the desert is cruel the

"Get out of myhead," Rey says, fury restrained.(He won't. She's counting on it.)

the desert is cruel, the desert is kind

**Author's Note:**

* For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).

"Get out of my _head_ ," Rey says, fury restrained.

(He won't. She's counting on it.)

She stands six paces from him: three paces from the line where Jakku desert meets Yavin jungle. Why Kylo Ren's dreamscape should be Yavin jungle, Rey doesn't know, but there are some lines she dares not cross, and she stands three paces from one of them.

"I don't understand," says Kylo. "Grandfather favors you."

(Kylo Ren has never successfully commanded the Force to show him the echo of Darth Vader. Or so Finn says the rumors say. Rey has only to ask, and the ghosts appear: Anakin and Obi-Wan; Qui-Gon and Shmi; Han and Leia.)

" _Why_?" Kylo begs.

"Grandfather," says Rey, though she is not sure whether the title is courtesy or blood truth, "died to _end_ what you brought back into being—in his name, no less!"

She is the wall against the sandstorm. She cannot let her unrestrained emotion on what this man did to Finn—to so, so many others, but mostly to her first friend—be what drives her now.

(Finn is guarding her while she meditates. Rey dares not let anyone but herself and Kylo Ren in this dreamscape; Finn will ensure no one comes near.)

Kylo lunges forward—stops, still two paces from where desert sand meets jungle vines. "How _dare you_ ," he snarls. "I am upholding his legacy!"

"Then you do not understand his legacy," Rey says, calm as sandstone.

"I am trying to bring peace to the galaxy! Just as Grandfather tried!"

(Yes, indeed.)

"Let me show you Grandfather’s legacy," Rey says, and now she is calm as the waters of Ahch-To, clear as its oceans, stirred by wind and tide. She first met Anakin and Shmi on Ahch-To, just as it was there she first met Luke, who may be her father.

Kylo takes a step forward.

"What can you show me that I do not know?" he asks.

Rey smiles. "Come and see for yourself." She pulls a data chip—the illusion of a data chip—from the pouch at her side.

Kylo takes two steps forward, and now he is on _her_ side of the dreamscape.

Rey catches both his hands in hers, letting the illusory data chip fall. _Now_ her anger may have a looser rein. _Now_ she is the wind that drives the sand to bury some things and reveal others. _Now_ the sandstorm may rage.

In the dreamscape, they stand still as stone in the desert, Kylo unable to move and Rey unwilling, while Rey drives the sandstorm through his mind.

She searches out places where Snoke—or, perhaps worse, she realizes, the ghost of Palpatine—has twisted Kylo's heart and mind and soul as Palpatine had twisted Anakin's, planting suspicions like wheat and tending angry thoughts as though they are herbs, not weeds. She compels the sand to scour those places till nothing remains of what those men rooted there.

She searches out places where Kylo regrets what he did to Finn, to Han, to others, but most especially to Leia. She stands as bulwark there, against the burning sand.