Chapter Text
“Happy birthday, Rey,” she said to herself, blowing out the single candle atop the small pastry.
Etching a line on the wall, marking another day gone, Rey ate the sweet she had saved up for.
Tomorrow was the big day.
The day she would surrender herself to the compound of Kylo Ren.
Rose Tico had told Rey about it three months ago, right after The First Order had arrived, the village still adjusting to their presence.
She handed Rey a small card with the details:
An able-bodied, unmarried and childless female, eighteen to twenty-eight, can find food, shelter, and safety at the First Order compound pending special requirements. Speak with a representative for more information.
“That’s it?” Rey asked.
“That’s it,” Rose said, placing her clay covered hands on her waist, smudging her apron.
“Who was the representative?” Rey turned the card over to see the First Order emblem.
“Some woman. Tall. Blonde. She came to the pottery stand last week,” Rose said.
“Bet she fit right in.”
Rose laughed. “We knew right away. Mother said one of the other stand worker’s daughter went.”
“And?” Rey’s eyebrows lifted.
“Her daughter is still there, I guess.”
“No one knows what’s required to get in?”
Rose frowned. “I think the girls aren’t allowed to say.”
“Ten year age range. You go in, but don’t come out?” Rey said, holding the card up to view it against the sunlight. “How do we know they aren’t dead?” She asked, suspicious.
“Because they send what they need to their families. Food, mostly,” Rose replied. “Good food from what I’m told.”
Rey’s mouth watered. She had just came back from trading scraps with Unkar Plutt for food rations.
Just then, Rose’s mother called to her from inside the tent behind her.
“Coming!” Rose called over her shoulder. She looked back at Rey. “I gotta go.”
“Wait,” Rey said, raising a hand as Rose moved to leave.
Rose paused. “Yes?”
“Are you thinking of going?” Rey whispered for some reason.
Rose’s eyes flickered, but her face remained otherwise unchanged. “Yes,” she said quietly, then disappeared into the tent.
That night, Rey laid in her shelter in the desert, a walker left over from the Battle of Jakku, staring at the two moons above. She weighed her options: continue to salvage scraps for Unkar Plutt for ration packs and worry about thugs in the night, or go to the compound and possibly work for food there.
She was tired of restless nights of sleep.
And if she was being honest, she was tired of being afraid.
Rey closed her eyes under the moonlight, deciding she needed to find the representative from the compound.
Rey went back to the stalls the next day and informed Rose to inquire on her behalf with the tall blonde woman. For three days, Rey returned and each time, Rose shook her head.
On the fourth day, upon seeing Rey, Rose’s face lit up.
“She came this morning,” Rose said breathily.
Rey removed her head gear, the change from sun to shade, momentarily blinding. “And?” She asked, squinting.
“She said to come back tomorrow at noon.”
Rey sighed and pulled out her canteen of water. “I can’t keep coming back here—“
“She said she’ll give you food for your time.”
Well.
True to her word, the woman was already at the pottery stall when Rey arrived the next day at noon. And true to her word—she gave Rey food—a wooden box of fresh dumplings, in exchange for ten minutes of Rey’s time.
They sat at a table inside of Rose’s family’s tent.
“When do you turn eighteen?” The woman asked, unmoved by Rey devouring a dumpling in one bite.
“Three months,” Rey replied.
“And you’re unmarried with no children?”
“Yes.”
“I hear you salvage parts for food. So I don’t need to ask if you can work.”
Rey swallowed too hard and a large piece of food was momentarily stuck in her throat. She swallowed again with effort, then reached for her water. “Yes,” she choked.
“My name is Phasma,” she said. “I’m a scout for the leader of the compound, Kylo Ren.”
Rey kept her eyes fixed on the woman, deciding to eat the next dumpling a little slower.
“When you turn eighteen in three months. I want you to come back here and inform the girl, Rose.”
Rey nodded.
“What will I be required to do?” Rey asked, closing the wooden box as Phasma stood.
“You will find out when you arrive at the compound.”
Rey’s brows furrowed and when the woman realized that she hadn’t earned her trust by food alone, she quirked an eyebrow.
“Interesting,” she mused.
Rey’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said, smoothing her robe. “Let me put it this way: no woman has decided to leave when presented with one of the two options.”
“Why can’t I find out now?”
Phasma moved to the entrance of the tent. “Food should be sufficient enough of an incentive right now, don’t you think?”
Rey licked her lips. When she had no reply, the woman opened the flap and left.
Three months came quickly, and on the night of her eighteenth birthday, Rey restlessly moved about in her hammock until she fell asleep.
Rey gathered her bag of belongings the next morning. (Not that she had much.) She looked around, certain she would be back later but checking over everything just in case.
The way to the compound was fifteen minutes by speeder from Niima Outpost. Rey had already traveled fifteen prior to that from her home.
When Rey arrived, guards at the front gate looked puzzled.
“Your…vehicle…must be parked over there.”
Rey turned to her left to see an area of other transports, covered in sand. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were abandoned.
After doing as they asked, she presented herself at the gate.
“Name?” One of the men asked, his voice staticky through the helmet.
“Rey,” she said.
They confiscated her bag, gruffly stating she could get it back soon.
When the doors opened, a walkway greeted her, then a flight of stairs, then another pair of guards.
Upon the second door’s opening, Rey was blasted with a rush of cold air causing her to gasp. When her eyes adjusted to the light, the floor was reflective, the room: fit for royalty. Rey could hardly believe such a place existed. For a place that was rumored to be there only temporarily, it appeared much more permanent to Rey.
As Rey passed two pillars, on either side of the room, were women—young women—sitting on chairs. There were four on the right, and four on the left. They were well-dressed and well fed, in matching black tunics and hair pulled back.
When Rey looked at the floor, she saw a tell-tale sign of a trail of sand. Looking ahead, Rey saw yet another set of stairs. At the top of those, were the backs of six women, dressed similarly to her.
That’s when Rey saw him, sitting atop a throne of black, helmet on like the men out front.
Rey only took comfort in the presence of Phasma, standing to his left, in different clothing than she was previously. To his right, a man with red hair and a mean expression on his face.
Making it to the top of the stairs, Rey paused, and when no one spoke, she realized they had all been waiting on her.
Kylo Ren said something inaudible to Phasma, who turned her head to listen.
“You’re all here because you’ve come willing,” Phasma said, voice echoing in the hall.
“You can choose to leave after you are presented with two options for entry to this compound. But you must make your choice here and now. Your decision to leave will be final, with no recourse to return. You are not to speak of what is spoken here. If you do, your families will suffer.”
Rey slowly moved to an empty white square, seating herself without taking her eyes off of Phasma. She could have snorted at that last bit.
“Stand.”
All the women stood obediently.
Rey’s bottom hadn’t even graced the seat until she was standing again.
“Do you understand what I just said?”
There were murmurs of understanding.
“Good.”
Phasma’s eyes briefly landed on Rey before she pressed her lips into a thin line.
“Option one. You can gain entry by agreeing to a night with our leader, Kylo Ren. This is non-negotiable. You will be inspected for diseases and administered a contraceptive device.”
The woman next to Rey audibly winced. A tension could be felt coming from her left.
Now Rey understood why no one knew the requirements.
“Option two. You can gain entry by agreeing to assault from the eight women behind you, risking injury or death. You won’t be able to fight back and it ends when Kylo Ren says it does.”
Rey clenched her fist.
While the other women fidgeted beside her, Rey looked to the man before her. His arms on each side of the rests, feet firmly planted on the floor, completely unmoved by what was just said.
Phasma called out the woman on the far end of Rey.
“Step forward, please,” Phasma barked. “And state ‘Option One’, ‘Option Two’, or ‘Leave.’
The woman meekly stated ‘Option One.’
The red-headed man regarded them along with Phasma, and if Rey wasn’t mistaken, he looked to have a small smirk on his face.
“Option One,” the next girl said, her voice a little louder.
“Option One,” the third girl replied.
Rey’s heart pounded, her jaw flexing as each woman were making their choice.
A night with Kylo Ren.
Rey’s gaze remained firmly fixed on a spot on the wall.
“Option One,” the fourth girl replied.
“Option One.”
“Option One.”
A heavy silence.
All the women had stepped forward. Rey’s eyes remained fixed on that spot on the wall.
The pause went on for a moment too long and while the red-head’s smirk remained, Phasma shifted on one foot and then the left. Rey saw from the periphery of her eye, Kylo Ren, unmoved, unbothered.
“Re—“
Jaw forward, eyes unwavering from their chosen spot, head held high:
“Option Two,” Rey said, loud and clear.
An audible gasp from one of the women in front of her, movement from all of them, a scoff from the red-head, and a resignation in her posture from Phasma, Rey let her decision linger in the air.
Rey didn’t think her decision would have been that controversial.
Surely other women have came and kept their dignity intact.
But it was in that pregnant pause that Rey understood what she just said was not chosen, maybe ever—because Kylo Ren’s head had turned to look at her.
“Rey,” Phasma said.
“Yes,” Rey replied.
“Look at the Supreme Leader.”
Rey turned her head to the right ever so slowly. Her defiance surely radiating.
Kylo Ren and her stayed locked in a gaze. Him a coward unwilling to show his face, her a woman proud enough to die or be seriously injured in exchange for food, shelter, and safety.
Undeterred, Rey’s eyes narrowed on him.
Show your face, you coward.
Rey saw the man’s gloved hand squeeze closed, almost imperceptibly.
And as if he heard her good and well, Kylo Ren brought both gloved hands to the sides of his helmet, a low hiss sounding as a piece moved forward. Standing up as it came off, the Supreme Leader revealed himself.
And if Rey’s eyes had conveyed disgust before, she willed them to remain angry when the man who stood before her looked nothing at all how she expected.
Kylo Ren’s dark hair and dark eyes set on her—commanded her to yield.
Rey inhaled a shallow breath.
“Option Two,” she restated, firmly.
A flicker of his eyes was all Rey needed to confirm what she already knew.
Rey was the first woman to ever reject Kylo Ren.