All the Stars in the Galaxy

2

Rey drove out of the village, the sand blew in her face, just like the hot and dry wind. Their home wasn't special at all.
When she got there, Rey looked at it. Once it was an AT-AT. But her father had build and build, until it turned into a home. They even had a basement, where her father always worked.
They also had a small stable with creatures that gave them blue milk. Rey got off the speeder and walked to the little tank with water. She sank onto her knees and splashed some water into her face - the cool liquid was refreshing.
Rey got up and walked towards her fathers working place. She opened the doors and jumped inside. She took off her staff and placed it against the wall. When she got in, her father was singing an old melody she knew from when she was young. The old, damaged music box. The sweet melody matched with her fathers warm voice.
"How does a moment last forever? How does a moment never die? It is love we must hold onto. Never easy - but we try." Rey smiled at him.
"Sometimes our happiness is captured. Somehow a time and place stand still. Love lives inside our hearts and will always be."
The melody was over, just like the song. Then, he looked up.
"Oh, good, Rey, you're back," her father said, sitting behind his rusty desk. His brown hair started to get grey. Wrinkles drew his face, one of the only proofs that he was getting older.
Rey smiled at him and put the shoulder bag on his desk. Sand and rust was rising. Completely concentrated, with glasses on his face that made his eyes a hundred times bigger, he sat bowed over his invention.
A plate of five centimetres thick in a kind of round form. It didn't look very pretty or beautifully finished, but she knew that with this invention he would change the Galaxy.
With his hand he was reaching for something, without taking his eyes off his work.
"Could you... Hand me a..." She rolled her eyes and gave him the screwdriver he needed. "Thank you. And I also need..." Tweezers. She knew. It was already in his hand before he could say the word. He looked at it and frowned - it looked ridiculous with his huge eyes through that glasses. "No. No. No. I don't need..."
PANG!
A spring had popped off.
"Actually yes, that's exactly what I need. Thank you."
"I have this for you," she said as she took out the last part he needed. He looked up and smiled.
"Thank you, darling." He installed it immediately, with quick and skill full hands.
Rey smiled and took out her book and the rest. The three coins and the little food they had. She wanted to talk about it, complain about the life they were living here. But then... the scene at the village came back. How the people had looked at her, whispered about her. She could see their faces changing as she walked by.
She needed to ask him.
"Papa, do you think I'm odd?" she asked when she got the courage. He looked up - those glasses were distracting her, but she made herself look in his wise eyes which were a hundred times bigger.
"Odd? My daughter? Where did you get an idea like that?" he asked as he looked back at his work again. He sniffed - she could see that he thought that idea was ridiculous.
"I don't know. People talk." She shook her head as she thought back.
Her father Maurice took another tool. "Oh. People. This village may be small, small-minded even, but small also means safe." He looked at his daughter for a moment before he looked back at his work again. There was dust and sand everywhere on the floor.
"Even back at Raxus, in Raxulon, I knew a girl like you, who was so daring, so ahead of her time." He smiled. "So different. People mocked her. Until the day they all found themselves imitating her."
Rey sat down in front of him, opposite the desk. "Please, tell me one more thing about her." She almost begged him. Yes, her father was a wonderful father... and mother at the same time. She giggled when she thought back at the time she got her very first period - she had never seen him so panicked, and in shock. He had no idea what to do - he almost took her to that bloody little hospital where it always was too busy. Too many patients and almost no people to take care of them.
Her father looked up for a second, like he was thinking. Then he looked down again, concentrated.
"Your mother was... fearless. Fearless." He took off those stupid glasses and stood up. He stretched his arms and walked outside. "So, what can I bring you from the market, or the scholarship on Bespin?" he asked from outside. She thought and thought - there was actually nothing she wanted...
Except flying away from here. See the world. An adventure. But that was too much to ask. And besides, he would never allow her to do dangerous things. She was everything her father had... he would break if he lost her.
So she said: "A crystal rose. Like the one on the painting." Inside their house was a painting of her mother and Rey when she was a baby, with a crystal rose in her mothers hand, very rare but very beautiful. Her father made it on Raxus. The crystal roses lasted long, but not forever.
She stood up and picked up her father invention. Rey walked outside and her father already sat on his speeder - older than hers, smaller too. And it was almost falling apart. Rey always searched for parts so she could upgrade it, but it was difficult.
"Are you already leaving, sir?" a metal voice squeaked. Rey handed him his invention and the coins - he needed them more than she did. Rey looked over her shoulder - their droid walked outside. He was small, rusty and old.
P-Hil-75 had been her fathers droid for ages. He had seen Raxus, her father had created him there.
"Yes, Phil," her father said. "And you're going with me."
The small, pale droid looked shocked. "But... what about young Rey? She can't be alone!"
"Yes I can," she said back with a wicked smile.
"Phil, I need you to come with me," her father added, "Someone should show me the way in Bespin. You're the best one who can!" That was true. P-Hil-75 had one of the best navigation systems ever. At least, that was what she and her father thought.
"Does your invention work?" Rey asked him. Her father grinned as he put on his mask. He pushed a little button... and the molecules in the air created a little bread.
Rey gasped. "It works!" She yelled in excitement. Underneath his mask that would protect her fathers face against the hot, dry wind and sand, he laughed.
"Yes it does! And I hope to sell it for a nice price." He took a deep breath and P-Hil-75 climbed onto the speeder. "What was it what you wanted again?"
Rey laughed. "A crystal rose!"
"You ask for that every year!" That was true. Once they had crystal roses. She had always loved those beautiful and rare roses. She didn't care that they died after two weeks, sometimes faster or slower. But they always died. She didn't care about that - the idea that a living flower could be in her house, in their small living room... It filled her with joy.
"And every year you bring it," she said.
"Than I shall bring you another," her father said, and she could feel that he smiled at her. "You have my word."
She nodded. "Goodbye, Papa." Her father started the old speeder. The old, rusty thing came to life with difficulty and sputtering. Rey frowned at it - she should've checked before her father needed to go for the yearly market and scholarship on Bespin.
"Good bye, Rey. Come on Phil, tell me where to go!"
"Yes, yes..." the droid mumbled. Rey shook her head. That old, nervous Phil...
"I'll see you tomorrow!" Rey said when her father was about to go.
"Right. Tomorrow, with a crystal rose!" He turned the speeder and gave gas.
"Stay safe!"
Rey kept looking at her father until her was nothing more than a little, black spot at the horizon.