[ Neither of them needs to verbalize their recognition of his lie for it to hang between them as he swaggers over, the crumpled game board standing in testament to his fury and the power it holds. No wonder Snoke chose to cultivate his unhinged rage, to fan that flame until it was an unchecked inferno, one that Rey would be happy to see burn the Supreme Leader for his arrogance in believing that he could control it for a moment. Rey knows, looking at the wildfire that blazes before her, that she can't either, even though the Resistance has premised its acceptance of Kylo Ren's surrender on the condition that she can.
Regardless of how barely perceptible it is, she jumps ever so slightly when the board crumples, but her spine refuses to recline and lean back as he swarms her, a suffocating cloud of black ink that descends like locusts blotting out the sun. Her tongue darts out to wet cracking lips, and she lifts her chin as she swallows the lump in her throat, determined not to let her weakness show even as his pours through their connection in the reaction to her goading jab.
It's not as if she didn't realize while she did it that she was poking an already incensed wild animal, one who's already developed a taste for her blood.
The intensity of his anger assures her that this will be the time it goes beyond his limits, that she will be left to defend herself from suffering the same fate as the Dejarik board, and she's ready and—if she's being honest with herself—even excited by the prospect, her blood thrumming with the promise of a fight right up until the very instant he turns on his heels and billows out of the room, leaving Rey to deflate into sagging shoulders and heady confusion. Even if she wanted to lash back, she would not strike a blow on the swaggering titan that shrunk her like he did; he's already gone.
Instead, Rey makes her way to the cockpit and settles into the pilot's seat to find serenity in the busy streaking light of hyper space. She closes her eyes and imagines Han here, thirty years ago, warring with the Empire and either fleeing or seeking out Darth Vader's iron grip wherever it held pull over the galaxy, Leia packed into the cockpit with him. She wants to believe that can be her too, that she'll chase Snoke out of every dark corner that he can hide in within the known galaxy until all that's left is the small political scuffles fought in X-wings and TIE fighters by people like Finn and Poe, or by people like Leia who, at Finn's behest, has been pouring resources into deprogramming possibilities for the swayed stormtroopers.
She doesn't leave the cockpit, even after she extracts herself from dreams of eventual peace; instead, she pulls records from the Falcon's archives up onto the view screen, including a file on Mandalore. Her eyes gloss over the words, skimming it without committing much of it to memory beyond some that she can recognize by sight. Ultimately, it only stokes her frustration, and she closes it soon enough as well, scrubbing hands over her face in dissatisfaction with her own ineptitude, in a rare moment able to appreciate the fear of inadequacy she'd sensed in Kylo Ren those months ago.
A lot of people are counting on them to come back and promise security, offer hope. She can't afford to let them down. ]
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Regardless of how barely perceptible it is, she jumps ever so slightly when the board crumples, but her spine refuses to recline and lean back as he swarms her, a suffocating cloud of black ink that descends like locusts blotting out the sun. Her tongue darts out to wet cracking lips, and she lifts her chin as she swallows the lump in her throat, determined not to let her weakness show even as his pours through their connection in the reaction to her goading jab.
It's not as if she didn't realize while she did it that she was poking an already incensed wild animal, one who's already developed a taste for her blood.
The intensity of his anger assures her that this will be the time it goes beyond his limits, that she will be left to defend herself from suffering the same fate as the Dejarik board, and she's ready and—if she's being honest with herself—even excited by the prospect, her blood thrumming with the promise of a fight right up until the very instant he turns on his heels and billows out of the room, leaving Rey to deflate into sagging shoulders and heady confusion. Even if she wanted to lash back, she would not strike a blow on the swaggering titan that shrunk her like he did; he's already gone.
Instead, Rey makes her way to the cockpit and settles into the pilot's seat to find serenity in the busy streaking light of hyper space. She closes her eyes and imagines Han here, thirty years ago, warring with the Empire and either fleeing or seeking out Darth Vader's iron grip wherever it held pull over the galaxy, Leia packed into the cockpit with him. She wants to believe that can be her too, that she'll chase Snoke out of every dark corner that he can hide in within the known galaxy until all that's left is the small political scuffles fought in X-wings and TIE fighters by people like Finn and Poe, or by people like Leia who, at Finn's behest, has been pouring resources into deprogramming possibilities for the swayed stormtroopers.
She doesn't leave the cockpit, even after she extracts herself from dreams of eventual peace; instead, she pulls records from the Falcon's archives up onto the view screen, including a file on Mandalore. Her eyes gloss over the words, skimming it without committing much of it to memory beyond some that she can recognize by sight. Ultimately, it only stokes her frustration, and she closes it soon enough as well, scrubbing hands over her face in dissatisfaction with her own ineptitude, in a rare moment able to appreciate the fear of inadequacy she'd sensed in Kylo Ren those months ago.
A lot of people are counting on them to come back and promise security, offer hope. She can't afford to let them down. ]