The night had passed and half the day was gone as well before they found water again. Albion had long since grown quiet, conserving his strength to stumble along beside Rey as he leaned heavily against her shoulder. She felt grateful for the slightly less-than-standard gravity very early on.

With the daylight had come a clearer view of their surroundings, which upon first glance, yielded little beyond an endless expanse of yellowed grassland. Far behind them, a long dark smudge on the horizon marked the forest filled with hunters they had almost stumbled into the evening before. Though she could see nothing, she could feel the presence of moving water somewhere in front of them.

They hadn't traveled for long, however, before they were forced to realize that the tall grass gave the land a deceptive appearance. It hid numerous trenches and even ravines, and because they didn't have the strength to spend climbing up and down, the two often had to walk around them. It was difficult to judge their progress.

When they did at last find water, it was at the bottom of a ravine, and rather than climb down, they walked along the canyon wall, following it upstream until they came to a short trickling waterfall.

Albion at once collapsed on the small embankment and with a small groan of pain, slid his leg into the water.

"I'm sorry," Rey murmured. "If I'd learned to do healing properly you wouldn't—"

"Oh, now!" he interrupted, managing a cheeky grin for her. "You did well enough. Don't feel badly. We Bimms aren't known to have strong constitutions anyhow, though some of us are surprisingly long-lived!"

"I'd never heard that before. How long is 'long-lived'?" Rey encouraged, using his distraction to covertly study his appearance, checking for signs of illness. She could certainly feel his exhaustion. He was weaker than he had been.

"Very long indeed! In fact, the Master Storyteller is rumored to be over 1000 years old—though no one has actually laid eyes on him in centuries," Albion admitted.

"Maybe someone should check on him, he may only have made it to 800 or so," Rey teased. Albion showed no signs of infection. He was cold to the touch, not warm with fever, and his wound did not leak pus—though it had also not formed a scab and continued to slowly ooze blood. Perhaps a Bimm's body healed differently.

"I suppose someone would if they knew where he was. He was captured by a powerful general a long, long time ago and he lives alone now, a slave in exile on a distant planet. Every day he greets the sun and listens to the galaxy as it whispers all the new stories to him. He records every new story until he can longer hold his stylus and then he sleeps, and gets up the next day and does it again. Over and over—"

"What does he do with the stories?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Everything he writes is collected at the end of every day and bound and put away by order of the Great Lord."

"That's a bit sad if it's true. I don't know. It sounds like a legend," she decided.

"Legends are all rooted in truth," Albion frowned, "But I know he exists. He must."

Rey nodded. Many were the people who believed for years that Luke Skywalker had died or been murdered by Kylo Ren. The idea of the last remaining Jedi hidden away on an uncharted distant planet also sounded like a legend.

"And what do you suppose he thinks of your story so far?" Rey smiled.

Albion shuddered.

"I suppose he wouldn't be all that pleased. The Bimm are never supposed to interfere with the story, just observe and record. There are no great Bimm heroes to sing about," he admitted.

"Perhaps when you are recorded as the great hero who finds a way off of Dathomir, that will change," she suggested.

"I rather doubt that. There's a very good reason why the Bimm are forbidden to interfere. There's no way to know if your actions will be recorded as those of a hero or a villain!"

"Well, that's easy enough to determine, isn't it? I don't know much about how to write a story, but the rules are rather clear about that much. A hero does good or beneficial things and a villain does bad and destructive things," Rey countered.

"It depends on who wins, doesn't it? I suspect that if the First Order had defeated the Resistance on their giant death star, their history books would record the resistance fighters as agents of terror who tried to destroy hundreds of lives by blowing up their base."

"It doesn't change the fact that the First Order caused the Hosnian Cataclysm! They destroyed the entire Hosnian System, the sheer magnitude of deaths—"

"They destroyed the capital planet, the galactic senate, and their defense fleet, yes… and in a thousand years, if the galaxy is at peace, they might be framed as the heroes who made the hard decision to destroy what was corrupt and usher in a new era," Albion shrugged.

"Never!" Rey growled, indignation causing her to stand up.

"It's happened before," he countered.

"I don't believe th—"

"All I'm saying is that you can have the best of intentions, you can devote yourself to the way of the light, and you can still do massive damage. Or you could be filled with darkness and change the fate of a planet for the better. There are many in the galaxy that blame the Jedi for the clone army and the destruction caused by that war, and there are many outer and mid rim worlds that saw the Imperial Army as allies who liberated them from what they saw as a corrupt and decadent central government…" Albion massaged his leg thoughtfully. "And when it comes to individuals as heroes or villains, it can get even murkier. Very few people have a single motivator—a single reason why they do everything that they do. I've never met anyone who was all evil or all good. Have you?"

"I…" Rey's voice trailed off uncertainly. She would have liked to say that her master was entirely motivated by his commitment to the Light, but even as she thought it, she knew it to be false. Master Luke had certainly made mistakes, reacted in anger or annoyance at times. In fact, some might say that for a time, he had selfishly abandoned his responsibilities. Kylo Ren on the other hand… at her most hurt and angered, she desperately wanted to believe him a being of absolute evil, and yet she could not. She remembered the way he stared at her sometimes, the fear that emanated from his body as he ran, carrying her through the Resurrection Field, the firmness of his hand as he shoved her into the crevice of the shyrack cave on Korriban and shielded her with his own body, and finally the small and barely perceptible break in his voice as he whispered that she was his blood arrow.

"I take it that blush means I'm right," Albion said with a hint of smugness.

"If you're not sure if you'll end up as a hero or a villain, why do you want to be part of the story?" Rey countered.

"When you tell a story, there are always parts of the tale where you think to yourself… why didn't they just do this or do that? So much pain was caused or time was lost. If only they had known. If only they had seen this or that. If only they had paid more attention. If only they had trusted the one they loved. If only, if only… and when you spend a lifetime mulling over the 'if onlys', you begin to think yourself an expert on them. You begin to think you might do things differently. You begin to think it might be possible to get rid of a few of those 'if onlys'," Albion chuckled to himself and flexed his toes, causing tiny currents to ripple across the surface of the water.

"If only you knew how to get off this planet!" Rey scoffed.

"If only my traveling companion was a little more patient," he countered.

"If only you didn't spend every waking moment talking my ear off," she smirked.

"If only… I had some pants," he sighed and glanced down at his small, ragged undergarment.

This made them both chuckle.

"We have to keep walking," Rey reminded him. Once we get to higher ground, we may be able see further. There may be a town or a village. We'll follow the stream from here. Can you walk still?"

"I can," Albion nodded.

Another few hours of walking brought them their first good look at a Dathomiran forest. At first, it appeared as no more than a shadow across the horizon. It grew slowly as they approached- becoming a darker line, and then a bumpy sort of band, then a vast forest, and still they had not reached its welcoming shade.

It took Rey a few hours to realize just how tall those trees actually were. By the time the two arrived, the tops of the trees towered so high above them that they seemed to block out the sky.

They continued to follow the stream as it threaded a path through the gnarled roots and fallen branches of the forest. Once darkness fell, the travelers made a bed of old leaves and ferns in a small gully between two protruding roots and settled in. With no food to share, the two drank water from the stream and quickly fell asleep.

The next day they continued on, albeit at a much slower pace. Albion needed to stop and rest more often, and for longer intervals, and though she carefully watched his wound, it did not appear to be getting any worse. Perhaps it was that the terrain was starting to slope uphill, or perhaps he was weak from lack of food, she reasoned. The forest had not, so far, offered much in the way of sustenance. The branches were too high above for her to climb, and they had come across no small rodent or birdlike creatures on the ground.

For his part, Albion appeared to be in fine spirits, though he spoke much less, even when resting. Rey searched the forest nervously during every hiking interval, sweeping the forest floor with both her eyes and her mind. When they rested, she did her best to meditate, willing herself to find a concentration of life and movement somewhere close to them. That she could not sense any after knowing that certainly such places much exist nearby—they had been chased by hunters after all—suggested that these camps or villages were somehow hidden or shielded, as though they did not want to be found by other Force-sensitives. This did not bode well for the two of them.

It was in the darkening gloom of evening that they came upon the first signs of civilization. The stream had widened into what could rightly be deemed a river, and on either side of the river rose two large pillars of stone carved into figures. On the left, the figure of a beautiful, winged woman lifted her arms and face to the sky. Her face, even made of stone, was serene and comforting. On the right, a man grasping a sword in one hand and a shield in the other crouched in a battle stance, his mouth open in a snarl which showed his sharp fangs. His visage would give nightmares to small children.

"What do you suppose…" Rey wondered aloud.

"Ashla and Bogan, the Son and the Daughter, Umi and Anoak, Life-giver and Life-taker," Albion mumbled. "There are many names, many stories… most species know… they have their own traditions of recognizing the light and the dark. These are old, old statues, but see… they're clean. No moss, no vines growing across them—"

Albion stumbled and fell to his knees, almost bringing Rey down with him.

"Sorry!" he gasped, it… it's my leg, I think. It's fine, just… hasn't quite healed up yet. I can keep going, I can…"

He tried to get up on his own, but his leg gave way, and he pitched forward again.

"No, stop! It's alright, we can rest again," Rey insisted. "Let me help you, we'll go over to that statue and you can put your back against it. I can try again… to force heal, maybe. Here now—"

She crouched down in front of him and took his arms, draping them over her shoulders to encourage him to lean all of his weight against her back. She stood and then half-carrying and half-dragging her friend, staggered toward the winged goddess statue.

Her mind worked at a feverish pace. Kylo Ren had once told her that she could go for longer without sustenance because the Force, in some ways helped to sustain her. Was there some way she could give that substance to Albion? Maybe if she used the same principles as a Force-healing, maybe…

Rey froze as she made eye contact with the small form in front of her.

A wide-eyed child, her expression as surprised as Rey imagined her own must be, also stood absolutely still in the water at the edge of the river. She was very pale-skinned with light-colored, close-cropped hair and was clothed in loose red garments. In one hand she held up the hem of her skirt and in the other a spear, shaped and weighted to her small stature. She studied Rey and Albion as closely as Rey studied her.

But as Rey stepped forward, the child jumped back.

"Please! Please, don't be afraid. I don't mean you any—"

The child opened her mouth and let out an ear-piercing shriek. It was not a scream of fear. It was an alarm, a call for others. She threw her spear, as Rey dropped Albion and focused her abilities to easily deflect it, but though the spear missed her and buried itself in the riverbank, it had still achieved its mark. The throw had distracted Rey long enough for the child to run, still screaming an alarm as she went.

There would be no quick escape this time. Albion could not run. There was nowhere to hide, no cave to crawl into, no outcropping of rocks to cause a landslide. No weapon other than the child-sized spear buried beside her, and they were coming. She could feel the concern of others for the child. The anger, the need to defend…

"I think we're going to… be alright," Albion panted. "That… that's a fishing spear… that means…"

He did not finish his sentence, as a multitude of red-robed female hunters burst through the woods and dropped down from the tree branches, their arrows and plasma staffs all pointed directly at Rey and Albion.