( A door closes heavy and loud down the alley, catching his attention in a very careful way, head snapping to attention immediately and searching for the cause of the commotion through the tendons and sinews that comprise the world around them. He searches, locates, and pushes, an uncontained blast of energy through the Force that strikes out with the immediacy of a blaster discharging and feels the tumble of whoever has been eavesdropping as much as he can hear it, a combustion of furniture and shattered glass, a scream, then silence.
His attention is back on Rey in an instant, on the humming pulse of the saber in her hand, pushing his own displeasure at his own distraction to the back of his mind in the wake of dealing with her directly, on the lapping of waves and the shifting of dunes that spring to the forefront of her mind almost immediately. He wonders if it's a crutch or if it's something that, now that he's seen it, she can't shake him away from, if they will wander her wastelands and utopias until she learns to repel him once and for all. Until she learns to push back. Her nails biting his skin, digging into the bones of his wrist. There is so little distance between them now that if he were to run her through with his blade from behind he would have no hope but to impale himself as well. He can see the scorching sand and sun reflected back in her irises, cutting at him through the visor of his helmet.
Kylo tosses her back physically, strong enough to knock her off balance without the use of the Force but employing it somewhat to send her sprawling. He trips the switch of his lightsaber and cuts it off, not belting it but holding it so tightly that he knows his knuckles are white under the leather. )
We're done here.
( He doesn't wait for her to pick herself up before turning away. )
[ Instantly, there's a flash of anger she hasn't quite learned to control, primal and instinctual, sprawled across the dusty ground for all of a heartbeat before she's launching to her feet, righteously indignant and certainly less interested in letting that insult go. Her lightsaber is still on, scorch marks crisscrossing in the dirt around her and she lifts an open palm and focuses— pushes back at Kylo until he stumbles, catching his robe in her mental grip as she keeps the barest hint of a hold on him. ] I'm not something you can crush beneath your boot, Kylo Ren.
[ Her brow already damp with the effort of holding him there, she shoves her way back into his mind, engulfed instantly in the murky, suffocating fear he has roiling around inside him, anger, self loathing, rage; but she can feel that modest little spark, too, buried deep but there, warm and bright as an ember, flickering but not fading. I see you. Suddenly she's standing in his mental landscape, looking up into his face plainly, mask discarded even as they stand locked, feet from each other in the physical world, his back to her. Stop running from it. The landscape shifts and they're bathed in scorching sunlight on the sands of Jakku, miles and miles of dune sea spread before them. It wavers again and they're face to face at the viewpoint on the Finalizer, cold, unyielding steel, the murmur of voices busy and indistinct around them. Alone.
Rey holds his gaze, something imperceptible filtering between two minds so closely mingled together for one perfect moment that she can't tell where she begins and he ends, and her hand wavers and she loses her grasp on him— or unconsciously releases, she isn't certain, drawing in a deep breath sharply as she pants, unsteady but still on guard. He might kill her now, or try. ]
( Rey's anger permeates the atmosphere like a cloud, hanging low and bloated and heavy. He hones in on it like a bloodhound, his head turning to catch the blunt force of the ripple through the Force that she lashes out with and catching instead the gunfire of her retaliation. She's a child with her father's ammunition, armed to the teeth with no idea how to use it. He understands that power, the feeling of it struggling to breathe and flutter like a bird caught in your fingers, an ember still trying to catch and ignite low in the coals. All she - someone - needs to do is blow on it with the right amount of pressure and it will flare to life.
Kylo isn't anticipating her presence there, as much as he isn't anticipating her sticking around for further verbal abuse on his part. Foolish. Reckless. Stupid. Weak. She doesn't so much as push back into his thoughts, his mind, as much as she's suddenly there, and he reacts the only way that he knows how: pushing back. The sun is hot on his neck, pooling sweat in the small of his back and under his arms, his feet sinking into sand up to his ankles, the grit of it sharp on his tongue and crunching between his teeth as he grinds them together. Just as quickly, the cold, polished durasteel of Hux's flagship reflects her face from every surface, the overhead lighting shining dully on the scuffed tips of his boots. Her voice in his head like a battering ram, and every door he tries to close between them, to keep her out, stutters behind him just a moment too late, allowing her passage through until finally, finally he slams her out and -
Another room, cold and dark, raised sides and a platform like a dais. Light streams in from up above and the architecture crumbles, stones shifting underfoot. Beyond the immediate landscape, a blood orange sun sets and casts long shadows over old monuments, falling into disarray. In the darkness there, something shifts and then looks up. Sunken eyes, a concave skull, an inhale that rustles and scratches like leaves.
Kylo finds himself with his feet planted firmly in the dirt and his breath stitched together in his chest a moment later, heart hammering hard. The sweat on the back of his neck is cold and Rey is several paces from him, tired and unfocused and unsteady with the weight of her own power. For a long, quiet moment, he says nothing, does nothing other than to turn on his heel the remainder of the way so that he can face her directly. )
It becomes more and more difficult not to kill you every time we cross paths.
[ She sees it, too— feels it, cold concrete biting into her knees as she bows her head and worships to this would-be God, dressed heavy in black, Kylo's gloved hand bizarrely comforting at the tiny small of her back. Her teacher, her mentor, her–– They're back on solid ground and Rey's having trouble catching her breath, having trouble parsing reality from whatever they've both been submersed in in their minds, hers or his, she can't tell the difference anymore. Some strange impulse leaves her wanting to reach for him but finding her fingers grasping at nothing but empty air, eyes unfocused as she resists the urge to reach out. It's pointless. ]
And yet, [ She exhales and inhales deeply, mentally willing her pulse and breathing to shift back to normal: ] Here we are. Both still living and breathing. [ Rey risks lifting a forearm to swipe the sweat gathered at her brow, stray loose curls gathering at her temples as she shifts her stance and relaxes minutely. The mental exercise has taken much from them both but particularly from Rey, muscles weakened and feeling awkward, as if from lack of use or distrophy, and she grips her lightsaber tightly before pressing it off, a sharp pain at her temples, just behind her eyes. She wonders if he can feel it, too. ]
Do you think we might call it a truce? You're too much— [ in here, and vice versa and it's... a lot. Rey gestures between them, haphazard and less sharp than usual, her focus split and frayed at the edges, caught up in thinking too closely about Kylo Ren's bottomless gaze, of Chewie's mournful cry and accompanying crossbow fire, the sound of Finn's screams muffled through a snowy wood echoing in her ears relentlessly, unable to shake it. And he could very well likely take advantage of the situation, of her weakness now, vulnerable and open to attack and willfully admitting it. ]
( It isn't there yet, but he knows that it will be, a dull headache creeping in around his temples, behind his eyes, a burn on his mind as if he's been staring into the sun for to long, gone too many days without caf. The physical echo of her in his thoughts lingers, and he hears the suggestion of screaming, her name from someone else's - FN2187 - mouth, his own answering call - traitor! - until it becomes difficult to deviate one from the other, him from her, the presumption of her memories and perceptions and his. An impulse stays the course in his nervous system, to reach, to test the warm grit of skin underneath fingertips, but he can't tell whether it's his or hers, just as he sometimes can't tell the difference between her reality and the calm, lush island that she retreats to when she's dreaming.
The beginnings of an ache in his head transmute to the healing pain in his abdomen, where a droid-treated hole in his side is still barely healed. He can feel the exhaustion pooling within her, rippling off of her in waves, and he knows that if he were to exploit it he could overpower her easily, definitely has the compunction and the power to do so - though there is always the risk of her surprising him in that way, again - and could bring her to kneel at the mercy of his master. The problem inherent in that solution is the possibility that she will one day overpower him in a way that leaves him at her mercy, and that, were she to train alongside him under Snoke and best him, it would be the end of Kylo Ren and all that he has worked to achieve. Snoke would demand it, and Rey, so strong and connected with the Force, intertwined enough that she could stand toe-to-toe with him and not back down, would win. )
I believe I was the one who said we were done here, just a moment ago. Call that a truce if you like.
( He keeps his voice detached, made that much easier by the helmet, though he has the distinct impression that, regardless of how hard he tries to seem unaffected by both her presence in general and her presence in his head, she can tell without trying very hard that he's lying. It unnerves him to know that she's always there, enough that he can sense her just existing through billions and billions of stars. Even if he can't pinpoint where she is and only gets snatches of what she's doing or how she's feeling, it's there, ever present at the back of his mind, a boon and a hindrance. If he can see fragments of what she's learning, can suss out fractions of how her power grows with each day under proper but misguided tutelage, there's no telling what she will be able to glean from him once he touches down with the Supreme Leader and begins the painstaking process of completing his own apprenticeship. And though he approaches that horizon with a swollen and heavy sense of pride and satisfaction, it will be done with the knowledge that one of the greatest assets to the Resistance has what seems to be a permanent pass to his thoughts, only growing stronger with each day that passes, with each attempt they make toward each other.
Abruptly, Kylo inclines his head, sensing an incoming transmission from Hux before it's broadcast to him. While he despises the implication behind coming to Hux when called, a nudge not dissimilar to what he senses when Rey is casting about through the Force in an effort to look for him comes rolling in as well. One of the other Knights casting about for him. Time to go. Kylo is a shroud to them at the best of times and a verifiable black hole when he's feeling particularly displaced from them, better than the rest of them despite the way he knows they turn their nose at him following his defeat on Starkiller Base. He cloaks himself now in the same manner, though only long enough to offer Rey an exaggerated, patronizing bow. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
His attention is back on Rey in an instant, on the humming pulse of the saber in her hand, pushing his own displeasure at his own distraction to the back of his mind in the wake of dealing with her directly, on the lapping of waves and the shifting of dunes that spring to the forefront of her mind almost immediately. He wonders if it's a crutch or if it's something that, now that he's seen it, she can't shake him away from, if they will wander her wastelands and utopias until she learns to repel him once and for all. Until she learns to push back. Her nails biting his skin, digging into the bones of his wrist. There is so little distance between them now that if he were to run her through with his blade from behind he would have no hope but to impale himself as well. He can see the scorching sand and sun reflected back in her irises, cutting at him through the visor of his helmet.
Kylo tosses her back physically, strong enough to knock her off balance without the use of the Force but employing it somewhat to send her sprawling. He trips the switch of his lightsaber and cuts it off, not belting it but holding it so tightly that he knows his knuckles are white under the leather. )
We're done here.
( He doesn't wait for her to pick herself up before turning away. )
no subject
[ Her brow already damp with the effort of holding him there, she shoves her way back into his mind, engulfed instantly in the murky, suffocating fear he has roiling around inside him, anger, self loathing, rage; but she can feel that modest little spark, too, buried deep but there, warm and bright as an ember, flickering but not fading. I see you. Suddenly she's standing in his mental landscape, looking up into his face plainly, mask discarded even as they stand locked, feet from each other in the physical world, his back to her. Stop running from it. The landscape shifts and they're bathed in scorching sunlight on the sands of Jakku, miles and miles of dune sea spread before them. It wavers again and they're face to face at the viewpoint on the Finalizer, cold, unyielding steel, the murmur of voices busy and indistinct around them. Alone.
Rey holds his gaze, something imperceptible filtering between two minds so closely mingled together for one perfect moment that she can't tell where she begins and he ends, and her hand wavers and she loses her grasp on him— or unconsciously releases, she isn't certain, drawing in a deep breath sharply as she pants, unsteady but still on guard. He might kill her now, or try. ]
no subject
Kylo isn't anticipating her presence there, as much as he isn't anticipating her sticking around for further verbal abuse on his part. Foolish. Reckless. Stupid. Weak. She doesn't so much as push back into his thoughts, his mind, as much as she's suddenly there, and he reacts the only way that he knows how: pushing back. The sun is hot on his neck, pooling sweat in the small of his back and under his arms, his feet sinking into sand up to his ankles, the grit of it sharp on his tongue and crunching between his teeth as he grinds them together. Just as quickly, the cold, polished durasteel of Hux's flagship reflects her face from every surface, the overhead lighting shining dully on the scuffed tips of his boots. Her voice in his head like a battering ram, and every door he tries to close between them, to keep her out, stutters behind him just a moment too late, allowing her passage through until finally, finally he slams her out and -
Another room, cold and dark, raised sides and a platform like a dais. Light streams in from up above and the architecture crumbles, stones shifting underfoot. Beyond the immediate landscape, a blood orange sun sets and casts long shadows over old monuments, falling into disarray. In the darkness there, something shifts and then looks up. Sunken eyes, a concave skull, an inhale that rustles and scratches like leaves.
Kylo finds himself with his feet planted firmly in the dirt and his breath stitched together in his chest a moment later, heart hammering hard. The sweat on the back of his neck is cold and Rey is several paces from him, tired and unfocused and unsteady with the weight of her own power. For a long, quiet moment, he says nothing, does nothing other than to turn on his heel the remainder of the way so that he can face her directly. )
It becomes more and more difficult not to kill you every time we cross paths.
no subject
And yet, [ She exhales and inhales deeply, mentally willing her pulse and breathing to shift back to normal: ] Here we are. Both still living and breathing. [ Rey risks lifting a forearm to swipe the sweat gathered at her brow, stray loose curls gathering at her temples as she shifts her stance and relaxes minutely. The mental exercise has taken much from them both but particularly from Rey, muscles weakened and feeling awkward, as if from lack of use or distrophy, and she grips her lightsaber tightly before pressing it off, a sharp pain at her temples, just behind her eyes. She wonders if he can feel it, too. ]
Do you think we might call it a truce? You're too much— [ in here, and vice versa and it's... a lot. Rey gestures between them, haphazard and less sharp than usual, her focus split and frayed at the edges, caught up in thinking too closely about Kylo Ren's bottomless gaze, of Chewie's mournful cry and accompanying crossbow fire, the sound of Finn's screams muffled through a snowy wood echoing in her ears relentlessly, unable to shake it. And he could very well likely take advantage of the situation, of her weakness now, vulnerable and open to attack and willfully admitting it. ]
no subject
The beginnings of an ache in his head transmute to the healing pain in his abdomen, where a droid-treated hole in his side is still barely healed. He can feel the exhaustion pooling within her, rippling off of her in waves, and he knows that if he were to exploit it he could overpower her easily, definitely has the compunction and the power to do so - though there is always the risk of her surprising him in that way, again - and could bring her to kneel at the mercy of his master. The problem inherent in that solution is the possibility that she will one day overpower him in a way that leaves him at her mercy, and that, were she to train alongside him under Snoke and best him, it would be the end of Kylo Ren and all that he has worked to achieve. Snoke would demand it, and Rey, so strong and connected with the Force, intertwined enough that she could stand toe-to-toe with him and not back down, would win. )
I believe I was the one who said we were done here, just a moment ago. Call that a truce if you like.
( He keeps his voice detached, made that much easier by the helmet, though he has the distinct impression that, regardless of how hard he tries to seem unaffected by both her presence in general and her presence in his head, she can tell without trying very hard that he's lying. It unnerves him to know that she's always there, enough that he can sense her just existing through billions and billions of stars. Even if he can't pinpoint where she is and only gets snatches of what she's doing or how she's feeling, it's there, ever present at the back of his mind, a boon and a hindrance. If he can see fragments of what she's learning, can suss out fractions of how her power grows with each day under proper but misguided tutelage, there's no telling what she will be able to glean from him once he touches down with the Supreme Leader and begins the painstaking process of completing his own apprenticeship. And though he approaches that horizon with a swollen and heavy sense of pride and satisfaction, it will be done with the knowledge that one of the greatest assets to the Resistance has what seems to be a permanent pass to his thoughts, only growing stronger with each day that passes, with each attempt they make toward each other.
Abruptly, Kylo inclines his head, sensing an incoming transmission from Hux before it's broadcast to him. While he despises the implication behind coming to Hux when called, a nudge not dissimilar to what he senses when Rey is casting about through the Force in an effort to look for him comes rolling in as well. One of the other Knights casting about for him. Time to go. Kylo is a shroud to them at the best of times and a verifiable black hole when he's feeling particularly displaced from them, better than the rest of them despite the way he knows they turn their nose at him following his defeat on Starkiller Base. He cloaks himself now in the same manner, though only long enough to offer Rey an exaggerated, patronizing bow. )
Scavenger.