Path of the Gray {Book One}

Life as a Scavenger

Here is a new Book I'm working one based on STAR WARS. I've had this in my head for a long while so I hope you like it.

I OWN NOTHING!!!!
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Kylo and Rey developed a comfortable routine over the next couple of years. Their mornings started early by checking on the moisture vaporators. The water they gathered from it was stored in the cargo hold and sorted between what they would keep and what they could barter with. Afterward Kylo and Rey would trained for an hour. Because of her size, Kylo encouraged techniques to improve her agility and flexibility. She may be small but she was agile. If she ever ran into trouble they both felt comfortable that she would be fast enough to escape. After training, Kylo attempted to teach Rey how to meditate. Most of the time he successfully entered a peaceful trance while Rey, to be funny, took advantage of his meditation and hid his blades or doodled on his face before breakfast. After meditation, they shared a small breakfast consisting of portions and dried meats as fruits from the villages they bartered with. Thanks deals they made with the neighboring villages, Rey ate better than she had in years. It wasn't to say that they ate like kings, but the ache of hunger in her stomach lessened since partnering with Kylo. Sometimes he made sure she had a bigger portion than he did insisting he wasn't very hungry.

After breakfast Rey took off for the enormous spaceships buried in the dunes while Kylo headed to Nima Outpost to work on swoopbikes and other ships Unkar Plutt acquired. Sometimes Plutt let Kylo enter in a high stakes races which he always won. Rey was relieved Kylo kept his word that they were partners. He never discouraged her from her work as a scavenger or acted like he knew what was best for her. He just told her to be careful and assured her he'd see her at Nima Outpost when she finished. Although scavenging was hard and dangerous work, Rey was thrilled when climbing fallen star destroyers and digging for its most valuable parts. Sometimes she took her time and gathered spare parts for the speeder. She also liked digging through the ruins in hopes of finding a salvageable droid. Droids meant more portions, but she also wanted to lighten the burden of their daily chores. By late afternoon, Rey returned to Nima Outpost to trade her scraps for portions and wait for Kylo to finish his work so they could go home.

Home. That was a foreign concept to Rey. Before Kylo fought his way to her doorstep, the fallen AT-AT was just a place she took shelter at night. A lonely isolated part of the desert where she watched ships enter the atmosphere while counting the days that she remain waiting for her family. But The Kyberheart and Kylo became something more in the couple of years they've been together. She had a safe place to sleep, food in her belly, and a real friend who made her laugh. In their own way, they became a family. She didn't truly remember the family that left her behind as a child but she still had hope that someday they would come back. Kylo never asked about her parents and she never offered an explanation. It was as if he knew how she ended up alone on this wasteland of scorching sand and a graveyard of past battles.

Today, Rey found the pieces of an imperial security droid. She couldn't wait to bring it back to The Kyberheart and show him their next project. As she loaded the pieces on her speeder, she smiled at the thought of tinkering away at the droid while listening to Kylo talk about the green planets he's seen. She liked hearing stories about the galaxy and hoped someday she would see if for herself. The way Kylo talked about it, she believed that one day he would make sure it happened. She felt the scorching sun's rays creep toward the horizon and knew it was time to head back to Nima Outpost. She loaded her loot in the side compartments of her speeder with a huff and strapped her staff to her back. Satisfied that she had everything, she hopped on her speeder and took off toward Kylo.
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Kylo wiped the sweat off his brow as he tinkered away at yet another ship Unkar Plutt swindled out of someone. The work was hard and tiring but Kylo realized that he loved it. He loved having tools in his hand and pulling apart engines and putting them back together. He loved working on the swoopbikes and making them run faster and make sharper turns. It was also thrilling to drive his own creations in high stakes races where at least half the pilots crashed and burned. He also enjoyed playing a few hands of Sabacc with other gamblers and smugglers passing through. It was a great way of hearing news about The New Republic and the rising First Order. It scared him learning that The First Order was kidnapping children, orphans in particular. It made him think of Rey and what would happen if he wasn't here to help her.