( He watches her openly, on purpose, in an active effort to discern what she might be thinking or feeling without parading around in her head. Darkness flashes there, and light, a series of contrasts that betray how much she continues to grapple with their intersecting existences. The bench makes a high-pitched and short-lived creaking sound as Rey sits, close enough that he can feel the high wall erected between them but far enough away that he can't count the number of bricks that comprise it. )
I dreamt something similar on Hapes. ( Kylo can't determine whether or not he's using the word similar by the loosest definition possible or not. He's certainly not eight-years-old anymore - despite sometimes acting the part - and Rey had not even been a light in her parents' eyes by the time he was that old, but that's the problem with trying to determine nonsense from insight when it comes to the Force. Like shifting sand through a sieve in an attempt to find a pearl, most of the time what you shake out is just more sand. Regardless, Kylo screws his expression up in an effort to chase the tail end of what he remembers ) The rain, in the dark. All of them, as you've described it, to a certain extent.
( Even as the words come out of his mouth, it doesn't feel like it's the first time that he's regurgitated them in some fashion, just as meeting Rey for the first time hadn't felt like the first time. Whispers and tremors around that word - girl - a yawning and stretching of limbs in the dark void that only he and his master were meant to fill. He couldn't explain it then, and Kylo isn't sure were he prompted any further than she's indirectly prompting him that he would be able to explain it now. Thoughts and feelings. The Force. It all muddles together and washes away in a swirl of dark colors and smeared, bright light. )
I saw one of them approaching you, and then I was behind him, and then I wasn't anymore. I was down on the ground, and you were above me, reaching out your hand. ( Dark eyes chase the pattern on the dejarik board over to where Rey sits, and the realization that he could kill the remaining Knights just as easily as he could rejoin them swims vaguely to the surface of his thoughts, a lone bubble from down below. He feels suspended, hanging above an impact point far below what his eyes can track. They will try to kill him, he's sure, but what if they try to bring him back? Will he go? He couldn't, not without knowing that his own end would be imminent, not without undoing everything that he and Rey - that he - has worked to do, chosen to do. He swallows and inadvertently sinks down further into the sofa. ) Some of it felt like it might be true. Most of it just felt like a bad dream. That's the problem with reading things through the Force, sometimes. There's no way to be sure of what's true, what might be true, and what is just the result of some bad holo you watched once.
( But Rey had never used the word dream, and that's what marks the difference between them. Kylo can't decide if he thinks his own experience is the result of the bleeding of her mind into his or something else, something different, some warning about what's coming. After everything - even before everything - he likes to think that he still has no intention of killing her, that he certainly wouldn't allow anyone else to kill her, other than himself if it came down to it. Certainly not Dryx or any of the other Knights. What that says about him and his thoughts and opinions toward Rey as a whole is something he still isn't willing to examine at length, despite having a decent idea since she woke on Starkiller. Regardless of what he thinks, however, he's never been more sure that something is waiting for them, coming for them. It pulls at him and fills his mind not unlike the way in which his inevitable default to Snoke's guidance and leadership had. Unavoidable. )
I think it's safe to say, though, that Mandalore might be our last stop without incident, if it ends up being without incident at all.
no subject
I dreamt something similar on Hapes. ( Kylo can't determine whether or not he's using the word similar by the loosest definition possible or not. He's certainly not eight-years-old anymore - despite sometimes acting the part - and Rey had not even been a light in her parents' eyes by the time he was that old, but that's the problem with trying to determine nonsense from insight when it comes to the Force. Like shifting sand through a sieve in an attempt to find a pearl, most of the time what you shake out is just more sand. Regardless, Kylo screws his expression up in an effort to chase the tail end of what he remembers ) The rain, in the dark. All of them, as you've described it, to a certain extent.
( Even as the words come out of his mouth, it doesn't feel like it's the first time that he's regurgitated them in some fashion, just as meeting Rey for the first time hadn't felt like the first time. Whispers and tremors around that word - girl - a yawning and stretching of limbs in the dark void that only he and his master were meant to fill. He couldn't explain it then, and Kylo isn't sure were he prompted any further than she's indirectly prompting him that he would be able to explain it now. Thoughts and feelings. The Force. It all muddles together and washes away in a swirl of dark colors and smeared, bright light. )
I saw one of them approaching you, and then I was behind him, and then I wasn't anymore. I was down on the ground, and you were above me, reaching out your hand. ( Dark eyes chase the pattern on the dejarik board over to where Rey sits, and the realization that he could kill the remaining Knights just as easily as he could rejoin them swims vaguely to the surface of his thoughts, a lone bubble from down below. He feels suspended, hanging above an impact point far below what his eyes can track. They will try to kill him, he's sure, but what if they try to bring him back? Will he go? He couldn't, not without knowing that his own end would be imminent, not without undoing everything that he and Rey - that he - has worked to do, chosen to do. He swallows and inadvertently sinks down further into the sofa. ) Some of it felt like it might be true. Most of it just felt like a bad dream. That's the problem with reading things through the Force, sometimes. There's no way to be sure of what's true, what might be true, and what is just the result of some bad holo you watched once.
( But Rey had never used the word dream, and that's what marks the difference between them. Kylo can't decide if he thinks his own experience is the result of the bleeding of her mind into his or something else, something different, some warning about what's coming. After everything - even before everything - he likes to think that he still has no intention of killing her, that he certainly wouldn't allow anyone else to kill her, other than himself if it came down to it. Certainly not Dryx or any of the other Knights. What that says about him and his thoughts and opinions toward Rey as a whole is something he still isn't willing to examine at length, despite having a decent idea since she woke on Starkiller. Regardless of what he thinks, however, he's never been more sure that something is waiting for them, coming for them. It pulls at him and fills his mind not unlike the way in which his inevitable default to Snoke's guidance and leadership had. Unavoidable. )
I think it's safe to say, though, that Mandalore might be our last stop without incident, if it ends up being without incident at all.