[ He advances and, even with full faith in the way she'd seen him force Snoke from his mind, seen him choose the middle path for herself, she takes a hasty series of steps back before he reaches full height. Even his clumsiness doesn't dissuade her from her startle response, bracing instinctively for a violent recourse that never comes.
Her breath leaves her then, drawn back into her chest in slow form, accepting that she'd misread when he stills and disarming herself from the defensive stance she had taken in the center of the cluster of honeycombed crew bunks. ]
It's not like I had time to think about it! [ Instead of wearing the defensiveness in her shoulders, she projects it in a raised voice. ] Getting you back here was more important than finding it.
[ Priorities to keep straight. Disarming the First Order of one of their most powerful assets was an incomparable victory, easily outweighing the missing saber. Without it, the Resistance could still win. Without Kylo Ren, the First Order could very well lose. The calculations were simple, straightforward. At least, they had seemed so at the time. ]
( She retreats, and far from finding some kind of shame in inspiring it in her, Kylo leans into it naturally, instinctively, drawing himself up in front of the bunk that he has just vacated and finally dropping his hand to his side once his head stops smarting. He doesn't bear down on her in the manner and fashion that he has previously, backing her up into speeders or forcing her to find unsure footing in rocky, snowy terrain, and he doesn't use the considerable height that he has on her with any real intention of intimidating her into some kind of submission but waits openly for the excuse that he feels building up within her.
One of his shoulder blades finds the edge of the wall right where it drops off to create the hollow of the bunk and he leans there, blinking away the last of the pain that radiates outward from top of his head and crossing his legs at the ankles. Kylo doesn't miss her reaction beyond the quick steps that she takes away from him, coming down from the heightened level of defense necessary when being confronted with a hungry carnivore. She's ready for a fight even if she doesn't realize it, and energy and tension hums and cracks in this small compartment of the Falcon. Kylo does his part to dissuade it the way that Rey does when she lets her hackles down by degrees, though he still feels annoyed with her blase response regarding the saber's whereabouts. )
It isn't just a sword. ( Kylo can't say what inspires the annoyance in his voice with absolute certainty, though he knows that it isn't her roundabout reference to him as an important piece of tactical weaponry. He'd made his own blunder when he focused on her on Takodana and neglected the capture of the droid when he should have given the order to secure both of them. How different things would be now if he'd seen the map where and when he'd wanted to. ) I've seen you with a blaster, and I've seen you with a saber. If you think you're going to defend anyone with the former, then I'd like to know what your definition of the word 'defense' is. ( He's never seen her with a staff, though. ) I understand that you had a somewhat heavy cargo to bring back with you, but now I'm actually conscious and not planning on killing anyone in the immediate vicinity, so go find it.
( If she won't go, then he will. It might not ever work correctly for him, but Kylo's not going to let it spend another thirty years collecting dust on some distant planet. Or worse, rusting in Corellian mud. )
[ And there is her tell. She can feel his presence retreat with his efforts to calm the sparking tension filling the space between them, shrinking it and causing him to loom. Only then does she realize how she has bristled, how she has exposed herself and the length of the leash she trusts him on.
If a world exists where she finds herself able to forget or be at true ease with all he has done, they do not live in it yet. He poses a very real threat, or at least he could, if his worse nature were to seize command in any significant way—through his temper, for instance.
She tightens her jaw, mouth set in a heavy frown that seems to linger on the edge of regret—not the kind of regret that merely mourns her mistake, but the kind that wobbles near an apology for it. Whatever it is never comes out, and she shakes it off when she lifts her chin to stubbornly meet his chastising with a distinct lack of apology that’s so sharp in contrast to the look she has dismissed that it makes her look arrogant. ]
I can handle myself. Unless you want another demonstration, I suggest you take my word for it. [ Thank you very much. He has no right, she reasons privately to herself. He has no idea what she’s done to survive, what it was like on Jakku, a small girl—barely more than a toddler—learning very quickly that you either lost everything or you learned to protect it. While Kylo had two, Rey had no teachers, no guidance, only the harsh lessons of violent experience to teach her to fight as scrappily as she does. Not to mention her quite unarmed escape from Starkiller Base. ]
It’s going to take hours to hike back to that plateau: do you really think we have all that time to be fussing about a lightsaber right now?
[ She forces her hands to relax, noticing somewhere along the line they had balled into fists, ready (or perhaps hoping) for a fight. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t contort her mind into understanding the importance of its legacy to him, for she’s never had any kind of legacy to look towards. Survival in the moment has always been her focus out of necessity; there is no switch she can flip to cease worrying about it. ]
( The struggle she builds within herself in determining which way to react is best plays out on her face in a series of deepening and shifting frowns. He watches each of them with great interest, playing a game with himself in trying to guess what her response might be but ultimately deciding that he can't rightfully know without pushing into her mind to tease the answer out for himself. Kylo doesn't, just remains prone against the bulkhead with the focus of his attention solely on her. Even if there was something else for him to pay attention to - a ruckus down in the cockpit or the Wookie making a clamor deep in the bowels of the ship about the hyperdrive - it's likely that Rey would still occupy the majority of his focus, just as she has previously.
Her reaction isn't exact enough to grant him victory within the parameters of the game that he's playing in his own mind, but he still isn't surprised by the outcome all the same. The set of her shoulders is haughty and the weight that she throws behind the admonishments she levels at him to bolster the strength of her conviction calls back to every other time she's realized she was afraid of him and needed to look and appear stronger to counter it. The only difference between now and then is that now he means her less harm than he might have originally, although the concept of harm would have taken a different meaning then, as it does now. )
I'm not trying to goad you into a fight. ( Kylo holds his hands up as if to demonstrate this fact and nods to the balled up fists that Rey's have formed, although the idea of the two of them going up against each other in a contest of skill without bladework to consider interests him in a way that he'd never thought about before. Possibly because he's of the confident mind that he would win. ) I'm just saying that if things don't go with as much optimism and confidence as you're hinging on, then it's going to put you at a disadvantage if the First Order collects the ship while you're still on it.
( The burns on the backs of his hands grin at him upside-down, and the look that he levels her with is as much in recognition of the fact that he doesn't want to fight physically with her right now as much as it is in recognition of the truth found in her defense of her own character. He's said it before, and he will say it again: she's strong and even stronger than she knows. It becomes more of a problem when they're surrounded by delicate machinery that has already taken a beating in its extremely long and violent history. If either of them want a chance at escaping Corellia, it's beneficial not to have two Force users end up in a fist fight on the floor.
Calming himself has always taken a great deal more focus and attention than he's been happy to admit. It's never been a problem for him before despite both Skywalker and Snoke expressing his need to learn to control it. If he's being honest, it's Snoke who taught him how to master it, and while now he doesn't feel the fury that's so often just a chip at the surface away from boiling over, Kylo knows that drawing out the encounter is only going to make it that much more difficult to reel back in. So he pushes off the wall and brushes by her on his way back down the corridors of the ship to the outside. )
I'm going to speak with your master regarding the return of my weapon. ( He answers her before she has time to actively ask the question, long strides carrying him quickly through the ship without even breaking a sweat. ) Track down your co-pilot in the meantime.
[ Turning, Rey watches his towering shape disappear around the corner of the Millennium Falcon’s curved hallways, swallowing the thick lump in her throat that forms as she thinks back on the moment when she believed that she and Finn had been captured by the First Order. The fear feels as real now as it was then, though dwarfed by experience.
A part of her aches to reach out through the force and stop him from leaving on such a dramatic and negative note, but she stops herself for the weakness it would show and the little good it would do any of them. They all have their tasks. She starts after him, short legs carrying her with quicker steps to try and make her way out of the ramp, but she's stopped by Chewie looping around from the cockpit.
An irritated growl rumbles in the back of his throat, high pitched and indignant. Sighing, Rey stops, folding her arms beneath her chest as she looks up at him. ]
It was his home once too. I hoped it might make him remember. [ Gazing back down the ramp, she sighs and adds, ] I think it only made it worse. [ Reaching out to rub the furred arm of her co-pilot, Rey offers a smile. ] I promise it's safe. Or it will be. But we need to get ready to fly as soon as possible.
[ This only draws out another growl from him, this one less translatable, some chagrined realization that she's too damn similar to the Falcon's last pilot for anyone's good. Chewie takes his exasperation to the engine room to give it a good check, and Rey head down the ramp, stopping at the bottom, torn between going to explain their back-up plan to Leia and following Kylo's advice to search out the saber.
He'd gotten this far trusting her advice. Maybe it was time that she offered him the same in return, however misguided she believed his focus to be. Grinding her teeth doesn't make it any easier to decide, but it does help her recognize her reluctance to do what she already knows she is going to. Rubbing her jaw, she pivots on her heels and darts into the dark of the forest. ]
( He expects her to follow him down the ramp and is somewhat surprised to find himself alone on the edge of the forest. Lush Corellian foliage explodes in every direction around him, and it's a moment before he realizes that he's staring up into the sky where the harvest moon will hang later, watching the high winds skim the tops of trees with an invisible hand. Branches crack far off from some of the taller, more ancient structures. Kylo can hear their cascading descent from the summit of their towers all the way to the mossy, muddy forest floor. A flock of birds roosting nearby startles and takes flight, cawing high and loud through the trees and into the sky as they take flight in search of another nesting spot. Then he hears nothing.
Experimentally, Kylo takes a breath and empties himself, the cool breeze finally licking dry the sweat that has beaded along his hairline and up underneath the heavy, high material that covers his neck. His mind clears as much as it ever can, and where he is used to the voice that has filled the void for decades calling out to him in quiet, low tones with wise words and careful comforts, he finds nothing. Just the sound of the wind in the trees and birds screeching in the distance.
Something behind him, from the ship, makes a noise not unlike a hiss, and he turns just in time to watch a full jet of steam break one of the hastily - no doubt - repaired panels on the outside of the YT freighter. A refracted beam of light off the cockpit window catches his attention, and he sees movement behind it: a huge, furry body turning from the gaze he has directed upward and moving with surprising agility through the sea of chairs that line the cockpit's interior. Flashing lights provide readouts and relays that he can't determine and has no interest in, so Kylo leaves and stalks back through the forest to the Resistance camp.
Alone.
It crosses his mind once or twice to duck into an unmanned ship and escape. He gets as far as flipping the ignition in his mind before he's caught. When attacking the problem from a different angle, he makes it all the way back to the Finalizer before the Supreme Leader strangles him for insubordination and disobedience. Kylo never actually makes the attempt and when he makes it back to the Resistance camp under the pretense of searching out Skywalker, he changes direction and heads back into the trees, away from the camp and the distant smell of smoke and the lingering voice of his uncle in his mind saying, Don't be a fool, Ben.
That only sends him further into the forest, stepping over roots and broken branches, slipping in mud and correcting his footing by reaching out and snagging tree trunks with his fingernails and the palms of his hands. Even someone with adequate foresight through the Force would have a difficult time navigating this terrain, and he wonders how running away ever seemed like a plausible idea in the first place. Still, he moves quickly - faster than someone without the benefit of being a Force-user would be able to move - and covers ground enough in a short amount of time to deliver him back to where it all started.
Standing on the edge of the clearing, much of the forest here has been burnt and scorched away. Black, skeletal branches litter the ground like broken bone fragments. The dead lay unburried, though there are no Resistance members among those who have not yet been burned by the Corellians, trooper armor catching the light and curving the way that it had off the Millennium Falcon's cockpit and - there, not far off, a wink of sunlight on the scuffed but still smooth hilt of a saber. Kylo reaches it in several long strides, sparing no thought one way or the other for the fallen soldiers that lay behind him. He remembers the explosion that sent them sprawling and looks around for -
His mask is lying face down in the dirt several yards away, abandoned where he had ripped it off when it shorted out. Kylo considers it for a moment, the way that it seems to draw in the daylight rather than refracting it, but retrieves the saber first, letting its weight fill his palm with a satisfaction he had never anticipated. It isn't the same feeling that holding his grandfather's sunken, disfigured, half-melted helmet in his hands had inspired, but he can't say that it's entirely different either. The same, but different. The saber is heavier than he would have expected, now that he finally has a chance to hold it, but he knows even without tripping the ignition that while he could use the blade the same way that FN-2187 had against him, it would never yield to him or sing alongside him the way that it had for Rey. His thumb does hover over the switch, he thinks of lighting it, just to feel the stability of the crystal inside buzz in his palm in a way that the cracked kyber in his will never be able to duplicate, but doesn't. Instead, he turns on his heel and stalks back the way that he had come, operating on instinct alone rather than letting doubt or thought at all cloud his judgment. It's the closest to meditation that he's gotten in years.
He stops twice on his way into the forest: once at his own mask, staring up at him like a severed head in the dirt and urging him to pick it up and put it back where it belongs; and once when he comes across Rey on her own trek. Kylo feels her coming several moments before she actually becomes visible, so he assumes that his own cover has been blown as well. His hands are empty save for the saber that is no worse for wear other than some grit in its grooves. She'll need to clean it properly at some point. Once Kylo retrieves his own blade from Skywalker's possession, he could probably show her how to do it, if she doesn't know already.
He offers it to her without flourish or preamble. )
[ Trudging through the muddied forest is a grueling, thankless endeavor that slows her movements as her flimsy brown boots sink into the mud, made for sand but not its damper cousin, tracking clumps of soil around with her that renders her movements awkward and limited. The uncomfortable lack of familiarity she suffers with the sodden landscape only sours her mood, shoulders tense along her march.
She understands now how it must rankle him to have her patient nudging at the edge of his mind, coaxing him into certain paths, and knowing that path is in her best interest only makes it worse. Though her quarterstaff would be functional, there is no substitute for the grace and power of a lightsaber, a lesson learned on Starkiller Base and expanded upon as she developed her skills with proper training.
Still, she wants to allow herself to believe that he was biased. Caught up in his own emotional turmoil about the legacy the saber carried, not merely in its utility to either of them in a fight. It helps stew her quiet grumbling, but that fades away over time, and she has plenty of time to traverse the landscape and calm herself in the quiet isolation of the forest.
Exhaustion sets in then, fuzzy at the edges of her mind, and she tries to pull at the Force to keep herself awake and putting one foot in front of the other. Up until now, she'd found forward momentum sufficient to keep her just barely going, but without anyone to distract her, without a constant task beyond the simple hike, she lulls herself into calm for no reason other than her mind can't quite keep up with anything more.
It prevents her from picking up on the hum at the edge of her awareness cuing her in to their proximity, and she doesn't see him until he's coming through the trees towards her. Lifting her head, Rey squints at his figure like she's not sure it's really there or just a shadow of the trees, her own sight betraying her, but he comes to stand level in front of her and offers the hilt out to her, dirty and battered. ]
That's not yours. [ She mutters the words dryly as she reaches out to take it, rubbing some of the mud aside; he knows that, of course, but it gently accuses him of not fulfilling his task. They don't have time for this, to be certain. The First Order could be forming just beyond the atmosphere above them in this moment, ready for a fresh hail of destruction renewed with vengeful fury. But looking down at the hilt, soft gratitude enters her eyes. There aren't many things she's owned in her life that hold value, that she's been able to keep, so despite her willingness to put all their lives before it, it still means something to have it in her hand again. ]
( There's scathing quality to his tone that is directed toward her as much as it is himself, both to remind him of his weakness in never earning it before and to distract him from the charity of his retrieving it. He can remember with perfect clarity what it had felt like to be so close to this little, weighted thing on Starkiller Base, to reach out for it with all the confidence he thought was required in his own inheritance to will it to him, and then the bruising anger and pounding sense of disorienting disownment when it had flown right by him and into Rey's waiting hand. He eyes it as it changes hands yet again but with none of the burn found in his tone. If anything, it's curiosity laced with suspicion, and he brushes past her, moving back toward camp, before she notices it. )
I had no idea you were going to change tactics and listen to me for a change. ( He steps over a collection of branches with canopy-level leaves and looks up to see the wind swaying the tree back and forth. Their skeletons and trunks groan under the weight of their bodies and the pressure to bend and break under the strain the wind places on them. He pauses only to look back at her and make sure that she's listening to him, and a little because he still isn't entirely certain that she won't just kill him as soon as she has the chance, despite how much he knows that would go against what she's shown him thus far. ) You might think it's something you can just leave behind. It's not.
( It goes deeper than her strictly needing it to defend herself, but Kylo doesn't want to explain the very complicated and murky relationship he has with that side of his family. Not to her. Not here or not or on this planet. If she doesn't know it already. Instead, he shortens his stride for the umpteenth time today and waits for her to draw level with him before reaching out and grabbing her elbow. Not to direct her or divert her path over a tangle of thorns or damp leaves - in fact he nearly drags her through the latter when he does score a solid grip and secures it with his palm flat against the back of her arm - but in an attempt to bring her up to speed, literally. If she doesn't jerk out of his grip under pretense alone then they'll make it back to camp much faster than they were able to make it out here on their own. )
I had every intention of retrieving my own, but I assumed that Skywalker would be less than willing to hand it over if I was unaccompanied on the walk back to and away from your ship. ( Kylo doesn't bring up his momentary fantasies on the edge of the camp, the thoughts of sneaking away and escaping into the unknown for equally unknown purposes. He hadn't done it, in the end, so it seems a moot point now. ) I doubt he trusts me with it.
[ He's off in an instant, unwilling to allow the moment to linger for longer than it must, and Rey feels all the more a child in how she has to stretch her legs into a near run to catch up with him. The square of his shoulders and the heavy stomp of his movements makes him look all the part the monster he'd been to her from the start, but it still catches her off guard when the wind seems to whisper to her.
You can finish it now. You were too weak before. Startled and frightened by the sudden sound, she whips briefly around, listening at the edges of the forest for a noise that won't come. She never stops following him, even backwards, stumbling across roots. Even if the voice is not, the distraction is real, and it takes her a moment to place it as the same dark whisper she'd heard in Ren's mind, as if the journey there had further opened up an avenue for it to funnel in.
Hurriedly stuffing the hilt of the saber into the pouch at her belt as a deliberate refusal of the coaxing whisper, she scrambles to his side, listening intently not in further urgency to follow his command, but to understand his reasoning to be here at all as much as to shut out whatever else she might here.
She missed the middle. Something about what she could leave behind, something that makes her wonder what he has regretted leaving behind. That's not what she gets from him, of course. No satisfying answers, at least, but by now she knows that would expect too much of him.
The hiss of the wind as it whips around them criticizes her for expecting as much, buffeting her dirty face, but it still isn't as bad as the dust storms of Jakku that threatened to lift her off her feet and carry her away into the outskirts of the desert wasteland. She wonders, faintly, if she will ever stop comparing the landscapes of other planets to Jakku, if it will stop being her measuring stick once the green becomes more natural to her, but as soon as she wonders at all, she doubts it. Good or bad, it was her home for too long.
The urge to accuse him of slipping under the pressure of fear starts suddenly in the back of her throat, but she stops herself for the uselessness of it. Telling him that he was afraid of Luke Skywalker wouldn't help anyone's case, and though shoving it in Kylo Ren's face sounds quite pleasant, there's too much at stake here.
As soon as her mouth is open to refute his presumption of Luke—admittedly, it's a good thing the words never made it out, because even she didn't believe her reassurance. Luke had no reason to trust him, and she wouldn't blame him for being slow to.—there's a hand at her elbow pushing her along, but also sparking indignation that wells in her chest until it comes out as a shout. ]
Watch it! [ She growls the words, ready to yank her arm free, or at least attempt it. ] I can walk just fine without you dragging me along, thank you. I got all the way out here.
( Her retaliation isn't completely unexpected, but the severity of it is a little surprising in its own right, given the close quarters that they've circled and stepped into over the last several hours. Even if the physical contact between them had been a projection of their meditative state, he can remember the weight distribution of her hand on his shoulder as she crouched next to him, pulled him to his feet, and the contouring of her hand in his palm as he had shifted their perspective from her warped and Corellian-influenced landscape of Jakku to the harsh chill of Starkiller Base. It reprimands him in some way and sets the scale back at even where their relationship - for lack of a better term - is concerned.
He glances down at her as soon as the tension in her arm becomes great enough that he either needs to let go of her or literally start dragging her bodily along next to him, so much larger is the span of his stride when she's not working within her own right to even the difference out. They're about halfway back already, so he stops short in his trek back to base camp but doesn't immediately let go of her as he continues to look down at her, searching her face for something that he's not even sure of. All he finds there is clear and bright indignation, from the firm line of her mouth, balanced around the growl of her tone as she spat it out at him, up to the hard set of her eyes, couched around the beginnings of a scowl that Kylo is decidedly becoming very familiar with. From the lines and angles of her face, he looks down to where his hand is still wrapped around her arm just above and behind her elbow, and remembers quite suddenly the way he had grabbed her during the mindwalk, red marks standing out on her skin like individual brands. )
I wasn't dragging you. Don't be so melodramatic. ( Kylo lets her go with a flourish all the same, forcing her arm up in his grip before he releases it to drop easily back down to her side where it belongs. He turns and continues walking without any indication to her as to whether or not she should follow, but it's really the only available option to her, especially as he keeps chatting at her as he slides over a long-fallen tree, rotting bark and foliage scattered around it. ) Not every hand that extends itself to you is a criticism of something that you can't do, you know. Everyone around you is perfectly aware that you're a capable person, mostly because you spend so much time proving it to them whenever you get a chance to make sure that they don't forget . ( His boots hit the ground harder than is necessary and splash dirty water, strewn with leaves, all the way up to his knees. Mud coats his boots up to the ankles. ) You've obviously mastered the art of walking on your own, at the very least.
( Impressive, for a scavenger, he almost bites out at her after but thinks better of it at the last moment. It would be inviting a fight when he doesn't have the patience or the energy for it, and it would be better for them not to be on opposing sides once the time comes to do what they will have to do in order to leave the planet. As if considering this, Kylo glances up through the trees to the sky, almost half-expecting to see a Star Destroyer blotting out the light from up above. The sky is clear, of course, but he can't shake the thought that the wind is full of whispers that have nothing to do with nature itself. Something is coming, and not just Rey slipping through the brush behind him. )
[ Before he calls her on it, she never stopped to think about why she was so opposed to the physical contact that came with aid, why she was so sharply defensive of any movement that seemed to stem from the belief that she required assistance. She does, now, and she's so startled by the keenness of his observation that it staggers her a moment, leaving her frozen in the Corellian wilderness to stare after his retreating form for a moment too long.
On Jakku, weakness made you a target. If you took help, it meant you needed it, and if you needed someone else, you certainly weren't in any position to protect what little you had. She never would have staked out her home inside that half-buried AT-AT had she been comfortable revealing her own weakness. The storms that blew through buffed the residents of the desert planet into smooth rocks, stubbornly independent and wild of temper.
But it wasn't just that. Finn, Chewie, Han, Leia, even Poe and Luke, any of them offering help weren't met with the same rebuff anymore; Kylo Ren was different. Regardless of what she'd seen in his mind, of the connection that they shared, she still shunted him back away from the familiar and casual touch, from seeing her as weak. Both because a part of her believed she would never be through proving herself to the barrage of his insults and because she needed strength to dissuade him from combatting her.
It was a barrier, and he had thrust bodily against it and bounced back off of it, recognizing it before Rey was ever aware that she had created it. Only then does she look around and notice how different their position in the forest is, how quickly they've been moving, and consider what he'd actually been trying to do. That moment is the most humbling of them all, and guilt creeps in and stiffens her joints as she moves to catch up with him. ]
Stop psychoanalyzing me. [ The grouse lacks bite in all its brevity, but she falls in step beside him. A few strides—his easy, hers taken in lunges—pass in silence before she reaches out to touch his arm, a passive apology and correction, accepting the truth of his words while remaining too stubborn to verbally acknowledge it. Show me, her reach urges. ]
( Lacking in intensity or not, he knows that he's struck a nerve long before Rey says anything in retaliation. When she stops moving forward, the sound of her footsteps falling off abruptly behind him, Kylo turns to track her whereabouts while taking careful steps backward, surprised and yet not at all taken aback to find her stock-still with green and brown leaves crowding her boots around the ankles. He's pleased with himself, in a way, to have hit a sore spot, satisfaction blooming like a dark flower, but he can't call his observations clever or even informed by his abilities in navigating the alleys and avenues of her mind, in forcing open the locked doors with a heavily thrown shoulder or a battering ram.
She wears her history and experience in every angle of her body and every sharp line of her face, in every reaction to a hand up or some assistance offered, like a badge or medal earned, a product of a hard life lived alone. Her hands are as rough and strong because they need to be. It's plainly obvious why she might consider any kind of help a catcall to her own personal weaknesses and why she might instinctively be driven to rebuff his guidance as a result, and in a way, Kylo can understand where she's coming from, even if he can't completely empathize with it. He can perhaps blame her only a little less than he was able to when she'd rejected his offer to train her on Starkiller, which he still considers a viable option even though the conditions may have changed to a certain degree.
For a moment, he stares her down, as if waiting to see what she'll do next, but it's only a moment, and they admittedly don't have time for games of chicken in the forest, so he turns again to continue on the path back to camp, his steps and footfalls unnecessarily loud as he lumbers through the forest with heavy strides. When he walks with some amount of purpose beyond a casual stroll, he throws his weight into it, though it's more obvious when he isn't deliberately keeping his strides from reaching their maximum in order for her to keep pace with him once she decides that she doesn't want to be left behind in the woods.
It takes only a moment, and then she's at his side again, matching the length of his steps stride for stride. Kylo only looks down at her once she's finished talking, and he only replies to her once she's made the conscious decision to reach out toward him. )
It's not as much fun when you're on the other side of it, is it? ( She's analyzed him and been vocal about it in her own right enough times that he's managed to lose count. He's done the same to her, he knows, but it feels like it bears repeating now, despite the fact that he extends his elbow toward her so that she might wrap her hand around it in the same manner he had let his fingers span the back of her own arm. Her silent request, her stubborn pride acknowledging his proficiency and experience in this matter, does not go unnoticed. It contrasts sharply with the last time that he encouraged her to follow his lead, the taste of damp earth and fresh air replacing the bitter chill and copper tang of blood he associates with Starkiller. ) This is more effective when you're running, normally, or when you need to slow your perception of the world in a way that has higher stakes, but I don't think we need to be in that much of a hurry.
( He tries to show her, as best he can, what he's doing. Through thought and projected feeling, reaching out to flood her awareness and perception of his ability through the connection that they tentatively share. )
[ The way his retort mocks her for her response also scolds her for her own efforts to sift through his head, but she doesn't let it truly discourage her from the interest that lies at a constant simmer. Still, she grips his arm where he offers it, curling her fingers around the surprisingly lithe limb where it settles under the thick fabric of his tunic.
Silence under the fire of his rebuff prompts him to speak again, this time didactic, and Rey listens with rapt attention when he describes the applications. In tandem, she feels his mind open to her, and she leans into the connection studiously There, the link between their minds feels like a tangible cord that she uses to pull herself in closer to him.
In his mind, she can feel the strides he takes and how he lengthens them with the Force. Though her attempts to replicate it on her own start out without grace or experience, stumbling through erratic back-and-forths in her speed that sometimes translate to her trailing just behind him like a child, she pushes further telepathically to allow him to take the lead, his movements guiding her body in kind, and the muscle memory translates more readily to an understanding than anything else.
And just like that, he's everywhere, flooding her awareness with the suddenness of a tidal wave's final crash, his presence cool in her extremities but not alarming or unwelcome. Their unified movements carry them as far as the camp before, slowing down, she extricates herself from the bond and feels a sudden aching absence to sift and separate which parts are his mind and which are hers.
She comes back into her own isolation with a pitched gasp, as sharp and sudden as a bucket of ice water. ]
( The forest passes by in a blur of color, interrupted now and then by the sudden focus of some tree or a large rock or a collection of brambles when he wordlessly hands the reigns to Rey under the specific purpose of letting her try the task on her own merit. Her start and stop approach to what he's trying to show her is frustrating for the length of time that it takes them to get from one point to another, but Kylo does not allow himself to grow frustrated, tapping into the control that he has been taught in order to master his own reckless impatience and stop him from shaking her off, grabbing her arm instead, and taking the lead completely.
He feels her pushing at the fringe of his perception, a thread that weaves its way along the stitching of his own movements, and Kylo curls his hand into a fist and opens himself to her just as much as she allows him access in her own right. Kylo surges in without the resistance of her own shields and walls to stop him from flooding, though it is without the underlying aggressive threat of a maelstrom coming to tear her mind apart and more seamless than it may have been in the past. It's easier to teach her, to show her, this way, explaining without words and showing without demonstration, letting her observe what he's doing as if she were doing it herself, and it bolsters the speed in its own right until they are back at camp proper, moving bodies and collapsing tents peeking through the trees in little bursts of color.
Rey starts to withdraw and Kylo does as well, shaking her presence free like casting sand and water out through a sieve, trying to retain all the parts that are himself and separate them from the ones that are her and managing to get a complicated and messy collection in the process. He hasn't hide time to really examine it at length. He needs to. It's an abrupt absence that she is perhaps expecting less than him, given her reaction, but the hollow emptiness that rides high in his chest as a result, he imagines, is something unique to them in tandem. )
Next time you'll take lead. I can show you other things in the same way.
( Kylo pulls his arm away from her and wastes no time examining the withdrawing ache that seeps out of his sternum like retreating ice water. He leads them back into the camp, sticking naturally to the outskirts as he takes heavy, borderline painful steps toward the bright and converging center where he feels Skywalker's presence most keenly. Detours aside, he wants his saber back. )
[ When he jerks his arm free, she feels a more acute finality in the loss, but she crowds it out of her expression, stiffening her features to look over the camp. Heavy dread clouds her mind as she drew in the details of the camp, the stacked supply bags, the oiled metal entrances to tented shuttle cabins and crudely structured sheds that bunked soldiers and communication officers alike. Her eyes pore over it like they're searching for pieces she won't see again, acknowledging the potential that she might not, that these last minutes on solid ground will be a goodbye.
She doesn't know how long it's been since she left camp, let alone since he did, but she knows well enough that there isn't time to waste. So instead she nods, accepting without complaint what he proposes, even if it makes the tacit assumption that she will welcome him to teach her anything again. They both know that curiosity will inevitably win, that she will permit it, and that they will both be glad for it in the long run: war cannot make room for pride. ]
I'll alert the General. When I leave you this time, can I trust you to actually go find Luke? [ The implication is heavy that her own lightsaber was nothing but an excuse to avoid the encounter. She doesn't shy away from it for the same reasons that she can't be allowed to shy away from the inevitability of his training. ]
( Kylo glances at her sidelong, attempting to pin her accusation in place with little more than a look and not indulging her further by making a comment for the sake of drawing an argument out. They've proven their capabilities of sustaining disagreements, literally, over several galaxies, and Rey's priorities are in the right place in terms of being pressed for time. It's clear that he's aware of the implication all the same, regardless of the distinct lack of attention that he calls to it, already turning his attention outward and away from her as he turns away from her physically.
Walls go up like keying up the shields of a command shuttle, forcing her out with a distinct snap that isn't so much rude as it is done with cold efficiency. Necessity. Whatever happens, whatever is said when he leaves Rey to her task in order to complete his own, retrieve his blade, Kylo doesn't want her looking in or getting waves and snippets of what he's feeling. There's a good chance his disdain, which has lain dormant and undisturbed, slumbering, for years, might look up and shake off some of the ancient dust that has settled once he is alone in a room with his uncle, but it's not something he wants anyone else being privy to. If he can keep her out, he will.
So he takes a long step back into camp, his boots leaving deep imprints in the muddy earth. They move in opposite directions now, Kylo pointedly does not answer her question though he walks backward for a few paces to keep her directly in his line of sight before he turns around and makes his way, unaccompanied, into the interior of the camp. Whether it's to regard the expression on her face as he does out of some search for amusement or as a means of offering proof that he's capable of the task she's expecting of him, Kylo makes no indication, but he does slink back into the camp with his chin aloft and his shoulders square, looking no one in the eye while daring everyone to do so based on his existence alone.
Not for the first time and very probably not for the last, he wishes that he would have retrieved his helmet from where he and Rey had fought. He'd drawn that line in the sand and stepped over it, though. Now came the time to map out the other side. )
[ A chill sets in as he disentangles himself from her, a thin sheet of steel sliding down between their minds to keep her out, and she puzzles at his retreating figure, trying to figure out why he's done it without being able to dip her toes into his rationale without a second thought. After confusion comes worry, the pervasive, gnawing feeling that she isn't sure if she should be more worried over the toll the conversation will take on Kylo Ren, or for Luke's safety.
But her Master, she decides, can handle himself, and she is not Kylo Ren's mother. As it happens, though, that's precisely who she needs to find, so she leaves Ren to his business, unconscious to her gentle knocks at his consciousness all the while, probing for a way in, and searches out Poe and Finn, hoping their presence and reason will help her win the General over.
They seem relieved by the sight of her in a way that makes her feel anxious, realizing they were worried for her safety. The novelty of being subjected to that kind of concern still draws a smile to her lips, but she knows precisely who they believed would threaten that wellbeing. It doesn't bode well for persuading them, but still she crouches in that dingy, poorly-constructed barracks with thinly padded cots slung from wall to wall, wearing threadbare, offering little comfort to convince them around a table propped on flat dirt where they've been playing cards.
When Poe asks how she can know that he's telling the truth, she begs the Force for her reason, surprised to see that he accepts it unquestioningly. The explanation Finn offers, inasmuch as it qualifies as an explanation, is that Poe has seen more of the Force in his lifetime than most in the camp. She won't complain, grateful that anyone believes her, grateful that there's more than their reluctance and grudging hatred. Before he can get more than that out, they leave the hut to scour the rest of the encampment for General Organa.
It's Poe too who finds her quickly, strategizing with Ackbar, discussing routes away from Corellia with a sadness in her eyes that says she's preparing herself to bid goodbye to a home, one that the First Order could ensure she never saw again. Rey understood the feeling: she also understood the importance of the Resistance's survival.
She stays silent, allows Poe to propose the back-up plan and assert his support for the information conveyed by Kylo Ren, despite his reservations. Silence affords her careful attention to the shifts in Organa's expression, including the soft relief of a woman who was battling against the question of whether her faith was rooted in her own bias, was dangerous to her people. The reason she persisted in being so difficult to persuade was not because she didn't believe Ben Solo was in there somewhere trying to help them, but because she did. Too easily.
It levels Rey, to look on Organa's face now and think that even after all he'd done, she still found herself instinctually believing the best, reaching for the light of optimism. And when she agreed to consider it, Rey lowered her gaze to hide her soft smile. If Organa could still stoke the fires of hope after all that she had lost to the Darkness, then perhaps they had more of a chance than any of them believed. The warmth of that realization presses up against the edges of the stubborn barrier that keeps her out of Kylo Ren's mind as she continues to absently prod at it, newfound habit leading her to nonchalantly searching for entry as much as anything else. ]
( Rey looks for a way inside his head for the better part of an hour. He feels her all the way across the Resistance camp, in every step that he takes that's thick with mud or cloying with the upward reach of bright green grass. It's a peculiar comfort to feel her knocking around as he suffers the intense scrutiny of pilot, foot soldier, and officer alike, though Kylo sees none of them as real threats to his person or any offense to get up in arms about: First Order soldiers used to stare at him all the time, before and after they realized that it was better to pretend to be looking anywhere other than at a highly volatile Knight of Ren. Part of him hopes for an encounter with FN-2187 but the journey to the area of the camp in which he senses Skywalker's presence most keenly does not yield the traitor stormtrooper, and Kylo does not go searching for him through the Force.
Her persistence becomes annoying when he finally does manage to locate Skywalker, who Kylo pictures to be in a meditative position so that when he finds the older man carefully examining Kylo's lightsaber with all the curiosity of a mechanic, it draws him up short. Skywalker is not huddled in a tent or within the walls of the bunker but sits next to an old model X-wing with the beat up R2 unit humming at his side. For once, the gold protocol droid is nowhere to be found, and he's glad for it, having been badgered as a child into conversation in multiple languages by that crisp, clipped accent more times than he would care to recall.
There is also a BB unit, white and orange, rolling with a certain amount of vigor around the taller R2 unit, as if chattering with it over afternoon tea.
When Kylo catches site of that particular model, he has the intense and momentary urge to kick the thing like a gravball for all the grief that it had caused him at one point. Skywalker, having looked up at his nephew's arrival, seems to sense this imminent conflict and discourages him with the weight of a raised eyebrow. Kylo, not to be outdone in matters of dark expressions, hunkers in on himself and glowers both at his uncle and the assembly of droids. The BB unit rolls behind the ancient body of R2-D2 as if recognizing exactly who Kylo Ren is and angles its head around the canister-like body of the larger droid to peer at him through the optical lens screwed into the mobile head. Kylo sits, brushing away the relentless but quiet suggestion of Rey at the back of his mind, trying to stand on her toes and either be party to what's going on or make sure that he hasn't killed Skywalker. He does not let her in.
His meeting with Skywalker is not overly long but neither is it brief. Kylo inquires after the return of his lightsaber which Skywalker instantly refuses, and he is made to sit still both under the application of the Force rolling off of Skywalker's shoulders - which infuriates him - to press down on Kylo, keep him stationary, and under some unnamed and unknown sense of obligation. Now that he isn't so hellbent on killing the man, he isn't entirely sure what to make of his own approach, and he has to watch while Skywalker dismantles his saber with precise efficiency and mastery, the crack in the kyber crystal looking far graver in the shadows that the X-wing throws over them, while Kylo explains the finer points of Rey's strategy and what is taking place as part of this protocol. When Skywalker finally relents and lifts the pressure from his shoulders that Kylo fights for the duration of its existence, it is under the bargain that he will reassemble the blade while Skywalker watches.
Ben Solo never made it this far under Luke's tutelage, and while he had managed the construction of his own lightsaber eventually, it was with the ragged, underdeveloped finesse of someone who maybe once saw all the components come together to make the whole or was able to conceptualize the task but never had much hands on experience. Still, Kylo Ren is not innately a terrible mechanic - it's in his blood on both sides - and he has enough familiarity with his own blade and its rough design that he's able to put the pieces back together without feeling anxious under the scrutiny of a master. He doesn't care what Skywalker thinks of him, besides, and maybe that's apparent when the task is finished, as Skywalker makes a sound not unlike a sigh and tells him that the crack in the crystal will continue to cause fluctuations in stability as long as Kylo continues to rely on its poorly harnessed energy for the sake of raw power. He couldn't care less about the assessment, asks if he might be excused, and rises when Skywalker dismisses him with a tone and emotion that he can't read without attempting to project into his mind.
Five steps away from the little half-circle comprised of man and droid, Luke calls him back by saying that name, Ben, which causes him to stop although he refuses to turn around. The act of returning his saber speaks enough about what Skywalker has seen in his nephew today and about his own faith at reeling Ren in should things not go according to plan, so that Kylo is unsure as to what else the older man could need to say. As it turns out, it's just a platitude.
We are glad that you're back.
He doesn't wait or attempt to continue the conversation, wandering off in the direction that he came and looking down at the clean metallic hilt in his hand. Raw power vibrates through his skin, digs deep down into his tendon and bone, sinks with assertion into his veins and blood. It feels good to have his blade back in his possession, rights the world in a way that even the helmet would have been unable to do, and he has the initial urge to thumb the switch and ignite the sword in a surge of red plasma, feel the crackle of the crystal and the heat from the exhaust ports warm the circle of his hand. Instead, he clips the hilt to the wide swathe of his belt and drops down the wall of sheer rock that Rey has been tapping against for an hour. )
You are unbelievably impatient. I didn't kill him, if that's what you're so worried about. ( He projects it ruefully across the distance that spans them without having to think about it, as if he has done it a hundred times before. The ease with which he locates her own trace signature in the Force and propels solid thought toward her takes him momentarily aback, so that Rey is able to surge in as if she has been leaning against the door of his mind and he has suddenly thrown it open on her. He is distracted only by the feeling of being watched and the sound of something crunching smoothly behind him. When he turns to look over his shoulder, the little orange and white BB unit makes a high pitched sound and tears off ahead of him, spraying mud everywhere, including his pants. ) Your droid is following me.
[ The wall she meets lasts through her journey from Organa's war council to the Millennium Falcon, where she prompts Poe to prime the engines so she can do final inspection with Chewie. It's an incessant nagging at the edge of her perception, a distraction as she continues to push her way in without avail.
When he finally opens the floodgates, she spills into his mind like water from a broken dam. The sudden access startles her, dropping her out of the ceiling panel she'd been crawling about in to check a fuel line. She lands hard on the metal floor of the central loop in the Falcon's cabin, and she groans, squeezing her eyes shut as she listens to his scolding. ]
He's not my droid.
[ But of course Kylo would believe BB-8 was. She doesn't need to guess which one he means, and it gives her an opportunity to not address the insistence of her nosiness. Rolling onto her side, she pushes her way back onto her feet and gives the ceiling panel a sour look as if it were the roof's fault that she'd tumbled. ]
Maybe he wants your lightsaber. Did you get it back?
( There's some disturbance on her end of things that he can't rightfully determine, a flare of pain and irritation that doesn't line up to equate with anything dramatic or pressing. No anticipated amount of danger, then, not with that burst of annoyance from her end. Walking through the camp, Kylo furrows his brow, curiosity turned outward to color his expression to her reaction. It looks like he's scowling at the line the rolling ball - which is still emitting low whirring sounds as he advances after it - has left in the soft earth. He's fine with that mistake: two birds, one stone. )
What would a droid do with a lightsaber? ( Annoyed with her dogged and unrelenting attempts to get into his head, knowingly or otherwise, he neglects to answer her question directly on purpose, trailing after the droid as if the sphere is leading him and not the other way around. Kylo wonders if it even knows where it's going, since it keeps its eye, for want of a better term, trained specifically on him. ) Quit following me, droid.
( It occurs to him that talking to a robot is a pointless exercise but it seems a reasonable option all the same. The BB unit makes a low sound at him, almost a hoot, which Kylo takes as an insult. In return, far out of Rey's, the General's, Skywalker's, even Chewbacca's direct line of sight, Kylo makes a rude gesture back at the little spinning thing, which apparently it takes offense to as it skids to an immediate halt three feet in front of him and kicks more mud up at him, changing the angle to spray his face. It rolls off before Kylo has the chance to kick it; he's too proud to go chasing after it with the Force. )
I don't care who it belongs to. The next time I see it, I'm dismantling it. ( They both know that's a lie though not because he wouldn't do it if he had the opportunity. ) At any rate, yes, to answer your initial question, though I don't know how you're not already aware considering you spent the better part of an hour trying to eavesdrop.
Steel trap. I thought you'd have a harder time keeping me out than that, after — [ Though it's clear she means the thought to end there, the implication comes through all the same, though her inner voice is toned lighter and sounds farther away than the one she uses to speak to him through the bond. ] —After we spent so much time in each other's heads.
[ It seems unlikely that he could be hiding something significant from her, but the fact that he'd managed to shut her out from his emotional responses during the conversation with Luke opens up the possibility all the same. She doesn't want to dwell on it because they simply don't have time for doubt and paranoia: she's relying on success. The whole Resistance is.
It bears question, too, why BB-8 would really be chasing him. The suggestion created a quick way to derail him from the droid's presence to what she was actually curious about, but BB-8 has good instincts. ]
I spoke with your mother. She doesn't want to abandon the planet.
[ More to the point, it seemed that she believed the Resistance had lost enough in the wake of Starkiller's destruction of the Republic and its remaining forces. But to identify that reasoning seemed a lot like digging her fingers into old wounds without benefit. ]
( He hangs in the balance between the finality of her first statement and the almost-accidental afterthought of the next. While he walks, he keeps his head down and wipes at his face with his hands, trying to clear the mud off where he can. Passing an X-wing with vicious carbon scoring on the port side, he reaches out with a burst of energy to snag a rag that hangs abandoned from the cockpit. Clearing his face is marginally easier, although the square of fabric smells like oil and gasoline and does little to help him get the splatters out of his hair. )
I have a great deal more practice keeping my thoughts to myself than you.
( There are multiple implications behind the weight he places in each individual word, but Kylo tries to keep it veering toward teaching and training her further rather than his own past transgressions and experiences. This is new territory to him as well: even connected as he was to Snoke so absolutely, that had been a crushing, dictatorial presence; Rey's is something he's altogether unfamiliar with in its totality. As much as he might eventually like to explore what's unfolding, Kylo doubts very much that he will be allowed to train her in anything, especially with Skywalker around to see to it that his influence on Rey remains at a minimum and that she continues whatever work they had been doing together on whatever lush, green landscape had accommodated them. )
Does she plan to take the entire planet with her? ( His voice in their heads drips sarcasm, laced with a certain amount of indignation, although Kylo understands without wanting to the potential reasons behind Organa's hesitations. He prefers looking at it from a military standpoint over a personal one. This seems a more optimal topic of conversation as he treks his way back across the camp and hits the treeline, spilling long legs into the forest and following the path that Rey lays out for him based on presence alone. The droid rolls ahead of him, sometimes swiveling around to look at him and then blasting off for a full minute so that there is adequate space between them. Kylo isn't sure how he feels about intimidating a droid, so he tries to ignore it, letting Rey's thoughts anchor her in time and space like a pin on a map. He gets the impression that were he to try hard enough, he could pick her signature, her presence, out of a dense crowd on Coruscant. ) What is she proposing?
[ In a tremendous moment of irony, imagined greenery and the heavy presence of Luke Skywalker fills her mind, but unlike Kylo Ren, she feels no urge to flinch away from the feeling. Instead, she briefly preoccupies herself with curiosities as to what prompted it, a fleeting concern that is quickly dismissed in favor of her failing attempts to make any sense of military strategy. People, she can understand, but she can hardly conceptualize a scale so grand as total galactic war. Leia and Poe do it with an ease that dizzies her. ]
I left before they were done deciding. She thinks without the Resistance here, the planet will fall to the First Order again. We need to be sure it's defended.
[ Which seems obvious, now. Just as Rey would never leave her friends and the Resistance behind to escape, neither would Organa leave behind the people who had thrown their lot in with her cause. ]
Without the Corellian fleet, there is no Resistance, but there's no way for us to withstand another battle like that so soon. [ Silence, then, ] I think Poe is convincing her that our plan is the best one, to steer as much of the fleet away as we can by misleading Snoke. But the fleet might not follow us.
( Kylo rolls his eyes at her response. A pointless endeavor, given that she can't actually see it. )
You won't be able to avoid a battle if General Organa decides to stay, and it's a battle that you won't win, I can assure you.
( He's nearly back at the Falcon now, picking his way through the forest with careful, precise steps, the weight of his saber banging into his thigh where he's clipped it to his belt. Kylo knows what the First Order's - what Hux's and even his own - strategy would be were positions flipped. Corellia would take its place as a wash, lost to the opposition, and that would be that. Organa has more sympathy for lost planets than is good for her, though he supposes he can sympathize with the idea that losing Corellian support would be a devastating loss to the Resistance's chances. It's more difficult to look at it that way, through the lens of a First Order operative that can choose to be more selective about the systems left standing.
In the Resistance camp now, firmly or otherwise, sweat starts to bead again under the high neck of Kylo's tunic. )
The First Order will follow the bulk of the Resistance when it leaves the system. Hux isn't going to risk losing both the general and a traitor to Lord Snoke personally in order to teach the Corellians a lesson. Snoke wouldn't stand for it. Whether or not the Order is able to locate the Resistance fleet immediately after leaving Corellian airspace is neither here nor there. Corellia will have to be dealt with in one way or another. ( But it's not his decision to make and he doesn't rightfully give a damn what happens to the Corellians, if he's being perfectly honest. ) I don't envy Dameron that conversation.
[ He makes a point. A lure would persuade better with more than just the Millennium Falcon on the end of it. As much as she's sure General Organa wants to remain with Corellia, she might be the best way to guarantee that the First Order fleet will jump out of there. Rey doesn't like Kylo Ren's willingness to use his own mother as bait on principle, but she says nothing on it; reason supports his judgment. ]
I'm sure that's what they're discussing even now. Regardless, we'll need to be ready to lead them away, even split off from the rest of the Resistance to thin the herd to something they can defend against.
[ And, of course, hope that they're able to shake the ships that follow later. ]
Hurry back. I want us ready to take off when the General gives the order.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Her breath leaves her then, drawn back into her chest in slow form, accepting that she'd misread when he stills and disarming herself from the defensive stance she had taken in the center of the cluster of honeycombed crew bunks. ]
It's not like I had time to think about it! [ Instead of wearing the defensiveness in her shoulders, she projects it in a raised voice. ] Getting you back here was more important than finding it.
[ Priorities to keep straight. Disarming the First Order of one of their most powerful assets was an incomparable victory, easily outweighing the missing saber. Without it, the Resistance could still win. Without Kylo Ren, the First Order could very well lose. The calculations were simple, straightforward. At least, they had seemed so at the time. ]
It's just a sword.
no subject
One of his shoulder blades finds the edge of the wall right where it drops off to create the hollow of the bunk and he leans there, blinking away the last of the pain that radiates outward from top of his head and crossing his legs at the ankles. Kylo doesn't miss her reaction beyond the quick steps that she takes away from him, coming down from the heightened level of defense necessary when being confronted with a hungry carnivore. She's ready for a fight even if she doesn't realize it, and energy and tension hums and cracks in this small compartment of the Falcon. Kylo does his part to dissuade it the way that Rey does when she lets her hackles down by degrees, though he still feels annoyed with her blase response regarding the saber's whereabouts. )
It isn't just a sword. ( Kylo can't say what inspires the annoyance in his voice with absolute certainty, though he knows that it isn't her roundabout reference to him as an important piece of tactical weaponry. He'd made his own blunder when he focused on her on Takodana and neglected the capture of the droid when he should have given the order to secure both of them. How different things would be now if he'd seen the map where and when he'd wanted to. ) I've seen you with a blaster, and I've seen you with a saber. If you think you're going to defend anyone with the former, then I'd like to know what your definition of the word 'defense' is. ( He's never seen her with a staff, though. ) I understand that you had a somewhat heavy cargo to bring back with you, but now I'm actually conscious and not planning on killing anyone in the immediate vicinity, so go find it.
( If she won't go, then he will. It might not ever work correctly for him, but Kylo's not going to let it spend another thirty years collecting dust on some distant planet. Or worse, rusting in Corellian mud. )
no subject
If a world exists where she finds herself able to forget or be at true ease with all he has done, they do not live in it yet. He poses a very real threat, or at least he could, if his worse nature were to seize command in any significant way—through his temper, for instance.
She tightens her jaw, mouth set in a heavy frown that seems to linger on the edge of regret—not the kind of regret that merely mourns her mistake, but the kind that wobbles near an apology for it. Whatever it is never comes out, and she shakes it off when she lifts her chin to stubbornly meet his chastising with a distinct lack of apology that’s so sharp in contrast to the look she has dismissed that it makes her look arrogant. ]
I can handle myself. Unless you want another demonstration, I suggest you take my word for it. [ Thank you very much. He has no right, she reasons privately to herself. He has no idea what she’s done to survive, what it was like on Jakku, a small girl—barely more than a toddler—learning very quickly that you either lost everything or you learned to protect it. While Kylo had two, Rey had no teachers, no guidance, only the harsh lessons of violent experience to teach her to fight as scrappily as she does. Not to mention her quite unarmed escape from Starkiller Base. ]
It’s going to take hours to hike back to that plateau: do you really think we have all that time to be fussing about a lightsaber right now?
[ She forces her hands to relax, noticing somewhere along the line they had balled into fists, ready (or perhaps hoping) for a fight. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t contort her mind into understanding the importance of its legacy to him, for she’s never had any kind of legacy to look towards. Survival in the moment has always been her focus out of necessity; there is no switch she can flip to cease worrying about it. ]
no subject
Her reaction isn't exact enough to grant him victory within the parameters of the game that he's playing in his own mind, but he still isn't surprised by the outcome all the same. The set of her shoulders is haughty and the weight that she throws behind the admonishments she levels at him to bolster the strength of her conviction calls back to every other time she's realized she was afraid of him and needed to look and appear stronger to counter it. The only difference between now and then is that now he means her less harm than he might have originally, although the concept of harm would have taken a different meaning then, as it does now. )
I'm not trying to goad you into a fight. ( Kylo holds his hands up as if to demonstrate this fact and nods to the balled up fists that Rey's have formed, although the idea of the two of them going up against each other in a contest of skill without bladework to consider interests him in a way that he'd never thought about before. Possibly because he's of the confident mind that he would win. ) I'm just saying that if things don't go with as much optimism and confidence as you're hinging on, then it's going to put you at a disadvantage if the First Order collects the ship while you're still on it.
( The burns on the backs of his hands grin at him upside-down, and the look that he levels her with is as much in recognition of the fact that he doesn't want to fight physically with her right now as much as it is in recognition of the truth found in her defense of her own character. He's said it before, and he will say it again: she's strong and even stronger than she knows. It becomes more of a problem when they're surrounded by delicate machinery that has already taken a beating in its extremely long and violent history. If either of them want a chance at escaping Corellia, it's beneficial not to have two Force users end up in a fist fight on the floor.
Calming himself has always taken a great deal more focus and attention than he's been happy to admit. It's never been a problem for him before despite both Skywalker and Snoke expressing his need to learn to control it. If he's being honest, it's Snoke who taught him how to master it, and while now he doesn't feel the fury that's so often just a chip at the surface away from boiling over, Kylo knows that drawing out the encounter is only going to make it that much more difficult to reel back in. So he pushes off the wall and brushes by her on his way back down the corridors of the ship to the outside. )
I'm going to speak with your master regarding the return of my weapon. ( He answers her before she has time to actively ask the question, long strides carrying him quickly through the ship without even breaking a sweat. ) Track down your co-pilot in the meantime.
no subject
A part of her aches to reach out through the force and stop him from leaving on such a dramatic and negative note, but she stops herself for the weakness it would show and the little good it would do any of them. They all have their tasks. She starts after him, short legs carrying her with quicker steps to try and make her way out of the ramp, but she's stopped by Chewie looping around from the cockpit.
An irritated growl rumbles in the back of his throat, high pitched and indignant. Sighing, Rey stops, folding her arms beneath her chest as she looks up at him. ]
It was his home once too. I hoped it might make him remember. [ Gazing back down the ramp, she sighs and adds, ] I think it only made it worse. [ Reaching out to rub the furred arm of her co-pilot, Rey offers a smile. ] I promise it's safe. Or it will be. But we need to get ready to fly as soon as possible.
[ This only draws out another growl from him, this one less translatable, some chagrined realization that she's too damn similar to the Falcon's last pilot for anyone's good. Chewie takes his exasperation to the engine room to give it a good check, and Rey head down the ramp, stopping at the bottom, torn between going to explain their back-up plan to Leia and following Kylo's advice to search out the saber.
He'd gotten this far trusting her advice. Maybe it was time that she offered him the same in return, however misguided she believed his focus to be. Grinding her teeth doesn't make it any easier to decide, but it does help her recognize her reluctance to do what she already knows she is going to. Rubbing her jaw, she pivots on her heels and darts into the dark of the forest. ]
no subject
Experimentally, Kylo takes a breath and empties himself, the cool breeze finally licking dry the sweat that has beaded along his hairline and up underneath the heavy, high material that covers his neck. His mind clears as much as it ever can, and where he is used to the voice that has filled the void for decades calling out to him in quiet, low tones with wise words and careful comforts, he finds nothing. Just the sound of the wind in the trees and birds screeching in the distance.
Something behind him, from the ship, makes a noise not unlike a hiss, and he turns just in time to watch a full jet of steam break one of the hastily - no doubt - repaired panels on the outside of the YT freighter. A refracted beam of light off the cockpit window catches his attention, and he sees movement behind it: a huge, furry body turning from the gaze he has directed upward and moving with surprising agility through the sea of chairs that line the cockpit's interior. Flashing lights provide readouts and relays that he can't determine and has no interest in, so Kylo leaves and stalks back through the forest to the Resistance camp.
Alone.
It crosses his mind once or twice to duck into an unmanned ship and escape. He gets as far as flipping the ignition in his mind before he's caught. When attacking the problem from a different angle, he makes it all the way back to the Finalizer before the Supreme Leader strangles him for insubordination and disobedience. Kylo never actually makes the attempt and when he makes it back to the Resistance camp under the pretense of searching out Skywalker, he changes direction and heads back into the trees, away from the camp and the distant smell of smoke and the lingering voice of his uncle in his mind saying, Don't be a fool, Ben.
That only sends him further into the forest, stepping over roots and broken branches, slipping in mud and correcting his footing by reaching out and snagging tree trunks with his fingernails and the palms of his hands. Even someone with adequate foresight through the Force would have a difficult time navigating this terrain, and he wonders how running away ever seemed like a plausible idea in the first place. Still, he moves quickly - faster than someone without the benefit of being a Force-user would be able to move - and covers ground enough in a short amount of time to deliver him back to where it all started.
Standing on the edge of the clearing, much of the forest here has been burnt and scorched away. Black, skeletal branches litter the ground like broken bone fragments. The dead lay unburried, though there are no Resistance members among those who have not yet been burned by the Corellians, trooper armor catching the light and curving the way that it had off the Millennium Falcon's cockpit and - there, not far off, a wink of sunlight on the scuffed but still smooth hilt of a saber. Kylo reaches it in several long strides, sparing no thought one way or the other for the fallen soldiers that lay behind him. He remembers the explosion that sent them sprawling and looks around for -
His mask is lying face down in the dirt several yards away, abandoned where he had ripped it off when it shorted out. Kylo considers it for a moment, the way that it seems to draw in the daylight rather than refracting it, but retrieves the saber first, letting its weight fill his palm with a satisfaction he had never anticipated. It isn't the same feeling that holding his grandfather's sunken, disfigured, half-melted helmet in his hands had inspired, but he can't say that it's entirely different either. The same, but different. The saber is heavier than he would have expected, now that he finally has a chance to hold it, but he knows even without tripping the ignition that while he could use the blade the same way that FN-2187 had against him, it would never yield to him or sing alongside him the way that it had for Rey. His thumb does hover over the switch, he thinks of lighting it, just to feel the stability of the crystal inside buzz in his palm in a way that the cracked kyber in his will never be able to duplicate, but doesn't. Instead, he turns on his heel and stalks back the way that he had come, operating on instinct alone rather than letting doubt or thought at all cloud his judgment. It's the closest to meditation that he's gotten in years.
He stops twice on his way into the forest: once at his own mask, staring up at him like a severed head in the dirt and urging him to pick it up and put it back where it belongs; and once when he comes across Rey on her own trek. Kylo feels her coming several moments before she actually becomes visible, so he assumes that his own cover has been blown as well. His hands are empty save for the saber that is no worse for wear other than some grit in its grooves. She'll need to clean it properly at some point. Once Kylo retrieves his own blade from Skywalker's possession, he could probably show her how to do it, if she doesn't know already.
He offers it to her without flourish or preamble. )
no subject
She understands now how it must rankle him to have her patient nudging at the edge of his mind, coaxing him into certain paths, and knowing that path is in her best interest only makes it worse. Though her quarterstaff would be functional, there is no substitute for the grace and power of a lightsaber, a lesson learned on Starkiller Base and expanded upon as she developed her skills with proper training.
Still, she wants to allow herself to believe that he was biased. Caught up in his own emotional turmoil about the legacy the saber carried, not merely in its utility to either of them in a fight. It helps stew her quiet grumbling, but that fades away over time, and she has plenty of time to traverse the landscape and calm herself in the quiet isolation of the forest.
Exhaustion sets in then, fuzzy at the edges of her mind, and she tries to pull at the Force to keep herself awake and putting one foot in front of the other. Up until now, she'd found forward momentum sufficient to keep her just barely going, but without anyone to distract her, without a constant task beyond the simple hike, she lulls herself into calm for no reason other than her mind can't quite keep up with anything more.
It prevents her from picking up on the hum at the edge of her awareness cuing her in to their proximity, and she doesn't see him until he's coming through the trees towards her. Lifting her head, Rey squints at his figure like she's not sure it's really there or just a shadow of the trees, her own sight betraying her, but he comes to stand level in front of her and offers the hilt out to her, dirty and battered. ]
That's not yours. [ She mutters the words dryly as she reaches out to take it, rubbing some of the mud aside; he knows that, of course, but it gently accuses him of not fulfilling his task. They don't have time for this, to be certain. The First Order could be forming just beyond the atmosphere above them in this moment, ready for a fresh hail of destruction renewed with vengeful fury. But looking down at the hilt, soft gratitude enters her eyes. There aren't many things she's owned in her life that hold value, that she's been able to keep, so despite her willingness to put all their lives before it, it still means something to have it in her hand again. ]
no subject
( There's scathing quality to his tone that is directed toward her as much as it is himself, both to remind him of his weakness in never earning it before and to distract him from the charity of his retrieving it. He can remember with perfect clarity what it had felt like to be so close to this little, weighted thing on Starkiller Base, to reach out for it with all the confidence he thought was required in his own inheritance to will it to him, and then the bruising anger and pounding sense of disorienting disownment when it had flown right by him and into Rey's waiting hand. He eyes it as it changes hands yet again but with none of the burn found in his tone. If anything, it's curiosity laced with suspicion, and he brushes past her, moving back toward camp, before she notices it. )
I had no idea you were going to change tactics and listen to me for a change. ( He steps over a collection of branches with canopy-level leaves and looks up to see the wind swaying the tree back and forth. Their skeletons and trunks groan under the weight of their bodies and the pressure to bend and break under the strain the wind places on them. He pauses only to look back at her and make sure that she's listening to him, and a little because he still isn't entirely certain that she won't just kill him as soon as she has the chance, despite how much he knows that would go against what she's shown him thus far. ) You might think it's something you can just leave behind. It's not.
( It goes deeper than her strictly needing it to defend herself, but Kylo doesn't want to explain the very complicated and murky relationship he has with that side of his family. Not to her. Not here or not or on this planet. If she doesn't know it already. Instead, he shortens his stride for the umpteenth time today and waits for her to draw level with him before reaching out and grabbing her elbow. Not to direct her or divert her path over a tangle of thorns or damp leaves - in fact he nearly drags her through the latter when he does score a solid grip and secures it with his palm flat against the back of her arm - but in an attempt to bring her up to speed, literally. If she doesn't jerk out of his grip under pretense alone then they'll make it back to camp much faster than they were able to make it out here on their own. )
I had every intention of retrieving my own, but I assumed that Skywalker would be less than willing to hand it over if I was unaccompanied on the walk back to and away from your ship. ( Kylo doesn't bring up his momentary fantasies on the edge of the camp, the thoughts of sneaking away and escaping into the unknown for equally unknown purposes. He hadn't done it, in the end, so it seems a moot point now. ) I doubt he trusts me with it.
no subject
You can finish it now. You were too weak before. Startled and frightened by the sudden sound, she whips briefly around, listening at the edges of the forest for a noise that won't come. She never stops following him, even backwards, stumbling across roots. Even if the voice is not, the distraction is real, and it takes her a moment to place it as the same dark whisper she'd heard in Ren's mind, as if the journey there had further opened up an avenue for it to funnel in.
Hurriedly stuffing the hilt of the saber into the pouch at her belt as a deliberate refusal of the coaxing whisper, she scrambles to his side, listening intently not in further urgency to follow his command, but to understand his reasoning to be here at all as much as to shut out whatever else she might here.
She missed the middle. Something about what she could leave behind, something that makes her wonder what he has regretted leaving behind. That's not what she gets from him, of course. No satisfying answers, at least, but by now she knows that would expect too much of him.
The hiss of the wind as it whips around them criticizes her for expecting as much, buffeting her dirty face, but it still isn't as bad as the dust storms of Jakku that threatened to lift her off her feet and carry her away into the outskirts of the desert wasteland. She wonders, faintly, if she will ever stop comparing the landscapes of other planets to Jakku, if it will stop being her measuring stick once the green becomes more natural to her, but as soon as she wonders at all, she doubts it. Good or bad, it was her home for too long.
The urge to accuse him of slipping under the pressure of fear starts suddenly in the back of her throat, but she stops herself for the uselessness of it. Telling him that he was afraid of Luke Skywalker wouldn't help anyone's case, and though shoving it in Kylo Ren's face sounds quite pleasant, there's too much at stake here.
As soon as her mouth is open to refute his presumption of Luke—admittedly, it's a good thing the words never made it out, because even she didn't believe her reassurance. Luke had no reason to trust him, and she wouldn't blame him for being slow to.—there's a hand at her elbow pushing her along, but also sparking indignation that wells in her chest until it comes out as a shout. ]
Watch it! [ She growls the words, ready to yank her arm free, or at least attempt it. ] I can walk just fine without you dragging me along, thank you. I got all the way out here.
no subject
He glances down at her as soon as the tension in her arm becomes great enough that he either needs to let go of her or literally start dragging her bodily along next to him, so much larger is the span of his stride when she's not working within her own right to even the difference out. They're about halfway back already, so he stops short in his trek back to base camp but doesn't immediately let go of her as he continues to look down at her, searching her face for something that he's not even sure of. All he finds there is clear and bright indignation, from the firm line of her mouth, balanced around the growl of her tone as she spat it out at him, up to the hard set of her eyes, couched around the beginnings of a scowl that Kylo is decidedly becoming very familiar with. From the lines and angles of her face, he looks down to where his hand is still wrapped around her arm just above and behind her elbow, and remembers quite suddenly the way he had grabbed her during the mindwalk, red marks standing out on her skin like individual brands. )
I wasn't dragging you. Don't be so melodramatic. ( Kylo lets her go with a flourish all the same, forcing her arm up in his grip before he releases it to drop easily back down to her side where it belongs. He turns and continues walking without any indication to her as to whether or not she should follow, but it's really the only available option to her, especially as he keeps chatting at her as he slides over a long-fallen tree, rotting bark and foliage scattered around it. ) Not every hand that extends itself to you is a criticism of something that you can't do, you know. Everyone around you is perfectly aware that you're a capable person, mostly because you spend so much time proving it to them whenever you get a chance to make sure that they don't forget . ( His boots hit the ground harder than is necessary and splash dirty water, strewn with leaves, all the way up to his knees. Mud coats his boots up to the ankles. ) You've obviously mastered the art of walking on your own, at the very least.
( Impressive, for a scavenger, he almost bites out at her after but thinks better of it at the last moment. It would be inviting a fight when he doesn't have the patience or the energy for it, and it would be better for them not to be on opposing sides once the time comes to do what they will have to do in order to leave the planet. As if considering this, Kylo glances up through the trees to the sky, almost half-expecting to see a Star Destroyer blotting out the light from up above. The sky is clear, of course, but he can't shake the thought that the wind is full of whispers that have nothing to do with nature itself. Something is coming, and not just Rey slipping through the brush behind him. )
no subject
On Jakku, weakness made you a target. If you took help, it meant you needed it, and if you needed someone else, you certainly weren't in any position to protect what little you had. She never would have staked out her home inside that half-buried AT-AT had she been comfortable revealing her own weakness. The storms that blew through buffed the residents of the desert planet into smooth rocks, stubbornly independent and wild of temper.
But it wasn't just that. Finn, Chewie, Han, Leia, even Poe and Luke, any of them offering help weren't met with the same rebuff anymore; Kylo Ren was different. Regardless of what she'd seen in his mind, of the connection that they shared, she still shunted him back away from the familiar and casual touch, from seeing her as weak. Both because a part of her believed she would never be through proving herself to the barrage of his insults and because she needed strength to dissuade him from combatting her.
It was a barrier, and he had thrust bodily against it and bounced back off of it, recognizing it before Rey was ever aware that she had created it. Only then does she look around and notice how different their position in the forest is, how quickly they've been moving, and consider what he'd actually been trying to do. That moment is the most humbling of them all, and guilt creeps in and stiffens her joints as she moves to catch up with him. ]
Stop psychoanalyzing me. [ The grouse lacks bite in all its brevity, but she falls in step beside him. A few strides—his easy, hers taken in lunges—pass in silence before she reaches out to touch his arm, a passive apology and correction, accepting the truth of his words while remaining too stubborn to verbally acknowledge it. Show me, her reach urges. ]
no subject
She wears her history and experience in every angle of her body and every sharp line of her face, in every reaction to a hand up or some assistance offered, like a badge or medal earned, a product of a hard life lived alone. Her hands are as rough and strong because they need to be. It's plainly obvious why she might consider any kind of help a catcall to her own personal weaknesses and why she might instinctively be driven to rebuff his guidance as a result, and in a way, Kylo can understand where she's coming from, even if he can't completely empathize with it. He can perhaps blame her only a little less than he was able to when she'd rejected his offer to train her on Starkiller, which he still considers a viable option even though the conditions may have changed to a certain degree.
For a moment, he stares her down, as if waiting to see what she'll do next, but it's only a moment, and they admittedly don't have time for games of chicken in the forest, so he turns again to continue on the path back to camp, his steps and footfalls unnecessarily loud as he lumbers through the forest with heavy strides. When he walks with some amount of purpose beyond a casual stroll, he throws his weight into it, though it's more obvious when he isn't deliberately keeping his strides from reaching their maximum in order for her to keep pace with him once she decides that she doesn't want to be left behind in the woods.
It takes only a moment, and then she's at his side again, matching the length of his steps stride for stride. Kylo only looks down at her once she's finished talking, and he only replies to her once she's made the conscious decision to reach out toward him. )
It's not as much fun when you're on the other side of it, is it? ( She's analyzed him and been vocal about it in her own right enough times that he's managed to lose count. He's done the same to her, he knows, but it feels like it bears repeating now, despite the fact that he extends his elbow toward her so that she might wrap her hand around it in the same manner he had let his fingers span the back of her own arm. Her silent request, her stubborn pride acknowledging his proficiency and experience in this matter, does not go unnoticed. It contrasts sharply with the last time that he encouraged her to follow his lead, the taste of damp earth and fresh air replacing the bitter chill and copper tang of blood he associates with Starkiller. ) This is more effective when you're running, normally, or when you need to slow your perception of the world in a way that has higher stakes, but I don't think we need to be in that much of a hurry.
( He tries to show her, as best he can, what he's doing. Through thought and projected feeling, reaching out to flood her awareness and perception of his ability through the connection that they tentatively share. )
no subject
Silence under the fire of his rebuff prompts him to speak again, this time didactic, and Rey listens with rapt attention when he describes the applications. In tandem, she feels his mind open to her, and she leans into the connection studiously There, the link between their minds feels like a tangible cord that she uses to pull herself in closer to him.
In his mind, she can feel the strides he takes and how he lengthens them with the Force. Though her attempts to replicate it on her own start out without grace or experience, stumbling through erratic back-and-forths in her speed that sometimes translate to her trailing just behind him like a child, she pushes further telepathically to allow him to take the lead, his movements guiding her body in kind, and the muscle memory translates more readily to an understanding than anything else.
And just like that, he's everywhere, flooding her awareness with the suddenness of a tidal wave's final crash, his presence cool in her extremities but not alarming or unwelcome. Their unified movements carry them as far as the camp before, slowing down, she extricates herself from the bond and feels a sudden aching absence to sift and separate which parts are his mind and which are hers.
She comes back into her own isolation with a pitched gasp, as sharp and sudden as a bucket of ice water. ]
no subject
He feels her pushing at the fringe of his perception, a thread that weaves its way along the stitching of his own movements, and Kylo curls his hand into a fist and opens himself to her just as much as she allows him access in her own right. Kylo surges in without the resistance of her own shields and walls to stop him from flooding, though it is without the underlying aggressive threat of a maelstrom coming to tear her mind apart and more seamless than it may have been in the past. It's easier to teach her, to show her, this way, explaining without words and showing without demonstration, letting her observe what he's doing as if she were doing it herself, and it bolsters the speed in its own right until they are back at camp proper, moving bodies and collapsing tents peeking through the trees in little bursts of color.
Rey starts to withdraw and Kylo does as well, shaking her presence free like casting sand and water out through a sieve, trying to retain all the parts that are himself and separate them from the ones that are her and managing to get a complicated and messy collection in the process. He hasn't hide time to really examine it at length. He needs to. It's an abrupt absence that she is perhaps expecting less than him, given her reaction, but the hollow emptiness that rides high in his chest as a result, he imagines, is something unique to them in tandem. )
Next time you'll take lead. I can show you other things in the same way.
( Kylo pulls his arm away from her and wastes no time examining the withdrawing ache that seeps out of his sternum like retreating ice water. He leads them back into the camp, sticking naturally to the outskirts as he takes heavy, borderline painful steps toward the bright and converging center where he feels Skywalker's presence most keenly. Detours aside, he wants his saber back. )
no subject
She doesn't know how long it's been since she left camp, let alone since he did, but she knows well enough that there isn't time to waste. So instead she nods, accepting without complaint what he proposes, even if it makes the tacit assumption that she will welcome him to teach her anything again. They both know that curiosity will inevitably win, that she will permit it, and that they will both be glad for it in the long run: war cannot make room for pride. ]
I'll alert the General. When I leave you this time, can I trust you to actually go find Luke? [ The implication is heavy that her own lightsaber was nothing but an excuse to avoid the encounter. She doesn't shy away from it for the same reasons that she can't be allowed to shy away from the inevitability of his training. ]
no subject
Walls go up like keying up the shields of a command shuttle, forcing her out with a distinct snap that isn't so much rude as it is done with cold efficiency. Necessity. Whatever happens, whatever is said when he leaves Rey to her task in order to complete his own, retrieve his blade, Kylo doesn't want her looking in or getting waves and snippets of what he's feeling. There's a good chance his disdain, which has lain dormant and undisturbed, slumbering, for years, might look up and shake off some of the ancient dust that has settled once he is alone in a room with his uncle, but it's not something he wants anyone else being privy to. If he can keep her out, he will.
So he takes a long step back into camp, his boots leaving deep imprints in the muddy earth. They move in opposite directions now, Kylo pointedly does not answer her question though he walks backward for a few paces to keep her directly in his line of sight before he turns around and makes his way, unaccompanied, into the interior of the camp. Whether it's to regard the expression on her face as he does out of some search for amusement or as a means of offering proof that he's capable of the task she's expecting of him, Kylo makes no indication, but he does slink back into the camp with his chin aloft and his shoulders square, looking no one in the eye while daring everyone to do so based on his existence alone.
Not for the first time and very probably not for the last, he wishes that he would have retrieved his helmet from where he and Rey had fought. He'd drawn that line in the sand and stepped over it, though. Now came the time to map out the other side. )
no subject
But her Master, she decides, can handle himself, and she is not Kylo Ren's mother. As it happens, though, that's precisely who she needs to find, so she leaves Ren to his business, unconscious to her gentle knocks at his consciousness all the while, probing for a way in, and searches out Poe and Finn, hoping their presence and reason will help her win the General over.
They seem relieved by the sight of her in a way that makes her feel anxious, realizing they were worried for her safety. The novelty of being subjected to that kind of concern still draws a smile to her lips, but she knows precisely who they believed would threaten that wellbeing. It doesn't bode well for persuading them, but still she crouches in that dingy, poorly-constructed barracks with thinly padded cots slung from wall to wall, wearing threadbare, offering little comfort to convince them around a table propped on flat dirt where they've been playing cards.
When Poe asks how she can know that he's telling the truth, she begs the Force for her reason, surprised to see that he accepts it unquestioningly. The explanation Finn offers, inasmuch as it qualifies as an explanation, is that Poe has seen more of the Force in his lifetime than most in the camp. She won't complain, grateful that anyone believes her, grateful that there's more than their reluctance and grudging hatred. Before he can get more than that out, they leave the hut to scour the rest of the encampment for General Organa.
It's Poe too who finds her quickly, strategizing with Ackbar, discussing routes away from Corellia with a sadness in her eyes that says she's preparing herself to bid goodbye to a home, one that the First Order could ensure she never saw again. Rey understood the feeling: she also understood the importance of the Resistance's survival.
She stays silent, allows Poe to propose the back-up plan and assert his support for the information conveyed by Kylo Ren, despite his reservations. Silence affords her careful attention to the shifts in Organa's expression, including the soft relief of a woman who was battling against the question of whether her faith was rooted in her own bias, was dangerous to her people. The reason she persisted in being so difficult to persuade was not because she didn't believe Ben Solo was in there somewhere trying to help them, but because she did. Too easily.
It levels Rey, to look on Organa's face now and think that even after all he'd done, she still found herself instinctually believing the best, reaching for the light of optimism. And when she agreed to consider it, Rey lowered her gaze to hide her soft smile. If Organa could still stoke the fires of hope after all that she had lost to the Darkness, then perhaps they had more of a chance than any of them believed. The warmth of that realization presses up against the edges of the stubborn barrier that keeps her out of Kylo Ren's mind as she continues to absently prod at it, newfound habit leading her to nonchalantly searching for entry as much as anything else. ]
no subject
Her persistence becomes annoying when he finally does manage to locate Skywalker, who Kylo pictures to be in a meditative position so that when he finds the older man carefully examining Kylo's lightsaber with all the curiosity of a mechanic, it draws him up short. Skywalker is not huddled in a tent or within the walls of the bunker but sits next to an old model X-wing with the beat up R2 unit humming at his side. For once, the gold protocol droid is nowhere to be found, and he's glad for it, having been badgered as a child into conversation in multiple languages by that crisp, clipped accent more times than he would care to recall.
There is also a BB unit, white and orange, rolling with a certain amount of vigor around the taller R2 unit, as if chattering with it over afternoon tea.
When Kylo catches site of that particular model, he has the intense and momentary urge to kick the thing like a gravball for all the grief that it had caused him at one point. Skywalker, having looked up at his nephew's arrival, seems to sense this imminent conflict and discourages him with the weight of a raised eyebrow. Kylo, not to be outdone in matters of dark expressions, hunkers in on himself and glowers both at his uncle and the assembly of droids. The BB unit rolls behind the ancient body of R2-D2 as if recognizing exactly who Kylo Ren is and angles its head around the canister-like body of the larger droid to peer at him through the optical lens screwed into the mobile head. Kylo sits, brushing away the relentless but quiet suggestion of Rey at the back of his mind, trying to stand on her toes and either be party to what's going on or make sure that he hasn't killed Skywalker. He does not let her in.
His meeting with Skywalker is not overly long but neither is it brief. Kylo inquires after the return of his lightsaber which Skywalker instantly refuses, and he is made to sit still both under the application of the Force rolling off of Skywalker's shoulders - which infuriates him - to press down on Kylo, keep him stationary, and under some unnamed and unknown sense of obligation. Now that he isn't so hellbent on killing the man, he isn't entirely sure what to make of his own approach, and he has to watch while Skywalker dismantles his saber with precise efficiency and mastery, the crack in the kyber crystal looking far graver in the shadows that the X-wing throws over them, while Kylo explains the finer points of Rey's strategy and what is taking place as part of this protocol. When Skywalker finally relents and lifts the pressure from his shoulders that Kylo fights for the duration of its existence, it is under the bargain that he will reassemble the blade while Skywalker watches.
Ben Solo never made it this far under Luke's tutelage, and while he had managed the construction of his own lightsaber eventually, it was with the ragged, underdeveloped finesse of someone who maybe once saw all the components come together to make the whole or was able to conceptualize the task but never had much hands on experience. Still, Kylo Ren is not innately a terrible mechanic - it's in his blood on both sides - and he has enough familiarity with his own blade and its rough design that he's able to put the pieces back together without feeling anxious under the scrutiny of a master. He doesn't care what Skywalker thinks of him, besides, and maybe that's apparent when the task is finished, as Skywalker makes a sound not unlike a sigh and tells him that the crack in the crystal will continue to cause fluctuations in stability as long as Kylo continues to rely on its poorly harnessed energy for the sake of raw power. He couldn't care less about the assessment, asks if he might be excused, and rises when Skywalker dismisses him with a tone and emotion that he can't read without attempting to project into his mind.
Five steps away from the little half-circle comprised of man and droid, Luke calls him back by saying that name, Ben, which causes him to stop although he refuses to turn around. The act of returning his saber speaks enough about what Skywalker has seen in his nephew today and about his own faith at reeling Ren in should things not go according to plan, so that Kylo is unsure as to what else the older man could need to say. As it turns out, it's just a platitude.
We are glad that you're back.
He doesn't wait or attempt to continue the conversation, wandering off in the direction that he came and looking down at the clean metallic hilt in his hand. Raw power vibrates through his skin, digs deep down into his tendon and bone, sinks with assertion into his veins and blood. It feels good to have his blade back in his possession, rights the world in a way that even the helmet would have been unable to do, and he has the initial urge to thumb the switch and ignite the sword in a surge of red plasma, feel the crackle of the crystal and the heat from the exhaust ports warm the circle of his hand. Instead, he clips the hilt to the wide swathe of his belt and drops down the wall of sheer rock that Rey has been tapping against for an hour. )
You are unbelievably impatient. I didn't kill him, if that's what you're so worried about. ( He projects it ruefully across the distance that spans them without having to think about it, as if he has done it a hundred times before. The ease with which he locates her own trace signature in the Force and propels solid thought toward her takes him momentarily aback, so that Rey is able to surge in as if she has been leaning against the door of his mind and he has suddenly thrown it open on her. He is distracted only by the feeling of being watched and the sound of something crunching smoothly behind him. When he turns to look over his shoulder, the little orange and white BB unit makes a high pitched sound and tears off ahead of him, spraying mud everywhere, including his pants. ) Your droid is following me.
no subject
When he finally opens the floodgates, she spills into his mind like water from a broken dam. The sudden access startles her, dropping her out of the ceiling panel she'd been crawling about in to check a fuel line. She lands hard on the metal floor of the central loop in the Falcon's cabin, and she groans, squeezing her eyes shut as she listens to his scolding. ]
He's not my droid.
[ But of course Kylo would believe BB-8 was. She doesn't need to guess which one he means, and it gives her an opportunity to not address the insistence of her nosiness. Rolling onto her side, she pushes her way back onto her feet and gives the ceiling panel a sour look as if it were the roof's fault that she'd tumbled. ]
Maybe he wants your lightsaber. Did you get it back?
no subject
What would a droid do with a lightsaber? ( Annoyed with her dogged and unrelenting attempts to get into his head, knowingly or otherwise, he neglects to answer her question directly on purpose, trailing after the droid as if the sphere is leading him and not the other way around. Kylo wonders if it even knows where it's going, since it keeps its eye, for want of a better term, trained specifically on him. ) Quit following me, droid.
( It occurs to him that talking to a robot is a pointless exercise but it seems a reasonable option all the same. The BB unit makes a low sound at him, almost a hoot, which Kylo takes as an insult. In return, far out of Rey's, the General's, Skywalker's, even Chewbacca's direct line of sight, Kylo makes a rude gesture back at the little spinning thing, which apparently it takes offense to as it skids to an immediate halt three feet in front of him and kicks more mud up at him, changing the angle to spray his face. It rolls off before Kylo has the chance to kick it; he's too proud to go chasing after it with the Force. )
I don't care who it belongs to. The next time I see it, I'm dismantling it. ( They both know that's a lie though not because he wouldn't do it if he had the opportunity. ) At any rate, yes, to answer your initial question, though I don't know how you're not already aware considering you spent the better part of an hour trying to eavesdrop.
no subject
[ It seems unlikely that he could be hiding something significant from her, but the fact that he'd managed to shut her out from his emotional responses during the conversation with Luke opens up the possibility all the same. She doesn't want to dwell on it because they simply don't have time for doubt and paranoia: she's relying on success. The whole Resistance is.
It bears question, too, why BB-8 would really be chasing him. The suggestion created a quick way to derail him from the droid's presence to what she was actually curious about, but BB-8 has good instincts. ]
I spoke with your mother. She doesn't want to abandon the planet.
[ More to the point, it seemed that she believed the Resistance had lost enough in the wake of Starkiller's destruction of the Republic and its remaining forces. But to identify that reasoning seemed a lot like digging her fingers into old wounds without benefit. ]
no subject
I have a great deal more practice keeping my thoughts to myself than you.
( There are multiple implications behind the weight he places in each individual word, but Kylo tries to keep it veering toward teaching and training her further rather than his own past transgressions and experiences. This is new territory to him as well: even connected as he was to Snoke so absolutely, that had been a crushing, dictatorial presence; Rey's is something he's altogether unfamiliar with in its totality. As much as he might eventually like to explore what's unfolding, Kylo doubts very much that he will be allowed to train her in anything, especially with Skywalker around to see to it that his influence on Rey remains at a minimum and that she continues whatever work they had been doing together on whatever lush, green landscape had accommodated them. )
Does she plan to take the entire planet with her? ( His voice in their heads drips sarcasm, laced with a certain amount of indignation, although Kylo understands without wanting to the potential reasons behind Organa's hesitations. He prefers looking at it from a military standpoint over a personal one. This seems a more optimal topic of conversation as he treks his way back across the camp and hits the treeline, spilling long legs into the forest and following the path that Rey lays out for him based on presence alone. The droid rolls ahead of him, sometimes swiveling around to look at him and then blasting off for a full minute so that there is adequate space between them. Kylo isn't sure how he feels about intimidating a droid, so he tries to ignore it, letting Rey's thoughts anchor her in time and space like a pin on a map. He gets the impression that were he to try hard enough, he could pick her signature, her presence, out of a dense crowd on Coruscant. ) What is she proposing?
no subject
I left before they were done deciding. She thinks without the Resistance here, the planet will fall to the First Order again. We need to be sure it's defended.
[ Which seems obvious, now. Just as Rey would never leave her friends and the Resistance behind to escape, neither would Organa leave behind the people who had thrown their lot in with her cause. ]
Without the Corellian fleet, there is no Resistance, but there's no way for us to withstand another battle like that so soon. [ Silence, then, ] I think Poe is convincing her that our plan is the best one, to steer as much of the fleet away as we can by misleading Snoke. But the fleet might not follow us.
no subject
You won't be able to avoid a battle if General Organa decides to stay, and it's a battle that you won't win, I can assure you.
( He's nearly back at the Falcon now, picking his way through the forest with careful, precise steps, the weight of his saber banging into his thigh where he's clipped it to his belt. Kylo knows what the First Order's - what Hux's and even his own - strategy would be were positions flipped. Corellia would take its place as a wash, lost to the opposition, and that would be that. Organa has more sympathy for lost planets than is good for her, though he supposes he can sympathize with the idea that losing Corellian support would be a devastating loss to the Resistance's chances. It's more difficult to look at it that way, through the lens of a First Order operative that can choose to be more selective about the systems left standing.
In the Resistance camp now, firmly or otherwise, sweat starts to bead again under the high neck of Kylo's tunic. )
The First Order will follow the bulk of the Resistance when it leaves the system. Hux isn't going to risk losing both the general and a traitor to Lord Snoke personally in order to teach the Corellians a lesson. Snoke wouldn't stand for it. Whether or not the Order is able to locate the Resistance fleet immediately after leaving Corellian airspace is neither here nor there. Corellia will have to be dealt with in one way or another. ( But it's not his decision to make and he doesn't rightfully give a damn what happens to the Corellians, if he's being perfectly honest. ) I don't envy Dameron that conversation.
no subject
I'm sure that's what they're discussing even now. Regardless, we'll need to be ready to lead them away, even split off from the rest of the Resistance to thin the herd to something they can defend against.
[ And, of course, hope that they're able to shake the ships that follow later. ]
Hurry back. I want us ready to take off when the General gives the order.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
literally have no idea what i am talking about la la la mechanics
Me always with Star Wars worldbuilding tbh so I feel you. Consumes EU at a glacial pace.
hahahha likewise. i just have multiple wookiepedia tabs open constantly
sobs i'm so bad at retaining reference material, but i just read 5 pages about sabacc and i'm like y
i am so proud of you. i never retain any information. i literally looked up 'glass' the other day
ok but like how much sleep had you gotten i feel like that is an important fact to consider
i mean probably like 7 which is 7 more than i usually get
oh .............. look i tried to excuse it idk what you want from me
and then i slept for like nine hours anyway it's fine you are forgiven
After this tag I know way too much about start wars spacecraft
hahahah totally applicable to every day situations absolutely
i'm so ready for the GRE question about quadex cores
my friend said he kylo ren told him quadex core questions are definitely on the GRE
truly a credible source
you can cite him your thesis
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
/quietly hides my massive knights of ren boner
no get that back out hoW DO YOU EVEN FIND THESE THINGS
i stared FOREVER at the vision scene. and used lots of name generators. IDK MAKING THIS UP AS I GO
you are truly a hero to your people
more valuable skillsets for the real world
um it's super valuable ok you can write baby naming books and win staring contests
omg an untapped goldmine awaits!!!!!
now you're thinking like a murrican
drinking my miller light and eating my corn dogs
waves an american flag
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
i know so much about dejarik now
scholar goals
/turns it into a thesis
academic applause
much more useful than my first class of the day that's for sure
filed under things i don't miss about school: useless classes
ugh it is the most useless class. love in world lit. you think it would be interesting. no.
oh my god my world lit class was the worst too it's a curse of bad professors
oh my god my professor is THE WORST i'm so glad it's not just me
it's totally a curse i had this white guy who would tell my poc classmates how racism felt
WOW DUDE WHAT. what is this guy doing teaching people
*~*~higher education*~*~
suddenly my teacher doesn't seem so terrible
some professors just need to stop
/ejects them into space
somewhere in this tag i changed tense and i'm too lazy to find them all this late. my gift 2 u
hahahah my gift to you was passing out so maybe we can be even
Haphazardly squeezes tags in at work
yes. good. i mean no. don't. stop. think of the children
They barely need me ok
well okay then i suppose it's alright
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
do it rey put him in the closet pls
locks him in the millennium falcon bunks same diff
good job on your hoth comment, self. never reply to anything when you first wake up
LMAO I THOUGHT THAT WAS ON PURPOSE my b
YOUR RESPONSE WAS PERFECT /discreetly tags while in class la la la
Sameeeee
terrible people, the both of us
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
/gets 100% distracted rewatching tfa again
Waits for the DVD like Fry's dog. So close. And so close to high res icons
ugh i want it so bad just for the iconnnnssss whyyyyy isn't it april 5th
2 more weeks so close
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
reads about mandalore forever do do dooooo
Oops gives you homework. I should do that too probably because all I have rn is Boba Fett
hahah me too, basically. boba fett is the whole planet right? it's fine
it is in fact shaped like his helmet
hahahahah well now i'm just sad that's not true
anything can be true if you close your eyes and believe
i will just wizard of oz red shoes it into a reality
things i've learned about mandalore: everything is named variations of mandalore
they are a proud people full of proud mandalorian pride
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...