"The hour between night and dawn ... when most people die, sleep is deepest, nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their worst anguish, when ghosts and demons are most powerful." - Ingmar Bergman
"Come on!" Rey urges, reworking her grip cupping Finn at his waist. "We're almost there!"
Lies. He must know it too.
Finn's blood drips across her fingers but she forces the rising panic back down her throat. Now is not the time for her to descend into the madness. A clear head is the only way forward.
Rey can't be sure how she sees the clear path through all the snow and shadows and death ruminating in the dark forest - wide, polished river stones leading the way back to the Ilenium Settlement – only that if she strays they will be lost to the dark forest forever.
Finn can only groan in protest. "Han. We have to go back for—"
"Han is dead," she retorts, as much as the truth tears her heart in two. "It's just us now." She had seen him take his last breath, the contrast of his red blood – nearly black in the moonlight – against the white landscape. A reminder of the fate awaiting them if they fail to escape this godforsaken place.
A howl breaks through the chilly night, much closer than Rey had expected it to be. A reminder of Han Solo's body lying in the cold, speared through by the same dagger-like claws that had torn Finn's back to shreds.
"And Chewie?" he asks, still holding onto the shred of hope that Rey has long abandoned.
"Gone," she tells him. Han's bloodhound had been their only hope of making it back home in one piece. Now, stone-lined path or otherwise, they seem like rabbits running on borrowed time.
Finn struggles against her. "Keep going. One of us can make it to the Settlement and we both know it won't be me."
"Don't say that!" she snaps. "We'll—"
A shadow smashes into them. Her hands slip as she struggles to right herself. "Finn!"
Her friend stumbles into the snowbank. A loud crack and he doesn't get back up. There's no time to go to him, however, and coax him back on his feet. A towering figure stands several paces before her, red eyes glaring at Rey through the mist.
"We're not done yet." The monster pads forward into the moonlight, massive body seemingly takes up the entire clearing. Blood drips from a bite wound on his side, sizzling as it hits the snow.
With nothing but desperation filling her, Rey grips the scabbard hung on her belt and pulls Han's weapon free.
His long snout wrinkles back into a sneer. "That sword belongs to me."
Rey has no time to contemplate the gravity of those words now that the opportunity to lure Kylo Ren away from Finn has presented itself. She twists it in her hand, testing its weight for the first time. Almost taunting. "Come and get it."
Ren rushes forward.
She parries the strike, recalling all the moments in Han's forge she'd swung similarly balanced swords against invisible opponents. Not that it prepared her for the weight of Kylo Ren's body, nor the ferocity fueling his muscles despite the wound Chewie dealt him after seeing Han's lifeless body in the frozen dirt.
Rey hits back with her own hard-earned tenacity. Perhaps the wolf hadn't expected such resistance, as she is able to drive him back many times and, most importantly, away from the fallen Finn. Until he regains confidence.
Her blade screeches every time it bounces off his sharpened claws, a dreadful song. She dances across exposed walls of granite, Kylo Ren exploding through tree trunks, teeth snapping on air a hair away from her skull.
Rey runs still. The frost makes it hard to breathe, almost sticking to the inside of her lungs, begging her to still and desiccate like the weaker animals before her. I will not. Not while she still hears Kylo Ren's thunderous pursuit behind her.
Only until she sees the tree line thin as it reaches the cliff face does Rey realize she has been herded the entire time. She spins and they come together again in a clash of claws against sword. Her back arches over the edge, desperate to keep her footing on firm ground while hundreds of pounds of muscle and sinew press down against her.
Ren flashes her a toothy grin, though she cannot be sure if it is in victory or a strange sense of pride that Rey has managed to last this long against him. His hot breath prickles her skin. "I could kill you right now. But there is another way."
Kylo Ren leans further into her, as if ready to pitch them both off the precipice. Both her arms and his haunches shake simultaneously.
He licks his teeth. "You need a teacher. Someone to show you the ways of the forest."
"The forest?" she grunts, almost scornful. Certainly hesitant to throw herself into whatever game this monster is playing. But may there be truth to his words?
Briefly, Rey closes her eyes. The atmosphere behind her lacks for space, that she cannot deny, ready to send her into open air. But the ground beneath her, despite the frost, feels solid enough. Eager to stabilize her if she will let it.
She takes a deep breath, squaring her hips and straightening her back. Rey knows he can feel the air changing between them, his advantage over her shifting. Her eyes fling open with a sneer. "I'll find my own way."
She strikes with a renewed strength she didn't think herself capable of. His grip slips and Ren stumbles forward. Rey flings herself away from the edge of the cliff, whipping her blade across Chewie's wound.
Kylo Ren roars. Defensively, his teeth turn to snap in that direction, to guard his point of weakness, but she has already sidestepped. A jolting kick from Rey on his opposite site launches the monster into the snow, twisting and struggling. Her blackened fury crushes any remaining defense. Her blade slices through air and flesh, across Kylo Ren's neck and face.
Rey poises the sword for a final downward strike. It would be too easy, too quick to end the monster here. Kill him as he had killed Han Solo.
Kylo Ren knows it too, awaiting his demise with bated breath. Their eyes lock. Rey knows she should look away, swallow any feelings of mercy and get on with it. But his gaze easily reflects the emotions swarming within her – pure vengeful rage, curiosity and… something else.
Rey does not move as his bones crunch in an oddly satisfying way, and black fur recedes to take on a new shape. A human shape.
She does not anticipate a pale, narrow face staring back at her. So reminiscent of any other face she might see wandering around the Ilenium Settlement. Handsome, albeit in an unusual way.
"Do it," he whispers, his voice startlingly gentle. Ren props himself up an elbow and only then does she realize, with wide eyes, that he is completely nude. Vulnerable.
Rey recoils. She takes a step back, throwing the sword back into its scabbard.
The monster – the man – rears his head at her hesitation. Rey takes several more steps back, right off the edge of the cliff.
Rey wakes with blood against her teeth and a wound on her tongue from where she'd bitten it. Treetops tower over her, reaching for the foggy skyline. Without a way of gauging how long she's been out, it could be sunrise for all she knows. Or the dead of night.
She isn't safe here either way.
Rey sits up, head pounding. She struggles to her feet, feeling the ache in her bones. She spots a break in the trees pressed up against the cliff face, no doubt the spot she had stumbled off of, leaving a hole in the canopy where branches had broken her fall.
Her wrist aches but, with no debilitating injuries in her legs, she gets to her feet and plunges on through the forest. The quicker she can find Finn again, the better.
Not that Rey can recall any of her surroundings. Much of her life had been spent on the streets of the Settlement stealing food from vendors. She was caught, naturally, but Leia Organa had spared her from the harshest of punishments, taken her in and put her to work in the forge.
Han, as forgemaster, had not been an easy man to please with his usual gruff demeanor, requiring near-perfect casts and long hours in the dead of night. Not necessarily amenable for long excursions into the forest despite Leia's insistence. Not that Kylo Ren's monthly attacks made such a thing appealing either.
Her ears prick to the sound of water bubbling. She finds a half-frozen brook, serene in its simplicity despite existing within the center of hell. Rey stumbles at the bank, her cupped fingers aching to steal a drink.
The water numbs her lips, running so cold down her throat it almost burns. She can't stop, so thirsty that three handfuls nearly drown her.
Rey pauses to catch her breath. She tips her head up at the trees, only a single thought slicing right through the fog. I'm in over my head.
Rey thought she had faced that realization when she left with Han and Finn. All of them holding onto the faint hope that they could somehow track down Luke with the crudely drawn map he'd left behind for Leia. Now it hits her full force.
Lost, like all the humans that came before her. The dark forest will chew her up and spit her out just as it did to them—
No. Rey stands. I'll never get anywhere like that. Besides, Leia's tutelage did not teach her to be a quitter.
Her eyes scan the tree line in search of some way out. The path to the Settlement does not stretch this far deep but if she can find another path to orient herself…
Some old forest god must be looking to her with pity. A few moments later, Rey spots canid tracks lightly pressed into the snow. She can tell by the shape of its pad marks, an echo of some basic lesson given to her in Leia's voice. Too small to belong to that of a wolf, which gives her such tremendous relief. If she follows them…
Well, she has already strayed far from all senses of civilization. What are a few more miles? And if somehow her hunch is correct, if somehow they belong to Chewie, then Rey has no choice.
The tracks trail parallel to the brook. Rey follows them dutifully, eyes pinned to the ground, desperate to ignore the various creaks and moans of the forest sending shivers down her spine. She needn't be reminded of just how unwelcomed she is, a human trespassing through this hostile space.
The sound of the brook grows louder, now a wide stream encircling an enormous tree. A dozen men would have to band together to put their arms around the trunk. Despite its enormous branches blocking off light from the upper canopy, the leaves still shimmer with an unnatural glow that warms her insides.
Rey swears she sees windows carved into the bark, candles flickering on the sills. She blinks, wondering if her wounds have made her delirious and this is just a hallucination. It isn't.
A string tugs at her gut, urging her forward, promising the answers she had sought not long ago. There's someone living in there…
Almost panicked, she works her way through the jumble of roots. She feels sparks against her hand, as if every individual is a sentient creature welcoming her home. A beautiful sensation she has never felt before.
Rey finally reaches the tree, breathless. Her fingers trace the bark, feeling worn lines carved into the wood. A door. Her mind screams. She holds her breath and knocks tentatively.
A bark sounds, now music to her ears.
"Chewie?" she whispers.
The door opens with a creak.
Rey freezes once a sliver of candlelight appears across her face. The familiar face of Chewie barks again, grinning a crooked smile from ear to ear as the hound locks eyes with her. Beside him, an ominous figure shrouded in a simple gray cloak stares at her.
She knows who he is, yet any words of greeting stick in her throat like honey.
The figure pulls back his hood. Luke Skywalker.
They say nothing to each other. Her eyes can only skim across the white hairs in his twisted beard, the wrinkles like chasms in his cheeks. He is… not as old as she expected him to be.
Remembrance strikes her like a burst of lightning. She pulls the silver sword from her scabbard – still painted with Kylo Ren's blood – and offers it hilt first to the master.
Rey bows her head.
Her heart pounds in the doorway as Rey finds herself overwhelmed with a feeling of… destiny. That she had been meant to fall through the forest canopy, meant to stray from the forest path, meant to walk up to this tree, to find Luke Skywalker, of all people…
She is completely stiff, holding out the sword Leia had given her. The same sword Han had carried on his person before his untimely demise. Luke's sword.
Rey says nothing, but her offer – her plea – speaks volumes.
His weathered hand wraps around the hilt. She almost smiles, though decides not to ruin the sanctity of this moment.
She takes a step back, watching Luke appraise the very weapon he had slain countless monsters with to protect their village at the very edge of the dark forest. If the stories can be believed, though Rey had always listened to them without fail. Now, she holds her breath, waiting for him to make his move.
Those ancient eyes flicker to hers, holding her gaze. She wills herself to stand her ground.
Unfortunately, it makes her unable to anticipate his next move. Luke tosses the saber into the tangle of tree roots.
"You can stay," he says mildly, ignoring the shock written all over her face. "That stays outside."
Luke ventures back inside his hut, leaving the door open behind him. Chewie still sits at the entrance, wagging his tail in pure oblivion to this recent turn of events, waiting for Rey to follow them inside.
"Master Skywalker?" Rey hesitates a moment longer before taking off after him.