The door creaks on rusty hinges as it shuts behind Rey, trapping the warmth of Luke's hearth within the tree once again.
"There's tea on the kettle," Luke grumbles from an alcove. "Have you a concussion?"
"A what?"
He gives her a quick once over. "I'll take that as a yes." He plucks some dried roots and a cup from a low-hanging shelf.
Unsure of what to say or do now, Rey plops herself down on the floor of the hut within arm's reach of the fire. Maybe half-frozen and covered in someone else's blood hadn't been the best way to introduce herself to Luke Skywalker of all people. Maybe once she starts acting and feeling like a regular human being again, he'll reconsider.
Or I'm in denial.
"Here." Luke flings a furry parka at her, admittedly much more suited to the climate than what Rey had set out into the dark forest in. "Hope you didn't like the color of your cloak. The red will never come out."
She appraises her cloak before shrugging it off. In a way, she hopes he's right. With Finn's blood all over it, no way of knowing he's still living, this is all she has left of him and Han and her stand against Ren.
Her eyes scan the humble abode, completely void of frivolous possessions. No mementos of his family still in the settlement, no books to keep his mind busy, no obvious cache of neat weapons she would expect a Hunter to have. A staircase trails up towards a loft where Rey suspects he hides a bed for himself – her condolences to his back if that isn't the case.
"If you've sustained any other injuries, now is the time to tell me."
Rey jumps as she finds him looming right next to her. She hadn't expected someone of his age to move so quickly across the room. Gingerly, she takes the teacup from him.
Luke joins her on the floor with his own cup. Rey ladles tea for them both from the pot above the fire. She drinks it piping hot – a split decision, as her tongue is already wounded and she rather not make eye contact with the master sitting cross-legged across from her. Though for someone completely uninterested in her mission, Rey can sure feel his stare on her as she sips.
Though she cannot stall off the inevitable.
When Luke catches her eye, he speaks again, though not with the words she expected to hear. "How do you know Chewie?" The aforementioned bloodhound has pressed himself closer to the fire and Rey is reminded that she isn't the only one to have had a rough night. "To be frank, he's the only reason I let you inside."
"Your sister Leia sent me," she murmurs, almost in a daze. "We need help. The village—"
"Huh," he interjects. "That doesn't answer my question."
Her eyebrows furrow. "It's a long story. I can tell it on the way back to the Ilenium Settlement."
"I don't think so. I want to know exactly how you got Chewie to follow you through the woods without Han. He doesn't go anywhere without him."
Luke must see her resulting face of panic that he feels the need to lean in much closer. "Where's Han?" he asks in a tone borderline accusatory.
"Han Solo is dead," she snaps and this time it is his turn to jump. For once, the stunned Luke doesn't have a ready quip in mind. Rey sighs. "He gave his life to save us."
She almost feels guilty for the heavy silence that settles between them. But once again, Luke's voice rises to fill it. "From?" he says, graver than he had been before
"Kylo Ren. He killed Han Solo." His grimace deepens. "That's why Leia needs you back at the village. Kylo Ren is only getting stronger – he and Snoke have the Ilenium Settlement under siege. Our cattle have been slaughtered, our crops razed. We were currently subsisting on winter stocks anyway, but she showed me our estimates before we left," Rey rambles on, memories of blazing fires, the groans of dying cows, and red eyes surveying them from the woods all stirring to life.
"We are months away from starvation if that sorcerer and his wolf don't destroy us first."
The words burst out from her like a broken dam – their quest had sent them to the deepest parts of the forest in search of the infamous Luke Skywalker. They had gotten lost, naturally, before their paths crossed with Kylo Ren. Finn was injured in the ensuing battle and Han Solo stayed behind to hold the monster off… or rather, the initial fight dwindled to a standstill. The wolf had told Han something of great import, enough to freeze the forgemaster right in place, before their shared moment ended in bloodshed.
"Now will you help us? You have to help us," Rey pleads. "You're our only hope."
He strokes his long, gray beard. The other hand rests on Chewie's head, rubbing smooth circles into the wrinkled skin. "No."
"What?" Haven't you listened to anything I've said?
Luke only shakes his head. "You and my sister are misguided. I can't help you."
Rey jumps to her feet, awed by the implausibility of it all. "But you can! You are the greatest Huntsman to have existed in a generation. You are the only one who can stop Kylo Ren."
"No, I can't." Again, he fixes her with that steely gaze. "If that were true, don't you think I would've stopped him long ago? Or do you think I came to the most unfindable place in the forest for no reason at all?"
Once again, Rey is forced to swallow her injured tongue.
Luke gulps down the last of his tea. "You are welcome to stay. I offer you shelter and food before you set off on your journey back home. That is as far as my generosity will extend."
The lullaby that spurns Rey to rise before the dawn is foreign to her. She follows it, betwixt. Chewie lifts his head to stare at her as she leaves out the door. He doesn't follow.
Where the air in the tree is warm and dry, the outside bombards her with the same sticky, oppressive chill from the day before. But perhaps Rey's bones have grown accustomed to it now. The numbing sensation seems nearly addictive - a far cry from the burns and sweat associated with a raging forge.
Something mystical resonates with her in the way sunlight shines through the canopy, reflecting off a kaleidoscope of colors. She never imagined any part of the forest in the dead of winter would have so much life. A fairytale made reality.
Rey notices details that hadn't been obvious to her in the night – Luke's abode, the center tree, sits as a middle point for the clearing and its roots radiate out from there. Like a spider, she counts eight mighty limbs the width of plow horses, piercing the dirt and intertwining within the thicket of vines and shrubbery. Smaller trees too, and she finds it hard to tell where one tree ends another begins, stretching many miles on. As if there are no individual organisms at all - only one living, breathing entity.
The whispers that led Rey out in the morning gloom now beg her to touch, to discover for herself just how far this forest stretches. She approaches a root with bated breath.
"Who are you?"
Her fingers stop short. She spots Luke blocking the doorway as he had last night, looking to her as if this is the first time. "I've been here before, I think. In a dream." Sharply, she draws her hand back to her chest. "In a nightmare."
When Rey turns to him, Luke looks as troubled as he did last night, letting a stranger into his home. "And what's so special about you?"
"Nothing," she says a little too readily, an answer that she has drilled into her head for most of her life. Nothing at all.
"You don't expect me to believe that," he scoffs. "Why are you here?"
Rey feels a spike of frustration. "Leia sent me." Not as if I told you last night.
His skepticism remains. "She sent you? A nobody?"
"I was coming with Han…" she offers as a meager explanation.
"That doesn't answer my question." The words echo, a remnant of the night before. He steps closer and away from the safety of the tree. "Why are you here?"
Rey should be infuriated with herself for not being able to answer a simple question. She has her pride, yes, and perhaps that is what keeps her from saying I don't know. Or perhaps she does know and is only hesitant to give voice to it.
She sighs. "Something inside me has always been there…" Han hadn't asked her to go on this quest. She had begged him – and in turn, begged Finn to tag along – in search of adventure. A part of Rey may have understood that there is more to life than an anonymous existence within the settlement. Running through the forest, fighting Kylo Ren, finding Luke had all felt… destined. "And now it's awake."
He gives her a slight nod to continue.
"But I'm afraid," Rey admits. "I don't know what it is or what to do with it. And I need help."
He clasps his hands behind his back, letting out a sigh. "I was a boy once, dreaming of far off lands outside the borders of my farm. I thought I was destined for great things too. Turns out it wasn't as great as I thought." Luke turns his back on her then, ready to retreat back inside his hut. "You're looking for a teacher, Rey. I can't teach you."
In all the scenarios that had played in her head of this moment, this one she never envisioned. Never in a million years did Rey think the legendary Luke Skywalker would turn his back on humanity. That he would reject teaching her the ways of monster-hunting.
"Leia sent me here with hope!" Rey sneers, fists clenched tight at her sides. "If you're to stand aside and let us die, she deserves to know why!"
He peers over his shoulder with an expression that looks almost amused. "My what a big mouth you have."
"And what a small heart you have," she counters. His eyes darken and Rey knows she has gotten the rise out of him that she desired, but at what cost? She concedes before things turn ugly, brushing on past him. "I'll go. There's a village to save and it seems I have overstayed my welcome."
Rey has a half a mind to slam the door behind her but, frankly, Chewie and the tree don't deserve that. Nevertheless, she certainly won't hold it open for him.
There isn't much for her to pack. She keeps on Luke's furry parka – it's the least he can do, really – and tucks the silver sword back into Han's sheath before strapping it to her belt. Rey holds her old blood-stained cloak to the fire, recalling how Luke had told her the color would never fade. At least the fabric remains in good condition, suffering from no major tears.
Rey hears a whimper from the fireplace. She finds Chewie sitting up on his haunches, tail wagging tentatively. She walks over to the fireplace, smiling at him, and takes his head into her hands. "You don't have to come with me if you don't want to. I won't tell." With Han gone, in truth, a hermit's abode may suit him well.
The door opens and shuts behind her. The smile melts from Rey's face.
"Do you even know your way back to the Ilenium Settlement from here?" Luke grumbles.
"I'll find my own way." It seems I always do.
He crosses his arms over his chest. "You're a rude girl, I'll give you that. But when I offered my home to you, I meant it."
"No." If Luke is surprised by the steel in her voice, he does not let on. "I've already been gone long enough. They're running out of time."
"You're going to die out there. He'll catch you as soon as you take a step outside the heart tree's roots."
Rey finally spins around to glare at him. "And what do you care?"
They only stare at each other. Rey finds her reservoirs filled to the brink with a rage as red as the wood crackling in the hearth but Luke remains his usual expressionless self. She is almost envious of such self-control. Though when their stalemate breaks, it is not in the way she anticipates. "Three lessons. No more."
She blinks. "What?" A sudden smile splits across her lips, premature in her excitement.
"Stop," Luke retorts at the sight of it. "I will give you three lessons on why Hunters should remain a dying breed. It's time you understand that the forest is better off without us."
Rey appraises him warily. "Whatever you say, master."
"I think I see now," Luke says just as mildly, "why Leia sent you ."
Her stories from infancy tell of a witch to the north, the Snow Queen, who brings them storms in the winter and freezes children who misbehave. For all Rey knows, the queen might have killed herself in one story or another. It's been so long since she has heard the tale properly.
In her dream, Rey is the snow queen brought to life. Her shift is paler than the moon. Snowflakes stick to her hair like a crown, to her eyelashes, and to her lips until they turn blue. Her skin is so numb and she should be dead. Yet she runs anyway, very much alive.
Rey doesn't turn around to look behind her, doesn't need to. She recognizes the heavy footfall trailing in her wake, knows it belongs to him. He'll tear her apart if he catches her. There's no sword to protect her this time.
But in the same way their skirmish ended in real life, there is an end to this dream too that involves a cliff. Rey reaches it, not quite sure why she is so surprised. She dares a look over the edge. A gaping chasm greets her, no canopy to break her fall.
Rey has to wonder if death at a wolf's jaws is worse. Not that Kylo Ren lets her wonder for long.
An unnatural force grips her as if he has learned from his previous mistake. She won't be fortunate to fall off a cliff this time, even one guaranteed to send her into oblivion.
Rey turns around slowly. "You… you're not supposed to be here."
She expects to see him as a wolf but finds the man instead – clothed this time – clenching his fingers. As if to hold her in place. "You're the one who trespassed into the dark forest, girl."
A single finger beckons her forward and Rey moves without telling herself to do so. Straight into the arms of a monster. Dream or no, she has certainly lost her mind.
"It's only right that I trespass here out of spite," he murmurs in that velvet voice of his. "That is the power the full moon gives me."
Her jaw clenches. Rey tries to wriggle her way out of his hold. When that doesn't work, she glares daggers at him. "Get out of my head."
"I mean no harm," Kylo Ren says with a smile and she knows it must be a lie. He circles her with a predator's intent. "Consider me a guest."
In his shadow, she sees a wolf's silhouette pacing instead.
For a moment they can only stare at each other. Rey had initially thought those eyes dark and soulless during their chase through the forest. Now she finds them rimmed by amber, flecked with spots of green. She'd still pluck them out if she could. But perhaps keep them in a jar by her bed like a hard-won trophy.
"You still want to kill me," he remarks in observation.
Rey snorts. "That happens when you're being hunted by a creature through the woods."
A muscle feathers in his jaw. "The dark forest belongs to me. Yes, I take offense to anyone who trespasses through it." If they weren't already so well acquainted, Rey might think him a haughty prince prattling on about law and order. "Especially human scavengers who seek to drain its soil and burn down whatever is not suitable for consumption. Murderers, traitors, and thieves."
She shakes her head. "We have lived on our lands for centuries—"
"The dark forest has been here since the dawn of time," Kylo Ren snaps. "If I have anything to say of it, the dark forest will continue to exist for many eons yet once all your kind has perished."
Rey has no idea what to say to that so she says nothing at all. She simply closes her eyes and attempts to compose herself.
"Who sent you on this failed quest?" Her eyes snap open. "An orphaned girl is far from an experienced Hunter."
"How—"
"Some thoughts are easier to glean than others," he interjects. "It was Leia Organa, wasn't it? She truly must be desperate then."
Rey doubles down, forces herself to project nothing but a blank slate. Whatever Kylo knows, Snoke will know, and that could spell disaster for her and everyone within the Ilenium Settlement.
Kylo Ren chuckles. "Oh no, that won't work with me." Like taking a hammer to the temple, he attempts to pry his way inside once more but it is remarkably less graceful than it had been before. "As I said, girl. You need a teacher before you hope to stand against my ilk."
"Well thanks to you, I have one," she blurts out before cursing her thoughtless tongue.
He raises an eyebrow. "Luke. You found him." His posture relaxes, so self-assured. "With the map, no doubt. You're going to show it to me."
Despite the cold, sweat erupts on the back of Rey's neck. "I'm not giving you anything."
"We'll see." Kylo Ren takes a step closer – too close. As if he were a friend. Or a lover. His eyes trace her lips, perhaps visualizing the exact words he wants to hear from them. "You know I can take whatever I want."
"We'll see," she says by way of challenge, oblivious to her reddening cheeks and the snowflakes melting in her hair.
"I suppose we will," he tells her in that smug tone once again. His hand rises up to touch her face.
Rey feels the entire world jolt and turn upside down. A presence trickles into her mind, clearly foreign. Him.
She pushes against it, though the intruder is as slippery as an eel, made harder by the fact that physical resistance is entirely impossible. Brushing aside her awkward attempts to keep him out is almost too easy.
Kylo Ren skims another thought from her mind, as easy as plucking a feather from a chicken. "You're so lonely," he murmurs. "So afraid to leave." A smirk tugs at his lips. "Desperate to sleep, another night in the cold orphanage, you dream of the forest. Yes, I see it now. I see the stream."
A tear rolls down her cheek.
"And Han Solo." Ren side-steps as if in search of a new angle with which to skewer her. "He felt like the father you never had. Well, no need to wonder what would have been. In the end, he would have disappointed you. You're welcome."
At the mention of Han, her anger rises as suddenly as a wildfire. "You don't know what you're talking about, monster—"
Ren stumbles slightly, thrown off balance from her sudden outburst. "I don't? How little you know—"
GET – OUT – OF – MY – HEAD!
Her bottled rage fractures out like a bolt of lightning. Striking the intrusion – and striking Kylo Ren too. He jumps back a few feet, landing crouched like a savage.
Sneering, he raises a hand to her again for another attack – but a new barrier stops him cold. Instead, he feels her presence spear into his mind.
"And you," she growls to his horror. "You're afraid. That you will never be as strong as Darth Vader! "
His entire skin shudders, the wolf underneath ready to burst out at any minute. Rey knows nothing of the name she uttered, only that it has struck such fear into him she almost doesn't know what to do.
"Get out," they murmur in unison and the snow beneath them explodes.
Rey wakes with a start. She finds Luke standing over her pallet on the floor, his face haunting in the moonlight. For a moment, she catches a glimpse of Kylo Ren.
"At dawn," he says, "we teach you to ignore such childish attacks."