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‘Come on!’ Kylo growled, trying to make his way to the bridge. Elennia sat in the middle of the corridor and panted at him. ‘Stop playing dumb!’ Elennia cocked her head to one side. Her segmented tail started lashing back and forth.
A couple of stormtroopers on their way to the bridge stopped several paces behind her. One of them started to edge along the wall of the corridor, but Elennia stayed where she was, her tail swinging even further. Kylo glared. Elennia growled. The stormtroopers turned around to go the long way.
Kylo strained against the limit of their bond. He’d broken out into a sweat and one of his hands was trembling. The strain must be affecting her just as much, but it was always hard to tell.
At least the pain and frustration were of some use, Kylo thought as he channelled those feelings into the Force. His hand rose in front of him and he made a beckoning motion. Slowly but inexorably Elennia began to slide forward. Her claws made a horrible screeching sound against the metal as she dug them into the floor.
Just then another stormtrooper approached from the direction of the bridge. ‘Lord Ren?’
‘What?’ he snapped, turning away from his battle of wills.
‘You’re needed in the interrogation cells.’
Ren stared at the soldier for a long moment before turning around and striding back down the corridor toward Elennia. He brushed past her, and just as he approached the limit of the bond she stood up and followed at the exact maximum distance. Ren snarled to himself. She was such a child sometimes.
///
‘Hey, could you grab that stabilising coil for me?’ Rey asked as she reached into the guts of the decaying spaceship.
Bracca ducked under her arm and wriggled his way between the wires. Rey could just make out the tip of his tail. The coil was sitting in a cradle of tubes and wiring. Bracca’s paws were perfectly suited to dismantling the support frame and it didn’t take him long to free the coil. He clutched his prize and backed up slowly, weaving around engine structures.
Once outside, he turned the coil around, bringing it closer to his face for inspection. It was still shiny and quite complex. Rey shot him a look. ‘No taking it apart, we need it.’
Bracca dumped the coil beside her and darted around to her other side. ‘I wasn’t going to.’ He leaned in closer to watch her rip out more parts. One of his horns was brushing the side of her arm, but neither of them paid it any attention. ‘How much is it worth, do you think?’
‘Probably a full ration with the stuff we collected from the fighter.’
It turned out that with the stabilising coil, Rey’s haul was worth one and a half.
They celebrated that night by tinkering with some junk. Rey hunched over her workspace and Bracca stood on the bench beside her, occasionally offering advice or toying with a shiny piece of scrap. When the old running light they were working on lit up, Rey and her daemon shared a grin by its dull glow.
///
Kylo strode through the jungle-choked ruins with Elennia at his side. Stormtroopers fanned out on either side of him. He deflected the few accurate blaster bolts with his lightsaber or the Force, rather than bothering to catch any. This wasn’t about shock and awe. This was about efficient murder. The pirates that operated in this system were definitely beneath his attention, but for some reason his master had told him that this mission warranted his presence. Kylo knew better than to question the insights of a Sith lord.
One of the pirates broke cover to run at him. When a gurreck daemon crashed through the undergrowth, Kylo understood. Clearly the pirate thought that a large daemon would somehow intimidate him.
Elennia bounded forward with a snarl. Her lips were peeled back from her teeth and her tail arched upward to stab into the gurreck daemon. She leapt forward and landed on its back, digging her claws through the tough hide to deliver more venom. The large jungle carnivore struggled to move as the paralytic effect took hold. Kylo smiled beneath his mask and stalked over to the pirate who was now also paralyzed and staring at Kylo’s daemon in horror.
Elennia alighted from her target and fell into step like a large shadow. Kylo sensed the pirate’s fear as a bright hum in the back of his skull. Battle rage pounded in his temples, but this wasn’t the place to draw out a kill. Kylo beheaded his opponent. Behind them the gurreck daemon disappeared in a cloud of golden sparks. Instead of dissipating, the bright hum intensified and started to resonate through the Force.
‘I recognise it,’ Elennia said. Her eyes looked a little glazed and she padding toward the centre of the ruins without a backwards glance.
‘Wait!’ Kylo called as he hurried to catch up, ducking beneath some overhanging vines. ‘It’s a holocron, isn’t it?’
There was a small empty pedestal in the middle of the room. Elennia was standing in front of it. ‘Yes,’ she replied without turning her head, ‘and it’s definitely Sith.’
Kylo approached. The hum was now an instant buzz on the periphery of his awareness. Kylo closed his eyes and reached out to the Force, channelling the bloodlust and rage that still coursed through him. A small pyramid appeared on the pedestal. A dark glowing crystal pulsed at its apex. Elennia’s tail twitched as Kylo retrieved the artefact.
///
‘So this is Bracca,’ Rey said, pointing at her daemon. Bracca bobbed his head and scratched behind one ear. ‘Where’s yours?’
Finn flinched, his hand automatically rising to the side of his neck. Of course his daemon wasn’t even there because he wasn’t wearing a helmet anymore.
‘Are you okay?’ Rey asked.
‘Yeah, yeah fine. We just, I mean, Resistance members with small daemons are chosen for covert missions and we need to hide them so we don’t get recognised.’
‘Could we meet her? There’s no one else around.’
Finn’s beetle crawled out of a jacket pocket. He looked down at her. Bracca’s eyes were fixed firmly on her too. Finn desperately tried to think of a name to give. He blurted the first one that came to mind. ‘This is, uh, Poe.’ Hopefully his daemon would forgive him for his poor improvisation.
‘Hi,’ Poe said and flew over to Bracca. He held out his paws and she alighted on them. Bracca brought her slowly toward his face.
‘You are very shiny,’ he said solemnly.
‘Thanks.’
Finn couldn’t stop staring. This was the first time that Poe had ever touched another daemon. Bracca seemed completely unconcerned. Finn looked up and found Rey smiling.
‘You know, some people say that Bracca is evidence that I was born to be a scavenger. Maybe having Poe means that you’d make a good pilot.’
Finn returned her smile. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
///
That night Kylo lay curled on his bed with his back to the door. Elennia was a hulking presence in the farthest corner of the room. Eventually she sighed and padded over to the bed.
‘Go away,’ Kylo said, his voice thick.
Elennia tried to give him an unimpressed look, but Kylo’s face was hidden under his arm. Instead she pushed her head under his hand. They both ignored the way his hand tightened reflexively in her fur.
‘Your whiny crying is distracting,’ Elennia said.
‘I’m not crying.’
Elennia gave him a moment to think about the pointlessness of trying to lie to his own daemon. Then she managed to get on to his bed completely, pushing Kylo right to the edge. He looked up, but couldn’t quite meet her yellow eyes.
‘Fine,’ he said quietly and buried his face in the fur of her neck. ‘We don’t mention this ever.’
Elennia huffed. ‘Obviously.’ She didn’t even tell him how unpleasant it was having his tears soak into her fur. She was considerate like that.
///
The old lightsaber dropped from Rey’s fingers and the visions began to clear. Maz was looking at her expectantly. It was too much. Everything was too much. Rey fled and Bracca scampered to keep up with her.
‘Rey!’ Bracca called.
Rey didn’t respond to him, choking back the lump in her throat and ignoring the hot sensation crawling up the back of her neck. She didn’t stop running until she was deep in the forest and out of sight.
Bracca darted around in front of her and lowered his horns. ‘Rey, we need to talk about this.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Rey.’
Ignoring Bracca was never a good idea. She looked around and told herself it wasn’t to avoid looking at her daemon. There was a fallen log behind her. She perched on it and drew her knees up to her chin. ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘let’s talk.’
Bracca scrambled up beside her and gave an affectionate head-butt. She slowly uncurled and let him settle on her lap.
‘Look, do you really miss sand that much?’ he asked.
A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of Rey’s lips. ‘It’s not that simple. You know we have to go back to Jakku.’
Bracca looked up at her as he weighed his answer. ‘I know this is a long way from home. I supported you when you turned down Han’s offer, but this is different. This isn’t about wandering off, this is about something bigger, maybe even bigger than what we’ve been waiting for on Jakku.’
Rey was quiet for a long time. The complex sounds of diverse life surrounded her here in a way that was vastly different from the desert. When Rey broke the silence, it was just one more noise in the forest. ‘I don’t believe in destiny.’
‘No, but whatever happened in there was important. We can’t just ignore it.’
Rey opened her mouth to retort, but Bracca had risen to his full height. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘something’s coming. Something bad.’
Rey stood up and palmed the blaster that Han had given to her. She couldn’t deal with visions and lightsabers, but she knew how to deal with a threat.
///
She was pathetic, this desert scavenger girl. Even her daemon was an ugly little scurrier – a species widely regarded as vermin. For all Elennia’s faults, at least she was a noble and powerful raquor'daan. Not a single officer on the Starkiller had a daemon as large or impressive-looking as her.
Kylo raged at the way Rey had entered his mind and the way she didn’t seem to fear him at all. And now Elennia was defying him once again and standing so far behind him that every time he lunged at Rey, a wave of separation pain washed over him.
‘You were perfectly happy to fight against the traitor! So stop sulking and subdue the girl’s daemon!’ Kylo yelled.
Elennia got to her feet and wandered over to the combat, every step full of studied insolence. Kylo ground his teeth, but used the extra range to hammer his lightsaber against Rey’s defences. The blue light of his grandfather’s weapon seemed to mock him with every clumsy strike.
Finally Elennia arrived at his side. Her attention was entirely focused on the scurrier daemon that darted toward her paws and backed off before she could swipe at him. Then the unthinkable happened. Elennia crouched down with her ears pricked up and her vicious tail laying flat. Her tongue lolled out of her jaws. The scurrier stopped darting and tilted his head so his horns jutted forward. The tip of his tail twitched slowly back and forth.
‘What are you doing?’ Kylo hissed at his daemon. The last time Elennia had done that was a lifetime ago, back when she had play-fought with other daemons. This was before she’d even settled. Now every fight was an opportunity for her to paralyze a foe’s daemon while he closed in for the kill. This was unacceptable.
Rey wasn’t nearly as distracted by their daemons. She clearly trusted her little desert pest and she pushed her attack. Much to his shame, Kylo couldn’t concentrate. The two daemons seemed to be having a conversation. Kylo circled to the right so he could keep them in his field of view. This was why he hadn’t let Elennia inside the interrogation cell with Rey. His daemon had been acting strange around the scavenger from the beginning. Now Elennia was letting the scurrier touch her face. Those grabbing paws were way too close to her eyes. Kylo struggled to remember the last time another daemon had touched Elennia outside of combat. No one on the Starkiller Base would dare.
Then Rey got past his defences and he was forced to dodge wildly to the left or risk losing his arm. With a flurry of blows, he managed to fend her off long enough to disengage. She didn’t push forward into his space and also backed off warily. In her place, he would have pressed the advantage. That’s what you did when an opponent showed a moment of weakness.
‘You need training! Let me teach you,’ Kylo said.
Rey simply stared at him. Then she turned her head to look over at their daemons. Elennia was standing up. Her tail was still down and now her ears were back and her whole body was lowered. She walked toward Rey. The scurrier kept pace, looking unconcerned. Kylo frowned. Surely Elennia wasn’t going to attack. In life or death situations, her venom worked just as well against a person, but the feel of any part of his daemon touching someone, even to attack, was nearly unbearable. It was even worse then the separation pain.
‘What—,’ Kylo had just enough time to say before Elennia sidled up to Rey and put her head under the scavenger’s hand. The daemon-touch sensation slammed into Kylo and he whimpered.
‘Stop,’ he protested weakly, unsure if he was imploring Rey or his traitorous daemon. Rey turned her head to look back at Kylo and deliberately ran her hand through the fur between Elennia’s ears. Kylo’s lightsaber disengaged and dropped from his suddenly numb fingers. He was breathing heavily and using every last piece of control not to utter the noises that rose in the back of his throat. Pain he could deal with, the slippery-wrong feeling of daemon touching was something he could use to fuel his hate, but not this, not this other feeling.
Elennia had that squinty-eyed look of satisfaction and her tail was utterly relaxed in the snow behind her. Rey seemed a little off-balance, but had no compunctions about using what Elennia was offering. ‘You can’t do that,’ Kylo said.
Elennia shifted forward so that Rey could trail her fingers down the leathery hide of her spine. Kylo fell to his knees in the snow. He tried to beat against his wound, but he barely had the strength to make it hurt properly.
Then the ground began to break up between them. A chasm opened before him and he could only look helplessly toward Elennia as the distance grew. In the next heartbeat separation pain washed over him, though it wasn’t quite enough to drown out the feeling of Rey, who was still touching his daemon.
‘Elennia!’ he called out.
She seemed to wait until the absolute last moment before turning to leap over the chasm. Kylo let out a sharp cry as she landed on the very edge of the widening gap. Her powerful claws dug into the snow and rock and she propelled herself forward. Her paws kicked up ice crystals as she bounded away from the edge. Rey and her daemon had already fled, but Elennia turned to stare after them with her ears pricked forward. She finally turned around and padded up to Kylo. He sank a hand into the fur of her ruff and heaved himself to his feet. His legs wouldn’t stop shaking. ‘I hate you,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Elennia replied.
///
‘Finn!’ Rey called. She couldn’t see his daemon, but that was normal. Little Poe was small and could have been anywhere. It didn’t mean that Finn was dead.
‘Bracca, can you see Little Poe? I don’t know where she landed.’ The flame beetle daemon had been diving at Ren’s daemon and even managed to bite the raquor'daan.
‘On it,’ Bracca said as he hunted through the snow. He darted in widening circles, looking for the telltale shine of Little Poe’s carapace.
Rey knelt in the snow and felt for Finn’s pulse. It was slow, but there. ‘He’s alive,’ she called out.
‘I found her,’ Bracca yelled back a moment later. ‘Come over here!’ Rey felt a tug at their bond and looked up. Her eyes widened. Bracca was straining at the limits of their bond. She hurried over and he shot forward as fast as their link would allow. Bracca stopped at a worrying distance from Finn and reached into the snow. His head and tail were lowered as he raced back with the beetle daemon cradled in his paws. Rey ran alongside him. ‘I don’t think that was a normal distance,’ he said.
‘It’ll be fine. We never asked about his range.’
Bracca didn’t say anything.
When the Millennium Falcon appeared overhead, Rey couldn’t hold back a shout. Despite everything that had happened on the base, she suddenly felt a lot lighter. While she was now trapped in something bigger than she had ever imagined, she knew she wouldn’t have to face it alone.