( The tense, long column of his back twists as he strains to peer down the adjacent hallway, unsure of whether or not it is a detour they should take or something they should investigate from a cursory distance. If their disagreement here, in the entryway, is any indication, then Kylo assumes they would do well to stay away from the revelations that await them deeper within the structure. But Rey is shaking her head in his peripheral, and then she is clasping his wrist in her hand, and then she is wrapping her fingers over his and pulling him to stand. Everything happens in such a sequential order that when he finds himself no longer sitting but tugged to full height, it seems the natural course of things to meet her eyes and see what has shifted there.
She looks at him with something renewed, though he's hard-pressed to identify it. The dampness on her cheeks has dried enough in the cool air that he can no longer make out the shine of the overhead light as it cuts across the swell of a cheekbone, and she seems lighter, reinvigorated, and something in him - small and quiet but there - feels lighter in response, dispels some of the gathering tension that has coagulated behind his breastbone and made it so difficult to breathe. Maybe it's the active bond between them, more to do with their shared space inside of each other's minds than anything else, but then again maybe it's just something innate. Either way, it encourages movement, urges him to continue moving forward, though not before dropping his hand to her shoulder, thumb tripping over the bone before withdrawing as he steps away.
Rey's voice chases him as he approaches the new hallway, which spirals downward about five feet in. In response to her instruction, Kylo snorts. Of the two of them, he has the impression that he's the one vastly more learned in sinking to the Dark Side than she is, but that's beside the point, and he doesn't want to waste valuable silence essential to hearing by quipping at her. The hallway, moving ever downward, is cloaked in darkness, a blue-white glow emanating from close to the floor, running the length of the wall as they descend. )
It's unformed. I can't tell what it's saying. ( He finally answers, straining to hear. Not for the first time since they began, he gets the impression that they are not alone. The whispering intensifies, pressing down and growing louder until the hallway is filled with whispers that have no immediate source or translation. His eyes begin to burn and it's only when they begin to water, forcing him to blink heavily and dig the palm of his heel into his right socket, that he realizes it's because he's kept them open throughout the entire trip down and down and down into whatever abyss waits for them at the bottom of the Academy. ) It sounds like -
( Ilum. The hallway gives way to absolute darkness save for the high beam of cold, white light reaching down to pierce the cave's constant night with a hazy glow. Their breath pools in clouds in front of their faces. Colder than Starkiller. Colder than Hoth. Colder than space. There is light here, and just as much darkness to match it. A sacred place now corrupted, he has been here only a handful of times in the real world in order to stand in front of Snoke, to run the gamut of his master's training, to endure hours of agonizing punishment not made tangible enough by a holographic projection. The first time he came to Ilum, he was only sixteen - already a murder, a Jedi killer - and he stood on ground cracked by ice and received praise for what he had done. If he ever felt the darkness more keenly than on that day, he can't remember it, but it isn't what he had been expecting to find at the bottom of the hallway when he led them down it.
A voice calls out in the darkness, eerily close. The whispers have gone. )
I see you.
( It isn't some long ago voice of one of his classmates, not Skywalker's voice bounding after him down the hall. That voice is a collection of ash made dense enough to form shapes. It is a hollow rattle at the back of a throat, the scrape of a cough in deteriorating lungs. It is the scratch of nails on the front door, a slab of stone pulling back to reveal the darkness of the cavern underneath. It is the tide and the crash of waves on the shoreline, terrifying and calming all at once. It carries the promise of cradling comfort, shelter, guidance, while threatening death, desolation, despair should it be disobeyed. Snoke has found them, and he is speaking to Rey. )
no subject
She looks at him with something renewed, though he's hard-pressed to identify it. The dampness on her cheeks has dried enough in the cool air that he can no longer make out the shine of the overhead light as it cuts across the swell of a cheekbone, and she seems lighter, reinvigorated, and something in him - small and quiet but there - feels lighter in response, dispels some of the gathering tension that has coagulated behind his breastbone and made it so difficult to breathe. Maybe it's the active bond between them, more to do with their shared space inside of each other's minds than anything else, but then again maybe it's just something innate. Either way, it encourages movement, urges him to continue moving forward, though not before dropping his hand to her shoulder, thumb tripping over the bone before withdrawing as he steps away.
Rey's voice chases him as he approaches the new hallway, which spirals downward about five feet in. In response to her instruction, Kylo snorts. Of the two of them, he has the impression that he's the one vastly more learned in sinking to the Dark Side than she is, but that's beside the point, and he doesn't want to waste valuable silence essential to hearing by quipping at her. The hallway, moving ever downward, is cloaked in darkness, a blue-white glow emanating from close to the floor, running the length of the wall as they descend. )
It's unformed. I can't tell what it's saying. ( He finally answers, straining to hear. Not for the first time since they began, he gets the impression that they are not alone. The whispering intensifies, pressing down and growing louder until the hallway is filled with whispers that have no immediate source or translation. His eyes begin to burn and it's only when they begin to water, forcing him to blink heavily and dig the palm of his heel into his right socket, that he realizes it's because he's kept them open throughout the entire trip down and down and down into whatever abyss waits for them at the bottom of the Academy. ) It sounds like -
( Ilum. The hallway gives way to absolute darkness save for the high beam of cold, white light reaching down to pierce the cave's constant night with a hazy glow. Their breath pools in clouds in front of their faces. Colder than Starkiller. Colder than Hoth. Colder than space. There is light here, and just as much darkness to match it. A sacred place now corrupted, he has been here only a handful of times in the real world in order to stand in front of Snoke, to run the gamut of his master's training, to endure hours of agonizing punishment not made tangible enough by a holographic projection. The first time he came to Ilum, he was only sixteen - already a murder, a Jedi killer - and he stood on ground cracked by ice and received praise for what he had done. If he ever felt the darkness more keenly than on that day, he can't remember it, but it isn't what he had been expecting to find at the bottom of the hallway when he led them down it.
A voice calls out in the darkness, eerily close. The whispers have gone. )
I see you.
( It isn't some long ago voice of one of his classmates, not Skywalker's voice bounding after him down the hall. That voice is a collection of ash made dense enough to form shapes. It is a hollow rattle at the back of a throat, the scrape of a cough in deteriorating lungs. It is the scratch of nails on the front door, a slab of stone pulling back to reveal the darkness of the cavern underneath. It is the tide and the crash of waves on the shoreline, terrifying and calming all at once. It carries the promise of cradling comfort, shelter, guidance, while threatening death, desolation, despair should it be disobeyed. Snoke has found them, and he is speaking to Rey. )