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"Ouch!" she calls out. The strange bird with the moon face keeps pecking at her.
"What?!" Rey exclaims.
The bird just looks at her, its white feathers gleaming in the Falcon's low light.
"What?" she repeats.
The bird with tawny accents simply shivers, rearranging its feathers.
"Look, I know I've left him stranded, but you don't understand what he's done."
The bird with its wide face and piercing golden eyes looks into her. She has the unsettling feeling that it knows how she struggles to remind herself of his crimes, how he consumes her.
"So I should go back? Forget who he is?"
It shakes its snow-white feathers and looks around the ship.
"Fine, but when he tries to cook you up for dinner, I'm not stopping him."
She goes to the cockpit and her loyal comrade turns his shaggy head to regard her and the bird on her shoulder. Nothing ever seems to faze him.
"Chewie, we need to go back," she says.
The large Wookiee looks at her keenly.
"I know! I know ..." She hates to push Chewie to face the boy he once knew. "This bird," Rey gestures to her new friend, "Seems pretty insistent."
Chewbacca shrugs and makes a series of howls and grunts under his breath. She still can't translate anything but the more technical stuff.
Rey feels as he turns the Falcon around, wondering why she’s listening to a bird.
---
She walks down the ramp, the odd bird digging its talons into her shoulder.
"Owl," she thinks, remembering all of the holonovels she’d consumed on Jakku.
Kylo Ren sits on a boulder, his mask at his side. He doesn't look at her, but his spine straightens.
"Sand rat," he growls.
"Insults won't get you anywhere."
He stands then, turning to her with a feline grace that affects her far more than it should.
"You came back," he offers.
"You seem to have earned this bird's respect."
"It's an owl, if you care to know."
"I don't." She's not going to tell him that she already knew, that she'd even said as much before she'd left him on this uninhabited planet.
"Yet you do its bidding?" he asks with infuriating confidence.
"Stop, just stop. You've been chasing me for months. Don't blame this on a bird."
He looks at her then, and Maker it pulls at something deep and forbidden. Those eyes should be illegal.
"Then who should I blame this on, hmm?" He stalks towards her and she doesn't know what to do. He's coiled strength and dangerous passion.
She feels talons push into her flesh and she remembers herself. "You're the one who won't leave me be."
"You—I assume—feel nothing, then?"
She tries not to let him see her intake of breath. She wishes she felt nothing.
Another owl flies from the trees, landing at his feet. He smirks down at the smaller bird. "Now you decide to help," he says to the female owl, almost fondly.
Just then, Rey feels as 'her' companion leaves her and lands next to the small, beige owl. Ren's bird is smaller, and she can't help but smile at the way they curl around each other, nuzzling and fawning.
He looks at the birds. "Pathetic," he sneers.
His dismissive attitude stokes something within her. "They're mates, can't you see?"
She's confused by the fear she finds in his eyes. She can't stop from holding his gaze, standing steadily, wondering what he'll do next.
His eyes cloud and he finally wrenches his eyes from hers. "Mates," he spits bitterly.
"Yes, it's the way of it, surely you must know that?"
"Nonsense. Fairy tales, myths." He seems so angry and she doesn't understand.
His shoulders are hunched, he won't meet her eyes.
"Why are you here?" Rey asks.
"I've no choice." He keeps himself folded inward.
"You're following orders?"
His eyes dart to hers. "No! I told you. I've no choice."
"I don't understand."
"Don't you feel it?" In that moment his veneer cracks and she sees an ocean of vulnerability in those cold black eyes. But they aren't, they're a warm, beguiling, brown, and she doesn't know what to say. For the first time, she sees the red rims and perceives the glisten of tears.
She says nothing. How can she? How can she admit the pull she's felt since Takodana? The pull she's hid from everyone?
But he misunderstands her silence.
"Right. Of course. Why would this be any different?” he scoffs. Resignation fills his face. “I won't pursue you further ... Rey." His voice shudders over the single syllable of her name.
He's never said her name before. She watches as he gathers himself, a great dark cloud of self-loathing and anguish. She’s hurt him.
His back is to her so he doesn't see the pleading in the eyes of these strange birds' eyes.
"Wait … I feel it, too."