Chapter Text
Niima was idyllic, though less so for her.
Stories stretched back for generations about Niima as a miserable, barren village, but no one living had any recollection of that. Verdant life covered the hills, consisting of both natural flora and cultivated farmland. Human and animal life, too, flourished. At the center of it all smoldered Ren, the volcano that had transformed Niima into the fertile paradise it was.
There were records of violent eruptions from generations past, but Niima’s people didn’t fear that sort of fate. Though Ren could be a force of great destruction, that was only a concern if he wasn’t properly appeased. Ren gave Niima’s inhabitants a prosperous life, and so they returned to Ren a portion of the bounty. Crops and livestock were marched up the mountain and tossed into its smoldering maw; young men and maidens alike dedicated their lives as clergy. The villagers held festivals, and practiced daily morning and evening rituals in the volcano’s name. As Ren gave Niima life, Niima’s life revolved around Ren.
That was the paradise Rey of Nowhere sought. Rey had journeyed across the vast Jakku desert that bordered Niima, drawn by the promise of something other than endless sand and chronic hunger. The trip had taken years, during which she’d survived as a feral, godless creature. She’d scavenged, picking bits of meat from carrion and what remained of less fortunate travelers; she’d gutted desert plans for the water they cached so jealously. There were days, sometimes weeks, when she didn’t utter a word—it was a waste of energy. There were times when she thought human speech was lost to her entirely, and was unbothered by it.
Niima, she had thought, would be worth it, if she could only get there.
... ... ...
“Heathen! Ingrate!”
Rey drew back her lip, half-raising her staff in warning. If the scornful words hadn’t come from a child, she might have picked the fight. As it was, the youngster scurried back behind his mother’s long skirts, sufficiently deterred by the threat alone. The mother glared, but strutted past Rey without speaking.
“The kid’s not wrong, you know,” said the trader whose stall she stood before. Rey rounded, indignant, but had no real argument. “You’re lucky I still do business with you.”
Rey scowled, but remained silent as he assessed her goods: fish, wild-grown berries, small woodland game. He glanced up; eyed her, as she stared off into the marketplace.
“You didn’t make any alms, did you?” he asked.
Rey scoffed. “You know I didn’t.”
The trader tutted softly. “I’ll give you thirteen for the lot.”
Rey’s focus snapped back to him in earnest. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll have to take alms out, since you didn’t,” the trader said, sounding apologetic in an obligatory sort of way. “I’m rolling that loss into your price.”
“You can’t be serious,” Rey said, starting to pull the string of fish back towards her. The trader caught it by the other end; held it.
“You try selling your wares to anyone else,” he said, his voice low. “They won’t even talk to you, let alone offer you as much as that.”
Rey bore her teeth, fuming, but again she had no argument. Eventually, after just long enough to feel like she wasn’t folding, she let go of the fish.
“Thirteen, then,” she agreed, and money changed hands. Had she suspected the trader was lying about taking a loss for alms, cheating her with his lowball price, Rey would certainly have fought him. But that was Niima’s bizarre truth: he wasn’t lying. He would dutifully tithe a portion of her wares, since she hadn’t fulfilled her obligation to do so. Part of that food, food that should be used to sustain life, would instead be cast into a volcano. It made Rey’s blood burn as hot as Ren’s supposedly sacred lava.
Rey walked briskly through the village, distancing herself as quickly as was reasonable from its fanatical inhabitants. At least she wasn’t hungry—and she was the one who made sure of that, not any volcano god. The volcano made it easier, certainly, but that wasn’t due to any higher power’s great benevolence. It was nature, just like the desert beyond Niima’s borders. Simple as that.
Rey’s house, deep in the lush greenery around Niima’s outskirts, welcomed her back. She had built the structure with her own two hands—it wasn’t as large as any building in Niima proper, and its roof was slightly lopsided, but pride swelled in her every time she saw it. She’d built it—she’d made a place for herself, despite everything. Entering, she left her bag on the table and went to the cabinet. She pulled out soft bread from the marketplace and the rest of a meat pie that she’d made that morning, along with an apple from her fruit bowl.
She settled in by her window to eat, comfortable in a small nest of scavenged and sewn fabrics. She doubted she’d ever stop savoring each bite of her meals, but she took particular pleasure in the pie—she was finally getting the hang of using the herbs and spices growing in a planter on her kitchen windowsill. It had taken her long enough, she reflected, to even begin bothering with such things.
There was a sweet air of civilization to her life on the edge of Niima, and it made Rey hum with amused pleasure. The natives could sing to their volcano until their throats were raw—Rey would content herself with good food, clean water, and her comfortable little house.
Then the ground saw fit to move beneath her.
Rey was poised to bite into her apple when she noticed it. The ground began to shift, first slowly and then more dramatically. Rey rose.
“Hell.”
Her roof cracked down the middle as the house's foundation shuddered beneath Rey's feet. She snagged her staff and her bag off the table as she bounded for the door, instinct driving her like wildlife fleeing a natural disaster. She broke into the open, then skidded and turned, looking back to see the fissure—a jagged opening had appeared in the ground, widening beneath her house bit by bit. As she watched, the roof split open to the sky; the walls began to crack, shorn appart by the stress of the cleaving ground. Within the space of a few moments, the whole structure caved, crumbling down into the ever-widening fissure.
The ground stilled. Rey steadied herself, although her breath came harsh and fast. Stunned, she looked at the perfect red apple still clutched in her hand, then back at where her house once stood.
Carefully, she set her bag down and gently placed the apple atop it. Slinging her staff across her back, she crept toward the fissure, wary of aftershocks or another quake. She stepped gingerly over what little remained of her wall, then peered down into the gap.
Smoke billowed up, making her cough and stinging her eyes. Beyond the noxious black, gleaming red lava coursed by, though visible only in brief flashes. Rey waved off the smoke from around her face, though she held no hope of glimpsing anything salvageable within the fissure.
She swore under her breath. “Stupid volcano!” she hissed, and then fell to a jag of coughing. Backing up, she closed her watering eyes and tried, unsuccessfully, to calm her breathing. “Ah...!”
Waving her hands to ward off the smoke, Rey squinted once again toward the fissure. At first, she thought it must be a shimmering heat-mirage; what she was seeing truly couldn’t be real. But then a second hand joined the first, clutching and clawing at the fissure’s edge, and then a body hauled itself clear. The edge crumbled beneath the figure’s weight, leaving him scrambling, but Rey moved instinctively forward before she could stifle the urge. Ignoring the heat and suffocating ash, she wrapped her arms around the figure’s elbow, pulling him up and away from the unstable fissure. He was heavy—should he slide back towards the lava, Rey knew she’d have to let go or be dragged to her death. She wouldn’t hesitate.
But the man didn’t fall back, and together they scrambled farther from the open chasm. When they cleared the worst of the smoke, Rey let him drop. She sat heavily down, back arched, struggling to catch her breath. The man, on his hands and knees, coughed, hacked, and spat some soot-blackened gunk into the grass. He collapsed onto his side a moment later, still breathing hard. Embers glowed in his thick black hair.
“Why... the hell —?” Rey began, but fell to a coughing jag.
The man twisted to look at her, though still lying on his side. “You have... my thanks...”
Rey scowled—thanks did her no good, not even in so far as answering her questions. She forced herself to her feet, although it made her sway; the stranger made no such attempts at bravado.
“Where did you come from?” Rey asked, hearing the roughness of ash and scalding air in her throat.
The man pointed back toward the fissure, his arm flopping against the ground; he made no further effort.
Rey sighed. She crouched beside him, watching the embers smoldering in his hair. If one of them properly ignited, she thought, that would get him moving.
“Hey,” she said. “Who are you?”
The man grumbled something, his voice muffled by the ground, then coughed fitfully. Rey tried not to roll her eyes.
“Say again?”
He rolled halfway onto his back, eyes closed. Ash smudged his pale skin. He wasn’t much to look at, Rey thought, all things told.
“Ben,” he managed, and Rey’s eyebrows rose.
“Ben? Ben who?”
The man shook his head vaguely. “Just Ben.”
Rey considered that, then said, “I’m Rey. Just Rey.”
Ben coughed, perhaps laughed, half-heartedly, then cracked open his eyes. Rey blinked, startled by their depth even when squinting through ash-crusted lashes. “Just Rey,” he repeated, not mocking or skeptical, simply appraising.
Rey didn’t appreciate being appraised .
“Well, even if my house is gone, this is still my land,” she said, standing and brushing herself off. “You’d do well to get going before I chase you off.”
Ben’s eyes widened, dismayed as he struggled to sit up. The embers clinging to him had mostly died, by then. “Your house...?”
“Gone,” Rey repeated, retrieving her pack. She tucked the apple into it. “The fissure took it.”
Ben’s expression darkened. “Damn Uncle Luke,” he muttered, glancing up at the sky. “He wouldn’t care...”
Rey raised an eyebrow, but shouldered her pack. “Go on. Town’s that way—Niima. Or there’s a way larger town about ten kilometers that way, beside a lake—Naboo.”
Ben shook his head. “Can’t go to Naboo. No way. Grandfather would have my head.”
Rey tilted her head. “You have family in Naboo?”
“I’ve got family everywhere,” Ben replied, but frowned. “Not that it does much good.”
Rey didn’t try too hard to figure out the meaning behind his words—clearly she was dealing with a madman. She’d encountered such people on her journey across the desert, and on certain days she’d been such a person. Niima’s religious fervor was also a particularly annoying, if harmless, type of madness.
But this apparent touch of mania stirred Rey’s otherwise dormant sympathy, and she sighed.
“Look,” she said, “if you want, you can help me build a camp for the night. It’s getting late, and I won’t turn down the extra set of hands. I can’t guarantee you supper, though.”
To her surprise, Ben seemed almost insulted. Rey thought she’d just made a magnaminous offer, though she might be biased on the subject.
“Look, it's pretty safe, around here,” she said, and then added, “barring any random cracks in the ground. But you’ll be just fine on your own, if my company doesn’t suit you.”
Ben looked uncertain—and somehow deeply displeased. “No, I’ll stay the night,” he said, in a way that made it seem he’d granted her some wonderful gift.
Rey snorted, unimpressed. “Suit yourself. Let’s go, then. There’s a clearing nearby that’ll do. An outcropping of rock that’ll offer shelter.”
She half expected Ben to not follow her. But he did, and he even kept up.