Ysalamir

The storm ended.

Rey would have liked another few days of rest. Yellow bruises dotted half her flesh and her knees still complained about the long jog up and down the endless dunes. Her hand throbbed constantly. But with the storm over, it was time to leave this dead world behind.

Plutt had left all of Rey’s old clothes untouched, and so, for the first time in days, she dressed, covering every inch of skin from neck to toe. Instead of shoes, which she’d lost when she lost the Falcon, she wrapped her feet in thick strips of leather, like she’d had to do when she was young. She bound her hair in a three-knot tail to keep it out of the way.

She felt itchy and restricted, but there was no survival on Jakku without protection from the sun. Her first day back had served a harsh reminder.

Before setting out, she attached half a dozen small canteens and a pouch of rations to a belt she slung over her shoulder. A quarter staff would be of little use as a weapon with her hand so badly injured, but she grabbed one anyway. Food and water to last two days, a weapon just incase.

Rey opened the hatch, and without hesitation, stepped through it...

...And landed in a carpet of wet leaves.

Not again.

Rey’s **** aided eyes adapted quickly to the twilight of deep jungle. She looked all around in silent wonder. Trees in their multitudes, too wide to wrap her arms around, so densely packed only the hardiest undergrowth survived between them.

Plant life was foreign to Rey in all but the most general sense. She knew the hanging ropes were called vines. That undergrowth comprised the myriad vegetation below the trees. She knew leaves, and bark, and branches. But she was ignorant of many details, like the proper name of the interwoven net of branches blocking all but the slimmest flickers of sunlight.

You didn’t think I had forgotten you, did you?

After days in Hellhound Two without so much as a whisper, she had hoped he had. "You're controlling these... these jumps?"

Who else?

"What is it you want from me?"

Silence. Again.

Rey's leather footwraps had soaked through already, a lack of foresight she couldn’t be blamed for. Waterproofing was a waste of time and money on Jakku. She didn't really know where to go or what to look for, but she had two days worth of food and water and didn't plan on sitting.

The sweet smell of rotting vegetation dominated the earthiness of mud and dirt beneath. Birds above chirped a pleasant song to aid her travel. The leaves rustled without warning, followed by an animal’s frightened scream. Rey dropped flat in startled fear. She looked up in time to see two shadows chase each other through the branches. Playful, she corrected, aggravated at having muddied herself for nothing.

On Jakku, her clothes would have dried in less than an hour, but here, the air itself felt wet. Rey’s trek became a trial of mental misery. Were it not for the buzzing insects, she would have already stripped down to nothing.

Rey stopped, suddenly, searching for a subtle change she felt but couldn’t pinpoint. It took a few minutes to see it, the clues were so foreign to her. But there it was, in the matted leaves. In the undergrowth leaning slightly apart, rather than tangling together. In the way even the trees invaded her path less often.

I’m on a trail, she realized. A peek over her shoulder told her she had been on it for some time. Rey took a single step to the side and watched the trail disappear. She marveled at its natural camouflage.

Where does it lead? she thought. She had once read that animal trails often led to water.

And if the trail was made by something... sentient?

Rey had had enough. "If you were so worried about my safety, you shouldn’t have dropped me on this planet! Trails lead to destinations. That’s more than I had before."

Hours of sloshing through puddles beneath the damp undergrowth. Rey’s feet and knees aching from the uneven surface. She was deep inside her own thoughts when something above cried out in real pain, followed by snapping bark and falling branches. She ducked behind a tree just off the trail, searching the shadows above, listening for movement. She couldn’t hear anything over the beating of her heart.

Calm down, Rey. It’s just more of those tree-dwelling creatures. Maybe, but the sound they had made before was genuinely playful. What she’d just heard was the scream of something dying.

On she went, her eyes on the trees more often than the ground. As the day wore on the trail became more defined, either because she better recognized the clues, or because the clues had become more noticeable.

“Or both,” she whispered to herself. She kneeled in the dirt and brushed aside some fallen leaves. A human foot print.

Cautiously, she resumed her steady march.

Careful, little one. Go much further and I may not be able to he—

Zildrog’s voice cut off. For the first time in months, a sensation she’d failed to locate vanished from Rey’s conscious mind. It left a buzzing, droning absence, the kind you feel when a loud and steady noise finally ceases, leaving only a vibration in its place.

Along with Zildrog, so too went the ****. A strange twilight closed in tight, though not complete. The rare ray of yellow sun suggested full daylight. Rey could still see, somewhat, after becoming accustomed to the dark, but heavy shadows played tricks on her perception. She had to slow her pace in half so she wouldn’t lose the trail.

A while later, Rey stopped to rest. She prepared a full ration, watching the bread rise instantly with just a little water. As she ate, the jungle began to glow an impossible bluish-green. A bright blue blade of sunlight cut through the leaves, so intense that even indirect exposure caused Rey to look away.

Two suns? Rey thought.

Blue light, green leaves. Cyan, some distant part of her brain recalled.

And then, a violent, concussive pounding. Rey lost most of her ration on the jungle floor jumping at the sound. Again and again in practiced rhythm, so loud Rey had trouble thinking. Moments later, it ended as abruptly as it had begun.

But something had changed in the jungle. A rustling in the undergrowth suggested movement in great numbers.

Rey was paralyzed by indecision. Intuition told her to run. But the reality was very simple. She had no ship and limited supplies. No knowledge of the land.

"I can feel you now."

The Ysalamir have run from the drums, but they will be back.

"Ysalamir? What are—"

There are too many to fight, even fo— Zildrog’s presence disappeared.

At that moment, two dozen painted humans, wielding bows and spears, burst from behind the trees. Two had drums strapped to their torsos.

They looked like wraiths, white paint over black skin, approximating the bones beneath. Not so much as a loincloth hid their manhood. Rey felt her cheeks turn red.

They encircled her. Rey swung out a blood-soaked bandaged hand to blow them back, but the **** had left with Zildrog. Without the **** and only one good hand, there were too many. Zildrog had been right.

The tallest of them, so tall Rey’s eyes barely met his nipples, approached without hesitation, a furry dead creature hanging from one shoulder. The one that cried out in pain, she realized. The tall man spoke in a language she didn't understand.

Fighting was futile. She allowed him to take the quarter staff and bind her wrists tight behind her back. The drums beat as they dragged her along the narrow path.

She poured sweat into her restrictive clothes. It was getting hotter.

They followed the trail toward its ultimate conclusion. Even after they stopped and surrounded a patch of open land, Rey failed to see the door until six men bent and lifted the jungle floor itself. They braced open the huge door, covered in dirt and leaves, with sticks.

An underground tunnel lit by something she couldn't see.

Underground? she thought, curiously. Either they were taking her to a prison, or they lived here. In all the hours Rey had been on this world, she had seen nothing more dangerous than the tree-dwellers and insects.

The painted men looked up. Though outwardly they seemed unconcerned, their actions quickened. Rey noticed the cyan glow shift toward violet, even as the jungle itself grew brighter.

A third sun? Mist lifted as the temperature rose to rival even Jakku at mid-day. So hot Rey had trouble standing.

One by one they stepped into the tunnel. Not quick enough for Rey. She needed to get out of the stifling heat. She stumbled along behind all but her captor, who pushed her onward from the rear.

A steep stone stairwell greeted her at the opening of the tunnel. Downward she was nudged. With every step the air dropped precious degrees, until Rey felt she could breathe once more.

They turned and turned and turned through a maze of mud and dirt, held up by rotting wood. The light source, amazingly, seemed to come from insects crawling along the ceiling.

After long minutes, they came to a large, circular room. They must have traveled on a subtle decline. The ceiling here was much higher than she thought possible. The men spread out along the walls. The two drummers, at opposite ends, beat a deafening rhythm.

The tallest pushed her to the center. A metal pole stuck up from the ground, a crescent at the top, a large rod in the center. From behind, a blade cut through the many layers of Rey's clothing. Before she could react, her breasts were bared to all.

Calm, little one. You cannot win a battle here.

"You know I know that."

Rey allowed her legs and arms and feet to be stripped bare. The man lifted her bandaged hand up close, grunted, and let it drop back to her side.

Next, he stripped away the thin cloth covering her now-smooth sex. It became difficult to maintain her self-control. Every day her degradation seemed to multiply. She was having trouble keeping up.

"Ow!" The man smacked the inside of her thighs, hard, so that she'd spread her legs apart. The sting was sharp and hot.

Hands still bound behind her back, she could do nothing but bear the humiliation. The man then wet a finger with his mouth, coming away thick with saliva. He thrust it deep inside her pussy.

"Hey," Rey cried, pinching her knees tight together, tears brimming in her eyes, ready to use the **** to stop him.

You treat your sex like a weakness to be protected.

"I'm not weak!"

No, you are not.

Again, she sensed Zildrog disappear.

Rey closed her eyes and rode the wave of humiliation. She took a deep breath to master the emotion, allowed her legs to spread wide for the intrusion.

A second finger entered her, wiggling in a way that made her weak. Rey's mouth fell open as her eyes squeezed shut.

With those too fingers, he dragged her to the metal pole in the ground. A twist lowered it, and with wide eyes Rey realized its purpose.

"No." Frantically, she shook her head. "No, no, no."

A leather strip bound her ankles to the pole. Another twist and it rose to meet her pussy. The rod in the center was too long for her. And though the top was narrow, it widened greatly toward the base, before narrowing sharply again.

A second pair of hands held her tightly from behind. The tall man guided the rod inside her. Inch by widening inch. Rey stood up on her toes to avoid it, but in the slippery mud, this was little help. She felt it stretching and stretching, until it slipped all the way inside. She immediately regretted standing on her toes, as she now had no way down.

The narrow base allowed the muscles of her sex to relax around it, but the rod was uncomfortable large and deep.

She was on her toes, riding the crescent bar, unable to fall forward or back. They coiled rope around her chest, isolating her small breasts between and pinching them tight from top and bottom. Her bound wrists were lifted and attached at the small of her back.

When finished, her weight was taken by the rope harness around her torso and secured to the ceiling, relieving her sore calves. But, struggle as she might, there was no escaping the position she was in.

The tall man smiled at his work. Cupped a breast in his hand. Rey spat at him, and his smile turned wicked.