[ He's nervous. Even if it weren't coming off him in waves, she catches him thread his hands through his hair out of the corner of her eye, and she finally picks up on what that particular neuroses means in him: nervousness. Not the frantic, trepidatious discomfort of something young and feeble, but the restless stirring of a great animal, a carnivore, trying to decide if it should remain docile for its captors or strike.
She knows he is already bracing himself for the confines of the makeshift airlock cell before he asks, just like she knows that's sweat he's shaking out of his hair, and she finds herself oddly calm in how she feels just as aware of his movements and particularities as she is of her own.
Rey stops in front of him with his question, glancing pointedly at the metal he has crushed in an uncontrolled fit with careful assessment before she takes the time to answer. Skywalker's measured patience counts in her silent beats. Then, she looks back at him, eyes muddled with two parts confusion and one part understanding. ]
It wasn't my idea to put you there in the first place. [ For some reason, that seems like the most important thing to establish—she wants him to understand that if she had her way, it would have been a different conversation. She can't be sure how. Maybe that's why it wasn't her decision. But it seemed just as inhumane as how the First Order had held her, and vengeance tasted bitter and turned to ash in her mouth, unsatisfying and short-lived. ] And no one has ordered me to return you to it, so unless you know something I don't, and have reason to believe that I need to…
[ Which is to say, she wants him to make that call. As far as Rey is concerned, he's free to walk out of this camp now. All said and done, he offered them precisely what they needed, and he submitted himself to make sure he would no longer be a weapon for Snoke to wield. If he found his path in the middle, away from this war, it would be for him to decide; she hopes he won't, of course, hopes that he sees in their future the same vision that he'd shared with her on Yaga Minor, but changed now, guided by their own minds and no one else's. But she can't force him to. ]
I told you that you would need to decide your path forward for yourself. If you ask me, the best place to find that path is here, with the Resistance, and I believe you owe it to the people you've hurt to help them clean up this mess. But what I believe doesn't really matter. The question is what do you believe? Do you believe you belong in a cage?
[ It's hard to tell if she means it. If when he makes his choice, she would truly honor it and let him walk away, or if this is some elaborate scheme to manipulate him into the choice she wants and to make it feel like his choice. However, it's hard to imagine the open gentleness of her eyes could be anything but real, and she does have the keen advantage of a Force bond equipped to (hopefully) warn her if he would truly try to decimate the camp now. Perhaps, against all odds, she really is that willing to exercise her understanding as forgiveness. ]
no subject
She knows he is already bracing himself for the confines of the makeshift airlock cell before he asks, just like she knows that's sweat he's shaking out of his hair, and she finds herself oddly calm in how she feels just as aware of his movements and particularities as she is of her own.
Rey stops in front of him with his question, glancing pointedly at the metal he has crushed in an uncontrolled fit with careful assessment before she takes the time to answer. Skywalker's measured patience counts in her silent beats. Then, she looks back at him, eyes muddled with two parts confusion and one part understanding. ]
It wasn't my idea to put you there in the first place. [ For some reason, that seems like the most important thing to establish—she wants him to understand that if she had her way, it would have been a different conversation. She can't be sure how. Maybe that's why it wasn't her decision. But it seemed just as inhumane as how the First Order had held her, and vengeance tasted bitter and turned to ash in her mouth, unsatisfying and short-lived. ] And no one has ordered me to return you to it, so unless you know something I don't, and have reason to believe that I need to…
[ Which is to say, she wants him to make that call. As far as Rey is concerned, he's free to walk out of this camp now. All said and done, he offered them precisely what they needed, and he submitted himself to make sure he would no longer be a weapon for Snoke to wield. If he found his path in the middle, away from this war, it would be for him to decide; she hopes he won't, of course, hopes that he sees in their future the same vision that he'd shared with her on Yaga Minor, but changed now, guided by their own minds and no one else's. But she can't force him to. ]
I told you that you would need to decide your path forward for yourself. If you ask me, the best place to find that path is here, with the Resistance, and I believe you owe it to the people you've hurt to help them clean up this mess. But what I believe doesn't really matter. The question is what do you believe? Do you believe you belong in a cage?
[ It's hard to tell if she means it. If when he makes his choice, she would truly honor it and let him walk away, or if this is some elaborate scheme to manipulate him into the choice she wants and to make it feel like his choice. However, it's hard to imagine the open gentleness of her eyes could be anything but real, and she does have the keen advantage of a Force bond equipped to (hopefully) warn her if he would truly try to decimate the camp now. Perhaps, against all odds, she really is that willing to exercise her understanding as forgiveness. ]