Sulit [ Ben Solo ]

XVI.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
[ kijimi! ]

They were talking, but Asteria was not listening. Instead she was staring at Rey, trying to comprehend what Ben had told her. Her granddaughter.

There was a reason that Rey's eyes had felt so familiar. They were Asteria's mother's eyes. Not only that— Rey even resembled Obi-Wan a little. She wondered which features she got from her mother. What had she looked like, this Euceya that had grown up without her real mother?

Did she have Asteria's silvery hair, Obi-Wan's light brown? Neither? Had the Areathian come through, and given her none of the look of her parents? For on Areathya, genetics worked differently. Children never necessarily had the same colour of eyes or hair as their parents, never necessarily had the same features as their mother or father.

Hence Asteria's sister's onyx hair and inky black eyes, where her mother was all light— whites and blues with a hint of brown in the eyes, and her father was all browns, hair and eyes both.

And here was Rey from Jakku, a nobody from a nowhere planet, who had Asteria's mother's eyes and Obi-Wan's smile. Rey Kenobi. Rey Rhyos.

They were talking, but she wasn't listening.

"Hey, 'Ria, are you here?" She heard Poe asked, and came back to reality. "'Ria, what do you think?"

"Sorry?"

"3P0 knows what the dagger says, but can't translate it. His programming forbids it. There's somebody I know who might be able to take him apart and get the translation on Kijimi—"

"Are you sure you want to go back to Kijimi?" Asteria asked, raising an eyebrow. He had told her about his past as a spice runner, and how he'd left the planet on a less than pleasant note.

"Absolutely not. It's a bad idea."

"It might be the only way," Finn argued.

"We have to try," Rey added.

"We should go," Asteria decided, giving Poe a look. Poe grumbled, but reluctantly agreed.

They plotted their course for Kijimi. She hoped that they would find the answers they'd been looking for there.

She tried to tell Rey. She tried, but they were interrupted and it hadn't been the right time, but now it was eating at her from the inside out. She deserved to know. She deserved to know, but how could she tell her?