Across the Stars (Reylo fanfiction)

Skies and Caverns

Balthazar lurched down and Rey felt her stomach seemingly move into her head.

"How are you faring, Jedi?" Queen Khalinjahan called, as she dove and soared on the updrafts.

Rey was grateful that she did not share Quoll's aversion to especially rocky travel. Still she gulped strongly, before yelling against the wind, "Fine, Your Majesty." And it was true that beyond the abrupt sensations rollicking against her body, it also seemed to the jedi as if she were flying for the very first time. They were a hundred feet into the air, nothing but sky against her face. She gripped the wy'vara's sides with her knees with every ounce of strength in her muscles and the saddle horn with her bound hands. He let out a seemingly cheerful bellow as he dipped again and circled around his mistress. Rey marvelled at the sheer power in his body as it swivelled and his wings as they beat against gravity. Speaking of power, the Teleri were mesmerising in their own way as their feathers caught the wind and seemingly held it for ransom. Beneath them, Rey took in the view that stretched out to the horizon. It was all forested valleys and rocky mountains with little waterfalls tumbling into inlets of the sea, and beyond -- a vast expanse of rolling lilac ocean. Without words spoken between them, the Teleri made a right hand turn like a squadron of X-wings and dove to the ground. The wy'vara followed suit, taking Rey with it. For a moment, the jedi thought that they were going to all crash into the side of a mountain. She closed her eyes and tried to use the force to slow her mount down.

Balthazar curled his body upwards as if bucking. "Hwuuwwhhhllarrrgah!" He screeched. As he did, a line of white breath shot out of his mouth and nostrils. Rey shivered as the air around her immediately dropped in temperature. Her stead slashed through the air in a move that left her hanging upside down for a moment. When she was right side up again she saw that they were still headed steadily for the mountainside but that as they turned around its steep form, they came upon a noticeable gash eroded into the rocks. The next moment, they were hurtling through it and into the mouth of a cave.

After coming in for the landing on his belly, Balthazar shook his head and body like a dog drying off from rain. The cavern entrance was just big enough for the seven lifeforms. Two of the guards held sticks that were already dipped in fire. As the jedi's eyes adjusted to the new lighting conditions, one of the guards whom Rey had been informed by the queen was called Gul'sha, walked over to the wy'vara, being sure to keep a wide birth from his head. Gul'sha undid the belt from around Rey's waist and helped her down. The chains connecting the belt to the rest of the saddle clinked as it dropped back onto the rest of the leather apparatus.

The queen walked over to Balthazar and scratched under his chin and behind his silky ears. She murmured to him in Teleri. He folded his wings and curled up his tail, resting his head on the ground. His mistress turned to the others, "Onward."

The jedi stepped forward and followed -- two guards directly in front, two behind as always. Suddenly a pain shot through her side. She staggered. Images swirled around her head: of Kylo driving his blade through his father's heart and her standing there helpless on the walkway. Of the rage and heat steaming out of his very pores as they duelled in the snow. Of her vision of the bodies strewn like loose clothes in a teenager's bedroom around the rocky shore on Cerebrus VII. Of him wearing that stupid crown! A low cackling echoed around her. It sank like acid into her very bones. She struggled to breathe. No! "Ben ..." she whispered. Then a quiet shimmering pierced through the darkness like the call of an albatross to a storm tossed sailor: "But there's someone who still could ..."

Rey's senses snapped back to the present physical reality. She could make out the queen's face two inches from her own. The monarch touched her prisoner's side. "I saw it in your eyes the moment you entered my hall," she murmured. She stood and snapped her fingers, "Gul'sha, Laegrtha, help her up, we must get this over with and return with great haste."

The two guards grabbed Rey by her arms, not unkindly, but with a grip that definitely said that she would not be swooning again on their watch.

"You know Galactic Basic?" she asked, staring from side to side at her new support personnel.

"Teleri are taught several different tongues as children," the queen said, smirking slightly, "still, we are not overfond of conversing with offworlders." With that, she turned around, her hair slicing through the air like a sword as she did.

They walked further down the cave in silence. Rey felt her steadiness returning -- the wave of whatever it was that had brought her to her knees seeming like a distant memory. Then the passage opened into a large chamber. The queen nodded to her attendants and one of them placed her torch in what first seemed like a little notch cut into the rock. With a burst of light that made Rey squint, something within the round slit caught the flame. Fire raced in a torrent through a thin tunnel carved into the floor around one side of the room. Rey gasped. The spreading light revealed a wall covered in images chiselled into its surface. The group walked along a stone path that followed the curve between the wall and the flames. Off to the other side of the fire line, Rey noted a sheer drop into blackness.

"These caves contain the history of our people," the queen said, caressing her eyes over the hieroglyphs. "They go on for many miles, criss-crossing this way and that through the belly of the mountain, however," she stopped and stared at a particular section of the wall, "there is one chapter that I would have you behold," she looked into Rey's eyes, "it records the last time jedi trespassed into our skies."