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ReyRose Week 2023 will be here real soon! Mark your calendars!
Check out the announcement post for more details.
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[Image description: A poster for ReyRose Week 2023, from Sunday, June 25 to Saturday, July 1. The prompts for Day 1 to 6 are listed, free space for Day 7 and four additional prompts.
Day 1 is Soulmates and Role Reversal. Day 2 is Stranded Together and Hand Kiss. Day 3 is Medieval Knights AU and Only One Bed.
Day 4 is Jedi/Senator AU and Fixing or Building Something Together. Day 5 is Terms of Endearment or Pet Names and Forced Proximity.
Day 6 is Hurt/Comfort and Growing Old Together. The additional prompts are Last Name, Road Trip, Flowers and Cooking Together.
The background is a dark blue starry sky. The bottom right corner features Rose Tico with her arms crossed and Rey Skywalker wielding a blue lightsaber. End I.D.]
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rey/Rose Tico
Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Rose Tico, Poe Dameron
Additional Tags: reyrose - Freeform, ReyRoseWeek2023, Role Reversal AU, Light-Hearted, lgbtq+, Poe is tired and needs sleep, Ship Repairs, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Series: Part 1 of ReyRoseWeek 2023
Summary:
Rose needs her ship fixed before she can head to Ahch-To, but first—she’s going to need some help.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Tags: Alternate Universe - Medieval; Knights - Freeform; Love at First Sight; Fluff; Gift Giving; Poe Dameron & Rose Tico Friendship
Summary:
Rose is the squire of the brave Sir Dameron, which means she gets to meet all sorts of people – like for example the handsome and charming Jedi knight Rey.
A/N: Written for day 3 of @reyroseweek: Medieval Knights AU or Only One Bed
Rey, a gray witch, sets out to find a last-minute ingredient for a potion. She gets more than she bargained for when she discovers a cursed tree, trapping a disoriented soul inside…
AO3 Link
Rey adjusted her cloak, pulling it tight around her shoulders. The sun was falling on this patch of woods, and a light snow dusted the bare trees and sodden earth. She had not meant to stray so far from her hut this late, but she’d received an unexpected and urgent request for a particular draft. The vital ingredient of which only grew here.
She scanned the darkening trees, feeling for the right path. It came to her, like a quiet nudge, in the way she had taught herself to sense things. Rey had always been sensitive to the Force, but it’d taken many years of trial and error, and quite a few experimental mishaps, before she considered herself a true witch. As she followed the imperceptible path through the woods towards her quarry, she also walked the middle path of witchcraft, between the dark and light, partaking in hexings and healings.
Rey fingered the threads wound around her staff as she walked, peering into the growing shadows curiously. She didn’t come to this part of the woods often, and she didn’t want to miss other talismans that might prove useful for future tinctures and tonics.
Something cracked through the trees to her left, but Rey did not turn. The night creatures were awakening, and it was likely just a raccoon or an owl alighting on a branch. The winter air was crisp and put her at ease, numbing her fingers as it sharpened her thoughts.
Gradually, elm gave way to spruce, adding a velvet green to the landscape. She was getting close. Soon, the forest floor would dip, and in that hollow she would find the ground vine whose roots she required. Rey thought briefly about what was waiting for her once she returned with her bounty: a sturdy hut warmed by a flickering hearth, scented with the dried herbs lining the walls and yellowed journals written in her own hand. A cozy nest of furs to sleep. And a nervous little hen by the name of D-O.
The ground beneath Rey began to steepen and drop, pulling her from her thoughts. Best to stay focused and finish this before dreaming of home.
She found the vine quite easily, curling languidly around the base of a spruce sapling, as if it wanted to be found. The soil was soggy from an early snow that had melted quickly, so even with the cold Rey made short work of digging out the root with her trowel. She took two and left the rest, so the little thing could continue to live and give its root when necessary.
Rey wrapped the roots up in a cheesecloth, stowing them in her pack before standing and retracing her path home. The woods were properly dark now, and she wished she had taken a lantern before rushing off to collect. Fortunately, the small disturbances she’d made getting here left traces in the Force she was able to pick up on and follow back. It meant she had to rely almost totally on the Force, walking nearly blind in her efforts to read it, but it was working. The spruce were reverting to elms, and the ground was leveling out.
Something tickled at the edges of Rey’s senses, ebbing in and out like a weak pulse. At first, she ignored it. It felt like a life, probably an elk in the distance or a vole crawling in earth below her feet. But as Rey drew closer to the beginning of the path, as her reliance on the Force waned, the pulse became clearer.
Human life felt distinct in the Force. Some witches suggested it was because humanity was distinct from all other life. Rey thought it might just be because it felt like her, similar enough to her own life in the Force that she was able to pick up on subtleties she couldn’t with animals and plants. This is what she was feeling now, a human life thrumming on the threads of the Force.
Something felt off about it, though. Most human souls were vibrant, in one way or another. This felt mute, as if in a coma. And it was tangled up with something else, something old and quiet, something Rey wasn’t able to pick out. Even muted, this soul drowned it out.
She’d made it back to the start of her path, but Rey couldn’t go home now. Her curiosity had certainly gotten her in trouble before, but she’d never have made it this far without following it.
Rey pulled out a kyber crystal, one of the rare ones she’d found in trinket boxes at markets or traded with wanderers from beyond the hills. She used them only when absolutely necessary, as she never knew when she’d find another.
Rey placed the crystal between two specialized prongs at the tip of her staff. She closed her eyes and reached out to it through the Force.
Please, light my way. Guide me to what I seek.
Almost immediately, the crystal blazed a brilliant gold. Rey nearly jumped. They usually took their time to evaluate her request, sometimes refusing it altogether. Whatever she was following, the kyber must want to find it, too.
“Alright. Here we go.”
The warm light of the kyber crystal bathed the woods in a friendly fire. Rey felt newly confident and even more sure in her indulged distraction. Her course this time was rapid and sure, tracking a fixed point in the Force rather than a subtle suggestion or series of ripples.
Still, she was slowed by the forest itself. The soul she followed took her off any beaten path and deep into the wild parts of the wood. Trees grew close, branches tugged at her cloak and flat ground gave way into divots and roots. Each time Rey stumbled or faltered, the kyber crystal pulsed brighter, as if encouraging her.
Rey let go of frustration, trying to navigate intuitively and let the Force guide her footfalls. As she did, she honed in on the mysterious ebb, soft but growing surely stronger. She was close enough now to identify the thing tangled up with the human: a tree. That was why it felt old, and quieter than the human.
Rey frowned. She didn’t know how that was possible, but she’d long ago learned to trust her senses in these matters.
The ebb was so strong now it felt identical to a second heartbeat. Rey was close. The kyber crystal blazed the brightest it’d been since lit. She whirled around, trying to find the person she felt as if were over her shoulder. Only trees surrounded her.
Trees. This person was bound up with a tree, somehow. Again, Rey closed her eyes, surrendering her senses to the Force. She extended her hand.
Show me. Where are they?
There was an intangible tug, and Rey let her feet follow it. She kept her arm out, her eyes closed.
Show me.
Snow and dead leaves crunched under her boots. She felt her breath come out in wisps, the crystal humming next to her head.
Where are they?
Her hand connected to stout bark. The heartbeat reverberated up her arm through her palm. Rey opened her eyes.
She stood under a tall hawthorn. Its bare branches were highlighted with crested snow, and stars glittered between them. Not a person was in sight.
“I don’t understand,” Rey said. “It feels like they’re here, right in front of me. But it’s just this tree–”
She stopped. Something about this… Rey recalled a passage she read long ago, an aside in a book on dark witchcraft. As she stared at the hawthorn, the heartbeat drumming in her skull, it came back to her.
“Some dark witches merge their enemies into plants, rather than animals. Could this be–?”
The kyber crystal blinked, as if affirming.
Rey’s eyes widened. The tree she touched now trapped a person, someone who’d crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. Could they feel her touch now? Were they aware? How long had they been like this?
She desperately searched her mind for a solution, whatever might free this poor person.
She took a breath. As she exhaled, she imagined the world dropping away. The cold receding, the light of the crystal dimming, the whispers of hundreds of trees and creatures in the Force silencing. Rey narrowed her focus until the only things she sensed were the cursed tree and its bark under her fingertips.
She imagined the two as a knot, the tree and the cursed person a tangle in the Force. With another inhale, she found a loose end in the knot, where the person began and the tree ended. She visualized herself reaching out, taking this end. Threading it in and out, over and under the loops of the hawthorn. The knot loosening, the forms becoming distinct.
Beneath her palm, the bark was warming. Rey opened her eyes. A figure was emerging gradually from the trunk, like a sculpture from marble. She kept her concentration, still disentangling the final threads.
Bark became flesh, branches softening into muscles and veins. Rey’s hand no longer rested flat on the trunk, instead cradling the cheek of a rapidly emerging woman.
In her mind, the final thread of the human slipped loose from the hawthorn. Before her, the woman collapsed out of the trunk, naked at Rey’s feet.
As her mind returned to the world around her, shock washed over her. A woman, locked away from the world for who knew how long, lay before her. She was at a loss for what to do now that she’d freed this person. Beside her, the crystal seemed to hum with satisfaction.
Rey knelt down, sweeping off her cloak and draping it over the bare form in front of her. The least she could do was make sure the person stayed warm.
At the brush of the fabric, the woman’s eyes snapped open. She gasped, sucking in a hoarse breath. Her body jolted, as if by instinct.
“It’s alright, you’re safe,” Rey tried to soothe. “Can you stand?”
The woman’s wide eyes flicked to her. She blinked a few times, still choking and trembling, as if trying to understand what she was seeing.
Rey couldn’t imagine how disoriented she must be. It was unlikely she’d get anything out of her until the woman had eaten and rested. Certainly, she was in no state to be left alone, and there was no certainty she had anyone to take care of her. Rey would have to take her home. It was the only reasonable option. And, truthfully, she was curious and more than a little worried about this woman and how she’d ended up in this awful situation.
Rey pulled her to her feet, eliciting a strangled gasp. She sagged, her legs fumbling in an apparent attempt to hold her weight. Rey bit her lip. They wouldn’t get anywhere like this, and besides, the woman’s feet were bare. It wouldn’t be healthy to make her walk through the snowy woods. She fastened the cloak tightly around her, then swept her up in a bridal carry, using the Force to balance the weight.
The woman trembled against her chest, wide eyes staring blankly into the trees. She was like a ragdoll with how limp she lay in Rey’s arms. Rey adjusted her as she picked up her staff, ensuring her head rested against her shoulder. This seemed to offer the woman a small comfort, as her breathing steadied and her eyes half-closed.
The trek back was a little more challenging than the trek in, but with such a vulnerable burden, Rey made the journey quickly. Night had truly, deeply fallen, and without the warm golden light of the crystal, Rey was sure they’d have gotten lost in the pitch dark.
As they made their way to Rey’s hut, the woman seemed to gradually come to herself. Her trembling subsided, and disoriented sort of perplexion replaced the blankness in her dark eyes.
Rey broke from the trees, relieved to see her humble hut squatted cozily in her familiar clearing.
“Don’t worry,” she spoke to the woman, unsure if she could understand her or not. “Soon we’ll get you a nice meal and a warm bed, and–and figure out what we’ll do from there.”
As she entered her hut, D-O cocked her head curiously at her cargo. Rey shooed her off the nest of furs and gently laid the woman down. Her eyes slid over her surroundings, her expression still resembling that of someone trying very hard to work out a complex riddle. Rey pulled a fur over her, brow furrowed. Perhaps she’d make a restorative elixir for her.
She turned to her cauldron, which was already simmering with a stew she’d prepped for her return. As she ladled a heaping portion into a bowl, the woman spoke.
“Where–am I?” Her voice was faint, and so rough it made Rey wince in sympathy. She resolved to whip up something to soothe her throat as well.
She brought over the stew, wearing what she hoped was a comforting smile.
“You’re in my hut. I’m Rey, a gray witch. What is your name?”
“Rose Tico,” she responded after a long moment. Her voice was gaining strength. “But–why am I–here?”
“Take a few spoonfuls,” Rey said, handing her the bowl. Rose took it, staring at it a few moments before lifting the spoon to her mouth. She was evidently still a little lost.
“What do you remember?” Rey asked.
Rose frowned, eyes fluttering. “I–I was in the woods. I think…I think I was picking hawthorn berries, for a jam. This–this man came out of nowhere, started screaming at me about trespassing. Which is r-ridiculous, because those woods don’t belong to anybody, and I told him so. But he just started threatening me and then–”
Rose stopped.
“Then?”
“I don’t know. Things just started to dim. I–I felt like my skin was changing.” Rose looked at her. “This is going to sound odd, but I think I was a tree.”
Rey didn’t know how to tell her. She avoided meeting her eyes. She noticed a stray brambled caught in Rose’s dark hair.
“May I?” she asked, reaching out. Rose’s eyes darted upwards.
“Yes,” she said, the word coming softly.
Rey gently disentangled the bramble, pulling it out. Wisps of Rose’s hair followed and then fell away.
“You were cursed by a dark witch. He trapped you in a hawthorn tree. I was gathering ingredients, and the Force led me to you. I was able to free you, but I don’t know how long you were trapped, or how far from home you are.”
Rose swallowed, eyes wide again, this time with distress.
“Oh.”
‘Oh’ was about all anyone could say when presented with that news, Rey supposed.
“Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll find you some proper clothes, maybe make you some restorative elixirs. Things will look better in the morning.”
Rose simply nodded, seemingly still in shock. She laid down and curled up tightly, looking for all the world like a lost child. Rey’s heart panged.
She turned down the lights and herded D-O into his pen, before settling down opposite Rose on a spare fur. Rey hoped for both their sakes that she was right.
Rose awoke to the sound of stone grinding against stone, a rumbled whisper. She opened her eyes. The witch, Rey, worked at a mortar and pestle, her back turned to Rose.
In the light of morning, Rose could make better sense of her surroundings. The hut she’d been given shelter in was small and low, lit only by the sun streaming hazily in through narrow windows. It might have felt claustrophobic, but Rose only felt snug. Like home. Maybe it was the neatness of the place, dried herbs hanging by size and length, a workstation tidied and floors swept clean. Maybe it was the soft clucking of the hen around Rey’s feet, or the way she swayed ever so slightly side to side as she worked.
As if sensing Rose’s gaze, Rey turned.
“Morning!” she said. The smile on her face was brighter than any of the ones she’d given Rose the night before.
“I’ve made you a small tincture to reinvigorate you. You’re not allergic to peppermint, are you?”
Rose shook her head, not trusting her voice yet.
“Good. Let me just get this dissolved and I’ll have it ready for you.”
Rey turned, pulling a bottle of some kind of clear liquid from a high shelf.
The night before. Thinking about it tightened the clamp around her heart. Cursed. She couldn’t remember the curse itself. In her memory, one moment she felt herself changing , the next she lay in snow with Rey’s alarmed face looking down at her. Maybe that was for the better. She didn’t want to know what being trapped in a tree truly felt like.
“Thank you,” she said. Rey paused, looking over hesitantly.
“For rescuing me,” she continued. “I don’t know if I ever would’ve gotten out without you.”
Rey resumed her work, though more slowly than before.
“Any decent witch would’ve done the same. I’m just glad you’re relatively okay.”
“Well. Either way, I’m glad it was you.”
Silence fell between them, except for the clink of glassware. Rose didn’t know where that’d come from, but she was too emotionally weary to feel embarrassed. Besides, it wasn’t like she didn’t mean it, though she couldn’t explain why it felt right.
Rey brought over the tincture. “Small sips.”
Rose obliged, her senses sparking at the burn of alcohol and mint.
“Who can I send message to? Family, friends, someone who may be looking for you.”
Rose lowered the bottle, looking away.
“No one, really. It was just me and my sister, but she’s gone now. An injury took her not long before I was cursed.”
Rey was silent for a moment, and Rose refused to look and see the pity she knew was on her face. She couldn’t handle that right now.
“I’m sorry,” Rey finally said. “You know, you can stay here as long as you like.”
“You’ve been too kind already. I don’t want to stretch your hospitality.”
“You’re no bother, really,” she looked around the hut with a smile that didn’t make it to her eyes. “Honestly, it gets pretty lonely around her. I don’t have any family either. My parents left me at a scrapyard when I was barely taller than D-O over there. I’ve been on my own since.”
“Your parents sound awful.”
Rey laughed, rowdy and undignified. Rose liked the sound.
“I’ve moved on, found my own purpose in the world. I like where I am now, even if it is lonely still. And besides, anyone who can tell off a dark witch to his face could never stretch my hospitality.”
“Paige always said my mouth would get me in trouble someday.”
Rey laid her hand on top of hers, hesitant. Rose took it readily, giving her a reassuring smile. It’s okay, really.
“I’m sorry that trouble found you that way, but I’m happy I got to meet you,” Rey said. Her gaze rested on their interlocked hands, as if they were a rare fascination.
“I’ll stay,” Rose said, certain. She didn’t have much elsewhere to go anyway, and besides, something about Rey felt warm. Like home. “If you’d really have me.”
Rey looked at her, her expression open, unguarded, and written over with fragile hope.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rey/Rose Tico
Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Rose Tico
Additional Tags: reyrose - Freeform, ReyRose Week, ReyRose Week 2023, Growing Old Together, Future AU, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Series: Part 6 of Weikwriter ReyRose week 2023
Summary:
The worst is behind them, now it's just peace and bliss in a free galaxy
[Image description: A poster for ReyRose Week 2023. The prompts for Day 1 to 6 are listed, free space for Day 7 and four additional prompts. The background is a dark blue starry sky. The bottom right corner features Rose Tico with her arms crossed and Rey Skywalker wielding a blue lightsaber. End I.D.]
ReyRose Week 2023 will run from Sunday, June 25 to Saturday, July 1.
Here are your main prompts:
Day 1: Soulmates | Role Reversal
Day 2: Stranded Together | Hand Kiss
Day 3: Medieval Knights AU | Only One Bed
Day 4: Jedi/Senator AU | Fixing/Building Something Together
Day 5: Terms of Endearment/Pet Names | Forced Proximity
Day 6: Hurt/Comfort | Growing Old Together
Day 7: Free Space
And additional prompts due to ties during voting:
Last Name
Road Trip
Flowers
Cooking Together
Additional prompts are optional and can be used in combination with any of the main prompts.
To participate, mention @reyroseweek in your post and use the tag #ReyRoseWeek2023. All works, headcanons and memes are welcome!
Rules and reminders:
Prompts are just a guide. Be as creative as you want with them!
Your creations can include other relationships and characters, but the focus should be on Rey and Rose’s relationship. Their relationship can be romantic, platonic or antagonistic.
You don’t have to participate every day or post your work on the day of the prompts. Early or late posts are perfectly fine.
Tag your posts appropriately and use cuts if your work features NSFW, violent or other sensitive themes. Put long posts behind a cut.
Be respectful of each other.
Send a message or an ask if you have any questions.
