When she hugs him, Wedge reacts far more nicely than that mean old Sculag. His eyes gaze inquisitively at the fabric loosely wound on her arms, when she explains he replies that the frilly aristocrat wouldn't last a day on Hoth and tells her she should never compare him and much less herself to someone so grossly inferior. Real princesses, he says will sleep in the mud next to their people and eat the same awful rations everyone else is forced to swallow until the whole army has access to real food. She places the Corellian in the good people category: right next to the kind witch lady she talked to as a little girl (In her experience witches are good, they bow and share water with you). He's freer with his words after that: he talks like the happy fathers in the fragmented holofilms she's found in wreckage. She'd like a father like him, strong and loyal and brave. By the time Lor San Tekka returns they've settled into a comfortable silence, the kind old friends enjoy. The old man jokingly thanks the force for little miracles upon seeing they haven't killed each other and hands him smuggled information (a loophole in his promise to Iella: she merely prohibited he lead men unto battle, she said nothing about providing aid from the shadows). Why does it feel like I've heard this before?
When he leaves part of Rey wants him to stay, wants General Antilles to be there when her family comes back. She has no doubt they'll find her again: her mother's or at least the woman she believes to be her mother's voice is an ever present echo through Rey's dreams almost every night, the clement vow uttered frantically as her cry fades into nothingness. The love transmitted in her brief farewell was far too pure to be fabricated. She tries to recall her mother's face, her hands, anything that reinforces the notion of a loving parent but it's been so long she can't remember what anyone in her family looked like, only the voice remains. Lor inquires why she stormed the wastelands at this ghastly hour. Her throat clams up as the unbidden cold sends shivers down her spine. The sight of him, dead in the ground yet no blood springing forth still frightens her to the bone. Her inner child is terrified that by confessing what she dreamed to him she'll extend its power and the dream will turn real. You died, you died and I couldn't save you. Somehow, he figures out what she saw and utters a tale of self-fulfilling prophecies. He speaks of a Jedi who dreamed his wife would die in childbirth, haunted by the nightmares of his love's death the Jedi sought a way to stop death. The Order's Grandmaster offered no remedy and since his marriage was secret the Jedi did not confide his fears to his old Master who was also the man's closest friend, despite the fact that each would have died happily for the other. During this time a Sith Lord offered him the power to save his wife from dying in exchange for allegiance to the Dark Side. To prove his loyalty the Jedi laid waste to the Ancient Temple, bathing its halls with his brethren's corpses at the Dark Lord's behest. As a result the Grandmaster sent the Master to kill his friend and former apprentice, heartbroken the Master told the Jedi's wife of the atrocities her husband had committed. She refused to believe him and flew to her beloved, not knowing the Master had stowed away on her ship. The gentle lady begged her spouse to abandon the dark side's venom and flee where none would find them but her pleas fell on deaf ears whence the Fallen Jedi saw his former Master. Enraged, the Sith Apprentice force-choked the very woman he had relinquished all morality to save and fought his friend in a duel for the ages. Unbeknownst to them the Sith Lord had planned every moment to perfection: the dreams, the Jedi purge and even the duel of fates. True to the dark lord's prediction his new apprentice lost to the more skillful Master who wept inwardly as Mustafar's flames engulfed the man he once knew. With everything he had foreseen now come to pass the Sith "rescued" his charred disciple from the ashen earth while said man's wife gave birth. Knowing any Jedi offspring would be a threat to the Sith Regime the Dark Lord sought to extinguish the child before it was born. In a gruesome ritual known only to those enslaved to the dark he performed a trade of life: a wife for a husband, without anyone being aware of it save the bringer of her demise. And so the Apprentice lived on, a hollow existence crippled in body and soul.
"Do you understand the lesson to be had in this story my child?"
"Never trust a dark sider unless you want to be completely kriffed?"
"No but that's a very good answer. What I'm trying to teach you is not to make foolhardy choices based on your fear of loss. Sometimes holding on to what we love too tight has the same effect as letting it fall."
"Sounds like a difficult balance to achieve."
"A Jedi would say that is only by finding balance within chaos and harmony that we become immortal in the Force."
"The stories you recite so meticulously: did they really happen? Is any of it true?"
"They are truth to children of the Rebellion, legend to members of the Senate and propaganda or myth to the First Order's acolytes."
"Would it kill you to be straightforward just once?"
"Where's the fun in that child?"
Rey playfully rolls her eyes at him and waits until sunrise to leave. No use putting herself in danger the same way twice. She falls asleep when the moon's on the top of the sky. The old man smiles gently at her once her inner clock bids she wake up at dawn. He waves goodbye at her as she heads out into the sea of dunes. Had the young scavenger known this would be the last time she saw Lor San Tekka she would have said more, would have kissed his forehead and told him how much he meant to her. But Lor San Tekka did not reveal the meaning of Rey's vision, he did not fear dying but the old man knew she might die if he confessed to her the depths of foresight and that possibility is one he could not bear. The scavenger waves back at the Force Listener, glad that her nightmare was only that. Later as Rey searches the remnants of an Imperial Star Destroyer her thoughts drift back to the angel and how similar his anguish was to General Antilles's. The former rebel's pain stemmed from the loss of a loved one, her "gift" tells her that he mourned Bigg's childhood friend deeply but it was a different sort of misery. As if Wedge believed this unnamed sentient to be nothing short of awe-worthy and prayed for his/her return. It seems like everyone who possesses an ounce of uprightness is destined to lose what they cherish. Who did the angel lose to cause such encompassing sorrow within him? A friend, a sister, a nephew? All those options seem to divulge everything and nothing simultaneously. If by some kindly stroke of luck the angel enters her life she hopes he'll be earnest in such matters. She shrugs the philosophical inquiries off her shoulder and gets back to work, hopefully the day will bring in a fruitful haul.
Elsewhere in a far corner of the galaxy the information provided by "Red Two" allows Commander Poe Dameron to chart a course towards Jakku.
Notes: *In the EU Ladalum were red blooming flowers native to Alderaan. The plant survived the destruction of its planet and held great significance to Alderaanians: many of them zealously cultivated the flowers.
*The Festering Plague was a fatal disease that could be transmitted through skin contact. One of the preventive measures for an outbreak was to wear gloves. Hands out tin cup: Comments please?