Six months earlier

The scent of something delicious tugged Rey from a troubled sleep. Her nose opened first, then her eyes. For a moment, she was caught off-guard, waking up in a strange bed, under sheets that were unusually silky smooth against her bare legs. These wouldn't be sheets she could afford to buy. Then, she remembered she was at some safe house, occupied by a most eclectic motley crew who were apparently in cahoots to take down one of the biggest corporations on the planet.

Right. Because they were all going to take down Skywalker Enterprises. Or something like that.

Rey tore the blanket away and pulled on her trousers and tank top, eschewing shoes, button-up, and the stupid apron that still smelled faintly of fried food from work. She let her hair hang, untethered and wild, not caring to have to look presentable. She thumped down the stairs, the smells and chatter growing stronger.

"Ah, there she is," Leia said when Rey appeared in the kitchen. "Feeling better?"

"A bit, yeah," Rey said. The wound of being outed in public and losing her few friends would be fresh for some time, but she was quite intrigued with the new proposition that was awaiting.

"Maz has whipped us up a feast," Luke declared. "Grab a plate and help yourself."

Rey snagged a ceramic plate and hovered around the kitchen bar where everyone was eagerly serving themselves from the plethora of dishes that Maz created. There was a spicy-looking curry, a heaping bowl of quinoa studded in bits of chopped vegetables and nuts, a plate of spinach-and-feta stuffed puff pastries, baba ghanoush with a fan of crispy pita triangles, and a few other dishes that Rey didn't recognize, but piled them on her plate all the same.

"Thank you for dinner," Rey said as she took a seat at the dinner table. "This looks delicious."

"Unlike her cookies, this is all homemade," Luke teased before popping an oily dolma in his mouth.

The next few minutes, the six of them sat quietly eating their meals, with only a few punctuations of joyous and random giggling from BB. Chuy ate with purposeful and surprising manners, even going so far as laying a napkin over his lap and tucking one in his shirt.

Rey absentmindedly smooshed some quinoa with her fork. "So… when will someone tell me what's going on?"

Leia and Luke exchanged secret looks that indicated they were speaking wordlessly, in that creepy twin way. Finally, Leia spoke. "What would you like to know, Rey?"

Rey gestured with her utensil at the group gathered around the table. "Well, this, for first. Who are you people?"

"We're Hoth," Luke said. "Pretty much."

"You're telling me that one of the most notorious environmental lobbyist groups and pioneers in alternative energies is run by..?" Rey didn't want to say anything else inadvertently insulting, so she stopped.

"Oh, dear, well we can't do it alone, if that's what you're implying," Leia remarked. She thoughtfully chewed on a pita and shared a chuckle with the others sitting at the table. "But yes, it's basically the five of us." She shrugged. "More or less."

"More or less," Luke echoed.

"We can give you the Cliff Notes version, but just enough to educate you so you can make an informed decision whether or not you want to join our cause," Maz explained. "We're not about to divulge all of our secrets. That would be dangerous for us—" she pointed sternly "—and for you. We must build our trust together before we tell you more. And it would do you no good in case you get compromised."

Rey's head began to swim. "I'm not sure I follow." Tools? Compromise? Was she being recruited to be an assassin or something?

"You might need a bit of a history lesson, then," Luke said. "Care for some wine?" He nodded toward the empty glass at Rey's placemat.

"Ah, sure, okay," she answered. Just as she reached for the glass, it shot away, grazing her fingertips as it skimmed through the air. Luke effortlessly caught the glass, poured some wine in it, and handed it back to Rey. He also plunked the wine bottle next to her plate.

"Rey, would you mind pouring me some wine?" he asked.

She automatically rose and reached for his glass, but he swatted her hand away.

"No," he said, firmly. "Like I did."

"I'm not—" Rey glanced around the table; everyone was watching. "I'm not sure if I can," she said, quietly.

"Sure you can." Luke steepled his fingers under his chin and leaned his elbows on the table, appearing almost to be rather bored. "Do like what you did in the restaurant. Tap into that."

Rey frowned deeply. She readjusted herself in her seat and leaned into the table, staring intently at Luke's empty wine glass. She concentrated hard, narrowing her eyes at the glass and trying to will it toward her. Nothing.

"How did you feel going into work that day?" Luke prodded. "A day where everyone celebrates their parents, if they have them. The irritation you felt at that table you were serving and the unruly kid about to knock your barista friend down?"

The glass wiggled, just a bit.

"She could have slipped and broke her arm, most likely," Luke mused. "Yes, and probably would have been burned pretty bad. Would you have liked that? Kid's parents probably would have blamed you guys for the incident, yeah, people like that are the kind that go to that restaurant. Bunch of high maintenance, condescending people that don't care much for anyone but themselves. People like you? You're expendable to them. You're just a server."

The glass jumped, then tipped on its side.

"They don't know what it's like to suffer—"

The glass vibrated with her emotions.

"—to know profound loss—"

It bounced up in the air, hovering above the table. Chuy made a concerned noise as it somersaulted in place.

"—to endure, once again, the complete and total abandonment by everyone you've ever known and loved."

The glass torpedoed toward Rey. It whizzed past her head with an incredible speed, completely bypassing her outstretched hand, and smashed into the wall. Bits of tempered glass burst into a cloud and rained onto the carpet.

Rey didn't even know she was crying until a hot stream dripped down her cheek. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." She didn't really know what to do with herself since she had nowhere to which she could retreat, so she just sat there, staring at her hands in her lap while tears leaked onto the fine linen napkin laid across her thighs.

Maz leaned to the side and gave a gentle pat on Rey's shoulder. "Don't worry yourself about it," she said, cheerfully. "It's just a glass. I can always get a new one." She smiled to herself, as if she was sharing a special secret. "Ah, but talent like this? Like you? That's rare. You can't just get that off the shelf!"

"What's wrong with me?" Rey asked, angrily wiping the tears away with her napkin.

"There's nothing wrong with you," Leia chided in a gentle voice. "What's wrong is that our kind have been forced to the brink of extinction."

"Our kind? What do you mean?"

"My history lesson!" Luke said, eagerly clapping his hands together. "Tell me, Rey, what do you know about the Jedi?"

Rey's mouth twitched at the corner. "Not much," she confessed, apologetic. "Only that it's a derogatory term of sorts."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?"

"I don't know.. it was something I was taught, I guess. From school? Other people? The world in general?" Rey racked her brain to remember if she ever learned what was the true meaning behind the hostility toward someone called a Jedi but couldn't pinpoint. "I just assumed it was synonymous with calling someone a 'freak' or 'outsider.' I dunno, wasn't a Jedi a type of mythological human?" Now she was getting even more confused. Why would that be such a bad thing?

"Was that mythological?" Maz said. "The whole part where you snatched one of my wine glasses out of the air and sent it across the room without touching it?"

Rey fiddled with her napkin, rolling and unrolling it nervously, as if she had done something wrong. "No…"

"You know what a jinni is?" Luke asked.

"Yeah, it's a genie, right?"

"Correct. Genie is the French word; al-jinn is Arabic. It's a word of otherwise ambiguous origin but could mean anything to describe an action of hiding or concealing, or even a being concealed from the senses.

"Historically, in ancient times in Arabia, jinn were not the immortal and magical beings that movies and TV have shown us, but they were still special beings nevertheless. They were spirits, or lesser angels, or other types of supernatural beings. In some cases, they acted as muses for humans, inspiring their arts but other times, they could also be responsible for darkness and disease."

Rey scrunched her nose and resisted the urge to laugh. This day was getting stranger and stranger. "You're saying I'm a genie? Do I have to go live in a magic lamp now?"

Luke dropped his head in his palms. "No, Rey, you're not going to have to live in a lamp."

Rey gulped down half of her wine. "I have had one of the craziest days of my life. I can't go back to my job, I can't go back home. As much as I appreciate some academics, right now, all I'm worried about is how you two have read my mind and how I'm able to go full Matilda on a wine glass."

"Forgive my brother, who likens himself to a professor," Leia said. "What Luke was getting at is that you, me, him, anyone who has this talent, we're connected. We're human, of course, but we all share some common ancestors. Those of us with these abilities – we all go back to these jinn." She looked to Luke for confirmation. "That's what we think, anyway."

Luke nodded. "The jinn were recognized for their tremendous gifts. A sort of religion grew in honor of them; we're not certain if it were the jinn that founded it or if people around them cultivated it. Either way, as their following grew and their powers became more widespread and known, the jinn referred to themselves as Jedi. The part of the world where the first ancient Jedi temples were found are in Jeddah, near the Red Sea. But, their influences grew far beyond those borders, thousands of years ago."

"And what does this all have to do with Hoth? Why does Hoth care about what sounds like reviving an ancient religion?" Rey inquired.

"It's not necessarily about the religion," Maz said. "It's about the people."

Luke nodded and had a slurp of curry before continuing. "Skywalker Enterprises has been responsible for acts of mass genocide, illegal weapons trades, environmental scourging, and just about pretty much any other sin against humanity and the planet that you can think of."

Rey's head swam. "But this –this is your family's company, isn't it?"

Leia nodded. "Skywalker Enterprises wasn't always like this and I admit, it took a while before Luke and I realized what was happening as we grew older. It wasn't easy to leave. But we managed it – we recruited some of Skywalker Enterprises' talents who were sympathetic to our cause and they helped us build Hoth."

"So what does the company want with Jedi?"

Another twin exchange glanced between Luke and Leia.

"Nothing, maybe," Luke said, casually. "But many of their crimes are committed in places that are historic to the Jedi religion and have contributed heavily to the decimation of our kind. Those mountain villages and hot desert towns with funny names that pass by on the ticker scroller on cable news – you know those, yes?" Luke began ticking off on his fingers. "Journalists killed. Chemical attacks killing school children. Suicide bombings in Ashdod, Chabahar, Tehren. Yemen's humanitarian catastrophe growing. And how many times do we hear about dozens of people dying from bombings, cars driving into markets, thousands of refugees fleeing their homes, just little snippets of horrific news from half a world away that scroll by almost inconsequentially at the bottom of the TV screen while the newscasters are babbling on about the latest presidential or celebrity gossip?"

Rey exhaled a heavy sigh and finished the rest of her wine. She pondered for a good few moments. "There's something there that Skywalker Enterprises wants," she declared. "Besides oil."

Luke shrugged, noncommittedly. "Maybe yes, maybe no. But what businesses Skywalker Enterprises has conducted across the globe has created such a negative force upon the planet and humanity, we can't in good faith permit that to continue. Our names are attached to that company, too."

"Where do I fit in this?" Rey asked, gesturing to the seated company. "Other than my recently-discovered prowess to preventing second-degree coffee burns, why me?"

"You're like us," Leia responded. "We're almost done for. We cannot let our people die."

"Besides," Luke interrupted. "Besides being talented in these gifts, you're young, you're attractive, and you're smart." He stood up and tossed a copy of The Economist magazine next to Rey's plate. The cover featured a cartoonish depiction of Ben Solo gobbling up the Middle East. "We need you to help bring the prodigal back to the fold before it's too late."