[ For a while, he holds close to her, and Rey comforts herself with the thudding sound of his boots and the labored rasp of his breath for his presence offers an anchor in the bottomless black of the mine, reminds her that she isn't plummeting down alone. But more than the physical manifestations of his presence a few hurried beats behind her, she focuses on the way that she can feel him, linked in perfect tandem so tightly that they might as well be a single unit.
That tether snaps all at once, and Rey can almost feel herself tumble forward towards the inky well of darkness that lies waiting for them, dust skidding up in a cloud around her and thickening it. He stops, turns, digs his heels in. The tunnels sigh. The mountain's foundation cries out, begging for respite, a groaning pain that sags with the weight of them, and the musty air stinks of something burning, the sediment spun to smoke by the path of their lit sabers.
The void left between them aches like a missing piece of herself, the Force closing its fist around her throat to shout her down from allowing that valley to grow between them. A shortened, wheezed breath floods her lungs. She whips around to watch and wait, panicked by the severity of the sensation as much as by the actual potential for loss that hangs heavy in it—this shouldn't happen. But then, there is no should or shouldn't for something that lacks precedent. It feels like he's been torn out of her to lose the uniformity with which they act, and Rey jerks to a stop, whipping around to peer after him.
A glow of green lights his silhouette on the steel and dirt and cobwebs of the tunnel wall where it curves around, and it cracks into a blossom of something hideous and near-orange as Kylo clashes with their pursuer. Rey gapes, choking back a cry of dread, and rounds the corner to reach Kylo's side: she finds Ji popping forward and back in a series of blows that reflects her acute familiarity with the fact that she can't best Kylo Ren in a battle of sheer strength. In some way, that emboldens Rey, leaves her feeling inimitable for driving his saber into the snow and ridding him of it.
Still. There's something sharp and targeted in the way Ji advances, something that searches out weak points and creates them where they don't exist. She lifts the saber with both arms, and Rey realizes that she's not in a position to get between them in time, so she takes the only other route she has to protect him: she raises her free hand, fingers spread, wrist tilted, and catches the blade on the downswing with thick tendrils of invisible energy to restrain it like a net. ]
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That tether snaps all at once, and Rey can almost feel herself tumble forward towards the inky well of darkness that lies waiting for them, dust skidding up in a cloud around her and thickening it. He stops, turns, digs his heels in. The tunnels sigh. The mountain's foundation cries out, begging for respite, a groaning pain that sags with the weight of them, and the musty air stinks of something burning, the sediment spun to smoke by the path of their lit sabers.
The void left between them aches like a missing piece of herself, the Force closing its fist around her throat to shout her down from allowing that valley to grow between them. A shortened, wheezed breath floods her lungs. She whips around to watch and wait, panicked by the severity of the sensation as much as by the actual potential for loss that hangs heavy in it—this shouldn't happen. But then, there is no should or shouldn't for something that lacks precedent. It feels like he's been torn out of her to lose the uniformity with which they act, and Rey jerks to a stop, whipping around to peer after him.
A glow of green lights his silhouette on the steel and dirt and cobwebs of the tunnel wall where it curves around, and it cracks into a blossom of something hideous and near-orange as Kylo clashes with their pursuer. Rey gapes, choking back a cry of dread, and rounds the corner to reach Kylo's side: she finds Ji popping forward and back in a series of blows that reflects her acute familiarity with the fact that she can't best Kylo Ren in a battle of sheer strength. In some way, that emboldens Rey, leaves her feeling inimitable for driving his saber into the snow and ridding him of it.
Still. There's something sharp and targeted in the way Ji advances, something that searches out weak points and creates them where they don't exist. She lifts the saber with both arms, and Rey realizes that she's not in a position to get between them in time, so she takes the only other route she has to protect him: she raises her free hand, fingers spread, wrist tilted, and catches the blade on the downswing with thick tendrils of invisible energy to restrain it like a net. ]