Saving the Monster

Chapter 26

Rey bathed as usual in the cool waters of the lake, enjoying it less when she was joined by new resistance members who splashed into the water naked to wash.  It wasn't their nakedness that troubled Rey, she had seen it before at some of the Happabores watering holes on Jakku, it was the war songs that they were chanting.

A young girl with striking green eyes swam up to Rey, smiling broadly, "You're Rey aren't you?"  Rey nodded and the girl continued, her voice high pitched with excitement, "You helped save the resistance during the battle of Crait, you delivered the map to Luke Skywalker, you're a legend!"

Rey looked around, others had turned to look at her and now she felt her face colour, "I just did what was right"

A man, waist deep in the water lifted an arm to punch the air enthusiastically, "I say we're lucky to have Rey, here's to wiping out the First Order and that monster in the mask, here's to strength in numbers....."

The man kept going but Rey had shut down.  Monster, the only word which stayed in her head and now it began to give her a headache.  Rey thanked the girl and the man, dressed on the shore and headed to her hut, it was time to revise.

Rey sighed as she set the smallest, and the only one that she had yet to read, of the Jedi texts on the table. This was the part of her training that she really didn't enjoy, she found the diagrams confusing and the text even more so and every time she thought that she had understood something, she would discuss it with Leia and find out that she had it all backwards.

The first page that Rey turned to covered a jedis ability to heal another, told you how to position your hand just so and how to draw on wells within yourself. Rey crossed her legs, balancing the book across her knees, fascinated. This was by far the most interesting of the Jedi texts. Rey's reading ability wasn't great but she knew enough to understand the basics. Could she really hold the ability to heal within her?

A noise and Rey dropped her legs and turned in her seat, Finn was there smiling broadly, the door ajar, "Hey, hows it going?"

Rey smiled back at her friend. She had missed him this morning. Usually they would have breakfast together but now that there were so many new people to train Finn had been busy, eating his breakfast, Rey presumed, whilst working.

Rey stretched her arms above her head, tilting her knees upwards to stop the book sliding onto the floor, "Ok, it's going ok. For once I can actually understand what I'm reading"

Finn sat down on the seat next to hers and scooped the book off her lap. She watched his eyes moving backwards and forwards across the page and then finally he lowered the ancient book and looked at Rey, his eyes wide, "Can you do this? Could you actually heal someone?"

Rey lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug, "I don't know, I hope I can"

Finn nodded vigorously, "You've gotta master this, Rey can you imagine, if you can do this then we don't have to lose anyone else..."

Rey inturpted him, her hand raising, "Finn I'm not sure it works like that...."

Finn shook his head, his finger tracing over the page and then tapping on a paragraph, "If people only had small injuries then it could work, I mean I'm not asking you to single handedly keep the resistance afloat, but....."

As Finn spoke, the book slid from his lap, landing face down on the floor.  Rey lifted it up and turned it over, looking at the page that it had fallen open on.

"I just think it's amazing what you could be capable of....I mean even Poe who at first was sceptical has totally come around.  Don't you think?"  Finn said, his eyes moving to Rey's face, his brow furrowing.

Rey's eyes remained down turned, racing across the page, her heart thumping in her chest.

"Rey?  Are you even listening to me?" Finn said, tilting his head so as to try to make eye contact with her.

Rey didn't move. Rey wasn't listening, she was busy reading about Dyads, Dyads in the force.