Arms bound, Kylo and Rey are escorted through a corridor that seems to be made of cages crafted from glass. Although, based on the way the cages glitter, Kylo suspects they're actually made out of diamonds. And the strange creatures that writhe inside, sometimes slamming up against the edge and slobbering at the sight of humans, terrify him.

"They're going to feed us to one of these things," he hisses to Rey.

"They'll try." She glances back at him. "At least they never got their rathtars."

"Their what?"

"When I met your father, he was delivering King Prana rathtars. We barely got away," she whispers.

Of course, Han Solo worked with this lunatic king. Of course he did. All the same, Kylo hears the subtle implication: you probably shouldn't reveal who you are.

As if it'd be hard for them to guess. He feels strangely peaceful, though, as he says it. Peace feels foreign, and Kylo's bewildered until he hears her.

Well, you can try.

Kylo's head snaps back up, studying the back of Rey's. Dark brown strands are strewn every which way, escaping the three buns she usually coils it in. Are you in my head?

The moment he starts to resist, the tranquility he felt gives way, and pain takes over. She withdraws.

"Sorry," she mutters.

Eventually the hallway gives way to an enormous room with a domed ceiling, all encrusted with jewels. A tall, gray skinned man rises before them, almost as tall in person as Snoke pretends to be in his holograms.

Two Twi'leks kneel, presenting the king with their lightsabers. King Prana does not look impressed. He extends a hand coated in golden armor, examining the weapons closely. "Some archaic design, no doubt," he remarks.

Kylo invades Rey's mind now, feels her anxiety. He doesn't understand the Force. That will give us—

An advantage, I know; now get out!

"The rancor was fed last night. But the krayt dragon," drawls King Prana. "Is surely hungry."

Fed with Kylo's men, no doubt. Compunction stabs at him again, and he hates himself for it. Grandfather, help me—I can't resist the Light!

You're going to have to work with the Light if you're going to survive, he tells himself, looking at Rey. She coughs again, and Kylo hopes she infects the people here.

Hands seize Kylo and Rey as laughter rings around them. "What's a krayt dragon?" Rey whispers.

"They're native to Tatooine," Kylo answers, huffing as his arm is nearly wrenched out of its socket.

"How likely are we to fight it off?"

Frantically, Kylo searches his own memories. Grandfather was from Tatooine. If I ever needed to hear from you, it's now! he prays furiously.

Uncle Luke was also from Tatooine… he mentioned krayt dragons before, Kylo knows he did, but damn if he can remember. Something about shadows…

Right. "They can't distinguish people from shadows," he says as they're shoved onto a platform that lifts them up, up, up, towards the blazing sun. "And—their sinus cavities can be breached by blasters."

"We don't have blasters!"

"We have the Force!"

The platform jerks to a stop. "In you go," growls a woman with skin the same chrome color as Captain Phasma's armor, and then they're both falling. When Kylo slams into the sand, he grunts as he lands on his already cracked rib.

Rey scrambles to her feet as a shrill cry echoes throughout the pen. "Is that what they sound like?"

"I presume." The high neck of his shirt scratches against Kylo's chin as he backs away. "How much practice with telekinesis did Luke give you?"

Rey answers by effortlessly levitating a desert rock and smirking at him.

"When it comes over that ridge," Kylo says as he gets to his feet, rib smarting. "Aim it at the head."

"Right," Rey pants.

A snarling creature with spikes covering its head and enormous teeth shrieks as it appears. Rey hurls the stone. It bounces off of the dragon's head and the dragon lunges.

"That didn't work!" Rey yelps, running towards a large boulder and clambering up it. Kylo follows suit, sending a larger rock at its head as the dragon mauls at their shadows.

"Now down!" Rey hops off, pulling Kylo after her. Sand flies into his eyes, stinging and scraping. He can't see, but he can feel Rey tugging at him, dragging him along, until finally, finally, he pries his eyes open and light invades.

"Rey, the boulder!"

"What?" Rey stumbles, coughing. "Of course!"

"Together?" Kylo shouts, summoning all of his energy and directing all his power, into lifting the boulder. Beside him, he can feel Rey using her power as well—and the steady thrum of her energy energizes him, makes up for where he doubts himself.

The dragon, thrashing and howling, charges, and without needing to say a word to each other, they drop the rock on the creature's head.

"We did it!" Rey shrieks, clapping her hands together.

"We did!" Kylo exults, fear fleeing from him. We're alive!

Rey throws her arms around him… and immediately releases him, swallowing and studying the sand. He notices the freckles sprinkled across her nose.

Is this how she normally celebrates? With friends? Kylo wonders.

What now?

"So we're waiting on Luke's emissary to bring news," Poe tells the General.

"What emissary?" Leia asks darkly.

Damn. He'd been hoping she wouldn't ask. "A ghost. A Force ghost. Rey's grandfather's Force ghost."

"Rey's grandfather?"

"Yeah, you knew him, right?" And named your homicidal son after him. "Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

"Get Luke over here," Leia orders.

"He's kind busy in the temple at the moment," Poe admits.

"I don't give a—he's been busy for fifteen years, he can spare me a few minutes!" Leia snaps.

"Yes ma'am," Poe scrambles towards the temple. What happens if someone who isn't Force sensitive goes in? he wonders. Will I melt? Will I become a ghost? Will I suddenly get Force powers?

Nothing will happen, he snaps at himself. Or Luke would have warned us. Still, he doesn't want to find out, but the fact is that whatever's in the temple cannot be as scary as defying an already-furious General Organa. When Luke bounds down the steps and claps him on the shoulder, telling him he heard through the Force that his sister was calling, Poe wilts in relief.

Finn saunters up to him, BB-8 and R2 rolling along behind him. "I don't want to be in earshot of that conversation."

"Nope," Poe agrees, studying his friend in the jacket Poe gave him.

"I really appreciate you helping with this," Finn says, breathing in the damp sea air. "Find Rey. I know to many she's just a scavenger, but—"

"She's a Jedi in training. Luke's last hope. Far more than just a scavenger," Poe interrupts. He hopes Finn doesn't finish whatever he was going to say.

"Yeah… poor Luke." Finn tears up some of the grass. "First Leia's son kills all his trainees, and just when he's come out of hermit-dom, the guy kidnaps his newest trainee."

"Can you believe he still has hope for him?" Hoping for the impossible. Poe knows that feeling all too well—he runs on it every insane piloting mission, he clings to it at night and in moments like now, when he's so close to Finn and can't reveal anything.

Finn snorts. "That's called denial."

"I can't blame the General though. He's her son." Poe thinks of his own parents, long dead. They'd be proud of you, Leia told him after his last mission.

He hopes so.

"Well, I'll never know my parents, so…"

BB-8 blips sadly, as if in sympathy with Finn.

"Rey's kind of like the first family that I felt like I had, you know?" Finn adds. "She's the first person who didn't see me as a stormtrooper."

Not quite, Poe thinks.

BB-8 whirs and shocks Poe. "Ow!"

"Droid, stop!" orders Finn.

"What'd I do, BB-8?" Poe yells.

The droid whirls around without answering, its head tilted upwards. But Poe knows: You didn't say anything.

Compassion is foolishness. It is weakness. It does not matter.

But Rey saving his life from the serpent does matter. His father touching his face, telling Ben he loved him without words as he fell—it matters.

It's just because you're weak, Kylo snaps at himself as he rolls over. King Prana, impressed by their survival, agreed to take them on as his slaves/scavengers. Until we can escape, Rey added in Kylo's mind.

Kylo's not used to being a captive, bound to someone else's whims and orders.

Aren't you?

Did you want to do it? Kill your father? Or was it Snoke? Was it always Snoke?

Kylo's not sure whether the answer is yes or no, and either way, the answer will haunt him.

In the meantime, Rey found one of the less-damaged ships—all of which had suffered heat and/or fire damage (some, like his own, worse than others)—for them to sleep in. Both of them lie on the metal floor, on opposite sides of the cabin.

Did Father ever come to this planet? Kylo wonders. Or did he communicate with Prana somehow else?

What would his father say if he found his only son, a scavenger/slave of Prana's?

Come home.

We miss you.

He presses against his busted rib and gasps in pain. No strength.

There never was any strength in pain, was there?

"If you don't sleep," Rey's voice echoes from the other side of the alcove. "You won't have the energy to scavenge. And the Force isn't going to help you. Not much at least."

The question flies off his tongue. "You said Han Solo knew King Prana? Worked for him?"

She sits up, staring at him. The night cloaks her in gray, drapes her in shadows. "I don't know any more than what I already told you. He briefly mentioned Prana. That's it. Now can I go to sleep?"

Kylo leans his face against the cold metal, feeling tears trickling down his face.

For so many years, he didn't cry. He told himself he couldn't, he wouldn't, not after killing Luke's padawans.

And Father called out to him, and as much as Kylo warred inside between the Dark and the Light, the pull to return him and the terror at what that might mean, he saw another war in Han Solo's eyes: hope, and fear. Not of his son, but for his son.

And Ben cried on that bridge, and Kylo can't chase the tears away.

Focus on pain. On anger. "Did he double-cross Prana?" Kylo sneers. Or tries to sneer.

Rey sighs. "No. Some death gang. Actually two. But not Prana as far as I know."

"I should have guessed."

"Why do you hate him so much?" Rey demands. "He loved you."

Because I spent twenty years telling myself he didn't love me. And then, when it was too late, I found out he did. "He was disappointed in me. A lot."

"I can't imagine why."

"No—before. Long before. He didn't understand the Force, and he didn't want to—he didn't try to understand. He and Mother—Leia Organa—they didn't like me. They sent me away." He gave up on me.

"Well, killing him didn't really fix that problem."

"They sent me away because they thought I was too much like my grandfather," Kylo confesses. "I overheard them. Father said I had 'too much Vader' in me. And then Snoke—he told me that was a good thing. He showed me the power of the Dark Side. He showed me that what was in me was good, not bad."

"Killing your father is good?" Rey's voice rises.

Kylo doesn't answer. Because it wasn't, it wasn't good, it didn't make him stronger, it didn't help him because he's weak.

Or because he loves his father.

I want him back. In that moment, Kylo would give anything to go back in time and undo what he's done. But he can't. I shouldn't want to.

"You've seen the power of the Force, Rey," he says. "Through Luke. Through yourself. You can't live without it, can you? Now that you know you have it?"

"If using the Force means turning to the Dark," Rey says slowly. "If it means hurting people, yes, I could live without it. I'd rather feel compassion. I'd rather love my friends."

"You're just like Luke," Kylo muses, but he feels no frustration when he says it, only longing. "You're so—so Light."

"There's Darkness inside me, too. Inside everyone." Rey starts to laugh. "I feel it most often when I'm near you and you're at my mercy."

Kylo grins despite himself. "Is that why you didn't kill me on the Starkiller Base? You didn't want to give in to the Dark Side?"

Rey gets to her knees. "Yes, exactly."

He envies her. She can choose, and be content with her choice. Kylo tried to choose the Dark Side so many times over, and the Light keeps worming its way in, and now—now he's not even sure he wants to stop it.

"I miss him." The truth comes out before Kylo can second-guess himself.

"Your father?"

He nods, heart thumping. Will she think it's another ploy? Will she be disgusted?

Rey crawls over to him, puts her hand on his face. He shudders, because for the first time since Han Solo fell, someone else is touching him not to heal him so he can be used more, but because they care. And something cracks inside.

"I want to go back, Rey, but I don't know how. I've done too much." It's too late. It wasn't then, but surely now it is.

"Follow the light," she suggests.

"How?" He's begging her. She can look into his brain if she wants, he doesn't care.

But she doesn't. One eyebrow rises. "You need a teacher."

"Be on the lookout for anything that looks like it could be used to fix the ship we're holed up in," Rey mutters to Kylo.

"What parts do we need?"

She rattles off a list as they board a small transporter.

"Don't forget," growls the silver man who, despite his obvious distaste for her, Rey finds infinitely more preferable than Unkar Plutt. "If you aren't back before sundown, with useful parts, you'll find yourself dissolving in a sarlacc."

"We'll be back," Rey promises, gliding off.

"My parents once faced a sarlacc!" Kylo shouts to be heard over the wind.

"Really?"

Amusement peppers Kylo's voice. "Yeah. Father would pretend to be one, and terrify me until Chewie stepped in."

And you still doubt he loved you? Rey thinks. She shakes off the thought.

When they arrive on the wreckage site, Rey grabs a rappelling line and slings it over her shoulder. "Get the bags," she orders Kylo.

He trudges along behind her. The temptation to push into his mind is strong, but Rey resists it. She needs to trust him, or try and trust him, at least until he gives her another reason not to.

You need a teacher.

Rey has no idea how to teach him the Light Side except by showing compassion. Scavenging, on the other hand, she's more adept to teach.

After hours of rappelling down the inside of a Star Destroyer, the air just as hot as Jakku but sticky instead of dry, Rey wonders where she'll get the energy to try and fix the ship they're staying in.

"You feeling okay?" Kylo rappels down next to her.

"Yeah. Just… tired." If exhaustion, combined with the smallest of coughs, is the only lingering symptom of her illness, she'll take it without complaints.

"Were you really sick?" Kylo asks. "Or did you trick me?"

Rey rifles through her bag, grabbing her canteen. "I tricked you the last day. Thanks for the medicine, by the way." She screws the cover back on and pushes off.

"The First Order is probably looking for us," he calls down to her.

"How long until they find this place?"

"Seven days until they wonder where we are. Maybe another twenty until they find us. More if we're lucky."

"So," Rey says, pausing as he lowers himself to her level. "We'd better be gone by then."

He nods.

"You still want to leave with me?"

He nods again, but his eyes skitter away from her.

I'm being torn apart.

Maybe, Rey thinks. He actually is.

She doesn't feel any desire to see him tear himself asunder anymore. If anything, she wants the rift inside of him to heal. "Can I call you Ben?" she asks.

"What?"

"Instead of Kylo Ren."

He swallows. "Snoke… forbid anyone from using that name."

"Forbid?" she echoes. Really?

He nods. "He said Ben was dead."

If Ben is dead, his ghost still lingers, of that Rey is certain. More likely, she suspects he's alive and starting toe scape the prison Kylo Ren's locked him in.

"If you want to. You can use it," he says.

If it'll piss Snoke off… "I do. Ben." She slides about a hundred feet to the ground. "You were named for my grandfather!" she calls back up.

"I'm aware!"

"Are you?"

Thanks for reading/riding along on the Kylo and Rey angst train! I promise plot will happen soon. Very soon.