Bonded

Chapter 10: Monsoon

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Rey comes to a realization about the Force bond.

Rey stands, hunched and taut, arms wrapped tightly around a tree trunk.

Endless rain beats down from above, the weight of it heavy on her shoulders. Her eyes and mouth are squeezed shut, thick streams pouring over her face, flood waters gushing at her feet.

It's up to her ankles now. She needs to get moving before it gets any higher.

Rey was warned about this when she arrived on the planet a few days ago.

"Worst monsoons in the whole galaxy," Poe had told her. High speed winds, lightening strikes, flash floods, she learned about all of it— what to do when caught in a storm, finding the high ground, seeking out shelter, waiting until the worst of it has passed.

Yet, Rey was not at all prepared for this.

She can count on one hand the number of times it rained on Jakku the entire time she was there. And compared to this, that barely counts as rain. She had no concept of exactly how much water a sky could produce. Sheets of rain. Sheets. So thick there's no point in opening her eyes.

Rey jumps at the crack of lightening.

Ok. Time to move.

She's not far from the cave. She was there only five minutes ago. The mountain is right next to her. She just needs to find that path again. The incline is steep, but she just ran a high strength cable up the mountainside so the Resistance can move equipment to build a lookout on the top. All she has to do is find that cable...

Rey braces herself, holding on to the tree trunk. She finally releases and starts slogging through the flood at her ankles, waving her arms, reaching out for anything to help steady her.

Her eyes are closed, but she doesn't need them. She has other senses she can rely on.

She reaches out through the Force, feeling where she needs to go, a kind of spiritual retracing of her steps. She slogs forward, eyes squeezed shut, heavy rain beating down from above.

Suddenly, her feet pull out from under her. Her legs fly up and she lands hard on her back. She's being pulled away, swept up by the raging flood waters. She swings around wildly, grasping for anything to hold on to. And that's when she feels it...

The cable.

She grips it tightly, rolling over onto her belly. She rises to her feet, and begins trudging up the mountain path, step by step, gripping the cable and pulling up with one hand then the other. She's getting higher, high enough to feel the raging flood at her feet become a thin stream.

She keeps pulling on the cable, making her way up the incline carefully. She's getting close. She can sense it. A little further. Just a little bit more...

Suddenly, she stops.

Finally.

She ducks and stumbles into the opening to her left.

Immediately, she feels lighter, the weight of the rain lifted. She drops to her knees, taking a few minutes just to breathe, to open her eyes and mouth without water streaming over her face.

Then, she sits back and swings her feet in front of her, removing her boots and socks. Her skin feels wrinkly and tender from the water, almost painful, especially at her feet.

But she's not cold. Not on this planet.

It's the one good thing about the rain. It seems to have cooled the temperature from a suffocating heat to an actually pleasant warmth.