"Alright. Let's go get you some rations, then."

And they set off! Rey really wants to chat to Anakin and tell her all about where theyre going, but she's so tired and hungry that talking is really hard.

Niima Outpost really isn't much to look at. There are a lot of people around though, most looking as run down and shabby as Rey herself. Most of them sit under shade cloths and work on fixing up old pieces of broken machinery.

Rey heads straight to the most imposing structure in the area and joins the queue.

Mind tricking someone when you can't communicate with them - and it's quickly clear no one but Rey can see the ghost - is hard. And this blobfish seems temperamental, and not inclined to negotiate...

But it's not too hard, dominating simple minds - easier with the dark side, in this case.

She puts whispers in Unkar Plutt's mind, ideas that Rey is a brilliant child, a credit to his teachings, who will surely pay him back a thousand fold if invested in properly...

And the things she guided Rey to are immensely rare and valuable, after all. Anakin's careful, weaving her murmurs tightly, deeply, enough that someone like this should never fully shake them.

Unkar Plutt greets Rey a bit more fondly than is his norm, and pays her well - not full price for her findings, of course, but easily three times what she would've expected for her rarer items. Enough she'll have plenty of food and water for a week of solid training, and enough excess to hold back and barter for items she might need if she goes scavenging again in a week.

Rey is ecstatic and thanks him many, quickly gathers up all of her rations and moves to the side to pack them all up.

"What do you say to some training, now - once you've eaten, of course," she says, after the confirms (and slightly pushes for) that no one's paying Rey any attention.

"I'm gonna go give one of these to Niam. She gave me some food the other day before I left, I gotta make sure she has some now."

"You should. Kindness is - something good, especially when someone's helped you before." It's something Anakin struggles with, even now, but... She's seen a world without kindness.

Rey nods and quickly runs to the bazaar to find Niam. She's an older lady, heavily wrinkled and boney. She does not look healthy, years of exhausting work doing a toll. She sits on the ground and works at repairing a broken energy converter. Rey sits down next to her, breaks open a packet of rations, takes away the converter and replaces it with the food. There's no point actually speaking to Niam, she lost her hearing before Rey was even born. Niam pauses, looks down at Rey smiling up at her and starts eating slowly. Rey responds by eating her own ration.

Anakin watches, smiling softly.

And, over the coming weeks and then months and years, she stays by Rey's side, training her. In self mastery, in the Force, in philosophy (after a lot of internal debate, Anakin presents the Jedi Code and all its complications as one remembered philosophical text out of many - let Rey learn old treatises on love even as she learns old treatises on proper uses of the Force), in history (Anakin steers clear of her personal history for now, focusing instead on things she learned as a padawan), in politics (Anakin glows when she talks about all her children are doing in the New Republic), in logic and decision making and responsibility, in science, in math, in art, in fighting and surviving and playing -

Anakin's had a long, full life. Four years gives a lot of room for her to teach. It's not everything. Not enough.

Slowly, she opens up about her family, too. Talks about Luke and Leia and Leia's two children, about Han Solo, about disappointment and worry and love - always love, Anakin loves more intensely than anything. She died for love, she says once, and love binds her still.

Luke's re-founding the Jedi. Anakin has opinions about how he's going about it. She's proud of him, though, woven in with every worry and criticism and praise.

Leia's not as central to the government as Anakin thinks she should be. She's got a lot of support, though, and she's getting a lot done.

Ben and little Anakin (Anakin has a laugh at the name of Leia and Han's younger kid - "Hope it's not prophetic," she says, "I wouldn't wish a second me on the world.") are training under Luke, too, and the original Anakin talks about them enough that Rey probably knows them about as well as she knows anyone.

And then, one night four years after Anakin starts training her, Rey has a dream.

There's a boy in her dream. He's - well, more a man. Maybe ten years older than her, just past the cusp of twenty.

He's sad, and angry, and frustrated, and in his dream darkness nips at his heels and wraps around him and the light is a receding pinprick.

Rey is used to having weird dreams, especially since she started training under Anakin. She creeps a little closer and peers at him and the darkness.

"It looks like it wants to swallow you up."

He whirls around. He doesn't seem really able to see her at first.

"Who are you?" he demands.

"Don't you know? This is my dream."

"No. You're in my dream."

"Our dream. Neat. I'm gonna call you... Yera. It's super creative. What are you gonna call me?"

He rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to call you anything, because you're a figment of my imagination."

"I'm a pretty cool figment then. Am I gonna have to name myself? Even figments should have names."

He turns away and keeps pacing, tries to clear his mind, to push away the voices - the ones coming from the shadows snapping around him, from the random girl his subconscious has conjured -

He can't feel her emotions. He can feel everyone's emotions, all their hate and anger and fear and pain and sorrow. So, therefore, she's not really here. No point in talking to himself, he's not crazy, not like some of the other students said -

"I'm gonna call myself Kessa. Like the star." She pauses and watches him pace. He looks so sad. Like she used to be. And so lonely.... except she can hear other voices pushing at him from the shadows. She frowns. "Why aren't you shutting them up?"

He takes a sharp breath in.

"I don't know how."

"I can try to help if you want. I'm not the best at stuff like this, but we can try together?"

"What can you possibly know?"

"My teacher is really powerful and she's been teaching me a lot. Plus, this is our dream. Nothing should be able to touch us here if we don't want it to."

Deep breath. He tries to center himself. He fails. (He always fails.)

"My dreams never seem to obey me like that."

She moves closer to him and offers him her hand.

"We're the bosses here. Plus, living means never giving up. We have to try."