Work Text:
Drugged. I’ve been drugged.
These are Rey’s first thoughts as she comes to. Her eyes flutter open to take in her surroundings. She’s seated in wooden chair, bound to it by her wrists and ankles, the knots of rope that secure her made with practiced hands. The room is empty and stark. A faint smell of pine hangs in the air. There’s a table nearby—she sees the small lump of tawny fur that is her dæmon, the physical manifestation of her innermost self, stirring atop it. Her heart quickens.
“Melas?” she whispers, eager to rouse him. Perhaps he can bite the ropes away and free her. They can escape. Whatever has happened . . .
A whisper of wings alerts Rey to another presence, and a moment later a large bird has landed on the table beside Melas, talons sinking easily into the wood. A barn owl, but the colors are wrong—ash and mahogany and russet rather than the cream and white she has seen in books. It leans over the bat and she draws in a breath to shout and shoo it away, but then it only nudges him gently, preening him a little with its beak. The gesture is personal and almost tender, and despite everything Rey relaxes minutely.
It turns its face to Rey and speaks in a quiet, feminine voice. “We don’t wish to hurt you.”
“Hold your tongue, Delora,” comes a warning from behind, in a corner of the room Rey cannot see. There’s a man in here with them.
Melas starts, hisses at the owl and flies to Rey, nestling under her hair against her neck, making soothing sounds into her ear. The man moves around to face them with the prowling stride of a nightmare creature. He’s tall and broad, but that’s all she can tell—he’s dressed in black, a heavy cowled garment like a cassock over trousers and boots, and his head is hidden beneath a dark, nearly featureless mask. She recognizes it: the uniform of the Society of Ren, and this man is their leader.
Kylo Ren stops before Rey, crouches as if considering her, and the owl regards her with the same intent. Her dæmon trembles against her neck, but outrage overrides any fear they both feel. Melas' claws dig into the sensitive skin beneath her ear, and the sharp pain gives her somewhere to focus her anger and feel it build.
She spits at Kylo and bares her teeth. “Let me go. I have nothing you or your masked thugs want.”
He makes a sound like a chuckle. “Ah, but I know you do, little heretic.”
He reaches up and unclasps the mask, pulling it away as he rises to place it heavily on the table beside his owl dæmon. Rey can’t help staring at him. When she thinks of the Magisterium and its cadre of officials and votaries, she imagines old men, dusty, wizened, creased like ancient parchment. Her captor is shockingly young, with a long, striking face and probing eyes. His mouth looks soft and sensitive until it twists into a knowing smirk. “I’ve waited a very long time for this day.”
Rey’s breath is shaky, and Melas’ tiny claws dig deeper into her flesh in warning not to say anything rash. She thinks of the dreams that have come and gone her whole life, of owl’s wings and masked pursuers, long-fingered hands entwining with hers, cities in the sky surrounded by flares of colorful light. She remembers what she saw last night when she read the alethiometer, as ever half unaware of what she was doing but certain she knew the meaning of each symbol its needle landed on.
The hourglass—change is coming soon; prepare. The angel—a messenger, but bearing rebellion against the established order of things. The alpha and omega—finality, inevitability, the arrival at last of all that was meant to be, all that she was meant to be.
From a hidden pocket of his garment Kylo draws out what she dreads seeing: the heavy golden disc of the alethiometer, no doubt found as he searched her bag. She should have hidden it better.
“It’s heresy to possess one of these. They aren’t meant to exist at all. In the past, people spent lifetimes studying their ways and rarely achieved even a fraction of your facility.” His sly smile is gone. “So who are you? Some secret prodigy the scholars and dissenters have hidden away?”
She remains silent, willing herself not to blink as she glares back into his eyes. Kylo is unbothered, but looks away from her to inspect the instrument he holds in his open palm. His expression softens, as if he has suddenly forgotten he is not alone in the room, and when he speaks again his voice has lost its edge as well. “The infant—you’re alone. Abandoned; but not helpless.” It’s like part of him has gone somewhere else. “Not anymore. Hm, and the anchor . . . you’re bound by something you wait for—you hope. But you fear, too, that what you hope for will never come . . . ”
His mouth turns down, as if the third symbol the needle indicates has displeased him in what it reveals, or rattled him. The owl alights to his shoulder, clacks her beak, and speaks in an undertone something that sounds like “Ben.”
“You can read it?” Rey stammers, a flush of alarm creeping over her cheeks. He’s said it himself—to even possess an alethiometer is criminal. To read it, to even claim the ability, is a form of dissent punishable by excommunication, incarceration, perhaps even death.
Kylo comes out of his trance and meets her eyes, pockets the alethiometer and draws nearer to her. “The Magisterium wants you out of the picture, and we both know what that means.”
Melas has crept out from under her hair and is bristling. Rey nods, wincing as the ropes chafe her wrists. “And is that not what you want as well? They’d do the same to you, if they knew.”
“They won’t. Not if you disappear first.” He seems to see straight into her. “I think you’re meant for something great. We both are. And when I let you escape, I want you to take me with you.”
“You want to have this discussion?” Rey says, surprised by the ease with which she considers this turn. “I’m more conversational when I’m not tied to a chair.”
He looks at her sharply then crosses behind her, and she feels him working at the ropes that bind her feet as the owl keeps a watchful eye on the proceedings. Kylo appears utterly unconcerned that Rey might fight back, kick him, punch him, bite him and flee into the night the moment he releases her. She still has half a mind to do so. If she could consult the alethiometer now, what would it advise?
Change is coming soon. Prepare. A messenger, bearing rebellion against the established order of things. Finality. Inevitability. The arrival at last of all that was meant to be. All that she was meant to be.