InsaneJournal

I was transported into that temple. The one that tests people.
Who: Celaena and Rey
What: Catching up
Where: Rey’s workshop
When: Early Oct
Rating: Low?
Status: Complete when posted



Celena hadn’t heard from Rey for a little while and she wanted to check that she was ok, especially after the chaos at the end of September. Knocking on the door to Rey’s garage, she poked her head round the door to look for her friend. “Hello? You in?”

“Hey!” Rey poked her head up from the inside of an engine, grabbing a towel for her hands. Luckily, she hadn’t quite completed her move to the Falcon, but it was hard to work on vehicles in a space ship. “What brings you around?”

“Can’t a girl come and check on her friend after almost world-ending events have unfolded in the area?” Celaena smiled as she sauntered into the garage. Running her hand along the edge of the vehicle Rey was working on. “You ok after last week?” she asked.

“I’m … I’m okay,” Rey assured her. What scared her the most was that she’d discovered a love for combat. That wasn’t very Jedi-like. And she would never talk about what she’d seen in that temple. Not even with Finn. “Could be worse, could be better. Just okay.”

She gave Cel a hug. “How about you?”

Celaena hugged her friend tightly. Something told her that all was not well in Rey’s world after the drama of last month. “I’m about the same to be honest,” she sighed, stepping back from Rey’s hug but holding onto her waist to stop her moving away too far. “Been distracting myself with dance. What happened to you babe?” she asked quietly, tilting her her curiously.

“Nothing really,” Rey replied, giving Cel her trade-mark beaming smile. “I’m more worried about you. How is the dancing going?” She wondered what Cel needed distracting from but wasn’t sure how to ask without having to share her own story.

Narrowing her eyes, Celaena looked over her friend carefully. She knew a distraction technique when she saw one. “Dancing’s going fine thanks. We have a showcase coming up which was pushed back because of everything that happened. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours?” she smiled gently.

“There was a tower,” Rey waved her hand. “Do you want a drink? Water? Something harder?” She wasn’t a beer person, and a wine cooler was ‘hard’ for her, but she did have some of those.

“Well, if you’ll tell me some more about this tower, then I’ll have a wine if you’re offering,” Celaena grinned, following Rey around the garage. “Might need it to tell you about the prison camp,” she admitted wryly.

“The what?” Rey stared at her, then rushed over to the little fridge and pulled out the wine coolers. “Are you all right? Where was this? When was this?”

Celaena went to reply, her mouth opening a few times as she tried to find the words to explain. “Umm...well see, my Dreams...they start in...in a prison. Well, labour camp is probably more accurate,” she explained with an attempt at a smile added on the end to make it seem more glib than it was. The salt mines of Endovier were something she tried to push to the back of her mind as much as she could, so she often struggled to deal with the disturbing memories when they raised their ugly heads. Not only that, but the scars on her back had reopened after the temple. She hadn't told anyone about that yet.

“Prison and labor camp aren’t all that different,” Rey mused. She held out one of the bottles, leaning close to Cel as if to offer her some small amount of physical comfort. Rey wasn’t very good at that sort of thing.

“Did...did that one tower take you back there?”

“They are when you're in one,” Celaena said softly and gave a sad smile. “Yeah, I was taken back there. To the night I cracked and tried to escape,” she sighed, dropping her eyes to focus on the bottle she'd been given. “I killed 24 of the guards that night and I almost made it out. No one had ever touched the outer wall before and I was a hair’s breadth away when they finally stopped me. I got a whipping for that,” she told her friend, her throat tightening at the thought.

“You didn’t escape.” Rey put her hand on Cel’s knee. In a way it felt more horrible than her own, but her own had been pretty horrible too. She just didn’t think comparing was fair to either of them.

“No, I was there another...three months or so,” Celaena shrugged and gave Rey a little smile. “The guards put salt on their whips after that. I only survived because some of the other labourers tended to my wounds at night,” she sighed. “Then a Prince and his guard came and took me out of there.”

“A prince?” It sounded like an interesting story, “Like in a fairy tale?”

It could be romantic, or maybe it wasn’t. It was hard to tell with this sort of thing and Rey didn’t want to assume.

Celaena chuckled a little at the thought of Dorian as some sort of fairy tale prince. “I guess, in a way Dorian was. He swept in, asked for an audience with me and gave me an offer I...couldn’t refuse,” she explained with a little shake of the head. “He took me out of there and...essentially turned me into a princess. An assassin princess and uh...that’s how I got out. I didn’t get away with just the Dreams here though,” she sighed and cleared her throat. She took a deep breath and a swig from the bottle. “Have you ever noticed I wear this necklace all the time?” she touched the item in question around her throat.

“So like some kind of assassin prince. Or did he just employ you in the killing?” Rey wrinkled her nose, deciding that wasn’t actually romantic and in fact something easily abused. She moved on from her question, peering at the necklace. “I just thought you really liked it.”

Celaena grinned and shook her head at the thought. “No, no Dorian wasn’t an assassin. He was a fighter, sure, but not an assassin, that was just me,” she explained. “Well...this necklace actually hides some of the scars that manifested themselves here,” she told her friend while playing with the small pendant at her throat.

“Oh.”That wasn’t what Rey wanted to hear. She looked at it again, then back at Celaena. “I’m sorry. I never got anything that bad, I guess I never thought that others might get worse scars.”

“Hey, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to say one’s worse than another or anything. We all go through shit in our Dreams, I just...I don’t want you to feel like you can’t share things with me if you wanted to,” Celaena told her quietly with a little shrug before taking a gulp of the drink in her hand.

Rey shrugged back, then looked down at her hands. She really, really didn’t want to talk about it but she thought that maybe, maybe she should. “I was transported into that temple. The one that tests people.”

Celaena nodded as she watched Rey for a minute. “What happened?” she asked quietly, tilting her head to try and catch a glance of Rey’s face.

“I was faced with … a choice,” Rey explained. Her eyes hardened, but she couldn’t look away from her hands. She certainly couldn’t look at Cel.

“I guess one of those Jedi tests. To do something or not to do something.”

Keeping quiet for a few moments, Celaena waited for Rey to carry on. “You can tell me. I’m not going to judge or anything, trust me I’ve made some pretty questionable decisions in my Dreams. Especially, y’know, killing people,” she pointed out, trying to relax Rey a little.

Rey rubbed her knuckles, trying to put to words what had happened and what it had felt like. “I let… I let my anger and my fear consume me. There was so much power, so much control, and it… it felt good.”

Smiling sympathetically at her friend, Celaena nodded sagely, understanding the feeling intimately. She knew in her own Dreams she had immense power. The temptation to use that for her own purposes, good or bad, was immense. Mostly, her friends were the ones to keep her in check, remembering what she could lose if she took one wrong step. “What happened? Did you...catch yourself?” she asked before taking a sip of her drink.

“No.” Rey shook her head. “I accepted it. Revelled in it. It was just… this raw power. I could do anything. But there was a price.”

Celaena was silent for a moment, waiting for Rey to continue. “What price?” she whispered, enthralled by her friend’s story and deeply wishing she could help her cope with it.

“I killed them,” Rey whispered. “I killed them all.”

Biting her lip, Celaena put down her drink and reached to wrap her friend in a tight hug. She didn’t care about what happened in the temple. It had obviously affected her friend deeply and Celaena knew Rey regretted the choices she had made in the temple. “It’s ok, it wasn’t real,” she told her, stroking her hair as she held her close. “You’re here now and you can make different choices,” she told her.

“It felt so real! I cut you down! I cut Finn down! Everyone I care about and love! I felt the rage and the power and I cut you down and it made me stronger!” She wrapped her arms around Cel, her voice raw and her eyes burning. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s ok, you’re here now, we’re ok,” Celaena held her tightly and stroked her hair as she pressed her cheek to the top of her friend’s head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. You’ve been through hell and now you can choose how you want to carry on, and I know you, you’ll turn away from what hurts your friends and makes you feel like this,” she told her. “You are the sweetest and kindest of people Rey and I trust you with my life,” she hoped she was reassuring her friend.

“But what if that happens here? What if I give in and let the anger take over?” She pulled away, looking at Cel through watery eyes. “I can’t let anything happen to you, or to Finn, or anyone else.”

She just wasn’t sure how she could stop herself if she fell.

Celaena smiled at Rey sympathetically and took her face in between her hands. “Sweetheart, first of all, you’re living in the OC, if anything like that were to happen here, there would be more than enough people with crazy abilities I can’t even think of to stop you if you did anything too crazy,” she smiled. “And second of all, I’m your friend. If things are getting to you and you’re worried, I want you to come and talk to me, ok? About anything! I am not going to judge you, you’re my friend and I love you, got it?” she told her firmly, looking straight in the eyes, wanting to make sure she understood.

Rey nodded, her breath shaky. She contemplated asking Cel if she’d be willing to end her if she went too far, but didn’t want to put that burden on her. No, Rey would just have to keep everything to herself if it got that bad. What could go wrong? “Thank you. I’m really glad to hear that. I needed to.”

“Anytime babe,” Celaena reached forward and hugged her tightly again. “I mean it, if you ever need to talk, you know where I am,” she reassured her. “You’re one of my best friends and I would never let anything happen to you.”