15 || desert conversations

"WE HAVE TO TRUST EACH OTHER IF WE'RE GOING TO MAKE IT OUT OF HERE. SO, WHAT'S YOUR STORY?"

JAKKU, WESTERN REACHES, INNER RIM-

"Kyra!"

The world was a deep yellow, everything strange and foreign as Kyra heard her name be called. Everything was ringing in her ear, a whine slowly weaving in and out of every noise that she heard- the crackle of fire, the moving of sand, someone's screams-

Wait.

Who was calling her?

"Kyra!" She heard the voice again, this time followed by a firm shake of her body. Jolting herself out of whatever haze she had just been in, Kyra stared up into Finn's eyes, her brain finally catching up to what she was seeing around her. "Kyra, c'mon, wake up. We gotta go find Poe."

"What the hell happened?" Kyra slowly got herself up, rubbing her head, a phantom pain appearing there for a brief moment. "I thought that we were heading back down to Jakku on the TIE fighter. We had-"

"Well, we're on Jakku now, Kyra. And we have to get moving. I see the wreckage a couple of dunes away. We gotta go check and see if Poe is there. I was lucky to have found you on my way over to the ship, but I haven't been so lucky enough to find Poe." Finn held out his hand for Kyra to grab a hold of, and he stabilized her as she stood again, trying to regain both of their balances in the sand.

Standing up, Kyra thanked Finn with a nod of her head. She turned around to see what Finn was staring at- the ship that was burning a couple of sand dunes away. He was right about that- and if Poe was still over there, the both of them had to rescue him.

"What are we waiting for?" Kyra jacked her thumb over at the spaceship, already starting to walk over there. "We gotta go see if Dameron's over there." She agreed, turning her back to Finn. The two of them started to navigate over to the spaceship, navigating the awkward hills that the sand dunes created.

The ship was absolutely destroyed, black smoke billowing from the flames that had consumed half of the spaceship. There was debris scattered everywhere as the two got closer to where the actual remains of the ship were, one side of the protective windows shattered open. Heat radiated off of it as the two rebel First Order members got closer, Kyra having to shield her eyes from the sun due to the angle that she was looking at it from.

Finn, however, didn't hesitate to run to the ship, sliding down the sand dunes with an ungracefulness that almost made Kyra laugh. "Poe!" He yelled, running to the side of the ship that wasn't fully ripped apart. "Poe!"

Kyra walked hastily to catch up with him, stopping just behind him to stare at the wreckage. Upon not seeing the Resistance pilot unconscious by the ship, her face's expression had molded into one of worry. "Poe!" Her voice joined Finn's as they both ran to the glass, Kyra stopping just before the flames that surrounded the glass.

Finn, who was wearing somewhat fire protected stormtrooper armor, went into the ship for the both of them, nervously ducking down and looking for the Resistance pilot. "Poe!" Finn yelled again, thinking he saw some part of the man in there. Grabbing a hold of Poe's jacket, he fiercely ripped it out, hoping to drag out the man with him.

But it was just Poe Dameron's jacket.

Before Finn could turn around to Kyra and be the bearer of bad news, the ground shook underneath him, making him almost lose his balance. Confused, Finn looked at Kyra, seeing that the ground was slightly moving under her, too. He couldn't understand why, but it seemed as if Kyra had the answer for him.

"Quicksand!" She yelled, gesturing for Finn to get out of the position he was in. "We're by a pit of quicksand. Move out of the way unless you want to go down with the ship!" Kyra warned, hoping that the former stormtrooper would hurry up and get out of the way.

Stumbling, Finn made it back to where Kyra was standing, turning back around to stare at the ship with her.  Within seconds of him coming back to stand with Kyra, the TIE fighter is folded into the sand, disappearing just in front of their eyes. The ship had literally been swallowed by the sand. "He wasn't-"

"I know." Kyra sighed, a sadness coming to her face as she realized that she might have been the cause of another death in the Resistance. Which, of course, wasn't the best thing to hear when you just had escaped the First Order. In her eyes, Poe had traded his life for hers.

"So does that mean-"

"I don't know." Kyra whispered, tears on the edge of her eyes. She tried not to think about what it meant exactly, trying to maintain some thread of hope that maybe they just hadn't come across him yet, and that he was somewhere inside of the desert looking for them too.

But who was she kidding? With her luck, Poe Dameron was probably dead.

There was a silence that follows after, but it wasn't for long. The TIE fighter- or where the TIE fighter used to be- exploded into a fury of fire and sand behind them, making Finn jump with surprise. Kyra just stared at the quicksand, almost unamused by the grandeur of the whole situation.

"Let's get moving." Kyra shook herself out of whatever feelings she had for Poe Dameron at the moment, figuring that there was no time to mourn. "The sooner we can get to an outpost, the sooner that we can try and find Dameron's droid."

"You're still stuck on that?" Finn questioned, seeing Kyra starting to turn her back to the man and start to head towards whichever way she was going. He had no clue what was going on, and he figured that if he wanted to escape the Jakku desert alive, he would follow in Kyra's footsteps.

"If Poe's mission was to get that droid back to the Resistance, we at least owe it to him to complete that mission." Kyra argued, already starting to burn under the heat that the desert was offering her. Giving a sigh, she tried to shield herself with her hand as best as she could, frowning as she tried to determine the best way to go.

South seemed good. They wouldn't be walking straight into the sun, and it seemed better than the north, which had just swallowed up the ship that they were supposed to be escaping upon. Kyra started to walk in the direction that was south for her (or what she assumed was south), trying to dust off all of the sand that was on her.

Her clothing didn't offer her much protection either. Wearing a standard black t-shirt from the First Order and a pair of tighter pants that she would normally wear under her mission suit, Kyra wasn't as well protected from the weather that would inevitably come to bite her and Finn in the ass on Jakku. At least he had his full undercovering from the stormtrooper armor.

"C'mon, Finn." Kyra saw the man staring at the wreckage of the TIE fighter again. He seemed to be staring at it, almost forcing it to come back out of the sand and give him the man that had helped him escape the First Order. "We don't have time to dwell on this."

"Right." He muttered, turning away from the spot where the ship had crashed. "Sorry." Finn seemed a little embarrassed as he caught up to Kyra in the desert, still grasping onto Poe's jacket. He studied it for a moment, almost wanting to look back at the wreckage for one moment more. "I just can't believe he's gone."

"I can't either." Kyra agreed, trying to keep her composure as she continued to hike up the next sand dune, trying to keep her balance as sand slipped underneath her feet. "I knew him for four years." She muttered, unsure if Finn had heard her.

"Four years?" Finn seemed surprised at that fact, but when Kyra looked over at him with a look of bittersweetness, he knew what that meant. "He was the one to convince you to become a part of the Resistance and defect, wasn't he?"

"Among other things, yes." Kyra admitted, her head hanging low as she watched her feet leave prints in the sand behind her. "He was the person who was my main information runner too." She added before shaking her head, trying to get all of the sorrowful memories out of her head.

"Well, if you two were so close, I think he would want you to have this." Finn spoke carefully, wrapping Poe's jacket that he had clasped in his hands around Kyra's shoulders. He saw a look of gratitude wash over her, a small smile forming on her face as she stared up at him. She was almost half a foot shorter than him, and Finn realized that he hadn't noticed it until now.

"Thanks." Kyra pulled the jacket over her shoulders, grateful for the comforting piece of clothing. It almost made her feel a little better in this moment of dismal sadness. There was a small smile back from the former stormtrooper, and then a small nod of reassurance. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it together.

After that, things had fallen quiet for the next couple of hours as they walked. Both of the First Order rebels swapped stories about their times inside of the evil regime that didn't allow for any escape, each having their own personal adventures inside of the galaxy conquering force.

Kyra told him about all of the journeys she had taken across the galaxy, leaving out how many people she had to kill during those "adventures." If she was going down this new path of assisting the Resistance, it was probably for the best that the kid didn't know about all of the awful things that she had to do.

Finn, on the other hand, told her about how it was to be raised within the First Order. He told her about the awful things that the children raised as troopers were subjected to, and how they were only assigned to a meek position at the beginning, being forced to work up the ranks. Finn said that there was a promise that if someday, they worked hard enough, they would be freed from the First Order.

Both of them knew it was a lie.

Along the way, the two had encountered a wandering traveler- trader- scavenger person? Kyra didn't know and didn't care. She saw that they had a blaster inside of their belongings along with some water, and she immediately knew what she had to do.

It had taken her less than a minute to take down the trader, one calculated punch to the throat and elbow to the head and they were out like a light. Finn seemed impressed with her, and also rather grateful. He had been getting thirsty, the both of them boiling in the sun. Plus, a weapon would help them defend themselves if they ran into anyone unfriendly along the way to civilization again.

They had left the trader unconscious in the desert, and had taken the blaster and water, Kyra keeping a hold of the weapon. Finn had the water cantine around his body, the both of them trying to ration it as much as they possibly could in the heat.

Finn had stripped off pieces of his stormtrooper armor with Kyra's help on the walk,  both of them agreeing that it was much too hot to be wearing multiple layers that weren't necessary while walking across the desert. The thought of also coming into a trading outpost with trooper armor on would also cause more problems than it would solve them.

It felt like they had been walking for hours before they finally saw any glimmer of hope. Walking over another ridge of sand dunes, the desert terrain finally gave way to a valley, in the center of that said valley an outpost of some sort.

"C'mon." Kyra gave a sigh of relief, nudging Finn from under Poe's jacket. The both of them had been using it to protect themselves from the sun, alternating to ease the pain. Kyra didn't mind though, she didn't want to have Finn pass out on her. "There's an outpost a few klicks away from here."

The thought of being able to leave the desert planet of Jakku, or, at the very least being able to stop trudging through the sand dunes that took up a majority of the planet made Finn smile. "There's our opportunity for freedom then, huh Kai?" He nudged her back, using a nickname that felt right to call her by.

The nickname made Kyra freeze for a moment, remembering how she had left her two troopers behind within the First Order. However, she knew if they were going to be used as anything, they were going to be used as leverage to get her to come back to the First Order.

That meant that they were safe- for now.

"Yeah." She whispered back to him, trying to disguise her uneasiness for a moment. "Let's get going. We've still got a little ways to go. Just because we can see our destination doesn't mean that we're out of hot water yet." Kyra warned, taking a moment to breathe before starting her descent into the valley.

"Right." Finn agreed, trailing behind Kyra. There were a few minutes of quiet as they walked down the hill, the both of them unsure about what would come next after they arrived at the outpost. But Finn could tell that something he had said had bothered Kyra, and he wasn't sure what to do. "About the nickname-"

"One of my old trooper friends in the First Order used to call me that." Kyra explained, keeping her answer short and her tone sort of terse. "It just- it made me remember that I couldn't get them out of there before I escaped. They both were reassigned after Ren found out I was a traitor to the First Order."

"I'm- I'm sorry." Finn murmured, unsure of what to say anymore. He had obviously heard the stories that Kyra (known as Solani back then) had two stormtrooper escorts with her at all times, but Finn never would have thought they would become her friends.

"It's alright. In some ways, you kind of remind me of them." Kyra gave a small smile towards Finn, the expression genuine. "That's why I'm so focused on making sure that the two of us can get out of here, no matter what. Even if I failed the two of them, maybe helping save you from the First Order can make up for it."

"That's-" Finn was unsure of what to say, learning a lot more about Kyra than he thought he would during their trek in just those few sentences. "That's very kind of you." He noted, a small smile coming onto his face as well. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet until we get out of here." Kyra pointed out, the two of them finally making it down the large decline in the sand dunes and onto solid ground. "We still have to navigate this outpost." She gestured to the small but somewhat busy marketplace. The sun had somewhat begun to fall towards the west, indicating that it was probably some time in the afternoon. "And get out of here before nightfall."

"Yup." Finn sighed, realizing that they were going to have to do some major negotiating or try and steal a ship if they were going to get off of the ground here. "I hoped that we wouldn't have to try and steal anything but-"

"We might not have a choice." Kyra answered for him, seeing the somewhat upset on Finn's face. She pulled the jacket from where it stood as a shade over the both of them as they both scoped out the marketplace, shoving her arms through the sleeves. "Yeah, it's not my favorite thing in the world either, but if we don't have any credits, we're not going to get anywhere. Credits is what makes the world go round in these parts."

Almost as if on cue, there was a loud ruckus from the opposite side of the marketplace, a girl getting accosted by some thugs in the area. She seemed almost helpless in the moment, Kyra carefully drawing the blaster from where she had tucked it away from inside the jacket- just in case.

"Should we help her?" Finn hissed, the two of them watching the fight occur from the other side of the marketplace. Beside the girl was a moving sack, but what was inside the sack? Neither Kyra or Finn had any clue. It could be an animal or her day's scavengings for all they knew.

Staring back over at the girl, Kyra saw her grab a staff from where she had dropped it on the ground, hitting one of the thugs with it. It didn't take long for the girl to whirl around and start attacking the thugs with the weapon, and when she noticed that, Kyra put away her weapon. "No, it seems like the kid can handle herself." Turning away for a moment, scanning her surroundings, Kyra didn't notice that the girl had taken off the sack that was below her, revealing an all too familiar droid for her.

Finn, however, moved closer to watch the two interact, curious as to why the girl at the marketplace had been attacked by the thugs. When he saw the droid be uncovered, Finn's eyes widened, realizing that this droid might be familiar to Kyra. However, before he could call her attention, the droid stared straight at him, the droid's conversation with the marketplace girl being abruptly ended.

"Them?" Finn heard the marketplace girl say, the woman staring at him and Kyra for a moment. That was the moment that Finn decided to turn around and find Kyra, the woman who would probably know what to do in this instant.

"Kyra?!" Finn exclaimed, rushing back over to her side, earning a groan from the woman. "You know that girl that just got attacked in the marketplace?" That earned him an expectant look from the woman, who told him that yes, she knew who he was talking about. "Well, she's got this droid with her, and she just spotted the two of us."

"What does that have anything to do with us?" Kyra sighed, in the middle of inspecting the parts that were around the marketplace, trying to see if she could find any value in them. If she could swindle someone into giving them a transport, that sounded like a good solution if anything.

"Well, for one, her droid just told her something that probably isn't good about us. The First Order probably has our names out on a bounty list at the moment." Finn logically suggested, earning a string of swears from Kyra. He took a quick glance back over at where the marketplace girl was, and what he saw wasn't good. She had risen from her spot, staff in hand. "And also, she's coming straight towards us with a look that could kill so-"

Turning around to get a glimpse of the woman, Kyra gave another string of curses before she came up with a plan. "Alright. You run left, I run right. Let's see who she goes after." She took the blaster and held it in her hand again, unsure of who they would target. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Okay. Run!"

<~•~>

oops

am I sorry? not really

are you guys really upset that she's not with Poe? most likely

but regardless I really hope that you guys liked this chapter, because we're getting into the meat of the book, and that means it's time to start foreshadowing the shit of what happens next and in the SEQUEL!!

yeah you heard me right, the sequel

yes I'm very excited too!

but on a more serious note...
twice this week I've gotten pms from people asking me to spoil this book or write it in a certain way. let me remind you, this is MY story. while I appreciate that you all are so invested, asking me to write a story a certain way will not flatter me. in actuality, it will do the opposite. also, asking it after attempting to flatter me with how much you're enjoying it doesn't help. I still know what you're doing. please don't do that. it's frustrating to me as an author because it makes me think that I'm not writing to your expectations and actually makes me sad and frustrated

okay, mini rant aside, there are great things to look forward to now! we got Finn and Kyra having a sister-brother relationship, and Rey just got dropped into the mix!

I really hope you guys liked this chapter, and stay for the next one!