All the Stars in the Galaxy

8

Rey heard something howl in the deep, icy cold and snowy forest.
Phil had gestured to the stables — there had been a dark brown horse with wild hair and smart eyes. At first he didn't want her to ride him, but when she got really angry he let her.
Before she rode out of the stable she had read the name on a plate, where he had been standing, his stable.
Chewie.
Now Chewie's hooves hit the snowy landscape. Rey raced through the woods, trying to find the place where she and P-Hil-74 had landed with their ship.
If she could reach it, she could go home to Jakku. Phil had already screamed at her when she left: "Leave without me if you can!"
So she would. She didn't want it. She couldn't leave Phil, but if she wanted to escape from this place, from the Man without a Face, she didn't have a choice.
Rey looked back to see if Kylo Ren was following her, but she only saw a glimpse of the castle.
She thought she had escaped. Surely, she had escaped. And she wouldn't stop until she was home, by her father.
Suddenly, wolves howled nearby. Rey swallowed. This wasn't happening. She was so close.
Rey shivered, not only from the cold, only because of the fear she felt when she looked over her shoulder and saw the wolves running behind her. She looked ahead again. But in the corner of her eye Rey saw shapes of a dozen white wolves flitting through the trees, closing her in.
Rey forged on — the wolves were not bothering to hide anymore, they'd emerged from the trees to take down their prey — closing in fast...
... Rey pushed through the undergrowth to find she had reached a frozen pond.
Chewie didn't hesitate. He galloped onto the ice, and across the pond. Rey breathed fast— she couldn't swim and the cold was regret less on her skin.
She heard the sound of cracking ice underneath Chewie's hooves, deep and low. And increasing.
Chewie's hooves were sliding on the ice. The wolves closed them in.
Chewie made it across the pond onto land. But before Rey could feel any relief...
... A wolf's jaw snapped at Chewie's thigh. Then another. The horse bucked wildly — causing Rey to make an uncontrolled leap into the snow bank. Rey gave a little scream of panic.
Protection.
She needed a weapon to protect herself.
Rey seized a thick branch and wielded it as a club, or her staff — as the wolves surrounded her, jaws slavering. Rey swung her club as one wolf lunged at her, its bared teeth like razors. She beat it away and gasped for breath.
She turned to confront another — but it bit the branch clean out of her hands.
This couldn't happen. She needed to go to Papa.
Panic overwhelmed her for a moment, but she got back her instinct within seconds. She needed to protect herself. Like always.
Rey turned, looked up because she felt eyes staring at her.
On a rock promontory, a scarred alpha wolf was about to take a diving leap onto her. It jumped and she flinched, but just as the wolf was about to makes its horrible landing...
... Kylo Ren appeared.
And he caught it in the mid-air, just when he ignited his red lightsaber. Rey gasped and backed off of the thing in his hand.
With supernatural force, Kylo Ren hurled the wolf across the frozen pond, howling.
All the wolves dived on Kylo at once, tearing shreds from his clothes. Rey could only watch — her whole body felt like it was frozen and she couldn't move a muscle of fear and cold.
Kylo strikes at them, wolves scurry, yelped... He sliced them in two or cut off a paw, the red lightsaber went through it easily.
The oversize alpha wolf climbed into Kylo Ren's back, was going for his neck.
Kylo Ren slammed together the wolves on his arms, dropping them. Then reached back and seized the Alpha. The lightsaber fell out of his hand, turned off.
Wolf and man snarled inches from each other, Kylo squeezed. Then hurled the Alpha into a stone ledge — CRACK! — knocking him out. The remaining pack retreated in panic, their yelps echoed through the forest.
Still frozen, Rey watched Kylo Ren as he whimpered in pain. His broad shoulders slumped. He collapsed in the snow.
This was her change.
Rey could turn, climb onto Chewie and escape from him.
She looked at Chewie, at the woods — at freedom. But then turned back, and slowly approached the wounded man.
He had saved her, after all. She couldn't leave him in the snow. How many times she had helped people and how many times they had knocked her out from the back? And how many times had the people she had helped left her in the hot sand, without helping her in return?
How many times she'd hoped, had dreamed someone would help her then?
Rey covered him with her thin cloak, as a blanket. He stirred and she felt him shiver beneath her hands.
"I..." More didn't came from his lips.
"You have to help me... You have to stand..." Rey whispered softly.
He was too big and too heavy for her to do it all alone. He needed to stand if he had to sit on Chewie.
Kylo Ren slumped across Chewie's saddle. As Rey took the reins and began the long walk back to the castle, she saw the lightsaber laying in the snow.
She picked it up and looked at it — the dangerous weapon that had sliced so easily through the wolves body's.
Rey looked at Kylo Ren again... and started to walk.