Chapter Text
Rey perched, perfectly balanced, on a wide tree branch waiting for her quarry. It had been seven hours since she’d so much as twitched, her thighs aching with the inactivity. All of her preternatural senses were on highest alert, waiting, waiting.
Thanks to that abnormally strong hearing - one of the many perks of being half Fae - she could hear every rustle, chirp, and buzz in the forest surrounding her, the knowledge of her solitude absolute. The loamy scent of earth stuffed itself up her nose, that sweet decay that you only found amongst the trees.
One foot in the forest, that’s what the humans said about them, the Fae. Running her tongue across the slightly elongated canines, sharp as twin knives and so useful for staking claim or winning a fight, she couldn’t help but agree. Though as only half Fae, Rey supposed her one foot was only half in the forest. Always a little less than her companions.
In the distance, a mile or maybe two, a small brook babbled, the scurrying of field mice the only sound threatening to drown it out until the snap of twigs and drag of feet alerted her to her prey. Uh, quarry.
Her heart sped, either in fear or sweet, sweet anticipation, a battle brewing in her blood. Secretly, she loved it when those animal instincts took over, swallowing the human half of her whole. Just blood thrumming in her veins, a snarl poised in her throat, that utter lack of thought, a perfect single-minded clarity.
It happened as the man she’d been waiting for inched through the forest, taking care to mask his sound and hide his tracks as he made his way to the little town on the edge of the treeline. She shook her head. Human vanity. Like he could ever hide from one of her kind. His scent alone - reeking of fear and pride and all his human weakness - was enough to alert any immortal within a five-mile radius of his presence.
The dark tattoo on the inside of her wrist burned as if it understood the importance of the day. The mark of the unnamed, etched into her skin for eternity. Oh, if the other urchins could see her now. Her first solo mission for Leia and the Resistance.
Abandoned by a human mother, Rey had grown up wild, running with the packs of demi-fae left behind on the streets of Jakku to be taken in by the notorious crime lord Unkar Plutt. He collected their kind the way rich old men collected coin, using them as messengers and petty thieves, half-starved and always expendable. Most had barely a sliver of the gift, few with keen senses or the gently pointed ears, rarer still to find one with true magic running through their veins - fire or ice or wind to call at a moment’s notice - let alone the immortality of the true-born Fae.
And Rey had been the runt of the pack, tiny and filthy and slightly more than half-starved, those elegantly pointed ears hidden behind a veritable nest of dirty brown hair. Completely ordinary and forgettable and alone. No one expected her to have a drop of magic, even Rey herself.
Oh, how they’d teased her. She had to fight twice as hard for every scrap she got, whether it be food or clothes or shelter or companionship. Life was cruel on the streets, and the children who lived there never let her forget it.
So when at thirteen she unleashed holy hell and froze half a city block to protect herself as her so-called friends turned on her, attempting to sell her to the nearest brothel for some quick coin, it was to the surprise of everyone who spent those early years knocking her down, reminding her of how worthless another half-fae bastard truly was.
She remembered none of it. One minute, rough hands were dragging her closer to Madam Elise’s, a new kind of hell awaiting, and the next soft hands, the hands of a mother, were checking her for injury, gently smoothing the hair from her face.
Three of those boys had died in the blast - or so she’d been told - frozen solid by the sweeping wind she sent out. Rey tried not to think about how it was only the three who had grabbed her, the ones growling about how pretty she would become, how they might try her themselves first, that had died, and none of the other bystanders. Like maybe, just maybe, she’d had more control over the blast than she cared to admit.
And those hands, strong and scarred and ancient, they weren’t a mother’s hands but those of Leia Organa, a former Fae queen and leader of the Resistance. It didn’t take much convincing for Rey to accept the offer Leia gave her. To join the cause, the only fight that mattered. The fight against evil. The fight against the First Order.
She’d given herself over completely. Maybe it was lingering guilt from what she’d done to those boys ( children , her traitorous brain supplied, they were just children. ) but she’d spent the last 17 years of her life training under Leia’s coldest (and most sadistic, in Rey’s not-so-humble opinion) Fae warrior, all the blood and sweat and tears culminating in this very mission. Her first solo mission.
Only the most capable and strongest fighters among them were sent out like this, the ones who could stand on their own. And among them all, Rey had been chosen. The tattoo had been inked in honor of this day. To remind her of who and what she was. To show how far she’d come. To own it.
She was still young by Fae standards, and by human standards too, barely five years past settling into her immortal body at age 25. It had been strange to see the same face looking back at her day in and day out for the past five years, and it would be stranger still to see it stay that way for the next thousand or so. Never a crease, never a wrinkle, just the smooth, immortal skin of the Fae staring back at her.
It had never been a sure thing for her, the Settling. With her mother long gone and no father to speak of, they only knew she had some Fae blood. But how much? That was anybody’s guess.
Hells, she hadn’t even had a name until she stepped into the Resistance home base. Unkar Plutt had referred to her as “girl” while the rest of the children stuck with “runt.” It was her snarky ass of a handler who first called her “Rey.” As in, what a fucking ray of sunshine you are . It had stuck, and since she had never been all that great at spelling, Rey it was.
But there were more important things than her name to worry about as General Hux, the man she’d been sent to spy on, continued to smash his way through the woods (all the while, thinking himself stealthy).
Today’s assignment was simple. Wait for Hux to meet his contact and use those ears to get details of the First Order’s movements. Do not engage. Do not make your presence known.
She scoffed internally at the repeated reminders from both Leia and her trainer-turned-Commander. Like she didn’t understand the consequences if she spilled First Order blood. Like she didn’t realize it would mean all-out war.
To this point, the conflict between the Resistance and First Order had been nothing more than a cold war, empty threats and covert operations with a dash of espionage thrown in for good measure. And under the immortal laws of the Fae, it would stay that way until blood was spilled. All it would take is a drop, a single drop of blood to touch the ground, and this uneasy detente would be over.
Despite the icy magic flowing through her veins, she had a bit of a reputation as a hothead, one well-earned over the years she’d been with the Resistance. You could take a girl off the streets, but you couldn’t take the streets out of the woman she’d become. At least in Rey’s case.
So she trekked out here at oh-dark-thirty, finding the tree she was currently squatting in and spending the next hours blending in and letting her scent dissipate into the icy winds she brought forth. Not that Hux’s thoroughly human nose would be able to pick her out. But just in case.
A second man approached, covered head to toe in a black cloak, a very real and deadly power coming off him in waves. The darkness of his immortal scent twined with the flop sweat of Hux’s mortal one to create an unholy stench that left her stomach roiling and eyes watering. Rey swore in her head, hoping that the gentle breezes she’d summoned to blow away her scent were enough to keep her cover.
Apparently it was, as neither Hux nor his guest gave any indication that they knew of her hiding spot as they convened just inside the treeline.
“Hux, as loud and conspicuous as ever I see,” came the stranger’s voice, deep and hollow and laced with malice. He seemed to like Hux about as much as Rey.
Based on the rage lacing Hux’s scent, the feeling was mutual. “Yes, Ren. And you remain delightful as ever.”
Ren. Ren. He couldn’t mean Kylo Ren, leader of the Knights of Ren?
Kylo Ren was the most notorious killer in all of faedom. A demi-fae, like herself, he had the greatest and most terrible power their world had ever seen. A dark wind, gifted by the God of Death himself, that could cleave skin from bone without more than a thought, a death made all the more agonizing by the memories he fed on in the process. Dark, dark magic for a dark, dark male. Though it hadn’t always been that way.
He had been born into the right side of this war, his mother none other than Leia Organa. For a thousand years Leia had roamed the Earth, fighting the darkness that rose periodically. Then she’d met her mate, Han Solo, a human man with barely 30 years to his name. She’d given up her own immortality to spend the rest of their days together, aging gracefully as the years went on.
And Ben, their only son, the greatest power seen in generations of a weakening bloodline, was the light of their lives. He’d grown up with everything Rey had not, love and light and life, every need cared for, every whim satisfied. And his power, a strong, rare magic, raw power that could be shaped as he wished.
But something had gone wrong. Whether it was his training or something corrupted deep inside him, slowly he had come to resent the family he had once cherished, the way they sought to leash his power, leash him.
That raw magic shifted, and what once could bring fire or ice or winds or water, darkened. No longer could he bring about light and life, only death and corruption. When Han Solo saw what was happening and tried to stop his son, Ben used that new power to annihilate him. So the change was complete. Ben was now Kylo Ren, Commander of the Knights of Ren and the weapon of Snoke, Leia’s greatest enemy.
And here he was, forty feet away and utterly unprotected. Rey knew him, had trained beside him, practically grew up with him after joining the Resistance all those years ago. His weaknesses were as familiar to her as her own. All it would take was the closing of her fist to cut off his air supply, to pull the very wind from his lungs with her own power, and it would be over.
“Do you have an update for me on the weapon?” That deadly voice sent shivers down her spine. Rey suppressed the very real urge to run, steeling herself for what she knew she must do.
Inch by inch, Rey moved herself off the branch, that phantom wind carrying away any hint of a sound.
More than see, she could feel the smirk on Hux’s face. “Oh, so you do need me after--”
His words choked off with a lash of that dark power, Rey’s own magic cringing at the oily caress.
She took another step forward.
Beyond these trees, they were just beyond these trees, and then she could disable Ren, and prove to Leia - and her bastard of a commander - that she truly belonged with them. She reached out a hand, the tattoo stark against the pale skin of her wrist, slowly closing the fist that would steal the air from his lungs...
She had less than a single breath’s warning before an iron grip pulled her back, a strong, scarred hand covering her mouth before she could scream.