( Denying the existence of those whispers would prove nothing, especially as they grow in volume and severity. What she hears and what Kylo hears may be different beasts entirely, each hush tailored to something individual within them. He can't decipher whether or not it's the soft sigh of snow falling that tells him that he could best her, that he could turn her, how happy Snoke would be with him for doing it, for cultivating his own apprentice from snow and sand and striking down the Resistance, eradicating the Jedi once and for all. But in that promise lies another, and he knows it as plainly as he knows the stuttered chatter of her teeth and the cold blush across her cheekbones: she will best you.
He's moved ahead of her, the rise of her voice following him further into the forest until he stops with his head full of potential promises. Kylo knows those dark thoughts. He has embraced them long enough to be able to greet them like old friends, arms open to accept the pat on his back even as the other hand holds the firm tip of a blade to his neck. A threat and a promise. Seduction laced with pain. Rey's voice almost startles him, beating into his head like a war drum. She tells him to center himself, and he doesn't say anything, searching for the source of the voices in the forest in an effort to get to the hive and drive them away. Spindly branches of the trees above and around them throw jagged, broken shadows across her face when Kylo turns his head back over his shoulder to look at her. His own face overcast by the same shifting light that leaves her half in and half out of the darkness makes the gouge of scar tissue across his face look more knotted and angry than it actually is.
He does want this, the quiet she's promising him. What it means in the end, he doesn't know, but for now the focus is putting one foot in front of the other.
The pain is obvious in her voice, but he doesn't feed off of it, doesn't capitalize on it the way that he had when he saw her island in her head. There's no pressing need to draw the agony of her memories out of her this time, and so for the first time since he struck Han Solo down, he allows himself to find a channel in which to empty all the rage and hatred out of him, rather than calling it to him. It doesn't work completely - he suspects it never will - but it seems willing, at least, to drain away, not replaced with light or warmth but a clear, definite void. )
My grandmother was from Naboo. ( The information comes to him unbidden, flooding his head like a memory, exploding out of his mouth like a tap has been broken and the knobs ripped off. Snow melts under their boots, and he picks carefully through the stories that he knows in order to protect the mythology that he has cultivated with such dedication over the years. ) She was a queen, then a senator. I remember my - ( He stumbles over the words as if saying them aloud for the first time. ) I remember being young when we went there. I can't remember why we did. There were beaches, and the water was surprisingly cool. ( Leia had kept him so close to her he had been unable to sit still, squirming out of her grasp and running full tilt down the shoreline. White sand had just started to scrape the unblemished skin of his knees when Han Solo caught him under the armpits and swung him up, up, high on his shoulders to be chastised but held aloft. He'd gotten a bad sunburn. It's the one memory of Solo he has that doesn't end with disappointed scorn and it easily recalls all the black, tarnished thoughts he has of the man despite his death, despite how killing him had made him feel. ) There's nothing worth finding or looking for in the past, Rey.
( Why wouldn't they come back for her if they were well and truly out there, he wonders. Why would they leave her at such a young age on a desert junkyard planet with no guarantees of return? Just a single burning memory imprinted into her brain to turn over for years and years. Her lonely isolation is so tangible he can almost taste it, and he wonders, as briefly as he can in this shared space... how the time line matches up with when he defected from the Jedi and burned the whole thing to the ground. It's fleeting, and dark, and singed at the edge with some emotion he has no name for nor time to examine at length, watching, instead, snow land and melt on her skin.
It occurs to him that the world is quiet, just the soft brush of the wind in the trees and ice pinging against frozen bark as it begins to rain. After a long, quiet moment of deliberation, he holds the bare stretch of his palm out toward her, and sees lush greenery, rolling forests dotted with lakes that reflect the stars. It's not Naboo, but Yavin 4. )
no subject
He's moved ahead of her, the rise of her voice following him further into the forest until he stops with his head full of potential promises. Kylo knows those dark thoughts. He has embraced them long enough to be able to greet them like old friends, arms open to accept the pat on his back even as the other hand holds the firm tip of a blade to his neck. A threat and a promise. Seduction laced with pain. Rey's voice almost startles him, beating into his head like a war drum. She tells him to center himself, and he doesn't say anything, searching for the source of the voices in the forest in an effort to get to the hive and drive them away. Spindly branches of the trees above and around them throw jagged, broken shadows across her face when Kylo turns his head back over his shoulder to look at her. His own face overcast by the same shifting light that leaves her half in and half out of the darkness makes the gouge of scar tissue across his face look more knotted and angry than it actually is.
He does want this, the quiet she's promising him. What it means in the end, he doesn't know, but for now the focus is putting one foot in front of the other.
The pain is obvious in her voice, but he doesn't feed off of it, doesn't capitalize on it the way that he had when he saw her island in her head. There's no pressing need to draw the agony of her memories out of her this time, and so for the first time since he struck Han Solo down, he allows himself to find a channel in which to empty all the rage and hatred out of him, rather than calling it to him. It doesn't work completely - he suspects it never will - but it seems willing, at least, to drain away, not replaced with light or warmth but a clear, definite void. )
My grandmother was from Naboo. ( The information comes to him unbidden, flooding his head like a memory, exploding out of his mouth like a tap has been broken and the knobs ripped off. Snow melts under their boots, and he picks carefully through the stories that he knows in order to protect the mythology that he has cultivated with such dedication over the years. ) She was a queen, then a senator. I remember my - ( He stumbles over the words as if saying them aloud for the first time. ) I remember being young when we went there. I can't remember why we did. There were beaches, and the water was surprisingly cool. ( Leia had kept him so close to her he had been unable to sit still, squirming out of her grasp and running full tilt down the shoreline. White sand had just started to scrape the unblemished skin of his knees when Han Solo caught him under the armpits and swung him up, up, high on his shoulders to be chastised but held aloft. He'd gotten a bad sunburn. It's the one memory of Solo he has that doesn't end with disappointed scorn and it easily recalls all the black, tarnished thoughts he has of the man despite his death, despite how killing him had made him feel. ) There's nothing worth finding or looking for in the past, Rey.
( Why wouldn't they come back for her if they were well and truly out there, he wonders. Why would they leave her at such a young age on a desert junkyard planet with no guarantees of return? Just a single burning memory imprinted into her brain to turn over for years and years. Her lonely isolation is so tangible he can almost taste it, and he wonders, as briefly as he can in this shared space... how the time line matches up with when he defected from the Jedi and burned the whole thing to the ground. It's fleeting, and dark, and singed at the edge with some emotion he has no name for nor time to examine at length, watching, instead, snow land and melt on her skin.
It occurs to him that the world is quiet, just the soft brush of the wind in the trees and ice pinging against frozen bark as it begins to rain. After a long, quiet moment of deliberation, he holds the bare stretch of his palm out toward her, and sees lush greenery, rolling forests dotted with lakes that reflect the stars. It's not Naboo, but Yavin 4. )