Rey swung the lightsaber again and again, its green blade flickering as it slashed through thick hollow spikes, shattering the strange formations to ash. She could taste the gritty dust on her tongue. She had to kick through the base of the spikes, which made moving forward extremely slow.

Kylo Ren followed silently. He had taken his turn already, and was saving his strength for when her arms tired.

"What are these things?" she grumbled, smashing her way through an especially thick clump of the strange, hollow, shafts. She coughed on the cloud of ash produced. For the first time, she envied him his mask.

"We call them sphix. They are formed over years as gases heat and escape from the core."

Rey paused to glance back over her shoulder at him. It was the first time he had said more than one or two words to her since leaving the citadel.

"I suppose this is part of my training?" she sighed, swinging the blade again.

"Everything you will encounter between here and the Vulgas Pass is part of your training, yes," he confirmed.

"And when we reach the pass?" she wondered.

"You will speak the Chaata, a Force-seer."

"Force-seer? And what will I say?"

"Nothing. She will tell you your death."

Rey swung again and huffed in frustration.

"Well, that sounds pleasant! I suppose I'll be cutting through these the entire way."

"No, but you will face other obstacles."

"Of course," she growled, and paused again to wipe the sweat from her brow.

Kylo Ren pushed past her, ignited his blade, and began clearing the path. It was apparently Rey's turn to rest. She followed in his footsteps, holding her cloak over her mouth so as to breathe in less of the flying ash.

"Why should anyone want to know how they will die?" she asked, truly curious.

"So that they might accept it—"

"But why should they accept it? If someone tells me that I'll die by choking on an opfruit, I suppose I would avoid eating opfruit."

"It is often in seeking to avoid one's fate that one will find it," he answered.

With one swing of his light saber, he brought down more of the spines than Rey had with five. She frowned at his back as she took a few more steps forward.

"I thought training would mean sparring, meditating—those sort of things."

"You've already had that sort of training," he answered. "I also trained beneath that useless relic, Luke Skywalker."

"And this is better? Cutting our way through ash sticks in the dark, on our way to see a fortune-teller?" she demanded. His barb toward Master Luke stung her. When he didn't answer, she sighed and rubbed at her sore shoulders. "Is there truly never any daytime on this planet?"

"Baudere began as a rogue planet, drifting frozen through the darkness of deep space. There has never been a daytime, and nothing has ever grown on this planet. Be still a moment, and tell me what you feel, scavenger," he stopped in his tracks, his crossguard saber still blazing red in his hand.

Rey closed her eyes and listened. There was no wind, no noise, nothing but the sound of her own breathing and the hum of his lightsaber. The feeling unnerved her—there was something missing, some vital thing.

"The Force!" she realized, her eyes snapping open in horror, "I can't feel it!"

"You feel peace," he corrected. "The Force is there, it's always there, but the Force is an energy created by living things. On this dead planet, even the most powerful Force-users struggle to wield it."

"It isn't peace," she argued, "it's loss—like a part of me is missing."

"You will learn to feel it even here," he muttered.

She let him go on for some time, his blade slashing from left to right while his heavy boots stomped the spines to dust, but the silence now felt threatening to her. She would rather hear anything, even the monster's voice, than to be left in silence to focus on the loss of the Force.

"I suppose you've done this before—this training. You've already gone to see the Chaata. How do you die?"

"It isn't a secret one shares," he answered shortly.

"And I suppose you've accepted it, however it is that your end will come?" she prodded.

He did not answer, but it seemed to her that his next swing was particularly violent.

"I still think it a useless sort of training—to know when you will die, so that you can accept it. I'd rather not know."

"It's a price to be paid for the knowledge you gain."

"I don't understand."

"Once the Chaata tells you your death, you may ask her one further question."

"What sort of question?"

"Whatever it is you most want to know. The Chaata sees all that has ever been, and most of what will be."

Rey's thoughts flew at once to her parents, to the vision she'd had of their ship flying into the sky as Unkar Plutt yanked her away by her tiny wrist. To know at last what had become of them, why they had never returned… but guilt came with that longing. If she had one question, it should be to discover what the meaning of Dark Moon was. After all, the girl on Ka'vec had likely escaped, and she was the only lead they'd managed to turn up. Master Luke would say that the lives of many hung on that knowledge, it would be selfish of her to use her one question on her own curiousity.

"You've gone quiet. I see the idea appeals to you," Kylo Ren murmured.

"No," she lied. "I've had my fortune told before—back on Jakku. There was a Crolute named Vardoy Bahl who came through Niima Outpost sometimes and told fortunes for rations. Ask one question for one quarter ration, that was his rate," she smirked at the memory.

"And what question did you ask of him?" Kylo asked, his interest uncharacteristic.

"I don't remember," she lied again.

He turned to face her, and Rey suddenly felt her scalp prickle and her forehead throb painfully. In her memories Vardoy Bahl, leaned across the makeshift table and stared directly into her eyes.

"Never! They're never coming back and you already know as much," he growled before snatching the quarter-ration fee from her.

"I see," Kylo Ren said, and she knew, of course, that he did see, and that on Baudere, he could use the Force to enter her mind and she was powerless to stop him.

"How dare you," she cried.

The monster froze and held a warning hand out to silence her.

"Be still, we've reached the Resurrection Fields."

Rey looked and found that she could see a little ways ahead. The spiny projections came to an end, and before them seemed to be a flat and level stretch. When she squinted her eyes, she could see a faint bluish sort of haze that glowed faintly as it streamed upwards from the ground in narrow columns.

"The Resurrection Fields?" she repeated.

"It's a trick," he began. "It's important that you understand what you see here isn't real. They're merely memories taken from your own head, though they might trap you here if you let them."

"Speak plainer, what do you mean by memories?"

"They will appear as ghosts. They will speak to you, beg you to stay, do their best to hinder you, but you must remember that they are not real, and if you linger on the fields too long, the toxic gases will kill you. I advise you to run."

Rey almost asked another question, but Kylo had already broken through the last spray of the spikes and was moving quickly across the open ground. Rey did indeed have to run to match the stride set by his much longer legs.

"Ghosts?" she called to him. "Your training strategy grows stranger by the hour."

They were among the columns of luminous gas which she could now see rose from many small but ubiquitous geysers which peppered the field. The glow which emanated from them had seemed blue at a distance, but now changed colors before her eyes, burning red, and orange, and golden as she watched.

Entranced, Rey jogged toward one, only to be jerked back by the monster at her side.

"Avoid those," he warned.

Rey nodded, and glanced down at her wrist, surprised to see that he was still clutching it.

She had little time to consider why as the nearest column began to change shape and burn brighter, emitting sparks even, and then from the steam, stepped Han Solo.

Rey gasped, and almost stopped, but Kylo continued to pull her wrist.

"Ben!" Han cried, "BEN!"

"Not real," Rey reminded herself, but it was difficult to believe her own words, when Han approached them, his clothes still displaying the blood-stained mark where the monster's blade had pierced him.

"Ben, please stop. Please listen to me. Your mother wants you to come home, son," Han pleaded.

Kylo Ren did not react. He continued to drag her forward.

"I forgive you, son. Your mother forgives you, just come with me…"

Rey glanced up at him and wondered what expression the face beneath the mask wore. Did it bother him, or did he take grim satisfaction in the reminder of what he'd done to his father? She shuddered remembering the moment the light saber sliced through him, the scream that had come from her mouth unbidden. She had so admired Han, treasured the faint praise he had offered her.

The apparition turned to look at her as though she had spoken.

"Rey, you can't go with him. He'll kill you too. We can escape this sinkhole of a planet together," Han said, extending his hand to her.

She almost reached for it, but at that moment, Kylo whirled and sliced the extended hand of Han Solo off at the wrist. Rey screamed as Han's body dissolved into clouds of hot, green gas.

"Faster!" the monster demanded, breaking into a jog.

Rey ran at his side, but there were more steaming, flickering figures approaching, with faces she didn't recognize. An old man in a dingy robe, shook his head.

"You cannot deny the truth that is your family!" he called as they raced past him.

Groups of people huddled together, screaming and covering their faces in terror—the ragged clothing they wore was strangely familiar to Rey.

There were other figures following them, a Twi'lek with her neck twisted at a freakish angle, a Stormtrooper, and countless others.

Rey's throat burned, and her legs felt strangely heavy. It was growing hard for her to breathe. Oddly enough, she could remember feeling the same way inside the Ka'vec brothel. The air even had the same sickly sweet smell.

"Faster!" he demanded, and it seemed to her that all of the feeling had left her body except the point where his gloved hand gripped her wrist. It burned. She wished he would let go, horrible monster that he was! It seemed very likely that all of the figures that pursued them had been his victims.

"REY!"

Her attention sharpened at the sound of the woman's cry. It was a voice filled with fear and longing at the same time, a voice that cried out to her in dreams. She knew it. It filled her entire being with hope.

"Mother," Rey whispered.

She staggered toward them, as shocked to see Rey as Rey was to see her. Giving a wordless cry she flung her arms out.

Rey's burning wrist had become unbearably painful, she twisted her arm and broke free of him.

"Not real, she's not real," the monster growled.

Rey did not listen, she turned to run from him, and felt his fingers scrabble across her back, failing to find purchase.

"REY!" he screamed.

It stopped her briefly to hear her name come from his mouth, but she had waited too long to be reunited with the woman who held her arms out now.

"Where have you been?" her mother cried. "I went back and you were gone. Why did you leave?"

Just a few more steps, just a few more—

A red flash of light ripped through the darkness, passing with impossible speed through her mother. The woman exploded into flying ash and gas.

"NOOOOO!" Rey screamed.

She whirled on him, reaching for her own light saber and igniting it just as he brought his down again, smashing the blade from her grip.

Rey staggered backwards. Her heel caught the edge of a geyser and suddenly her foot felt as though it had caught fire.

She screamed again, and fell to her knees. The pain was terrible, but had immediately cleared her thoughts. The gas was toxic and had confused her thinking. She had little time left. Her breathing had become fearfully shallow without her realization, and the great shadowy monster who had created the legions of dead which surrounded them, towered over her, his crossguard saber still blazing.

The blade flickered out. Quickly he bent, and lifted her from the ground. He began to walk, and then to jog, and finally to run.

Her head bumped against his chest with every one of his footfalls, and she had to grit her teeth to keep from screaming at the pain of her foot being jarred again and again. There were still voices, blurry shapes that continued to approach but now… now they were smaller.

They were smaller because they were children, and their voices were piteously young and sad as they called out to 'Ben' to stop, begging him to remember.

Kylo Ren's breathing had grown ragged.

The silence returned. The voices had stilled and all that remained of their ghostly companions was the faint glow of the geysers that came from over his shoulder.

Still he ran, his footsteps echoing in the dark.

"Stop!" she moaned, clutching at her knee. "Stop please, my foot… it feels like it's on fire."

He slowed and finally stopped, immediately dropping to his knees. She could hear him panting through his modulator. He dropped her, and reached up to grip the sides of his mask. The helmet hissed as he lifted it up and tossed it aside.

She couldn't help but look. The dim glow of the Resurrection Field reflected in his dark eyes, but in the faint light, she could barely discern the lines of his lean face. She couldn't make out the scar.

If he realized that she was staring at him, he did not show it. Kylo tore her boot off and removed something small and silver from beneath his robes. She flinched as he pressed the cold metal against the wound on her heel, and drew in a sharp breath when she felt it stab. Her foot immediately felt numb.

"Fool," he muttered.

"Did you kill all of those people?" she whispered.

"We'll rest here," he growled.

"Did you kill all of those people?" she repeated, louder.

"Necessary sacrifice," he replied, his manner becoming calm and detached once more.

"And the children—were those Master Luke's pada—"

"Enough, scavenger!"

He stood and tossed her something heavy which turned out to be a flask containing water. Wrapping his cloak tighter around himself he moved away and sat down far enough from her that she could only just make out his shape.

"It bothers you," she said wonderingly. "No. It pains you to remember it."

He didn't answer, and she could not see his face, but she knew she was right. Kylo Ren could actually feel something like remorse.

Rey lay back, pillowing her head on her arm. She found herself staring directly into the visor of his discarded helmet. Slowly, she reached out and traced one finger across the line of silver which bordered the eyes of the mask, but froze as she was suddenly overcome by the feeling of being watched.

She quickly withdrew her hand and rolled onto her side, turning her back to him.