Chapter Text
She wakes with the taste of salt on her lips and screams in her head. Yet another standard morning on Ahch-To. She’s been on the planet for almost two months now, and her days have drifted into an odd semblance of routine on Luke Skywalker’s hiding spot in the galaxy.
Upon waking, she meditates. She’s taken to doing so since the first morning when she faced--Master Skywalker? No, call me Luke--across the breakfast table. He mentioned in passing that he’d come across holos noting that “starting one's morning off with mediation was essential for good digestion as well as quelling the ghosts of sleep.”
Does it help you? dances at the tip of her tongue, but she resists. Her life has been an exercise in resistance. What’s one more?
During the day, she explores Ahch-To.
There’s so much green here, whether it be the moss that covers the stones sprinkled across the surrounding landscape, or even just the grass and other plants that grow unencumbered on this empty swath of planet. Occasionally, she takes bits and pieces back from her scavenging strolls--a smooth river-worn rock, a particularly long blade of grass--small things that are easy to carry and to hoard. She takes them back to the temple-like structure that she now shares with Luke.
Rey’s been making progress with the reclusive Jedi. He often exhibits an honest, straightforward nature that reminds Rey of General Organa; other times he’s so vague Rey wishes she could just claw the meaning out from the platitudes that he expouses.
He hasn't sparred with her no matter how much she pleads; whether this is due to unwillingness or inability is still unknown. But after the first week, small holos started to show up in her room. Some are on Jedi philosophy, others on meditation practices, but the most useful ones--in her mind at least--are the ones on combat forms: Soresu, Juyo, Vaapad, and others. She absorbs them as avidly as she did the flight simulators on Jakku.
In the evening, she composes holos to Finn to be sent off with Chewie. Chewie’s been her main connection to the wider world since coming to Ahch-To, bringing fresh supplies and small treats--“you deserve sweetness in life, youngling,” he says, gently ruffling her hair with his paw--as well as a small container of a dark brown sweet smelling powder that he says to give to Luke.
(When she hands him it later that night, she finally understands how a smile can break through the darkness. Rey vows that night to bring that Luke Skywalker back to the General.)
Along with material goods, Chewie brings back news of the Resistance and, by extension, Finn.
“He’s healing, youngling,” he growls absent mindedly as she helps him repairs on the Falcon. “Harter is an excellent medic and will serve the young warrior well. Spanner.”
“But is he getting better?” she asks anxiously as she hands over the requested tool.
A long voiceless pause. She waits.
The Wookie makes a long, low snuffling sound. From her limited but growing interactions with Chewie, Rey realizes he’s sighing.
The greying Wookiee sits up and looks her in the eyes. “He is healing, young one. The purpose of healing is to heal; better is something that one must discover for themselves.”
“...did Luke learn to how to be vague from you? Because you did an excellent job,” she says irritably.
Chewie’s growl-laughs echoes through the maintenance shaft.
Night is when Rey’s days lose their comforting stability. She eats a meal with Luke (and sometimes Chewie, if he’s planetside), plays some game that involves Force training with Luke, then finally attempts to sleep.
Sleep on Ahch-To is a far cry from the nightly respite that she took from work on Jakku. There, sleep was merely her exhausted body collapsing from scavenging the desert wasteland, her mind failing into an abyss. Here, sleep embraces her willingly, but rarely does it provide the all consuming void to which Rey is accustomed. Instead, she dreams of him.
She didn’t know it was him at first. Her first dream/vision was of sitting, a small pair of golden dice cradled in her hands. She was crying. Or at least she thought so until she/he/they lifted their head and saw the face reflected off of the transparisteel window. It was a small face. Cheeks still rounded with baby fat, hair and wet eyes both dark, all of this framing ears that seemed far too large for a child.
That figure, in various shapes and guises, was the single constant in her dreams as they ebbed and receded over time. Some of them are of him as a child--Ben a rough, worn voice from her not-so-distant-past cries out--others are of him older, on the cusp of manhood, struggling with the weight of the past and his legacies.
It’s odd, dreaming of him. It’s not like her normal dreams, which are more like watching an old, broken holo. It’s like she is him. Feeling both sensation and emotion through him. She has no control. She loathes having no control; she starts to hate the dreams. She copes. If nothing else, Rey is resilient. The eternal sands and isolation of Jakku did not destroy her and neither will dreams of a monster’s origins.
Though this current set of dreams might do her in. They’re not bad dreams, per se; quite the opposite. They’re dark dreams, yes, but dreaming of a figure cloaked in shadows worshipping between her thighs is far, far more enjoyable to Rey than surrendering control to the confusing, conflicting past of her enemy.
The figure focuses on her clit, interspersing with soft wet licks between her swollen folds.
She sighs.
Much better than the other dreams.
She cards her fingers through the figure’s hair. It’s thick and on the longish side. Not enough for a ponytail (or maybe a very small one), but definitely long enough to pull.
So she does. The figure groans low and deep at this, calloused fingertips grasping tightly at her hips. Resistant to relinquishing their altar of choice. It’s not the best she’s had, but they make up for it in enthusiasm. She pulls again.
“I want to touch you, now,” she adds, clawing at her mystery lover’s scalp.
Somewhat reluctantly, her lover removes their frame from between her legs and slowly moves upwards, nipping along her form. A lick along her hipbone, a long, soft suck around her ribs, a quick bite at one of her nipples with soothing, apologetic kisses when she flinches. They’re large and broad, she notices. Her hands slip from the back of their head to their neck to the warm, broad planes of their back. She notices a swollen hardness brushing against her thighs when they move their hands to cradle her face, kissing her tentatively. Their mouth is sticky with the salt of her.
She hums at this, rocking into their hips. They slowly release her lips and she runs her hand over their face, opening her eyes. They have a firm full mouth, she notices hazily, with an odd roughness like a still healing scar tissue across part of his face….
Scar.
Rey wakes screaming.
Her mind races, actively trying to reconcile the appallingly intimate--dream--vision--desire. As conflicted as her mind is, her body--the traitor--is depressingly single-minded. She’s flushed. She’s warm. She’s aching and distracted and her skin is tight with denied release.
After too many nights of dreams of that nature, she reaches a sort of truce with her body.
She rolls over, bites her pillow, and begins.
If she’s helped along by a tall shadowy figure, well it’s only a dream, Rey reasons.