apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

open post.
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▬ continuing threads
▬ force shenanigans

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. ]

General Hux is an enemy of the Resistance, and I think pretty poorly of him. ( He points this out just as Rey is having her epiphany, determining for himself how he is going to navigate the change in terrain without slipping back inside of himself, without hollowing out that bitter center within him to tap into the deep, dark well that might propel him forward. Even drawing strength from the marrow of his bones, his nerve endings and endorphins, in such a way has its limitations, and he has no desire to be utterly wiped out in mind and body and ability, not to mention the wedge that drawing too much on himself in that fashion might continue to drive between himself and the young woman accompanying him. ) I prefer to think of it as -

( He looks up at the last moment, cutting his sentence short with a slight lessening of the perpetual scowl that has root itself so firmly into place, to see the hand that she extends toward him. It doesn't surprise him to be presented with it, necessarily, given the way that they have leaned on one another more than once, but seeing her hand thrown out toward him without the bright glare of a saber at the end of it or some other jumble of tension and aggression ready to strike is still jarring in its own right. Kylo's eyes skip from her outstretched fingers up to her face as he takes the proffered grip and gets his bearings and balance underneath him before following her, leaning on her in this way, and refusing to acknowledge to himself the alleviation that it provides the pain in his leg.

There's little opportunity for conversation as they continue upward, a result of both focusing on where hands and feet should go and biting down on the bitter than of his own discomfort. Kylo knows that Rey can perceive it as well as he can her various aches and pains but for the most part their focus is on seeing this through to the bitter end, however inconvenient and tiresome it is. It's hardly the first time that either of them have pushed themselves beyond the limit of practicality, though there is a raw raggedness to Rey's determination and movement that belies more of her experience with perseverance as a necessity rather than a means to an end or a matter of pride. He watches every move that she makes with careful deliberateness and begins to understand, the more she pushes herself, why and how she was able to overcome him so long ago. )

[ More acutely than she can feel the stab of pain each time his leg stretches out to support his weight, Rey can feel the humbled unease with which he accepts her assistance, and allows it to settle a blanket of quiet over their progression. She never flags in her ascent, not because there is no burn in her muscles or because she is not halfway to the point of collapse, but because there is no other option for her to weigh against their progress. Like most things she has resolved herself to in life, it simply must be done.

When finally she hauls herself over the top of the cliff, she doesn't lay flat like she wants to, breath heaving, muscles screaming with the long-coming respite, but instead turns immediately back over the edge to reach for him again, a silent offering of further assistance because she knows if he falls, she won't be proficient enough with the use of the Force in such a way—in the way he excels at most—in order to save him from more than a hundred feet of sheer drop. ]

We were right. Good view of the mine, and I think I can make out the ship too. [ Her words lean more towards optimistic urging than anything braggadocious, born out of the desire to believe it was worth something and that they'll make it up here. ]

( Kylo finds himself, inexplicably, waiting for the extension of her hand over the lip of rockface that juts out above him, not so high that he couldn't reach it if he stood on the balls of his feet but far enough that the stretch his leg encounters resonates within him like a drumbeat, a pulse, a jump of muscle on bone. He grits his teeth all the same - against the discomfort, the pressure, the acknowledgment of a weakness that accepting her assistance indicates whether she views it that way or not - and reaches for her hand on the tail end of a small boost, wedging his hand against the slope they have been climbing and lunging for her grip that way, the tip of his right foot catching against the loose gravel and pebbles and providing the resistance necessary to get him where he needs to be.

Rey is already speaking by the time he clears the the edge, not bothering to glance behind him to the darkness of the valley below that could have swallowed either one or both of them at any time. She might not have immediately rolled onto her back the moment that she pulled herself over to the topside of the outcropping they now occupy, but Kylo does. Having suspended his illusions of prideful superiority, having convinced himself that there is little point in providing her with the illusory facade of strength and invincibility when she can literally see through him all the way down to the marrow, feel what he feels, taste what he tastes, Kylo pulls himself the rest of the way onto their perch by dragging his right flank across the ground before turning over onto his back and lying prone, like a turtle. )

Yes. Terrific view. ( Stars have started to eek out of the purple-blue-black velvet of the night sky, little pinpricks of bright light winking from light years away. For one contemplative moment, punctured by the rhythm of his breathing, a winded, dragging sound that ends in one long exhale through his nose, Kylo wonders whether or not Snoke is peering at him through the permeating telescopic lens of his own power. It comes and goes as quickly as the wave of his hand toward Rey's back, though the echo of its presence doesn't fade so quickly. ) I'm admittedly not looking forward to the trip back down. ( He raises his head slightly from where it has fallen to the dusty ground to peer at her. ) Sit down before you fall down.

[ She hauls him up over the edge, not letting go of her clasp around his palm until he's rolling over and gasping, and only then does Rey accept that he's firmly enough on solid ground that she can draw back. At first, she tries to sway to her feet, but she crumbles back to one knee, woozy with exhaustion, just in time for Kylo's color commentary from over on the ground nearby.

It prompts her to cast a glimpse inward, assess the energy that stirs within her, or lack thereof, and actually consider how far she can reasonably push herself, consider that she's already well beyond it. Many a time, on Jakku, she pushed herself further still. She can remember passing out from sunstroke, starvation, fatigue, shaking with all of the above until she was all but useless, but incapable do anything else for she was her only way out of it.

The situation is not precisely the same now, but it remains difficult for her to set aside that context when she knows that in this too her life depends on her constant action; more than that, most of the galaxy depends on it. Perhaps not on her individually, but on her efforts to the greater Resistance.

Only Kylo's identification of the problem causes her to slow. She turns to sink into a sitting position, legs bent, and catches her breath with her elbows propped on her kneecaps. A moment passes in silence before she drops her head, shoulders heaving, and finds words. ]

Down will be easier. I've got steel cord; we can rappel. [ She pats the bag on her hip. ] Let's just hope it was for nothing, or we'll have worse than a climb down to deal with.

( Kylo glances over only at the rustling sound her movement causes, eyes skipping immediately from the sweaty contours of her face down to where her hand rests on the bag at her waist. The thought of repelling down the rockface in that moment brings with it about as much delight as scaling it had in the first place, and after curling his hand into a fist to test the tightness of tendons and bones, he stretches his hand along the elevated length of his thigh as he bends his knee and plants one foot against the ground. Dressing it has certainly done him some favors - as has Rey's attention to her own injuries, which he can still perceive through the sheen of his own shoddy focus, uninterested in shutting her out entirely when their mutual survival hinges on their ability not only to cooperate with one another but to be just as aware - but it will only continue to slow him down the longer they remain here.

For a moment he considers asking her if she has any experience with healing - he certainly doesn't, for reasons that are as obvious as they are insipid - but ultimately resigns himself to bacta and bandages for as long as it takes them to return to the Resistance. A wave of apprehension bordering on nausea threatens to overtake him, and Kylo lets his curled hand fall back to the ground in the vague intimation of slamming a fist into something, the effect somewhat lost with the rapidity of his breathing slowing to something approaching normal. Lying on the ground now affords time and thoughts he has been successfully distracting himself from the opportunity to catch up with him. What will happen when she brings him back to the Resistance? He's too exhausted to rightfully consider anything beyond the inevitable, and it rings with a hollow resignation in his own head, even as he pushes himself to his elbows. )

Are you planning on putting me on your back the way you did on Corellia? ( It's not a real question, as evidenced by his haste to cover it up by pushing himself fully into a sitting position, legs bent at long, bracketed angles out in front of him. Now that he can see the entirety of the valley below, it is actually quite the view, but he hasn't taken stock or consideration of anything that frivolous since long before he left to join Skywalker as a child. ) I get the impression - ( He begins after a quiet moment, pushing his hair out of a damp, sweaty face, and beginning to tug his gloves off. ) - that there won't be a second wave. Aurren Ren may have tailed Ji to this location in an effort to steal some of her perceived glory in being the one to dismantle us, or they may have collaborated in an effort to see the job done. But Ji would be unlikely to share any news of a lead until she could investigate it for herself. She's too determined, and too proud.

[ Listening to his assessment, Rey stares down into the basin that makes up the mine below, as if searching out evidence of his words in the dust—evidence, or some refutation. Hazel eyes linger briefly on the mouth of the mine that Ji had chased them from (not a single grain of sand moves, of course, and she doesn't expect it to, but she can't help looking) before she lifts them and returns them to Kylo, nodding her understanding. ]

We'll be lucky if that's true. [ Lucky, she says, firmly avoiding the notion of counting on it and knowing that Kylo has already implicitly signed on for the same in climbing up here with her at all. He could have decided at the bottom of the cliff that the chances were slim enough that anyone followed that the vantage point wouldn't do them any good, but he didn't. At least he wasn't so self-destructive as to relinquish the logic of 'better safe than sorry.' ]

I'd still rather take shifts if it's the same with you. [ She turns her attention back towards the mine. She wipes seat from her face and onto the fabric of her shirt, smearing around more of the soot and ash from the mine. Maybe Chewie had found time to refill the water reservoirs on the Falcon before they took off—that'd be a nice surprise to look forward to tomorrow. ] Get some sleep. I'll wake you in a few hours to trade off.

( He is careful in the way that he observes her - casually, though peripherally, diverting the bulk of his attention out toward the carpet of the moon stretching before and beneath them, the shape of the Falcon somehow daunting and huge despite their relative distance from it, the mouth of the mine a tiny pinprick even as he narrows in on it, everything distorting and blurring under the weight of prolonged exhaustion and exertion. His hands are dirty when he examines them, a ring of black soot and dirt and dust separating the paler pigment of his fingers from the length of his wrists before his sleeves begin, knuckles lined with congealed dirt, pressed into the grooves of his skin and running the lengths of his palms. Kylo harbors no illusions that the rest of him is in a similar state, can feel the collection of dirt and perspiration down into his collar as well as he can underneath his fingernails.

He says nothing of it, and even were Rey not within arm's reach, he would say nothing of it. He has breathed in ash and smoke and tasted coppery, metallic blood and dirt far too often for it to be of any consequence now, just as he has felt the bite and sting of injury, blaster or otherwise, too often for the pain in his leg to be anything more than routine. For a moment, he thinks to run his fingertips over the extension of the scar that divides his face as if to test the memory of the pain he had felt in prodding it in the days after she had delivered it as it compares to the discomfort that he feels now, but it's a fleeting impulse made less by the command in her tone, however much it stands to ignite the stubborn streak of pride within him that wants to argue with her for the sake of arguing, if nothing else.

Although there is something else. )

You aren't going to climb back down and take the ship, leave me here? ( He intends for there to be hostility in his tone, but either he is more tired than he realizes or is willing to admit or the nature of their relationship has changed further without his awareness of the fact. If anything, he sounds resigned, leaning into the weight of the possibility as if it were an inevitability, even as he knows how ridiculous that it sounds, coming from him, how ridiculous it is to ask her, as someone who has been left behind in the most substantial of ways. The fact remains, though, and the tentativeness of their truce, their connection, has not yet reached a point of absolute trust. )

[ Unwittingly, the question summons up a slew of unpleasant hypotheticals to assault her senses—the flash of agonizing memory, made worse by the way Luke's saber had resurfaced it. A quad-jumper lifts out of the atmosphere while she tries to yank out of Unkar Plutt's grip. She shouts, wails as a child does. Rey closes her eyes and rubs the heels of her palm up against her forehead, back into her hair, then straightens her neck and lifts her head, leaving her fingers gathered at the base of it.

Her voice fails her for a moment, a croaked breath slipping out on her exhale before she can collect herself, and she lets it get swept up into the natural sounds of the moon, carried away into the basin below. ]

No. [ Carried in the word is a firm stubbornness that squashes any hint of the notion, punishing it by digging it into the ground. It's slow and patient and stern.

If she were going to leave him anywhere, the time was long past. Sometimes, she still thinks she should have left him there on Corellia instead of bringing him back to the Resistance: let the fire consume whatever humanity was left inside of him with the monster he'd made of himself. It's too late for that now. The human pieces of him are pieces of her too, they're little more than a single organism drawing breath in two bodies. The mine proved that. The pain in her leg where there is no injury reaffirms it.

She won't look at him, though. For all that they've been forced into this congress, into accommodating one another by circumstance or the will or the Force or whatever one might call it, she won't turn to look at him with her parents fresh in her mind. He has levied that abandonment against her as a weapon before, left open welts with its lash, and she is sure he would do it again. ] Don't be stupid. It wouldn't do either of us any good to go gallivanting off alone. [ She clears her throat. ] Just go to sleep.

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

i was but i ran out of sacrificial lambs

i waS COUNTING ON YOU

WE WERE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU HOW DARE YOU

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