I walk ahead of Rey, into her room, and set our mugs down on the bedside table. "Close the door behind you," I whisper to her, setting the food down. I have matches in my pocket from the kitchen and an extra candle just in case. I glance around the room. Two candle holders with short candle sticks left in them sit on her window sill. "Are there any more candles?" I ask Rey.

She runs over and opens her side table drawer. A pile of candles roll around inside. I grab a handful. "Let's light up this room, so it's not so dark and scary."

"Okay!" Rey claps her hands and I get started. My stomach flutters as I think about all the rocks in my pocket. She's going to be so surprised.

Finally when the candles are all lit I give Rey her mug of cocoa. It's cooled down enough now for her to be able to hold it. She takes it carefully in both hands, her tiny fingers not able to reach all the way around the mug.

"Stay here." I turn her around so she's facing the door. "And I'll tell you when to turn around again. Okay?"

"Okay," she nods and starts to drink her cocoa. "Ow, it's hot!"

"Just sip it slowly." I go to the bed and unload my pockets, setting all the rocks onto her blanket slowly so they don't clatter together and she guess the surprise. When I'm done, I pull off my heavy cloak and set it aside. Removing the weight of it from my shoulders is like removing the stress of the day.

I finish setting the rocks in place on the bed, spreading them out so it looks like there are lots. I picked ones that were about the same size as Mr. Rock, but some are smaller and some bigger.

"Okay," I say. "You can turn around now."

Rey turns slowly, her mug still up to her lips as she keeps sipping. She looks at me first, not noticing the rocks yet, and lowers her mug to smile at me. "Hi."

"Look at your bed," I say.

She glances over and then her eyes open wide, her little mouth forming a tiny o. She stares for a second then squeals. "Rocks!"

"Shhh..." I rush over to grab her mug before she drops it. She shoves it at me, splashing my shirt, and runs to her bed. "Where did you find all of these?" she says bumping onto the bed.

I shrug like it was no big deal, but the walk was long and that's why I was late meeting Master Snoke. Rey starts to organize the rocks right away, separating the big ones from the small ones.

"Those are the babies," she says, pointing to the small ones, "and these are the bigger kids and those are the grown-ups and," she jumps up, stepping on her rocks and messing up all her organization. "I have to show Mr. Rock!"

"Shhh..." I shush her again. She's so easily excitable, like some Force sensitive child with no training. She reminds me of when I was younger, only less angry and more hyper.

Rey runs to her window sill, reaching up on her toes. "He likes to look out the window when I'm not here," she explains. I set her mug down and grab mine to taste the cocoa. It's warm and thick. I take in a deep breath of the chocolaty drink.

Rey returns to her bed and begins reorganizing again. "Which one do you want to marry, Mr. Rock?" she says to her rock, holding him up to her face to talk to him. She picks out a rock from the pile in front of her.

I sit down at the edge of the bed. My feet hurt from all the walking in the forest I've been doing lately. I look at Rey's organization. She's set the largest rocks aside and seems less interested in them.

"This is Mrs. Rock," she says, showing me one of the rocks that looks a lot like Mr. Rock. Hopefully she won't mix them up.

"Why does Mr. Rock want to get married?" I ask.

"So he'll have a best friend."

"Can't he just have a best friend and not get married?"

"If they're married, they will be together forever, so that's better."

I think of my mom and dad and how dad is never around, always out doing trades or traveling to other planets.

"Do you want to get married?" I ask Rey.

"Okay!" she says, her face lighting up in excitement.

"No," I shake my head. "Not to me. I mean, when you grow up."

She lowers back into her sitting position and shrugs. "When I grow up I'll just get married to you."

I sigh and set my hot cocoa down on the bedside table. "I'm going to be really busy ruling the Galaxy, when I'm older," I say.

Rey ignores me and keeps organizing her rocks. I frown, watching her go about her work. I wish I could know for sure she'll be safe and end up happy when she grows up. "Don't you want to play with the big rocks?" I ask, pointing at the rocks she's set aside.

"No, they're the mean rocks."

I smile. "Why are they mean?"

"Because they have pointy parts and are big."

I hold back a laugh. "Can I play with them, then?"

"Yes!" Rey gathers them into her arms and tries to hand them to me, but they fall from her arms. I move over to help her.

"They'll be my army commanders," I say. "And I'll need some Stormtroopers, too."

"I'll give you the all mean looking ones then," Rey says, picking out other rocks with sharp edges.

I put my rocks onto the floor and grab my cloak to set it up as an army base. The hood will be the headquarters office where they meet to discuss upcoming battles. I pick the rock with the sharpest edges to be the leader.

"This is their leader." I lift the rock to show Rey. She glances over.

"That's not the biggest one," she says.

"I know, but it's go the most sharp edges."

"Oh." She climbs out of her bed, more carefully this time so as not to disrupt her rocks, then kneels beside it. "I live on this planet," she says, patting her bed. "And you live down there on a different planet."

"Okay. But you probably shouldn't bring Mr. Rock to my planet," I say, noticing she's got Mr. Rock in her hand. "We're about to go to war."

"Mr. Rock can go to war too!" Rey says. "But he'll have to be back for supper so Mrs. Rock and all the babies won't be worried."

I look up at the bed where twenty or so small rocks now surround Mrs. Rock.

"That's a lot of babies," I say. "Mrs. Rock could put them all in my Stormtrooper program. They can join my army."

"Maybe," Rey says. "But this one..." she picks up the tiniest one, "is going to be a princess when she grows up, so she can't be a Stormtrooper."

"What's her name?"

"Rey."

"This is Darth Kylo," I say, holding up my pointy rock. "He's going to rule the Galaxies."

Rey looks over. "Can Mrs. Rock visit your planet, for a peaceful visit?"

"What does she want?"

"She wants to talk about trading fuel for other things, that we need on our planet. We have a lot of fuel for spaceships, so we can trade."

I nod. "That sounds like a good idea. We need lots of fuel for our TIE fighters. Darth Kylo will send a shuttle to go pick up Mrs. Rock. That way we know she's not sneaking anything onto our base with her own spacecraft, like bombs or spy equipment."

"She isn't going to do that!"

"Let me set up my chain of command first. I need to appoint a second in command chief officer to oversee the negotiations and all the other stuff that needs to get done, that Master Kylo doesn't have time to do."

"What's the officer chief rock's name?"

I shrug. "Lux."

"Okay, but you better hurry."

"Why?"

"Because our deal for selling you the fuel is only going to last for a short time or else we will sell it to different aliens. They said they will give us more money for it than you will. But I will let you buy first, because I know you better."

I smile and organize my rocks on my cloak into the sections of my base where they're stationed, according to their various job titles.

"Does your dad trade fuel?"

"Yeah." Rey busies herself with her rocks but seems to be waiting for me.

"Okay, the shuttle will be on its way soon to pick up Mrs. Rock. We just need to have the meeting room set up for her arrival."

I look around the room for some books or something to use as a conference table for my headquarters office.

"Rey, do you have any books?"

She doesn't reply and I glance over to see what she's doing. She's lying against the edge of her bed, her arms up on the mattress, holding rocks, but her eyes are closed and her head resting on the bed.

"Rey?" I go over. She's asleep. I sigh and look at all the rocks on the bed. Should I move them? They're in some sort of order, groups that look like they must be families, two larger rocks surrounded by smaller ones in each group.

I pick Rey up and put her onto the bed to sleep beside all her rocks. Hopefully she doesn't roll around too much in her sleep.

"Goodnight, Rey," I whisper, covering her with her blanket. Then I blow out all the candles and leave my cloak army base on the floor for tomorrow, locking the door behind me.