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“That it?”
“That’s it.”
Poe Dameron piloted the shuttle, banking lazily as he looked for a place to set down. Rey pointed to a place between the rocks. She knew the island, could even see the furrows in the ground where the landing struts of the Falcon had rested. It hadn’t been that long, so the grass growing in them was still fine and pale.
“You’re sure about this, kid?” Poe asked. “If they find you out here I don’t know if I’ll be able to get to you in time. We’re a long way from anywhere. ”
“Without the Falcon or a sign of Resistance livery, they won’t have any reason to look.”
“You find what you’re looking for, you let us know and I’ll come back to get you.”
“It could be some time. Don’t worry, Poe. I can take care of myself.”
He nodded, and then fired up the engines. In another moment, the shuttle was just a dim outline in the low hanging clouds. A minute more, and it was gone. Rey hoisted her rucksack over her shoulder, and headed up the wet stones, nudging a porg aside with her foot as she went.
The caretakers appeared to have fled the place, but the mounds were not much worse for wear. After setting down her things, Rey’s first order of business was to find Luke Skywalker’s remains and see to them with dignity. But then, of course, there was nothing except the empty robes, plastered to the side of a wet rock. She gathered them up, considered looking for the mechanical hand but decided against it, then went to raid the woodpile.
There were very few trees on the island so wood was precious. She wasn’t burning a body, so the pyre wasn’t very large, but she knew she would have to endure some cold nights if she was to find what she was looking for. She huddled close to the blaze and watched as the fire took the wet fabric, steaming it before finally consuming it. She shivered as a chill breeze blew across her shoulders.
“It’s warmer aboard my ship.”
The voice made her jump almost a foot in the air. She had her feet under her and her repaired lightsaber drawn in an instant. Kylo Ren was leaning against the outside of the mounds, black clad from head to heel, his arms crossed.
“You’re not really here,” she accused, and then looked out at the horizon where the last of the daylight was dying. The Upsilon-class shuttle was unmistakable even in silhouette. It was at least two miles distant. Alarmed, she looked around for storm troopers, reinforcements, but there was no sign.
“Just me,” Kylo Ren said, as though he was harmless. “I wondered when you’d return to this place.”
“Why did you wonder?” she said, moving around the fire and keeping the wall at her back.
“I’m not here to fight,” he said. “You can put that away.”
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “If you’re not here to fight, then you should be off. Go. Leave.”
He pulled his lightsaber out of his holster and tossed it at her feet. “Happy?”
She looked down at it, nudged it with her toe, and pushed it aside. Then she turned off her lightsaber and holstered it. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk,” he said, pacing around the flames until he was a foot away from her. “We have a problem, between the two of us.”
She stiffened. “You mean like how you mind-raped me in that desert vision."
He looked at her then, his stare both penetrating and intimate. “That wasn’t how you felt about it at the time.”
She sucked her lower lip, unwilling to give voice to any more thoughts on that matter. Instead she looked out to the horizon, but the sun was gone, and so too was the shadow of his ship.
“It’s called a Vinculum,” he said abruptly.
She blinked at him. “a what?”
“A Vinculum- or the Vinculum. In the literature of the Force, a Vinculum is a tie between souls that transcends and penetrates through time and space. There isn’t a great deal more that’s known about it because the last recorded Vinculum was hundreds of years ago.”
“How do you know this?” she demanded.
"Read the books you stole. It’s there. It took me some time to recall where I’d first heard of Force bonds as strong as ours.”
She watched him through narrowed eyes. He in turn watched the last fragments of the Jedi robes as they disintegrated. Then he stripped off his gloves so that he could hold his hands to the fire. As she watched him, it struck her that she had never touched him. She had never felt his mouth on hers, nor his hands on her body and she wondered if maybe that was as good as saying it had never happened.
“I know what you want,” she said. “The answer is still no.”
“And I know what you want, Rey,” he replied, mocking her with his half smile. “You are welcome to try and turn me. I want you to try, remember? I want you to break yourself trying.”
“Meanwhile, you hunt and kill my friends.”
“Ideally."
“How did you even find me? What exactly do you expect from this…” she struggled for the word.
“Fraternization?” He considered this. “I want for you to join me. I want for you to turn your back on this little experiment and realize your full potential. You’re still in need of a teacher, Rey. Even you have to admit it. You need me to defeat me.”
She looked hard at him. He had something planned, but a full force invasion of one tiny island on one tiny planet out in the back end of nowhere wasn’t it.
“Get rid of that thing.” She pointed at the Upsilon. “Then I’ll give you three days.”
He reached for down to his belt and came up with a small cylindrical communicator. Watching her with disconcerting intensity, he pressed the switch.
“Take the ship up into orbit, and remain there until I summon you.”
It made an indistinct beeping noise, and in the distance Rey could hear the rumble of engines. Lights came alive on the Upsilon’s flank stabilizers, and they deployed as it rose. Rey watched it ascend through low bellied clouds, and waited until all trace of it had gone.
Kylo Ren used the Force to retrieve his lightsaber, and holstered it. Then he fixed his predatory not-quite-smile on her. “Three days.”
“Starting today,” she challenged.
“Starting at dawn.”
“That’s three days and a night,” she countered. “Not what we agreed.”
“Then we won’t count tonight.” He turned his back on her and made his way into the shelter of the peaks.
Unable to come up with an adequate response, Rey followed after him, thumbing the lightsaber in her belt. In the east, storm clouds were brewing.