Author's Note: See my author page for more notes!
Warnings: Mentions of an attempted sexual assault, mentions of child abuse, and Jakku just being a terrible place to grow up.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything even vaguely related to Star Wars, except a t-shirt.
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Rey did not believe in luck.
She wasn't sure why. Scavengers were a superstitious bunch, and given that the vast majority spent their (usually short) lives stumbling from wreck to wreck, hoping to trip over something shiny, Rey didn't really blame them.
Smugglers, too. Unsurprisingly, Niima Outpost was a gambling hotspot. When she was 6, an old, silvered Wookie used to have her blow on his dice before his throws. 6 to 1, try 5 this time. A Twi'lek had her spit on the ground under the bench before he sat down for 'hanger rules' Sabaac. 25 to 1, with that hand, you'd better bluff – the Toydarian has The Evil One up his sleeve. And when she was 10 a human pulled her into his lap.
She'd been practicing (playing) with a staff since before she could remember, running around the scrapyard in a Rebel helmet, metal stinging her bare feet, bobbing and weaving under a hail of imaginary blaster fire, pulling downed pilots out of burning rubble, whacking Stormtroopers on the head. Playing hero.
Never tell me the odds!
Facedown in the sand on the outskirts of town, hands fumbling at her tunic, panic screamed into icy clarity, and her fingers closed around a rusty pipe, half-buried in the sand. Thunder cracked as she struck at the shadow behind her. The back wall of the scavenger bunkhouse went down with a deafening crack - wind? - and three tents caught on fire. She made sure to scream.
They came to put out the fire.
Rey crawled under a piece of scrap, her fingers digging into the metal, feet scrabbling, trying to burrow into the sand. The next morning Unkar cut her rations for sleeping outside.
They staked the 'arsonist' to the sheet metal roof of the commissary. He lasted three days.
######
Rey was done with stories. The helmet gathered dust. She stayed away from the campfires, the games, closed her ears to the off-worlders and their tales of adventure, and to the rings of wide-eyed children hanging on to their every word. She slipped into line, grabbed her portions, broke into the Outpost scrap yard, and climbed as high as she could. Everything tasted better in the open air.
She reached the top on her 11th birthday, and fell asleep under the moon.
The next morning, Rey knew what she had to do.
######
I'll need to eat.
There was really only one way to earn a living on Jakku. The scavengers were not exactly eager to add to their competition, and either rebuffed her harshly when she asked to learn, or suggested, leering, that she try her hand at a very different trade.
Not an option.
So Rey ventured out further and further on her own, 'getting lost' when Unkar Plutt sent her and the other children out with an older scavenger to help carry their loot. She snuck blueprints and wiring diagrams back to the Outpost, knowing instinctively that they were potentially more valuable than extra food. Rey was barely literate, but the pictures and numbers spoke for themselves. The first time she traced a core line back to backup generator 45-B on the Inflictor, she knew the nights spent studying the charts under the covers had been worth it.
Quickly she learned that the size of one's loot did not necessarily reflect value – Tracing the schematics back to the core, the truth of what had made the dead ships fly was often quite small, lost in a wamp-nest of wire, stinking with chemicals. High-impact ion-ceramic resistors were small enough to fit in her hand, and fetched 2 portions apiece on a good day. A cluster of mostly-intact neutronium wire fetched 4, and was easily hidden in her tunic, especially after she began to bind her breasts at the urging of Vona, one of the older women at the Outpost.
"We've all need," said Vona gruffly (sadly), as she helped Rey arrange the cloth and wire so that she would be reasonably comfortable. "It 'ent you," she said firmly, grasping a shaking Rey's chin and looking her dead in the face. "It 'ent, but we stay awake, yes?"
"It's not fair," said Rey, fists clenched, poised to bolt, to dive into the howl of the wind - too much skin, sand in her mouth -
"No," said Vona. "It 'ent fair." She rummaged in her clothes-chest, brought out a new-ish tunic. The girl had gotten taller as well, and the brown top she'd worn since she'd arrived was as thin as tissue paper.
"It's not right!" Rey's voice cracked. Quiet, Girl - The tent swayed alarmingly, a paper bag in the face of the storm outside. Rust under fingernails, metal in hand, coppery blood filling her mouth – STOP – DIE -
Vona shook her head again, sat Rey down, and pulled the tunic over her head.
"Bad luck," the old woman said. "Most times, children are safe."
5 to 1.
Rey couldn't quite hide her laugh. Outside, the wind roared.
"Listen. There are a few. The bad. Always a few. Be awake." Vona's brow wrinkled further with frustration. Basic was not her first language, and the words of her native tongue, for this, were made of knives, of vengeance in the dark. Rey eyed to tent flap. The storm that ate flesh and metal screamed for her.
Vona turned her around. The tunic fit her well. It belted at the waist, and there was plenty of room for growth. It could survive the desert.
"Do not forget," she said. "They won't." Vona nodded at raucous crowd on the other side of the sheet she'd thrown up for privacy. Half the Outpost was huddled in the secondary storage tent with them, talking, laughing, eating, pretending to ignore the elemental chaos held back with canvass and wood.
The words stung - ripped - but Vona's eyes were sad, and full of truth.
Rey knew, in that instant, who had driven the first stake through her attacker's hand.
She sat still, her mind on fire, and waited out the sandstorm. A rare flash of memory took her. She stood on a little stool in front of a mirror. She was wearing something soft and bright. A faded shape stood at her back. It combed her hair until it shone, pinning it up into three knots that Rey had never managed to get just right. The room was so bright and clear that it swallowed her helper, leaving only hands and a gentle whisper. See? So pretty!
Lanterns swayed with the tent frame, making it look like the light was dancing.
"Bad luck," Vona said again. "Not you."
######
Her little cache of parts stayed hidden under a rock a mile or so outside Niima until she had found a new home – a downed AT-AT deep in the Goazon Badlands she'd spotted while hanging onto an ancient speeder with six other children, en route to the Ravager.
Armor, the pictures told her, 80% of mass 99% resistant to ground-based weaponry. Underside 75% resistant to ground-based weaponry. Exterior dorsal dimension 20.6 meters. 2 KDY FW62 Compact Fusion Drive Systems…
The latter, of course, were long gone, as were the turbolasers and blaster cannons. But all that Rey really cared about was the three meters of diamond-steel between her and the desert.
She almost stepped on the little green spineflower growing out of a pile of sand in the cockpit. It was a small, rough, thing that pricked her fingers when she scooped it up. She made a little sand bed for it on the dashboard. Such a little thing, living here alone…
Silly, Rey thought, sitting cross-legged on what had once been the nav console. Silly little girl. She stroked the petals carefully, pretending that it was sand in her eyes.
######
Soon - not soon enough - she got the clunky mess of metal that was technically a speeder up and running. Before she left, she walked up to the commissary counter – she was tall enough to see over it, now – And asked Plutt how long she'd been there. He shrugged.
"Local time? Coruscant time? Standard? Why do you care?"
"Just because," she said, sliding a Grade 2 ion cannon resistor over the couter. He stroked his chin, peering off into the distance.
"Eh…Around 7 standard?"
"Years?" She shivered. I'm 12.
"No, days," he snorted. "Got anything else for me?" She shook her head. "Then get."
She packed her meager possessions, and did just that.
Once home, wrapped in blankets against the chill night air, protein powder and chopped carbo cubes simmering on her camping stove, Rey scratched 2556 lines on the bulkhead. She started at the door. They wrapped around the room she'd made habitable, ending a few meters shy of the pile of packing foam and canvas that she was using for a bed. She sat down heavily. The marks swam before her eyes. She curled into herself and sobbed.