Chapter Text
Rey woke in response to a metallic rasping clash. Her alarm was immediate. She was restrained on a metal table. The lighting was dim but clear and the masked figure that had hunted her in the forest was crouched before her. He must have been watching her while she was unconscious. Her heart rate increased.
"Where am I?" The masked figure looked at her for a moment.
"You're my guest." His voice was deep and smooth and mechanically enhanced.
"Where are the others?" He twitched.
"You mean the murderers, traitors and thieves you call friends? You'll be relieved to hear that I have no idea." There was a pause and she tested her restraints again. She was firmly strapped in place but not painfully so. "You still want to kill me?" There was a hint that he was surprised.
She took a breath.
"That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask.."
A beat of silence as he looked at her and then she watched him remove the helmet from his head as he stood.
He was young and dark haired. His face open and strong but not beautiful. His stare was intense and she felt a shiver run through her as she realized that he was reading her immediate reactions to him. His expression didn't reveal anything. He walked to her side.
"Tell me about the droid." His voice was assured and gentle. It didn't matter. She felt the threat.
"He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator --"
He broke in on her.
"He's carrying a section of navigational chart. We have the rest, recovered from archives of the Empire. We need the last piece. And somehow, you convinced the droid to show it to you. You." He paused. " A scavenger --"
Rey tried to keep her face impassive but was confused as to how he could know so much. He bent closer to her face. She glanced up at him and then away. His eyes were fixed on her face.
"You know I can take whatever I want." His voice was even and smooth but there was no escaping the threat of his words.
She felt adrenalin spike as his hand drew close to the side of her face. Then she felt the warmth of him push into her mind. She glanced at him in surprise as a feeling washed between them balanced and was gone. Then he pushed harder and there was pain but also a dizzy heat that spread from the top of her head slowly down her body making her light headed.
All she was aware of was him. He was so close to her face that she felt his breath on her neck. His voice began just above a whisper.
"... You're so lonely... so afraid to leave... At night, desperate to sleep... you imagine an ocean. I see it -- I see the island..."
She tried to resist him but he was relentless and she felt hot tears on her cheek. She clenched her teeth.
"And Han Solo. You feel like he's the father you never had. He would've disappointed you."
Rey turned to face him anger spiking through her.
"Get out of my head."
He came slightly closer.
"I know you've seen the map. It's in there... and now you'll give it to me. Don't be afraid." She pulled at the restraints. His face was unreadable. "I feel it too."
From somewhere a strength started to flow in Rey’s mind. She felt a wall of energy build in her. And as she spoke she knew it was truth.
"I'm not giving you anything."
The man dressed in black started back from her and came to face her directly - his gloved hand stretched towards her face. A slight tremor took him.
"We'll see."
And then Rey felt the push against her mind increase but unlike before she had something to push back with, and she did push, with all of her might. She found her body leaning forwards towards him in a physical expression of the mental energy she was directing at him.
They stared at each other as the battle increased between them. The man started to look shocked and took a step back and then all of sudden Rey was aware that she and broken through to his mind. A place of heat and ice, love and rage and a deep abiding fear that she moved towards although she didn't understand how. And then suddenly she knew; and felt the power of knowing his weakness.
"... You... you're afraid... that you will never be as strong as... Darth Vader!"
The push against her was gone. He reared back in confusion and shock his breathing labored his eyes never leaving her face. And then he turned and went.
Rey sat looking out at the sea as birds hovered above the cliffs their voices a lonely cry. She never tired of the view. Never ceased to be amazed at the power of so much water. She pulled her grey cloak about her. The sun was retreating behind the horizon and the air was becoming chill.
Rey thought that after a year of being on the island with Luke her Master the time had come for them to leave and re-join the resistance. Luke was reluctant to interrupt her training and had been firm in his insistence that Rey got the basics completed before venturing out into the wider Galaxy. She bowed her head to her master and hid her rebellious thoughts.
She understood that after what had happened with Ben Solo he was averse to putting her in a situation that might tempt her to the dark side without the training to resist. She thought he saw something in her that made him uneasy and yet they had not talked about the turmoil she felt.
The universe needed Luke Skywalker again. They needed his wisdom, they needed the symbol he was, to fight for, and Leia needed her brother. Rey was aware of all these things and also her impatience at ending up on a backwater planet again away from her friends.
She sighed. Something else called to her although she didn't like to face it and she hadn't told her master about it. When she slept, or when she meditated she felt something there. A yearning presence, a need that could not be filled. Fear and rage and darkness, but not just that, a warmth that was seductive. Rey had been in his mind just once but that was enough - now he was always there just beneath the surface.
She wasn't reading his mind, she thought, but she was always aware that he was existing somewhere in that huge expanse of mostly nothingness.
Her destiny lay with Kylo Ren for good or for bad. She did not pretend to know all the ways of the force but she did know that he would figure in her future and that she must be prepared to face him. She had beaten him twice but she was under no illusions that this would happen a third time. He had been taken unawares by her power and wanted to take her alive if he could. Now that she had marked him and drawn first blood their next meeting would probably not be friendly.
Rey shut her eyes and wondered what his face looked like now with a scar. She stood suddenly to break the thoughts and started walking back to her hut. Night was falling and they were early to bed and early to rise on this little island.
That night she dreamt of him again. They were in a dark cave and she could hear him searching for her, his feet scuffing the dusty ground, while she crouched in a corner. She pushed herself against the rock wall trying to be silent.
“Where are you?” A whisper filled the space and sought her.
Terror made her heart race. She reached for her lightsaber but there was nothing at her side.
“Where are you?” his voice was louder.
She thought she could feel him close.
“Face me.”
And though the beat of blood rushed through her head she found herself standing and turning towards a flickering red light. It blinded her to the person beyond it. He moved his weapon to his side and walked towards her. She could see the edge of his face and the dark pits of his eyes edged with crimson.
Rey tried to move but couldn't and she thought that her heart would burst in her chest from the terror. He loomed above her and she felt the heat of him as an arm pulled her against his body.
And then the floor fell away and they were spinning in the stars as he held her.
“Where are you?”
She resisted and shook her head even as she clung to him so that she was not lost in the vast expanse.
“Where are you?”
He held her harder.
“No” She cried suddenly finding a voice.
“Let me in.”
Pressure was building around her. She arched against him.
“Let. Me. In.” He growled.
The pain was sharp and hot. Her skull felt like it was going to burst and suddenly he broke through.
He was everywhere, filling her all at once, hungry and searching and she felt an exquisite unexpected heat build up to wash the pain away. She felt extreme shame that he could see everything but at the same time there was no way to hide.
There was a momentary stillness as he paused in his search and looked at her surface thoughts. She felt her body on the edge of release and wanting something she couldn’t put a name to.
Then she felt him slowly moving towards her pleasure, pushing at it, entering it, and then stretching it so that she could no longer hold anything or anywhere from him and she rode the explosion that expanded towards the stars holding him in her until the waves of her orgasm waned.
In that time of weakness, just for a moment, she wished that he were there with her in this lost place and just as quickly she clamped down on the thought but he was too fast and grabbed at it and held on to it. The last thing she felt as she woke, sweaty and panting, was his triumph.
Rey rose immediately and stood in the darkness hearing the wind and the sea but seeing nothing. She went out of the hut and a fine rain cooled her face.
She was afraid. This was a dream that she had had many times in the last three months but it had never ended in the way that it had just now. Her eyes just made out her surroundings from a large moon behind scudding clouds. She moved towards the steps that would take her to the summit of the island.
At the top she went to stand at the edge of the cliff hearing the waves crashing far below her. She felt the cold wet grass beneath her feet and tried to centre herself and shake off her dream. She slowed her breathing and let go of herself. Rey emptied her mind and felt the calm and comfort of the light. Was it just a dream she asked hoping for some sort of answer. None came.