so i was wondering where rey learned to understand binary (the language of astromech droids) because sheās a lone scavenger living on a desert planet and i was thinking that mabe sometime in the course of her star destroyer spelunking adventures, letās say sheās 14 years old; she finds part of an astromech droid thatās still functioning just enough to talk. so she decide not to trade it to untar platt for portions and takes it home instead, cleans it up. hooks it up to an old comm screen so she can see what itās saying while sheās still learning all its beeps and whistles. and then at the end of a long day, when she gets home, she scrubs the sand off her face, pours the sand out of her boots, and just sits and talks to her barely-functioning astromech droid, whose knowledge is thirty years old: coruscant, the seat of the empire (what empire?) updates on the construction of the death star. bounty notices for han solo, smuggler. the imperial senate, disbanded (but what about the new senate?)Ā
the hot, dry air of jakku, making mirages of old memories just outside the shell of her AT-AT. the desert so quiet that you can hear sand sliding down the dunes, in soft silky layers. rey, scraping crumbs off her plate with her fingertips, pressing her droid with more questions. whatās naboo? whatās a forest? how big is a forest? whatās a tree? how many trees are there? (no one else tells her about these things. no one else talks to her.) the droids go everywhere, she realizes. they see everything and keep everything, scavengers of memory and information, of events and people and ideas. she learns binary until she gets good enough to detach the comm screen and just listen; during the day she quietly practices binary to herself, whistling each beep and tone as she hikes the dunes to the star destroyers, her calves aching. when she gets home, the droid greets her with a happy beep. for a few months, it feels nice, strange, hopeful. it feels odd to have someone waiting for her. refreshing, almost.Ā
and then one day rey comes home and the astromech droid doesnāt beep, no whistle of greeting. the light in its glassy round eye is dark.Ā the fuel cells are dead. her heart sinks. she searches the star destroyer endlessly for another working fuel cell, tries to trade for them at nima outpost, but to no avail: the model is too old, any fuel cells that could work are all being used for other things. that night she wears her x-wing helmet and sniffs, watching the stars, wrestling with hope and despair in equal measure; in the morning she drags the droid to untar platt and trades its parts for twelve portions. the first portion is bitter and tasteless, more so than usual, but itās alright, rey thinks. her friend even fed her.
Ā and now she talks to all the astromech droids that pass through nima outpost. they donāt mind talking to her. theyāre happy to tell her how hyperdrives work, what a compressor does, how to fix an acceleration compensator. and every time she hopes that maybe, the droid will end up on a distant planet somewhere else, and itāll mention a girl on jakku, a girl who polished its casing and oiled its hinges, a girl whoās been waiting for a long time, and someone will look up with a twinge of recognition and realizeĀ itās time to go back. itās time for her to come homeā¦ it never happens. but rey tries anyway, because the droids go everywhere, see everything, meet everyoneā¦ she stays, and waits.Ā
annaxmalina
pixelskylines
areudirty
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
