A/N: This fic exists entirely due to the grace of fangirljeanne, who told me her plotbunny and allowed me to run screaming with a modified version. I'll try not to fuck it up too badly.

The title is from the song of the same name by Thomas Abban. The length is... well, currently unknown.

I haven't attempted a classically-constructed WIP in many years. Please be gentle.

Symmetry and Black Tar

prologue

"That ship. It belongs to me."

Han Solo is dead. The deceased smuggler's son, having forsaken all Jedi training, has spent years pursuing his birthright - a YT-1300 freighter known as the Millennium Falcon - across the galaxy, cutting down whatever, or whomever, stands in his way.

The Resistance, led by General Leia Organa, and the First Order, headed by Supreme Leader Snoke, relentlessly seek the heir to the Skywalker bloodline so that he may guide their respective factions to victory.

Meanwhile, the last known person to have seen the Falcon is a scavenger from the sands of Jakku...

"Do you know who I am?"

Vanver Irving does indeed know, but honesty has never come easily to him. Not even when there's a blaster pointed at his head. "No idea."

The man in black's mouth turns into the tiniest smile. It's a smile that says Beware of Rancor. "I see." He lowers the blaster, and Vanver allows himself a moment of relief-

-until the man in black shoots him in the kneecap.

It hurts.

"Fuck!"

"C'mon, man," Toursant pleads from the other side of the shed, twisting his tied wrists behind his back. "My brother's an idiot. He doesn't know anything."

The man in black kneels next to Vanver. "I don't think that's true," he says gently. "You know who I am. Say it."

Vanver's leg has a smoking hole in it, and honesty's starting to look a lot better right now. "You're Kylo Ren," he manages through gritted teeth.

"That's right. What am I looking for?"

"The Millennium Falcon."

"Good. Where is it?"

"We don't have it."

The muzzle of the blaster is cold against Vanver's temple. "I know you don't have it. That's not what I asked."

Toursant is the one who answers. (That's good, because Vanver's pretty sure he's going to faint soon.) "It got stolen. Ages ago. Dunno by who-"

The blaster makes a whirring sound as it heats up.

"-but we heard it was one of Unkar Plutt's people."

Vanver's glad Toursant doesn't mention that they kind of let the freighter get stolen. Taking it had seemed like a good idea at the time - Gannis Ducain was an asshole and had way too many ships anyway, he'd never miss one! - until they figured out it was the Millennium Falcon they now had on their hands. That ship was cursed. If you'd ever had it, if you'd ever even been in it, sooner or later you'd get a visit from a mysterious, vengeful phantom. A visit that very few survived.

So the Irving boys left the Falcon's doors unlocked in the bad part of Coronet City and hoped for the best. Sure enough, the ship had been gone by morning. It'd been in their possession for less than a week.

Apparently, that was still too long.

Ren seems to be thinking. At least, Vanver is pretty sure; hard to concentrate with half your leg shattered. Fuck. "Plutt - the one from Niima Outpost?"

"Yeah," says Toursant. "That's the one. Ship's probably there with the rest of the junk-"

Toursant doesn't get to finish his sentence.

Vanver lets out a whimper.

"The Millennium Falcon," says Kylo Ren, voice even, as though blowing away a man bound in the corner of a filthy shed is something he does every day, "is not junk. That ship? Is mine." He stands. "I recommend you tell that to everyone you know."

Vanver nods, then finally - mercifully - passes out.

Millions of light-years away from the Inner Rim world of Corellia, the dull, meaningless planet of Jakku floated quietly through space.

On that planet, there spread an endless dune sea.

And in that endless dune sea, a scavenger ate dinner beneath the shadow of an AT-AT Walker.