Lightning cracked across the steely sky. Icy winds whipped strands of hair into Rey's hazel eyes as she stood at the mouth of a cave. Darkness, black like ink she once saw in a half-remembered calligraphy set, oozed from its mouth — threatening and beckoning all at once.
The entrance to Tartarus lay ahead, "a fool's errand," Poe had warned. But Rey had no choice, she was being driven mad, haunted by the spectre of her bondmate.
When the dreams first started, she thought it was wild imaginings caused by grief.
Ben's hand reaching out only to dissolve into shadow. His voice, cracking at the edges, saying her name as though it were something precious.
But the nightmares bled into her waking hours too, no longer confined to the darkness behind her eyelids. She caught glimpses of him reflected in the looking glass, heard his amused laughter when Chewy continued to cheat at Dejarik, beating Finn and Poe every time. Felt his warmth like a blanket when she went through lightsaber forms.
Her nerves were stretched thin with exhaustion, her focus frayed at the edges when Finn finally confronted her.
"I feel it, Rey. Your disquiet. I know I'm new to all of this, understanding the Force. But there's something else too. It's like sometimes your signature has a shadow."
Rey paused, stunned. "You feel him too?"
"I feel it too — wait — him?" Finn asked, confused.
Rey ran across the base on Ajan Kloss, one that was slowly dissembling since the Resistance victory on Exegol. She tore into her quarters with all the forceful chaos of a sandstorm. Together, she and Finn scoured the ancient Jedi texts, finding nothing until one day Rose saw something over Finn's shoulder — the barest footnote on a page.
"I thought Tartarus was just a myth," she said, trailing her finger across the entry.
"What's Tartarus?" Rey asked.
Rose blinked in surprise, looking back and forth between Rey and Finn before remembering her friends would not have been raised with bedtime stories.
"Tartarus is a window between worlds. A place where souls are trapped. Unable to move on, afraid of what awaits them on the other side, or clinging too tightly to the life they've left behind."
After Rose's revelation, Rey scoured the Holonet, only to discover that the story of Tartarus predated even the Sith and Jedi, its existence chalked up to legend.
So Rey tore across the galaxy in the Falcon exploring ancient ruins like a woman possessed, desperate for any reference to the mythical Tartarus.
Chewy understood first, exactly who and what she was looking for. He cornered her in the galley of the Falcon during one of her frequent supply stops. The wookie let out a pained roar when she revealed that Ben Solo had turned to the light in the end — sacrificing himself to save her.
"Little starfighter," he mumbled in Shyriiwook, "Brave until the end."
The rest of her friends were less understanding when they realized the reason for her obsession with finding Tartarus. Weary that Rey sought to bring back the man who wrought such death and destruction as part of the First Order,
"He's not at peace," she confessed, overwhelmed with longing. "I thought he was gone, one with the Force, but he's not. I can feel him, like an echo."
An echo she had followed to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, to the smallest moon in the Hades cluster. To the very cave she was about to enter.
All her searching yielded a riddle that held the barest clues of what lay before her.
Descend into madness. Cross the River Styx. Weigh your sins and bare your soul.
She would be tested, all the legacies had warned her that it would test her greatly to bring something back from the other side.
Rey hooked her saberstaff across her back, stealing one last look at the moonbright sky before entering the cave.
Time lost all meaning as she traversed the caverns, scrambling down rocks, slipping between the narrowest of openings. A bone-deep chill settled upon her as she navigated the maze-like tunnels, drawing her down, deeper and deeper until suddenly it opened to a wide meadow, impossibly growing underground.
She ran her hand along the stalks of grass as tall as her hip, observing them swaying with an invisible breeze.
"All of this for a pair of pretty eyes?"
Rey gasped at the familiar voice and turned to see the fallen Jedi sitting in a clearing of the meadow, stoking a fire to life.
"Master Luke?" She questioned.
"Just Luke. I'm no one's master, least of all yours," he said ruefully.
"How is this possible?" She asked. "Is this real?"
"Neither of those are questions you need answers to," he replied before passing her a mug of tea.
The herbal mixture was sharp on her tongue, but warm in her chest. Rey drank greedily until the liquid was gone, the empty mug slipping through her fingers to crash on the ground. Her stomach turned as the world began to spin. Master Luke's hopeful blue eyes the last thing she saw before darkness descended.
It was hot when she awoke. The dry, unbearable heat of mid-afternoon in the Jakku desert. Rey looked down to see a compressor and scrub brush in her hands, her scavenging gear on the bench beside her.
"Hurry up, girl," Unkar Plutt yelled from the opening of the tent. "I haven't got all day, and your hauls have been practically worthless lately."
Reflexes born of habit, Rey gathered her wares and presented them to the junkyard boss, desperate for portions — feeling as though she hadn't eaten in days. The dreaded, familiar hunger clawing at her insides, making her skin crawl.
Plutt clucked his tongue in disappointment, dismissing more than half her finds.
"One-quarter portion," he said.
"One-quarter portion!" Rey cried in outrage. "It's worth more than that and you know it!"
"What I know," he said threateningly, "is that it's only decreasing in value the more you argue with me."
Resigned, Rey accepted her one-quarter portion and trudged back to her AT-AT. She lit a candle to heat the rations only to have her heart stop when she saw the walls of her dwelling completely covered in markings. She looked down at her hands and noticed they were more worn and frail than she remembered. Suddenly frantic, she desperately searched for the piece of looking glass she kept stored away.
A sob tore from her chest when she saw the haggard, grizzled reflection staring back at her. Decades had passed and no family had come back to claim her. She cried herself to sleep before rising with the sun to begin her scavenging for the day. She was deep within the guts of a Tie Silencer she'd never seen before when she heard it.
The voice. Deep, soft, warm like sand between her toes. Calling to her. Calling her name.
Rey took a drink from her canteen, chalking it up to dehydration. She'd had such strange dreams the night before — dreams of a place more green than could possibly exist in the whole galaxy, of a man in a mask, bright yellow light emanating from a weapon that belonged to her as much as she belonged to it.
The voice called to her again the next day as she climbed cables to reach control panels of a Star Destroyer, knowing the most precious parts were often the most out of reach. The voice stirred half-forgotten memories of firelight, warm brown eyes, and the softest touch she had ever known. She shook her head, trying to rid the voice away when she lost her grip on the cable.
Rey fell farther and faster than she knew to be possible, the Star Destroyer fading away to a black sky dotted with stars. She landed with a splash into the depths of a river, flowing upwards, cresting in a great marsh.
Lungs burning, Rey followed a burst of glowing light to the water's surface. Chest heaving with deep breaths, she pulled herself onto the bank. When she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill, she noticed her hands were once again smooth — their grip sure and strong.
"You're as young and vibrant as I once was," came a voice Rey was sure she'd never hear again.
General Organa sat along the riverbank, peeling a fruit Rey knew to be a long-lost Alderaanian delicacy. The general was bathed in moonlight, shining from her toes to the streaks of silver in her braided hair.
Rey sat beside the older woman and took both the cloak and fruit she offered.
"You've crossed the River Styx," Leia said, nodding to the gravity-defying water behind them.
"Your next steps won't be so easy," she warned. "But they'll be worth it."
Leia placed a kiss on Rey's crown and faded into moonlight, leaving behind only the faintest scent of the sweet fruit.
Rey got to her feet and took the first steps of her last journey through Tartarus.
It was quiet until Rey stumbled upon a young boy, solving a many-sided cube puzzle. He blew out a breath in frustration, ruffling the blond hair at his brow. He had the bronzed complexion shared by all desert-dwellers, and a constellation of freckles across his cheeks.
"It's harder than it looks," he said, trying another configuration. "Knowing which way to go, what choices to make. I never was very good at this."
"Do you want some help?" Rey asked as she sat beside him.
"Nah, this puzzle's mine to solve. That one is yours though," he said, pointing with his chin across the room.
Rey walked over and observed the scale. It was large enough to weigh a tauntaun and tipped heavily to one side. The young boy walked over and peered at the scale, resting his chin on his forearms.
"You have to find the balance," he said.
Rey whipped her head around and his words. "What?" she asked, startled.
"You have to find the balance," he said again, looking at the weights and countermeasures.
"Between what?" She asked, her mind already going through calculations.
"That's part of your puzzle."
Rey looked at the weights and measures before her, somehow knowing she would only get one chance. She circled the scale and the boy went back to his own task.
"How long have you been here?" She asked.
"Too long," the boy replied. "I want to go home, but there's a few more pieces I need to get into place."
Rey considered his words as she rounded the scale, thinking back on all the trials she'd faced since arriving on Tartarus.
As the boy's puzzle pieces continued to rotate, some clicking into place, Rey remembered the riddle from the start of her journey.
Descend into madness. Cross the river Styx. Weigh your sins and bare your soul.
Could it really be so simple?
Ben was her bondmate, her equal in the Force.
Rey looked back at the young boy, who nodded encouragingly as she stepped onto the scale. She looked over and suddenly there was Ben weighing down the other side — a perfect balance.
Lightning cracked across the sky as Rey found herself transported back to the mouth of the cave. She sobbed in relief when Ben's strong arms wrapped around her, a bright unguarded smile lit his face — something in his countenance reminding of the young boy with the puzzle.
"Ben," she whispered, her voice breaking. She ran her hands through his hair, the dark waves whipping in the wind.
After months of aching, ragged need, Rey finally felt whole. She found his lips with her own, reveling in his warmth, in his breath, the strong beat of his heart against her chest.
"Rey, sweetheart, don't cry," he said, pressing gentle kisses along the tracks of her tears. It breaks her. If the wound is the place where the light enters you, then Rey is shattered hearing him say her name, give her that hallowed endearment his father reserved for his mother.
She takes his hand and holds it up to place soft kisses along his scarred knuckles, delighting in the knowledge that she can hold him like this, kiss him like this, for the rest of their lives.
They board the Falcon and Rey pauses as she begins to set a course.
"Where should we go?" She asks, a galaxy of possibility ahead.
"Let's go home, Rey," he says, tenderly. "Let's go home."
Surprise! I'm not dead. This is my first fic in 5 years. I'm super rusty, but hope to ease back into the game!
Written for politicalmamaduck as part of the "For one is both and both are one in love: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange" on AO3. God I ship these two idiots in love.