bakerstreet | The Desert Caravan Meme

The Desert Caravan Meme

The Desert Caravan Meme

The sky is unimaginably large. Infinity as a pale, blinding blue, never a cloud. Your eyes always sting from the sand and from the bright, painful light.

This is the desert. It is the desert that lives in poetry: the shifting, formless sea of white and gold and red, in slow, sinking dune-waves. This is the desert of scorched cliffs and ancient stone; it is the desert of vast, eternal wind, bringing the bite of grit to bare skin. Sun’s heat untempered by mercy and parched land flickering with false hope of oasis.

This is the desert of legend: the desert that hides prophets tucked in endless emptiness, where djinnis whisper on the winds and magic wells from the sands themselves. This is the land that can trap you and drain you, of memory, of past, of weakness; the land that secrets treasure away in caves and holds salvation in hidden water. This is the land that bakes you and cures you, lets the soft clay of your soul shape into something new.

The desert is a place forever between, broken with paths, sliced and scarred for the sake of trade. But the desert is a place itself, too, home for the nomads, the caravanserai, the dotted strips of live eked out of the dry. Home to the snakes and the birds and the twisted, thorny scrub, the camels and the horses.

It will seduce you with the rapture of quiet, the beauty of an emptiness that is never truly empty. But it will deceive you, too: a mountain days away that seems close enough to touch; a camp close enough to hear, but hidden in a fold of the dunes. If you lose your way, you could die of thirst an arms length from salvation. Dunes shift; paths bend. If you do not know the desert, it will kill you.

Who are you?
A traveler, trusting in the grace of a guide to bring your caravan safe to the other side;
A guide, walking by stars and distant hills through the land you know by heart;
One belonging to a caravanserai, an enclave of the desert, by precious water, gleaning a living from the harsh land and the travelers passing through;
A bandit, preying on the slow, plodding merchants;
A nomad, with the desert in your blood, watching the intruders pass through;
A hermit, solitary and empty, grown accustomed to the silence;
Or a creature of magic: a djinni, a sorcerer, a witch, a prophet?

What has happened?
An ordinary, exhausting day of travel, your mouth dry as dust?
Have you lost your way, straying, along and baking in the sun —
A raid by bandits, to take money, goods — people?
War, over territory? Over water?
Strangers arriving in the caravanserai?
Happening upon a celebration, of life, water, harvest?
A rainstorm, for the first time in years? A sandstorm, deadly, and far more common?
Or something else?

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[It was not my finest tag I have to admit, but I'm still down if you think you could salvage it, or I could take another look at it and make it at least decent :P

Also totally down for him drifting into Niima outpost for supplies. Maybe they kind of passingly know each other, but have never talked?]

[ no, believe me, it was fine! I'll definitely get to it, if it's alright with you.

and yep, to the second part - sounds good! ]

Jakku was a desert planet. It was sand dunes and dust storms, a planet that baked during the day and froze at night. Rain, when it fell, was all-encompassing, massive storms that swept whole quadrants of the planet at once, dumping water for days or even weeks at a time. There were times when the little oasis towns floated.

Still, despite the rains, little grew on the planet. The plants were tough and hard, the animals small and stringy. With the help of enough technology, enough light could be reflected down into sandstone caverns carved by water and wind and time to grow crops, but the rain always filled them, made them uninhabitable until it seeped down through the rock.

Few people - few creatures, even - managed to live in the sand caverns. The caverns ranged in size from winding passages to monstrously large caverns, but any who did manage to live in them had to emerge from them when the rains came, or be drowned in a flood.

There was one such cavern, located within a few days' walk of Niima Outpost. Niima, built on a hill as it was, at least didn't float away during the rains. It was safe enough to stay there.

The owner of that particular cavern, like all the others, had left the cavern nearly a week before the rains came - and living there long enough, inhabitants simply knew when they were destined, whether by some innate sense, or the change in the rock around them - and made his way into Niima.

Like all the others, he was thin, rather drawn, pale and shrouded against the sun. He was tall, but human, shoulders broad. The fabric drawn around him, covering every scrap of skin, was like a shroud, the pack on his back almost comically large.

Stepping into Niima Outpost was like stepping into another world - probably a lot like one of these Surfacers coming down into a cavern - it was alive, people of various species milling around, working, talking. It was noisy and vibrant, clusters of stalls selling or bartering, the gut-sickening smell of cooking meat (at least to him, who lived solely off of what he grew in his cavern). It was foreign to him.

It took a while for him to noticed, but once he was... well, they all knew where he had come from, who he was.

"How many days?" One of them called out and in response he held up three fingers. Three days until the rain came. He crossed through the outpost without lowering his three raised fingers, to dispel any more questions being asked him. The sun was bright overhead, it was achingly bright, and all he wanted to do was make his most important trade before finding somewhere cool and dark to rest.

He settled into the back of a long line then crouched down, back of his head to the sun. He closed his eyes - it was highly unlikely anybody would bother him here. They knew him, knew what he provided them, and knew that it was foolish to mess with him.

Edited 2016-03-04 07:08 (UTC)

The only thing even remotely comfortable about Rey's life was her routine; scavenge, bring the parts she'd acquired to a clean-up station in Niima, and then offer them to Plutt for her daily rations.

At the outpost, there were all sorts of creatures and characters mingling together for a common purpose — scavengers, buyers, traders from on-and-off world. Rey knew most of the regulars by name, even if she didn't associate with them. Associations and friendships, even with other human scavengers like herself, inevitably ended in disappointment and betrayal. Devi and Strunk had taught her that.

She sighed as she spotted the length of the queue in line for a particular trader's wares; Plutt had encouraged her to attempt to trade a couple of choice pieces for ship parts he needed on one of his projects, and had promised to throw a couple more quarter portions in if she'd do so. She huffed irritably and set her bag of parts on the ground, just behind the man covered in a shroud.

And then she realized who the man was — a prophet of sorts, she'd heard him called before — and tapped him lightly on one shrouded shoulder.

" — Hey. You're that guy." Wonderfully eloquent, but the best she could do with her sadly-lacking conversational skills. "How long until the rains come?"

He turned at the tap on his shoulder, simultaneously flinching and ducking away from more bright light in his eyes. He peered up at the person who had spoken - human, female, a bag of parts... a scavenger, then, a veritable (if not literal) desert rat. He stared for maybe a moment too long (not that he really thought of it that way) then held up three fingers again.

He stared at her for a moment longer, then turned to his pack. He pushed some of the things inside around and pulled out a slate and piece of white writing-stone. He glanced up at her, then at the parts behind her, before sketching out a piece that he was looking for. It was little more than a gyroscope, but he used it to steady mirrors into place - since they had to be adjusted all the time as the sun changed position in the sky - and it had broken on one of his most important mirrors. He'd replaced it with one from another mirror, but that one needed to be replaced now.

He turned and showed her the slate, peering out at her from the narrow slit in the fabric of his covering. Then he pointed at it, and at her bag.

Then he turned to his bag and dug through it again, coming up with a handful of fresh carrots - he'd had to pick them before coming in since they would be lost to the flood anyways, but had stayed fresh in his pack - which was not just a simple pack, though it looked it from the outside. They were bright orange against the dust of the desert below their feet, the green tops cut short to save space.

...Three fingers. Three days. Rey knew her tiny little metal home would be insulated enough from the flooding rains that would go on for days at a time, but she needed at least a couple of days' worth of preparation in order to make it completely water-proof, as well as to prepare her collection containers for the deluge of fresh water. She'd get started on it that night, then, in the event the stranger was wrong and the rains came a day early — although from the talk she'd overheard, he'd never given a false prediction.

Then the strange hermit was turning to his overloaded pack and rummaging around inside it, and Rey watched curiously as he pulled out the slab and writing utensil. He began to draw, sketching in quick, precise movements, and she stared at the picture being outlined and brought to life. A mechanical piece, a gyroscope, she knew — she'd seen enough of them in her salvaging exploits to recognize it even from a simple drawing — and he was asking her for it most likely because he'd correctly deduced that she sold and traded scrap, judging by the looks he'd given her mesh bag full of parts.

She did in fact have one she'd intended to bargain with, at the window at the head of the queue. Rey wasn't opposed to trades but she'd been burnt enough by other untrustworthy scavengers to be wary of an unsolicited transaction. Plutt was repulsive and stingy with his payments, but at least she'd known him long enough to be confident he wasn't going to cheat her out of more than a couple portion's worth. This stranger, on the other hand...

" — No," she lied automatically, squinting in the sun and shaking her head when he pointed at the slate and then at her bag. "I don't have one, sorry. I — "

But then he was turning to his bag again and pulling something out of it, a bunch of somethings that were a beautiful vibrant orange color with green stems, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head; from the look and fresh earthy-sweet scent of them she immediately recognized it as food of some sort although completely foreign to her. Rey stared at the offering, completely transfixed, train of thought successfully derailed.

"What is that?" Quickly she went on, knowing he wasn't about to speak, nodding her head: "You're willing to trade those? For a gyroscope?"

He smiled behind the fabric and nodded. He separated a carrot from the bunch and broke it in half. He offered the larger half to the scavenger girl then nibbled at the piece still in his hand, pulling down the fabric enough. His skin was deathly pale, but there were some dark freckles on his cheeks. His nose was still covered in a piece of fabric, and as soon as he finished his half of the carrot he tugged the fabric back up, tugging at the knot at the back of his head.

He watched her carefully, then set the carrots back down in his bag - so they didn't get dusty. He had a huge array of vegetables and what fruits he could grow in the pack, all for trade, all surplus from his crop- some was packaged safely up to last him, this was the remainder.

He swiped his hand over the slate and drew out another part he needed: an air compressor. There was a variety of small parts he wanted to trade for, and the trades would be for some of the only fresh food available on the planet.

He pushed around in the back and came up with a few potatoes - they were deep red and large, the insides a dark purple and when cooked, were velvety soft and almost sweet. He looked between the slate and the scavenger girl. Some stuff he wasn't able to get from scavengers, but she would give him a better price than traders could.

Edited 2016-03-05 20:18 (UTC)

The only thing slightly more distracting than the sweet-smelling, orange root being split in half with a satisfying crunching sound was the sight of the stranger pulling down the gauzy shroud away enough from the lower part of his face for him to bite into it. Rey watched — trying not to be obvious about it, and failing miserably — as he bared white teeth past soft-looking lips and freckled cheeks, and ate.

Human, like herself, as she'd guessed from the slight glimpse she'd gotten through his coverings of his eyes but not known for certain. With the way he kept himself so completely shrouded against the sun, she hadn't been sure he wasn't one of the other native species to Jakku underneath his robes. She almost mourned the sight when he covered himself back up after eating, her eyes glancing over his covered mouth.

She took the larger half he'd offered, and after testing it tentatively with a pink tongue, bit into it the way he had. The texture was odd but the flavor was incredible, as she bit down — it was hard but yielded almost immediately to chewing, falling apart in her mouth, sweet and cool and like nothing else she'd ever tasted. Rey inhaled the rest of it, stuffing her cheeks, even gnawing the green stem with relish.

He drew as she ate, sketching out another piece and she paused to interrupt him even as her mouth was full, nodding. " — I have it, actually. A gyroscope. I can trade it, for — " And then she paused, as she looked down at a rudimentary drawing of an air compressor. " — I have that too. A few of them."

The other items he drew from the bag cinched it; the round ones were even lovelier than the orange ones, dark red with hints of purple where a divot marked its flesh. Rey quickly realized his bag was full of such treasures, fresh foods she'd never before experienced, and selfishly she decided then and there to forgo what Plutt wanted in order to reward herself for her own endeavors.

She'd worked for these parts, after all. It was only right.

"...Come on," she encouraged the shrouded man, gathering up her sack of scavenged wares and encouraging him to do the same with his produce. "Let's get somewhere in the shade, out of this line. We can go over what I have, if you'd like."

Edited 2016-03-06 00:40 (UTC)

He nodded after a moment, smiling when she said she had both the parts. He put the slate and stone away, as well as the potatoes, then slipped his arms through the straps of his bag and stood.

Shade sounded like a welcome relief, even if he would have preferred the dark of his sleeping cavern. Walking back into the main trading area it got noisier, but the tent they settled under was empty except for them, at least for now. He glanced around as he dropped onto his haunches, sliding his pack off his back and to the sand.

He dug around in his pack and last and pulled out a list. It was written on paper, of all things, but no paper that Rey might have ever seen, scavenged from some ship: it was thick enough that it almost didn't bend.

The piece of paper was covered in strange letters - it certainly wasn't Common. He glanced from her to his list then back down again, before pulling out another writing instrument - a pen. He made two careful marks on the list, then pulled out the carrots and potatoes again, offering her half a dozen of the carrots and two potatoes for the two parts.

He needed an assortment of things, parts being just one of them, and he couldn't trade away all of his crops to this scavenger girl - he needed shadecloth, and seeds, and a new water basin - the ground filtered his water for him, so that was fine, the deep pool in his cavern system filling yearly from the runoff more than enough to water his plants and himself for a whole year. Still, he didn't bathe in the pool, and his basin had cracked a while ago, so he'd been having to make due.

Rey nodded as he made marks on what she instinctively knew was an itemized list of parts he needed, to be paid for with the food he'd brought; the trade seemed fair, the armful of fresh treats in return for the two pieces he'd drawn for her.

She dug into the mesh sack of scrap to dig the items out, brushing off any residual dust and sand from them, before handing them to him in return for what he offered. Rey was inordinately pleased with both herself and with the shrouded stranger she'd bargained with — to have barely known someone and yet made a successful trade like this inspired something akin to a modicum of trust on her part. She so badly wanted to believe there was something good in people, something of value in even the simplest of interactions.

She pensively eyed the young man up and down over his coverings — because he was young, if the skin he'd bared while he'd eaten had suggested anything — before leaning forward again. He may not have had the luxury of words, but he seemed to be able to communicate effectively without them, somehow. "How did you get here, to Niima?" she asked, gently. "Where are you from?"

He took the parts and looked them over. They were in good condition, cleaned up well aside from some dust. He checked that the gyroscope worked - it would be better than the one that had broken. That one had always had some strange hitches, but this one would be perfect. The compressor also looked to be in working order. Satisfied, he pushed the vegetables over towards her.

He tucked the parts into another part of his pack, then returned to his slate. Instead of miming or trying to write a message, he drew: a small figure walking through the sand from a rough approximation of a cave - the mouth of which looked nothing like his own cave, of course. He drew four suns in the sky - four days' walk. Then he turned the slate to the girl, showing her.

If he showed any interest in her appearance, he didn't much show it. Still, he was happy to sit and talk with her - communicate. Too much noise gave him a headache, but these times when he was out of the caverns was his only time to hear voices that were speaking words he could understand - if the rats had a language, he hadn't yet been able to figure it out.

He took the slate back after a moment and wiped the drawing away with his sleeve, looking back up at the girl, watching her closely.

This time he drew a picture depicting what she assumed had been his trek; a large cave, a rudimentary figure of him walking through the mouth of it, and then four days' walk through the hot sun. Four days, with his enormous pack — not to mention the parts he'd inevitably be trading for, which were going to be undoubtedly heavier than what he carried now — and no other means of transportation.

And then something suddenly occurred to her: "...But wait — if the rains are coming in three days, and it takes you four to get back to your cave, you won't make it in time before the deluge hits." She eyed him with concern; the man was still a relative stranger to her somewhat, but they'd made a successful trade and he seemed a bit starved for companionship, or at least for dialogue and conversation at the very least.

"...I have a speeder. It would take you only a few hours to reach your cave, again."

His shoulders jerked in a motion that might have indicated a laugh, except he didn't make any noise. He began to draw again: a rough cavern shape, filled with water nearly to the brim, and rain hitting the surface above, a little figure struggling to stay afloat, then turned to show it to the girl.

Almost instantly he turned it back and wrote out in careful, clumsy Common, DONT STAY and showed it to her again.

As far as her offer to give him a ride to his cave... He knew better than to let anybody else into his cave. Last time that had happened, that he had been naive and trusting enough... He shook his head a little and looked down. It was nothing personal to her. It just wasn't safe for his way of living to let anybody know where he lived.

He wiped the slate clean and changed the subject with a drawing of another part - a hinge, with the dimensions marked in a numerical system she likely wouldn't recognize.

A quick dig around in his pack and he came out with a length of knotted string - his ruler.

The little lift of his shoulders in what might have been a chortle of laughter was more intriguing to Rey than perhaps it should have been; she smiled in recognition of it, even before he sketched out a little drawing to show him floundering helplessly in the drowned-out cave.

"...Don't stay," she read, and nodded, amused. "Your cave floods, then."

He went back to drawing more, sketching out another piece he was interested in, and in the interim Rey took another orange root out of the bunch he'd given her and snapped off a bite. She couldn't get over how delicious it was, torn between wanting to savor it but wanting to shove it all into her mouth at the first opportunity.

The next piece he sketched out was a hinge of some sort, but the dimensions were unknown to her. Even so, she had several such pieces of various sizes in her own collection.

She shook her head as she chewed. "Not here, though," she informed him. "I don't have that piece here — it's back in my dwelling." She would have to go retrieve it and come back, which wasn't an impossibility but it would take a bit more time...and there was her home to secure down before the rains came.

Again she studied him with an assessing look. "Where will you stay, then, during the rains? Here in Niima?" There wasn't much cover at the outpost, not against the torrential downpour that was likely to hit.

Edited 2016-03-09 08:38 (UTC)

He nodded and stashed the cord away, then swiped the slate clean. He watched her eat for a moment - small, neat bites, like she was trying not to eat too much too fast.

She didn't have one, but it was possible one of the other scavengers or traders did. He shrugged at the question then wrote awkwardly, WHO EVER TAKES IN. He had no real problem staying with strangers - the biggest problem was always the noise. He was used to sleeping in silence, and the sounds of other people, especially their breathing, could be bothersome.

He wrote below that message MORE TRADES TO MAKE then turned to start closing up his pack again.

"...Whomever takes you in," Rey repeated quietly, thoughtfully, even as he scribbled another note below it. More trades to make. She gave him a polite nod. "...Of course."

Rey wondered just how many travelers and traders who frequented Niima Outpost willingly took in strangers during something like the torrential rains, even ones willing to negotiate beneficial trades. What if no one did? He'd be left to fend for himself during the deluge and flooding with no cover, nowhere to keep himself dry.

You shouldn't care, a cold, callous, survivalist part of her whispered, the thought stilling her as he closed up his pack; you had one trade with him, that's all — a business transaction. You owe him nothing.

...Remember what had happened, the last time you'd trusted someone. Fellow scavengers Devi and Strunk had used her for her mechanical expertise, absconding off-world with the downed 690 light freighter after Rey had repaired it with parts they'd supplied, instead of selling it to Plutt as Rey had planned. Her own project, that she'd spent months and months repairing and fixing for an enormous payoff, and they'd left her with nothing.

It was the recollection of the betrayal she'd experienced that stayed her hand when she would have stopped him from tying up his pack; instead Rey watched him, still chewing slowly on her orange root, the look in her eyes torn and conflicted.

Edited 2016-03-09 19:50 (UTC)

He didn't move to get up right away and instead just stayed settled in the sand. He would just have to get up and get back in line in the sun if he stood, and she wasn't moving, so there was no real point in going anywhere just yet.

Instead, he reached into another pocket of his pack and pulled out a small canister. He opened it and set the canister on his knee then carefully started to unwrap the fabric from around his hands and fingers.

His palms and nearly the entirety of his fingers were covered in a thick white scar. It was part of the reason for his clumsy writing, he could hardly bent his fingers. Carefully, he scooped up small bits of the cream from the canister and rubbed his palms together, then his fingers, humming in relief as the tightness of the skin started to ease.

This had been only part of what happened the first and last time he'd trusted somebody to know where he lived, allowed somebody into the cavern that was his home.

It was the same incident that left him unable to speak, and more scars all up his legs and back. He looked up at the girl then sighed a little. He understood why she wasn't about to offer him the chance to stay with her - he was an unknown, as strange a creature as one of those that lived in the deep desert, weeks and weeks of travel from any sort of settlement.

He'd find somebody else to give him shelter during the storm, somebody to share the food in his pack with. There was always somebody.

Rey sat as well in the sandy shade, her mind busy with debating the ethics of her choice to let him go on his way; he didn't seem in a particular hurry to leave, and it offered ample opportunity to continue to watch him. But when he brought out the canister of lotion and started removing the wrappings covering his hands and fingers, her eyes widened.

Now she understood the imperfect letters he'd been writing — he could just barely bend his fingers enough to hold the utensil, much less do anything else that required intricate hand-work. An injury...and given how hard life was on Jakku, most likely not self-inflicted.

She looked pointedly at his hand, his scarred fingers and palm, before looking back into his eyes through the shroud. "...Did someone do that to you? To your hands?"

Something clicked in her mind, falling into place at witnessing this quiet, scarred, lonely man, and she came to an almost immediate decision. "...If I give you shelter where I live, during the rains, I promise you that I won't hurt you." Her words were accompanied by a sincere nod. "I swear it to you."

[Also i've already changed my mind, only his right hand is scarred to the point where he can't bend his fingers, his left hand is much less bad, he's got closer to full range of motion]

He nodded after a moment, but kept his attention down on his fingers. He pressed his left thumb into a lump of scar tissue. It hurt, all the way up his arm and into the back of his skull, but it was better than the usual tingly numbness.

He listened to her talk, turning the words over in his mind. He wondered, quietly, how old she was. How long she'd been out here in the desert, scavenging at ships to try to keep enough food in her belly to work to scavenge parts.

His cavern was large enough, there was enough rich dirt held captive, he could-- no, he couldn't. He'd thought he could so long ago and instead he'd ended up how he was - damaged, muted, scarred to the point of near incapacitation. There's enough dirt to support two of us, and have extra, he thought anyways.

But this wasn't about his home, it was about hers. She was offering her home to him. She probably saw his scars and felt sorry for him. He couldn't blame her, he'd sent a long time feeling sorry for himself.

He nodded again after a moment and behind the fabric, he smiled.

He finished rubbing the cream into his hands and re-wrapped the bandages, then returned the canister to his pack. From yet another pocket, he pulled out a small box. He peeked inside, then closed it. She was going to take him in, he was going to make sure she was repaid that. This was just the first of what he could provide during his stay.

He wrote on the slate, KEEP CLOSED. OPEN WHEN HOME. AS THANKS then passed the box over. He then stood, slipping his pack back on. He needed to make more trades before the stalls closed and no doubt the girl needed to settle things as well.

If he'd asked, she would have made it clear to him that it was less about pity — something she detested to be the recipient of, herself — and more because of a recognition of shared trauma, at what was likely a trusted person's hands. Rey's scars of abandonment and betrayal were internal, unlike this man's, and yet she knew they were crippling her emotionally all the same.

Alongside it came an innate desire to protect; if his hands were compromised, he wouldn't have much chance of defending himself were he to be attacked again for his wares.

Rey accepted the small box curiously after the stranger had rewrapped his hands, wide-eyed first and then wrinkling her nose in bemusement as he stood and slung his pack over his shoulder. Open when home. As thanks. A gift, and she hadn't even let him inside, yet.

"...You're not going to tell me what it is?" But she was grinning. She'd never received a gift before, not that she were ever able to remember, and giddy as a child she tried to guess what was inside it, holding it to her ear and shaking it gently even as he watched. She couldn't see it, but she imagined a smile underneath the shroud covering his mouth.

It was high time she headed back to Plutt to collect whatever meager rations he deigned fit for her salvages, so she stood as well, gathering her wares and placing the small gift box in the separate small pouch slung low across her hip. "I'll meet you back at the south entrance, when you're done. I won't take long."

The parts she'd gathered that day were apparently valuable enough to Plutt to warrant worth three quarter portions, even though Rey had estimated their worth at five. Strangely, Plutt had the audacity to ask of the companion she'd been seen talking with, but Rey had in not-so-polite terms told the blobnose to bugger off, that it was none of his business, and her trade made she headed out to the outpost's south entrance without further delay.

The stranger was waiting for her, as agreed upon; the sight of him stirred something in her that she vaguely recognized as anticipation, coupled with the still ever-present apprehension at extending her fragile trust toward someone. She'd never had a guest before now, in the meager shelter of a hollowed-out AT-AT that she called her home; not even Devi or Strunk had been allowed to visit her there.

I should ask him his name. Referring to him as a stranger, even in her head, seemed inappropriate if he would be staying in close quarters with her for the next several days.

Edited 2016-03-10 08:44 (UTC)

He shook his head in response to her question. She would find out when she opened it. He turned and resettled in a line.

By the time he was done with the trades - or most of them, there was a handful of things that he hadn't been able to collect but could be brought in the next day - he was tired enough that he just wanted to curl up into a ball in the sand and sleep. He was about to lay down when he saw the girl coming - she was hard to ignore, now that he'd met her.

He watched her approach. His pack had taken on new cargo - in addition to the parts he'd traded for, there was also a large plastic water basin tied over the entirety of the pack, almost large enough to be bumping into the backs of his knees. He lifted a hand to greet the girl as she drew closer, but had trouble straightening - he was sore, and exhausted, and the heat was getting to him. He longed, more than ever, for the quiet cool comfort of his cave.

Rey was used to scavenging from sunup to late afternoon, making one and sometimes two trips to Niima to clean and sell her wares, but while she was often energetic even after a full day's work, on this day she was exhausted as well. She recognized the shrouded man instantly — noting his stooped posture — and pointed him to her speeder, only a few yards away.

"That one's mine." He'd apparently made more trades by the look of what he was carrying, although she couldn't deduce what the plastic basin could be for. Nevertheless as he approached her speeder and she'd finished hauling the remainder of her salvage into the hauling tarp on the vehicle's side, she nodded at him. "Yours'll fit, as well. Pack whatever you can onto here, and then climb on." A stern look. "No matter how tired you are, hang onto me tightly — it goes very fast."

She fixed her goggles and her shoulder-wrap around the lower part of her face and hoisted herself onto the seat, waiting for him to join her.

He obeyed because he was too tired to do anything else. He wrestled the pack into place, being careful not to put too much pressure where the food was kept so it didn't get damaged, then clambered up behind the girl. He settled into place, then carefully reached out, curling his arms around her waist. He couldn't have said the last time he was so physically close to anything that wasn't a cave rat. She was warm, and smelled like sun and sand and oil. There was a strength in her that wasn't apparent just by looking - she was hardened not only by the desert, but her past, whatever that might be.

He nodded when he felt secure enough - his face was pressed to her back, she'd be able to feel it.

There was virtually nothing that had felt more odd to Rey in the entirety of her life than the feeling of the stranger's face pressed into the back of her spine where her shoulders met, his arms around her middle grasping her as tightly as he was able given his weariness. She was so unused to physical contact that she flinched at first, unable to help herself, before relaxing into the touch. She didn't remember if anyone, even her parents, had ever embraced her in such a manner.

The thought was banished almost as soon as it had floated into her mind and she started up the speeder, cautioning him to hold on.

It was a half-hour's ride across the sands — past the Imperial wreckages of both the Ravager and the Inflictor, great carcasses hulking in the distance — to her dwelling, and by the time they'd stopped Rey could sense her passenger was even more drained than she'd sensed earlier. She climbed off and unpacked their combined wares, hauling his in addition to her own without another word. She may have appeared lithe, but she was wiry and strong from her years of climbing and scavenging.

The entrance to her little home within the hollowed-out AT-AT was a large cannon turret that could be sealed off with a durasteel cover for when the rains came, effectively proofing the insides; she clambered inside, motioning for him to follow. Inside he would see that while the quarters were cramped, it was indeed possible to stand to full height, even his; she'd cleared the floor path of most of the consoles and equipment left over from the machine's use, so it was surprisingly easy to move around as well. There was a rudimentary stove and cooking utensils off to the left, a sleeping compartment off to the right, and several containers of something packed tightly into the compartments against the foreground wall. It was quiet inside, cool and dark, no sound penetrating the hull save for the door that was opened.

He closed his eyes at about the same time they went past the wrecked ships. They were going way, way too fast. It was enough to almost make him dizzy. He was only too glad when it stopped, though prying his arms loose from around the girl's waist was a task in and of itself. Still, he managed, just in time for her to drop off the speeder and into the sand.

He himself was much slower clambering down, and by the time he got his feet on solid sand again, she already had his pack in hand and all he could do was follow.

The inside of whatever kind of vehicle or fighter she'd made her home in was large enough on the inside, and it was insulated from the heat outside by whatever it was made of and the sand.

He peered around the little home she'd made for herself once his eyes had adjusted - it was cluttered, but functional. It was also clearly not designed for two people. He blinked, then settled in the first bit of open space that was not directly in some sort of path, taking his pack back. He rested his chin on the pack then looked at the girl, watching her even while he blinked tiredly. He was too tired to even ask what kind of machine this was, how long she had lived here, his slate seeming a thousand miles away even though it was right in front of him in his pack.

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i hope this doesn't seem too weird...........................

no, it's great! I like it - I'm just laughing at your icon choice. :3 and hope this is okay!

it's my 'idfk which icon to use for this situation' icon

she's as literal a desert rat as they come, Ben, lbr. ;)

should see the desert rats he rooms with ;)

ahaha, oh no. time to stop living in caves, Ben??

rather unbelieveably, they keep him sane.

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oh nooo, poor Ben. I was thinking he'd just taken a monk-like vow of silence or something. :c

nope ): (he can make noise, but not easily)

poor guy. also np about the changes!

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