[ It's as if he's read her mind, mentioning her friends, and it occurs to her a moment later that there's no reason to assume he hasn't pulled that from it at one point or another. It would be foolish to assume that he doesn't know every weakness she possesses, to rend Finn from her to weaken her. In all likelihood, he will be contented even if that is the only casualty of battle today.
She stays on the ground, watching Corellia burn to a cinder from miles above, lets the rain sting her cuts and bruises as it patters down. Staring out at the devastation, wondering if Finn or Poe or Chewie are buried in it, she decides that she will have to kill him. The resolution comes with startling pragmatism, for a woman who'd been aghast in taking her first life in the woods of Takodana, who prays for peace in the face of an endless and bloody war, who spent a lifetime learning the value of a life by fighting for her own.
Whether he will accept it or not, Rey knows that she understands Kylo Ren. Better than anyone, perhaps. She has known his desperation, felt his fear, seen his demons take form and consume him, but she would not be able to forgive him—or herself—that loss. It was General Organa's place to seek her son even after he took her estranged husband from her, but it is Rey's to settle on Finn's worth in this fight.
The Resistance would dub him expendable, but Rey will not.
And that settles it. Cold logic replaces the blind rage she'd felt charging him on Starkiller Base when she believed Finn to be dead, though it lands on the same result. Though she does not want to, though she would avoid it as long as she may because she knows that Snoke is the real enemy, she settles on her terms for Kylo Ren's life. ]
The Supreme Leader continues to suffer you. [ She answers him dryly after some silence, deciding only after careful thought to grace him with a reply at all. Slowly, she turns her gaze upward as an afterthought. ] The Resistance will not call a bloodbath a victory; we do not share your callousness in sacrificing the lives of our own.
[ Part of that, she knows, is because those lives are a precious and scarce resource. Where the First Order's propaganda has won the hearts of much of the galaxy, the Resistance is small, still grassroots, supported on General Organa's back by the beat of her heart alone. ]
I know you don't believe it will end with us. [ She knows what she makes of what she saw in his mind because she knows hunger, the bottomless, gluttonous ache that cannot be satiated, knows that no one is truly satisfied once they get what they strive for—like Unkar Plutt, they only increase their demands exponentially, pushing for more. ] When the Resistance is gone, that parasite will swallow you. It's not just a nightmare.
no subject
She stays on the ground, watching Corellia burn to a cinder from miles above, lets the rain sting her cuts and bruises as it patters down. Staring out at the devastation, wondering if Finn or Poe or Chewie are buried in it, she decides that she will have to kill him. The resolution comes with startling pragmatism, for a woman who'd been aghast in taking her first life in the woods of Takodana, who prays for peace in the face of an endless and bloody war, who spent a lifetime learning the value of a life by fighting for her own.
Whether he will accept it or not, Rey knows that she understands Kylo Ren. Better than anyone, perhaps. She has known his desperation, felt his fear, seen his demons take form and consume him, but she would not be able to forgive him—or herself—that loss. It was General Organa's place to seek her son even after he took her estranged husband from her, but it is Rey's to settle on Finn's worth in this fight.
The Resistance would dub him expendable, but Rey will not.
And that settles it. Cold logic replaces the blind rage she'd felt charging him on Starkiller Base when she believed Finn to be dead, though it lands on the same result. Though she does not want to, though she would avoid it as long as she may because she knows that Snoke is the real enemy, she settles on her terms for Kylo Ren's life. ]
The Supreme Leader continues to suffer you. [ She answers him dryly after some silence, deciding only after careful thought to grace him with a reply at all. Slowly, she turns her gaze upward as an afterthought. ] The Resistance will not call a bloodbath a victory; we do not share your callousness in sacrificing the lives of our own.
[ Part of that, she knows, is because those lives are a precious and scarce resource. Where the First Order's propaganda has won the hearts of much of the galaxy, the Resistance is small, still grassroots, supported on General Organa's back by the beat of her heart alone. ]
I know you don't believe it will end with us. [ She knows what she makes of what she saw in his mind because she knows hunger, the bottomless, gluttonous ache that cannot be satiated, knows that no one is truly satisfied once they get what they strive for—like Unkar Plutt, they only increase their demands exponentially, pushing for more. ] When the Resistance is gone, that parasite will swallow you. It's not just a nightmare.