a sign of the remnant sun (star wars | rey/kylo)

[fiachairecht]

a sign of the remnant sun. star wars sequels, kylo/rey. the woods on chandrila are quiet after the war. 1.1k words, rated t. for the prompt 'fem reylo + "come walk in strange woods"'.

Rey dreams of the island for years after she's left it.

It's worse now than it's ever been, worse now that she's been there. Now that she knows who died there.

Luke, of course, the first to ... leave. Or maybe her old self was first, the one who believed in legends and disbelieved the message she bore the last jedi.

Others. The pilots, the troopers, the ones who washed up unrecognisable on Nimue's shores for days after the last battle.

Rey dreams of the island and of the bodies and wakes light years away on Chandrila, safe in bed with a women who hasn't been Kira Ren in months but who crumples pale and silent to the floor whenever anyone says Breha.

Sometimes Rey thinks neither of them are safe at all.

They should be. She tells herself they are, believes it more when she tells Breha they are during the good nights, if only because she knows she'll stand between her and the whole of the Republic, whatever comes. Believes it more when it's Leia or Amilyn who says it, the two of them still enmeshed in galactic politics for reasons they can't be bothered to pretend anymore go beyond keeping Breha and Rey safe.

Sometimes, when it's just the four of them alone in the Chandrilan woods, in a cabin that pretends to rustic with more grace than Rey's ever known in her life, she thinks it might be the first time in her life she's been truly safe.

But all that certainty disappears like rain when it's Breha who wakes screaming from nightmares. Breha who reaches up to brush hair out of her eyes and brings her hand back damp with tears. Breha who nearly falls over when Rey brushes against her shoulder, because she's been meditating so long and so deeply that two mealtimes have passed her by.

She wants to do better by them, Rey thinks. She just doesn't know how.

"I grew up here," Breha says, one morning when it's raining so hard the sun might not have risen at all. "I grew up here in the dark and sometimes I don't think it will ever change."

It's changed already, Rey wants to say. You have us now. Me.

Instead she just pulls Breha's head into her lap, runs her fingers through her tangled hair and wonders how she's supposed to fill the empty spaces in Breha's head and heart and life all at once.

"Not in this house," Breha continues, too fast, like she still can't believe Rey's giving her the opportunity to talk. "I don't think any of us could bear going back to that."

Rey almost flinches at that, the reminder that there were decades of Breha's life before her. Would she have failed her, too, if she had known Breha then?

"But these woods. I knew them, a different kind of dark. I miss..." She sits up, suddenly, gripping Rey's hand so hard it almost hurts. "Would you come for a walk with me?"

Part of Rey wants to say no, say, haven't we spent too long in the dark? Part of her thinks that this is the first time in months that Breha has expressed a desire to do anything more than simply exist, and she hears herself say "Of course" as she leans forward to press their cheeks together, soaking wet with rain and so much colder than the warmth of Breha's hand in hers.

They stay like that for a long moment, long enough that Rey almost thinks Breha's decided against going further into the woods at all. She wouldn't mind, Rey thinks, feeling her breathing slow to match Breha's feel their heartbeats together almost loud enough to drown out the pouring rain.

Out of time, she thinks absently. They've always been out of time, one way or another.

"Come on," Breha says finally, pulling Rey with her as she gets to her feet.

Their joined hands brush against the lightsaber belted to Rey's waist, and Breha does flinch at that. "Do you need to bring that?" she asks unhappily.

Rey hesitates, looking between the saber hilt and Breha. She wears it more out of habit than anything these days, this blade she once crafted with Leia's hands guiding hers as they both mourned what they thought was the final death of a woman they both loved. She's long past the time Breha's mere presence demanded a weapon, but the woods ...

Years the four of them have lived in the cabin, building a life that didn't need lightsabers in a galaxy they hoped didn't need them, but the desert sand in her blood still rebels against the idea of going into the woods unarmed.

"Do I?" she asks. "You know what we're likely to find there better than I do."

Breha runs her fingers up and down the saber hilt, tapping thoughtfully at the holster. "Quiet," she says. "And — oh, Rey, can't it just be us for a little bit?"

Want has never been uncomplicated for either of them, but being able to give Breha something — even something as small as leaving her lightsaber behind for a walk in the woods — that she uses her free hand to pull the saber from her belt, hesitating a moment before gently pushing it through the half-open window and letting it fly back to its spot on the table beside their bed.

By the time they're far enough under the trees that the rain has significantly lessened, she's glad she did. There's something freeing about being weaponless, something that feels just a little bit softer, like even the fact that they're able to relax this much means that things are getting better.

Rey laces her fingers tighter through Breha's, watches the way her hair curls in the damp, and hopes that Breha feels at least some of the same peace she does. Time was she would have known, through the Force, but she loved this too, the moments when they could let the bond rest for a few hours and take time to be with each other instead of of trying to untangle the messy knots of being each other they too easily tied themselves into.

It's a hard-won sort of knowing, the sort that adds a sweet surprise to the moment Rey drops a handful of damp leaves down the back of Breha's tunic, that means when Breha plucks a shockingly blue flower to tuck behind Rey's ear, she does it because she remembers Rey's favourite colour, not because she knows she wants it.

It means, Rey thinks, that they might walk and walk through their own private universe in these woods and never find an end.

Neither of them dream of the island that night.