She lets the frigid waves crash over her skin and she drinks it all in: the savory taste of seawater on her lips, the gentle way it rises and falls to caress her; the warm light of a sun setting far past the horizon; the roughness of the clumpy, damp sand beneath her feet as she curls her toes;everything . It's new to Rey, but somehow the sensations are all too familiar to her. She's dreamt of and wished for the sea her entire life.

But she can't stay like this for long. There's training to do, as always. If she's not meditating, she's doing strength training. If she's not doing that, then she's sparring with Luke. And if that's not the case, then surely she is eating, sleeping or sitting down by the sea. It is not a bad life, in and of itself, and she knows Luke is trying his best to teach her well. And yet, she can't help but want for more meaning in her life.

Life is at a standstill, an awkward transition between her awakening in the Force and the manifestation of her destiny, whatever that may be. She freed herself from the dreadful repetition of her life on Jakku, only to exchange it for a new, slightly improved version of that life. Still, she had to learn how to survive, and even now she has no real companionship.

Luke is less than conversational, and she hasn't received any contact from the Resistance since Chewie took the Falcon and left her here on Ahch-To. Artoo stayed behind, but there's still no word from General Organa about anything. She has no idea if Finn has recovered, or if the First Order is growing stronger, or even what she is supposed to do once her training is finished.

She waits, because that's all she's ever known how to do.

A small wave crashes around her ankles and Rey feels something slick brush her feet, making her jump back. The wave recedes and she takes a hesitant step forward to get a closer look at the thing. It's smooth and slick, like the pelt of some poor sea creature that met its inevitable fate. She goes to brush it aside, and a pang of fear and curiosity comes over her as the pelt begins pulsing with a strange energy that seems to draw her in.

Steeling herself, Rey reaches for the pelt and it warms in her hands, the dull glow of its energy engulfing her Force signature. Suddenly her ears are ringing, sweat gathering in beads on her brow as she feels herself being flung into another reality.

She finds herself in the middle of a lush green field, and in the distance, there is a sparse collection of cozy little dwellings. Her feet carry her forward without her command, weaving throughout the little village until she comes to a stop in front of a hut with soft murmurs floating from inside. The door is ajar and she steps in, finding a small group of humans huddled into a corner, staring in awe at something special.

She steps closer and feels weak in the knees when she sees a child, barely a week old, wrapped up and clutching a handmade doll. Her breath hitches in her throat when she recognizes it as the doll she kept with her in her fallen AT-AT on Jakku. It is not a vision of the future; it is her own forgotten memory.

"She's called Rey," a woman says breathily, breaking the silence with a loving glance towards the child- or rather, Rey herself. Rey takes a moment to drink it all in, the woman with the gentle creases near her eyes and soft brown hair pulled back into a long braid, the man with the messy dark hair and hardened eyes that softened when looking down at his child, the low, humming whir of a power generator somewhere outside. All of it is perfect. All of it is home.

She hears dragging steps and turns to see a man limping into the room, aged with eyes that were unsettlingly knowing. He walks over, greeting the two young parents as baby Rey coos and fusses. A warm smile creeps onto his face as he pulls something out of his pack- the pelt from the shore.

"I've been waiting to give you this, since the child was born," says the wizened man, insistently placing the pelt into their hands. The woman visibly recoils from it and tries to return it to him.

"What is it?" the younger man asks, taking it from his wife and inspecting it in his hands.

"The pelt of a creature called the selkie, strong in the Force. It used to roam the waters of a distant planet called Ahch-To, singing an enchanting melody, and when it removed its pelt, it transformed into a human. Legend has it that some selkies abandoned their kind to follow the way of the Jedi, but the selkies disappeared ages ago. No one has seen one in a very long while." Baby Rey wails at that, and her parents let out tired sighs as they turn to console their child.

"It is also said that the pelt of a selkie has a soothing effect that might help with the child," he adds pointedly, as he watches the two struggle.

"We'll take it then, thank you," says the mother hurriedly, grabbing the pelt and draping it over the child. Young Rey's sobs sputter to a close and the young parents nearly cry with relief. The old man is nearly out of the door when the mother calls out for him.

"Wait," she exclaims, grasping his arm and pulling him back. "What is your name?"

"You can call me Saal-Tik." In a whir of blending color and sound, Rey feels herself being ripped away from the memory, and suddenly she's back in the same house, but it's empty.

In the corner there is rustling, and Rey whips around to find a small child with her hair pulled sloppily into three little buns, her four year-old self. With a quick glance over her shoulder, young Rey scrambles over to a shelf, the selkie pelt just barely out of reach. Face scrunched in determination, she reaches out farther until the pelt slides just enough to meet her fingertips.

The child jolts in surprise, but soon clutches the pelt in her hands. With a short tinkling laugh, she wraps the pelt around herself and she's dancing around, light and joyfully on her feet. She twirls, spins, and leaps, and for a moment Rey feels herself getting caught up in the purity of her young, jovial self grinning with every tooth showing.

A jar shatters suddenly on the highest shelf and she cries out as shards of glass rain down on the child. The light bursts into a shower of sparks above her and suddenly young Rey is left in the dark, until the door slides open and her mother comes rushing in, lines around her eyes crinkling in concern. She's all hands and soothing words, rocking her child back and forth as muffled sobs come from the face buried into her shoulders.

"Shhh, hush, Rey, you're safe. You're safe with me." The woman glances up as her husband rushes wordlessly into the room, eyes darkening as he takes in his inconsolable child with the pelt covering her narrow, trembling shoulders. He tears it away from her, clenching it in his fingers, white knuckles looking half ready to tear it apart.

"This is the fourth time," he sighs as he drops down beside them, taking the two into his arms. Drawing a shaky breath, he asked softly, "Is she- do you think she could be Force sensitive?"

"That man, Saal-Tik, he said some selkies became Jedi. Maybe she's like them, maybe she's strong in the Force."

The woman breathes a shaky breath, barely nodding. "Maybe. All I know is that she can't stay here. The First Order is always watching for children like her, and there are so many sympathizers here, she's not safe. And she's certainly not safe around that pelt."

Little Rey protests as her father gently pulls the pelt from her iron grip. There's a wrenching in her gut and Rey finds herself thrown from the scene, landing on her knees back on Ahch-To. She saw them. She saw her parents' faces for what felt like the first time, and the thought is nearly too much to handle.

Her mind is raw and battered and she feels the impulse to sob and lash out all at once. It's all too much to take in, and once again her mind begins to throb with the storm of emotions she's feeling, until a gentle presence washes over her like a wave. Rey is taken aback completely, with the ghosts of arms tightly wrapped around her and soothing words being whispered close to her ear. Her labored breaths slow, and as soon she feels grounded again, she tries to reach out in her mind to the presence. It disappears as quickly as it comes, like a wave crashing onto the sand.

Rey tries to shake the feeling that she was being watched, and goes to pick up the pelt. Its energy has shifted, and a sense of calmness covers her like a blanket, cloaking her mind from the fear and longing that the vision struck her with. Wrapping the pelt around her shoulders, she begins to gather her bearings.

With her pike strapped behind her, Rey makes the hike back up to where she knows she can find Luke. Of course, he is right where she expects, perched atop a precariously stacked rock overlooking the sea. She feels his steady presence in the Force reach out to her, and she knows he sees her without having to even glance her way.

"Let me have a look," he says, nodding toward the pelt wrapped around her shoulders. She's hesitant to hand over something that seems so important, but she trusts Luke.

"Where did you find this?" he asks, observing every detail of the pelt thoughtfully. There's a spark of poorly hidden curiosity behind his eyes, almost childlike.

"It was down by the shore. I touched it and... I saw something. It was like a vision of the past. I- I think I saw my parents."

"Do you know what a Force artifact is, Rey?" She shakes her head. "With a Force artifact, your power in the Force is amplified in ways that can rarely be accomplished without one. I've been searching for something like this for a very long time, Rey. There is great power in things like this. Anyone who is Force sensitive can use it to their advantage, but this particular one seems to have latched on to you."

"Oh," is all she can say on the subject. She's only just started to manipulate the Force to do her will, and she hardly knows what to do with such an important artifact. But Luke hands her the pelt and looks at her as if he expects her to do great things, and after living most of her life without anyone looking at her as if she was worth anything, Rey is desperate to prove herself.

So for the next week, she's back to training harder than she ever has before. She throws herself wholeheartedly into sparring with Luke, who can barely keep up with her endless spring of energy. With the pelt on her back she has an extra push behind her that centers herself in the Force, allowing Rey to anticipate her master's next moves farther in advance. He shifts his weight to the left, aiming a strike toward her uncovered ribs. Her mind is buzzing and she notices his attack a moment before it happens, just in time to tuck and roll away from him.

Luke seems pleased with her progress, and they make small talk over a meal of tasteless gleb rations they scavenged from the Falcon weeks before. What they have is not much, but Rey has never known good food, and she isn't the type to waste what is freely given to her.

Rey is halfway done stuffing her face with all the food she can manage when she hears a mechanical whirr and turns to see R2-D2 blinking back to life. The droid is frantic with its rushed beeping, and Rey gets up to press the button to turn on the holo projector.

Luke catches her hand before she can get to do anything. "I've got this, Rey, you go on up a meditate and I'll join you later." She felt a rush of anger at his unwillingness to let her listen to the transmission, but she pushed those feelings down inside her, slowly expelling them with a long breath.

Rey feels as if she's been waiting for Master Luke for hours, and she tries swatting away all distracting thoughts of Artoo's message, to no avail. She's on edge, and feels a sense of foreboding roll over her like a heavy storm cloud. Giving up on meditation, Rey gets up and makes the trek back down the cliffside, where she finds Luke back on his favorite ledge, which overlooks the vast expanse of the sea.

He climbs down and as he comes closer she can see the lines of distress framing his eyes, fresh and disconcerting.

"We have a mission to undertake."