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Chapter Text

The last thing that Rey remembered was looking into Ben’s eyes, tears nearly running down her eyes, as she had tried to call her lightsaber to her. She had hoped for any other outcome than this.

As she began to come to, she immediately knew that something was wrong. Before she could even process her surroundings, she knew that it was peaceful, too peaceful. Not at all like the state of Snoke’s throne room.

This knowledge drove her to try to center herself as swiftly as she could, calm surroundings could be deceptive.

Pulling herself up to look around, she couldn’t help being in awe of her surroundings.

It was a forest, different than the one that she had been in on Takodana. The trees were taller, stretching up into the sky, obscuring most of the light that tried to get past. But despite that, the landscape seemed to illuminate itself, through light produced by the other flora decorating the forest floor.

This was the sort of forest that she would have dreamed of as a child, the kind described by the smugglers who used Jakku to lay low from the authorities.

Shaking her head, she started checking herself over for injuries. Now was not the time for nostalgia.

A groan coming from nearby startled her, and she began to look around for the source of the noise. It was when she looked to her left that she saw Ben sprawled on the ground. Whatever had taken her here must have brought him as well.

She finished checking over herself, thankfully only finding some scrapes and bruises, and then went over to make sure Ben was not hurt.

The first thing she did was gently nudge him, hoping that he would wake. He seemed to be responding, which was good news.

“Ben” she nudged him again. Searching for injuries would be a lot easier if he was coherent and able to cooperate.

His eyes opened slowly, and when they did, she could tell that the emotion from earlier had yet to fade.

“Rey?”  He seemed almost shocked at her presence

“You’re still here.” His voice was almost reverent, and tears were beginning to form.

“I am” she whispered “The problem is, I don’t know where “here” is.”

In his confusion, Ben tried to sit up quickly, causing him to cringe and hold his shoulder.

“You’re hurt!”

“I’ve been hurt before, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m worried about you right now.”

I got some sort of blow to my shoulder during the fight; I can’t tell how bad it is though. I’m going to have to take my outer shirt off, are you okay with that?

Rey nodded.

He peeled off the tunic, revealing a ghastly wound just under his right collarbone. Cringing as the exposure to the air caused it to sting.

“You’re going to need a bandage.” Rey undid one of her arm wraps, handing it over to him.

“Can you help me get this on?”

She moved to stand behind him, wrapping the cloth under his arm and over his shoulder several times while he held it still. Once the makeshift bandage was secured, she handed the tunic back to him.

“Any idea how we could have got here?”

Ben shook his head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing happening.”

Rey looked around at their surroundings “We need to start looking for a shelter, We don’t know what sorts of life forms could be living here, and it would be dangerous to wander about in the dark.

And so they set off upon their journey, both of them confused, only being able to hope for the best.

A little over an hour later, they had come upon a river and were now following it so that they would have a clear path to follow should they need to retrace their steps, and they were able to fill up Rey’s water canister that she carried with her. They had been silent throughout the walk.

“You never did tell me why you killed your father.”

Ben tensed up, stopping for a second before continuing to walk forward, staring into the distance as he contemplated his next words.

“Because I thought that I needed to, to be able to move on.”

“Move on?”

“Let go of my past, continue towards my future.”

Rey thought back to his words to her when he had asked her to join him “Did it help you to move on?”

Ben was silent for a moment before finally whispering “No.”

They were drawn out of their lamentations by a sudden sound.

Rey heard another, familiar hiss and turned around to see that Ben’s lightsaber had somehow made the journey with them.

“Stay back until we know we’re out of danger.

“I can take care of myself!”

“I know that you can, but you’re unarmed right now!”

He was right. Her lightsaber had been broken, and her staff was back on the Falcon. She looked around, searching for something she could use to defend herself.

Her search was cut short by a roar, she turned to quickly and ended up falling, thankfully the ground below was not rough.

Some sort of massive reptilian creature had decided to attack them, the beast was almost the size of a Bantha, and was covered in spikes. With a thundering growl, it bared it’s dripping fangs.

Feeling a pull on her arm, she realized that Ben had grabbed her hand, and began pulling her back into the woods as quickly as he could.

“Why didn’t you tell me to run instead of just grabbing me like that!”

“Because a sudden noise might end up making it angrier!”

Another roar interrupted their argument; they looked behind them to see that the beast was charging towards them. Acting on instinct, Rey closed her eyes, reached out through the force, and pushed her hand out forward, propelling the reptile into a tree. After a deafening thud, it fell to the ground unconscious.

Getting her breathing back to normal, she looked over to see that Ben was also holding out his arm, and was staring at her in awe.

“I had just been trying to freeze it in place.”

Rey felt shock run through her, she honestly did not even know what she was going to do to the creature, she had just hoped to keep the two of them safe.

“Let’s keep going.”

They had fallen back into silence after that, retracing their path back to the river and continuing along their previous path.

Suddenly, Rey stopped and looked over to the river’s opposite side.

“Ben?”

“Yes?”

“We need to get over to the other side of the river.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know for sure, I just…”

“Feel something?” Ben asked, understanding in his voice.

She nodded.

Ben started looking around them, trying to find something that could help them cross. Cutting down a tree with his lightsaber could be dangerous, not to mention it wouldn’t be stable for them to walk across. There was only one other option that he could think of.

“We’ll have to jump across.”

“How?”

“You’ll have to use the force to help propel you.”

She seemed apprehensive about the idea.

“I know that you can do this, you’re more powerful than you think.”

Rey stepped to the edge of the river and took a deep breath. She cleared her mind and reached out, focusing on the task at hand. Closing her eyes, she leapt as high as she could, time seemed to freeze during the moment she was in the air. But eventually, her feet touched the ground again.

Soon, Ben landed next to her.

“I knew you could do it. Now, what is it that you’re feeling?”

“I don’t know for sure…”

“That’s okay. Just listen to your instincts, I’ll follow you.”

And so he followed her, searching for something, though unsure what they were searching for.

It was a while later when the monotony of the walk was broken by another one of the floating lights in the distance, this one,  however, shone blue rather than the silvery-white of the others.

“Follow that.” Rey began to pick up her pace.

She ran ahead, with Ben following closely behind her.

Before long, they were brought to the bottom of a cliff, and the blue light dissipated into the air.

Before them was an indention in the cliff’s face, large enough that they could comfortably fit inside, but not quite a cave, there wouldn’t be any other creatures waiting for them inside.

“This will work as a shelter.”

Ben nodded and went to gather some branches from nearby shrubs to create a makeshift barrier at the entrance.

After sharing some of the water, they curled up next to one another to rest.

If they were going to find a way out of this place, they would need their energy.

Chapter Text

The next morning, they were woken by light filtering in through their barrier.  Rey was the first to stir. However, she felt Ben moving beside her soon after.

His yawn was loud enough to cause her to give him an incredulous look.

“Are you planning on waking up the entire forest?”

Ben just stared at her “ It’s a little hard to plan anything when you’re not fully awake.”

She smiled and shook her head. It seemed that Ben Solo was not much of a morning person.

“So, have you thought of any plans on how to get us out of here?”

In all honesty, she hadn’t. Not because she hadn’t tried, but because she couldn’t think of a feasible plan to get them off a potentially uninhabited planet without the technology to build a distress beacon.

“I’m not entirely sure yet. I thought that maybe we should explore a bit more today. If we’re lucky, maybe someone lives here, and they can help us.”

Ben nodded, also unsure of anything else that they could do.

When they stepped out of the shelter, a confused look came across Ben’s face.

“I don’t remember it being this misty yesterday. Perhaps it’s just a thing that happens in the mornings here? I hope it goes away soon; it’s a little hard to see.”

“Mist?” As far as Rey could tell, their surroundings were perfectly clear.

“You don’t see it?”

Rey shook her head.

A cold silence settled over them.

“Well, since you can see better than I can, you should lead the way.”

She nodded, and they set off for another day’s journey.

It was much later in the day when Rey spotted something off in the distance.

“There’s a building of some sort over there! Maybe there’s someone there who can help us!”

Ben perked up and looked at where she was pointing. It was difficult to make out in the mist, but he could see castle-like spires emerging into the sky. It seemed that the structure had been tucked away into some sort of valley.

Ben supposed that Rey could see it better than him.

When they reached the edge, where the ground dropped off into the valley, they were surprised to find a carved out pathway, leading down into the hollow. Neither of them could believe their luck.

That luck, however, did not last. The moment that Rey stepped onto the pathway, pain wracked through her body.

Ben managed to catch her before she collapsed onto the ground.

When she woke, she was in a plain room. Waiting a moment for the pain in her head to subside, she got up and walked over to the door.

Locked.

Questions began to run through her head. Who had taken her here, were the people on this planet hostile? Where was Ben?

Not one to sit around and wait for the answers, she began to search the room for something that could be used to unlock the door.

No luck, the wardrobe only contained a few simple garments, and the chest by the bed only had books. While the presence of physical books was interesting in and of itself, they were in a language she could not understand, and would not do much to help the situation.

She sighed, hopefully, whoever had brought her here would come and explain themselves soon. In the meantime, she changed into a knee-length dress and leggings from the wardrobe. Her clothes had become quite dirty over the past few days.

As it turns out, she only needed to wait a few minutes before there was a commotion at the door. The sound was too muffled for her to tell what was being said, but the person speaking seemed angry. Finally, after a few moments, Ben burst into the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Rey, are you alright?”

She nodded, at a loss for words, as he came over and embraced her.

“These creature’s arrived after you went unconscious. They call themselves “Sith” although they seem to have no connection to the Sith order in any way.”

This confused Rey, she hadn’t sensed any sort of darkness in this place.

“Why did they put me in a room like this but not you?”

“They seem to think that you are affiliated with their enemies in some way, I keep trying to tell them that you couldn’t possibly be, but they refuse to take my word for it.”

“So, what’s going to happen?”

“They want you to speak with their king, and convince him that you mean his people no harm, then they will decide what to do from there.”

Rey did not feel at all prepared to meet with the ruler of some mysterious beings that were potentially dark side users.

“And how am I supposed to convince him?”

“ I’m not sure…”

For a moment they just stood in silence, wondering what the future would hold. After a while, the door was opened again.

The man standing at the door seemed human, but his ears ended at points, and his hair was an unnatural shade of silver.

“ King Luthais is ready for you.”

She followed the man down a wide hallway. The atmosphere was brighter than she expected, the walls and ceilings were decorated in ornate plant motifs. Some of which were unrecognizable to her.

They finally arrived at a doorway, which opened for them without a knock.

Once inside, they were greeted by an imposing man on a throne. He examined Rey with stern, green eyes.

“Who are you?”

“Rey.”

“Tell me, Rey, why are you here?”

“Me and my companion ended up on this planet by accident, we’ve been trying to figure out how to get home.”

A smirk appeared on the man’s face.

“You aren’t the first to say such things. We’ll find out your true intentions soon enough. For now, you may stay here with your “companion” until we figure out what to do with you.”

Rey nodded “Thank you, sir.”

“For now, You’ll be taken to nicer accommodations, guards!”

The same man from earlier, along with a new face, stood beside her, and started leading her away.

“And remember Rey, we will know if you lie to us.”

These last words sent chills running through her as she was led away. Ben following closely behind.