( The inflection at the end of that word - trap - light and lilting, drawn around the bright clip of her accent - another anomaly about her; what is a Core World accent doing on a wasteland like Jakku? - brings the heaviness in his gaze to level with her own, already waiting for him across the short distance that separates them, highlighted by the low burn of the glowrod. Kylo doesn't need the cloying shadows provided by the building and the landscape itself to darken both the color and the cast of his eyes as he glances at her, interpreting the meaning behind her question before she speaks again to clarify it.
Before he answers, he lets his eyes linger on hers, on her face, roving over the architecture of her bone structure and the map of her expression in an effort to suss out disagreement, a building argument, the combustion of the tension that has been leaking out of every interaction - extended or otherwise - between them since Corellia. He's surprised not to find it, is equally surprised to find instead an open curiosity as to his opinion. In some ways, it feels like a test, but there's little she can do if he doesn't pass it, and for as much as their individual responses spell out more than enough about them without the burden of detail, he knows that whatever answer he gives, the solution is more complicated than a yes or no buried within an explanation.
Eventually, he turns away from her, showing her his profile as he glances again out the window, the opening of the mine edged with the long, serrated teeth of the window. Fingers curl into fists of their own accord as she hedges around questions and hesitates in her delivery. They aren't tight but the strain that it builds in the muscles that comprise his forearms feels like stretching at the start of an early morning, bone-deep and relieving. Dark eyes skim the floor, travel to her boots and up the dirty material of her pant legs to bottom out on her own eyes with his chin tipped down. A frown twitches at the corner of his mouth, and the question she poses makes a giant ball of lead gather and drop into the bottom of his stomach like a stone. It's hot with the fusing together of many different things, and it's technically the ire that wins out first, but it's correcting her that noses ahead at the end. )
There are some people in this world that you can't save, Rey. ( His tone aims for brokering no argument, steeped in greater knowledge that she can possess about the enemy - what a word - they prepare to face. Of course, labeling Ji in such terms leaves wide open the notion that he is someone who can be saved, which isn't a connotation that he wants associated with himself and the choices that he's made. It leaves a bad taste in the back of his mouth, but if he's to prove any point to her at all, he can't call it into question. ) You can try, with Ji, you can give her the option, but she'll never make the decision to walk with you the way that I did. She isn't in the dark. She doesn't fight that -
( Glass breaks in the same moment that Kylo throws his arm out, halting a red bolt of blaster fire, wide and pulsing, in the air. It hovers just inches from where they are standing, as unaware of its intended target as Kylo is. His arm shakes momentarily with the effort of containing it before another greeting of tinkering glass shatters on the opposite end of the floor they stand on, a brief pause separating that noise from an ominous hissing as the room begins to fill with smoke. He reaches out to extinguish the glowrod in the same moment that footsteps clatter on the other end of the collapsed building, and Kylo drags Rey close enough to smell the sweat on her skin as he hisses at her over the plume of white mist. ) Move.
( Ji blooms in full manifestation at the forefront of his perception - and, he knows, Rey's - and he can almost hear the melodic drawl of her accent as he lets the blaster bolt tear a hole in the floorboards. )
no subject
Before he answers, he lets his eyes linger on hers, on her face, roving over the architecture of her bone structure and the map of her expression in an effort to suss out disagreement, a building argument, the combustion of the tension that has been leaking out of every interaction - extended or otherwise - between them since Corellia. He's surprised not to find it, is equally surprised to find instead an open curiosity as to his opinion. In some ways, it feels like a test, but there's little she can do if he doesn't pass it, and for as much as their individual responses spell out more than enough about them without the burden of detail, he knows that whatever answer he gives, the solution is more complicated than a yes or no buried within an explanation.
Eventually, he turns away from her, showing her his profile as he glances again out the window, the opening of the mine edged with the long, serrated teeth of the window. Fingers curl into fists of their own accord as she hedges around questions and hesitates in her delivery. They aren't tight but the strain that it builds in the muscles that comprise his forearms feels like stretching at the start of an early morning, bone-deep and relieving. Dark eyes skim the floor, travel to her boots and up the dirty material of her pant legs to bottom out on her own eyes with his chin tipped down. A frown twitches at the corner of his mouth, and the question she poses makes a giant ball of lead gather and drop into the bottom of his stomach like a stone. It's hot with the fusing together of many different things, and it's technically the ire that wins out first, but it's correcting her that noses ahead at the end. )
There are some people in this world that you can't save, Rey. ( His tone aims for brokering no argument, steeped in greater knowledge that she can possess about the enemy - what a word - they prepare to face. Of course, labeling Ji in such terms leaves wide open the notion that he is someone who can be saved, which isn't a connotation that he wants associated with himself and the choices that he's made. It leaves a bad taste in the back of his mouth, but if he's to prove any point to her at all, he can't call it into question. ) You can try, with Ji, you can give her the option, but she'll never make the decision to walk with you the way that I did. She isn't in the dark. She doesn't fight that -
( Glass breaks in the same moment that Kylo throws his arm out, halting a red bolt of blaster fire, wide and pulsing, in the air. It hovers just inches from where they are standing, as unaware of its intended target as Kylo is. His arm shakes momentarily with the effort of containing it before another greeting of tinkering glass shatters on the opposite end of the floor they stand on, a brief pause separating that noise from an ominous hissing as the room begins to fill with smoke. He reaches out to extinguish the glowrod in the same moment that footsteps clatter on the other end of the collapsed building, and Kylo drags Rey close enough to smell the sweat on her skin as he hisses at her over the plume of white mist. ) Move.
( Ji blooms in full manifestation at the forefront of his perception - and, he knows, Rey's - and he can almost hear the melodic drawl of her accent as he lets the blaster bolt tear a hole in the floorboards. )