[ And there is her tell. She can feel his presence retreat with his efforts to calm the sparking tension filling the space between them, shrinking it and causing him to loom. Only then does she realize how she has bristled, how she has exposed herself and the length of the leash she trusts him on.
If a world exists where she finds herself able to forget or be at true ease with all he has done, they do not live in it yet. He poses a very real threat, or at least he could, if his worse nature were to seize command in any significant way—through his temper, for instance.
She tightens her jaw, mouth set in a heavy frown that seems to linger on the edge of regret—not the kind of regret that merely mourns her mistake, but the kind that wobbles near an apology for it. Whatever it is never comes out, and she shakes it off when she lifts her chin to stubbornly meet his chastising with a distinct lack of apology that’s so sharp in contrast to the look she has dismissed that it makes her look arrogant. ]
I can handle myself. Unless you want another demonstration, I suggest you take my word for it. [ Thank you very much. He has no right, she reasons privately to herself. He has no idea what she’s done to survive, what it was like on Jakku, a small girl—barely more than a toddler—learning very quickly that you either lost everything or you learned to protect it. While Kylo had two, Rey had no teachers, no guidance, only the harsh lessons of violent experience to teach her to fight as scrappily as she does. Not to mention her quite unarmed escape from Starkiller Base. ]
It’s going to take hours to hike back to that plateau: do you really think we have all that time to be fussing about a lightsaber right now?
[ She forces her hands to relax, noticing somewhere along the line they had balled into fists, ready (or perhaps hoping) for a fight. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t contort her mind into understanding the importance of its legacy to him, for she’s never had any kind of legacy to look towards. Survival in the moment has always been her focus out of necessity; there is no switch she can flip to cease worrying about it. ]
no subject
If a world exists where she finds herself able to forget or be at true ease with all he has done, they do not live in it yet. He poses a very real threat, or at least he could, if his worse nature were to seize command in any significant way—through his temper, for instance.
She tightens her jaw, mouth set in a heavy frown that seems to linger on the edge of regret—not the kind of regret that merely mourns her mistake, but the kind that wobbles near an apology for it. Whatever it is never comes out, and she shakes it off when she lifts her chin to stubbornly meet his chastising with a distinct lack of apology that’s so sharp in contrast to the look she has dismissed that it makes her look arrogant. ]
I can handle myself. Unless you want another demonstration, I suggest you take my word for it. [ Thank you very much. He has no right, she reasons privately to herself. He has no idea what she’s done to survive, what it was like on Jakku, a small girl—barely more than a toddler—learning very quickly that you either lost everything or you learned to protect it. While Kylo had two, Rey had no teachers, no guidance, only the harsh lessons of violent experience to teach her to fight as scrappily as she does. Not to mention her quite unarmed escape from Starkiller Base. ]
It’s going to take hours to hike back to that plateau: do you really think we have all that time to be fussing about a lightsaber right now?
[ She forces her hands to relax, noticing somewhere along the line they had balled into fists, ready (or perhaps hoping) for a fight. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t contort her mind into understanding the importance of its legacy to him, for she’s never had any kind of legacy to look towards. Survival in the moment has always been her focus out of necessity; there is no switch she can flip to cease worrying about it. ]