Author's Update: Just a quick update nothing special. For everyone in the U.S hope you had a nice holiday. For all my readers outside the States hope you have an awesome weekend! Happy reading.
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. Never have, never will. I simply play in their world.
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"Touch me in nameless places of the soul.
Make paths in the wild of my heart.
Mark your name in the forest of my thoughts."
-R. Queen
Rey
"Excuse me, please I need to get through!"
I delve headlong into the crowd searching for my friends. The crush of bodies, the sun's heat beating down on me and perspiration quickly soaks my hair and plasters my clothing to my skin.
I wore this against the humidity of Ajan Kloss, not the arid heat of Pasaana and though lightweight it does nothing to compensate for the furnace of a desert planet.
"Poe! Finn! Chewie!"
Nothing. No answering calls, no roaring Wookie...not even the drone of Threepio. My search for the vision of my son had taken me too far away from them.
The sting of sweat in my eyes and I cannot hold back the thoughts of the visions I have seen.
Two futures.
In one I join Ren, become the Empress he wants me to be...and all hope for the galaxy crumbles into ruins.
In the second...my breath catching and I stop despite the near-panic I'm in, Ben and I are married...and we have a child.
A son who has the making's of a Jedi.
Two different paths laid at my feet...with Kylo Ren or Ben Solo waiting for me at the end.
I might have laughed if I had the breath for it.
Kylo Ren or Ben Solo.
They are both the same person...just different sides of him.
The conversation I had with Ren...the blades of words we used against each other. I reminded him that he killed his father and he taunted me with the fact that I don't remember my past or my parents.
That was Kylo Ren.
I touch fingers to my lips though I don't remember raising my hand...
"You were happy...why did you leave me?"
Sorrowful words with an echo of grief to trap my heart...that was Ben Solo.
He is both my destruction and my salvation.
A reveler bumps into me, bowing and speaking words of apology just as a Stormtrooper walks by, white armor and black blaster flashing in sun snapping me back into the present and away from my recalcitrant thoughts.
I twist behind a group of dancers, my heart pounding and my throat so dry I can't swallow.
The trooper doesn't see me and I let out a shaky breath.
That had been too close. I had to find the others and get out of here before I was discovered.
I take off at a dead run and push all thoughts of Ben and our son away from my mind.
That vision was just that...a vision.
It wasn't real.
Where I am now, this is real.
I'm being hunted by Kylo Ren and I cannot dwell on the what-might-have-been.
No matter how much I...
"Finn! Poe! Chewie!"
"Mistress Rey!"
Finally.
"Threepio!" Spotting the golden droid was easier than I expected with all of these people around us and I weave through the crowd to get to his side.
"We have to go. We need to get back to the...others..."
I'm staring at the my wrist.
That has the communicator on it.
I'm such an idiot!
My encounter with Ren has shaken me more than I want to admit.
"Poe! Finn! Answer me!"
"Rey...what the hell..."
I let out a sigh of relief so painful that I grab onto Threepio for support. That was Poe.
"Rey! What's wrong?"
That was Finn.
They haven't been caught.
Ren doesn't know where I'm at just yet. Otherwise he would have his troopers surrounding us by now.
"Where are you? I need to find you."
"Uhh...in a big desert full of people I don't understand...wait I see Poe...Poe!"
"Coordinates One Three point Five by Six Eight point Two."
Trust Poe to keep his head and know his location.
I do the quick calculation and realize I'm not far from them.
"Stay there I'm almost to you."
I grab Threepio, cutting him off to whatever he was talking about to one of the locals.
"Time to go Threepio!"
"But Mistress Rey I haven't finished explaining about-heavens!"
I drag him through the desert, his complaints a buzzing in the background as I search for familiar faces.
There...over by an Aki-Aki selling trinkets and oddities to visitors.
"Rey!"
Finn waving his hands to grab my attention and I sprint across the distance to where my friends are waiting for me.
"Stop that!" I hiss at him, jerking his arms down, "do you want the Stormtroopers to see you?"
"Troopers? Where?"
"I just passed a scout a few minutes ago."
"Yeah, we've seen them." Poe is giving me a gimlet eye, "What's wrong?"
"We need to find Chewie and get out of here!"
"You've found the Hermit? Great! Because I'm baking out here. I hate desert planets."
I make a frustrated noise at Poe's unwanted jokes.
Now was not the time for him to be a smart-ass.
"No I haven't found the Hermit but we need to get back to the Falcon and get off this planet."
"Whoa...whoa, back up a minute. The whole point of this mission is to find the Hermit and get the wayfinder and you're telling us we have to abandon the mission. Why?"
"Ren knows we're here."
Both men stare at me as I just come out and say it. There is no time for subterfuge.
"Rey...are you serious?" Finn, his hand on my shoulder, "how? We've been careful in avoiding the scouts."
"I just know," I don't have time to get into a long explanation of how Ren and I are communicating, "so you're going to have to trust me."
Before he finds me.
Finn trusts me and I know Poe wants to but he's struggling with all of my evasions. Poe is many things but subtle isn't one of them.
Too late.
My senses screaming and I push Finn out of the way as blaster fire chars the air where he had been standing.
The shot goes wild and a stall blows up, black smoke clouding the clear sky.
People screaming and the stampede of feet as children are snatched up in arms.
"Sir! I've spotted the-"
I turn in time to see a silver bolt pierce through the helmet of the trooper, cutting off whatever he was about to say.
The trooper drops to the ground, kicking up the sand in a cloud of dust.
Poe and Finn make retching noises from the sudden dust and I spot the person who shot the bolt.
The helmet he wears conceals his identity, the crossbow still cocked and aimed at me. In his other hand is a long, lacquered walking stick with strange markings.
He shot the trooper, saving our lives and prolonging our discovery but I have to wonder if I didn't exchange one enemy for another.
We stare at each other, the body of the trooper between us and I grip my staff.
I'm ready to take him on when he abruptly lowers his weapon.
"Come with me. It's not safe out here."
The mask distorts his voice and though he sounds male, I can't be certain.
I don't sense any ill-intentions from him but that means nothing.
I trusted Kylo Ren and look where that led me.
"You heard the...man? Let's go."
Finn moving towards him and I grab his wrist. "Wait, how do we know we can trust him?"
"Seriously Rey? He just saved our lives!"
"She's right. He could be a spy for the First Order." Poe on his other side, "This could be a trap."
"If I wanted you dead," the stranger pokes his stick at the dead trooper, "I would have let this one shoot you. I'll answer your questions after we leave."
He moves towards us and I feel Poe tensing but this person passes up by, his heavy robe kicking up more sand.
"I'm not waiting. Follow me or not. It's your choice but someone's going to find that trooper sooner or later."
Poe and I exchange glances.
A short nod of his head and we take off after our savior. He leads us to the largest land vehicle I've ever seen.
It looks like one giant, rolling tread but I note the opening on the side and have to assume that it can take on passengers.
"What the hell is this thing?"
The stranger hits the key pad on the outside and it releases the hatch to the door.
"It's called a treadable and it's my place of business. Get in."
Poe scratches his head and reluctantly I follow the masked stranger into his 'business'.
"Chewie!"
The Wookie was already inside and I'm pulled into his embrace, his growls vibrating my bones by his enthusiastic hug.
"Yes, I'm happy to see you too!"
He releases me to hug Poe and Finn who are also happy to see him and just as puzzled how he got here before us.
"Okay, reunion over." Poe levels the stranger with a jaundice eye, "Now I want some answers."
"Such as?"
"For starters who the hell are you?"
A chuckle that is slightly creepy from the distortion the helmet creates. "Folks around here call me the 'Hermit'."
I blink as my mouth falls open.
"Seriously! We've been looking for you everywhere!"
Finn cutting in over Poe's sputtering at the answer to his question.
"Yes, I know."
"How did you find us?"
The strange laughs again and pulls off his helmet, revealing a face that has Chewie roaring and nearly knocking me over to get to man standing in front of me.
"Wookies don't exactly blend in."
"G-General Calrissian!"
I look at Poe who seems to have had the wind knocked out of him as he stares at the much older male.
His skin isn't as dark as Finn's , his hair holding more gray than black and though his mouth is smiling broadly at Chewie I sense from him a deep, abiding grief that makes my breath catch.
He turns at that moment to look directly at me.
"You must be Rey."
Hearing him say my name leaves me slightly off balanced.
"I-I am. How do you know that?"
He moves towards me, again flashing that charming smile that is at odds with hollow light in his gaze.
"Leia gave me a description of you. Said you were heading my way."
Poe is cussing with enough creativity to make even me blush and I grew up on Jakku.
"Are you telling me that General Organa knew you were here the entire time?"
"Communications are monitored constantly. I couldn't take the chance of someone in the First Order learning that I was alive. I asked Leia to keep my whereabouts a secret."
"Why?" Poe regaining his composure, arms folded across his chest, "The Resistance needs good men like you."
"Good men like me?" He echos the words and his grief is a wave crashing into my soul, "I'm a broken man Dameron." Poe opens his mouth and Lando cuts him off, no longer smiling.
"The First Order when they came into power began hunting down all the leaders from the Old Rebellion. Myself, Mon and several others. They took everything from us. From me. I had a wife and she died for a war that hadn't even begun, they took my little girl...and I have no idea if she is alive or dead."
Such grief in him that I have to clear my mind so I don't drown in his emotions.
"General, Mr. Calarissian Sir. I'm sorry about your loss. But everybody has lost someone to this war and we're here to stop that."
Poe and I turn to Finn and he's staring at Lando with sympathetic anger.
He looks at us, daring us to contradict him. Poe runs a hand through his hair.
"General, we're here on a mission. The First Order has found Exegol and in less than twenty-four hours the galaxy as we know it will be gone."
Lando lets out a heavy sigh and pulls a silver disk from his cloak.
"Somehow I knew this day would happen." He presses the device and a holo-image of a three-sided pyramid appears in his palm.
"You're here following Luke's trail."
"What is that?"
"The wayfinder."
All three men look at me as I murmur the word. This is not the first time I've seen that image of the Sith wayfinder.
"Rey?"
I can hear the concern in Finn's voice and I shake off the memory of Ren holding Vader's wayfinder in the burning forest of Mustafar.
"Luke gave a description of what it would look like," I tell them with a slight smile, "and since the General was with him, what else could it be?"
"Riight." Poe gives me a hard look and turns back to the image in Lando's hand.
"So this is what we're looking for. Any chance you found it and can just hand it over to us?"
"Sorry, Luke and I never found it. In fact we were looking for a relic hunter named Ochi of Bestoon who led us here."
He hits another button and the wayfinder disappears and reforms into an image of a male alien.
Hairless and eyes sunken in, he has no nose and no lips to speak off and as soon as I look at him darkness shadows my vision and ice forms around my heart.
A whisper in the back of my mind...distant screams...something about a ship in the sky...
"You feeling alright?"
Finn touching my wrist and the almost-memory shatters.
I snap my eyes open and take a shallow breath.
"I'm fine."
I give Finn a fleeting smile and shrug off his hand. I wasn't fine, I feel like I'm losing my mind.
First that vision of the child...then Ren...and now this.
What was happening to me?
"Whose the alien lowlife?"
Poe still questioning Lando and I must have closed my eyes for only a few seconds.
"Ochi. A Sith relic hunter who led Luke and myself on a merry chase through the galaxy. He was the only person we could find who might know anything about the wayfinders. Luke tracked him here to Pasaana...but I'm sorry to say that we never found him."
"Nothing?"
Lando shrugs and turns off the holo projector. "Only his ship, but it was empty of him and anything that would tell us where to go next. Luke left shortly after that but I chose to stay here."
"His ship..."
Lando speaking to Poe and Finn but my thoughts have turned inward, following a thread of a distant memory.
Again a blurred image in my mind of a ship leaving me stranded on Jakku...
"General is that ship still here?"
Lando gives me a sharp look but nods his head.
"Yeah, it's still around. Located just outside Lurch Canyon."
"We need to go there. Now."
"Now wait a minute," I look at Poe, "I thought you said we needed to get out of here? First Order and Kylo Ren and all that?"
A caress of darkness across my soul, gentle yet consuming. An intimacy that is only for the two of us.
Ren.
"Too late," I whisper as the scream of TIE figthters shatter the air, "he's already found us."
Finn looks out a circular window, the whites of his eyes showing.
"We have company!"
"Time for you to be going," Lando gets to his feet, "I'll draw their attention away so you can get to Ochi's ship."
"Thanks General," Poe reaching out to grip his hand, "It's been an honor. Finn! Rey! Time to get the hell out of here!"
"An honor General, hope to see you again!"
Finn and Poe slam the door open and jump out of the treadable. I pause and look at Lando. He and Chewie share one last hug.
"Take care of yourself old buddy, you hear me?"
A soft growl and Chewie is out the door as well.
It's just Lando and me now.
"You could come with us. Leia needs people like you right now."
"No," he shakes his head at me and I hear the resignation, "too old and too full of memories that weigh me down. Leia needs hope, not grief. I've nothing left to offer her."
"What more could she ask for than yourself?" He looks at me, a strange light in his dark eyes and I give him a slight smile, "You're a good man General. People will follow you if you give them a reason."
"My days of war are over. But do this old man a favor will you?"
I pause and wait for him to continue.
"Tell Leia that I love her...and I'm sorry."
"No. If you want to give Leia a message you should do it in person."
"Rey! Come on! It's time to go!"
"Good-bye General and remember...it's never too late for a good person to do the right thing. May the Force be with you."
I jump out of the treadable and race towards my friends, I have no more time to dwell on Lando Calrissian.
He thinks he is broken but I sense in him a strength that hasn't been used up just yet.
I just hope he finds it in time.
I watch as Poe hot wires two skimmers within seconds and I am more than impressed with his skill.
I couldn't have done better if I tried.
"How the hell did you do that?" Finn demands as he gets into the first one, along with Threepio.
"No time! Rey grab the second one with Chewie!"
Chewie and BB-8 are already waiting for me as I shift her into gear just as the TIE fighters come screaming over the mountains.
"Time to go!"
The skimmers take off and I hear the yells of the locals as they realize we just stole their transports.
"Sorry! We're just borrowing them!"
I don't think they believe me as they shake their fists as us.
"Falcon's that way!"
Finn screaming at Poe over the wind as we race side by side.
"First Order will have her surrounded. Have to make for Ochi's ship and hope like hell we find something!"
The roar of engines behind us and I turn to see that we've picked up pursuers.
Stormtroopers on landspeeders that are designed on the smaller scale of a treadable.
"Poe!"
I pull out my pistol as Chew loads his bowcaster, ready for the fight that's about to come.
"I know, I see them! This way!"
He banks a heavy left and I turn to follow but the speeders are quicker than our skiffs and quickly catch up to us.
A strange noise, like the crack of thunder and I look up automatically and see a Trooper in the air.
That was new. I don't remember them being able to do that before.
"Chewie!"
I point upward and Chewie is already taking aim, the strength of his bowcaster sending the flying Stormtrooper into a canyon wall.
Flame and wreckage are all that remain behind.
"Yes! Nice shot...damn it!"
The canyon splits and we're parted from Poe and Finn as another Trooper catches up to us.
The hot stink of ozone as he lets out a blast, trying to disable our skiff.
My hand on the rudder as I turn to shoot at him from behind. My shot goes wild as I narrowly miss the outcropping of rocks in the middle of the path.
BB-8 whistles at me.
"I know! Sorry, hold on!"
Again I slam the rudder, shifting us a hard right as we make a sudden turn. The canyon walls fall away as we race across open desert once more.
Poe and Finn are a few feet ahead of us and I don't see signs of pursuit on them.
It's just the one following us now.
"Chewie can you do something...about..."
My eyes shift to the distance where a lone ship stands on a bluff that overlooks the desert.
"Rey! Rey!"
A woman screaming my name...cruel laughter as I am dragged into the burning sun...skin blistering as I look upward and see a gray ship in the sky leaving me behind...
Not a vision...a memory from my childhood.
"I know you..."
My eyes lock with the ship and I'm not paying attention to the fact that we're still being pursued.
"REY! LOOK OUT!"
Finn screaming at me and the skiff explodes just as Chew lets off a blast sending our pursuer into a pile of burning metal.
But it's too late for us and the breath slams out of my lungs as I crash into the desert. The rubble that was our skiff hits the one Poe and Finn are on and it goes up in flames as they land only feet from where I now lie.
Black sand all around me and I turn as my friends are quickly engulfed in the same, liquid sand.
I can't seem to get a purchase and BB-8 lets out a sharp whistle as he spins endlessly but goes nowhere.
He's sinking...and I know what we're on.
I've seen the sinking sands of Jakku.
"Stop thrashing around!" I being pulled under and I have to force myself to stop moving, "We're in sinking sands! Grab onto something! Anything!"
But there's nothing to grab. Just a endless sea of black sand.
"Chewie!"
Poe screaming and I turn to see the Wookie disappear, his howling voice reverberating in the air just as his head disappears.
Poe is flailing and I try to reach for him.
"Poe!"
All of that movement is just making him go under faster.
"Rey...can't...hel-"
He disappears beneath the sands just as BB-8 gives a frantic whistle.
The little droid follow directly after Poe.
"Oh my! Oh my! Master Fi-"
"Threepio!"
I turn barely in time to see Threepio slip from Finn's grasp.
It's just the two of us now and even my Force power is useless. I can't grab onto anything to give me leverage.
"Rey!"
"Finn!"
We're both sinking fast and Finn is frantically trying to get to me.
I can see the whites of his eyes, feel his terror like the sting of insects beneath my skin.
His hand reaching for mine.
"Rey...never told you...I-" Frantic words before the sand swallows him whole.
"Finn!"
There is only the desert wind and myself and the black sands pull at my body.
All of my friends...gone...
A single memory flashes through my mind as I sink faster, the black sand to my shoulders now.
Dark, raven eyes that are haunted by shadows of chilling loneliness...the heat of his mouth against mine...the fleeting caress of his fingers on my skin...
The sands are to my neck and it is only a matter of seconds before I join the others...and I reach out across the void to the man who still holds the pieces of my heart.
Ben! I'm sorry I should have sa-
The sands over my lips as I take in one last, gulping breath before my world goes black.
REY!
His anguished cry is the last thing I hear before I tumble into oblivion...
