Chapter Text
She wasn’t supposed to sleep at the Niima Outpust. That, was a dangerous place for a young and tiny girl like her, especially at night. Rey knew it even too well. That was the reason why she chose to live in the AT-AT she had found a few miles in the middle of the desert. Too many travelers and voyagers were used to go at Niima to find fuel or furniture. Strangers from all the kinds and races.
Sometimes they were just looking for something, and they minded their own business, didn’t paying attention to the scavengers, like her, who worked on the nearness. But sometimes they did seem to have fun mocking at them, or worst. Not quite knowing what they could have wanted from a skinny girl like her, even if she could sensing from their eyes, that it was something revolting and terrifying. But only when she started to bleed, another scavenger told her about the breed thing. It was then that she started to bring always her stuff with her.So now Rey was not so unexperienced anymore. When she was a child she didn't understand those gazes, but now she was old enought to notice the lustful gazes that many of them used to thorw in her direction.
And so she had to fight against her growing fears, day by day, trying not to imagine what could may pass across their minds when they looked at her. Being alone at night had become even much terrible and unbearable after that revelation. The only way she had not to break apart was imagining a life far away from Jakku.
Sometimes she dreamed about her family, sometimes she tried to imagine a place that was the opposite of the unforgivable desert she was forced to live in. Her favourite fantasies were always the same. She used to imagine an ocean, a flat and fresh mirror of water where she could drink and bath in tranquility. But those were just dreams.
Her real condition was pretty different. All part and parcel of trying to survive on a back-water world as harsh as jakku. So Rey didn’t like at all the idea to spend the night down there at Niima. She knew that there wasn’t a place that could be really safe for her on Jakku, but she still preferred the security of her usual shelter in the high desert.
Nor that she had had much choice anyway. Her mean of transport had refused to get in motion that night. The lack of fuel was probably the main cause of the distress, but she could also blame it on the fact that the over-and-under twin engines had definitively crushed down. What else to expect from an old piece of junk that she had repaired herself with many different parts she had gathered all around?
Rey knew that sooner or later it would have definitively crushed down, it was only a matter of time. She had feared a lot that moment because the old spider, she repaired with her own hands, was the best thing that had happened to her in years. Thanks to the speeder she had been able to feed herself well like never before.
In fact, having the possibility to move further and quicker also meant more chances to find something valuable to exchange at Plutt’s counter. Only a few days before, when she was really far from home, at the feet of the giant dreadnought she had scavenged, when her clunky, boxy, beat-up speeder hadn’t moved after three attempts to ignite the engine, Rey was already to the brim of desperation, tears forming quickly into her eyes...
Then the engine had miraculously decided to turn alive. And so Rey had wiped away her tears and took a deep breath. And for a brief moment she had felt relieved. But she knew that it was just an illusion. Her whole existence was as precarious as the desert dune. A little puff of wind and her little world made of collecting old stuff and scratching them for a flavorless meal would have ended in the blink of an eye.
Nobody would have took care of her body until she would have become bones and then desert dust. That was the reason why she used to cry so much during those lonely nights, when the brutality of her condition descended to hit much more fiercely her poor and young soul. This time she hadn’t be so lucky. The engine had really crushed down, definitively. Luckily, she wasn't in the middle of the desert, but at Niima.
Rey sighed heavily shifting her position while she lied on the hard floor of the old ship she chose as a shelter for the night. Her empty belly growled her distress, while she desperately tried to fall asleep.
Rey wouldn’t have ever thought that one day she would have chosen to leave Jakku. Nor without her parents. But she simply didn’t have any other choice. Since the moment the soldiers had taken control of the Outpust, closing Hunkar Plutt’s activity, she had found herself starving unlike ever in her life. It had been already three days and nothing seemed to the point to go back to normality as she had hoped at the beginning. No food, for anyone. So, she knew that to remain would have meant also to die. And despite her longing for her parents, Rey didn’t want that to happen.
She wasn’t going to stay away for too long anyway. Just a few time, until those stupid troopers would have left Jakku. Just the time necessary to survive. Then she would have come back. In the main time, she could have tried to find a job somewhere. She knew she was good to repair broken things and she was also a decent pilot. She didn’t fear the unknown. The only thing she needed was someone willing to give her a lift on the nearness system. Then she would have found a way to survive, as ever, by her own. The only probelm was that the soldiers of the First Orders, didn't seem to allow anyone to leave Jakku and in particular the travelers who wanted to leave Niima.
Rey was almost sure that Plutt would have took his own ship to fly away from Jakku as soon as possible, if he only had known what was going to happen to him. In the same moment they arrived, the soldiers of the first order had brought him away without any explanation. then, they had immediately closed the view port in order to prevent to anyone the possibility to leave the planet. They were looking for someone or something. Nobody knew it. But until they would have found it, they wouldn’t have allowed anyonw to leave. being. It was a pity that nobody seemed to know about what they were looking for. It was told that Lord San Tekka, the old man known as well as the wizard of the village, had been brought away too.
And the people of Jakku, at the Niima Outpust right now were starving. Nobody was supposed to receive one more of those disgusting portions of dry food, or anything else, until the first order would have obtained what it was looking for. Even the ways that leaded to the others Outpust were also kept under control by the soldiers who were monitorating the zone. So Rey didn’t have much choice. She chose to use the old ship she had repaired as a shelter for the night she had to spend at Niima. Her mind wondering… Unable to sleep, an idea forming into her mind.
Trying to fly away on board of Plutt's old ship wasn’t an option. Yes, she knew it was still working because she had applied some small repairs on it, during the previous months, but Plutt had never let her fly with it. She didn’t know how much fast it could be but she had the suspect that it wouldn’t have been faster than the super technological ships of the first order. Never in a whole life. Maybe she could have sneaked into one of those ships that sometimes landed to the planet to bring the provisions for the soldiers and then stay hide and hope to be really really lucky not to be noticed.
That could have worked. Yes, it could… But her stomach was already aching painfully because of the lack of food of the last days and her heart was aching too at the simple thought of the future it was waiting for her. For the whole day, her plan had been waiting and find a way towards another outpust to exchange her belongings. She had almost succeeded in persuading two stormtroopers to let her go,when a really tall one with a silver armor, had started to fire some blaster bolt into her direction without any advice.
“Stay away desert scum!” had yelled at her the soldier. Rey had run away as fast as possible. So fast that her lungs were burning as hell when she had finally reached her speeder, parked a half of a mile back. And when she had tried to ignite the engine, the unfortunate discovery. She was stocked there at Niima. The troopers hot on her trail now. She had no choice but to reach for Plutt’s old ship. Once inside she had feared they could try to inspect the ship, but nothing happened.
Now, the young girl would have had the chance to sleep, at least a few hours, before the moment the cargo would have arrived. Butm despite the exhaustion, Rey was too worried not to wake up in time, afraid to miss the passage, afraid to leave, afraid to end murdered or worse, to die down there because of hunger.
Then, all of a sudden, a spark of something, a pull towards something or someone, brought her standing up to scrutinize the empty desert from the cockpit of the ship. She didn't know how or why, but she knew that something or someone was waiting for her. And so, as in a dream she reached for the ramp on the back and pressed to button to open the hold door...
Continua...