In which Rey encounters the Nightfolk.
Instinct told Rey to give Kylo space after his dream of the slaughter at Luke’s temple. She knew how much it disturbed him. Having a witness around afterwards might not help.
The light was just greying, the time she’d get up on Jakku, before things had a chance to heat up. It had always been a peaceful time, with the landscape softened with shades of blue and grey and purple, when the world seemed open and welcoming, when anything and everything seemed possible.
She slipped out from under his arm as softly as possible. He made a noise of protest, his arm folding and fingers curving. The Force brushed her as if he’d tried to hold her, then faded. It spoke of how weak he still was, that her movement wouldn’t snap him awake. Or maybe he only let himself sleep more deeply because he relied on…his partner.
She knelt by him a moment longer, watching him, held by…something. Something like she’d felt in that hut in Ahch-To, a yearning, a certain warmth—
And look how that had turned out.
Standing quickly, she slipped out of the shelter. She needed something to do.
Later, when Jaegar and Tam’s voices came from outside, Kylo did snap awake, instantly reaching out for her through the bond.
“Right here,” she called and brushed her hands together, greasy and dirty from her work on the speeder.
She made sure she stood at the shelter’s entrance, guarding Kylo, when father and son came in, then let the morning’s activities sweep her away.
When Tam, with his cheer and chatter, had finished distracting—or irritating—Kylo, she stepped back in.
“I have some more things to do—” she began.
“Stay here,” Kylo said in that quiet voice that meant he was asking, not commanding—no matter how commanding the words sounded. “Sit down.”
Curious, Rey settled in the straw opposite him.
He sat cross-legged, and he wasn’t using the Force this morning to keep himself upright. Not yet, anyway. Tam had found a shirt for him somewhere. It strained across his shoulders, tight enough to show the ridges of his bandages. The rolled-up sleeves probably disguised the fact that they were too short. Though he wore his black pants, he was barefooted.
“We’re going to have a lesson,” he said.
She perked up. “Okay.”
His gaze on her was intent enough to quell the excitement that was trying to bubble up in her.
“You need to learn how to close your mind,” he said. “You need to be able to defend yourself against what’s going on here.”
She thought of his warning last night. Defend against him? Or against the dark’s nightly assault. Or both?
“How do you know what to do with the Force?” he said.
She thought. “Watching you, I guess. I see something you did, and I try it.”
He nodded. “To start, I want you to try going into my mind. Don’t use the bond. Only your mind.”
Wetting her lips, she nodded. The flutter in her middle made it hard to center herself. She pushed the flutter down and leaned forward, staring into his eyes. He stared back, like a fighter about to engage. She reached out.
It was like pushing against a wall. A sort of elastic wall. One that pushed back.
She took another breath, braced hands on knees and pushed harder. There was that little give, then another pushback.
“Stop,” he said.
Rey sat back and let out a breath. She felt like she’d been climbing dunes, not quite sore or tired yet, but feeling it.
He didn’t give any sign he’d been straining. “Try again. This time I won’t resist as strongly.”
She tried a different tack, not just a push, but a sudden shove. The give was a little more this time, then it pushed right back. If Kylo was expending any effort, it still didn’t show. Setting her teeth, she leaned in—
His resistance gave way and she found herself in his mind.
He was impressed and pleased. She was as strong as he was—he had to work to keep her out. He’d suspected as much, but the last time—
His mind closed again and she blinked back behind her own eyes.
The flutter was back. Luke hadn’t been at all pleased by her strength in his one, grudging lesson.
“Again,” he said. “I’ll resist even less this time. I don’t want you tiring yet. Watch what I’m doing as you push through.”
It was definitely easier this time. She concentrated on his defenses as she shouldered past them.
He closed himself off again. “What did you see?”
She sat back. “It’s like…like you’ve raised a shield that completely surrounds your mind. When I push, all your power goes to the place where I’m trying to get through, then backs off when I stop.”
“It saves strength. If you don’t have to actively resist, just be watchful and ready. What did you see as you pushed through?”
She gestured, searching for a way to explain. “You fold around me, so I can only go so deep.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “Could you trap me that way? Close up behind me so I couldn’t go back?”
“Very good,” he said.
She could feel his approval through the bond. It startled her how much it warmed her.
“It takes strength, skill and practice to do that, though,” he went on. “Don’t try it unless you know you outmatch your opponent. You don’t want a more powerful mind enclosed in yours. It can easily destroy you.”
A flicker of emotion passed across his face. Speaking from experience, she thought.
Had he done something like that with Snoke? She could imagine him trying, strong enough to believe he could succeed. Strong enough to think he could break away?
“There’s another method,” he said. “Again, and I’ll show you.”
This time when she breached his defenses, she found herself in a fractured landscape of images, memories, thoughts that continually shifted like the most unstable dune. She scrambled, flailing, and backed out.
“That can be a strategy, too,” he said. “It throws your opponent off balance. Let him in, then use his moment of confusion to overcome him.”
She looked across at him. The wonder that swelled in her almost took her breath. This was what I wanted. I wanted someone to teach me. And Kylo Ren is the one who is.
“Is that a dark side thing?” she said.
“Does it feel like it?”
She thought. “It feels like…” She held up her hands as if gripping an imaginary staff, thrusting and blocking. “Like learning to use a weapon.” She eyed him. “Is this a weapon?”
“Yes. But like any weapon, you can use it for attack, or defense.”
“But is it using the dark side?”
He met her gaze levelly. “It can be. Most people don’t welcome the intrusion.”
“Then are you—?”
“You’re forgetting what I told you.” He leaned forward. “You need to learn to close your mind. Now you’ll use what I showed you to try.”
She suddenly realized what he was going to do. Her stomach dropped. He must’ve felt it through the bond because he leaned back again.
“If you can close your mind to me, you can close it to anyone.” His posture, his hands on his knees were relaxed, like he was deliberately trying to be unthreatening. “I won’t reach for you. Tell me when you’re ready.”
Her heart hammered into her throat anyway. Stop it, Rey, she told herself. If it was anything like before, he wouldn’t warn you.
“I resisted you on Starkiller.” She was stalling. She knew she was.
“No, you didn’t. You pushed back and caught me by surprise. It isn’t the same thing.”
“Oh. Right.”
She swallowed hard, closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, her heartbeat, the calm she sensed from him through the bond. Accepting that gift of calm, letting it quiet the unthinking fear, she opened her eyes to find him watching her.
She built a shield of glowing blue light around her mind, thick and strong enough to resist a star destroyer’s onslaught. “Go ahead.”
She knew what to expect. Last time, she’d scrambled to escape, then when that didn’t work, struggled to push him away. This time, he crashed into her defenses with all his considerable strength. She gasped, rocking back as if at a physical blow. He didn’t back off but pushed harder. Gaze locked on his dark, burning one, she braced against him. His lips peeled back off his teeth. Her own jaw clenched. Her breathing picked up again. Her fingers dug into her knees as she leaned forward.
He retreated abruptly. The absence of pressure was almost dizzying. Rey let out a breath and eased back.
Kylo shoved hard the way she had, burst past her relaxed defenses and into her mind. She fought a moment’s panic, subdued it, then threw all her strength into thrusting him back out.
She could feel him in her mind. It was like the woods on Takodana, like the interrogation chair on Starkiller Base. The panic rose again, blinding—
No. She scrambled to do what he’d shown her, to fill her thoughts with scraps and bits and broken shards of nothing. He was in there, and if he read her the way he had before—
Don’t think it, don’t think it, she told herself, frantically trying to turn her thoughts to something, anything else.
He suddenly withdrew again. She rocked back, catching herself on her hands in the straw and breathing hard.
“Betrothed?” His eyes widened. “That was what that boy said to disturb you?”
She was burning. Burning. All the way from her armpits to the top of her head. She would’ve run away, if it wouldn’t be even more mortifying.
He looked utterly flummoxed. “Rey, don’t you know that was what I was—”
She held up a hand and he stopped. It didn’t silence his gaze, though, intense and speaking. If he looked at her like that for long, she’d vaporize.
He smiled. It was only for an instant, there and gone again, and he ducked his head to hide it. For that instant he was Ben, who she didn’t have to continually strive against with all her strength, who she could be comfortable with.
Maybe that was why things had been easier on Ahch-To. Because it was only talking. Not his overwhelming physical presence, none of that looming aura of dark power in him.
“We could pretend,” he said, very seriously. “If it would make all this easier.”
She still felt a flicker of amusement from him. No, amusement wasn’t quite the right word. Delight?
Kylo Ren might be amused, but delighted? Never. It threw her, so suddenly she mentally stumbled.
“Nothing about this is easy,” she grumbled.
“No,” he agreed. “Instinct. A lot to overcome.”
She blew out a breath. “Yes.”
He nodded and seemed to relax. That made things better, too, made him feel more Ben Solo and less Kylo Ren.
“We haven’t killed each other yet,” he said. “We must be doing something right.”
She eyed him. “Ben, did you just make a joke?”
“I never joke.”
“You did!”
“Maybe I was only thinking about killing,” he said. “It’s been a near thing with that boy. You should’ve told me what he said when I asked.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
She could feel him deciding whether to keep tormenting her. Strangely, that, too, felt very Ben Solo. She could imagine him with that kind of sly, underhanded humor, just a little like Han’s.
“Something like your gross, hugely foolish, potentially deadly mistake?” He grew serious again. “Never let down your guard when facing an enemy.”
“I thought we weren’t enemies,” she shot back.
“We are when you’re drilling. I’ll tell you when to disengage.”
“Sorry.” She settled in the straw again, trying for a contrite expression. She didn’t know why she kept wanting to smile instead.
* * *
Rey walked out into the coppery light of Jannessi’s sun feeling happier and more in control of her life since…well, since ever.
Right. On the run from the First Order with the one-time Supreme Leader who only happened to have kidnapped her twice, and she felt in control. She shook her head at herself.
Once more, the town was nearly deserted. The looks she got from the few people she saw weren’t friendly. She didn’t blame them. Since she and Kylo showed up, their lives had been turned upside down.
Another trip to the town dump provided scraps to put over Kylo’s screamingly conspicuous fighter, a few parts that should let her finish the speeder repairs and the makings of a new staff. She couldn’t believe what these people threw away.
She stood on top of the Silencer, wind plucking at her lightsaber-shorn hair. The grasslands spread away in grey-green swells that rippled silver in the breeze.
It won’t hurt to show some goodwill, she thought. Show I’m not a complete troublesome burden. Shading her eyes, Rey turned a slow circle. If I was Nightkind, where would I hide?
These people had been hunting Nightfolk forever—she wouldn’t be looking anyplace they hadn’t already checked. Still, her gaze travelled to a crease in the folds of land. She narrowed her eyes.
Touching Kylo’s lightsaber, she slid down the boarding ladder and headed down the knoll.
Like the desert landscape she knew so well, the grasslands’ lack of perspective distorted distance. The crease she’d seen from the Silencer looked small and far away. Her striding walk brought her to it sooner than she expected, and the crease proved to be deeper. She braced hands on knees and looked down into a dry watercourse, what they’d called a wadi on Jakku.
Rey skirted the top to a reasonable-looking descent then slithered down, stones and clods of dirt tumbling ahead of her. Tracks marked a flat, sandy bottom dotted with rocks and half-buried branches. No, she wasn’t the first to scout the wadi.
The air at the bottom was hot and still, smelling faintly of roots and damp sand. Her scuffing footsteps sounded overloud. The banks rose trench-like on each side, exposing wiry roots and rock. A bend in the watercourse limited the view ahead and behind to a few meters.
It was almost like home, crawling through the guts of a huge star destroyer, all hush and still air around her. She walked on, the banks gradually growing higher, now showing layers of stone. Slowly, almost unnoticeably, the stillness grew ominous. Her shoulders tingled with a sense of watching.
Rey stopped, listening. Nothing, not even the wind or insects, only her own breathing. She found her hand resting on the lightsaber’s hilt. Raising a shield around her mind the way Kylo had taught her, she continued on, moving more quietly now.
The shield didn’t work the way she thought. She couldn’t sense anything, couldn’t feel anything. She abruptly realized she must’ve been using the Force all her life but had never known it. Using it to tell her where was safe and where wasn’t, when to move and when to stay still.
Walking along the bottom of that wash, she felt like she had a sack over her head. What was her shield doing to the bond? Would Kylo still be able to sense her?
From behind came a sound so faint she might’ve imagined it, the brush of something against sand. She turned, her skin prickling all over. A scent teased the edge of her perception. She only noticed it because it wasn’t dry, or dust, or old machinery. It smelled like dark places and stone.
TLJ Rey with Kylo’s Saber by Harrison James
She unclipped the lightsaber and ignited it. The blade and quillions spilled out, ragged and crackling. The distinct sound of an indrawn breath came, then movement where the wash bent around a curve.
Rey spun, spun again. Jannessi swarmed toward her along the floor of the wadi, ahead and behind, five, six of them. Relief washed over her. She started to lower the lightsaber then froze.
These people weren’t brown, but a sort of mottled grey. Their clothes were different, too, primitive, scraps of leather or skins. Every hair on Rey’s skin stood on end. Nightfolk? They had to be. But it was daylight! Everyone had said—
She took the lightsaber in a two-handed grip and set her feet. Something felt different about the weapon this time, but she didn’t have time to identify what it was.
None of the Nightfolk spoke, but a touch skittered over the surface of her mental shield, picking at it. She pushed back. The approaching figures hesitated. They didn’t speak or gesture, but she had a sense of some communication going on between them.
The pressure on her shield increased. She concentrated, but the pressure wasn’t coming from just one place, one mind. She had to push out in every direction. Two Nightfolk darted close. She yelled and swung the lightsaber, driving them back.
She felt movement behind her, spun again. A knife flashed in her peripheral vision. She slashed the lightsaber toward it. Knife, hand, arm flew. Screeching, the wounded Night-one grabbed each of her wrists, fastened the remaining hand around her throat.
It was like someone tightened a clamp around her neck. Lights instantly spangled her vision. She wouldn’t strangle—her throat would be crushed, first.
She brought both feet up and slammed the Night-one in the midsection. Breath exploded out of it. Her vision was going dark and she felt rather than saw it fold over her feet. The lightsaber was a blurring slash of red, a hungry vibration. She felt it tilting in her hands. For a horrible instant, she thought she’d lose it, then she smelled the stink of burned flesh as one of the quillions slanted into the hand locked around her wrist.
The Night-one shrieked, its hand sprang open and the blade dipped downward, into its head. All three hands slid off her and it crumpled, twitching. Sucking in a rasping breath through her bruised throat, Rey spun in a circle, almost as if the lightsaber pulled her around. The tip scored the chest of one onrushing Night-one. Two more jumped back.
It wasn’t like Snoke’s throne room, where every movement felt practiced, smooth. The lightsaber felt like a live thing with a will of its own, unfamiliar. It was unfamiliar. It was only familiar to Kylo, and Kylo wasn’t here.
The popping whine of a blaster firing came from behind. Adrenaline spiked through her in a cold rush. She whirled. Two more Nightfolk had rushed up behind her. They fell, one so close two of its outstretched hands skimmed down her body as it toppled.
Figures moved up high, at the top of the wadi’s bank.
“Behind you!” someone shouted.
Blaster bolts whizzed past her. She began to turn. A body rammed into her from behind, driving her down. Fire scored the back of her arm. She twisted, bringing the lightsaber around as she slammed a knee upward. She hit the ground hard. The Night-one fell, torso and legs on her, shoulders and legs beside her.
Rey was already rolling to her feet. Breath knocked out of her, she half-crouched, weapon ready.
Janessi and humans were running toward her along the wadi’s bed. Two more people slid down the near-vertical banks. Still bent over, she finally got her breath with a whoop and backed until the opposite bank was at her back.
A human man came toward her, one hand outstretched, his blaster pointed skyward. “Rey? It’s Rey, right? It’s all right.”
His eyes were wide. Scared? He looked scared. Still holding out one hand, he slowly lowered the blaster. It took him three tries to find the holster.
Two Jannessi men moved past him, flanking her protectively as they scanned up and down the wadi. One held a blaster, the other a wickedly curved knife.
“No more,” said the one with the knife. “Dead or fled back to their lair.”
Rey let her gaze flick to the bodies on the churned sand. Kylo’s dream of the Jedi temple flashed in her mind, the slashed and dismembered bodies. Movement made her eyes jerk up again.
Verrannallu waded through the slaughter toward her. “Put that thing away, girl. You’re scaring everyone.”
Rey realized she still held Kylo’s spitting lightsaber upraised in both hands. She looked around, saw only humans and Brightfolk. Verrannallu stopped directly in front of her and crossed all four arms. A few others stood behind the healer, variously armed with blasters, knives, and something that looked like a cross between a spear and narrow-bladed shovel.
Rey’s arms shook. Something hot dripped down the back of one. Twisting to look, she found her sleeve fluttering and stained red. She looked around at the staring faces once more, Jannessi and human, and deactivated the lightsaber. Tension went out of everyone.
Verrannallu made an impatient gesture at the lightsaber. After another hesitation, Rey clipped it back on her belt. The others moved to the Nightfolk’s bodies, bending to examine them.
The healer came close, checked Rey’s arm, tipped her head back and looked at her throat. “That will make an ugly bruise,” she said, letting Rey’s chin go. “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. Girl, what were you trying to do?”
“I was looking for Nightfolk,” Rey’s voice was rough from the throttling. “I thought they weren’t supposed to be out during the day!” she added defensively.
“You blaze like a floodlight, girl. Give them the chance, they’ll come for you anytime.”
“The Nightfolk hunt whenever they think they can catch prey,” said the human with the blaster. “Brightfolk can feel them near. Us humans have to make sure we don’t get caught out alone.”
So much for closing her mind. If she hadn’t, she would’ve sensed them.
“These weren’t trying to prey on her,” Verrannallu said. She flicked her fingers at Rey’s wounds. “They were trying to kill her.”
Rey went still. “The way Brightfolk wanted to kill Kylo?” she said slowly.
Verrannallu made a disgusted noise. “With the Nightfolk, who knows? Likely, would be my guess.” She turned to the others. “An opening to their lair must be near. See if you can find it.” To Rey, she said, “Come with me. I’ll see to that slash.”
Rey nodded, coming down off the adrenaline high. She was beginning to feel the cut, a bad combination of ache and burn. She hoped it had gotten only skin, not muscle. Her throat—ugh. Even swallowing hurt.
“That was well done, girl,” Verrannallu said quietly. “Most humans alone wouldn’t kill one Night-one, let alone two. You must fight like a bleddath. Just don’t,” she said sharply, “try it again. Not even Brightfolk hunt alone.”
Rey hunched her shoulders. “Everyone said they don’t come out during the day.”
“You misunderstood,” Verrannallu said. “Because they do.”
Image credit: Rey with Kylo’s Saber by Harrison James
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