( The severity of her scowl sometimes catches him off guard for how familiar it is, a hearkening back to easier days, simpler times, when the mean, lean look of a survivor's hardened exterior, the quills and barbs of her shell, were the only things made accessible or offered to him. Now there are dips and valleys in between one glare and the next, catalogs of soften expressions and a new, broader spectrum of aching for the raw look in her eyes to travel along. They lean against a backdrop of deeper understanding on his part, an innate sense of knowing, manifested and fortified as a result of the connection between them, a continuous loop of feedback that plays uninterrupted and without request.
Rey's look now is certainly less scathing than what she has attempted to pin him in place with before, but it is still a return to something normal between them - and how strange that is, to think that there ever could or would exist something as benign and familiar between them as normal - and Kylo, glancing down at her with his hand extended, black leather catching and absorbing the light from the fire, he is unsure which extreme he prefers: that of normalcy or the thrill of the unknown. With sluggish work impeded by their own injuries, no doubt, to be done, he has little time to consider it, and with Rey's permanent residency in his head, he has even less room to reflect.
Kylo shuts it down before it can become more than what it is is, though its existence is criminal all by itself, and claps their hands together with a hollow sound that echoes down into the bones of his hands via the cup that his palm makes as he hauls her to her feet. He sways with her added weight, just a bit, leaning on his good leg in an active effort to spare the injured, though it's hardly enough to belie his depleted strength on the whole. The both of them standing, Kylo wonders why he bothers at all with the pretense of feeling no pain, no effects of such a wound, when it's plainly obvious she knows without having to ask or be told or mislead. )
What do you need from the ship before we leave the area? ( He asks, once she's wandered away and before he realizes that he's not spoken aloud but shouted down the winding rope that binds them together, mind to mind. It's a strange realization to stumble over, when he's done an overwhelming majority of things in his life with deliberation, however recklessly, and speaks more to the inherent issues Rey had addressed only moments ago, as they sat on the ground, to the instincts that he has to try hard to suppress in order not to drag her under the shifting, dark sands that he is still mired in. An equally strange realization, and Kylo wonders, briefly, vaguely, whether or not it will prove to be a guileless one in the end.
Present one moment and gone the next, he allows those thoughts to filter in and out like running water, and collects the Force between his fingers in much the same way. Despite its constant presence, the threads that weave and threaten to overwhelm at times, he finds the task as it stands momentarily laborious, and uses the bulk of his concentration to gather large clots of dirt above and below one hand with the express purpose of dumping the dirt onto the fire, smothering it. It has the added benefit of choking the high plume of smoke that wanders ever upward, though it takes him five solid passes to get the fire to extinguish completely. When he's finished, sweat has beaded underneath his hair and the high collar of his cowl once more, and the night air is cool as it licks him dry. The fire still smolders and glows orange in places, reduced to cinders and embers that do nothing to illuminate what's left of Aurren's body. An ally, maybe, but just as likely to kill him - kill them - as anything. )
no subject
Rey's look now is certainly less scathing than what she has attempted to pin him in place with before, but it is still a return to something normal between them - and how strange that is, to think that there ever could or would exist something as benign and familiar between them as normal - and Kylo, glancing down at her with his hand extended, black leather catching and absorbing the light from the fire, he is unsure which extreme he prefers: that of normalcy or the thrill of the unknown. With sluggish work impeded by their own injuries, no doubt, to be done, he has little time to consider it, and with Rey's permanent residency in his head, he has even less room to reflect.
Kylo shuts it down before it can become more than what it is is, though its existence is criminal all by itself, and claps their hands together with a hollow sound that echoes down into the bones of his hands via the cup that his palm makes as he hauls her to her feet. He sways with her added weight, just a bit, leaning on his good leg in an active effort to spare the injured, though it's hardly enough to belie his depleted strength on the whole. The both of them standing, Kylo wonders why he bothers at all with the pretense of feeling no pain, no effects of such a wound, when it's plainly obvious she knows without having to ask or be told or mislead. )
What do you need from the ship before we leave the area? ( He asks, once she's wandered away and before he realizes that he's not spoken aloud but shouted down the winding rope that binds them together, mind to mind. It's a strange realization to stumble over, when he's done an overwhelming majority of things in his life with deliberation, however recklessly, and speaks more to the inherent issues Rey had addressed only moments ago, as they sat on the ground, to the instincts that he has to try hard to suppress in order not to drag her under the shifting, dark sands that he is still mired in. An equally strange realization, and Kylo wonders, briefly, vaguely, whether or not it will prove to be a guileless one in the end.
Present one moment and gone the next, he allows those thoughts to filter in and out like running water, and collects the Force between his fingers in much the same way. Despite its constant presence, the threads that weave and threaten to overwhelm at times, he finds the task as it stands momentarily laborious, and uses the bulk of his concentration to gather large clots of dirt above and below one hand with the express purpose of dumping the dirt onto the fire, smothering it. It has the added benefit of choking the high plume of smoke that wanders ever upward, though it takes him five solid passes to get the fire to extinguish completely. When he's finished, sweat has beaded underneath his hair and the high collar of his cowl once more, and the night air is cool as it licks him dry. The fire still smolders and glows orange in places, reduced to cinders and embers that do nothing to illuminate what's left of Aurren's body. An ally, maybe, but just as likely to kill him - kill them - as anything. )