1/12/36 ABY: Lirium
"You found eight of them?" Rey asks Poe, eyes wide, as eight children, ranging from just out of toddlerhood to gangly adolescent, and six… things… come galumphing out of the cargo ship he just landed near her… town.
He keeps his voice low. "No. I found one of them. Remember, I told you about how I had someone you needed to meet?"
She nods, remembering that from the wedding. That was the last time she talked to Poe. He was heading back to Canto Bight, looking for more funding, more ships, more people.
"That one," he points to a boy of nine or ten, "Marrok, he's the one I wanted you to meet."
She nods at that, too, she can feel his spark of the Force, recognizing it easily.
"Here's why I've got him and his seven best buddies, and their six faviers: The First Order has recruiting stations up all over Canto Bight. The Powers That Be don't like that. They've got slaves galore, and they're running away in droves, but they got to be the Powers That Be by selling weapons, and there's exactly one guy in the galaxy who's still buying them in bulk, and they want to keep him happy, so they won't ban his 'recruiting stations.'" He nods to the kids. "None of them like the First Order, but no matter how bad the First Order is, it's five years and they're done. Their owners on Canto Bight aren't offering that sort of deal. And it's not exactly like we've got recruiting stations for them to run to. They'd gotten a plan to get away, slip the slave catchers, and get to a First Order recruiting station, but it took all eight of them. If I took just Marrok, he'd end up leaving them in the lurch, so I either had to grab them all, or they were all going to join the First Order."
Rey sighs. She understands that sort of logic, but… "What am I going to do with eight kids and…" She looks at the huge things grazing between the cleared off places where she intends to put some more cottages. "What are those?"
"Faviers. They wouldn't go without them, too."
"Great. What are they, pets?"
"Racing animals. I'd bet they'll pull a cart if you hook one up to them." Though he doesn't exactly look like he expects to win that bet if he made it.
"There's something, I guess." She watches the kids exploring. "Did you bring food for them? I've got enough for me, but…" In the sense that she eats at least one meal a day from the Supremacy's kitchens, she's got enough food for herself to last a week or so. Chewie makes sure to show up at least that often, but she's not exactly equipped to feed an additional eight people for a day, much less the three or four days between now and Chewie getting here.
"I've got food, and medical supplies, and some clothing." He looks at her feet. "You need new boots."
"I can get myself boots," she says it before she's even really thought about it, but Poe's looking at her like she's half-crazy.
"From where?" He looks around at endless grass plains, and waves toward a gentle roll in the grass. "A market open up over the next hill that I don't know about?"
"Chewie and Finn and Rose should be here in a few days…" She covers. And, as she thinks about it, she's going to have to ask them for some boots, because if she starts wearing a pair of First Order standard work boots, Finn will recognize them.
She looks out at the kids, who are racing around, and the faviers, who are exploring, all fourteen of them looking like they've never seen so much space. "What am I going to do with them?"
Poe shrugs. "What were you going to do with the Force sensitive one?"
"I…" It's one thing to say you're going to teach the Force and balance and all the rest of it. It's another thing entirely to do it. "I guess, for right now, we're going to build. You think they can help?"
"They all had jobs. It's not like they were just laying around and I kidnapped them. At the very least, they know how to take care of the faviers."
Rey sighs, feeling a little overwhelmed. "That's a start. Well, introduce me."
There were children on Niima Outpost, just not a lot of them. Sometimes a trader would come through with a family. But most of the people who lived at Niima Outpost just couldn't afford them. And most women likely didn't get enough to eat or enough rest to carry to term. On top of that, Rey didn't spend much time with them, either. Not when she was a child, or as an adult.
So, standing here, in front of eight of them, all of them looking up at her, skeptical vibes coming off of all of them, because… Okay, Poe's a good guy and all, but… really… who feeds you just for going to a place to learn?
"This is…" And Poe runs headfirst into the idea that he's got no idea what title Rey wants.
"Rey. Just Rey."
"This is Rey. And she's building a town here for people to learn how to be Jedi," Poe says. He's got the basic idea of what she's doing but apparently missed a lot of the details. "Rey, this is Rugh," he points out the youngest of the children, a little girl of… maybe four years old. She's right next to, "Halee, her older brother," who's likely nine or ten. With them is the boy who can use the force, "Marrok, and his cousin," another boy with sandy hair and greenish eyes, this one is older, twelve? "Blane. Over there we've got Magiit," the oldest of the group, a girl just starting her teens, she's holding the hand of a little boy, "Colin," he's just a bit older than Rugh. "And the twins, Opal and Torine," who both appear to be about eight-years-old.
The idea of Jedi training has resulted in some very excited children. Eight little guys light up like a saber extended in the dark. And a skeptical Rey, because, at the very best she could teach one of them to be a Jedi, and she's got seven others that will never, no matter what, ever, be Jedi. Plus, even if it was just Marrok, she wouldn't be going to teach him how to be a Jedi, either.
"We're going to learn to be Jedi?" Opal is very excited by this idea, speaking with her voice high and words fast, and two of the others are pretending to levitate rocks, and another three are having a mock lightsaber battle.
"No, Opal. You're not learning to be a Jedi," Rey says.
All eight of them are disappointed by that. Of course Poe's spiel was too good to be true. They're glaring at him. Even the faviers seem disappointed by that. Their ears droop a little when she says it.
Rey stands up, and spins her staff in a defensive arc, extending the blade as she does it, all of them gasp at the red haloed blue blade. "I'm not a Jedi, so I can't teach you to be one. But… I can teach you about the Force, and why I'm not a Jedi, and eventually, you'll learn enough to plan your own path. Maybe one of you will chose to be a Jedi, but, maybe not."
She figures that's broad enough to include all of them, and… In a flash she gets it. They all need to be here. The galaxy isn't all made up of just Force users, and anything she comes up with has to be valuable for non-Force users as well as Force users, otherwise she's just throwing the balance off.
The galaxy isn't just light and dark. It's not just about people who can use their will to float rocks.
The balance is for everyone.
She can see the kids like the lightstaff. She can feel eight little sprogs who all want one. And, it's occurring to her that Finn could use a lightsaber almost as well as she could, so there's no reason, other than her current complete and utter lack of kyber crystals, that all of them couldn't build their own sabers or staffs or… whatever, eventually.
"Okay, all of you, sit down, get comfortable, close your eyes, and feel…"
They do as well as they can. She knows only one of them is really feeling it, but it seems like a good idea for the other seven to get the idea of this being how everything works.
"Grass below you, sky above. Warm suns, cool dirt… The wet of the lake on the wind… Feel it?"
"Is that the Force?" Magiit, the oldest of them, asks.
"No. It's… how you know the Force. You know the Force by what you feel. And all around you, at all times, there's everything. All of this life and light and death and dark. Hot and cold, solid and fluid. Just close your eyes and feel what's there…"
She gives them two minutes. That's as long as the littlest and squirmiest of the kids can go.
"It's all in balance. You feel that? Everything has a counterpart, somewhere. Maybe you only see the suns right now, but you know night is coming. And it's warm here, but if you go north or south, you'll find the cold. There's a light for each dark."
"That's the Force?" Halee, a boy about nine, asks.
"The Force is what balances everything. It's the energy and the tension, the web… that allows everything to exist and move." She holds out her hand, above her head, and places the staff on her extended index finger. It wobbles a bit, and she's got to move it a little, but she finds the balance point. "That's the Force. That's what balances everything and lets our universe spin. Take that balance away, and instead of perfect spin, it'll fly apart." She gives her staff a little spin, and over her head, on the balance point, it spins just fine. Then she moves the staff, so it's off-balance, and not only can't it spin, it can't stay on her finger, and falls off, bonking her on the head on the way down.
"Ow!" she rubs her head and the kids laugh as she calls the staff back to her hand.
"The Jedi use the Force!" Marrok adds.
"Yes. They did. But they weren't the only ones."
"How can you use a balance?" Blane asks.
"If you can find the balance point, you can move anything, do anything," Rey says.
"All of us?" Halee's asking.
"All of you, in one way or another. Not everyone can float rocks, but everyone can find their destiny and make it happen. Maybe I can float a rock. Maybe you can pick it up. Maybe one of you can build a lever. Maybe one of you gets the faviers to move the rock. Maybe one of you can organize everyone into a rock moving team. But we can all move the rock."
"Why aren't we going to be Jedi?" Marrok, the only one of them who could be a Jedi asks.
She lights the staff again, and again balances it on her finger. "Light side," she points to the glowing flame. "Dark side," she points to the other end. Then she starts floating little rocks to the light side along with a few big ones, resting them on the handle of what used to be a lightsaber. "The Jedi were dedicated to the light. So dedicated they sought to banish every trace of darkness." More rocks, and the staff is tipping, rocks are falling off, her blade singeing the grass. "But the Force seeks balance." She stabilizes the staff, and floats a big rock over to the dark side, to balance the little rocks on the light.
"Kylo Ren!" Marrok says.
"Before him. Emperor Palpatine." She adds one more, smaller, but still big rock, to the dark side. "Darth Vader." She knocks most of the little light side rocks off, and eventually, there are just two. "Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda." Right now, the staff balances.
"The dark side rocks got heavier, but the Force seeks balance." She adds another rock to the light side. "Luke Skywalker." She lets her staff tip a bit to the light. Then she knocks another rock off. "Seeking balance, Kenobi falls, and Luke grows stronger, and out there, unknown to her, another almost Jedi rises." She adds a pebble to the light side. "General Organa."
"General Organa's a JEDI!" That gets a very excited squeak and a wave of excitement.
"No. She isn't and never was. But she's part of the Force seeking balance. We all are. And maybe, someday, she'll come here and talk to you about the Force, and not being a Jedi. But the dark side was getting stronger, and the Force seeks balance."
She knocks another rock off the light side. "Yoda falls, and Luke grows stronger."
"Too much weight on the dark side," Torine says.
"I know, and what happened?"
"Luke Skywalker killed Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader!" a tiny voice chirps. Rugh's staring at the staff with big eyes, and a very excited air about her.
Rey knocks both rocks off the dark side. "Now what? The staff can't fall, the Force won't let it."
"Snoke!" Opal says.
She nods, putting a big rock on the dark side. "And what does Luke do after the war?"
"More Jedi!" Marrok says.
She nods again, and starts to levitate more rocks onto the light side.
"Kylo Ren!" Blane says.
She nods, adding Kylo to the dark side. And then she wipes Luke's Jedi off the light side. "Now what?"
"You?" Rugh asks.
She nods.
"And you killed Snoke! And Kylo Ren killed Luke and now you're the only two left and—" Marrok is saying, voice high and excited.
"Hush, child. I didn't kill Snoke. Kylo did."
Sixteen huge eyes are staring up at her. And one set of equally huge eyes are looking across at her. Poe's never heard this version of the story, either.
"And Kylo didn't kill Luke. Luke sacrificed himself, gave himself up to the Force, so what was left of the Resistance could escape."
She knocks all but two of the stones off of the staff.
"Now, what happens if I train new Jedi? If we go off and dedicate ourselves to the light and nothing but the light?"
"The Force raises new Darklings." Halee says.
Rey smiles; she likes 'Darklings,' and is privately thinking she might, at some point, if she could keep it in her own mind, call Kylo that. "Exactly."
"So… we don't ever learn to use the Force?" Marrok sounds disappointed.
"No. We learn that the Force is the balance. And we learn that we are, all of us, dark and light, and we learn to use both sides of our nature to do what we were born to do."
"If we aren't Jedi… What are we?" Marrok asks.
It's out of her mouth before she can think of it, "Maji. We are the Maji, and we are the protectors of the balance."
"But… if we learn to be Maji, and if Kylo Ren is still out there… doesn't that mean there has to be a Jedi somewhere to balance him?" Magiit says.
That one is smarter than she expected.
"I balance him, and he balances me, and you… you balance yourselves. We're the last of the old generation, and you're the first of a new one."
"How do we do that?" Opal asks.
Rey gives them a lopsided smile. "I'm not entirely sure, but we're going to find out. First things first, let's get you guys settled in."
Poe finds her later, in her cottage, after they've set up two more huts, (between Rey having more practice at it now, and several extra sets of hands, it's a much faster operation than when she was doing it for herself) and the children have gone out to fish in the lake. Poe brought food, but if they can supplement that with fresh meat, it'll last a lot longer.
"Ren killed Snoke?"
She nods.
He's staring at her, very intently. That's not the story he heard. Though, as he thinks about it, that's a story she's also never told. She was content to let them think whatever they wanted to. "What happened?"
She's at her workbench, where she's working on setting up a control panel for one of the cottages. "I thought I could turn Kylo back to Ben—" This would be when Rey realizes that who Kylo Ren was isn't common knowledge among the Resistance, either.
He's staring at her, looking like he's at least twenty chapters behind her in the story. "Ben? Ben what? Who's Ben?"
"Solo," she says, voice low. Poe's eyes just about fall out of his head as he digests that. "Solo… Like… Leia Organa-Solo…" he whispers it.
Rey nods. "Yeah."
"Leia's son? We all thought he was dead." Poe looks gut punched.
He sits at one of the benches at her table, and glances to the bottles on her shelf. "Tell me you've got something stronger than water to drink."
She winces a little. "I do, but…"
"I don't care if it's rocket fuel, pour me one and leave the bottle."
So Rey does, and he knocks the first shot of it back like it's nothing and pours himself another. "Where'd you get Andorrann Plum Brandy?" Then he shakes his head. "I'm distracting myself. Kylo Ren is Leia's son?"
"Yes."
"We've been at war with her little boy?"
"If you can call what we've been doing since he killed Snoke, war, sure."
He's staring into his drink. "Leia's son. How does Leia's son go that wrong? I think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard." This time he takes a sip, rather than shooting the brandy back. "Really? Leia's son?"
She's nodding. "Luke Skywalker's nephew. I tried to turn him back to the light side. He tried to turn me to the dark. Snoke and the entire Praetorian guard died in the process."
His mind is whirling, and he's trying to speak, but he doesn't know what to say. Finally… "When did this happen?" comes out.
"While you were evacuating to Crait."
"What? We're… And you're… And… How?"
Rey half shrugs. Looking at it through Poe's eyes, it does sound like an utterly inconceivable story. "It seemed like a good plan at the time."
He goggles at her.
"I'd been with Luke, and… He's his nephew. And when he was young, he went to train as a Jedi with Luke. It didn't work out, but… I was sure I could… But I couldn't. And, by the time it was done… I could feel it, he can't be turned. I can't, either. I mean… no, it's not physically impossible, but if either of us turns, a new one will just pop up to balance the Force again.
"As long as it's just the two of us, and as long as I don't load up the light side with these little guys, things will stay… stable."
"And if there's some monster rising in the Unknown Regions?" Poe says.
"If I'm right about how it works, there won't be. Unless I go dark, in which case the monster will be another Luke, or Kylo goes light, in which case, anticipate a new Snoke."
Poe's lip curls in disgust. "So… we have to just… leave him there?"
Rey shrugs, trying to look impassive about this. "Leave him there, or roll the dice and hope the next one is as interested in not running the galaxy into the ground as Kylo is. I… He's not doing a terrible job. You know it. When was the last time you found an actual recruit for us?"
Poe glares at her. He's been coming up dry again and again. It's been almost a year without a real attack, and most the people he runs into just want to get on with their lives. And the ones who don't are generally more trouble than they're worth. "You'd think after he—"
"Snoke."
"It's all the same, Rey. Anyone wearing that mark is responsible."
"Like Finn? Is he responsible for anything that the First Order did before he turned? He was at the massacre of Tuanal and didn't stop it."
He knows she knows how he feels about Finn. How, given that Finn is not only married now, but about to be a father, he's trying very hard not to feel about Finn. "That's a low blow."
She shakes her head at him. "No, it's not. Kylo didn't give the order to take out the Hosnian system."
"He didn't stop it."
"He killed the man who gave the order, and the one who put him in power to do it."
"After they did it…" Poe's eyes jerk up to Rey's. "Wait… Ren killed Hux? That was… months… after Crait. How do you even know this?"
She sort of rolls her eyes, and tries to feel about it the way she did when the bond between them was new. "I just do. The Force… I'm not kidding about the balance thing. I know… Stuff I shouldn't."
"Oh." Then he looks horrified. If she knows… "Does that mean…"
"It's part of the reason I've been staying away from planning meetings and the like. I mean… I know… I can feel, he's not interested in the Resistance any longer, but, better safe out here, than all of us being sorry, right?"
He nods slowly. "Should I stay away?"
"Poe," she gently touches his hand, "you're so far down on his list of concerns. You can dance naked here, shouting 'I'm Poe Dameron, Second in Command of the Resistance, Destroyer of the Fulminatrix, The Man Who Led The Attack On Starkiller, come and get me!' and I don't think he'd even blink, let alone send a ship for you."
Poe slumps at that. "That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Years. Decades. I took out a dreadnaught. I ran the attack that took out Starkiller. I-"
"Lost the war. We all did. He's moving on. The question is, are we?"
He stares into his drink, shaking his head.
"Poe… No bravado, no hopeful lies, no… talking for the recruits, how bad is it?"
He sighs and rubs his forehead. "A corpse on life support, too damn stubborn to die, too damaged to live."
"What kind of people are you getting?"
His teeth grit. "Psychopaths. People with a hard-on for vengeance. People who don't care if they die as long as they hurt as many guys in a First Order uniform as possible before they go. People like I used to be, too damn stupid to back away from a fight if winning it'll hurt worse than retreating.
"There used to be reasonable people willing to join us, but between the slave thing and the fact that he's shifted his weapons platform from bigger, badder, and harder to smaller, more maneuverable, and well-tested, most of the kind of people we used to recruit from freely are gone. Instead of the First Order rolling in, kidnapping the entire local population, tossing them in chains, working them to death, and then using whatever's left of the planet to test its weapons on, his people show up, set up 'Recruiting stations' promise everyone who does five years a pile of goodies, and then ships them off to wherever they're going. He's not ripping babies away from their families anymore. His new weapons…" Poe sighs, staring at the ceiling of Rey's cottage, frustration bleeding off of him. "New's the wrong word. It's tested technology. And it's fucking terrifying. Did you see the battering ram cannon?"
"Heard about it, saw it on the ground for a second, but I didn't see it fire."
"Miniaturized Death Star tech." He shoots back more of the drink. Dealing with this, trying to come up with tactics for it has been haunting him, Leia, too. It's not just they don't have enough of anything, it's that they don't have anything good to do with what they have. "They're designed to kill hardened targets, or to do things like take mountains out of the way. On the ground, they're a mess. You only bring them in if you've got to flatten something the size of a cliff because they're huge and have the maneuverability of an asteroid field. He's got three manufacturers stuffing them into ships the size of a small bomber. In orbit, it doesn't matter how big or heavy the thing is because gravity and air resistance aren't issues anymore. One hit'll take out a decent sized town, and any ship smaller than a mega-dreadnaught, and he's flying the only one of them in existence. He's building thousands of them per dreadnaught." Poe pours another drink.
"I can't fight that. Not… without an equal, if not greater, number of pilots. Anything with them is dogfighting, and I can train the best fucking dogfighters you've ever seen, but… he can, too. And he's got the money to pay 'em and the ships to train 'em in.
"You can do a suicide run to take out a dreadnaught. Maybe it's stupid, but you can do it. You can't do that here. For every one of them I take out, he can take out one of mine and…"
"And you don't have the people."
The look on Poe's face is heartbreaking. "I don't. Just to break even, I've got to take out something like ninety of his for every one of mine. And I don't have the recruits to get to the point where I can even take a shot at him. I can train a fish to fly, if the fish loves flying. I can't train a person to fly, if the only reason that person wants to fly is because he's living on hate."
"So…"
He rubs his temples. She can feel he doesn't want to be saying any of this, but it's also a relief to be able to finally say it to someone. "Captain… Admiral. I'm officially Admiral Dameron now, goes down with the ship. As long as we're fighting, I'm in. I'll scramble around, play a lot of sabbac, win us money and ships, and…"
"Waste your time."
"Don't say that." He looks so hurt at that idea.
"Am I wrong?"
"Just… don't."
Rey can feel this conversation, this moment, them in her cottage is happening for a reason, and before she knows what that reason is, "How did you know Marrok was Force sensitive?" has fallen out of her mouth.
"Mmm?" He didn't follow how her thought got there, and honestly, she's not entirely sure, either.
"You knew he had talent. How?"
"Uh…" Poe rubs his eyes, trying to remember. "Um… Gambling. I support myself gambling and the occasional 'cargo' run. The faviers race, and betting on them is big in Canto Bight. I got one of the high muckety-mucks to invite me to the stables, and noticed the kids. I'm always on the lookout for kids like them, they've usually got families, and… that's generally where the good recruits are."
"But these children are orphans."
"Or if they aren't, their parents are gone. Something about him… I don't know what I saw, but I kept looking and… Eventually, he flashed me the Resistance sign, and we got talking about what I was doing, and how they could help, and…"
"So, he found you?"
"We found each other."
"Could you do it again?"
Poe doesn't immediately understand that. But Rey does. She's seeing a part of the plan she hadn't before, something she absolutely has to have to make this work.
"If I'm teaching them here, I can't leave. I can't be out scouting the galaxy looking for little Force users while teaching the ones I've got." She touches the token on her chest. "You gave this to me. You've got a feel for it, and I need someone who can travel and has that feel."
"You want me to recruit for you?"
"Yes. Help me bring life to something new, instead of clinging to something that's dying." She touches the token again. "The Force is in and through and with, everything. That's… another place where I think the Jedi went wrong, they sequestered the ideas of light and dark to only those who could 'use the Force.' But, we're all using it, all the time. Maybe I can do flashier things with it. Luke called them tricks. Okay, I can do some spiffy tricks. And maybe you can't, though I've heard about how you fly, so it wouldn't shock me if you're not pulling from the Force, somehow, maybe not the way I do, but… somehow.
"But we're not Jedi, we're Maji. You and—" she almost says Kylo, but Poe's buzzed enough he doesn't notice her trip over her word and say, "me. And those children. And anyone else who wants to be part of the balance."
"Give up the Resistance?" his voice catches on that. He's been Resisting since he was fifteen.
"I don't think recruiting for me and the Resistance are mutually exclusive conditions. I think you can do both. Do the one and keep an eye out for the other. I just think one of those two options is going to continue long into the future, and the other is, as you said, dying."
They hear a commotion outside, followed by voices growing distinct, "Rey, Rey! Look!" Her door slides open and the kids are crowding around, holding a massive, thrashing fish. "This is a fish, right?"
It's almost as big as Rugh. "That's a fish." She looks over to Poe. "Think about it. Okay you guys, lesson one, how to clean a fish. I have a friend, and you'll get to meet him soon, named Chewbacca, and Chewbacca's a great cook. I'm not as good, but he taught me how to cook a fish, and I'll show you. Let's go get this thing close to the lake again."
"Why?" Blane asks.
"Because we're going to cut its head off, and take its guts out, and if we toss that back into the lake, some of the other creatures will eat it. We don't waste food here. If you don't like it, compost it, give it to someone who does, or the animals."
It takes longer to get the fish cleaned, and cooked, and portioned out, and fed to the children than Rey was expecting. When Chewie does it, it takes about three minutes. He just does it, and suddenly all the bones are gone and he's got a lovely fish steak.
She and the kids spend what feels like hours pulling bones out of this thing, and at the end of it, they've got a collection of fairly ragged and shaggy looking fish parts.
But they're edible.
And the kids do seem to like running around looking for brush to build a fire with. They like cooking the fish over the fire more.
And they're… not entirely enthusiastic about eating it, but they're hungry, and it's food, and it rounds out the portions that Poe brought along.
And while they do that, Rey doesn't see Poe. He's… off… thinking maybe. Drinking maybe. As the blue sun starts to sink low, she sees him on the bank of the lake, looking for something. She doesn't know what he picks up, but he grabs, something, from the stones of the lake, and heads back into her cottage.
They all hear him shout out, "FUCK!" several moments later, but he doesn't come out, and Rey can sense that he's startled but okay.
As green sun is sinking, it's getting fairly close to when she'd go to Kylo, or he would come to her. She flashes him the sense that she's got people around, and gets a sense back of waiting. Impatient waiting, but resigned impatience.
She sends him a little smile, and the feel of the night a few days earlier, when he was up late with his generals talking recruitment targets.
She feels his answering smirk.
The children are milling around the bank of the lake, and Rey's not entirely sure what to do with them. "What do you normally do after dinner?"
"Feed the Faviers, rub them down, make sure they're settled," Magiit, says.
"Okay, go take care of them. When Chewie gets back, we'll make up a list of what we need to keep them happy."
"They're happy," Opal says. "It's been a long time since they've had grass under their paws, and they've missed it."
"Good. I'm going to go talk to Master Poe, and then I'm turning in. Tomorrow, we start working on the piping."
Torine says, "Is that it?"
Rey looks a little concerned. "Should there be more?"
"We can do what we like between now and the morning?"
Rey nods. "I'd suggest sleeping, but… Sure. Pick which of the huts you want, unpack whatever you brought, and then rest. Attaching the plumbing on the huts to the lake is hard work."
"What kind of hard work?" Blane asks.
"Digging, moving rocks, laying pipes. We're going to be sweating tomorrow."
The kids don't exactly look enthusiastic, but… It's not grooming Faviers and being treated like dung by the people who bet on them.
When she gets into her cottage, she sees Poe at her work bench. His finger is bandaged, so she's guessing that's what got the loud cursing.
He's using her fine cutting laser and has one of the lake rocks, a small one, about the size of the token. It's streaked with light and dark gray, and he's carved the swirl from her token into it.
He doesn't look away as he says, "I should know better than to try things like this drunk."
She nods. "Finger still in one piece?"
"Enough. It'll heal." It wiggles the way it's supposed to when he holds his hand to up her and flexes his finger. Then he returns to the stone. He finishes drilling a hole into the top of it. "Got a string or something?"
Rey nods. "I do." She roots around in the drawers of her workbench and finds a spool of leather cord. It only takes her a minute to get the stone threaded, and one more to get it knotted.
She loops it over Poe's head. "Poe Dameron of the Maji."
He rolls his eyes a little, and then says, "I should go sleep this off. It may seem like a stupid idea sober."
"I won't hold you to it if seems that way in the morning."
He staggers out to his ship, and Rey closes up behind him, tidies up her work bench, and then shifts herself through to Kylo.
"I found our name," she says to Kylo later that night.
He kisses her shoulder. These moments, when they're lying in his bed or hers, spooning, talking quietly, they're… almost (he's more than a bit fond of what they were doing before lying quietly) the highlight of his day.
"What is it?"
"Maji."
He kisses her shoulder again, snuggling closer. "Rey of Jakku, First Mistress of the Maji."
"Not Rey of Jakku. Just Rey. Rey of the Maji."
He touches the token that's around her neck today. "Am I Kylo of the Maji?"
She rolls over to face him, nodding. "Kylo of the Maji."
He smiles a little. "I like that." He touches the token again, and she slips it from her neck to his. His fingers land on the token, warm from her skin. "Will I wear it openly, one day?"
"I hope so. If I teach balance, then anyone. Even you, even me, can be a Maji."
Slowly, one conversation at a time, most of them started by a glib-tongued pilot, pretending to be just a traveler, seeking to take cargo from one port to the next, the word Maji begins to spread.
And slowly, the population of Lirium begins to grow.