Little Monkey
Rey rose with the sun, as she usually did, allowing herself a moment to stretch luxuriously on the soft bed, much softer than anything she’d slept on while she’d been in Jakku. Barefooted, she padded over to the bathroom she shared with Kai, connecting their rooms, and quickly brushed her teeth, splashing water over her face in the process. After she’d thrown on her usual daywear and pulled her hair into its signature three buns, she made her way outside and one door over to collect Kai for breakfast, only to find the girl hanging from the overhang over her door.
“Oh, great, I thought you’d never wake up.” Rey took a moment to compose herself, and then tilted her head to the side.
“Early riser?”
“You have no idea,” Kai responded as she hopped down gracefully, and Rey couldn’t help but notice the bags under her eyes.
“What’s on the agenda for today, oh wise and powerful protector?”
“Well, we’re getting breakfast,” Rey pointed out, “and then I’m supposed to give you a tour of the entire base, but I’ll need you to stay with Finn and Poe while I do some patrols with Chewie. We can go explore the forest later, if you’d like.” At this, Kai perked up.
“Can we climb trees?”
“Well we can, I think the question is more whether we should.”
“Definitely,” Kai beamed, “there weren’t many trees in Shu-torun, being a mainly volcanic planet and all, but I wouldn’t have been allowed to climb them anyways.”
“So you settled for climbing buildings?”
“Gotta keep the maids on their toes, find new hiding spots.”
“I’m sure they were very appreciative of your scaling pillars like a monkey,” Rey laughed, “you must’ve been quite the handful as a child.”
“Plutoric hated me,” Kai said seriously, “well, that hasn’t changed, but the feeling’s mutual, so it just inspired me to annoy him even more. Chenwick’s a little quiet, but he’s fun to corrupt, and the twins love helping drive the maids mad.”
“You really should be kind to them,” Rey reasoned, “they spend their entire lives serving your family.”
“I know,” Kai sighed dramatically, “we have a lovely relationship with them, really, but it gets boring for them. I know for a fact they place bets on which kid breaks the most vases per month, as well as who gets yelled at the most, they must be so bored in our absence.”
“Your siblings left, too?”
“All spare Plutoric, but they’re off training with one of our aunts and her husband, grandmother said they could do with a change in scenery.”
“Change in scenery?”
“The palace has been too silent since my sister passed,” Kai said softly, and Rey cringed inwardly, wishing she hadn’t said anything.
“What was she like?” It definitely wasn’t a typical early morning discussion, but Rey could tell the princess was hurting, and it made her heart twist sadly within her own chest.
“Mitis was kind,” Kai started off softly, “she took after our mother in every way, from her hair to her eyes to the way she laughed. She was always so patient with all of us, even Plutoric, who pretended to hate her, even though he couldn’t. The twins never knew our mother, but they had her, and it felt like a double blow when she died.”
“How did she-?”
“The First Order was displeased with grandmother’s lack of cooperation,” Kai said with a shrug, her eyes hardening, “but I’ll make them pay, I will.” There was a lull in the conversation as they walked, and Kai shook her head, as if trying to rid herself of all the negative thoughts.
“So, what do they usually serve for breakfast?”
“Usually eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes,” Rey could talk about food for hours, and she never got tired of being able to get food without working her ass off to trade for it. As she launched into an explanation on why forest syrup was much better than other syrups, she felt the presence of others coming from behind, accompanied by the familiar whirling of a little droid.
“Good morning, Rey, Princess La Kai,” Finn’s cheerful voice resonated through the hallway, and Rey turned her head to smile at him, noticing his arm slung comfortably around Poe’s shoulder.
“Just Kai is fine,” Kai assured, eyes sparkling, “I see you two managed to keep BB-8 entertained.”
“Yeah,” said Poe sheepishly, “I guess we were ignoring them a little bit.”
BB-8 beeped in agreement, rolling alongside them.
“We can introduce you to some more people from around the base!” Finn exclaimed. “Of course, us three are the best, but it’ll be good for you to know more people if you get lost.”
“We’re practically the Golden Trio of the base,” Poe confirmed, nodding his head sagely, “the best of the best, the cream of the crop-”
“Don’t go blowing your own horn there, Dameron.” Kai felt her eyes drift to the side, observing a girl with windswept brown hair and kind blue eyes, wearing clothes eerily similar to Poe’s, walk up alongside of them. She turned to Kai and smiled.
“Name’s Bri, pilot. Poe’s a spectacular flier, but he can be an idiot sometimes.” He made a noise of protest from the back of his throat, and Bri’s eyes flickered towards him. “Correction. All the time.”
“Be nice,” another voice chimed in, and Kai observed the addition of another female pilot to the group, “he may be an idiot, but he’s our idiot.” The girl introduced herself as Jessica Pava, and they made their way to the mess room.
True to Rey’s word, there were indeed pancakes, and Kai was immensely amused as people swarmed to introduce themselves. She met pilots, scientists, political leaders, and warriors. Commander Organa even stopped by to check in on how she was doing.
As they were about halfway through their meal, talking about the Resistance Base and how everything worked, along with just general getting to know one another, they were once more interrupted, this time by a scientist with a holographic projection surrounding their head, barely pausing in their research to shove pieces of fruit into their mouth.
“Having fun there, Sam?” Rey deadpanned, brushing the projection away from the scientist, who pouted.
“Well I was till you interrupted,” they responded tersely, before shooting a confused glance in Kai’s direction. “Who’re you?”
“If you’d bothered to tear your eyes away from your research for even a moment,” Finn teased, “you’d know this is Princess La Kai from Shu-torun, who’s here as a political refugee.” Sam seemed to consider this for a moment, before snapping their fingers.
“Ah, I know you! I visited Shu-torun once for a conference on the application of volcanic materials as potential fuel sources… but that’s a thing of the past,” Sam babbled on, “I’m currently trying to tap into the Force as an energy source, because it’s everywhere, and, to my knowledge, is inexhaustible.”
“Sam’s our only force sensitive scientist,” Poe explained, “their work has been invaluable to the Resistance, though I’m sure Rey would have liked some company training.”
“Not every force sensitive person has to be a jedi, y’know,” Sam shot back, taking a moment to actually chew a piece of fruit instead of swallowing it whole. “Science is a lot more reliable than swinging around luminescent sticks of death.” Rey made a small noise of protest in the back of her throat while Kai grinned. “Even if I was forced to undergo the required dueling training.” They paused for a moment, brown eyes observing the group.
“Well, I best be going. Research to complete, droids to build, the usual. See you nerds later.”
“Princess La Kai! You’re going to break your neck!”
“Lighten up a bit, Rey,” Kai called down from her perch high atop a tree, having quickly scaled one as soon as she and Rey had entered the dense forest, currently dangling upside-down like a monkey, “it’s a wonder you’re hair isn’t all gray by now.”
“It’s going to be by the time I’m done watching you!” Rey called up tersely, glaring up in the general direction of the canopy.
“What’s the harm in climbing trees? Live a little!” For a few minutes more, Rey remained stubbornly on the ground, before sighing heavily and beginning to scale one of the trees. Though she couldn’t shimmy up quite as quickly as Kai, she managed to inch her way up rather quickly, and could then level a glare at the other girl at eye level.
“See? That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” Begrudgingly, Rey had to admit that the view from the treetops was rather fantastic, and she could make out the outlines of other planets and their moons.
“You just hate having two feet on solid ground, don’t you?”
“Well, hate is a strong word,” Kai reasoned, now leaning against a branch, gazing at the sky, “but the ground is too predictable. And besides, you don’t get views like these from the ground.”
After a pregnant pause, in which both girls soaked up the scenery surrounding them, Rey once more opened her mouth to speak.
“There weren’t any trees on Jakku,” she admitted, “just sand, for as far as the eye could see, and even further beyond that. Plenty of crashed ships to climb, and piles of junk to sift through, but no trees.” She took in a moment to breathe in a mouthful of crisp, fresh air. “Sand’s horrible. It’s coarse, and rough, and it gets everywhere, I could go my whole life without seeing another grain of sand and be perfectly happy.”
“I think,” she continued, seeming uncharacteristically unsure of herself, “I remember trees, from before.” Before she’d been abandoned. The words were left unsaid. “Tall, and winding, I think I tried to climb one, once, but I fell.” She laughed humorlessly. “But it could all just be a figment of my imagination, you know.”
In that moment, Kai felt a wave of genuine pity towards her new friend. Sure, she had a horrid father, and a rather tragic last couple of years, but she at least had memories of a mother who loved her, and of siblings who cared for her. But Rey? All Rey had were harsh memories of abandonment, all alone to survive on her own on the harsh, unforgiving planet Jakku. However, before either of them could get choked up on suppressed emotion, Kai swung towards Rey, using a vine, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.
“You’re it!” Rey squawked in a rather undignified manner, but by the time she realized that her charge had initiated a game of tag, said princess was already leaping through the trees nimbly.
“You little cheat!” By the time the light crept below the horizon, both girls had flushed cheeks, and were very out of breath, having spent the better part of two hours chasing each other around the trees. Though Rey didn’t outwardly say it, it was nice to be able to just let go and have fun, indulging in the childhood she’d missed out on, and it was Kai who was giving her these experiences.
Chests heaving, the two eventually collapsed on a soft bed of grass, peering up at the sky where there was a small break in the trees, oblivious to the world around them. While Kai’s eyes were trained on the stars, Rey gently poked her on the side, a grin stretching across her face.
“You’re it.” Kai turned and regarded her with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes, and Rey found herself lost in their depths as she was taken back to the vast oceans of her dreams. Intense, pulling, and enticing, drawing her towards them, up until Rey forgot if she was drowning in the ocean, or Kai’s eyes.
She found she wouldn’t mind drowning, if it was in those eyes.
This revelation struck her like a whip, and Rey turned away abruptly, the tightness in her chest no longer caused by the night’s adventures, but by the girl laying next to her. She sat up slowly, stretching, before she smiled tightly at Kai, motioning her head in the direction of the camp.
“We should head back,” she suggested softly, and the other girl shrugged, stealing one more glance at the sky before picking herself up to follow her keeper.
“Your wish is my command, m’lady.” The words were said lightly, accompanied by the cheeky grin that Rey had already become so accustomed with in the short time of knowing this girl, but this time she wasn’t annoyed.
It scared her.