apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

open post.
▬ action
▬ prompts
▬ continuing threads
▬ force shenanigans

[ Even without the bond, Rey would be able to feel the weight of the words in the implicit haunting image of his lonely mindscape, a barren and icy wasteland that afforded few fond memories, all far off, of other people. If Snoke had ever earned an apology out of him, it was a bruising command, not something freely offered, not something rich in conciliatory regret for the resulting pain.

The words press Rey's eyes shut to stave off the threatening trickle of tears—both empathic and personal, a result of the memory of the mine and its effects on her as much as the relief of his honesty and the transferred inner turmoil he feels. She draws a deep breath before looking back up at him, amber eyes glinting with the smoldering fire beside them that scorches the remains of the crime, and she presses her lips tightly together to collect herself while she nods. ]

Try is good. I'll take try. [ A lopsided, grim bastardization of a smile touches on her lips, haunting in its failed efforts to become even a shadow of the expression's intent, but she gives up on it quickly, eyes turning skyward. Each star glitters like the end of a blaster barrel pointed down at them, either light traveling years to reach them from another system, or an incoming shuttle that's eager to carry them, injured and off their prime, out to the Unknown Regions were Snoke awaits. ]

We need to move the body somewhere. [ She points towards the sloping hills of the refinery further south in the crater of the mine, where silt is carried and piled and strained through chemical smelting into refined ore. Even in the dark, the various minerals glint in the light as though winking at them from artificial mountains that roll out of sight and obscure the rim of the crater where the treeline continues. ] Then head further in to set up a camp. If anyone comes looking to finish the job, it will be to our benefit that they find the Falcon empty and the Knights gone; it might even give us enough time to recover before they catch on.

[ Doubtful. But she isn't up to getting them off-planet in her present condition, and Kylo Ren isn't up for another melee bout. Better that they firm up their plan for rest and take another go at it when the sun touches Concordia's forgotten mines. ]

( The tightness in her chest that manifests in direct relation to the fan of her eyelashes across the dark circles marring the skin below manifests in his own as well, an echoed sentiment that brings the air in lungs down to a scratchy wheeze in his chest, though it doesn't exist as a reality in its own right. Or maybe it does, he can't be certain, as caught up and tangled within one another as they have become both since leaving the mines and before they ever entered them. There is a weight that settles behind his breastbone, stacking on top of itself to pile rocks in the pit of his throat, restrict the flow of that rattling breath that expands and contracts across his chest with every breath that he takes, and Kylo knows what that sensation is without ever having to stop and give it a name.

He doesn't now, and he doesn't bother with the thickness of his tongue and throat in an attempt to answer with any form of immediacy, not trusting himself to gather the conviction required to ensure that his voice does not waver in the wake of her acceptance, her approval. It's a different make and model and of a different caliber than anything Kylo is used to - from the people who had once been his parents, from the Jedi who had once been his uncle, from the shadow that had once been his master - and it rests heavy and burrows deep somewhere within him, a small, burning ember tucked among the blackened coals. His head tips forward in a nod at her acknowledgement, and something not at all like a reciprocated smile touches the corner of his mouth - more a grimace or a wince than anything overtly pleasant - and falls again as the heat of the fire rinses his face and a particularly loud pop draws his attention from the contours of her own, the bright ring of amber that eclipses the kaleidoscope of brown and green made darker by firelight.

Kylo doesn't follow the line of her sight up into the stars but stays attached to the fire until its brightness forces him to look away, out beyond the hills that she points to once he catches sight of her movement out of the corner of his eye. His initial response is little more than a grunt, flexing his fingers around the bandaging on his thigh, digging the pad of his thumb into a point just outside the radius of the wound, testing it. It's hardly pleasant. )

Maybe you should have considered that before lighting it on fire. ( There's no real heat behind his tone; if anything, despite evidence to the contrary, he sounds like he might be teasing her. Even so, Kylo can't deny that the suggestion has merit, as little as he wants to spend even a night lying on the ground, though sleeping in one of the cramped bunks on board the ship sounds just as appealing. ) We can pull a door off of one of the buildings and attach something to drag it with, make it somewhat easier on ourselves, considering - ( He gestures between the both of them, a vague indication toward Rey's ribs and his own leg. Dragging or propelling the smoldering remains of Aurren Ren via the Force seems like a waste of energy when the two of them together should be able to pull whatever is left of him behind them with less fanfare. As unenthusiastic as he is about spending what might amount to longer than one standard cycle on this moon, Kylo has to concede her point: neither of them are in any shape to do anything other than sit down, as much as Kylo might like to insist otherwise. )

I'm less comfortable leaving our only method of transport unattended, but there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming amount of alternative choices to be made. ( In the interest of speeding their production along and also limiting the chances of something else less productive, more quiet and subdued, from occurring, Kylo plants his hands in the dirt and rises ungainly to his feet. There is no room or place for pretense between them, not anymore. It's pride and duty that pushes him forward now. ) I'd rather get it over and done with, wouldn't you?

( He extends a hand in the interest of pulling her to her feet. )

[ A scowl answers him—he'd been the one to suggest a warrior's funeral of any kind—but it's less vicious than the looks she had fixed him with previously, and as such, manages to look almost good-natured in comparison despite the way her teeth clench and set like a strill's. The desert left her feral, and every inch of progress she makes in the opposite direction only proves to throw into starker relief how savage she still is.

Any distaste falls away when he pushes forward to the practical, something Rey can easily throw her support behind in full force, and she does so ignoring the gesture he makes to her injuries. She's dragged more weight with worse to account for. In fact, it had never occurred to her that he might aid her efforts; rather, she felt the need to get him on board with the plan, imagining a dozen ways he might combust if she were to simply begin dragging the corpse of his old ally away, but never considered his participation.

She grabs onto his hand and pulls herself to her feet with it, wary to avoid lending too much of her weight to him for she knows not to take his swelling bravado as a sign of what he can actually juggle on that leg. ]

Whatever's left. [ She corrects herself, turning her attention down at the smoldering pile of blackened flesh that has tightened around the bones below. For a brief moment, she misses the loose fabric that she used to wrap around her head as a hood and mask, wishing something could blot out the smell of burning flesh and hair, but the life of a scavenger is far behind her, even if the skills and urges are not too far to be recalled. ] Do what you can to put the flames out.

[ His command of the Force, while perhaps less innately powerful, is better refined, and she imagines that it will make the task simple; meanwhile, she heads for the administrative building with stiff but resolute steps where she lifts the hilt of her lightsaber for a moment. She thinks better of leaving such obvious burn scars in the building, though, and instead sets about prying the hinges loose and rattling the flimsy metal door free. ]

( The severity of her scowl sometimes catches him off guard for how familiar it is, a hearkening back to easier days, simpler times, when the mean, lean look of a survivor's hardened exterior, the quills and barbs of her shell, were the only things made accessible or offered to him. Now there are dips and valleys in between one glare and the next, catalogs of soften expressions and a new, broader spectrum of aching for the raw look in her eyes to travel along. They lean against a backdrop of deeper understanding on his part, an innate sense of knowing, manifested and fortified as a result of the connection between them, a continuous loop of feedback that plays uninterrupted and without request.

Rey's look now is certainly less scathing than what she has attempted to pin him in place with before, but it is still a return to something normal between them - and how strange that is, to think that there ever could or would exist something as benign and familiar between them as normal - and Kylo, glancing down at her with his hand extended, black leather catching and absorbing the light from the fire, he is unsure which extreme he prefers: that of normalcy or the thrill of the unknown. With sluggish work impeded by their own injuries, no doubt, to be done, he has little time to consider it, and with Rey's permanent residency in his head, he has even less room to reflect.

Kylo shuts it down before it can become more than what it is is, though its existence is criminal all by itself, and claps their hands together with a hollow sound that echoes down into the bones of his hands via the cup that his palm makes as he hauls her to her feet. He sways with her added weight, just a bit, leaning on his good leg in an active effort to spare the injured, though it's hardly enough to belie his depleted strength on the whole. The both of them standing, Kylo wonders why he bothers at all with the pretense of feeling no pain, no effects of such a wound, when it's plainly obvious she knows without having to ask or be told or mislead. )

What do you need from the ship before we leave the area? ( He asks, once she's wandered away and before he realizes that he's not spoken aloud but shouted down the winding rope that binds them together, mind to mind. It's a strange realization to stumble over, when he's done an overwhelming majority of things in his life with deliberation, however recklessly, and speaks more to the inherent issues Rey had addressed only moments ago, as they sat on the ground, to the instincts that he has to try hard to suppress in order not to drag her under the shifting, dark sands that he is still mired in. An equally strange realization, and Kylo wonders, briefly, vaguely, whether or not it will prove to be a guileless one in the end.

Present one moment and gone the next, he allows those thoughts to filter in and out like running water, and collects the Force between his fingers in much the same way. Despite its constant presence, the threads that weave and threaten to overwhelm at times, he finds the task as it stands momentarily laborious, and uses the bulk of his concentration to gather large clots of dirt above and below one hand with the express purpose of dumping the dirt onto the fire, smothering it. It has the added benefit of choking the high plume of smoke that wanders ever upward, though it takes him five solid passes to get the fire to extinguish completely. When he's finished, sweat has beaded underneath his hair and the high collar of his cowl once more, and the night air is cool as it licks him dry. The fire still smolders and glows orange in places, reduced to cinders and embers that do nothing to illuminate what's left of Aurren's body. An ally, maybe, but just as likely to kill him - kill them - as anything. )

[ It takes the leverage of her full weight, but the door comes off its hinges with a creak and, following it, a shrill sound of metal scraping against itself as she wrenches it free unceremoniously. Rey props it against the building, rubs a sweaty palm across her dirty forehead and is unsurprised to find that neither situation has improved by contact with the other when her hand comes away with dirt stuck to it. The physicality of the task relieves her of the burden of her own mind, allows her to evade the considerations of Kylo Ren's mental state, of her own in the wake of what he'd done and what ripples she'd felt coming from him. ]

I already got ration bars, water, and plenty of bacta. [ The reply comes automatically, and on its heels, a quick reel of considerations as she tries to ensure that she hasn't forgotten something critical in the assumption that she'd taken care of necessity. Only once she's sure of her strategy does she realize the implications of the question in the first place, and she looks up at the metal door in its considerable weight as though she intends to expedite the drag. ] You shouldn't go back to it on your own.

[ Not walking like he is, but he's stubborn and prideful and something about conveying that as she does is sure to set him off in some defensive flourish; Rey seizes the edges of the door and begins to drag it, hauling it with intermittently vibrating scraping noises as it skips along the dusty ground at an angle that elicits protest from her lower back. Anything else wouldn't get her the leverage she needs to move its weight: solid metal, as it turns out, is not light, but it is bulky, and Rey accounted for that well before she offered to take the door.

She waits until she's closer to turn around and leverage the door up to foist it onto her back, adjusting her grip to firmly tug it against the curve of her shoulder blades while she brings it the rest of the way. A few minutes see her back to the makeshift campfire where Aurren rests, and she drops the enormous steel plate with a clatter beside him. ]

( He hears her return before he actually sees her, the metallic scraping of the door echoing throughout the basin that they have found themselves in and startling a flock of birds roosting in the treeline not far off from where the Falcon fades into a shadow, large and looming. As if he would return to it on his own if he didn't absolutely have to: a thought that manifests within him as much as the scowl across his face does the moment that Rey had suggested he not go back to the ship as if it were at all a task he would assign himself in the first place, as if he were a child.

Stubborn pride wills him to return just to spite her, the way that he had wandered the barracks and administrative buildings when she was retrieving supplies from the ship's cargo if only to disobey her, but Kylo keeps himself in check with the reminder that the exertion of dragging Aurren's corpse and whatever slab of metal Rey has managed to find to suit their purposes is going to require a certain amount of energy and concentration that he can't afford to waste elsewhere. He certainly wouldn't waste it on a pointless excursion back to a ship that offers him nothing save for carefully constructed reminders and, maybe, a pair of trousers too small and too old and belonging too overtly to someone else for him to ever slip them on. There's nothing for him there.

So he waits for her to return, wishing that he were wearing something more conducive to rolling his sleeves back as he plunges his hands into the smoking remains of the fire that had burned Aurren down to black char. Kylo does not drag the body all of the way out of the pit but waits for Rey to return with the door so that they can haul the remains onto it as a unit, as opposed to taxing one another individual. Of course, this is a thought that is mostly squandered the moment Rey comes into view with the door slung over her back, looking as if it weighs twice what she does. Kylo makes no move to assist her, though he does drop the pretenses of their connection in order to open his mouth with a droll tone once she slams the thing down heavily. )

Why didn't you just use the Force to carry it? ( He already knows how much she's capable of lifting: she did carry him through Corellia, after all. )

[ The hesitation before she answers speaks to her inexperience, reveals the months of training substituted, in a moment of desperation, in place of years; while Kylo Ren has been studying the Force from birth, no doubt, Rey came to it after she was already a woman who had found a way to survive without it. She balks for a moment, realizes that he doesn't mean it as a scathing insult but rather that it becomes one only through her stiff realization that what he suggests should have been obvious, and finally collects herself. ]

There's no sense in using the Force for something I can do perfectly well for myself.

[ Disparaging and dismissive, she stomps over to where he stands near the ashen remains of the Knight of Ren, bending to help him lift the shell of a man from the dirt—she looks up at Kylo Ren to time it: one, two, three—onto the steel plate of the door. She should have gone looking for another emergency blanket instead of just listening to Kylo's suggestion, but it's too late now; some of the corpse crumbles when they drop it onto the slab of metal. Rey turns away to use the back of her hand to mask her nose and mouth from the dust on principle more than in any sense of squeamishness.

She steps over to where they'd grabbed him from, kicking around the dirt to stir away some of the scorch marks left behind, blackening silt to something charred and identifiable. It's impossible to keep the area from looking disturbed, but she can at least try to mask the scorched impression left behind in the earth. ] Do you use the Force for everything? Summoning blue milk to you in the morning?

( Not birth, not necessarily, or at least not in the way that she might envision in her mind. But then again, maybe. If there were anyone outside of his own self who might be able to attest to the terms and conditions of his introduction to the Force, it might be Rey, but there are certain things that Kylo keeps under lock and key and far away from even himself, let alone her and the access that she carries to the furthest corners of his mind. He had been present for her introduction into the concept himself, but despite asking the question, he isn't all surprised to have found her relying instinctively on physicality rather than the introduction - if it could even be called that anymore, considering how much time has passed - of her own abilities. A lifetime of sand and hard loneliness, of relying on her own strength and prowess, have molded her. )

Caf. ( He corrects, once they have displaced the remains and his hand has come away from his mouth in an attempt to shield his tongue and the back of his throat from the upward swirl of dust and ash and flaked, black skin that climbs higher than their heads once they deposit Aurren's body onto the metal slab. While Rey kicks her feet to disturb the dirt in an attempt to cover their tracks, so to speak, Kylo drops to a knee with a diagonal sort of lean, favoring the injury on his leg, to secure a bit of fibercord scavenged from the remains of the administrative buildings to the door so that they can drag it behind them. He looks up at her without a smile, though there's the suggestion of one hanging around his eyes. )

It's also helpful in making the bed and starting the morning shower. ( He arches an eyebrow and straightens back up with as much dignity and grace as he's able to, winding the fibercord into a tight circle around his palm. ) You haven't covered this in training?

I didn't say that. You did.

[ The loose wag of her finger that both deflects the accusation and hurls the implications of it back as if the assumption were some kind of reflection on him is reminiscent in an unsettling way of his dead father. A fast-talking, yet matter-of-fact slip out of a noose, and she dodges past it to grab a spare bit of fibercord to join him in hauling the weight of it.

Luke's training is parceled out in what he is comfortable deliberating to her despite his greatest reservations, despite the spark of anger and the possessive, protective urges within her that too greatly resemble some of Kylo Ren's ambitions. She understands that, objectively. It's hard not to feel some sense of bitterness and struggle when the barricade to her further training is the one to call out its insufficiency. Better to bury all of that and keep her eye on the prize.

Rey doesn't wait for him; she just she yanks at it hard, dragging the not inconsiderable weight a foot or so all her own without any regard for the ghost she'd imitated. ]

( If Kylo notices any lasting similarities between Rey and the man she had so desperately wanted to view as some kind of father, the man that Kylo himself had cut down, he makes no mention or indication of it, but then drawing attention to the fact would be drawing attention to the fact, and they have barely come out of this last entanglement with both their bond and their fledgling, begrudging acceptance of one another intact. The last thing worth doing is exacerbating the tentativeness of their affiliation in the moments that Rey admonishes - teases? Kylo can barely be sure - him and he finishes securing the fibercord to the door on his end by opening old wounds and twisting the imitation of Rey's gesture in it. They have enough open wounds to deal with, as it is.

He had meant nothing serious in being sarcastic, anyway, but in knowing that lies a double-edged blade of comprehension. Sarcasm for only the sake of sarcasm, in an attempt to be humorous, to lighten a perpetually dour mood, is a strangely intimate realization to stumble across: a strange thing in and of itself, considering the nature of their association and the bond that pervades everything that they do, everything that they are. It's a far cry from the raised tones and strangled syllables that they had been lobbing at each other prior to undertaking this new task, but it's a brisk change of pace that Kylo finds, oddly, he prefers. That isn't to say that he doesn't find arguing with her both satisfying and relaxing in its own way, but it is much easier to deal with Rey when she doesn't want to take his head off or scream at him, whether through her tears or in spite of them. )

You have made it abundantly clear that you need no one's assistance more than once in the past. ( Kylo says, once he has caught up with her following her abrupt take off, dragging the door and Aurren's body behind her as if all of it were nothing more than a pile of scrap metal to be bartered. Her strength, as always, is startlingly impressive, though some of the novelty has worn off as his understanding of her has grown and changed. For a moment, he merely walks beside her, content to watch her haul the considerable weight behind her as he forces himself not to limp.

The similarity of their individual displays is not lost on him, and after a moment, Kylo wraps the remaining fibercord around his wrist and hand and strides along beside her, reaching down past the discomfort in order to see the task completed. It takes half the time it might were they doing it on their own for them to reach the safety of the trees. )

[ It does not serve her to correct him with some defense that she was not trying to make a point but rather leave his mention of her training behind in hauling the door off on her own (she grimaces to realize, then, the weight she pulls and permits herself the struggle of hauling it rather than berating herself for having difficulty); in fact, defensive is precisely what it would seem, and Rey has no interest in senseless, directionless bickering.

Instead, she's silent a moment, grateful for the relief his assistance provides and suddenly far more capable of making great strides—or as great of strides as her short stature will allow, anyway. Rey has never considered herself particularly small—not in a desert filled with Teedo and mechanics—but next to Kylo Ren, she cannot ignore the way she is dwarfed. She tries to shove out of her mind any questions about how her stride length might slow him down, thinks instead how his lesser strength is slowing her down, and grits her teeth accordingly.

Just because they're allies (for now) doesn't mean she has lost her spirited desire to prove herself his better.

The trees envelop them quickly enough for her to stomach his company, and Rey loosens her grip on the fibercord to look around for a good spot to bury the remains and start hiking upward and out of the crater for better vantage. The co-opted sniper rifle hangs heavy around her. She hasn't ruled out the possibility of using it. Privately, she wishes she'd opted for more sessions training in blasters with Finn in between meditation with Luke. ]

Good enough. [ She waves a hand to demand Kylo lower the door. Not because she's spotted any particularly good burial ground, but rather because she knows that there is no way that the squatting pull will do any favors to his injury, even if she is grateful for the aid. ] We can dig here, then hike up that way. [ She points to a cliff face that is made of more rocks than dirt, harder to slide down, and resigns herself to the climb; already, she calculates how she can convince Kylo Ren to clip himself to her lest his leg give out and try to take him back down into the crater with the mine. ] If we camp up there, we're almost guaranteed to get the jump on anyone following.

( Even without the bond, Rey's desire to prove her superior worth and strength would be visible from a mile away, and even without that perception, Kylo would still do his best in order to prove her wrong. His best is operating at about half the speed and stamina as is typically only means that his outward exertion is greater than it should be despite the circumstances, despite the flap in his trousers and the steady pulse up and down the pillar of his leg with every step that he takes. The pain is not as great as the discomfort, but he grits his teeth and casts a sidelong glance at Rey as they move all the same, unwilling and uninterested in opening up a line of conversation while they work.

He does have to shorten his strides somewhat in order for them to match evenly with one another, but it's less an acquiescence to her lead and more an acknowledgement of necessity. It also isn't the first time that he has done this without question, though their current circumstances are somewhat different than trudging across the muddy grounds of the temporary Resistance camp following the First Order's defeat on Corellia, to say the least. Part of him categorizes their pissing contest as ridiculous given the situation they find themselves in - and not just the absurdity and bleakness of Concordia but the whole of it: the war and the bond and their undeniable tether to one another despite either of those things - but still the rest of him is not at all surprised or disappointed to find that they are both eager to prove themselves all the way to the treeline.

Kylo straightens up once they break into the shadowy canopy, wiping sweat off the back of his neck with one gloved hand. It's darker underneath the trees than beyond them, surely, but the light is still enough that he can make out Rey's expression and the line her gaze traces up the hillside, rocky and uneven. His thoughts follow hers almost to a T, though he deviates from that course of consideration in order to prioritize on the task at hand. It seems a safer course than questioning her with something scathing that will do nothing more than annoy and needle her. For as irritated with the entire situation as he feels underneath the heavy layer of exhaustion, which in turn is nestled underneath their shared responsibility in seeing all of this done, there is little point in continuing to put them further at odds. )

It won't be an easy climb up. ( The door hits the dirt and sends a scattering of earth and other detritus flying in a puff. What's left of Aurren Ren shifts and shudders on the slab of metal; the weak point of his wrist snaps and the charred remains of a hand lolls sideways. Kylo barely notices, too busy eyeing the rifle where it hangs over Rey's shoulder and back. He has never used the Force to dig, though it doesn't seem like an impossibility, especially as the ground seems somewhat forgiving in this area. On the tail end of a hasty decision, the warm leather of his glove comes down a little harder than intended, as if out of practice, on her shoulder. ) One thing at a time, come on.

( They'll have to use their hands - and the Force - but the pit does not have to be particularly deep for their purposes. )

[ The moment his hand is on her, Rey snaps her attention back at him, her gaze cool, sharp, probing, but she never verbally challenges its place on her shoulder: more than anything else, her reaction speaks to the fact that his movement, not his words, are the real surprise. Slowly, the muscles of her shoulders relax, sag, and she steps out from under his touch to crouch around a spot beside the door that she estimates as more loosely packed than the rest. (The decision is arbitrary, but she does not allow that to pass through the membrane of their bond—or so she hopes.)

In the past when Rey's fingers have sprawled through dirt, it was a dry, thin veil that had sifted on top of some monolith of a time long ago—one, apparently, of Jedi. But she's not digging anything up this time; she's burying it. She tries to shovel the soil as if it were sand, but quickly realizes that she has to burrow down first, and makes spades of her hands to dive deep and pull handfuls of dirt up into a rim around the burial plot.

The task is a grim reminder of what the bond between her and Kylo Ren has resigned her to, but Rey does not allow such thoughts to slow her progress, shutting them definitively out and keeping her attention laser focused on the task at hand as she so often endeavors to. There is emotional confusion down that path, feelings that demand some kind of reckoning and realization that she won't give them because they are too alien to the desert rat who lived for so long on her own.

It should be harder than it is to dig Aurren Ren's grave, but all Rey gets from it are familiar callouses worn anew and dirt under her blunt-clipped fingernails blackening them. This is not her first time burying a body, and certainly, those that she'd found wasted away in the Jakku desert, scorched and boiled by the heat, smelled even worse than the burnt mass that rested beside them, which Rey had by now acclimated to, but this is different. She hadn't been responsible for any of those deaths. ] You fought with him once, didn't you? [ She looks up at Kylo Ren as they work. ] Don't you want to say something?

( He considers asking her to hand him the rifle so that he might turn the butt of it downward and break the earth up at their fee that way, but something in the way that her focus fixates and snaps to attention the moment that his hand touches her shoulder puts a stopper in the question and bottles it up enough for him to tuck it away. The ground they tread is uneven and mired with ice, cracks and fissures breaking across the surface with every heavy step. Kylo knows that Rey's trust in him - if it could be even be called that, but because he lacks the vocabulary to define it as anything else and because it certainly couldn't be construed as faith - is shaky at best and following his actions in the tunnel, currently climbing its way back from the bottom of a pit, and while that might not bother him any other given day, their continued survival means cooperation, and that won't happen if they're at odds.

It doesn't mean that they have to agree on everything, but the one thing they can agree on now, at least, is the need to get their hands dirty. Kylo's are much larger than Rey's, but Rey is more experienced at sticking her fingers into the earth and finding something worthwhile lodged within it. They even one another out and meet somewhere in the middle, with Rey's fingers making the indentations necessary to deepen the hole while Kylo leans forward and scoops out a much larger amount than she might be capable of otherwise. It still takes long enough for him to sit back on his haunches and stretch his leg out next to him, wipe sweat from his neck and admire his own preference for wearing gloves. )

Not to any particular degree, no. ( If Rey's comment perturbs him in any way, Kylo doesn't let it show, and if the act that they perpetuate bothers him at all, that doesn't show either. His face is a carefully arranged mask of neutrality, buried underneath the weight of the day that they both feel, the weight of everything they have done up to this point. ) It isn't as if we were friends.

( Or even friendly. )

Right. That makes sense.

[ The words are functional and hollow to the point that it makes it too obvious that Rey has no empathy for what he must be feeling right now, despite her efforts to reach out and understand—in her own right, if not through the bond. Nothing that she experienced on Jakku can be conflated or compared to what constructs the relationship between the Knights of Ren, and she has no measuring tool to examine it in any sensible fashion.

More to the point, she should have no reason to want to, but the fact that she finds it so inscrutable piques her curiosity in a way that she can dismiss as passing interest in the structure and organization itself rather than in the demon that she has inextricably linked herself to—by choice, inasmuch as her circumstances could really be called free will, with the dam holding Leia's grief threatening to shatter, Luke's cautions about surrender to the darkness of her revenge and his unwillingness to assist, and Rey's own uncomfortable and conflicting position resulting from her relationship with Han.

She wipes her forehead and, in doing so, smears dirt against her sweat and allows it to stick there; it has been a long time since she has recalled any feeling but the fine layer of dirt caking her skin. ]

That's probably enough. [ Though she doesn't want to appear too eager to leave the subject behind, lest it keep him from sharing (as if he ever would) any other insights about how things were between the lot of them—not in tactics and facts and evaluations, but in personal matters—she cannot bear the silence of his refusal of her previous effort. Her hands force some more of the dirt away, packing it against the edge of the hole as though trying to form a wall of it. ]

( It's the automatic sound of her voice that draws his attention even as it turns him away, making a valiant effort to focus on the rise and fall of his hands as they claw through dirt and expose a harder underbelly not nearly as easily broken as the surface. Whether she tries to comprehend his relationship with his fellow Knights or not, it makes no difference to him: Kylo has been just as much divorced from their regime as he ever was a part of it, setting himself above and beside the names and faces who operate underneath him, who serve him. Not relegated to the position that Hux has fallen to within Kylo's mind yet operating outside of that hierarchy in some way, as they dig deep and dark into the widening evening, he does struggle to find some way of describing even to himself what the Knights of Ren have been to one another in the time that he has been a part of them.

When he was younger, still new to the world in which he had immersed himself, they seemed to cut an imposing figure to even someone of his breadth and height, but where most might shirk at such a looming collective, Kylo had only ever seen it as a challenge, their respect something to be earned through force if necessary and through command if the former seemed imprudent. Ji had followed him without question, without hesitation, though she might yet still be the most difficult of them all to explain or categorize with a brief explanation. Kylo supposes that it doesn't matter now, and runs his hand over his thigh around the blast radius of the hole her blade had punctured in him, catching Rey's movement out of the corner of his eye and turning to face her fully for the first time in what feels like hours, as untrue as it might be. )

I'll get him. ( Offered more as something to fill the void that he had left wide and gaping rather than as any sort of indication of what he plans to do, Kylo gets to his feet and wipes his hands down the front and sides of his clothing, various bruises and contusions jumping to life under his fingertips now that the adrenaline has worn off in its entirety. Where before he felt swollen, an infection ready to bloom, he now feels hollow, depleted, washed away. It isn't something that he is overtly familiar with and once he has his hands on the charred remains of Aurren's boots, he chances a quick glance through their connection toward the girl who has dragged him through mud and rain and across star systems and through ice fields, and he wonders.

He can't maneuver Aurren into the hole without dislodging his torso, and while Kylo normally wouldn't care, he can't decide whether or not Rey might - and more, whether or not it should matter if she does. So he stands, favoring one side, and mirrors her act of wiping the sweat from his forehead, managing to slick some of his hair back away from his eyes in the process. Some lingering impression of curiosity burns across their connection like a far off flare, but he doesn't immediately sway to answering, beseeching her instead, after swallowing the lump of his pride like a stone that sinks in his stomach: ) Spare a hand?

[ The dirt and grime of their shared labor has drawn out the haunted shadows in her face that make it look starkly different from the bright, full, rounded glow of before, as if separating her experiences here into halves—before murder and after. When he meets her gaze, agate eyes dodge him slightly, fixing on his jawline rather than his eyes, skirting just slightly, barely noticeable, as he gets up to set about his task.

She doesn't stop him from taking it upon himself because it makes her feel somehow less culpable for the fact, as though dumping the remains of the corpse into the hole is different or beyond a line when compared to helping him dig the ditch or ignite the body or drag it here. When he calls, begrudgingly, uncomfortably, for aid, she hesitates—in equal part to avoid the inevitability of losing that attempted distance, and to allow him to linger in the discomfort of the liminal space between request and acceptance. He could use with more discomfort.

Then, rather than answer, she stands and goes to aid him, leveraging the frail and hollow weight, if it can even be called that anymore, of the charred remains with Kylo to place them into the ground. The misshapen black mass is unrecognizable now, hardly humanoid. Rey lifts the door to shake the rest of his ashes into the pit, leaning on the heavy metal to stare down into the makeshift grave.

She looks to Kylo then, wondering briefly when she dropped the Ren, and nods to him, as if some tacit acceptance of their mutual culpability. She drops the door and begins to kick the dirt back in. ]

( It is hardly the worst thing that he has ever done, voluntarily or inadvertently. He doesn't possess the dexterity that Rey does in separating one string of events from the other as they have transpired to bring them to this hollow, practically inadequate ditch that will have to serve as a grave, however much Kylo does not intend to mark it. The Knights themselves are meant to function as a unit, an extended arm, rather than individual faces and identities, regardless of how much they may be carved out as intrinsic parts of the individuals who labor behind the masks that they all wear. Ren is a title, a privilege, a fact that even Kylo recognizes as the head of the organization that spreads beneath him like a splayed hand.

He would expect no such distinction were he to fall, but he never has, never to them, at any rate, and he isn't sure whether or not he should find it strange or fitting that the only person to ever see him flat on his back currently occupies the same space, physically and otherwise, as him, as if the reward for her ability, her determination, is the black plume of his presence inviting discord like a lightning rod. The time for adequate consideration of such a phenomenon is long past, wrapped up in the blanket of his own weariness, more pervasive than he could have expected, and Kylo does wonder how much of it is his own and how much of it is a mutual exasperation shared by the both of them, as Rey lifts the door and deposits what's left of the burnt up Knight into the hole they have dug between them.

Filling in the pit takes less time than digging it had, though toward the end of it, he throws what's left of the dirt into the hole with a push through the Force, eager to see the task done and their trek continued in the interest of closing his eyes. )

I don't know much of wildlife here - ( He begins after a moment spent staring at the lump that denotes the location of the body, and rather than an appropriate burial spot, Kylo regards it as more of a landmark back to the location of the ship than anything sentimental. ) - but I can't anything digging deep enough to reach down that far. It should serve adequately as a grave.

[ For an inscrutable moment, Rey stares blankly at him, processing his words only to get hung up on them; his acknowledgment makes it apparent, implicitly, that this is an exception for him, being unfamiliar with the ecosystem of the Mandalore system. Rey had considered it a given that they were both stumbling altogether blindly through this unfamiliar terrain, but she realizes then that unfamiliar has a different meaning for her than it does for Kylo, who has seen enough of the universe to participate in its conquering while she crawled around in the dirt on Jakku. All she knows is deserts and the ache of starvation. What he knows of the galaxy outnumbers what he doesn't.

A dumb nod comes too late, and she abandons the hovel in favor of marching in the direction of the cliff that she had identified. The further they hike into its shadow, the more apparent the truth of Kylo's assessment becomes: towering from afar, it is steeper when they are close enough to see the details, and shielded by small, loose stones on its face to dissuade those who would scale it. A rough climb indeed for an uninjured party, worse for them. ]

Have you ever been here before? [ She asks while they circle the craggy rock face, finding larger and sturdier rocks to the northern edge. ] The system, I mean. Not Concordia specifically.

[ It's an unabashed effort to fill the silence; she does not much care about whether or not he's been to Mandalore before, but she would rather ask about that than expound on her uncertainties about what they're going to face, or offer him the chance to opt out of scaling the cliff in what would be an obvious bid to get out of it herself. ]

( Starting up again proves more difficult than he would have anticipated, the growing pain in his thigh reduced to a pinprick of constant throbbing that sees itself weighted down under the pressure of his own stubborn persistence. There is no room or opportunity available to allow himself a momentary lapse into weakness, and the relenting of his own propensity to grapple with injury would mean dropping the floodgates holding back the tide of Rey's mutual presence within his mind. Whether his pain would impact her in a way that might be debilitating were he to allow it to wrap around the both of them and squeeze is not within his frame of knowledge, not when the bond itself in this sort of heightened state is still so new and its territory still so unwalked, but it isn't a risk that he's willing to take when they need to be as aware of things as they possibly can be, never knowing what waits for them beyond the purpling horizon ushering in nightfall.

Over his shoulder, Kylo throws a glance back down at the way they had come, unable to see the layout of the mine and the buildings around it for the trees but knowing, ultimately, what lies smoldering and crumbled in the distance. It is Rey's question only that diverts his attention from wondering whether or not Ji had actually fallen underneath the rubble they - he - had brought down around them or if she is merely cloaked again, swaddled under a protective layer of darkness while she licks her wounds and stokes the fire higher. Before answering Rey, Kylo glances down at his feet to ensure that his steps are secure enough to continue onward and upward, mindful of the loose gravel that slants sideways and backwards, rolling as they make their way to a proper vantage point. )

Twice, to a degree. ( His explanation is not forthcoming, and he frowns at the space between Rey's shoulder blades where she can't see it, debating on what information to provide and how much of it. It takes only a quick, private reminder that there exist very few secrets between them now to cinch the decision to continue. ) Once, two or three years ago, on a personal errand before I was assigned a post on the Finalizer. Prior to that - ( He pauses, a memory that is not actually a memory but rather a recycled version of a memory based on second hand information alone, given to him as a child who had been curious about planets and systems and trade routes and the stars in general, grasping for bigger and better things than the tactile offerings of toys and hands to hold. ) - I was far too young to remember, though I've been told I enjoyed the food.

( Another long pause follows this admission, though what it admits is uncertain, given the vague nature of it, and he considers the length of her back, the width of her shoulders and the slouch, the slump, not defeated but worn down, an echo of what he knows he feels himself. The suggestion that they stop lives and dies in the back of his throat but he refuses to suggest it, not yet. Instead, he attempts what he rarely has before: small talk. However bitterly tinted with their past altercations it has to be in and of itself. )

Jakku is a long way off now. Yaga Minor, Corellia. Hapes and Concordia. What other systems have you added to your list since Starkiller Base?

[ It might be the first time he has willingly divulged some information of his childhood—and from his conspicuous silence and discomfort, she guesses it to be one of the few decent memories he retains of it, which perhaps strikes particularly dissonant against the backdrop of his betrayal and murder of the other Knights of Ren. He has come a long way since his first visit to this system, and perhaps begun to turn back on that path.

She does not press her luck in it, well aware of how naked it leaves him.

Talking about herself is easier by contrast, for it means focusing on the part of her life that has changed for the better since encountering BB-8 and Finn on Jakku. Anything reflective that involves more than sand and waiting strikes her as pleasant, even if it means sharing that with someone whom she would rather drown in a sandpit. ]

Ahch-To. That's where the map led. Perhaps sometime you'll go to see it as well. [ For the most part, his defection must feel like doors closed and bridges burned, facd by a wall of disapproval and unease, but Rey makes no presentation in how she offers him the chance to consider the opportunities that are produced. ] Kashyyyk, once.

Hapes was my first time beyond the Mid-Rim.

[ Out of view, in the dark of the forest with her back to him, she scrunches her nose at the thought, realizing that for as broad as her horizons have become, they are still limited by the conflict in the galaxy. The Resistance cannot show her Telos or Centares or Naboo or Coruscant, for they are a long way from such a significant victory to uproot such core pieces of First Order real estate—Imperial real estate, dressed up in new clothes. ]

( A direct line leading away from the path that smaller, incorporeal and more foolish feet once walked is a line he will gladly take, even in the event that it leads him to the brick wall of her admission. Kylo's steps falter somewhat, only insofar as they cease to continue for a moment, allowing some small amount of distance to separate them as Rey continues walking and he allows himself to breathe in both the luxury of oxygen, rife with dust sent up by the flurry of their footsteps but tasting clearer than it has since before the mines, and the gravity of her statement.

Ahch-To, admittedly, is a planet that he has never heard of, a planet that he by all rights should not be able to conceptualize and yet it blooms like a garden in the forefront of his mind, widening before eyes that take in only the slope of Rey's shoulders and back, the color of her hair and the strength of her legs as they climb ever onward. Instead of rocks and the rough side of a slanted hillside, trees around and behind them, he sees that island not necessarily as he remembers it from the confines of Rey's private thoughts but as a manifestation of her own recollection, and within that framework exists those mossy steps he had stumbled on while in the tandem connection of their momentary foray into one another's thoughts on Yaga Minor: damp air tinged with salt in the back of his throat, gray skies overhead while green and crumbling staircases spiral away down below.

It lasts only a moment, and then he is picking up the pace again, following her with the same diligence that he had followed her through the night-blasted sands of Jakku, of the ice fields and deep green forests that had come after. He frowns. )

I have little doubt that your affiliation with the Resistance will see you further than a planet full of mistrustful, pretty faces and walking carpets. ( To say nothing of where their path might take them now, with how far off course they seem to have spun in an effort to rid themselves of his personal ghosts. ) I've never even heard of Ahch-To, if you can believe it. You hid it well enough.

I had to.

[ The answer is simpler than the task by far; learning to shut him out was the first necessity of her training, clearing her mind and controlling the flow of information. She'd figured it out faster than he had—but then, there was every possibility that Snoke didn't want to train him in that and run the risk of Kylo shutting him out as well—the Resistance was able to do less with the information she'd gleaned from Kylo based on sheer numbers alone than the First Order could have done with what she was hiding. It was worth the risk, maybe.

But the result of that imbalance from the start has been its persistence: she has seen far more of his mind now, despite the circumstances of their bond's creation on Starkiller, than he has of hers. She prefers it that way, all truths told, for it gives her some measure of leverage and of distance, both of which she needs in order to be able to manage the responsibility and weight of this mantle she has taken up out of necessity, out of perceived debt to Leia Organa.

Her movements are ceaseless, practiced enough to look tireless and simple, and she picks through trees as the ground becomes steadily rockier closer to the cliff. She steps up close to the cliff, hoists herself up, and makes an effort at the first few feet of the climb. From six feet up, without gazing down at him, she affords the conversation further attention again. ]

That's a broad brush to paint the Hapans with. They were kind enough. [ To her, without knowing her for a Jedi. She doesn't think too hard on it, content to allow her experience to make an effort at disproving Kylo's prejudices. ] What makes you think so poorly of them? [ Her thoughts, though, are on Leia, Luke, Finn, and Chewie, wondering what became of the situation there, wondering if they were all right. She finds herself reaching out, casting a net up into the stars as if to reach for them. ]

( He would have expected nothing less from her than absolute resistance, despite his own curiosities and inclinations toward potential exposure as he rooted around the confines of their bond from his own side like testing the boundaries and limitations of a bruise. A gradual prod at the outskirts before brushing fingertips fully over the ring of blue-purple and yellowing outliers, testing the give of the skin and where the pain was the greatest, how much pressure it could take before snapping some vessel, some threshold beneath. The differences stacked between them topple the similarities, no matter how eager he is to draw them down to smaller numbers, reduce them in favor of - what, exactly? As Kylo follows her on their journey out of the shadow of the trees and into outcropping of rock an stone, just as he has since he followed her down, down, down on Corellia, through mud and rainwater and the internal circulatory system of the Falcon's shoddy wiring, the motive has become less and less clear. Just as his reasons for hiding his connection tracing back to her from Leader Snoke had been unclear to start with, although those motivations became more solid over time, whereas his involvement now seems more about momentum than it does about direction.

Rey, as always, moves ever upward, hoisting herself with little fanfare or perceived difficulty, leaving Kylo searching for an alternate path below. Having the advantage of a longer reach and more strength physically - though she would probably argue that to be debatable; he might let her - but the hindrance of a bum leg should prove a challenge in and of itself, but he grits his teeth against the discomfort in the end and takes the task for what it is: a necessity, a point to push beyond and emerge stronger for it on the other side. Her question, though, catches him somewhat off-guard, and he looks up at her before continuing with a pointed, perplexed look. )

They were kind to you because you're a woman and an attractive one, at that. ( Were he capable of addressing it like he were doing anything other than assessing the specs of a battle cruiser or the atmospheric conditions of some planet, such a comment could be considered a compliment, but his tone remains devoid of context as a precaution as much as it does objectivity. The tension between them is as thick as oil as it stands; regardless of what he thinks about her, letting something like that creep between them when they need to rely on one another in some capacity isn't something he's interested in catering to. Maybe later, on the other side of all of this, though Kylo can't and won't and doesn't want to imagine a world in which Rey is at all receptive to the notion that he finds her something more than tolerable in terms of appearance, and after a moment, his bemused expression turns back into his normal frown. He starts climbing up after her in the following gap his natural pause provides. ) That's why I suggested you talk to them over me. I can't imagine it would have gone over well had such an odd-looking man with a facial scar attempted to negotiate with the Queen Mother. ( To say nothing of his overall disposition and opinion on negotiations. Most of his tactics are more aggressive than discourse, and the addition of their lightsabers would not have gone over alarmingly well. )

More to the point, they forced our hand in retreat. Their suspicion scattered your forces, including the General and your master, and drove us here, directly into this mess. Why wouldn't I think poorly of them?

[ The fact that he has complimented her doesn't appropriately process until long after he's finished his entire scowling tirade against the Hapans—well after, in fact, because he distracts her with the unpleasant truth of the scattered Resistance. Any power they had gained, any progress made, any shift in their standing in this war was in jeopardy, a question unanswered in their current position, and though she could use her senses to reach out and try to manifest some answer to placate her worry, it was not the same as actual understanding of the specifics in such a situation. Alive did not mean well, not anymore.

Rey, then, begrudgingly must give merit to the curmudgeon climbing below her and his bias, permitting him his loathing and even harboring simmering sour sentiments. It is pedantry now to point out that he was unkind towards the Hapans well before they had turned the Resistance away. ]

I didn't realize you thought so poorly of enemies of the Resistance. [ And then, finally, after the words have left her mouth, an unspoken follow up as a lock clicking into place, wondering at the fact that he thought so consistently highly of her. Few have, and Rey herself regularly feels like she's merely scrambling to get by in all of this, but Kylo has another perspective on the matter, often revealing a high estimation of her capability and (apparently) her good looks.

She can't decide how she feels about it, so she leaves it behind in the dust of her climb, a few tiny rocks crumbling away from the wall as she disrupts them while grabbing onto larger ones. The higher they go, the more trees intermittently break up the rocky precipice, jutting out between stones in gnarled loops as they stretch ever upward. Rey seizes onto one of them, loops her arm around, and turns to reach down for him, an open hand offered out in acknowledgment of his struggle and her experience. Greater height for her might mean leaving the complications of her thoughts behind, but for him, it's likely to mean the pain in his leg growing and straining. ]

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this is the worst tag i'm so sorry this weekend has been insanely busy and it's only saturday

NO WORRIES my life is a blur right now i'm so unreliable omg

MINE TOO it's fine it's fine. prayer circle for me and you. i hope you're surviving!!!!!

just barely./stares into the middle distance. why is the end of the semester so hard

i have never understood. i think making it to the end means things should be easier

finals week is finally here i can see the light

YOU ARE ALMOST THERE YOU CAN DO IT. also i apologize for short/crap tags i've been sick this week

i feel like the six days this tag took is enough of a "don't even worry about it"

and then i got pulled for jury duty this week so everything is a mess. I HOPE SCHOOL IS OVER

it is!!! also why can't civil service suit our schedules like "yes hello i'd like to volunteer"

HOORAY YOU MADE IT. you better sleep in until like noon every single day

8( two weeks of summer work + rey cosplay to make tho. BUT SOON. SO SOON.

summer work get outta here but that rey cosplay is gonna be amazing i am 100% sure. THEN SLEEP

SO MUCH SLEEP i conned a bunch of people into helping me with the cosplay so i have a prayer

ALL THE SLEEP hahahaha i am so proud of your conning abilities

it's been like 3 solid days of work + cosplay i'm actually dying. tomorrow too, then con

please don't die i will have to do some black magic to bring you back and i am just not prepared

omg i thought you were studying wtf