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Rey's Victory update
🕑 Added 2016-01-07 16:32:57 +0000 UTC Rey rubbed her wrists as soon as she was released, not knowing when she would be bound again—she needed to keep her blood circulating, her muscles limber, any moment could be an escape attempt.The man who’d retrieved her was dressed in a Naval Trooper’s uniform, but he wore it uncomfortably and his skin was pale, sweaty, like Finn’s had been. The snap closures on his tunic were partially undone, exposing his Adam’s apple, and she could see the beginnings of bandages adhering to his torso. For once, the mystery didn’t interest her though. Just the blaster pistol he carried. He gestured with it to the door, the rest of his body immobile.
“Move.”
Rey did. She forced herself to relax. Didn’t want to tense up, give any indication she would flee. She wanted her captor nice and comfy with her. So that when she got the slightest chance, he’d have no idea how her boot had ended up in his groin or where she’d disappeared to after that.
The Stormtrooper—that was what he had to be, though she had no idea what he was doing out of uniform—marched her through what seemed like kilometers of corridors, all in the First Order’s muted blacks, grays, and whites. A few non-coms and Stormtroopers and Navel-types bustled by, but no pleasantries were exchanged, no looks traded, not a word spoken. She never felt the tension in her captor diminish. His blaster stayed on her—she could feel its muzzle trained between her shoulder blades, actually feel a slight heat there like a blaster bolt was ever-so-slowly boring in. She wondered if it was the Force expanding her perception. If that were the case, thanks a lot.
They came to a fresher, finally. She could recognize its design from the Star Destroyers she’d raided. This one had far less sand in it. His free hand coiled to deliver a shove if she slowed for an instant, he led her inside—rows upon rows of urinals, toilets, sinks. Unisex, though she got no more sympathy from the females than she did the males. And now there was a commotion, minor as it was. The various troopers seemed to take a grim amusement in seeing her being escorted to the fresher like a child.
She went through a locker room, then into a shower station. It was designed for efficiency, not for comfort. Water rained down from nozzles in the ceiling; soap and shampoo dispensers were on the walls. There was no privacy, and Rey could only reverse her earlier indictment and thank the Force that no one else was bathing at the moment.
Her captor pulled open a laundry chute on the wall. “Strip. Clothes in here. Don’t try to keep anything.”
Rey gave him her meanest stare and said something in Rodian that would make a bounty hunter blush.
He reached to his belt (Rey twinged, hated herself for it) and came up with a vibroblade. He showed her it functioned, blurring the edge with energy, then switched it off and returned it to its holster. Then he drew a nozzled canister from a different clip on his belt.
“Stokhli spray canister. It’ll put you out of commission for hours. And it’ll hurt. I’ll use it, cut you out of your clothes, hose you down, and then wait for you to wake up with the worst headache of your life. That was your warning.”
Be smart, Rey. She was luring him into a false sense of security, being a model prisoner. She waved down the canister and, after a suspicious look that seemed to stab through her, he put it away.
She stripped.
He didn’t leer. He made no comment. She didn’t feel his eyes on her breasts or genitals any more than she did on her arms or legs. Mostly he watched her hands. And he seemed more concerned with her discarded clothes than her, carefully prodding each article with the toe of his boot, as if she were going to slip a datastick to a Resistance collaborator in the laundry service.
It made no difference. She felt mortified, angry, wanting desperately to stop with every second that passed, to say that she could bathe just as well in her underthings as naked, to dare him to carry out his threat and damage Kylo Ren’s prize. But she didn’t. She’d let him dictate the terms and now she was following them. That embarrassed her even more than being seen naked. Hot tears stung her eyes and the same phlegm seemed to fill her whole body.
He started the water. She gripped a bar of soap. She kept her side turned to him, with one arm covering her breasts. He didn’t try to look at anything she wasn’t showing him. His eyes didn’t linger—they’d have to leave for that to be the case. No, they stayed fixed on her center mass, his blaster unwavering.
It was awkward washing herself with just one hand, and keeping the shreds of her modesty in mind at all time. Her first shower since the Falcon—she’d have thought it wouldn’t lose its appeal so quickly. But the abundance of water couldn’t penetrate the shame and humiliation she felt.
Her captor didn’t even regard her as a victim. There was no sadism, no malice. That would at least be personal, there would be some reason there. She knew, technically, it was better than the alternative, but the very casualness of it stuck in her gullet like a pound of sand. Kylo Ren, offended by the filthy clothes she’d put back on after finishing her shower, had ordered that she be washed and now that order was being carried out. Her own feelings were not factored in. Any thought of offense, of respect, hadn’t even been computed. She was being given the exact same treatment his boots would get if they became dirty.
She was almost ashamed of herself for this—it looked to be her day for shame—but she’d never really hated the First Order like she did now, because of this. Not because this offense was directed at her; at least, she hoped not. But because of the sheer callousness they’d displayed. She’d known they could be cruel, amoral, violent. She knew Kylo Ren had done terrible things, ordered terrible things done, and approved of even more. But that was at least in service of some mission, a higher cause. Like the man she had shot; the man she had killed.
This was just—business as usual. Standard operating procedure. Maintenance. The entire ugly, dehumanizing process was intended to do nothing else but be efficient. She was being treated this way not to break her, but simply because this was how the Order saw people. As parts to be kept clean and efficient for as long as required, repaired when possible, replaced when necessary. There was no love in it, no dignity, nothing but the utility she was judged to possess by those in power.
She finished, coming back to herself from her musings with an awareness that this fresher was actually better than the one on the Falcon. The water pressure was more consistent, the temperature was warmer, and if the soap had no scent, it still smelled better than whatever doubled as Han’s cologne. Still, she’d felt a lot more clean coming out of that fresher, getting a wry grin from Finn: “Muuuch better.” And an affirming roar from Chewie, Han shouting back from the cockpit for him to keep it down, he was trying to keep the hyperdrive running after what Rey’s best friend had done to it, and Rey saying that Unkar Plutt was not her friend, thinking that now she knew what friends were.
She couldn’t smile at the memory. Just worry, again, over what had happened to her friends. Her family, even, if only by default.
Seeing she was done, her captor turned off the shower spray. Rey set the soap back in its compartment; with both hands free, she covered her groin as well as her chest. She hoped wherever her new clothing was waiting, it was close. She started moving back the way she’d came—
“Stop there,” the trooper said. “Kneel.”
So this was it, then. She wished she could’ve been surprised, but the dropping sensation in her gut had become familiar. It’d never happened to her before, but she’d heard of it happening, had acquaintances who didn’t talk about it in a way that made it perfectly clear what had happened. Asking for sympathy in as much amount as Jakku could deliver.
She knelt down, promising herself she would bite it off, she would, she would, he could do anything he liked after that but she would bite it off first…
He went to the soap compartment. Picked up the bar of soap she had used. Squeezed it in his gloved hands, breaking it into sloppy pieces, grinding them smaller and smaller—finally satisfied. He dropped his soapy hand to his side and focused on Rey once more.
“Stand up. Walk forward.”
Rey let out a breath that was barbed, rasping over a raw throat as it went. He was just making sure she hadn’t placed something in the soap, in the damned soap.
There were clothes waiting for her, folded just outside the shower. An old, surplus Naval uniform from the days of the Empire. Dark gray jacket, dark gray trousers, dark gray cap, with assorted undergarments and shirt in charcoal gray. The rank pins, identity disk, and code cylinders had all been removed, leaving neat holes in the jacket. Rey could’ve laughed. After all this, she would still be dressed like a scavenger.
She cried instead though. The trooper took no more notice of it than he had her nudity, her fear, or her hatred.
