if this night feels hollow (star wars | rey)

[fiachairecht]

if this night feels hollow. star wars sequels, rey. four people rey killed in the mirror cave on ahch-to, and one who might have killed her. 500w, rated t. for a prompt in darkestnightex 2018.

The first figure to emerge is a wisp of a girl, hardly solid at all except for the fire in her eyes. Six years old and she's already lost to the desert storms, already a killer twice over.

It means that she's the easiest, despite her youth. Despite the fact that she's smiling in Rey's hands, laughing when Rey kisses her forehead and breaks her neck.

It's better for her, this way. Rey waited for their parents long enough for both of them.

Her own laughter hangs in the still cave air for much too long after the girl dissolves.

 

**

 

The one who went with the navigators isn't human anymore, and that's harder to kill. Harder to deny.

She wants to sit with Rey. Talk with her. Remember all the stars like lonely grains of sand that used to guide their way home from the ruined Observatory.

What Rey almost says is: take me with you.

I want to see what stars you found.

But stars are all this girl is under her hood, and Rey doesn't think she could touch her without burning up. Some stars, she learned early on, cannot be followed.

But they can still be extinguished.

 

**

 

For a moment, she thinks that is all: two dead things swallowed by the ground and more reflections in the present than she could ever count staring back.

And then her gaze falls to the ground, to the sand spreading out from her feet, to the walls and beyond, and her mirror's smile pulls tight and sad as she steps forward.

The one who never left, who never ran, who never saw the green.

The one who fights back, feral and harsh as her teeth rip into Rey's skin with an awful solidity.

But eventually she too crumbles to sand.

 

**

 

Rey's bleeding on the rocks when Lady Ren crouches next to her, crimson saber spitting sparks like echoes of her blood that fizzle out in the damp.

Snoke's right hand, all the wind's whispered promises of youth eternal, of limitless energy and sated hungers. All granted in a life Rey never lived.

In a life she never wanted, despite the success Lady Ren appears to have made of it.

Unless — unless. Lady Ren doesn't protest, after all, when Rey struggles to sit, grabs the saber and turns on her.

The saber's remnant hum lingers longer than even the child's laugh.

 

**

 

The cave is —

Rey is —

Rey is fading. So many pieces of her are dead, so many of her are still alive. Watching, reaching out.

Her reflections are flickering. Her reflections are in the mirrors. Her reflections are -

She is —

She is standing, somehow. She is walking forward, hands outstretched, waiting to collide. She can feel the glass at her fingertips before she touches it, can feel it slide like blood as she snaps her fingers.

As every Rey she ever was and never will be snaps her fingers.

Rey reaches out. Her reflections reach out.

And Rey — Rey —

Is.