"What is this, Kylo?" Rey breathed. Her eyes refused to tear themselves away from the object's cluttered mass littered on the floor. There was a faint aura glowing from the kyber crystal that shrouded the room in not only a dim blue light, but a warm fuzzy sensation. Rey blinked. There were a lot of memories with the weapon.
"You really don't know?" she heard him ask.
Rey clenched her fists and ripped her eyes from the lightsaber and placed her attention on him instead.
"N—No, I understand. But I thought—"
"You thought this lightsaber was lost."
Rey gave a meek nod of her head.
"I collected it after the battle on Crait. It had fallen into a state of disrepair, so I dismantled it and took it with me. Something tells me you would want to see it again."
"I—thank you," she murmured. Part of her agreed to Kylo's words—the weapon was a firm camaraderie and served her well in her training and the expulsion of the Praetorian guards. But the history of the hilt and crystal was not one she wished to linger her mind on.
"I mentioned that it would be ideal for you to have your own weapon, for protection. The topic is even more pressing given our descent into Numina tomorrow."
"And you honestly trust me not to cut through your legions of First Order officers to escape? Or, for that matter, you yourself?"
Kylo smiled, and Rey felt herself mirroring him.
"No, Rey. As much as I know a part of you will always wish to be free from the First Order, the bond tells me otherwise. That much I know."
Rey's smile slowly drooped. She hadn't thought about their situation, much less pondered on any direction the Force was pushing her toward. But she tore her mind away from this controversial matter and forced another smile that did not reach her eyes.
"So, how do I go about building my own lightsaber?"
"Well," Kylo answered, plopping onto the ground and propping one of his knees up and resting an elbow on it. "There is heavy meditation involved, to your distaste. I know how impatient you can get."
"Impatient? Me?!" Rey incredulously asked. "You sure are quite the one to talk."
Rey followed suit, easing herself toward the ground, except her resting position was with both of her knees pointed to the ground and her feet tucked in underneath her behind. Her reticence was being replaced by excitement—joy at the aspect of learning such a craft. And when was the last time she could add something to the list of what she called hers?
"First, you must decide the style of your hilt and design of your blade."
Well, that was easy.
"Staff," she blurted. "I want it to be like the staff I have now."
"I thought as much. You will want a double-bladed weapon."
Rey looked at the blue kyber crystal. It didn't look like much. She wasn't sure whether it would be enough to power both sides of her blade.
"Are you sure we can forge it out of this?"
"The size of the kyber crystal is not correlative to the size and mass of your lightsaber," Kylo answered shrewdly. "It is the energy that is put into forging it. One that you can channel and direct into the crystal itself. Your lightsaber will be an extension of your own body."
Rey nodded her head, eager to hear more.
"The creation of your blade should never feel forced. Jedi and Sith have both known to take days, and some even weeks, before they complete the construction of their blades."
"Somehow I can't see them doing it within the confines of their own quarters," Rey joked.
"No. Usually in caves. Kyber crystals are native to Ilum, a planet in the Unknown Regions. We have no time to make such a strenuous journey."
"If what you say about it taking weeks to forge one's lightsaber is true, then what makes you think I can build mine by tomorrow?"
"Because," Kylo pursued. "I have never seen a Force-user with as much determination as you."
Whatever response Rey was expecting, it was not that. She found herself suddenly avoiding his piercing gaze and looking anywhere in the room but him.
"Your cheeks betray you."
Rey huffed, refusing to let his continue verbal assault affect her anymore, but it was hard.
"Do you have any more questions?"
"Yes," she said, directing her focus back to the topic at hand.
"Of course you do."
Rey ignored his casual remark.
"Why do Jedis have green or blue lightsabers and Force-users like you have red ones?"
"Not all Jedi have green or blue lightsabers. There was a powerful Jedi Force-user in the past, back when the Republic still stood—his name was Mace Windu. He had a purple lightsaber."
"Purple?"
Kylo chuckled at her mortified expression.
"What do you have against purple lightsabers?"
"Nothing!" Rey spewed, turning defensive. "It's just…well…it's purple! I thought colors were more confined to the most common hues."
"That's not always the case. The crystal usually abides by the light or darkness in your heart, but purity is also another factor that comes into play. Ahsoka Tano…she had white lightsabers."
"White."
"Yes. But that is a story for another time. We will focus on the basics first. If you choose to modify your crystal down the road because of your distaste toward its color or the hilt that it is embedded in, we can."
"Do people do that often?"
Kylo shook his head. A few of his strands of hair came loose and washed over the side of his face, obscuring one of his eyes. The dark strands danced for a few seconds before they came to a rest. Rey gulped as his marred features seemed even more amplified in this dim room with only the blue kyber crystal illuminating the two of them. Her stomach swam with a certain unease.
"Often times, being filled with the knowledge that the crystal itself can determine the Force residing in you to be light or dark is more than enough to deter anyone from changing the status quo."
Rey nodded fervently, and then she remembered her earlier question.
"And your lightsaber…it's red because you are dark?"
"Yes. Red is a universal symbol of the dark side. However, the uncontrollable energy that bursts from my blade tends to come from the crystal itself—mine is cracked, and because of that, the Force inside it is unstable and cannot be contained in the form of bright steady beams like a usual lightsaber."
"If red is that symbolic, then…would it be possible for the crystal to change colors to blue or green? Given a change of heart by the lightsaber's owner."
She saw him flinch, and instantly regretted her decision to ask him such a sensitive question. Although she tried to make it seem like a generalized, they both knew that it was directed at him.
"I'm sorry," she backtracked. "I shouldn't have said anything."
Kylo lifted his head and a small gasp left her lips at the sight of the expression in his eyes. They didn't have their usual brown gleam to them. Instead, they had opened and emptied into an endless void that pushed all the emotions to the forefront.
Suffering. Guilt. Anger. Sadness. Desolation. But mostly guilt.
"Kylo," Rey breathed. She didn't want to say that she knew, but oh, she knew. There was a tiny voice inside her head that told her why he felt this way.
"It's okay," she continued, trying to ameliorate things.
Saying those words caused him to snap.
"It's okay?" he repeated. "It's okay?!" He got to his feet and leered menacingly at Rey.
"Kylo!" she spewed, standing up as well.
She had to do something. She could feel him losing his edge. She could feel as his anger grew and grew and threatened to drag him down under. She could feel him starting to lose himself.
So Rey did the only thing she could. She took two steps forward and leaned up on her tiptoes and planted a firm kiss on lips.
It was only the second time they had kissed, but it was no different from the first. In fact, it was as if with each passing second that they didn't kiss, their tension grew. A deep pit of longing inserted itself inside her chest and she felt the exhilarating shocks and tingles that perpetuated from their connected lips down through her neck and to every corner of her body. Her legs became wobbly and she started to tremble on her tiptoes, but the movement was stabilized when one of Kylo's muscular arms wrapped around her waist and drew her closer into him.
Rey let out a squeak at the contact. Her mouth opened and Kylo's tongue instantly darted inside, triggering a similar response of her own. It touched hers and gently eased its way until it lay rested on top before Rey decided that there was no way in stars that she would just sit still and miss out on all the desire. She crammed her tongue into his mouth, growling like a feral animal. This spurned Kylo on, and the two of them remained in a wrestling match with their tongues for what seemed like ages.
Filled with content after a dance with eternity, and through the vibrant hum in their connection, Rey could sense his anger begin to reside. Deciding to be the responsible one first was difficult on a whole level of its own, but Rey somehow managed to muster up the self-control to pull herself away from Kylo.
The response as her brain caught up to their situation was similar to that when they had finished their heated session in the training room. Rationality crashed down upon her and Rey was just about to open her mouth in speechless guilt, but she stopped herself when hit with a sudden revelation. Her legs were wobbly and the spot below her stomach was on fire and virtually throbbing for him.
If something felt this right, then was it really wrong?
For once since meeting Kylo, Rey shut down her brain. She shut down her conscious train of thought and focused not on what was supposed to be right, but what she perceived as right—her connection with Kylo.
"Maker, that was more intense than the first time," she said, panting heavily. She didn't wait for a response, and instead, took his hand and pulled the unstruggling Kylo Ren back down to the floor.
"Can we start building my lightsaber now?" Rey asked, moving her hand across the pieces on the floor.
There was no answer.
Rey lifted her head up to see Kylo with a deer-in-the-headlights look.
"You kissed me," he said.
"Yes."
"No, I mean, you kissedme. Not me, but you."
The Force pushed her forward and Rey smiled. "As long as it will get you to behave, then I'm all for it."
With the deliverance of her sudden banter, the old Kylo was back. His elated stare vanished and a cockier one took its place.
"Do not forget that I am still your Master, and you my apprentice."
The bond was stronger than it had ever been, fueled by their recent kiss and the chain of events from last night, and Rey found herself feeling the dire need to be as snarky as she could.
"Of course, Master," she purred, letting the last word roll off her tongue like the finest dessert.
She saw Kylo's throat bob up and down as he swallowed and she internally smirked to herself while keeping an impasse expression on her face.
"So," she said, looking down and pretending to be nonchalant. "How do I go about building my lightsaber?"
"Right," he said, and Rey couldn't help but smile at how unsteady his voice sounded. Kylo took a few steadying breaths and eased himself back into a stony-faced appearance.
"As I mentioned earlier, the lightsaber should feel like an extension of your own body, as if you have had an extra limb throughout your whole life. The first thing you need to do is build your anchorage."
"And how do I go about doing that?"
"Patience, my apprentice. You will be focusing on your kyber crystal. In the meantime, I will work on the hilt, so that when you are done meditating, your weapon will be ready. All you will need is to insert the crystal inside."
Rey smiled. Leave it to Kylo to deal with conveniency. She was also secretly pleased that he was helping her. That way, every time she used the lightsaber, she would know that there would be a little part of him that had contributed to the building of it. She would be able to always carry a piece of him around.
"Close your eyes."
Rey did as he told, shutting her eyes and steadying them so that her eyelids wouldn't twitch.
"Feel the Force around you," he said, voice dropping several pitches. "Reach out."
Rey was suddenly reminded of her time on Ahch-To, and it made doing what Kylo asked much simpler. Although—and her lips twitched for a small second—he didn't have a leaf to slap her with.
Do you sense it?
Yes, Rey answered, not at all fazed by the sudden voice in her head.
Zone down your line of sight to this room. You will be able to see three things: me, yourself, and—
The kyber crystal.
Precisely. Pour your attention into the kyber crystal. Pour your being into it. Get closer and closer to the Force. Do you feel it? Do you feel the crystal exuding its power to you?
Yes, Rey responded. And she could. The crystal sparked brightly in her mind, as if it had a life of its own and knew that Rey was nearby to stake her claim on it.
Go to it. Let it read you. Let it inside you. Let the Force from it and you mesh together until neither one is distinguishable from the other.
Rey did as he told, focusing her attention to the power of the crystal. There was something mesmerizing that drew her in, and she didn't fight it. She had to become one with the crystal. It's what Kylo's guidance offered to her. It's what was right.
She felt her Force energy stretch out and lean ever-so-closer to the crystal. One more tiny tilt forward was all it took before she felt herself being yanked inside.
And what she saw was truly eye-opening.
Visions—at least, that's what she thought they were—rose to the forefront of her mind. As her Force energy collided with the crystals, a torrent of emotions and memories rushed through her. She felt the despair of not having a family. She felt the desire whenever she was in close proximity to Kylo. She felt the anger when Unkar Plutt grabbed her. She felt warmth when Leia smiled at her. She felt hopeless when watching Luke try to take down an army. She felt lost at her future. She felt friendship at Finn and BB-8 and every nameless face in the Resistance. She felt ardor with Kylo's rough, yet feathery touch. Each of these emotions washed over her as if the crystal itself was conducting a thorough scan through her entire brain, in the same fashion as Kylo and Sula both did under different circumstances; however, the crystal's method was non-intrusive.
But most of all, she felt darkness.
And this wasn't darkness that scared her, no. This was darkness that forged itself from the beginnings of Rey's life itself. This was darkness that had always existed in her, and had to, for the longest time, hide in its locked box as the stronger, light Rey overtook her entire being and placed itself as commander of her conscious. The darkness had offered some resistance during her younger years, as rapist men tried to go after her and at moments where Unkar Plutt had treated her lower than a grain of sand, but it knew that then was not the time to mount a full-on assault strike. All this darkness did was simply wait until the opportune moment to push back and rebel against all the morals and all the engrained teachings Rey had familiarized herself with over the course of her entire life. And that time was now, with the help of the crystal's Force showing Rey who she truly was.
The darkness flickered inside her and Rey unknowingly clenched her firsts at the raw power it had to offer. It channeled through her being and filled her full to the brim until she felt like she was going to succumb and get lost inside the infinitesimal, ethereal mass of darkness.
And after what seemed like hours but in reality was only seconds, Rey emerged from the bottomless pool of self-transcending. The crystal merged with her Force, with her power, and hummed in content at the new bond formed between it and its master.
Rey opened her eyes.
She had seriously forgotten where she even was, and it took her a few minutes before her brain caught up to reality. It was hard to do so, for during that time, she could feel the darkness inside working its hardest to stifle the light. A few minutes later, everything stilled. The darkness and the light stopped fighting, and that unnerved her more than anything else, for she had always thought the two would rage in an eternal war. Just look at the constant battle between the Jedi and their counterparts. But in her case, she couldn't tell which side had won and dominated.
Rey's attention was finally drawn to the kyber crystal, but she didn't need to look at it to know what color it had turned to. The whole room was dimly illuminated with a new color that casted an eerie glow on both her and Kylo's faces.
"It suits you," Kylo whispered.
Rey stared at the crystal. It glared a deep, aching red—the same color as Kylo's lightsaber. The crystal hissed and hummed with power, and how it didn't burn the carpet, Rey didn't know. The red was so naked and otherworldly that she couldn't help but let loose a whimper at how beautiful it was. It stood for many things. She could many emotions—passion, desire, lust, rage, fear—they were all mixed inside in a ball of pure power.
"I don't feel any different." Rey cleared her voice to dissolve the distasteful sound that it had due to heavy disuse.
"The crystal is merely a catalyst into a reaction that showed you for who you truly are. What you decide to do with that information is entirely up to you. It cannot mind control you into doing what it represents. You still have your conscious, but whether that is stronger than your innate self can be a test at times."
"The crystal…"
"Whether you like it or not, Rey, you will fulfill your destiny. You will slowly change."
"Into who I truly am," she finished.
"Into who you truly are," he repeated, holding out the palm of his right hand.
Rey's eyes widened and a smile began to split her face at the hilt lying flat in Kylo's palm.
"This is amazing," she oozed. Kylo pushed his hand out a little closer to her and Rey raised both of her hands up and reached them for the hilt. She grabbed one end in each and drew it closer to her.
The hilt itself was still shiny from the metal of the previous lightsaber it had belonged to but darker this time, so that it didn't gleam, but rather radiated. The design was heavily accentuated to the point where the color was more resemblant of a charcoal, sleek carbon look than anything else. Still, it was idiosyncratic in its own right.
She gave it a small toss in the air and reveled in how light it was. It couldn't have been heavier than the weight of her outer garments combined.
"I take it you like it."
Rey didn't even bother suppressing the huge grin that appeared on her face.
"I love it. This is perfect."
She heard Kylo let out a deep breath that he had been holding, and realized that he must have been waiting for her approval. And Rey was going to give him just that.
She crawled over to him and planted another firm and striking kiss on his cheek before withdrawing back to her comfortable sitting position.
"What, no lips-to-lips this time?" Kylo smirked.
"No, because we both know what path that will lead down toward, and I have yet to finish constructing my lightsaber," Rey retorted, suppressing the urge to roll her eyes.
"You have already made immense progress. I don't believe there is anyone in the galaxy who has ever forged a lightsaber with speeds such as you yourself have done."
"Tell me what to do next."
"It's simple. Just use the Force and guide the crystal in. All the wires are already in place, so everything will snap together in one piece."
Rey didn't close her eyes this time, and she called the Force by raising her hand. She frowned at how easily the crystal began moving. After a few seconds of hesitancy, she lowered her hand and realized that she could direct the movement of the object with a mere thought.
"Often times, the creation of a lightsaber also allows for the heightening of one's Force skills as they are meditating," Kylo responded to her unasked question. "It is not uncommon."
Rey nodded, and continued with her task. The crystal, having been lifted off the floor, was pulsing with bright energy that could scorch. She directed it slowly until it slipped inside, past the little latch in the hilt that slid open to allow the crystal to enter, until it she felt the wires wrap themselves over it and firmly lock into place. Closing the latch, she rested her mind and called off the Force.
"I believe this is now yours," Kylo said, directing her newly-constructed lightsaber over to her with his Force.
Rey stared at it.
"It's beautiful," she finally said.
"Yes. Beautiful." She looked up to see Kylo staring purposefully at her face.
Rey stood up. She brought the lightsaber up to the defensive position she would normally adopt with her staff—leaning it to the right side of her body and holding the bottom end of the hilt with her left hand. For the top of the hilt, she closed in from the outside of the hilt and gripped it tightly with her right hand. Both of her arms were slightly bent.
And then she pressed the activation switch.
Rey crossed her arms and tapped her feet in impatience. She was currently in her room, filled with remaining energy that had yet to be used up for the day. After she had swung her new lightsaber and practiced with it in Kylo's room, he had demanded that she do it elsewhere for the sake of his belongings. Rey had been tempted to actually let her grip slide a little on the hilt so that it would swing out of her hand and actually impale through his dressing cabinet, but thought better of it.
The training room was a whole new story. Rey had been highly disappointed when Kylo asked her to come with him to the central deck. He had requested—yes, requested. Not demanded. He had requested her presence by his side as he went to deal with General Hux and sign off on First Order papers, but Rey knew she had to slightly decline at the aspect of practicing with her new weapon in the training room.
The next few hours included several dozen droid deaths as they were no match for Rey's weapon. The only times they landed strikes on her was when she was practicing a new maneuver or technique and was unfamiliar with how to go about it with a weapon that could destroy anything. But practice did make perfect after all, and by the end of the session, she found that she was quite adept with her new weapon. In fact, it was more or less the same as her staff on Jakku, except this weapon was lighter and far more deadlier. A single thrust could impale through metal like air, and an even simpler swipe could cut through any infrastructure without resistance. Thank the stars that she had previous experience and was well-versed enough with her staff so that she had never accidentally hit herself anymore after the first year of its use. If she didn't have the practice back then, then she might've already cut her limbs off by mistake with the lightsaber now.
She didn't know what time it was now, but was fairly certain it was getting late. The only thing she was concerned about now was how hungry she was, but because of all this unspent energy, she didn't feel like ordering in. Eating by herself was not an option.
Clipping the hilt that she had observed for the umpteenth time to her belt buckle, Rey stood up and left her quarters. She walked down the hallways that she had well-familiarized herself with and could recall with a simple tap into her memory until she approached a door with heavy social interaction behind it. She had searched up a cafeteria on the holocron and pinpointed it, and this is where she stood now, in front of a door that would open to First Order officers and Stormtroopers alike.
The door automatically slid open as she approached close to it, and she took a deep breath and walked through. At first, the chatter around her continued, for the sound of a door sliding open was nothing new to people's ears. But it all dimmed down one conversation at a time when people's eyes began to lift off their dinner or friends to stare at the newcomer that was obviously nervous walking through a horde of people with their full attentions on her.
Rey was getting second doubts. Everyone was staring at her and her tan clothes like an alien. Although no one was peering on her with evidential disgust or hatred, they held no shred of delight to see her either. Not that she was expecting that.
Rey had never been an attention-seeker, and she found herself furiously blushing under the scrutinizing stares of dozens of people. She willed her feet to walk forward and her eyes to scan even faster for a seat to sit in and disappear amongst the other heads bobbing around. It was a bad idea to come out. She should have just eaten in her room.
"Lady Rey!"
Rey's face flushed even darker if it was possible, at the addressment that could come from the voice of no other than Sula. She lifted her head and saw Sula with her helmet off, sitting in a far corner of the cafeteria. With a firm destination in her mind now, she pivoted her feet and started moving in her new direction toward her. At least she knew someone here, no matter how little it was.
The closer she approached, the easier it was for her to see that Sula was on a holocron and chatting with someone. But before she could fix her eyes on the figure, Sula turned it off.
"Lady Rey," she greeted, dipping her head.
"Please, Sula. Just Rey."
Sula was wearing her hair differently than when Rey last saw her that morning in the training room. Her hair still reached down to her waist, but it was in the form of two large braids instead of hundreds of individual strands.
"Rey, then. What are you doing here?"
"I—I was hungry so I came to eat."
"With that resplendent entrance?"
"Resplendent?" Rey asked in confusion. "They all just looked up at me!"
Sula sighed. "Of course they did. You're Rey, a scavenger from Jakku who joined the Resistance and then defected for the First Order. Everyone has known you've been on the Finalizer for days, and yet this is their first time they're seeing you. You're a celebrity in your own right."
Rey pushed down on the uncomfortable sensation at being described as a defector and someone loyal to the First Order.
"I didn't want this attention, though!"
Sula chuckled. "You should have just eaten in your room then."
Rey took offense to that. "I see that I should have after all."
She made plans to get to her feet, but before she could rise, a hand rested on her arm.
"Please excuse my behavior, Lady Rey. I did not mean it in disrespect."
Rey decided not to correct her this time and instead waited on what she had to say.
"Let's eat. You must be famished."
Rey's stomach grumbled right as she said that, and she couldn't help but look a little sheepish.
The two of them got out of their seats and over to the meal center. Rey's eyes darted to the side and saw many First Order officers and Stormtroopers with their gazes fixed on them; she assumed Sula ate here often, for their attention was more so on her than Sula's striking features.
Once again, Rey couldn't get over the fact at how ordinary everything seemed. Here she was, inside a Star Destroyer surrounded by people with faces who were laughing and deep in discussion as they ate, willingly getting food in First Order territory surrounded by ones who were supposed to be her enemies.
And now she almost felt like she was one of them.
Rey bit down on her lip to stop the protest escaping from her. She was beginning to feel turmoil; it was another small-scale battle that had begun. Her conscious wanted her away. It wanted her to return to the Resistance. To what was home.
"Are you okay?"
Sula's voice jolted her out of her thoughts.
"F—Fine," Rey said. She chastised herself for letting her guard down.
Sula stared at her and sighed. "I know that we got off on the wrong foot, but you must know that I genuinely care. I can sense when something is wrong, and that is what is happening right now."
Rey stepped back, overwhelmed at her honest concern. Sula wore her emotions on the sleeve of her shirt, and it was obvious she was telling the truth, even to Rey, someone who had shut herself off to emotions the best she could for over fifteen years.
"Let's just get our food," Rey said, yanking black plate from a stack in the corner of the row of food. She could tell Sula wanted to inquire more, but she went on ahead and let herself be distracted by the abundant amounts of food. Every color and style was available for her picking. There were countless tubs of meats, vegetables, fruits, dessert—anything and everything she could think of, was piled high, always ready to be refilled by the cooks behind the kitchen doors.
Rey ended up filling her plate so full that she couldn't see the color of the plate and had to rest her palm on the bottom of it to even carry it. There was just one thing: she had no idea what she put on her plate.
"I see you aren't a picky eater," Sula observed in the small moment of silence after they both sat down at the same time.
"Jakku was hardly the place to be picky. You would consider yourself extremely lucky if you even got a portion after a day of work."
"Can you tell me about it?"
Rey nodded. She couldn't voice her affirmation, because her mouth was stuffed full of food. Sula handed her a piece of silverware that came with her meals when she ordered her meals from her quarters, but Rey let it sit unused. She had never used it then, and didn't feel like using it now. Why would she? She had always eaten with her hands, no matter how dirty they were.
Although, whatever she was chewing had a slippery texture and her fingers quickly became oily.
Rey didn't even bother to chew until all the food was cut into little pieces by her canines before swallowing. Her stomach abruptly grumbled in satisfaction. She knew her behavior when it came to eating was in no shape or form polite nor mannerly, but year after year of eating by herself led to bad habits that didn't wash away in just a few months.
"The portions were hardly much to begin with at all. They could be distributed up to quarters."
"What was in them?"
"A full portion consisted of three meals and some snacks. Even on a good day though, I would only get a quarter portion or half. It was nothing more than some polystarch bread and some protein-enhanced food called veggie-meat."
"It wasn't real meat," Sula shuddered, her silver eyes never breaking their contact with Rey's brown ones.
"Yes," Rey agreed. "I would mix the bread powder with water and it would solidify into something edible. You could cook the artificial meat."
"Those portions, aren't they simply rations?"
Rey nodded. "Military rations taken from warships that crashed on Jakku during the Galactic Civil War. There were thousands and thousands scavenged, and all of them were held by—by—"
"By who?"
Rey gritted her teeth. "Unkar Plutt," she seethed.
Stars, she hated that creature. Memories in the past surfaced, ones that went beyond the appropriate line for sexual requests in exchange for portions for a child her age.
"Do you have any memorable memories of your time on Jakku that you would like to share?"
What pleasant memories did she have? Rey didn't want to talk about how she stayed up crying every night, surrounded by lifeless sand and nothing. She was all alone for years, with the only communication being with Unkar Plutt and the imaginary conversations she had with any pieces of technology that she salvaged and kept, or holovids that she traded priceless portions for and learned about life outside of Jakku. She didn't want to talk about how she tallied in a mark for every night that passed, begging on her knees and yelling out in frustration at the parents who never came.
Rey crammed her fingers in her food and put another ball of whatever in her mouth. She licked her fingers clean of little tidbits.
Then, one memory surfaced and she found herself talking about it with her mouth half-full.
"There was one…" she started. "A droid. From the BB-series. I scooped him out of a net from another scavenger and he wouldn't stop following me around, no matter how much I initially pestered him to leave." Rey gave a sad little smile, falling into the past.
"Because you saved him?"
"I suppose, although I reckon it was more so because I could speak binary and communicate with him. Not many people take the time to learn the language. Most people find it to be underneath them. He was lost and I was the first person he found who wasn't in a hurry to trade him in for credits or portions. Although…I—"
Rey's heart sank and the food in front of her served as a mocking reminder.
"He followed me to Plutt when I traded in my scavenges for half a portion. But when he saw BB-8…" she swallowed the rest of her food and it slid down her throat like sandpaper. "He offered sixty portions."
"Sixty portions?! Maker, that's two months' worth of food!"
Rey nodded and dipped her fingers in her food again, this time playing with it.
"But you didn't accept the trade."
"No," Rey told her. "I didn't. I was sorely tempted to. I can't even begin to try to explain how hard it is to focus on scavenging, let alone sleeping while hungry. The hunger never stopped. It constantly gnawed on the inside of you, never letting you forget that your life was in a miserable position as it was in. Even the scavengers who had received more portions than me didn't have it easy. The rations were always the same taste and it grew bland. The BB-8 droid…I almost gave in."
Rey stuffed another load of food in her mouth, willing herself to stop talking and dragging herself deeper down into her jarring memories. The more she did, the deeper the daggers buried themselves.
Maybe Sula could detect that she was becoming more frantic as she slurred her sentences, or maybe she could tell that she pressed too far for facts about her life; Rey didn't know, but what she did know was that she breathed a huge sigh of relief when Sula dropped the conversation at that. Rey's mind was just beginning to shift from BB-8 to her owner Poe, and she knew that if her thoughts went down that path, then she would begin to think of Finn, Leia, and the Resistance. And that was not something she wanted to do right now.
"I see you've made yourself a new lightsaber."
Rey nodded, her mouth full of food.
"So that's what Kylo said when he had unfinished business to take care. I thought I felt a disturbance in the Force. May I see it?"
Rey froze. She wasn't sure if she was willing enough to depart with her treasure so abruptly—after all, she had only made it a few hours ago. But she set her mind at ease by chastising herself. Sula was merely going to examine it, not steal it. Rey nodded.
Sula undid the clip with the Force and called it over to her outstretched hand. She turned it around in her palm and examined it for a long time—so long that Rey swore that she looked at the same spots at least three times.
"I can sense Kylo's energy in this. He helped with the hilt, didn't he?"
She swallowed quickly to respond, wincing at the large chunk of food that scalded its way through her esophagus. "I didn't know you could sense that."
"It's not Force-energy, but I had a feeling. And the crystal?"
"Red."
"Befitting for a Lady."
"Sula, I've told you before—" but Rey didn't get to finish what she was saying. At that exact moment, she heard a series of chirps coming from down near Sula's waist. One of her hands took out the communication device, while the other placed grabbed the hilt of Rey's weapon and stretched out to her. Rey understood the silent interpretation and called the lightsaber over to her with the Force and clipped it back to her belt. She could have sworn that the crystal hummed in delight at being back by her side.
Rey heard her greeting and her attention was instantly drawn back to the communicator.
"Kylo?"
There was a pause. "What are you doing, Rey?"
"I didn't want to stay cooped up alone in my room after training, so I went to the cafeteria."
"And you're eating there?"
"Yes, Kylo. That's what people usually do when they go to the cafeteria. They eat."
She heard him snarling on the other end. Sula jumped at the sound, but all Rey did was smile.
"Have you finished your paperwork?"
"Yes. Both of you, come to the central deck." Then the radio went dead.
Rey didn't like his change of demeanor to that of a suddenly abrupt one. The voice over the communicator in his last message did not belong to Kylo Ren, but rather the Supreme Leader.
Her plate still had a few bites of food on it, and Rey wasted no time scarfing the rest of it down. Sula watched her with peering and sympathetic eyes, but Rey realized with a start that she didn't really mind Sula hovering over her personal space.
"Done?"
"Very," Rey admitted, feeling full and bloated.
Sula chuckled and their plates floated up and over to the end of the room, where the machine for the dirty dishes were. The two of them stood up. Rey tidied her clothes, scraping off any crumbs that had fallen onto her lap during her feasting excursion, making sure to bump her lightsaber with her elbow to make sure that it was still there. Sula, on the other hand, put on her helmet, much to Rey's distaste. She still didn't like how shadowed it was, hiding a face behind a mask that just felt so…evil.
Rey had a feeling that she knew what was going to happen. The situation with Numina had yet to be resolved, and she knew it would be unavoidable.
The two of them could feel all eyes staring at their figures as they swiftly left the cafeteria.