As they got closer to the ship, the Force warning became even more obvious. Like a sign painted in glaring red, screaming as loud as it could, "GET OUT. TRESSPASSERS WILL BE SHOT."

It was clear from the deep marks scored into the sand than many a ship part had been dragged here. The Force user was a junker, he knew, but evidently a dedicated one. Perhaps that contributed to the need for private property. Some of him wondered if he'd find a tower, fortified with the ripped-off pieces of ancient starcruiser hulls, standing high and proud in the horizon, lined with reconditioned lasercannons.

"That's a lovely fantasy," Hux said, dryly, "but we'll likely find one incredibly irritable and frustratingly evasive lowlife skirting the very edges of legality. A Star Destroyer Castle would greatly surprise me."

Kylo frowned. "That's-"

"Not for certain, I know. No need to lower your hopes though, Lord Ren. They'll doubtlessly put up a good fight."

Battle was not all he lived for. He had use for other things, for training, for meditation, for rest, for nourishment. But Kylo knew Hux didn't care to know any of this.

The soft breeze pushed hair gently over his eyes, brushed sand against his cheeks. But he saw it nevertheless, a small structure in the distance, glowing with the light of life. With every farther footstep, it grew larger and larger in his vision, a great beast downed on the sand. He blinked.

"Is that-?" Hux squinted. "Is that an AT-AT?"

"It is."

What crazed being would live in a fallen AT-AT? He was floored, but impressed. It took dedication to defend such a crumbling fortress, after so many years since the Empire's defeat. The AT-AT models had always been strong, impenetrable, but time wore down all things. Even Imperial engineering at its top height.

Once they arrived at the base's feet, quite literally, Kylo stood and contemplated knocking on the hull. This fortress owner - this private, secretive scavenger - was already aware of their location, but perhaps they could recognise a sign of peace. He knelt, momentarily, and then whirled backwards as a hydrospanner was hurled swiftly towards his eye.

"Leave this place! Right now! I won't warn you again!" came a booming voice. Kylo felt it was familiar somehow, lilting in some odd way he'd heard before. But he hadn't the time to consider.

"I will not harm you," he told the empty air. "I wish to talk."

"No, you won't harm me," said the stranger. Then, she tripped him with the blunt end of a staff. He tumbled into the sand, Hux soon following, in between his hysterical laughter.

"Karking hell, she's even worse than I expected."

"What are you doing here? The town is that way." She pointed an angry finger back in the direction they had come. "This land belongs to me."

"We know you're harbouring fugitives," Hux said lightly. "They promised us-" he coughed "-a copy of some very, very useful data."

"So I've heard," she said. "And frankly, I don't care. You're from the First Order, aren't you?"

"We're looking to overthrow the current leadership," Kylo said. "We don't plan on killing any of your refugees."

She threw up her hands. "They're not my refugees! I just won't stand for any more of these scare tactics from your band of-" Kylo watched as she searched for a word, desperate. "Your band of totalitarian, overdramatic, barbaric pawns!" This insult seemed to please her, and she huffed, satisfied.

From the corner, behind the Walker's head, someone crawled out, smudged with dirt and sand and oil, one leg held firmly in someone else's grasp - the fighterpilot's. "Don't hurt her! Please, take me, but don't hurt her! She has nothing to do with this."

Hux snorted, and rolled onto his back, looking up at the stars. Blood trickled from his nose. "She does now."

As the traitor Stormtrooper moved forward, he dragged the fighterpilot along with him, until they both stood at the Walker's nose. "Don't take either of them," Dameron said. "I'm the one you want."

"You won't be taking any of them," said the fortress-keeper.

Hux sighed. "You-" He motioned vaguely at the staff's direction. The woman looked down. "The person crazy enough to settle in a fallen AT-AT. What's your name?"

"You have no right to ask, and I won't tell you," she replied.

"I think I can help you. We're not planning anything. In fact, take my blaster." Hux held it up. "No, here, have it. You want a gesture of trust, don't you?"

The blaster was snatched quickly from his hands. "My name is Rey."

Kylo's curiosity begged for more. "And your surname?"

"Surname?" Rey seemed genuinely stumped by this question, an old pain rising in her eyes. Kylo felt it like a knife in his side. "My family left. I won't know it until they return."

Kylo frowned. They won't be returning.

"That's very helpful," Hux grit out, but Kylo only stared in Rey's direction, watching in fascination as her face curled into a snarl.

"You don't get to say that. That's ridiculous. You don't know anything about me."

"I know you heard that," Kylo said. "You have the Force."

Hux sneezed against the sand. You're being a true diplomat.

Watch.

"I- I, what?"

Learn, General. Trust your instincts, and trust in me. This will work.

Rey staggered back. "You know of the Force? Some soldier? You?"

"I am no soldier."

She looked dubious, wind blowing sweat-damp hair over narrowed eyes. She took a step back, as if to size them up. Dameron and the Stormtrooper stared incredulously.

The 'Trooper made a wounded noise. "You can't seriously be considering-"

Kylo felt something about these three rebels and their little droid was very important. They appeared so insignificant, so small, so defenceless, and yet they held the key to a wealth of knowledge in this galaxy. They had found it, sought it out, taken what wasn't theirs to take. Dameron had made a name for himself. The 'Trooper was the first to defect. And Rey, whomever she was destined to be, Kylo could sense her almost immeasurable strength.

She could be their greatest asset or their greatest enemy. Kylo only had to say a few words.

"The Force is yours."

Hesitantly, Rey had allowed them entrance to her makeshift shelter, only if they promised to 'behave.' She had led them in with her staff to their throats and sat them down at something approaching a table, then asked where outside the Order she could find lessons in the Force.

Kylo now sat, blankly staring at Rey's measly rations, wondering who in this galaxy had the nerve, the daring to stand up to Darth Vader's successor.

Perhaps the next in line.

"The map your guests possess," Hux said, smoothly, "is the answer to that. It leads to Luke Skywalker."

Rey stopped eating. "The greatest Jedi Master to live?" She swiveled around to face Dameron and the defector. "You didn't tell me this!"

Dameron shrugged. "Hey, give it a little rest, at least. I didn't know you knew!"

"And I'm betting you don't exactly throw that information around for everyone to find, do you, Dameron?"

"Call me Poe," he said. "Not you, First Order drones. Him, and Rey." Dameron blinked, then frowned. "Do you have a name?"

"FN-2187."

"Oh, part of Phasma's personal designation," said Hux. "You could be one of the best."

"No thanks, I'll pass. I'm good. Pretty good for the next lifetime, actually."

"That's a lot to swallow. How about... Finn? That work?"

Kylo fought to keep the table from crushing under the weight of his frustration. He was not here to watch future Resistance members give names to themselves, dripping their sweet mush of hope and love all over the workspace. They were here to fulfill their duty. To retrieve the map, to leave this forsaken planet, and to return to Grandfather's guidance.

"We don't have time."

"I'd almost forgotten how impatient he is," Hux said, conversationally. "Rey, Finn, Dameron, do we have a deal or do we not? An answer - a clear answer - would be greatly appreciated."

"I'm coming with you," Dameron said. "Finn, Rey, you don't have to. I know people who can help you get out, Finn. And Rey, well. Keep living your, uh. This."

"If you're going, I'm going. You guys are what I've wished I could be my whole life. If I can get a chance to change that, I'm not gonna say no. No way I am."

"The two of us are coming, then. I need to know you won't misuse that data."

"We can smuggle you onboard if you pretend to be our prisoners," said Hux. "Though Ren will have to make a great show of 'torturing' you for information. You're very good at that sort of thing regardless, aren't you, Ren?"

"Do not test me, General."

"I'd like to learn the ways of the Force," said Rey. "But my family are coming back for me. Leaving them here alone is the last thing I plan on doing. Are there truly no teachers on this planet?"

"None as good as Luke Skywalker," said Kylo. Then, stupidly, "He taught me."

Mentally, Hux reeled. You're acknowledging this? That you're not simply a Knight of Ren?

Luke Skywalker is Anakin Skywalker's son, Kylo insisted.

This convinced no-one. Hux was projecting only disbelief, but Kylo could sense the strange way Hux analysed those he found himself curious about. A sort of prickling, cool sensation from his scalp to the tips of his toes. The great, omniscient, instinctual feeling of being watched.

He liked it when it was directed at those other than himself. Their enemies cowered under his gaze; Kylo wanted to squirm away. It was uncomfortable, to be so known.

Hux dropped it. As you say.

"He taught a member of the First Order?" Rey seemed as if she had been physically struck. "He taught you?"

"He is my family. And he had no knowledge of my loyalty's true extent."

Rey slammed hands down on the table, rattling it beneath them. Some of her food spilled over her plate, but she didn't seem to care in any way, no matter how small. "Until you betrayed him!"

"Why should you care?" Kylo asked. He was aware it sounded petulant, but the point stood. Who was she to pass judgements on the inner workings of his family? She had no place with them until she earnt it, and a display of power and blind courage had not yet gotten her that far.

"Why should I care-? Why-!" Rey spluttered. "The Jedi are heroes to me. They've always been, ever since I was very little."

Kylo shrugged this off. "We all have faults."

A sharp reminder, prodding at the back of his head. Diplomacy, Ren.

I don't have enough time for this kind of standoff. We have to leave as soon as possible. Snoke will ask questions.

"Ignore our friend here," said Hux, eye twitching, vein pulsing in his forehead. "He's always... itching for a fight, shall we say."

Rey sat back, then, and was very quiet for an uncomfortably long moment. Kylo had counted five times the wind had shook the house so violently the dishes on the table began to rumble and roar. Rey was scratching marks into its surface with her nails. Finally, she said, "Will training in the Force allow me to find my family? Anywhere? If I leave Jakku, will I be able to see them again?"

"Even if your family no longer lives you will find them," Kylo said, and impatience clipped obviously at his words. Rey's disposition soured further.

"Can you promise that? Can you promise me I'll be able to find them on my own?"

"You can figure out yourself whether I'm lying."

Rey sighed, long and put upon, pinching at the bridge of her nose. "How long would I have to train before I could find them?"

"Theoretically," Kylo began, and thought to Grandfather, his strange awareness of every breath every member of his bloodline took, his uncanny ability to know exactly when, where, and how things were done, had he been there to witness them or not, "not a long time. It will require dedication."

"I can give you dedication."

"We will teach you to broaden your senses, and to contact the spirits that know this galaxy down to every grain of sand. And once you've found your kin, you are welcome to return. Encouraged to return. Your potential is... immense. Long-reaching."

Hux laughed. "Eloquent. You have the power to do anything, Rey, whether it be to live out the rest of your life in this empty tin while you wait for your family to return, or to simply save yourself a few decades of misery and seek them out yourself."

"You want me to work with you. In the Order. You're offering me a job."

"Yes," said Kylo. "I need competent people if I want to survive the overhaul."

"You said you were trying to reform. How, exactly?"

"I can't say I enjoy diplomacy, and I'll be honest with you, I do love the feeling of control, overlooking the vast expanse of our empire, finding order in chaos. But the Resistance proves the First Order's tactics aren't going to be met by smiles and nodding heads. The Republic is frustratingly determined to remain. Clearly, we need to align ourselves." Hux breathed. "I want to run things, Rey. Frankly, I'd like to run everything. To do that, the Order needs to fit the Republic's standards. And so I'm attempting to refine it to those standards."

"And you wouldn't mind the boost in physical power as well, is that it?" Rey sneered.

"Physical power and mental power are key to running the regime the Supreme Leader currently clings to like a shaking child. I want strength, I want knowledge, and where better to find these two things in perfect harmony than the Force, hmm?"

"I won't let you rule our entire galaxy!"

"Then come with us," Hux replied, with a casual shrug that only fueled the fire in Rey's temperament.

"Fine," she spat, then quieted. She looked down emptily at the husk of her home, and said, "Let me leave them a note. To know I haven't abandoned them."

Finn rested a hand on her shoulder. "Nobody thinks that."

A sad smile. "Maybe not yet."

Author's Note: I'm still a late ho. I accidentally two other WIPs. So now that's four. But there's not as much filler, so that's a plus, right? /nervous laughter trails off into the distance