( In the brief moments available between Rey's proposed change in direction and the actual altering of their course to support it, he tries to think as quickly as he can, leaving his thoughts loud. Mandalore would be a preferable landing strip upon which to descend for reasons that have as much to do with the number of faces to blend in with, throwing Ji's perception of her leader through her scant understanding of the Force into a serious downward spiral, as it does with the superior resources available to them on an actual planet. The moon itself is agricultural in nature, despite the mines that dot the landscape, and still recovering from civil war decades and decades ago. Its lush forestry might prove decent for cover but wouldn't overwhelm Ji's ability to track the way so many bodies with so many thoughts and alternating pulses and heartbeats would.
But there's little choice in the matter, and he refrains from arguing any further as Rey angles the ship in that direction, his silence serving as support enough for the decision that she makes with or without him. The scanners can't pick up Ji's transport and if she has Snoke cloaking her from afar, tracking his newly appointed leader of the Knights the way that he was able to track Kylo, there's little chance that either Rey or Kylo himself will be able to pick her out of the limitless black blanket of space. Still, he keeps his eyes trained on the viewport in an effort to distinguish star from satellite, stationary rock from mobile figure, the emptiness of Mandalorian air from a hollow point in the galaxy bending light and sucking the world down into a vacuum.
After a moment, Kylo looks over at her. Not at the provocation of her voice as she airs her concerns but at the first hint of real doubt that flashes through her mind. He sees Endor, tall trees and a funeral pyre that burned high into the night sky, leaving behind ash and twisted metal, duarsteel and plasteel collapsed into a pile of melted obsidian. The end of an era, in more ways than one. Rey's thoughts grow deeper, darker, and he realizes it's because she's wading into the sea of his own thoughts and memories in an attempt to understand. Something in him is pleased at that notion, and despite the severity and time sensitive nature of the moment, Kylo spares the necessity of his attention and senses on the viewport to allow her to see what it is that she's looking for with greater clarity than she might encounter were he to resist.
Endor is there, a cross-contamination of her own thoughts as they spill into his. His grandfather's mask, warped and destroyed and leaking energy, power, influence, like sweet, cold water. Another mask, more defined, a helmet Mandalorian in design with a network of crosshatching; a long, black cloak pulled tight over strong shoulders, parting at the waist at the end of a diagonal slash in order to reveal a lightsaber, short and blunt, clipped and hanging next to a blaster. Gloved fingers rise to lift the helmet from her head but Kylo terminates the memory before it has the chance to become that tangible, as if the reminder of her face makes too real the possibility that Rey's concerns will manifest as reality. )
I'm sure. And I'm sure that she'll come alone. Ji does not play well with others. ( He says this with no small amount of conviction, somewhat frustrated that she would have the wherewithal to question him on a subject in which he is the utmost authority as opposed to her inexperience dealing with any of them outside of himself and the vision that she'd seen. ) Even if what you saw turns out to be true, it's unlikely that Snoke will pool his resources together so quickly. He needs to find us first, and the Knights need to test the boundaries of what they are and are not able to do under circumstances such as these. They know how I fight, what to expect. ( As much as it pains him to admit it, although admitting it does not mean that because they know his tries and tricks, they are somehow superior or stronger than him. His position at their head has determined that much already. But Rey. He glances over at her again, briefly, before skipping his eyes to the scanner and back to the stars ahead of them. ) You are an unknown factor.
( Even Snoke would have to assume as much. The only knowledge that he has of the girl that sits next to his apprentice now is what Kylo had told him on Starkiller, followed shamefully by her swift embrace of the Force and the abilities that it had granted her. Kylo swallows against the memory, unwilling to let it rise to the surface and sit within the broad cavity of his chest like a tumor, growing black and ugly along his insides and threatening to drag him down in a direction that he cannot afford to go at this late hour. Instead, he watches the sky and waits for Ji to make a mistake, waits for her impatience to get the better of her. A few of the Knights are excellent pilots that operate more like adrenaline junkies than people with the preternatural ability to fly. Ji is not one of them. Ji flies with the sort of skill that enables her to get from point A to point B without disaster occurring, but if she's tracking them now, her impatience won't stop her from showing up in some way, regardless of whether or not Snoke is shielding her.
It only takes until they are close enough to begin the landing procedure down toward Concordia, and then she shows up at the edges of his perception, angry and coming in hot. Rey, he knows, won't miss a beat in sensing her malevolence even at this distance. Kylo refuses to believe that their end comes in a similar fashion based on landscape alone. Ji will not be their undoing. )
no subject
But there's little choice in the matter, and he refrains from arguing any further as Rey angles the ship in that direction, his silence serving as support enough for the decision that she makes with or without him. The scanners can't pick up Ji's transport and if she has Snoke cloaking her from afar, tracking his newly appointed leader of the Knights the way that he was able to track Kylo, there's little chance that either Rey or Kylo himself will be able to pick her out of the limitless black blanket of space. Still, he keeps his eyes trained on the viewport in an effort to distinguish star from satellite, stationary rock from mobile figure, the emptiness of Mandalorian air from a hollow point in the galaxy bending light and sucking the world down into a vacuum.
After a moment, Kylo looks over at her. Not at the provocation of her voice as she airs her concerns but at the first hint of real doubt that flashes through her mind. He sees Endor, tall trees and a funeral pyre that burned high into the night sky, leaving behind ash and twisted metal, duarsteel and plasteel collapsed into a pile of melted obsidian. The end of an era, in more ways than one. Rey's thoughts grow deeper, darker, and he realizes it's because she's wading into the sea of his own thoughts and memories in an attempt to understand. Something in him is pleased at that notion, and despite the severity and time sensitive nature of the moment, Kylo spares the necessity of his attention and senses on the viewport to allow her to see what it is that she's looking for with greater clarity than she might encounter were he to resist.
Endor is there, a cross-contamination of her own thoughts as they spill into his. His grandfather's mask, warped and destroyed and leaking energy, power, influence, like sweet, cold water. Another mask, more defined, a helmet Mandalorian in design with a network of crosshatching; a long, black cloak pulled tight over strong shoulders, parting at the waist at the end of a diagonal slash in order to reveal a lightsaber, short and blunt, clipped and hanging next to a blaster. Gloved fingers rise to lift the helmet from her head but Kylo terminates the memory before it has the chance to become that tangible, as if the reminder of her face makes too real the possibility that Rey's concerns will manifest as reality. )
I'm sure. And I'm sure that she'll come alone. Ji does not play well with others. ( He says this with no small amount of conviction, somewhat frustrated that she would have the wherewithal to question him on a subject in which he is the utmost authority as opposed to her inexperience dealing with any of them outside of himself and the vision that she'd seen. ) Even if what you saw turns out to be true, it's unlikely that Snoke will pool his resources together so quickly. He needs to find us first, and the Knights need to test the boundaries of what they are and are not able to do under circumstances such as these. They know how I fight, what to expect. ( As much as it pains him to admit it, although admitting it does not mean that because they know his tries and tricks, they are somehow superior or stronger than him. His position at their head has determined that much already. But Rey. He glances over at her again, briefly, before skipping his eyes to the scanner and back to the stars ahead of them. ) You are an unknown factor.
( Even Snoke would have to assume as much. The only knowledge that he has of the girl that sits next to his apprentice now is what Kylo had told him on Starkiller, followed shamefully by her swift embrace of the Force and the abilities that it had granted her. Kylo swallows against the memory, unwilling to let it rise to the surface and sit within the broad cavity of his chest like a tumor, growing black and ugly along his insides and threatening to drag him down in a direction that he cannot afford to go at this late hour. Instead, he watches the sky and waits for Ji to make a mistake, waits for her impatience to get the better of her. A few of the Knights are excellent pilots that operate more like adrenaline junkies than people with the preternatural ability to fly. Ji is not one of them. Ji flies with the sort of skill that enables her to get from point A to point B without disaster occurring, but if she's tracking them now, her impatience won't stop her from showing up in some way, regardless of whether or not Snoke is shielding her.
It only takes until they are close enough to begin the landing procedure down toward Concordia, and then she shows up at the edges of his perception, angry and coming in hot. Rey, he knows, won't miss a beat in sensing her malevolence even at this distance. Kylo refuses to believe that their end comes in a similar fashion based on landscape alone. Ji will not be their undoing. )