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Rey made a slight adjustment in the far corner of their bedroom and turned to Finn, eyebrows high.
“Okay, how about there?”
“That’s not bad ...” Finn was squinting. “But it’s sort of dark isn’t it? Shouldn’t we put it someplace a little brighter?”
“No. The shopkeeper told me that it needs only indirect sun or the leaves will go white. These plants do best on low-light worlds, so I’m a little surprised that a nursery on a planet that gets 14 straight hours of sunlight even had one for sale.”
Rey stepped back and surveyed her handiwork.
“Anyway, I think it’s perfect there. This corner is shady, but not too, and I think it gives a nice balance to the room, don’t you?”
Finn murmured something Rey could not quite catch. It seemed to be quietly voiced agreement, but Rey wondered if he’d even heard what she’d said. From the time they’d come into the room, his eyes had been fixed to the new addition: A Tarisian spider fern, green-fringed and floppy, its purplish stalks mottled with deep brown spots.
Studying the plant, Rey felt a slight pang of guilt for thinking it somewhat ugly. The day had started off so positively, too. She and Finn had gone to the plant nursery on the other side of the marketplace in high spirits. They had all but finished outfitting their small apartment with the necessities and now felt they could turn their thoughts toward some of the non-essentials to make their new home truly a home.
And they had thrown themselves into decorating with wild(ish) abandon. On a shelf in the entry way there was pottery from a Dor Nemethian artisan who had a stall in the sprawling marketplace just a few meters from their apartment complex. A week or so earlier, Finn had brought home a canvas splashed with bright colors and blotches that he’d been told was an early work from one of Chalacta’s up-and-coming artists. It hung in their living room, above a small couch. Rey had to admit that it added a certain something to the space. She wasn’t sure exactly what that something was, but it was there, nevertheless.
Rey had wanted to adorn their apartment with plants from the time they’d decided on Frente II – a little-known planet right on the edge of the Expansion Region – as their new home. The atmosphere was much more arid than Ajan Kloss, but not as dry (or sandy) as Jakku, and Rey was not sure what sort of plants would thrive in the climate.
She and Finn had stumbled across the plant nursery by accident as they’d headed to a cantina that Beaumont Kin had suggested they try. Rey had decided it was no time like the present to begin her quest for greenery, but the nursery had been closed. She’d ferreted out the hours – it was owned by an Abednedo who had synchronized his shop hours to sync with the current time on his homeworld – and had persuaded Finn to accompany her. The shopkeeper had been accommodating and friendly, pointing out different plants that would be low-maintenance and attractive, and Rey had nearly decided on a Dantooine fiddle leaf, its bright-green leaves slightly gilded and standing tall and proud in its pot.
Then she’d turned around and caught a glimpse of Finn off in a dark spot, gently touching the drooping leaves of a plant that seemed hidden in shadow. The expression on his face was indescribable, but it was one that twigged Rey’s heart when he asked the shopkeeper how much that plant cost. It was next to nothing, the shopkeeper explaining that his purveyor put it in his order by mistake and as this particular plant had aroused no interest, it was on the verge of going to the dump on the edge of town. Finn’s look of horror sealed the deal. With regret, Rey bid a silent goodbye to the fiddle leaf. She and Finn had decided on just one plant to start with, and then they’d see about expanding their collection.
Rey shook her head, forcing herself out of the memory. Well, the was here now, and time to make the best of it. It wasn’t such a bad-looking plant objectively, now that she had a better chance to look at it. It just looked so ... so ... sad with its spotted stalks and drooping leaves. The shopkeeper had sighed quietly, twitching his mouth tendrils in quiet disapproval as they lugged the plant out and secured it on the back of their speeder. He sounded ominous as he informed that in the climate of Frente II, the plant probably wouldn’t even flower, but it was hardy enough, so it would likely just stay as it was, wilting leaves and all.
“I think it’s beautiful.”
Rey looked sharply at Finn. There wasn’t the least bit of sarcasm in his voice, and he was looking at the plant the same way he’d done earlier. The expression once again zinged Rey’s heart, but she couldn’t quite place what she was feeling or what Finn was thinking.
Abruptly, she announced she was hungry and wished to get dinner started, leaving Finn in their bedroom with their new acquisition.
When Rey came home the next day, she immediately knew something was wrong. There was an odd noise coming from the rear of the apartment. Not loud, but steady and strong and vaguely familiar. Standing in the entryway for a moment, she cocked her head, wondering if she should use the Force to –
No, there was no need to rely on the Force. As she cautiously walked into the living room, she could identify the voice and where it was coming from.
It was Finn. He was in their bedroom. Singing.
Her first thought was that Finn had a very nice singing voice. It was pitched lower than his speaking voice and was quite melodious. Rey’s second thought was that she could not identify the language. It sounded vaguely familiar, but she could not place it and was a little more than mildly surprised to hear him speaking, let alone singing, in something other than Basic.
Quietly and carefully, Rey approached the bedroom and silently stuck her head around the doorjamb. She couldn’t quite stifle the gasp at the sight that met her eyes: Finn, in a low crouch, singing tunefully to their new plant!
Finn heard the sound and turned around, breaking off his song.
“Oh, hey!” He frowned at his chronometer. “Sorry, must have lost track of time. I’ve just been hanging out with Charyl here.”
Finn had done some scouting on the Holonet and discovered that the plant was of the genus Charylsa iitidu and decided to call their plant “Charyl,” as if it needed a name. Rey had thought it odd, but had said nothing.
And now this? Singing?
“Uh ... that was nice.” Rey wasn’t sure what properly to say. “What language was that?”
“Hmm? Oh, it was Durese.”
Rey nodded. No wonder it was familiar. Unkar Plutt had done quite a bit of business with a starship captain from Duro, but they’d largely conversed in Basic, with the captain slipping into his native tongue whenever he wanted to use foul language. Which, when talking to Plutt, seemed to be often.
She frowned thoughtfully. “Where did you learn Durese?”
“When Chewie and I went on that mission for the Resistance, we met some Duros traders and they taught me some words and this song. It’s about a famous mountain on Duro.”
“Wait ... mission? When was this?”
Finn lifted a brow at her blank expression. “You know, when you, Poe, and Rose, and BB-8 went to Fermic for that supply run?”
Rey smothered a grimace. She would have preferred to forget that mission. Not because it failed; it hadn’t, even when it turned into a rescue operation. But because to this day she didn’t understand why Finn and Chewie had been dispatched separately. It had been nice to work with Rose and Poe, neither of whom she’d known well at the time, but Rey had believed there to be no reason at all that Finn had to be split off from the rest of them. They certainly could have used him on Minfar. It was a while ago and ultimately no harm done, but it still rankled with Rey to think about it.
Rey started guiltily. She’d been so immersed in her residual anger about that long-ago mission that she’d tuned out while Finn was talking.
“... so it turns out a lot of low-light plants sometimes respond to music,” Finn was saying. “Oh, and did you know that Tarisian spider ferns lined the inner walkways of the Jedi Tower on Taris?”
“... No. I didn’t know that.”
Rey found herself unenthusiastic. She knew very little about Taris except that it was largely a polluted planet, shattered after decades of war and neglect. She had, however, come across mention of the Jedi Tower on Taris in the books she’d taken from Luke Skywalker’s cache on Ahch-To. It had once been a beautiful structure, but had been destroyed during the Mandalorian Wars.
Rey eyed the plant, trying to picture rows of healthy, thriving spider plants lining the long hallways were Jedi once walked. It was somewhat difficult to do with that one slumped specimen as a representative.
Finn rose to his feet and massaged the front of his thighs.
“I’ll make dinner tonight. Thinking about doing cushnip and fral. That okay?”
She smiled in response. Finn knew it was one of her favorite meals. The first time she’d ever had it was with Finn and Han Solo on Takadona at Maz Kanata’s castle. She could have licked the plate then and it was still a meal that made her mouth water ... and her eyes, too, but for different reasons.
When Finn left the room, Rey looked at Charyl. Her smile faded.
Finn had sung to their plant ... but he’d never once sang to her.
Gritting her teeth, Rey turned and left, tamping down the sour feeling in her stomach by reassuring herself that what she was feeling were hunger pangs, not jealousy. Because really? Jealous of a drooping, half-dead plant? Really? Really?
Rey was getting into clean clothes after a nice, long, indulgent shower when something caught her notice in her periphery. Shutting her dresser drawers, Rey turned to see what it was that had attracted her notice, and her gaze fell on the plant in the corner.
She stared, blinked, stared some more.
Approaching warily, Rey bent at the waist, studied what was there for a moment, and then with her mind whirling, went out to the living room where Finn was on the couch, eating root chips and watching a sabacc game on the holonet.
“Um, Finn?”
He looked up. “Yeah? Oh by the way, nice choice of flavor on these chips. Hot, but sweet.”
“Glad you like thm. Chewie’s a fan.” Rey said absently. “Finn ... did you put ... a diaper ... on Charyl?”
Finn’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“What’s that white thing wrapped around Charyl’s pot?”
“Oh, that. It’s a cloth to help regulate Charyl’s soil.”
Rey wasn’t sure that this was any better than if Finn had admitted that he’d diapered their houseplant.
“Regulate soil? I’m not sure I understand ...”
“I did some more research. Tarisian spider ferns weren’t put in pots traditionally,” he said. “That came later, mainly for convenience of the humanoid population on Taris. They were wrapped in cut up sacks of mostly Eilian burlap with highly alkaline soil inside. The roots of a Tarisian spider fern have little hooks on them, and they’d hook onto the fibers of the sacks and draw the burlap closer when the soil was too cold or push it away if it was too warm. That helped maintain the alkalinity of the soil, too.”
Rey blinked several times. “Oh,” was all that came to mind.
“That Abednedo at least put Charyl in a pot that has holes in it so the roots can have space to spread out – another reason that pots aren’t the best for those sort of plants – but I don’t want to disturb them too much right now,” said Finn. “I found that cloth in the back of the closet and wrapped it around the pot where the roots can hook on through the holes. Then we can break the pot and let the roots spread out naturally. It's what they used to do on Taris in the lower levels. Maybe later on we can try to find Eilian burlap somewhere and replant the right way.”
“Okay, it’s just that I think that piece of cloth is the Trodatome friendship blanket that Klaud gave us as a going-away gift when we left Ajan Kloss.”
Finn’s brow furrowed. “Ah, kriff. I’d wondered where it’d gone to. But didn’t you say that it made you break out like you were being attacked by a million Mimbese pinch bugs?”
Rey bit into her bottom lip. She wasn’t sure what Trodatomes used to make their blankets, but it was true that the first time she’d wrapped Klaud’s gift around her shoulders, she’d itched something horrible and had raised red welts all over her arms and hands for nearly a week.
“Yes, but ...”
Rey stopped. Sighed softly. She was going to say that she wasn’t sure how Klaud would feel knowing his heartfelt gift was being used as a “soil regulator” for a fading plant, but it occurred to her that she did have a pretty good idea what Klaud would say if he’d known his heartfelt gift had been shoved into a closet after causing an allergic reaction. This way, at least something was getting use out of his present.
Finn was still looking at her. “But ...?” he prompted.
Rey shook her head. “Never mind. It’s fine.” She glanced at the holoscreen. “Oh good, I’m just in time.”
She threw herself down next to him on the couch and eagerly took a handful of chips from the bowl he passed her. Settling in, she turned her focus to the holo, where Deetha Reddani, a Mirilian who was the Outer Rim’s top-ranked sabacc player, was going in for the kill.
“Rey ... Rey ... Rey ... Rey!”
Rey stopped a somewhat complex maneuver that she was performing on Finn’s anatomy. His earlier cries of her name had sounded sensual, but that last “Rey!” held a worrisome note of alarm, and one hand was lightly gripping her shoulder, a signal they used to indicate to the other that whatever proceedings were going on should stop.
Carefully disengaging herself from the part of Finn’s body on which she had been singularly focused, she looked up at him in concern.
“Finn, what’s wrong? I wasn’t biting you, was I?”
“No ... no ...”
“Oh. Were you about to ...”
“No ...”
With effort, Finn raised himself up on his elbows. He sounded slightly breathless, and though it was dark in the room, Rey had no problem seeing the unease in his eyes. It was definitely not an expression she was used to seeing in those moments.
“Then what –”
“We’re making noise ... kind of a lot of noise.”
Rey frowned. “Yes, Finn. We’re having sex. That’s usually what happens.”
She remembered how thrilled they had been to secure a corner apartment on the top floor of the complex, as that would mean a lower chance of annoying their neighbors with their not-always-nocturnal activities. So far, they’d not gotten any complaints, and Rey was somewhat confused as to why this topic was coming up literally when she had her mouth on his –
“It’s just ...” She heard him swallow hard in the dimness. “I can’t really, uh, get comfortable. I keep thinking we might be scaring Charyl. Force only knows what they think we’re doing ...”
Rey gaped at him. “You think we’re scaring our plant by having sex?”
“Just ... the noises ... the sounds. You know.” He gestured vaguely. “Not to mention the sights. They probably aren’t even sure what’s going on!”
She squeezed her eyes shut, rubbing the stretch of skin between her eyes.
“Finn ...” She tried to keep her voice calm. “I probably should have said something the other day when you were singing, but you and the song were cute so I didn’t, but ... Charyl can’t actually hear. Some plants can, but Charyl isn’t flowering, and most plants that ‘hear’ things do that through their flowers. They’re like ears for plants. And yes, Charyl has photoreceptors that register light, but it’s just light not really movement. We’re basically just big blobs of red.”
Finn’s sigh sounded louder than anything they’d been doing earlier.
“I know all that, Rey. Stormtroopers were given lessons in xenobotany as part of training so we could identify poisonous flora and fauna on missions. And also so we’d know what was safe to eat or drink if we ever got caught in a situation where we were separated from the squad on an unfamiliar planet.”
Rey’s face warmed and she felt contrite. There was much she didn’t know about Finn’s time as a Stormtrooper with the First Order, and much that Finn himself didn’t seem to want to discuss, but it wasn’t fair to assume that he didn’t have the same general knowledge that she did, or even more. There were no lessons on Jakku, just old holovideos and occasional insight – if one could call it that – from Unkar Plutt.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to give a lecture. But if you know all of that, why are you concerned that we’re scaring Charyl?”
“I was looking up more of the history of Tarisian spider ferns earlier,” he said. “They weren’t just in the Jedi Tower. They were also in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Sort of the ‘official’ plant. They were said to be conduits of the Force.”
Rey rolled onto her side and gazed at Charyl, slouching and innocent in its darkened corner of the room.
After a few moments, she looked over her shoulder at Finn.
“Are you telling me that Charyl is Force Sensitive?”
“Well ... not exactly? I mean, not in the way you and I are, I mean,” he said. “It wasn’t clear what was meant by ‘conduits.’ But I guess it’s like ... well, remember when you first said we should have some plants in here and that some of them could help clean the air, but the one that does that specifically was poisonous to spukumas and we wouldn’t be able to adopt one if we got that plant?”
Rey nodded. “The Minashee white trumpet. Yeah, I remember.”
“Well, Tarisian spider ferns were a little like that with the Force. The Force surrounds all things, but these particular plants were able to ... I guess ... amplify it more than others. After the siege on the Jedi Temple, it was noticed that all the spider ferns had kind of curled into tight little balls – almost like they were trying to protect themselves from the pain and fear and death all around them. They can sense things through the Force the way you and I can see and hear. By vibrations, maybe, or something like that.”
Rey’s shoulders slumped a little. “Does that mean you want to ... stop?”
“No! But maybe we could just be a little quieter?” A smile stretched his face. “Although, it’s not going to be easy with what you were doing just now. I probably sounded like an Xi’dec opera singer.”
Rey smirked. Not quite. If he had, Charyl wouldn’t have been the only one who would have been scared.
“All right, let’s try something.”
She hopped off the bed. Grabbing his hand, she tugged him to his feet.
“Come on.”
“Uh, where are we going ... should I at least put my shorts on?”
“Nope. You won’t need them. I’m not wearing anything either, you might have noticed.”
“Yeah ... believe me, I noticed.”
She led him out of the room and closed the door firmly behind them. Guiding him toward the living room, she forestalled him when he tried to turn the lights on. The Frentean blue-silver moon was full and low on the horizon and lit up the living room enough to where more light would have been superfluous.
Rey glanced round and her eyes widened when she spotted what she was looking for.
Just beyond the console upon which the holonet projector sat was a deep-green wingback chair, as wide as two speeder seats, delightfully plush with short oblong armrests.
Kaydel Ko Connix had insisted on Finn and Rey taking it with them when the Resistance officially decommissioned itself and its members went their separate ways. The chair had belonged to General Organa, and was of Corellian design. She’d kept it in her office on D’Qar, and it was one of the few possessions she’d managed to hold on to through the three subsequent years of war. Kaydel said she knew that Leia would have wanted the couple to have it, and It was in a place of honor in the living room, out of the sunlight so the soft nap of the fabric wouldn’t freckle or fade, and on a slight angle so that it was almost the first thing one noticed when coming into the room for the first time, though the wild colors of the Chalactan art print gave it a run for its money.
Rey’s expression was determined, but she couldn’t help feeling slightly guilty as she maneuvered Finn around her and pushed him firmly down into the chair. She gave a silent apology to Leia, hoping that she wouldn’t be too offended that she was about to ride Finn like a royal brezak in one of her most prized possessions.
Then again, Rey thought as she pushed her hair back from her face, Leia Organa-Solo might have been the one person Rey knew who would not only understand, but give her blessing to the proceedings.
Finn was staring up at her somewhat warily, and his eyes grew wide when Rey swung one leg over an armrest and began to sink downward.
“Rey, what are you do—ooooooooooohhhh ...!”
His voice ended in a squeak that Rey had to admit wasn’t too far off from being on the Xi’dec vocal scale.
“The door is closed. That’s about all we can do.” Her breath was coming in short pants as she placed her hands on Finn’s shoulders. “Just so you know, I don’t plan on being quiet. If you want to try, feel free.”
Rey had to admit that Finn certainly tried. But he failed. Miserably.
Rey wasn’t sure when or how she’d fallen asleep, but when she heard odd sounds filtering through her subconscious, she awoke with a start. It took her a few moments to realize that she was still in the wingback chair, nude save for a light blanket that Finn had thoughtfully placed over her. It didn’t take her very long to recall how she’d gotten in the chair or the events that had eventually led to her slumping into a sated, happy, boneless heap in Finn’s arms and apparently falling asleep within seconds.
She opened her eyes. The odd sounds were now taking form. They were words. Loudly spoken words.
It was Finn. He was somewhere in the apartment calling out for her, sounding vaguely panicked.
Rey leapt up, loosely wrapped the blanket around herself and ran toward the voice. It led her to the bedroom, and immediately she saw Finn standing at the side of their bed, clad in nothing but his shorts.
“Finn? What is it? What’s wrong?”
He turned toward her slowly, his eyes wide.
“It’s ... it’s Charyl.”
“What is it?” The strange timber of Finn’s voice made Rey’s throat tighten. “What happened?”
“Look!”
He pointed toward the corner. Rey’s eyes followed Finn’s finger, bracing for what she was about to see, remembering his comment about what happened to the plants at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.
Rey blinked, and her breath caught. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief, but no ... she wasn't seeing things.
There was no evidence of the hapless plant that had been slumped in the corner for the better part of a week. The only way Rey could tell it was actually Charyl was Klaud’s blanket wrapped around its pot.
What stood there now was a plant with glistening leaves reaching toward the ceiling. The mottled appearance on the trunk had even faded to an attractive copper color, and Rey’s mouth fell open when she saw something else that had not been there before.
“Finn ... those green pod clusters are buds ... Charyl’s – Charyl’s flowering!”
“I know! And this all happened while we were, uh ...”
He trailed off and they turned to stare at each other.
Rey cleared her throat. “So I guess you were right about Tarisian spider ferns being able to feel vibrations and emotions through the Force.”
“Well, we were definitely vibrating,” said Finn, a small smile lifting his lips. “Does this mean that all we needed to do to help Charyl was to have loud, incredible sex?”
“... Maybe? It could be that because of Charyl’s Force properties, it’s sort of like a form of ... pollination?”
They looked at each other again, and Rey winced a bit. Put that way, it almost sounded like they’d had a threesome with a plant. And ... she didn’t think either of them wanted to explore how accurate or not that actually was.
“So, what should we do?” asked Finn, his expression troubled. “I don’t want to Charyl to, uh, regress or anything.”
Rey looked at Charyl again. Possibly without even realizing, the plant was starting to grow on her. The Force had done many amazing things, such as guiding Finn to her. Maybe the Force was responsible for guiding both of them to Charyl? Maybe that had been the meaning of the expression on Finn’s face when he’d first caught sight of the soon-to-be newest member of the family. Stranger things had happened.
“I don’t want that either.” She paused. “So I think there’s only one thing to do.”
“Yeah?”
“We need to rigorously test this theory to make sure it's not a fluke.” She drew herself up. “We can start by using that chair again, but leaving the door open this time.”
Finn’s laughter lasted only until he glanced at her face and saw that she was quite serious. Then it was Rey’s turn to laugh when Finn rushed out and had settled himself firmly in the chair before she had even stepped out of the bedroom.
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