Archive of Our Own

Hearthlight bleeds across the floor, catching on the pewter mug in Rey's hand. The tavern smells of old wood, spilled ale, and of the late-summer storm pressing against the windows. Outside, thunder rolls lazily over the hills, as if the sky itself has been given too much drink.

It's the last night of the harvest season, and the Duke has ordered a feast, so most of the men are up in the castle, eating mutton and fine bread made from white flour. Accordingly, its mostly women in the tavern tonight, safe for old Lor, who almost never leaves his table by the fire and who is as blind as a bat. Even Grummgar has abandoned his vigil by the ale cask, leaving his daughter in charge of the Sooted Scale.

"The dragon is coming," The daughter in question, Bazine, a slender wisp of a girl with expressive eyes, stalks around the long oaken bar and into the middle of the smoky tap room. There's flour on her apron, and a smudge of Grummgar's famous ale sauce on her cheek, but her voice is rich and low as she speaks. The dancing fire paints those same fiery orange highlights into her glossy, raven-black tresses. All eyes in the room are on her. On a night like this, they all hunger for a good story. With the war in the west in its fourth year, and winter at their doorstep, they can use all the distraction they can get.

Someone - Kay, maybe, Rey thinks - gasps, and Baz zeros in on the sound.

"That's right," she stage-whispers dramatically. "A fortnight from now, the dragon will be upon us, and woe be the poor soul that is chosen to be its sacrifice."

That get's Rey's attention. She's well used to Bazine and her histrionics, but a dragon, coming to their sleepy little town... that doesn't sound good at all. And by God's rotten teeth, sacrifice does sound even worse.

She bites her lip, unsure if she should ask. Bazine isn't someone she would call kind, not by any stretch, and she's been on the receiving end of the older girl's sharp tongue more times than she cares to count.

Luckily, Kay saves her the trouble.

There's an audible tremble in the blonde girl's voice as she speaks. She clutches at her tankard of small beer like it's the only think keeping her upright. “What... what do you mean?”

“This is the sort of dragon that remembers when this land was stone and smoke,” Bazine replies, and Rey has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “The kind that has no words, but knows your name just the same. The kind that don’t leave unless it takes something with it. Something precious.”

The wind shivers against the shutters.

Bazine drops her voice even further, and every soul in the room leans forward to catch her next words. “This dragon... wants a virgin. A girl, untouched. That’s the old rule.”

Jynn, who's been married to the miller's son since late last spring, exhales shakily. "Well, that rules _me_ out."

Murmurs pass through the room, like wind through a thicket of trees. Jynn isn't the only one who has nothing to worry about, it seems.

And here I was cross that Finn already has got me the family way," Rose murmurs next to her, patting her belly. She's barely showing, but she's been married barely three months, to Jannah's brother Finn who dotes on her - as he should, because Rose is amazing - and Rey knows that her friend is in equal parts overjoyed and anxious to have fallen pregnant so quickly.

Rey nods absentmindedly. Her eyes flit across the room, where the other womenfolk are chatting merrily, free of any fear of the dragon and its horrible teeth now that they know what it wants and that they are safe. Her own stomach, in contrast, suddenly feels like it's filled with lead.

“Good for you, Jynn.” Bazine says brightly, her smile showing all of her even, white teeth. “Of course, I don't have much to fear from the dragon myself.”

She begins to count off on her fingers. “There was the blacksmith’s lad, the traveling minstrel - tuneless, but enthusiastic - and that peddler with the crooked teeth who knew what to do with his hands.”

Kay groans. “We remember the peddler, Bazine. You told us. Twice.”

“Some tales bear repeating,” Bazine says sagely. “Especially those of the educational kind. I think quite a few men in Chandrilla could learn something from my peddler.”

Kay rolls her eyes, but good-naturedly, and raises her mug. “To community service.”

More laughter. Another gust of wind. Rey chews her lips. Who hasn't joined in their merry laughter, besides her? Is there anyone in the room who didn't nod knowingly? Who didn't whisper confidingly, if a little shyly, of their conquests to their neighbor? Anyone, anyone at all, besides Rey herself?

The fire pops, startling Rey and Rose, who half-rises from her stool with a small yelp, and sending a flurry sparks curling up the flue.

"Oh," Rose pats her belly and laughs nervously. "This baby is making me jumpy."

But it's like a spell has been broken. Around them, the women turn back to their tankards and their meals, Bazine and her scary scary dragon forgotten for the time being as the familiar susurration of voices that can be heard in any taproom on the realm on any storm-ridden evening picks up again.

Only Rey sits quietly at the edge of the large room, her hands curled around a lukewarm cup of cider. The talk swirls around her - teasing, bawdy, comfortable - but she can't quite join it.

"Are you alright?" Rose asks, eying Rey's virtually untouched bowl of pottage like it's an ill omen. Maybe it is. It's not like Rey to leave a meal unfinished.

"Yeah," Rey nods vaguely. "Fine." She forces a smile. "I think I'll catch a bit of air, it's... it's stuffy in here."

Rose frowns, pointedly looking to where the wind is beating the branches of the stately oak in the yard against the thick panes of lead-glass in the small window by the door. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure." Rey nods to her bowl. "Finish that, if you like. Remember, you're eating for two."

Rose rolls her eyes, but pulls the bowl towards her regardless. Grummgar's pottage is not to be sneered at.

Rey weaves through the tap room, heading for the back door, and no one seems to pay her any mind.

No one, that is, except for old Maz.

"You seem troubled, child," the diminutive old woman says, a wrinkled hand the color of walnut wood snatching softly at Rey's sleeve as she walks by her table.

Rey wasn't born in Chandrilla, she'd only arrived in the small hamlet eight years ago, when her guardian Unkar had inherited the forge from a distant, hitherto unheard of, relative. She's still new, still a stranger, even though most people seem to like her well enough.

Maz, by contrast, is old. She's looked exactly the same eight years ago, when Rey had first seen her - walnut colored, lined skin; startlingly large amber eyes; wearing colorful clothes of a cut Rey has never seen anywhere else. No one seems to know exactly how long the tiny woman has been part of the community, and no one remembers a time when she didn't look as old and worn as the weathered rock upon which Duchess Leia's castle rests.

Rey briefly considers shrugging her off, but if anyone knows more about this dragon, then it's old Maz.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Girl," Maz rasps, "if we weren't inside, I'd be looking up to search for that raincloud hanging above your head." She pats the bench next to her. "Come, sit, and tell old Maz of your troubles."

Rey sighs, but obeys, sinking down on the bench next to Maz with her head hanging low and not quite sure where to start. Maz lifts her drink - not a tankard but a small wooden cup full of something sharp-smelling and clear - and the many bangles on her wrists chime softly. When Rey had just arrived in Chandrilla, when she'd still had some of her milk teeth stubbornly clinging on, she'd been endlessly fascinated by those colorful loops of glass and metal, and she'd fancied Maz a fairy-tale princess for wearing such finery.

"Is it true," Rey finally ventures. "About the dragon?"

"That it's going to come and devour a virgin?"

"Yes." Rey swallows, wishing for some of whatever it is that Maz is drinking, and not the watered-down cider that she had with her dinner. "No one has ever said anything before. Not to me."

Maz clucks her tongue. "Sometimes," she says slowly, "silence is easier. Safer. There's things in the dark, things in the woods and in the mountains and the caves high up in the North, that might come when you speak them into being."

Rey frowns and eyes Bazine worriedly. "So the dragon won't come if we don't speak of it?"

"I didn't say that," Maz corrects her gently. "The dragon has come to Chandrilla every 50 years, for as long as anyone can remember, and it's taken a young girl every single time."

So it's true. Rey shivers. "A virgin?"

"Aye." Maz says dryly. "I imagine they taste better."

Rey blisters. How can anyone be so casual about this? "Aren't you afraid?"

Maz chuckles. "My Charles has been gone for nearly twenty years, Child, but I assure you that he was never negligent as a husband. I have little to worry about. You, on the other hand..."

Rey feels herself flush to the roots of her hair. Is it that obvious?

"I can't be the only one in town," she says glumly.

"It's remarkable, how many young girls decide to get married just before the dragon is due to arrive," Maz says. "Coincidence, I am sure."

Rey's eyes land on Rose, who has changed tables and it talking to Jynn, probably about baby things.

"Oh," she says faintly. "No one told me."

Not that there is anyone she would want to marry. At least no one attainable.

But still. A warning might have been nice.

"What does it look like?" Rey clutches at Maz's frail wrist. "It is big? Is it armored? Does it breathe fire? Can it be slain?"

She's grasping at straws, but if the dragon really appears only once every fifty years... then maybe there's something that can be done? The duchess has managed the lands much better than her father before her, a man that was reportedly consumed with grief over the death of his wife. Chandrilla is thriving and very wealthy. Maybe an army could be raised? Maybe the Duchess' brother, the King, would send help? Or maybe Unkar - who may be a worthless guardian, but makes a good smith - could help to build a siege engine, like a trebuchet or a ballista?

"The dragon has been coming to Chandrilla since the dawn of time. It's older than the mountains, older than the sea, older, perhaps, than the north wind itself. The last time the dragon came, I was a little girl, but I'll never forget, for it was a fearful sight to behold. His wings, leathery and torn, but still strong, blacked out the sun. His scales were scored and worn, but never broken, and he was the size of this inn. You've heard that the old Duke was scarred terribly?"

Rey nods numbly. Everyone knows the gruesome stories about Duke Anakin and his burnt face and missing limbs. How he would scream in pain in the dead of night, roaming the halls of the castle, and the servants were afraid to leave their chambers at night.

"He and twenty of his best knights rode out to kill the dragon, and Duke Anakin was the only man who returned that day..." Maz looks at her, her brown eyes full of sympathy. "I'm sorry, child. I don't think there's anything that can stop this beast."

Rey swallows past a lump in her throat. “Bugger."

Maz raises a brow. “Buggering would’ve solved it, actually.”

Outside, thunder rumbles again, closer this time, and Rey feels a shiver creep down her spine.

******

Rey can't sleep at all that night. Her mind is full of the dragon, of great, leathery wings bearing down on her until she can't breathe anymore. She lies awake in her little cot in the kitchen, turning and tossing until Unkar yells at her to keep it down.

The sun isn't even up yet, but since Rey knows that she won't be getting any sleep tonight, she decides to head to work early. Keeping busy seems like the only thing that might keep her mind quiet, if only for a little while.

The night watchman at the gate, Wexley, waves at her cheerfully, not even bothering to ask what Rey is doing up so early. It's not uncommon for Rey to sneak into the castle at all odd hours.

Technically speaking, Rey is apprenticed to Unkar at the forge, but her guardian is a miser, who will neither pay her, nor willingly will spend any money on new clothes or a fresh pair of shoes for his ward, so Rey had had little choice but to find another means to earn a little coin. Luckily the Duchess - or rather her husband, Duke Han, who has a taste for fine horses - had taken pity on her and given her a position in the stables. It's not glamorous work, mucking out manure and measuring out feed, but Rey enjoys the horses and their quiet, unjudgmental company.

It's warm and almost moist in the long, narrow barn when she lets herself in. The air smells sweet, of hay and grain and animals, and Rey leans against the nearest stall and just breathes in for a minute.

Eventually a big, black head looms over her and a soft muzzle presses into the crown of her head.

"Good morning, my Lord," Rey says, reaching up to pet the stallion's dark, velvety nose. Whisper snickers, nosing at her sleeve to see if she's maybe hidden an apple up there. The colt is barely two years old, not even fully grown, and already he's the tallest horse in the barn. He's a lot like his master in that way.

Rey giggles. "I don't have anything, you dolt, but I'm sure Ben will bring you an apple," she promises.

She allows the horse to nip her fingers - Whisper is always careful, like he knows how big he is - before she gently pushes the big head away. "I have work to do."

Whisper snorts and shakes his head.

"No, I do, truly." She picks up a broom. "I'll want to buy a new kirtle. If I am to be dragon feed, I don't want to wear this shabby rag." She snorts, humorlessly. "I'm sure even dragons have standards."

Another whinny, this time accompanied by a nod. Whisper agrees. Dragons probably have standards.

"Well, if you poop less, I'll work less. Deal?"

Whisper retreats into his stall, clearly offended, and Rey bites back a grin. "Thought so."

******

It's hours later, when the sun has long risen over the parapet and the shadows in the yard are short, and Rey has gotten lost in the pleasing monotony of her tasks.

She's almost finished currying the Duchess' favorite mare, Tantive, when the door swings open. Looking under Tantive's grey dappled belly, Rey sees a pair of dun leather boots approaching. They're terribly scuffed and clearly have seen better days, but there's no question that they used to be of a fine make, once upon a time. And they're huge.

Rey smiles. She knows those boots.

"Wexley said he let some mangy alley cat into the stables long before sun up," a soft, deep voice says, teasingly.

Rey's grin broadens. She straightens, looking over the mare's broad back and up.

And up.

And up.

Lord, he can't possibly have grown more since she last saw him. It's only been a week.

"Well," Rey teases. "I'm afeared they will let just about anyone in here, my Lord."

Ben - who is, despite their inequality in status (and height), possibly her best friend in the world - gives her a crooked, self-depreciating smile. "True." He frowns, taking in her no doubt rumpled appearance. "Have you truly worked since sun up?"

Rey shrugs. "The horses don't care when I muck out their stables."

Ben's soft, expressive mouth shifts into a thin line. "Why are you here so early. Did Unkar-"

"He didn't do anything," Rey says, hastily. Ben doesn't like Unkar, and while Rey can hardly fault him for that, she knows that it will only end badly for her if the gangly idiot intercedes on her behalf. Unkar is not the type of man to take such a slight lightly, and it's not like he can take it out on the Duchess' son. "I just couldn't sleep."

Ben regards her for another moment, before his shoulders relax. "Have you eaten? I brought bread and apples."

"For Whisper?"

Ben smiles. "Among others." He hold up a bundle wrapped in cloth. "There's also meat and some cheese. Cook was in a good mood."

"I'm pretty sure the servants are supposed to feed you, and not the other way around," Rey grumbles.

He laughs. "You're very prickly today, little alley cat."

"Today?"

"Fair." He waves his offerings again. "Let's eat? Tantive won't be cross if you finish currying her later."

*****

The sit in silence on the edge of the hayloft, high above the barn.

When Rey had begun working in the castle Ben had been away at the court in Coruscant, spending the summer with his uncle, King Luke. They had both been equally surprised when, come Autum, they had found another child in their favorite hiding spot above the barn. Ben, to find a prickly, freckled girl two years his junior, who wouldn't take orders from the young Dukeling, and Rey, to have her solace rudely interrupted by a boy who was more knees and elbows than anything else, who nonetheless thought he could order her around in her own hayloft.

It had taken a few weeks, but somehow a truce had been struck, and now this was their place. The only place where no one cared that Ben would one day be a knight at the King's court and that Rey was a parentless alley cat.

Rey thinks of that, fleetingly, as she munches on a wedge of blue cheese. It's tangy, and too soft, but Rey truly isn't one to turn down free food. The hay rustles as she leans against one of the bales.

The only sounds those of the horses munching on their grain and of Ben devouring a apple. He tosses the core down into Whisper's stall when he's done, swinging his legs expectantly while he waits for Rey to finish the last of the juicy, indecently rich ham that he brought.

His legs, she can't help but notice, hang down a lot further than hers, while she still - unfairly - has to look up to meet his eyes, even though they're both sitting down. Duke Han is a tall man, but she thinks somehow, in the last few months and - rudely - while she must have blinked, his son has grown to outstrip him.

And there's a shadow of a beard on his upper lip and jaw. Rey blinks. Surley that wasn't there last summer.

Rey frowns. She's known Ben since she was nine and he was eleven. Two children, from different sides of the moat. First mortal enemies - she was nine, it's easy to have a mortal enemy at nine - and then fast friends.

Back then he'd been a gangly boy, all knees and elbows and ears, topped with an ungovernable mop of dark hair.

The hair is still the same, but the rest...

Ben's a man. Broad shouldered and tall, with a sharp jaw, a slightly aquiline nose and callouses in the pads of his fingers, from hours of training with sword and bow.

God's bushy beard, whenever did that happen?

Rey swallows, looking up to find that he's regarding her with solemn, amber-hued eyes.

"Do you wish to talk about it?"

"About what?" Panic flutters in her stomach. Did he catch her staring?

"Why you didn't sleep? I think the last time I saw you this upset was when Poe stole the last slice of jogan fruit tart on your twelfth birthday."

A memorable day. Ben, barely fourteen and already a head taller than his elder brother, had tackled Poe into the pig trough, intend on defending Rey's honor over a slice of tart that Cook had deemed too sour to serve at the Duchess' table. Rey smiles.

"Well, Poe's going to be Duke one day," she says, "I imagine he can take whatever he wants. But I appreciate the sentiment, my Lord."

Ben's face darkens. "Not everything," he says, so softly that she almost doesn't catch it. She wants to ask what he means, but Ben's mood has already shifted again.

"So?"

"Huh?"

"Why didn't you sleep?"

Rey considers telling him, but only for a second. It's too embarrassing, for one thing. And for another, Ben is the Duchess' younger son, he's bound to know about the dragon.

Her face falls, because that is an altogether unpleasant thought. Ben didn't tell her either. "It's nothing."

"You can talk to me." He touches the back of her hand, so lightly that she almost thinks she imagined it, and says, more softly and so earnestly. "You know that, right?"

She knows. And she remembers how he'd howled and thrown Poe into the dirty pig water, not caring one jot that he'd get soaked too. And she thinks of Anakin and his horrible burns.

"Just silly talk among the village maidens," Rey demures. "Have you had word from your brother?"

Poe has been away for two years now, fighting with Luke against the infidels in the west.

Ben blinks, withdrawing his hand like he's been burned.

"No," he says, his tone clipped and decidedly mulish. "Nothing since the letter in March. Luke is still overseas, fighting in Mustafa, I expect Poe to still be with him." He sighs. "But worry not, little alley cat, we would have been sent word had he been killed or seriously injured. The King is very fond of him and of my mother."

Rey chews her lip. It stings, the way Ben is talking to her. Like she said something wrong, when all she did was try and switch to a safer subject.

She barely even remembers what Poe looked like, but she knows that Duchess Leia has been worried sick since the outbreak of the war with Mustafa. She'd assumed Ben was worried too, and this clipped answer is... strange.

"I'm sure he's fine," she says slowly, still trying to puzzle why Ben might be upset. "He's very capable."

Ben... snarls, or something very much like it, and gets to his feet.

"I'm sure he is," he agrees. "I should leave, my mother has arranged for my maths tutor to come and they'll be looking for me."

He doesn't take the ladder, the stupid, arrogant oaf that he is, but jumps straight down from the hayloft.

And Ben might be tall, and well built, but he's also an idiot. Whisper half rears with a frightened whinny as Ben's shout of pain and rage rings through the stables.

"Pig-fucking plague rot!"

Rey pales, and she scrambles down the rickety ladder, skipping a few rungs in he haste to get to him.

"Ben! God's teeth!" She catches up to him even as he tries to hobble to the door, and grabs him by the elbow. "Are you hurt?"

He glares at her, his usually pale face flushed. "Only my pride." His next step belies his words, for he almost topples over with a shout of pain. Rey hastily loops his arm over her shoulder, lest he falls face first into the dirty straw.

"And my ankle, maybe," he admits, sheepishly, as Rey leads him over to a bale of hay.

"That was... so stupid."

Ben grumbles, and Rey scuffs the side of his knee, rolling her eyes. Idiot.

She kneels by his feet, rolling the leg of his breeches up to examine his ankle. "Does this hurt?" Rey gently prods at his lower leg, only to see him flinch visibly.

Ben curses under his breath. "No?"

"Stubborn mule."

"Technically, I'm your lord. You shouldn't speak to me like that."

"Stubborn mule, my Lord."

He huffs something that at least resembles a laugh.

"I am sorry that I got upset," he murmurs. "It doesn't become me. My mother would be appalled."

Rey privately thinks that his mother would be more appalled to find her son, unchaperoned, in the hayloft with a stable hand, but she doesn't say anything about that.

"I don't think this is broken," she murmurs, hand still on his ankle where the skin is soft and thin and oddly hairless.

"Just my dignity then."

"You were right to be upset." Rey say softly. "We've known one another since we were little, and now I won't talk to you. It would upset anyone." She gives him a pointed glare, and he chuckles ruefully.

"Talk to me then," Ben rumbles.

He offers her his hand to pull her up, and his grip is wonderfully warm and firm. Rey gingerly sinks into the hay bale next to him, looking at her own, scuffed shoes. Those will need replacing too. It won't do to offer the dragon a poorly dressed virgin.

"Yesterday, in the tavern, Bazine told me about the dragon."

Ben nods. "He's coming next week."

"You knew?"

Ben shrugs, which she only feels because they're almost sitting shoulder to shoulder. "Mother was only a babe the last time he came, but she's been telling me tales about the dragon."

Rey exhales softly, feeling oddly hollowed out. "Oh."

"She says he'll leave, if we give him what he wants."

"And you're okay with that?"

Ben shrugs again. "It doesn't seem so terrible a price."

Rey's blood runs cold. Ben... her sweet Ben, is a monster. Rey can hardly believe her own ears."How can you say that?"

"What?" He sighs. "You may not realize that, but the threat of the dragon is what makes Chandrilla so unappealing to the neighboring fiefdoms. We have rich fields, and ore up in the mountains, but our winged foe renders us wholly unpalatable for conquest. A sacrifice every fifty years seems a small price to pay. Besides, grandfather tried kill it, and we both know how that ended."

Rey is still shocked. "But... Ben... how can you be alright with this?! Have you no pity? No conscience?"

"Rey," his tone is stern enough that she looks at him, only to see his brow furrowed in confusion. "Even if it were Whisper I would be sad, but I would pay the price for the good of the kingdom. It's my duty to my subjects. But a cow or two? Every fifty years? That's nothing."

Rey is about to slap him, consequences be damned - what are they going to do? Execute their precious sacrifice? - when what Ben is saying permeates her brain.

"Wait, what do you think the sacrifice is?"

"Mother didn't say, but I assumed a young heifer? Or maybe a mare?" He looks at Rey quizzically. "She just said the sacrifice has to be pure and... palatable."

Rey shakes her head. "Ben, she means a person. A virgin maiden."

"What?"

"Yes." Oh, God's teeth, now she's crying. "And in the tavern, yesterday, Bazine was telling the tale... of... of... the dragon. And the virgin, And... and I think..." It's mortifying to even speak it, but Ben won't judge her. "I think it's me. The only virgin maiden in the entirety of Chandrilla."

"What?"

Rey shrugs. "The other girls had time to... prepare. But no one told me..." she says bitterly.

"No, Rey, this has to be some sort of misunderstanding. My mother would never..."

"You said it yourself. The dragon can't be slain, and he keeps the duchy safe. It's a small sacrifice."

"And you..."

"I'm afraid so..."

"Rey," he grabs her by the shoulders, hard enough that Rey is afraid she might bruise. "I won't let them. I will find a way, please. This has to be a misunderstanding. Maybe... maybe Bazine was just winding you up. Or... or.... there has to be a way some sort of loophole. Something..."

Rey shakes her head, gently prying off his death-grip on her kirtle. "There's nothing, Ben. I asked old Maz, and she has seen it all before, the last time the dragon came. All I can do is either... leave Chandrilla -"

"No!"

"Or..."

Rey remembers what Maz had said.

'Buggering would’ve solved it, actually.'

Rey bites her lip, tasting salt from her own tears.

She looks at Ben. Really looks at him. At the width of his shoulders. At his earnest eyes, which are wide with worry. At his plush, pink mouth.

It's a face that's dear to her. And somehow, in the blink of an eye, while she wasn't paying attention, he's grown rather rudely handsome.

She's blushing now, she's sure of it, and she hopes that he will think it's because she's upset that her cheeks are suddenly tinted red. "Maybe there is something you can do to help," she murmurs.

"Yes, anything!"

Rey's throat is suddenly bone-dry. She trust Ben more than anyone else, but can she truly ask this of him?

"What, Rey? Tell me."

"You could..." There's a lump in her throat, one she can't speak past. So instead she decides to show him. Rey grabs hold of his pretty doublet and yanks his face down to hers. Their mouths collide, gracelessly, lips and teeth and noses mashing together almost painfully, and Ben makes a startled sound deep in the back of his throat. Rey drinks it down, not letting go of his doublet. He tastes of apples and honey cake.

The kiss - if it can even be called that - is messy and unschooled, but the confusion only lasts a second, before Ben is winding his huge hand into her hair, just underneath her lowest bun, and pulls her close. He angles her head, licking across her mouth as though she's the one tasting of sweetmeats, and not of that horrid blue cheese as she likely does. His tongue, cleverly, begs entrance, and what started as her clumsy effort to ask for his help has suddenly somehow turned heavy and hot. Rey feels an unfamiliar stickiness deep into her smallclothes, feels her stomach flutter, and all she can do is hold on as he devours her.

"Rey," he rasps, when they finally break for breath. "Anything. Just name it."

Rey gulps down air like she's been drowning, feeling jittery from nerves and other feelings that she can't quite name. "Sleep with me? Take my maidenhead. Then the dragon won't want me."

She can see the moment his expression, so heated only a moment ago, turns cold. Ben pushes her away, jumping up as though he's been burned.

"No," Ben bites out. "Ask something else."

Her eyes flicker down, without her consent, and front of his breeches is obscenely tented. Re knows what that means. It's not like he doesn't want her.

Rey blinks. Fresh tears are stinging behind her eyelids. "But why? Do you want me to die? Do you want me to have to leave?"

"No, of course not. But I won't..."he balls his fists at his side. "I'm an idiot." Ben hisses, more to himself than to her. "You should leave."

"But, Ben, why?" She gestures at his crotch, where the evidence of his desire is still straining against the lacing of his breeches. "I know you want to."

He twist at the hips, hiding himself from her. "It doesn't matter."

"Ben..."

"I said it doesn't matter." He says, coldly. "I won't lie with a girl just because she has no choice. I might as well force myself on you, and I promised myself I would never be that kind of man. You don't want me, alley cat. You basically have a knife at your throat, and I'm the only way out available to you. And I don't want that. We'll find another way."

"But..."

"I said you should leave. Where I you, I do as I ask, just this once, before we both regret it."

And with that he stalks out of the barn, leaving her behind befuddled and feeling utterly humiliated.

*****

Rey has always thought that she was good at waiting, but in the days that follow such a simple, previously unremarkable thing as the passage of time becomes a strange, alien entity.

Once, Rey used to count the days since her parents left, an ever growing number, and now she's suddenly counting the time until the dragon will come. A number that is diminishing every day, and her remaining time with it.

While the town around her falls into an almost giddy - albeit macabre - anticipation, with the young lads playing dragon slayer in the church yard, while the men erect a splendid dais in the town square. A sacrificial altar. Apparently, or so they tell her, there is to be a ceremony to bless the virgin, and afterwards a feast.

Lucky them.

All so the dragon won't eat alone. So that the monsters can all feast together, she thinks bitterly.

Rey herself is desolate. There is no other word for it.

She was lying when she said that she might leave. Plutt is terrible, but he's always taken care of her. With no money to her name, and no kin, Rey has no illusion how an escape might end for her. Even if Bazine and the rest of the townsfolk don't drag her back by the roots of her hair, she'll either end up in a brothel in Coruscant or dead in a ditch.

Better take the quick way out, she thinks. The honorable way.

Like this, at least she'll keep Chandrilla safe for another fifty years.

It's not much of a comfort, but it will have to do.

She hasn't seen head or tail of Ben since that day in the barn, and she's been avoiding him studiously, doing her chores at times when she knows him to be busy with his tutors or in the dead of night. It's not like she's going to get any sleep anyway.

The rest of the day she spends in the smithy, assisting Plutt, while surreptitiously working on fashioning a blade for herself.

What she'll do with the blade, once it's done, she doesn't know, not when twenty fine knights have failed before her. Maybe she'll use it on herself.

--------

It's on the day before the dragon is set to arrive, when her luck runs out.

Duke Han has ordered another feast, and Cook has called her to help in the kitchens. Rey, in all honesty, doesn't know why she agreed to help. Her new kirtle is bought, with a matching pair of slippers - and unexpected act of kindness from Plutt, or maybe he just doesn't want the whole town to see how miserly he's been keeping their sacrifice - but then again Cook has always been kind to her.

But Ben is here, in the castle, at the feast that's ostensibly been called to celebrate his parent's wedding anniversary, but which feels like it's to herald the dragon's arrival in Chandrilla tomorrow. So she's been hiding, peeling cushnips by the sink, and hoping that Ben won't have a reason to come down here.

"Girl!" Cook hollers, standing by a trestle table pilled high with leftovers from the feast. Heaps tubers and cabbages and steamed apples, and an almost untouched roast pig. Up above, in the great hall, the feast must be winding down.

"Yes, Cook?" Rey wipes a bead of sweat off her forehead. The kitchen is cavernous, large enough for ten people to work abreast, but there's nary a window in the entire space and the ovens have been roaring the entire night.

"Bring this out to the sty." Cook gestures vaguely at the cushnips that Rey has peeled so diligently. "It will only go to waste and the pigs will be glad for it."

Rey nods, glad to get out of the stifling heat for a little bit. "Yes, Cook."

"Don't let her wander to far," one of the kitchen maids jeers, as she walks past them with a bucket brimming with slop. "We'll need her services tomorrow."

There's laughter, cruel laughter that makes Rey's ears sting, which abruptly breaks off when cook hits the girl over the back of the head with a wooden spoon.

"Show some grace, you cow," Cook says coldly, and it warms Rey's heart a little.

The sty is right next to the stables, and Rey snatches an apple from a basket by the door, to take to Whisper.

To say goodbye.

She's barely two steps into the stables, when she realizes her mistake.

There's someone in Whisper's stall. A thief, taking advantage of the distraction of the feast. Just her luck, that she'll die like this, and not in the dragon's maw.

"Hello?" Rey calls out nervously, drawing her little knife from the sheath in her boot. "Show yourself! Slowly, I am armed!"

There's a mumbled oath from the stall, and a thud, like a sack of potatoes hitting the floor.

Or a saddle.

And she knows that voice.

"Ben?"

"Rey." He appears at the door, looking rumpled and like he hasn't slept in a week. Her heart, treacherous thing that it is, speeds up. He's still handsome, even with dark rings under his eyes.

His hair is tousled in a way that makes her long to run her fingers through the dark waves, to untangle the messy strands, and... he's wearing armor?

Rey narrows her eyes. "What are you doing? Shouldn't you be at the feast?"

"I have no desire to help them congratulate themselves on their cruelty." Ben squares his jaw. "Besides, I swore to you I would find another way."

"And that is?"

"I'll slay the dragon." His brown, dear eyes find hers across the corridor dividing them. "For you."

"Ben," She doesn't know if she should laugh, or slap him. Stupid, arrogant Lordling. "You can't. It's suicide."

"It's the only thing I can do," he says, stubbornly. He swings the door open, leading Whisper out into the corridor by his bridle, and huffs. "I won't stand by and see you sacrificed. The knights are all quaking in their boots. The townsfolk are salivating at the mouth, hoping for a spectacle. Mother won't act. She's besides herself with guilt, of course, you know she's always taken a liking to you, but she says that there's nothing we can do, not without sacrificing the safety of the entire fiefdom."

Rey doesn't bother to point out that Leia is right, in a twisted, horrible way. There's no telling what this dragon will do if its hunger isn't slaked.

"So you'll sacrifice her son instead? What if Poe doesn't come back from the war? Then the city has no heir and is lost anyway."

Ben sneers. "As I said, I'm sure Poe is fine. There is no other way, little alley cat."

"Why?"

"Because I can't live with the alternative, alright?" He roars, startling Whisper into a distressed neigh. Ben runs a shaky hand through his messy hair. "I can't just stand by idly and watch them do this to you."

"There's another way..."

He rolls his jaw. "I can't do that either."

Rey feels her own ire rise. "Then I'll find someone else."

"What?"

"I know I'm no Bazine, but I'm comely enough. There's some time before they'll come looking for me, I'll find someone else. Klaud, maybe, or Beaumont. Snap Wexley's son has asked me to go to the dance with him this spring, I'm sure he'd do it."

"Rey, no!"

"What are you going to do?" Rey sneers. "Lock me in the brig? I sometimes serve the guards, you know. Trust me, my Lord, there's no one more lonely than a jailer."

"You can't."

"Of course I can." She hefts her blade. The edge is rough, an amateurish piece, but it would have done the job. "I fashioned myself, in the forge, to take my own life," Rey murmurs. "If it's between the knife, and the son of a guardsman, who's been kind enough to me, then it's not much of a choice, I recon." She swallows, shakily. "You're right. This won't be what I want, but at least I'll live, and it will be on my own terms."

Ben takes on large, thunderous step closer. He's imposing, tall as he is and wearing that silly armor that he must have stolen from his father, his eyes full of rage. "I won't let you."

"There's nothing you can do," Rey says, refusing to be cowed. "I'll find someone who will help, if you allow it or not. It's... it's not my first choice, but alley cats can't be choosers, I suppose."

"Is there nothing I can do to dissuade you?"

Rey roughly wipes snot from her nose. She's a mess, but it hardly matters if he'd rather die than take her innocence.

"You say you can't let me do this, my Lord," she says, struggling for a semblance of calm and failing. "By the same token, I can't let you go out to meet the dragon. Not when twenty knights have failed. I won't let you throw your life away for me."

He's crossed the corridor, somewhere between one blink and the next, and suddenly he's so close that Rey has to tilt her head back to look him in the eye. And where she struggles for calm, his storm is still raging. "It's my life, Rey!"

"It's my body, to do with as I please!" She hits him, hard, in the sternum. He's wearing mail, and the fine silver rings bite into her knuckles, hurting her more than him. Rey hardly notices the pain. "You arrogant oaf!"

"I won't sleep with you if you don't want me!" He snaps.

"What if I do want you?" Rey snaps right back, the words out of her mouth before she can stop them.

She feels all blood drain from her face. She didn't mean to say that, didn't mean to bar herself like this. She meant, if there's nothing else, to at least die with some dignity.

Because of course she's loved him, ever since they were children. An innocent love, one that the dragon would find most palatable, but now that Ben has grown into a man, maybe it's not so innocent anymore.

Rey looks up at him, trembling.

Ben rears back, like he's only now registered her punch. Or her words. "Say that again."

"I do want you." Rey mutters mulishly, cradling her hand, which has begun to throb, against her belly. She thinks her knuckles are bleeding, but she's too afraid to look.

Ben takes her hand, so so gently, peeling her other hand away and exposing her smarting knuckles. His thumb rubs circles around the ache. "Say it again," he breathes cool air across her wounded flesh.

Rey pouts. "I want you."

"Why?" There's wonder in his eyes.

"You're kind to me."

He frowns, and she can see that that's not what he wants to hear. So she tries again.

"You bring me moldy cheese and ham and apples. You let me ride Whisper. You taught me how to hold a blade. You *see* me." She swallows nervously. "You're my best friend. And I know you wouldn't hurt me. You tried to kill a dragon for me." She sniffs. "Which was such a stupid plan, my Lord."

Ben shrugs, still focused on her hand, and not meeting her eyes. "Maybe. It was the only way I could live with myself."

Rey rolls her eyes. "It's a miracle that I like you so much. Whisper is more intelligent than you."

Ben laughs. "Any other qualities you'd like to list? Besides my love for terrible cheese and my staggering stupidity?"

"You're easy on the eye?"

Ben looks at her at that, plain disbelief written all over his pale, irritatingly handsome face. "Poe is the handsome one."

Rey shrugs, annoyed that he would bring up his absent brother at a time like this. "I don't even remember what Poe looks like. Ben, pl-"

And that's as far as she gets before his lips crash into hers

*****

"I want to taste you." Ben growls, even as he's urgently pulling at her chemise.

Somehow, they've managed to stop kissing long enough wrestle poor, confused Whisper back into his stall and then made their way to their hayloft. Their shoes and Rey's kirtle lie abandoned on the ground below, telling their own tale, and Rey can only hope that Cook won't send anyone looking for her.

"There's no time."

"There's plenty of time," Ben growls. "The dragon only come tomorrow. Please, Rey. I've dreamt of this..."

His lips are kiss-swollen and plump, as red as the filling of Cooks famous joganfruit tart, his hair is even more mussed than it was to begin with, despite Rey's best efforts to fingercomb it into submission. He's so beautiful that it hurts.

Rey bites her lip. "Alright."

"Alright?"

Rey giggles. "Yes, Ben. A handsome Lord is offering to pleasure me. How can I deny him?"

Ben grins, wolfishly. He smoothes his hands down her chest, across the small swells of her breasts, and Rey gasps. She did realize that they would be so sensitive. Touching them herself, in the quiet of night in her little cot by the hearth, had never done much for her.

But that had been her own hands. And this is Ben.

"I'm going to take such good care of you, little alley cat."

The carefully pulls her chemise up, eyes fastened on every inch of leg that is thus exposed. "God's teeth," he whispers, awed, when her curls come into view. "You're so beautiful."

His hands skirt her mound, leaving gooseflesh in their wake, and Rey has to bite her lip to keep from whimpering.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted this," Ben murmurs, lowering himself to lie between her spread thighs. "It's like one day we were children, and the next I was a man and you... were a woman. And then everything changed." He kisses her inner thigh, where her skin has rarely been touched, and now Rey does make a sound. "I've been wanting to tell you..."

Not, Rey thinks, that it would have changed much, before the dragon arrived. Because Ben is a lord and she is the ward of a smith. But Ben is right: Now everything has changed.

"You're telling me now," she says softly.

He shoots her a crooked, soft grin, and Rey swears she can feel her heart flutter. "Yes," he murmurs, "I suppose I am."

And then, without further preamble, he dives in. His tongue is warm and wet. Soft and firm and right, even though it should be wrong. As always, Ben is full of infuriating contradictions.

It's clumsy at first, but even in that lies pleasure. And, as it turns out, Ben is a fast learner.

He spreads her, with two fingers bracketing her center, licks a long stripe up her most secret parts, and all Rey can do is gasp and wind her hands I to his thick, glossy curls, torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away.

"Ben!"

"That's it," he slurs between licks. "Little alley cat. Please."

She doesn't even know what he's asking for, not precisely, but still this is all it takes for her to shatter like glass.

Her back bows off the soft straw and she has to bite her wrist to keep from screaming and startling the sleepy horses in the barn below.

Ben - wonderful, wicked, handsome Ben - gently pushes a ludicrously thick finger into her channel, crooking it upwards and - true - it stings a little, but all the same Rey feels like she might faint as another wave washes over her, threatening to drown her.

It takes a long time, or at least it feels like that, to come down from her high. Ben is still between her thighs, lazily scattering kisses across her abdomen. His thick finger - and, by the rood, how is it that she can still blush, after what they just did - is still inside of her.

Where his cock will soon have to go.

She feels herself clench around him at the thought, and Ben looks up at her happily.

"Welcome back, alley cat" he murmurs.

"Don't look so pleased, we're not done yet."

"I feel like I'm allowed to be a little pleased." He withdraws his finger, briefly examining the viscous liquid that it is coated in, before popping it into his mouth with a content hum. "Was it good?"

Rey chuckles weakly. "I think my ears are still ringing."

"Good." Ben rises to his knees. His breeches are, once again, obscenely tented. He fumbles for the lacing, eager and a little shy at the same time. "That ought to make this easier." He frowns, pulling some straw out of his waistband. "I only wish we could have done this in a bed." He looks at her, his head a little crooked and his eyes suddenly so very serious. "You deserve a proper bed, Rey."

Rey is only half listening. She wasn't lying when she said that her ears were ringing, but she's slowly coming to realize that that's not entirely true.

"Ben?"

"Yes?"

"Listen," Rey half-rises to her elbows, struggling to hear the commotion outside. "What is that?"

Ben frowns. "It's not the dragon, it's too early."

"No, but..." It's definitely something. A muted roaring.

Cheering.

People are cheering outside the castle.

"God's beard, what now?"

That's when the stable door flies open, admitting a flustered looking Wexley.

"Lord Benjamin!" He spies the shoes, two pairs of them although Rey prays that Wexley is too flustered to think of the implications. "Lord Benjamin! Are you in here?"

Ben curses in this breath, pressing a finger to her lips, before he straightens up so that the other man can see him over the haybales. Rey is mortified, because unlike Ben, she knows what his hair looks like in this very moment. "Yes? What is it, Wedge?"

"It's your brother, my lord!" Captain Antilles exclaims. "Sir Poe is back from the war and they say he's slain the dragon! You must come at once!"

Wedge is out the door before Ben can say anything else. He looks down at Rey, wide-eyed and deathly pale. The contrast to how he'd looked at her just a minute ago couldn't be greater.

"Poe is back," Ben says hollowly.

Rey nods, overjoyed at the news. This day could not get any better. "And he's slain the dragon!"

"Yes." Ben sits up entirely, tugging the hem of her chemise back down as he does so. "I expect you'll want to thank him," he says, and Rey is so excited that she doesn't even note his dull and sullen tone.

"Of course." Rey blinks. Ben must be in shock, after such long uncertainty. His brother has returned from the war. "Of course I'll come with you. We should both thank him."

Ben nods, distantly. Maybe he's in shock? "I'll... yes. You go ahead. I'll have to... change."

His clothes look fine to Rey, even if they're a bit rumpled, but she doesn't want to argue with him. He's been summoned by the Duchess, she expects that he doesn't want to show up with straw in his breeches.

"Of course," Rey says, smiling up at him. "I'll see you there?"

"Yes," Ben pats her ankle awkwardly. "I'll see you later."

******

But Rey does not see Ben at Poe's welcoming parade.

Or at the inevitable, impromptu feast that follows.

As a matter of fact she doesn't see him at all that day. Or the next. On the third day she grows impatient, going as far as to go to the main keep and ask for him, but after a long wait a harried-looking servant tells her that Lord Benjamin has gone hunting with the Knights of Ren.

But, since Whisper is in his stall, munching on a fresh bushel of alfalfa, Rey knows that to be a rotten lie.

The truth is that Ben doesn't want to see her.

Probably because he's come to his senses.

She's just an alley cat. A nobody. Whereas Ben is a noblewoman's son. One day he'll rule over lands, or go to serve his uncle, the King, in Coruscant. There's no place in his life for a girl that doesn't even have parents, let alone a title or a dowry past the clothes on her back and a shoddily forged knife.

Not that she expected Ben to marry her, but she was hoping... she doesn't really know what she was hoping for.

At the very least to continue what they had started in the barn. Nothing more than that, but now that the floodgates have been opened, the hunger refuses to leave. The ache between her thighs has never entirely faded, and she yearns to learn what it would be like to be with a man.

To be with Ben, specifically, because nothing of what she told him that night was a lie. He knows her. And he sees her. And she wants him.

And now she also misses him. So much that it almost hurts.

*******

It's on the fifth day after Poe's return, on a Sunday, that Rey is finally summoned to the castle. Not by Ben or by Cook, but by the Duchess herself.

It seems that the revelries will never end, even though the townsfolk seems somehow subdued, after having been robbed of their spectacle, because there is to be another feast to celebrate the return of Leia's eldest son and heir. With Rey, it seems, as a guest of honor.

She's of half a mind to refuse, because not too long ago these people would gladly have led her to the slaughter, but there is a chance that Ben will be there, and she sorely needs to speak with him.

She approaches the dais uneasily, wearing the new kirtle and slippers that were meant to be her funeral shroud. It's the finest piece of clothing that she has ever owned, but she still feels out of place among the lords and ladies of the fiefdom in all their finery.

"Rey," Leia, the Duchess of Chandrilla, greets her warmly. She clasps Rey's calloused hands in her own, which are small and as soft as only the hands of someone who's never had to toil in a smithy or in the stables, and smell of fragrant oils. She has Ben's eyes, Rey realizes with a pang. Brown, deep-set eyes, that seem more burdened than they should be. "I am glad that you decided to come, my dear girl."

It takes some doing, to not frown at that, because Leia had been as willing to sacrifice her as Plutt or Bazine, but somehow Rey manages. "Of course, my Lady. It's an honor."

Leia, to her surprise, frowns. "It's a necessity," she says, firmly. "It doesn't begin to undo the injustice that was done to you, but I hope that it is one small, if insufficient, way to begin making amends."

The Duchess squeezes her hands, and Rey winces as Leia, unknowingly, brushes across her split knuckles. "You must know that this wasn't what I would have chosen, had there be another way," she says, earnestly, almost with an edge of desperation to her deep, smoke-and-velvet voice. "But I saw no other choice, and with my brother fighting in the East, I could not ask for help from the capital. Rey, I think I have some inkling of how fond my son is of you, and I am so, so sorry..."

"I understand," Rey says, not caring how brusque she sounds. Leia might be the Duchess, but she thinks she might scream if the woman continues to apologize. "It all turned out right in the end."

Leia nods, giving her a shrewd look that makes Rey feel a little uneasy. "Yes, I suppose it did."

"I'm glad that Poe has returned," Rey adds, desperate to change the subject again. Unlike Ben, Leia beams. "Yes," she says softly. "I am glad too." She looks about the room. "Where is he? I know he wanted to speak with you. My dear girl, I will go find him..."

Rey is left alone, afloat in a sea of veritable strangers, most of whom look at her like she's something they would expect to find on the underside of their fine leather boots. She ignores them, instead standing on her tiptoes, looking for a mop of unruly dark hair that towers above the rest, but is left wanting.

Instead, Poe materializes at her side. The wrong brother. Handsome, for sure, in his own way, but not who Rey was hoping to see.

He shoots her a daring smile. It's crinkled, like one of Ben's smiles, but beyond that he doesn't resemble his younger brother very much. Looking that the two men next to one another, one would scarcely believe that they were birthed by the same woman.

"My Lady Rey." He says, bowing deeply.

"I'm no lady," Rey corrects him uneasily.

"Well, after the episode with the pig trough, I've learned not to disrespect you when my brother is nearby."

Rey looks around again, sure that the crowds will part and reveal Ben at any moment, but the obstinate crowds refuse to oblige. "Is he here?"

Poe waves his hand lazily. "He's about. Somewhere. Probably lying in wait by the pig sty, lest I blunder again." He hooks his arm into her elbow, altogether too familiar for a nobleman that she's last seen four years ago, steering her back towards the dais. "It seems you are to sit with me tonight." He shoots her a crooked, self-depreciating smile. Another thing that he and Ben have in common in a way that threatens to make her heart ache. "Sorry that you have to make do with the wrong brother."

Rey's mouth drops open, then closes again. She must look like a carp. "What?"

"Well, it seems obvious that you weren't looking for me just now. My ego would be bruised, if I didn't objectively know that I'm the handsome one."

Rey looks at him more closely, unreasonably riled by his assertion. And, yes, she has to admit that her memory, fuzzy as it might have been, didn't entirely do Poe justice. Or maybe that is just as side effect of the intervening years, and of the memories that come with them.

Where Ben takes after his father, Poe is all Leia. Short and stout, with slanted brown eyes, and unremarkable nose, and thin lips. He's handsome, objectively, especially when he smiles.

But he's no Ben.

Rey snorts, not unkindly. "I beg to disagree, my Lord."

"Mhm," Poe cocks his head. "I see. Maybe, since I have your attention, you could help me puzzle out a mystery that has been irking me?"

Rey cocks her head, intrigued. "If I can?"

"My brother, who seems to be conspicuously absent, has insisted that I sit with you tonight. And I must tell you, this has greatly vexed Lord Casterfo, who has been hoping his daughter might find favor with the newly returned heir to the duchy of Chandrilla, but Benjamin was most insistent. Now, I mean no disrespect, my Lady, but beyond my unfortunate encounter with a trough full of pig slop, I barely remember you. You seemed always glued to my brother's side, but you and I barely interacted before I left for the capital. So why is that?"

Rey shakes her head. "I honestly don't know. I'm sorry. One minute we were-" she blushes, fiercely enough that it spreads all the way to the neckline of her pretty dress. "We were in the barn, tending the horses, and then you arrived and Wedge said you had slain the dragon and... suddenly Ben was gone. I haven't seen him since."

Poe strokes his stubbled chin. "And that's all?"

Rey can't quite meet his eyes. She just can't. "Yes."

"I see." His eyes turn sly. "And, if I may be so bold, before that... did you ask him for help, with your... problem?"

Rey only blushes even more fiercely, if that's possible, and finds herself unable to speak. But it seems that it was answer enough.

Poe pats her hand. "There is no shame in that, my Lady. Society that asks boys to sow their oats, but maidens to remain pure until their wedding night. I call that hardly fair."

"That is... an unconventional view, my Lord," Rey says cautiously.

Poe smiles again. "You'll find soon enough that my Lady Mother is an unconventional woman. Now, tell me of what occurred between you and my lackwit brother."

"We didn't actually, we onl-"

Poe shushes her. "Lackwit or not, Ben is still my brother, and I don't need to know the details. But I think I'm beginning to see how all of this fits together. Did you ask about me at all, while I was gone?"

Rey looks at him, temper flaring because now is not the time to tease her, but Poe seems quite genuine.

"Sometimes. I knew that Ben was worried."

"Mhm. What a mooncalf he is." Poe shakes his head, like he's genuinely upset that his brother is an imbecile. Given recent experience, Rey can relate.

She loves Ben - she loves Ben, what a shocking realization that is, to have in the middle of a crowded room - but he is a mooncalf.

"Am I right in assuming that you don't wish to attend this feast?" Poe asks, head cooked and a small smile on his lips. "You'd be sitting with the handsome brother. And there is to be roasted swan."

Rey smiles, because that does sound delightfully exotic. Certainly better than moldy cheese. "Not without Ben."

"Thought so." Poe pats her hand again. "He's hiding in father's study. You know where that is?"

Rey nods eagerly. She's about to storm off, to find Ben and maybe talk some sense into his thick, handsome skull, but stops herself at the last moment.

"Will you tell me how you did it? How you slew the dragon? Everyone said it was impossible."

Poes eyes flash with delight. "Gladly, my Lady. I think you'll find the tale to be most educational."

********

She finds Ben in Duke Han's study, just as Poe promised, an untouched platter of food on the table in front of him.

Rey wants to knock, because someone like her isn't supposed to just wander about the castle as she pleases, but she thinks better if it. Rey knows the room has more than one door. There's servant's stairs at the back - she and Ben would play in the narrow, dark corridors when they were but children - and she doesn't want him to evade her again.

"Ben?"

He looks up, seeming more tired and even more worn than he'd been five days ago in the stables. His voice is dull when he speaks. "Why aren't you with Poe?"

"Why would I be with Poe," Rey puts her hands on her hips, trying to look stern, but in truth she can barely stop smiling, so happy is she to finally see him again. "Ben, you've been avoiding me for days, and this is the first thing you ask of me. What's this obsession with your brother?"

He laughs hollowly. "You tell me."

"I'm not obsessed with Poe!" Rey huffs, angry enough that she might just start tearing her own hair out, if it wasn't for the pretty braids that Rose had helped her with. "How could I be? I want you!"

Ben's jaw drops. "What? But... but you were so eager to be with him when he came back? You kept asking about him!"

"Because he's your brother and you care about him." God's teeth, this man. A lackwit indeed. "I don't love Poe."

"You don't?"

"No," Rey shakes her head. "I love you."

"You love me?"

"I love you, and I want you."

"I thought you only wanted to be with me because of the dragon," Ben admits mournfully. "That I was the consolation prize."

Rey shakes her head, stepping closer. "I'll admit that the dragon was the catalyst, but you're hardly the consolation prize." She looks down at the flagstones. "I thought, maybe, you didn't want a nobody like me."

Ben's chair clatters as he jumps up. "Rey, how can you even think that? I've wanted you since I was a lad of fourteen. Maybe before that. Whatever gave you that impression? I refused to bed you for your own sake, not because I didn't want you."

"Well," Rey says, a little coyly because her heart feels light. "Surely you can see, my Lord, how that might have been confusing?"

"I also begged to taste your quim." Ben reminds her solemnly.

God's knobby knees. Now she's blushing again. "That is true, I suppose."

"I'll beg again." He steps closer, until her vision is filled with him and nothing else, and Rey isn't sure if she'll ever get used to how tall and broad Ben is. "Please, Rey. Join me. Let me take you in a proper bed, like you deserve."

"I'm no one," Rey insists weakly, because she needs to hear him say it again.

Ben smiles. Soft and warm, with crinkles around his eyes and those deep creases that she wants to trace bracketing his generous mouth. "Not to me, little alley cat."

************

Their clothes lie forgotten, strewn like a trail of breadcrumbs all the way from the threshold of Ben's chambers to the large, canopied bed in the center of the room.

There's a fire on in the hearth, roaring merrily as dark descends over the countryside beyond the slitted windows, but Rey doesn't think that she would have felt the cold regardless. No, if anything, she's burning.

Ben's chest is pale against the dark-grey sheets. His skin speckled with beauty marks. A becoming flush has spread across his collarbones, bright red and persistent ever since she allowed him to taste her again. His lips are still shiny with her essence.

Ben leans over her, taking one of her nipples into his mouth and sucking greedily. It's a sensation that she doesn't think she'll ever tire of.

"I've dreamt of these," he mumbles, lust addled, his voice raspy and so much deeper than usual. His erection presses into her thigh, hard and hot and insistent.

"They're not much," Rey whispers. She's not even being modest. Ben, objectively, has better breasts than her.

"They're perfect." Ben laves at her other teat, leisurely, as his large hand skirts down her abdomen until his palm rests above her curls. "You're perfect."

For that, she fists her hand into his messy waves and pulls him up, kisses him without grace but will all the love in her heart. Fiercely, until they're both panting for breath.

He bucks into her thigh - involuntarily, she thinks - and there's something that sits deep and low inside her belly that throbs in answer. She widens her legs without even knowing what she is doing. It's instinct. It's where he belongs. "I'm... I'm ready, Ben. I'm tired of waiting."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, you mooncalf, I am sure." Rey rolls her eyes. "I've been sure since that day in the hayloft, when I asked you to save me from the dragon. You could have had me then, and I would have been glad for it."

"You know why I couldn't, don't you?"

Rey sighs, cupping his cheek. There's stubble on his chin, prickling against her palm. "I know," she says. "And I can not blame you. I know you thought I wanted you for the wrong reasons, and I appreciate that you thought to spare me a loveless tryst, but, Ben, I do want you."

His eyes flutter shut. "Mhm... you do?"

"Yes, you oaf." Rey laughs. "Now, preferably."

That sobers him up. Ben gulps, pressing one last, chaste kiss to her forehead, before he rises to his elbows and settles his hips into the cradle of her thighs.

"It might pinch," he says.

She knows. Bazine might be a prattle-box, but at least it means that Rey has a good idea what a coupling between a man and a woman entails. "I trust you."

It does pinch. Not too much, but more than can be easily ignored. She has no way of comparing Ben to other man, but she can do the math. Her Lordling is big everywhere, not just across the shoulders.

Rey winces, shifting her hips to alleviate the ache, which causes Ben to freeze above her.

"Am I hurting you?" Rey asks, mistaking his worry for discomfort, which is an easy mistake to make, given how pinched his face has become.

"Far from it," Ben grunts. "But this might be over before it's begun, if you don't hold still, little alley cat."

"Oh." It shouldn't be so arousing, to know that she has this effect on him, but it is. Fresh moisture seeps from her slit, easing his passage, and Ben slips another inch deeper with something akin to a startled oath.

"God's teeth, you're tight."

"Is tight good?"

"So good, my little alley cat." Funny that he should be the one calling her cat, when he is the one that's purring.

Despite his words, he gingerly shifts his hips, sliding deeper until she holds his entire manhood nestled deep inside of her.

They both gasp at the sensation. Ben has that pinched look again, like he's on the edge of losing himself in the sensation, and Rey... Rey feels almost unbearably full.

It feels like there's no space left inside of her, no room left even to draw breath into her lungs. Like Ben is everything and everywhere - above her, around her, inside of her - and it's hard to think of anything than of the faint, throbbing sensation of his cock sitting snuggly in her channel.

"Are you alright?"

Rey has to think on that. The pinch is still there, but with every twitch of Ben's rigid length inside of her it's easing and morphing into something gentler. Something that she wants more of. "I... yes. I think so."

Ben groans, hanging his head into the crook of her neck. "You'll kill me, alley cat, you know that? It doesn't take a dragon, all it takes is you snug little quim, squeezing me like this."

"Do you want to move?" Rey asks.

He chuckles, sounding pained. "So much."

She takes a steadying breath. "Then move, my Lord."

Still, Ben hesitates. "Are you certain?"

"Yes." She's so, so tired of waiting. "Please, make me yours."

He kisses her neck, softly, before he finally pulls back his hips. It's strange at first, this slide and pull inside of her, the pressure that isn't quite like anything she's ever felt before. Of Ben, above her, grunting and sighing, as he slowly pulses his hips.

Gradually, that strangeness morphs. The slight pinch abating, only to be replaced by something infinitely better. Like when he'd feasted on her, only somehow more so, even though just an hour ago she'd have believed that scarcely possible.

"Ben," Rey gasps as Ben shift his hips, hitting a spot that feels different, somehow.

"Good?"

"Yes," Rey nods eagerly. "Good. So good." She warps her legs around his waist, pulling him closer, deeper, anything to get more of this heady feeling, and Ben happily obliges.

He pants above her, curling his spine until his hips rest flush against her center and... oh. He's so deep like this. Like they've somehow become one being, sharing one soul.

The pressure deep in the cradle of her hips is growing, until she feels like she might burst from it, and still Ben is relentlessly laboring above her, is chest flushed and lathered in a thin sheen of sweat, his eyes so blown that they are nearly black.

"Rey..."

He thrusts again, groaning like an animal in pain, like she's heard the stallions grunt when they cover the mares in spring. It makes her clench around him in the most delicious way.

"Ben.. I think... I think I'm gonna...."

"Oh, yes, please." He's panting in earnest now, pumping his hips at a punishing rhythm. "Please come for me, my little love."

He kisses her, ravenously, like she's his air, and that is what pushes Rey over the edge. Her back bows and she screams her release into his mouth, not caring who might be outside to hear her.

"Ben," she pants. Clawing at his back to pull him deeper, to somehow prolong this bliss, this feeling of rightness. "Ben Ben Ben."

It's like all they remember is their names, because Rey is all that he can say, too, as his thrusts become increasingly sloppy and uncoordinated.

"Oh, stars above, Rey..." Ben pumps his hips once, twice, and then he stills, groaning as if in agony, and she feels him pulse deep within her.

They lie like that, Rey enveloped in Ben's bulk, sweat cooling on their skin. He pulses his hips feebly, as though trying to burrow deeper still, and Rey relishes the feeling. This is where he belongs.

Altogether too soon, he rolls off her with a sigh, leaving her feeling too empty.

They lie, panting, side by side, and Ben reaches out to take her hand. His thumb, calloused as it may be, is feather soft on her bruised knuckles.

The silence grows, interspersed by the cheers and the laughter and the sounds of the night that drift in from the windows, and it's not uncomfortable. Rey could remain like this for all eternity, she thinks, lying next to her love.

After a while, when Rey had been about to drift off, Ben is the first to speak.

"Rey?" He murmurs.

"Yes?"

"Be my wife?"

She'd been feeling warm and seated and barely awake, but startles her so much that her eyes fly open. "What? No!"

Ben, who had also been half-asleep in the aftermath of his own crisis, rises up to his elbow, looming above her with a slight frown. "Why not?" He pouts, clearly stung. "I thought you loved me."

Rey rushes to console him, but there's something here that her nitwit lordling needs to hear. "I do, Ben, but I won't marry you, just because you took my maidenhead and feel like you have no other choice."

"That's not..." Ben sputters.

"Now that you've taken my virtue, you basically have a knife at your throat...." Rey says slyly, and she can see understanding dawn in his eyes.

"You're too clever by half, alley cat," he snorts. "But I think you are mistaken. For a Lord to bed a peasant is a trifling manner. Educational, my mother's advisors might even say. Have you considered that I just wish to marry the woman I love, rather than have a match made by my mother? And Rey, think of yourself, what if I have gotten you with child?"

He says that last part gently enough, but Rey still feels chastised. She places her hand over her womb, like there would be something to feel, some way to know if his seed has taken root. But of course there isn't.

"I know you love me, Ben," she admits. "But your mother won't allow it. It's irrelevant what we want. I'm a nobody, you're a Lord."

"Did ever wonder why my mother is a duchess, but my father is the regent?"

Rey shakes her head.

"My father grew up in an orphanage in Coruscant."

"He's an orphan? Without a title?"

"Yes, that's true."

Rey's eyes must show her amazement, because Ben smirks. "That was, of course, before he became a smuggler."

"A smuggler?"

"Yes. And a thief." Ben shrugs. "So you might find that my mother doesn't have much of an argument in this matter. She herself married a nobody from nowhere, for love. My uncle tells me it was a terrible scandal."

"Oh."

"Leia can't stop us, my love."

"She might still try."

"I have a feeling that she doesn't want to," Ben says calmly. Rey thinks of the knowing look that the duchess gave her, and finds - astonishingly - that she agrees with Ben.

"Also," he adds with a smirk. "I'm stubborn."

Rey laughs. "I had noticed."

"Now that Leia has both her sons back, she could do to show a little charity. She'll need the goodwill of the people, now that the dragon is gone. Fear is a powerful motivator, but so is kindness." Ben hums. "I wonder how Poe did it."

Rey giggles. "Oh, he told me."

"When?" Ben scowls, which only makes her giggle more.

"Tonight, when you selflessly tried to foist me upon him. He told me the whole story."

"So?"

Rey laughs again. "He rode to the lair, seeking to rid the city of the beast, and the dragon was already dead."

"Dead?"

"Died in it's sleep, peacefully, clutching its hoard. At least twenty years ago, he said. He's dispatched the knights to collect all the loot."

"Dead," Ben says again, blinking slowly. "Than all of this was for nothing."

Rey shakes her head, still chuckling at the irony of it all. "Well, Maz did say that it was very old. But I wouldn't say it was all for naught."