apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

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

( Kylo pulls himself to level ground hand over hand, mud caking through his fingers, dead grass and browning leaves clinging to leather and wool. His hands scrabble so tightly for purchase that he rakes through thick, muddy topsoil to break cold earth underneath, knees and boot heels securing his footing as best they can, relying on intuition to guide him. He isn't nearly as good a climber as Rey, who scrambles up the slippery incline with difficulty, yes, but not without skill and with more speed than he manages despite being ahead of her. In this way, she crests first, hauling herself over the edge they had toppled down, and he surfaces half a breath after, on his hands and knees again with his head heavy between his shoulders, rainwater and sweat and dirt gluing his hair to his forehead, the back of his neck, the hollow of his jaw.

He allows himself to lean first on his elbow and then more completely on his back, rolling over with his knees bent and chest heaving, pulling oxygen and rain in through his mouth and nose, eyes closed against the spotty downpour that filters down through the treetops. Rey's comment prompts him to open them again, receiving a drop of rain directly in the corner of his eye for his trouble. For a quiet moment, his breathing is the only response that he offers her, caught up in trying to right the conversion of oxygen into carbon dioxide, their battle and the dead sprint through the forest catching up with the third and fourth act in their private drama. It is madness, and yet - )

This is still the beginning.

( It might as well be, for all the good any of it's doing. The two of them. The Resistance. The Order. The Knights and Snoke and Skywalker and all the orchestrators who move their pieces, his and hers, knights with free range of motion across the board. The Resistance will win this battle, and the Order will retreat to another base of operations, plan another series of attacks against Resistance forces and the Senate, and Kylo and Rey will clash again and again in a series of never-ending displays of skill. Until he kills her. Or turns her. For him, there can be no alternative, not where Snoke is concerned. Every encounter without one of those two outcomes is another mark against him. He could try to turn her now, or capture her, just as he could have on Yaga Minor. Kylo has the vague impression that whatever happens next, the outcome of this encounter will result in one more mark.

He sits up in one fluid motion, bracing his forearms on his knees, and does not look at her. )

The Order will not win today. Losing Corellian support will leave us scrambling for additional resources, and no doubt General Hux will bear the brunt of that responsibility, regardless of the circumstances of the Resistance's victory. The Supreme Leader hardly suffers fools in the wake of a loss. ( Despite the displeasure they are both sure to face yet again, despite the entirety of the situation that he finds himself in presently, Kylo manages, in his way, to sound amused at the prospect of Hux's suffering. It's not difficult, given how much he hates the son of a bitch. It's short-lived, though, as all fleeting thoughts and realizations are in the wake of the scolding he stands to receive as well. ) But one loss won't change the path of things. We will stay the course, you will stay the course, and before long there will be another clash, and then another and another. Your friends - ( He says the word like a swear. ) - could die. It's entirely likely that they will. Madness, yes, but it doesn't stop just because it feels as though it should. One day the end result will be different. One day, someone will win.

( Sitting in the dirt, quiet, borderline conversational, is a pause on their relentless quest to destroy the other in some way: she by dragging him back into the high noon glare of the Light, and he by coaxing her down into the Dark. She might have been a static void to him but he hasn't forgotten what he saw on Yaga Minor, the two of them a tandem unit, a devastating blow. It coats the back of his throat with a foul, sharp taste not unlike bile. )

[ It's as if he's read her mind, mentioning her friends, and it occurs to her a moment later that there's no reason to assume he hasn't pulled that from it at one point or another. It would be foolish to assume that he doesn't know every weakness she possesses, to rend Finn from her to weaken her. In all likelihood, he will be contented even if that is the only casualty of battle today.

She stays on the ground, watching Corellia burn to a cinder from miles above, lets the rain sting her cuts and bruises as it patters down. Staring out at the devastation, wondering if Finn or Poe or Chewie are buried in it, she decides that she will have to kill him. The resolution comes with startling pragmatism, for a woman who'd been aghast in taking her first life in the woods of Takodana, who prays for peace in the face of an endless and bloody war, who spent a lifetime learning the value of a life by fighting for her own.

Whether he will accept it or not, Rey knows that she understands Kylo Ren. Better than anyone, perhaps. She has known his desperation, felt his fear, seen his demons take form and consume him, but she would not be able to forgive him—or herself—that loss. It was General Organa's place to seek her son even after he took her estranged husband from her, but it is Rey's to settle on Finn's worth in this fight.

The Resistance would dub him expendable, but Rey will not.

And that settles it. Cold logic replaces the blind rage she'd felt charging him on Starkiller Base when she believed Finn to be dead, though it lands on the same result. Though she does not want to, though she would avoid it as long as she may because she knows that Snoke is the real enemy, she settles on her terms for Kylo Ren's life. ]

The Supreme Leader continues to suffer you. [ She answers him dryly after some silence, deciding only after careful thought to grace him with a reply at all. Slowly, she turns her gaze upward as an afterthought. ] The Resistance will not call a bloodbath a victory; we do not share your callousness in sacrificing the lives of our own.

[ Part of that, she knows, is because those lives are a precious and scarce resource. Where the First Order's propaganda has won the hearts of much of the galaxy, the Resistance is small, still grassroots, supported on General Organa's back by the beat of her heart alone. ]

I know you don't believe it will end with us. [ She knows what she makes of what she saw in his mind because she knows hunger, the bottomless, gluttonous ache that cannot be satiated, knows that no one is truly satisfied once they get what they strive for—like Unkar Plutt, they only increase their demands exponentially, pushing for more. ] When the Resistance is gone, that parasite will swallow you. It's not just a nightmare.

That's a very Organa thing to say.

( Rey's heart goes out like the beat of a heavy drum, and that certainly is a difference between them, a weakness that he does not possess. Snoke had once accused him of compassion, spitting the word at him as if it were a filthy slur. Sitting in there in the dirt, Kylo knows without fault that he possesses no such compulsion, that his heart does not go out to any of the people fighting for his cause - hardly for Hux and not for Phasma nor for any of the other Knights on the ground tonight, though he can admit, even in Hux's case, that their loss would be a setback - and that there is certainly no one in the galaxy he would call friend the way that word chases Poe Dameron and the turncoat trooper and the Wookie like a searchlight. Therein lies the strength in loneliness, the knowledge that there is no one other than himself he needs to spend time worrying about.

He has no real words for her regarding the perspective of the Resistance nor for her comments regarding his master's position on Kylo's failures as an apprentice, despite his elevated status as the most promising of pupils, despite the way that he was groomed by Snoke himself. Partly because he doesn't care for her opinions and partly because he knows, at least, that there is more truth to the fictional nightmare of Snoke's existence on the whole and what it means for Kylo Ren than he has care to admit. And partly still because she sounds very much like Han Solo in certain ways that make his skin crawl and his blood burn, ever-present anger and disdain rising to the surface, muscle memory, reinforcing the grain of truth that wedged its way somewhere inside him and has yet to be shaken loose. The Supreme Leader is wise, he thinks to himself, from a lifetime ago, like a mantra, and says instead - )

There is little in the universe that is set in stone, even when it comes to the Force. ( Is as cryptic and Jedi-like an answer as he's willing to deliver. The truth is that he can look ahead or she can or they can rely on what they know of the other and of the circumstances surrounding them and try to determine the way things will go, but there are no guarantees. Save for the truths they know to be hardwired, reinforced by steel and concrete, unchanging as their positions on either side of the line. They stare at each other from across a series of chasms, of gulfs, and Kylo looks at her now across a short distance of six or seven feet, scrutinizing her carefully. ) You're so sure of my place at the end of the road. I'm curious about where you think you'll stand when that day comes, when the Resistance is gone and your parasite is all that's left.

[ Turning to look up at her foe, Rey finds herself studying him for a moment's silence, searching out the reason for his question—does he hope to instill the hopeless inevitability of that outcome on her? Does he merely wish to bind the focus to her fate instead of his? Or does he have some sort of genuine investment in the answer, in where her chips may fall?

There is, of course, the other possibility. That the Resistance no longer exists because it is one with the Republic again, and there is no First Order to resist—that they've won. With the Falcon, she could go anywhere, but she imagines she might first stop on Takodana, then join Luke in addressing the resurgence of the Force.

The furrow of her brow persists in her scrutiny, even if she doesn't project her curiosity into his mind—even if he does not draw lines of the sort, she will. That answer will not make it any easier to sort the good from the bad in this muddled mess of a war, and the dirt-caked scavenger from the outer rim, now out of her depth, does not need anything more to confuse her. ]

If I can't kill Snoke, then I'll make him kill me. I won't be a slave: my power does not belong to him. [ Her voice holds little malice; it is clean and straightforward, as simple as if she had long since made that decision. Now, though, she thinks of the eventuality, the potential for that to be precisely what happens, and reflects on what she saw of Ren's mind. ] I suppose he'd make you do it. I've known men like Snoke; you're never done proving yourself to them.

[ She knows he would do it too, even if he hasn't yet. The man who could look his father in the eye and run him through, unflinching, to solidify his bond to the darkness would not shy away from the murder of what they only looked on as a potential soldier. The trouble she caused them would soon outweigh her value.

Now, she is the one refusing to flinch as she stares into the black pits of his eyes and airs her morbid curiosity, ] Would you make it quick? [ He had given Han Solo that much, though she wagered it was as much a necessity for Kylo Ren to hold steady to his path as it was a mercy. ]

( Though they aren't obvious to him and though he doesn't go looking for them this time, Rey's thoughts - or at least her thought process - is plainly evident on her face. From the crease that appears between knitted brows to the hard line of her mouth, crowded by dirt, Kylo can at least see that she's thinking about it. He finds himself uninterested in navigating her mind to search out her thoughts on his own merit, waiting instead to hear what she has to say for herself. Her answer does not disappoint him, although he does feel the sting of a layered insult in a way that leaves him cold.

He knows what she sees when she looks at him, never mind what she's experienced in peering inside his head. Monster. Creature. Kylo neither makes nor craves apologies for any of it. There are no illusions as to the kind of person that he is, and he prefers it that way, wanting to be perceived as the sort of man who would run his biological father through and toss him over a bridge without hesitation or remorse. No one - certainly not Rey - needs to know that it had felt like pulling hooked nails out of himself, that the last pieces of him that were still irrevocably Han Solo's son had dug their claws in so tightly and held on with such desperation when the sever was supposed to be clean-cut that it had felt like something was actively ripping apart inside of him. He'd hated it, still hates it. It's weakness. Sentimentality. Compassion. And there is no room for that in Snoke's court.

Gloved fingers reach out to separate several small pebbles from the dirt and tall stalks of grass that have bent under their activity and the weight of the falling rain. He actually thinks about his answer before replying to her, fully cognizant of the fact that the scenarios they have described for one another are actual events that are bound to occur. )

It wouldn't be my decision, in the end. ( That's the truth of it. She isn't wrong, of course: they are all of them trying to prove themselves to Snoke in some way. It's just that Kylo is trying to prove himself to more than just Snoke. ) It isn't as simple as you want to make it. The day you think that you're powerful enough to kill the Supreme Leader is the day you overestimate yourself and the day that he makes you realize it. ( Dark eyes move from the small collection of stones he has gathered back up to her face. ) He is wise beyond measure and powerful beyond your understanding. If and when you find yourself at his mercy, you'll kneel before him or he will make you kneel. There is no easy way out where he's concerned. He'll torture you. He'll persuade you. He'll show you all the ways that the path you have traveled this far down are wrong. ( The small stones he holds lift from his palm to hover a few centimeters; Kylo does not even look at them or seem to notice that they have done this. His attention stays on her. ) Maybe he'll convince you. And maybe he won't. Maybe you'll fight back. You certainly have the spirit. ( It doesn't sound like a compliment. ) You wouldn't be used as a way to prove myself to him. Not like that, at least. He would probably want to kill you himself, if you keep refusing to yield. But -

( His tone is cool with honesty, and he doesn't say any of it to be cruel. This is the reality of the world that she has submerged herself in, and while the idea of him offering her a swift and merciful death at his own hand is a nice one, the reality is that her demise in that scenario does not come quickly or mercifully. It is at the end of a long stretch of dark days, and Kylo can't see that far ahead of them to be able to offer a concrete answer on any of it. Just experience. Knowledge. What he's seen and felt during his time as Snoke's apprentice. What he thinks may be something different, but he shrouds his mind with a heavy cloak, keeping his thoughts to himself, hidden away should she try to probe him for deeper answers. Instead, he flicks his fingers and the pebbles go scattering, rolling down the hillside and cutting the high grass, and it's a moment before he answers her question directly, each word sounding as if it's being wrenched from someplace unwilling to let go. )

I wouldn't draw it out.

[ With almost childlike patience, Rey sits with her knees bent, fingernails picking at the top seam of her boot while he speaks, offering to him rapt attention in the form of softly parted lips and a brow that furrows the longer he goes, so certain, so closed off, yet so telling.

She does not have to reach into his mind to understand how Snoke has driven him so desperate. It's in the lapses in his speech, the certain steadiness, and even the absent chaos of the swirling stones in his palm. Experience speaks through him, painting vivid pictures of torture and suffering, of what it must have taken to make Han Solo's child kneel, of what needling persuasions and visions he'd used to convince Ben Solo to reimagine himself as Kylo Ren.

It is not the terrible things that have happened to him that cause her heart to ache for him, but the certainty with which he claims that Snoke would not dismiss the task to Kylo Ren to prove himself, and the reluctant, pause-laden honesty with which he offered mercy despite it all. He cannot see for himself the foothold she has gained with him—perhaps for the best, or he would readily sever it—or he will not see it. Snoke would, if any image of him that Leia had described held any truth.

Before now, her insistence was always with peace in mind, driven by the conviction with which General Organa reached for her son but with the constant motive for peace being Rey's only real buy-in. Now, watching him muddle through the cloying darkness and smoke that she knows pervades his mind, she sees the flicker of a candle that carried in its flame Leia's hope.

Compassion is the only weapon against the Dark Side; Rey didn't need Master Skywalker to teach her that one (though he had given words to the thought). She sees it there in Kylo Ren, barely gasping at the surface as he tries to drown it in an ocean of suffering and hate. One hand reaches up, as if on instinct she might reach for him, but her fingers curl as her hand reaches her waist, staying there a moment.

It's gone, then, and she presses one palm to the earth to push herself to her feet, dusting her hands off and stepping forward to gaze down at him. For a moment, she doesn't speak, only stares down at his bent form and the rocks he juggles, weighing her power against his—and her will. ]

All that power. [ The wastefulness goes implied by his demonstration of how impotent he is to go against the will of the Supreme Leader. Slowly, Rey shakes her head, almost mourning, as she stands disarmed over him, hands loosely hanging at her sides. ] You told me once that you wanted to show me the ways of the Force. [ After a beat, she adds, ] I want to try something; will you let me?

[ The question is deliberate and heavy transposition of their first encounters, when no permission was asked, when power was exerted for power's sake simply because it could. What Kylo Ren would take, Rey would ask for, even after he hadn't offered her the same courtesy. ]

( Her hesitation, the instinctive - maybe - rise and fall of her hand as she briefly weighs the pros and cons of reaching out to him before she decides otherwise flutter at the corner of his peripheral vision once he's looked away again, but Kylo pretends not to notice, glancing over once more only after she's stood up. Their new position is not so different from what they both saw earlier. Trading the projected image of the bridge for the soft, melting earth, and his knees for a seat on the ground, it's nearly the same. He watches her clamber to her feet, steady in the shifting dirt, and looks up at her with his palm still flat and fingers splayed like a five-point star. There is no open curiosity or any degree of wonder written on his face as he turns it up toward her; his features have carefully rearranged themselves back into something befitting the removal of his mask. A mask itself, damp and dirty but showing nothing. Making a conscious effort to, at least.

It's hardly the first time that someone has mentioned those three words to him. All that power. It isn't the first time that he's heard it in that same tone before, either. Those words have followed him around his whole life, from careful, conscious awe to heartbroken disappointment, Skywalker's voice like a warning reminder against Snoke's soft, smooth whisper in his ear, a promise. Some of it had been imagined, and some of it had been real. Eventually the lines blurred and distorted until determining which was the illusion and which the reality seemed unimportant, and it all became real. Rey's implication is tangible in the cooling Corellian air, but Kylo does't balk at it. Once you've heard the Supreme Leader imply that your power is not enough, little else measures up.

He feels an eyebrow quirk at her question, but he stays on the ground for what feels like a long time after she's spoken, staring up at her in a way that manages to take all of her in at once, from the dark folds in the fabric she wears to the relaxed bend in her fingers as they hang at her sides. Skywalker's training is evident in every crease and line of her body in a fight, in the way that she handles the Force and uses it to guide and strengthen her, her footwork and the accuracy that she's gaining with a lightsaber. But it isn't all him, and Kylo can see that as plainly as anything. The way she holds herself, the weight of her conviction and attitude, the way in which she calls the Force to her and the way in which it responds, it's every bit the girl that he encountered in the forest.

He stands, one hand planted beneath him, fingers sinking into the mud under the weight of his frame rising slowly from the ground. At his full height, he is so much larger than she is that the idea of ever being unable to subdue and capture her seems ridiculous. One foot rises and falls and slides a fraction of an inch in the mud as he steps toward her and he is standing close enough to her now that if she reached out and he reached out, they could shake hands. Kylo keeps his at his sides, curled into loose fists that, for once, do not hint at outright violence. Reckless curiosity, interest, keeps him planted, watching her. )

Something.

( It's as much permission as she's ever going to get. )

[ Coming to full height as he stands, Kylo Ren stretches upward and blots out the light of the fires behind him, a towering shadow that loomed before her. The space between them grows tense, heavy with their closeness. Though her eyes do not betray her, fear grips her a moment, sure that he will instead take it upon himself to teach her in doubtlessly the same way that the Supreme Leader had taught him—through pain. But Rey, who has spent so much of her life with nothing, does not fear loss or pain. They are old friends.

She reminds herself of that in the moment when her recollection of his power and anger threatens her nerve, and steels her heart to what she hopes she can do. Only once had she seen the trick performed, suffered its effects herself, but she had never seen anyone force their will on someone like she had JB-007 either. The capability lay within her own spirit, dependent on its strength, and emboldened by her surety.

Her eyes shut, forcing Ren's cloying darkness from her mind and replacing it with meditative serenity that helps her feel currents in the air like sparks racing across her skin, power humming in the atmosphere that waits to be employed. The fire, far in the valley, heats the air and brings it in great billowing puffs up through them, carrying with it the stale and smoky scent of ash. It finds its place scattered among the molecules of the atmosphere just as she finds her place scattered among the stars.

Kylo Ren would only give her one attempt, and stakes like these mandated success.

Unremarkable, ruddy brown eyes open to fix on him, anchored and firm in her task, and she reaches one slight hand, fingers gently curved, to hover alongside his temple. For a moment she hesitates to close the gap—contact, she's sure, is not needed, but she could not say with any confidence whether it would help matters or not, and she needs all the help she can get.

She swallows the lump in her throat and feels her way into the cavernous web of his mind, but not for information or any true dive. Instead, she skims the surface, a web of interconnected energy matrices as complex as any star map, searching for something in particular, fumbling her way until—

Jarring realization crashes in all at once. Frantic earnest bleeds into him. Sloppy, hurried, she tries to dim his mind and drag him into the murky waters of unconsciousness as he had once done to her.

There is light in him yet, a dim flicker, ready to be snuffed out by Snoke, no doubt easily done if he snaps her out of his mind too quickly and severs the connection between them with the sharp point of betrayal, but one that could be kindled to something more if he could only be ripped away from the darkness. For his sake. For the galaxy's. They use the word cold to describe this kind of brutish pragmatism, but Rey's was learned in the heat of the desert, and it serves her well.

Deception paves the road to the Dark Side, but Rey uses it in the hopes of bringing him to those who could help break the hold Snoke has over him, who could eliminate the malaise that drags him down like stubborn, invasive tar. And she uses it too with hope that he will forgive her for it then, for she knows if she let him walk away, she would not forgive herself. Finn's lives and the lives of the whole Resistance lay heavy on her shoulders. He will understand, she assures herself. But only if it works. ]

( This close, there is nowhere to look but at Rey. He can feel the trepidation rolling off of her in slow, shallow waves but can't determine whether or not they are a result of his proximity in general, the potential that he has to simply reach out and snag her, or something else, something in her intention that he can't read and that she isn't telegraphing to him. It puts him on edge, his back straight as an arrow under the thick padding of his armor, the scratchy material of the clothing underneath sticking to his back and neck with sweat and damp. His hands at his sides, so loosely contorted, ball themselves into tighter fists when she's close enough to reach a hand out toward him. It takes a concentrated amount of effort not to recoil immediately, step back and away from her instinctively, the way that he had feinted almost imperceptibly and unconsciously away from Solo before catching himself and realizing the mistake made in that moment of weakness.

He won't make the same mistake again, holding still as her small hand, dirt under her fingernails, reaches out to tap against his temple. Her hesitation and uncertainty is evident in the way her fingers jump and then adamantly settle against his skin, as if she's reassuring herself that this is something she's capable of doing. It doesn't make sense to him right away, given her need for proximity when they have been able to peel back the other's mind and stare hard and searching into one another's thoughts without physical contact. Rey is the only thing that he can see, brown eyes wide open and peering into him as if she's seeing through him and beyond him and before him, navigating the timeline of his histories and possibilities with alarming accuracy, the set of her jaw and the line of her mouth a determined contrast to the fear that he feels pulsing through her veins, reaching spindly fingers out to curl around her convictions. She presses onward, but she never goes deep, doesn't take the plunge, reaches instead for the switch and -

Oh.

Something in his gaze shifts and though he hasn't looked away from her in the time it's taken the two of them to arrive at this point, Kylo's eyes harden and the muscle in his jaw goes, jumping all the way down into his neck as he tenses. She panics in his head like a bird, flooding into him with a speed he's not felt before, and he can see the deception and determination written across her face like it's been painted there. Her eyes tell a different story, but there is conviction in them, too, and Kylo, not so completely at her mercy, uncurls one fist from his side to wrap his fingers around her wrist with force enough to bruise. It doesn't jolt her out of his head enough for either of them to forfeit the gamble, but he holds onto her there for as long as he can, smothered under the weight of her influence in his head and unable to surface enough to drive her out.

He drowns. What feels like a cold grin starts at the corner of his mouth, and he thinks Ah before he can stop himself, angry and annoyed and oddly pleased in one way or another. That she would fall to this.

It had been so easy for him before, on Takodana, but now they are so much more evenly matched. He tries to reach down inside himself and utilize the raw anger that he feels stoking the fire burning throughout, but by the time he grits his teeth and digs deep enough to call on it, Rey has gotten in too far and poured too much water down for anything to catch. His fingers wrapped at her wrist loosen, holding her in a semi-circle of finger and thumb, the web spanning the distance between the two pressing tight to her skin in an effort to hold on. His other hand palms at his saber, feeling the weapon as if through layers and layers of wool and cotton. Nothing catches, ignites. Rage swells, expands, bursts. There is no channel available for it to travel, and it beats relentlessly, uselessly, against his breastbone. He fights back, takes a half-step toward her, dark head bowed in her direction, and then falls sharply to one knee under the meditative weight of her power.

He smells smoke and earth and sweat and blood and ozone on the ground, and a blurred, vague impression of her shadow hovers above him before Corellia becomes darkness. )

[ When his hand grasps her wrist, she's sure she's failed. It's over. But she stays the course, and a moment later, his knees buckle, and he tumbles to the ground with the lumbering thud of a felled colossus.

Rey heaves out a breath that she didn't mean to hold, relief strong enough that her eyes burn with salt; expended effort leaves her mouth dry and cracking, and her shoulders heave as if the weight has been lifted from them. Brown eyes stay fixed on the blackened mound of his body as if expecting him to rise, a trick, glowing beam of red singing for her, but it never comes. ]

I'm sorry. [ She doesn't crouch to meet him in her apology, which in itself is flat and though sympathetic, not truly apologetic, but stays standing victorious over him with her chest heaving. ] But it's the only way.

[ Lifting her chin, she closes her eyes and allows the slow drizzle of rain to wash the salt and dirt from her cheeks, cooling her and separating her from the blaze of battle once more. Shaking droplets free of her face, she slaps a hand over her forehead and pushes the last of it back into her already damp hair.

Then, she crouches beside him and grabs onto his arm, hoisting it over her shoulders to drape his torso evenly across her shoulder blades. Rey pushes with her legs to stand once she has his body evenly hefted across her, keeping one hand on his legs with the other holding onto his arms to keep his weight evenly distributed.

It's not a welcome weight, some two hundred pounds of dead force-user slung across her back, and it will make the journey to the relay point drudging and unpleasant, but it has been a long time coming, and General Organa—if she is alive down there somewhere—will have some small victory to mitigate all of this loss. But the weight burdens her with questions and uncertainties surrounding her actions, persisting into doubt in the miles she must hike, boots sliding across the mud stubbornly, leading her to stumble and fall on her path.

The last fires of battle have died down by the time she reaches the encampment, ash and smoke permeating the atmosphere, turning the air thick and gritty around the makeshift encampment set up by the Resistance. Too tired to reach out with the Force, she makes her way aboard a docked carrier with tenting material hoisted outside of it to expand its area; in the absence of the First Order's resources, temporary land bases like this one were the grassroots Resistance's only option.

Within the ship, Rey dumps the limp body of Kylo Ren onto a holo-table, and in doing so, brings tears to the indomitable General's eyes. The General—no, Ben Solo's mother—moves immediately to hover over him, expression openly contorted by the immeasurable grief and mingled joy that overcome her at seeing her lost son, her husband's murderer, for the first time as a man grown.

Feeling quite suddenly as though she is intruding on a private moment, Rey excuses herself from the room and steers the General's attendants out with her. As she reunites with Finn and Poe in the medical bay, she watches through the open tent flap as Luke Skywalker arrives to join Leia. Her own joy in finding them is tempered by uncertainty—that bringing Kylo Ren into the hen house is a wise choice, that she had not given into some unspeakable evil to use deception to bring him there, that it would do any good to confine him against his wishes and try to drag him kicking and screaming away from the monster in his head.

Only once they have settled privately on what was to be done with him is Rey invited out of the bog of her own thoughts to the felled First Order shuttle in which they had constructed a makeshift prison for him to stand guard and wait for him to wake. She stood between the airlock-turned-cell that they had confined him in and the exterior door, dirty and fatigued and yet unblinking, with arms folded beneath her chest, and reminds herself staring at the peace of his expression that she could not have brought him here if he had not offered her mercy and opened himself to her—her talent may be considerable, but not more considerable than his mental defenses. Still further, she persuaded herself the necessity of cleaving him from Snoke's hold, having seen firsthand what the Supreme Leader mired him in, having heard firsthand the misery of it as he projected the same fate onto her.

No. This is the only way. ]

( Somehow, Kylo Ren manages to look surly and unpleasant even while unconscious.

Leia had been the only one brave enough to stand within a fifty foot radius of him following Rey's departure from the general's tent. Save Luke, who hung back at his sister's elbow, only taking up his position at her immediate right once she had cleared most of the dirt and grime away from her son's face, picked the soggy, dead leaves out of his hair, with the sort of mystified, reverent air of someone having an out of body experience. Han Solo's murderer certainly didn't warrant the kind of gentle care and attention being afforded to him, and neither did the boy-now-a-man who had massacred his uncle's Jedi academy and burned it to the ground, who unquestioningly and unthinkingly destroyed villages and townships, tortured Resistance pilots and sliced up the spine of one of their most loyal and dedicated soldiers. In hushed, private tones, Resistance fighters said as much, far away enough from the general's tent that they wouldn't be heard but close enough that they might be able to get a look at Kylo Ren's boots.

Moving him takes a certain amount of precaution, especially once Rey rejoins Poe and Finn in the medical bay, with those involved in his relocation concerned that physical distance from the other Force user in their camp and the one who had put him in such a state might compromise his lack of consciousness, but Luke is present for every moment of it. Leia stays always within arm's width, an impressive accomplishment considering how small she is. The general is there every step they take from her tent until the moment Kylo is sealed inside his makeshift prison and then some, lingering in the airlock and watching the overhead light turn his skin the color of thick chalk. She leaves only when Rey arrives, when she has to do more than just run the gamut of what she might say - and have to do - to her son when he's no longer out cold.

Kylo smells her when he surfaces from unconsciousness, that lingering touch of fresh powder and engine grease, a byproduct of having spent so many hours and days and years in Han Solo's company and embrace. It's like some of him has rubbed off into her skin and become a part of her. When he was a child, he would bury his face in her neck, hidden underneath the heavy, dark sheet of her hair, and breathe deep, thinking that if he could breathe in enough of her, he would become a part of her in the same way, that if he curled tightly enough into the small space underneath her ear, where her pulse beat so strongly as she tucked him against her, that all the darkness that called to him, tried to pull him under, would be unable to find him. Just smelling that lingering fragrance is enough to recall the memory with such startling accuracy that his eyes open, and it's a moment before he realizes that the hard surface under his back is not the firm band of his mother's arms shielding him but the cool, metallic bench of a First Order shuttle.

By all appearances, there is no desperate surfacing, no panicked grasp at consciousness. His eyes are closed one moment, breathing steady and slow, and then they are open, staring hard at the overhead light without squinting, letting harsh white flood into his pupils and blind him momentarily, washing out the world around him and, consequently, Rey, who he can feel is in close proximity without even having to cast out in an effort to look for her.

Internally, he is screaming. His heart pounds hard and heavy with renewed vigor against his sternum, understanding the gravity of his situation not in terms of his own fate at the hands of the Resistance - because he knows, even while lying there, that escape may not be easy but that it will come - but in terms of what happens after he returns to the First Order and has to explain himself. It surges throughout him like a drug, his pulse racing in his own ears, fingers curling into fists at his sides. He says nothing as he sits up and swings his legs around to plant his feet firmly on the bench and stares Rey down across the threshold, letting none of what he's thinking or feeling surface either on his face or in any attempt she might make to look into his mind. His fingers curl hard around the lip of the bench, and then, legs too long to be folded comfortably in a sitting position, he stands, lumbering forward with a heavy gait, each step taken darkening his face that much more.

Some mechanical apparatus explodes over her left shoulder, showering the floor with sparks and letting a hiss of steam fill the immediate area. It's a small release, but the only one he can afford himself without bringing the whole Resistance down on him at once. Without bringing Skywalker down on him. To say that he's angry with her betrayal would be an understatement, but there's something else that calls itself to the surface as well. Something like vindication. )

Copycat.

[ The sudden explosion startles her, even if in a split second she knows it's him, enough to whip her head to the side to glance uneasily at the old emergency alert system over her shoulder. The tension dissipates a moment later, though, and peace settles over her as she accepts that this outburst might just be the most he's willing to do for the time being.

Calm, if weary, Rey turns her gaze back to her captive and tilts her head in consideration as she corrects him. ] Balance.

[ Karmic retribution, she might say, if the word weren't so thoroughly loaded with vengeful thirst. What she did here, she did for his sake as much as the Resistance's, though she didn't expect that he would see it immediately.

The repurposed airlock is simple enough in construction, and though not ideal, the best case scenario they could find on short notice to hold a Force-user. Of course, there was nothing in the world that could hold one that did not want to be held indefinitely: the Resistance was well aware that their only real hope was to get through to him, to sever the link between Kylo Ren and Snoke enough that he could make that choice for himself in the fullest of definitions.

The bunk, if it could graciously be dubbed such, was a thin pad on a metal shelf, wedged at the back of the ten-foot containment chamber, flush against the exterior wall of the one-time carrier. For someone like Rey, it would have been more comfortable than the thick cushions that the Resistance bases featured, but to anyone who wasn't used to sleeping on hard bare metal or sand, a misery. On the other side, durable glass designed to withstand the vacuum of space and then some, with a pressure seal that Rey's eyes caught as soon as she entered the room, pegging it for damaged to worthlessness.

Rey stood with her feet by the damaged portion, central to the circular glass, mere inches from the barrier, as though she had been intent on watching him. ]

You've been asleep for some time: it won't be long before Snoke reaches out for you. It would be to your benefit to warn me if he can do anything to you across such a distance.

[ Though she is matter-of-fact in her delivery, Rey makes no effort to mask the small measure of compassionate earnest that motivates her line of questioning: she would believe herself capable of stopping it, or at least weakening it. Supporting what she more or less offered as an olive branch was the fact that she did not reach out to comb his mind for the answer, but waited for him to tell her, a foolish overcorrection that she felt bound to by her previous behavior. Balance. ]

Balance.

( He snorts. Or, at least, gives her the closest approximation of a snort that he's able to while turning away and pacing the length of his containment cell. As he moves, he counts the number of strides it takes him to cross from one end of the bunk to the other - not many, by his estimate - while searching for any visible vulnerabilities in the construction of their crude design. Other than the damaged pressure seal that Rey stands next to, he can't find any immediate flaws despite knowing that they exist and wait to be exploited once her back is turned, once their backs are all turned. Rey affords him no such luxury for the moment, standing close to the glass that separates them as if she has been observing a new attraction on display, and he continues walking the length of the cell with the fluorescent light catching the unmuddied surfaces of his boots, reflecting dull white light back up at him. )

I fail to see how divulging that information would benefit me and not you in some way, given the circumstances.

( The thought that he should even the odds back in his own favor crosses his mind despite the threat of the Resistance just beyond the threshold. Maybe he could reach through the glass and do the same that she has done to him now, leave her unconscious on the floor while he does his damnedest to rip the bunker apart and escape, rends metal and twists wires and mows a clear path through the Resistance. Maybe he should press his hand against the glass and splay his fingers until he can feel her pulse fluttering in his palm, squeeze until she has no choice but to disarm the door and let him pass. Maybe, but Kylo can't imagine that retaliation would come easy in that regard, and something in her tone gives him pause. She's surprised him more than once today, in a number of ways he's not entirely keen on examining closely in his current situation, and he's in no mood to try only to find that he's failed and ruined his chances.

He turns his head upward, keeping her always in the scope of his peripheral vision despite knowing that it's highly unlikely she'll go anywhere. Kylo half-expects Snoke to already be inside his head and is almost surprised that it wasn't the Supreme Leader's voice in his thoughts calling him out of unconsciousness. It's unlikely that Hux has made contact yet, however, if the general still lives, though Kylo assumes with the way his own personal luck has gone this evening, Hux's death is hardly in the cards. It would certainly delay the inevitable, but Kylo tries not to preoccupy his thoughts with what's coming, what's waiting, focusing instead on Rey's tone of voice and eventually coming to lean against the glass right in front of her, one arm supporting him as churning, broiling energy seems to settle underneath his skin like an electrical current. He stares down at her with a grim sort of determination, the heavy weight of knowing better hanging around the corner of his mouth and the heavy cast of his brow. )

Oh. ( Regarding her in this way for a moment, he eventually straightens up, a tightly coiled wire of energy waiting to disperse. ) You're still under the impression that you can overpower him.

( He waits to feel her try to press into his mind for actual answers but feels nothing, not even a solid attempt to knock down his defenses. In a way it's a blessing: the majority of his remaining energy is dedicating itself to keeping everyone out of his head for the moment, certain that Skywalker is out there somewhere with the focused intention of breaking him down and cracking Kylo open like an egg. In another way still, he's unsure what to do with her distinct lack of action in that regard. If it were him, he would go searching for the answer himself. As it stands, he's left to suss out what trick she has up her sleeve in doing nothing at all, keeping his back to the wall, so to speak, while trying to come up with an exit strategy.

It occurs to him how easy it would be to just lie, to play into her hand and give the impression of breaking. It's a card that he does not immediately put away. )

[ Pacing the cage like he does makes her skin crawl, prickling with awareness of precisely how feral and unpredictable he is here, and she wonders if Leia and Luke addressed that struggle in proper form while she was off sleepily finding relief that Poe and Finn were safe. Wonders if they believe that her decision was the right one, once their not inconsiderable yet conflicting feelings on the matter have been set aside. ]

Not just me. [ But yes, she does. If she didn't believe she could, then any hope they had of winning this fight was already lost, and she won't deny the Resistance their hope like that when they'd been the ones to give her what she'd been looking for all this time. Luke and Leia would fight at her side, and their knowledge of the Force spanned decades and a civil war—it could not be discounted. ]

I've seen what he does to you. [ Finally, Rey abandons pretense and thrusts the truth of it at him, reminds him of the depths of his mind that she's scavenged in and what she's found there. She shuffles a small step closer to the glass, refusing to let the way he leans against it give the impression of intimidation. He does not scare her. Snoke does not scare her. They will not control her with fear and doubt. ] The Force is about more than the power Snoke uses to compel submission from you: it's about focus and peace. I get the sense that, based on what I've seen, you haven't known peace for some time, have you?

[ She remembers the stifling darkness, choking them, drowning them, the smoke filling his body like it were a mere vessel to control. The insidious shadows of Snoke's influence haunting the corners of his mind to various shades and degrees, but never truly gone. ]

( Her faith is misplaced, at least as far as Organa and Skywalker are concerned, and the expression he offers her in retaliation to what she's suggesting says as much. Rey might believe that her master and her general are powerful enough to withstand and combat that of the Supreme Leader, but Kylo has seen their failure firsthand, is their failure firsthand, regardless of the circumstances surrounding his defection from one side to the other. That is what she seems unwilling to see, that although he might have been guided and cajoled away from the Jedi with whispered promises and a conduit for all the power he possessed that made sense to him, he could not have taken the steps to bring him to where he - they - stand today if he did not want to take them in the first place.

It's that notion that he holds onto while leaning back away from the glass, hands balled into fists again, no adequate channel for the swelling tide of anger that continues to pitch and rise within him. It chokes him like mild claustrophobia, an innate desire to stretch his legs and arms in the confined space, and the leather that encases his palms creaks under the pressure of his knuckles. He begins to tug the gloves off, examining the burns that mar the flesh there with detached curiosity. They haven't been treated - there are even a few fibers of leather threaded through the cauterized skin - and the pain is raw agony when he flexes his fingers. )

You think because you looked into my head and saw something that you weren't expecting a couple of times, you can lecture me on the ways of the Force, preach to me about balance? About peace? About all the ways in which the Supreme Leader pales in comparison to Luke Skywalker? Your doctrine doesn't preach balance, Rey. It preaches obedience, just as you claim mine compels submission. Don't stand on the other side of the glass and pretend that you are any better than I am for believing in it.

( The thumb of his left hand presses into the tendons that stretch across the palm of his right, working at a knot in his saber hand while thrumming the little thread of pain that vibrates with each strum of his knuckle, and he takes a seat on the crude bench with his long legs bent in front of him. When he was an awkward, gangling boy, too tall for his own body, he would sit with one foot on top of the other. The Supreme Leader and the Knights - and the Order - broke him of that habit quickly enough. Now, under the high overhead glare of the light, he spreads his hands in front of him, fingers splayed to examine the burns, elbows on his knees, speaking to her directly. He keeps every atom and molecule of himself shut up and heavily defended, unwilling to let her or anyone else glimpse even a shimmer of what swirls inside of him. )

What do you expect me to say to you? ( His throat is dry and his voice hoarse, almost plaintive. His hair has turned into a very unflattering mop of frizzy waves in the damp air as it's dried, and there is mud - Kylo can feel it - that Organa missed caked underneath his ear. It's the least of his worries, presently. ) What do you expect me to give? Is it submission, obedience? Do you plan to protect me from the Supreme Leader's retaliation? ( His hands curl, and he glances down at the marred skin before returning his attention to her. ) What about the Resistance?

( 'Your friends' hangs heavily implied between them. Regardless of what happens, now or further down the line, of what angle he plays, Kylo can't imagine a world in which he is able to walk away clean. )

[ At first, she assumes he means to ask if the Resistance will protect him. It's only a moment later, after her lips have parted, that it strikes Rey that he means to know if she will protect him from the Resistance's wrath as well as Snoke's. On that note, she falters, jarred by the suggestion as much as by the slow creeping realization that he's right to wonder it.

Leia and Luke are forgiving, and even Rey would readily set bygones aside. But Poe suffered torture at Kylo Ren's hands, torture that he had not forgotten, that he had recounted to Rey while she'd been searching for answers on the subject of her own Force sensitivity back at the Resistance base later. Finn had lost his childhood to the First Order and watched Kylo Ren sic attack dogs on him after he'd escaped, been hunted across the galaxy, chased by the threat of further enslavement. Every Resistance member seems to have their own horror story of the First Order, a list as long as it is sordid, and Kylo Ren has made himself their poster child and general.

So the question bears consideration, and Rey slowly presses her mouth closed as she debates it in turn, steeling her nerves and trying to shut out any indicator that she acknowledges the potential brutality of the soldiers Snoke and his First Order have made of them. Truthfully, her plans ended well before rehabilitation of any kind, let alone consequences, for she had only thought as far as persuading him to want to remain among them, leaving everything else for later as mere fine print. ]

Those answers depend on you. [ A cop-out, perhaps, but an accurate one. ] I—nor anyone else—can protect you from the choices that you make. But if you choose a different path, I've brought you here so that you can have the help you'd need to take it. Snoke is powerful, and he would not suffer the loss lightly, but we have power of our own, and there is a reason why he seeks yours.

[ It's a surprisingly keen insight for someone who, before, had been so uneducated in the ways of war and the Force. Were Snoke as all-powerful as they all believed him to be, though, he would have no need to take advantage of the power that Kylo Ren offered him. To Rey, that meant that Kylo Ren would offer a real threat to him, if he were on the 'wrong' side of this fight. ]

Together, I believe we can stave off his reach. The rest comes after.

( There's some enjoyment to be found in watching Rey work out an impossible problem without skimming the surface of her thoughts to watch the process so absolutely. He watches her mouth compress into a thin line, her eyes go steely. Kylo waits for her to bottom out on an answer, keeping his knees bent and his feet planted firmly on the ground, his mind just as firmly shuttered against potential invasion. He doesn't place as much faith in her friends as she does, namely in Organa and Skywalker, considering what he's done to them. He has as much interest in asking for pardon as he assumes they will have in giving it. The destruction of Skywalker's entire academy notwithstanding, he stood across from a man they both loved and cherished, and he struck him down in an effort to make the final leap across a gaping maw of darkness, used it to extinguish what light remained in him with hopeful, desperate urgency. Killed Han Solo for his own gain.

It won't matter to them whether or not it worked absolutely. The cold, bright meltwater that washed over both Rey and him in the cavernous tunnels of his own mind will hold little sway with them when he is so focused on eliminating it at whatever cost. They see what's left of the boy in him as something to be encouraged, breathed into and ignited; Kylo sees it as a cancer, gaining more ground despite the heavy boot that he keeps pressed to its neck, trying so hard to extinguish it, ripping himself apart in the process. Skywalker and Organa may understand the conflict, given their sensitivity and Skywalker's own brush with the darkness in the past. Rey, Kylo knows just looking at her under the fluorescent wash from above them, would stand in his corner out of all of them, given what she's seen, what they have seen of each other.

He's almost taken aback to stumble upon the realization that he's actually considering and weighing the possibilities and then just as quickly disgusted with himself. Kylo Ren is no traitor, no matter what illusion he presents in order to get himself out of here, no matter what he saw of himself when he flooded into Rey's mind on Yaga Minor, lingering in the far reaches of his thoughts like a distant, half-remembered nightmare.

Rey provides him an opportunity to stop his train of thought by finally opening her mouth and speaking to him, though he finds himself unable to answer right away. She's remarkably astute for someone who more or less just realized she could use the Force five minutes ago, and it's her assessment of Snoke that gives him pause, that thrills something within him in an unexpected way. It's the closest thing to a compliment that he's received in quite some time. Though it's nothing that hasn't occurred to him before, the recognition of his own power has always come with the understanding that the Supreme Leader has taught him so much and still has more for him to learn, that only he could guide Kylo in his quest to achieve what someone far greater and far more powerful had been unable to finish. )

You tricked me into being brought here. Let's not get that part twisted. ( There is thinly veiled annoyance in his tone, but not outright anger, forcing himself to control that black mass that twists within him unless he would like to let it get the better of him. Something else Snoke had taught him following his fall on Starkiller. Anger was made to be controlled, not to control. His hands fold over themselves, mindful of his burns, and he leans forward more over his knees, balancing there while regarding her from under his brow. ) You can't speak for the entirety of the Resistance. It's a nice thought to think that they might let bygones be bygones were I to change my mind and find merit in what you're saying, but the reality isn't that simple. You're asking me to trade one leash for another. ( Kylo pauses, pressing his mouth into a thin line. ) According to you, I'm not even holding my own.

( He falls silent for a long moment, twisting one hand around the other in a way that stretches and shifts the skin unpleasantly and makes him grimace. In one swift motion, he stands, approaching the glass that separates them once more although he doesn't hover as close to it as he had previously. He starts to say something, mouth open and rounded around a thought, then thinks better of it and collapses his lips over a syllable, shuts his mind down so completely that he's confident that, were she to open a channel and reach for his mind, all she would find is the same black vacuum that he had been greeted with before their encounter here on Corellia. )

Even if what you're suggesting can be done, you said it yourself: the Supreme Leader is powerful. And I have told you before that you overestimate your own abilities in thinking you can confront him head-on and win. He will come for me eventually, Rey, and he will come for the Resistance, and he will come for you. That is the rest that you're so adamant in saying comes after. ( Another step toward the glass, mind blank but eyes wide open. ) What actually are you suggesting? A unified front? Meditation and focus and peace? How do you plan for us to keep him at bay?

[ If he's asking, does it mean he's interested, or intending to arm himself with as much information about their abilities and strategies as he could in order to better combat them? Suspicion, Rey quickly decides, will get her nowhere, thought it might ultimately protect the Resistance.

Anyone would want appropriate details before even considering something of this magnitude and consequence. It is natural. But she cannot forget the demon inside of this man, the one who hunted her and Finn like animals for a map to Luke, the one who killed his own father so that he could let go of the life he used to have. There is no overestimation of the threat he poses, regardless of what he has suffered.

The way he sits down, works his wounds, makes him look resigned at least to his fate, even as he blames her for it, and she decides to let that be the deciding factor in her reply. ]

I speak only for myself and my Master. [ Let that be clear first. ] The actions that the Resistance takes will be decided by your mother.

[ But more to the point, ] Master Luke tells me that force-bonds cannot be destroyed, but that they can be weakened and deceived. [ Just as she could not entirely cleave Kylo Ren from her mind, neither could he cleave Snoke entirely until such a time that the Supreme Leader was dead or gone. But they could dampen themselves from one another. ]

There is an old Jedi technique that can cleanse the effects of Force manipulations on a mind. It involves allowing the Jedi capable of performing the technique to walk your mind, but once it is done, you should be able to construct your own defenses against his bond with you, to dampen his perception and reveal only the parts of your mind you wish him to see.

[ She does not go into details, does not offer suggestions or methods or demonstrate. Until he decides that it is a task he would be willing to complete, she will not undergo any step that leads him on the path, for sharing that knowledge with the dark side could just as easily lead to it being twisted into something sinister. However, she does allow for a heavy moment's silence before drawing a conclusion that she has long since arrived at: that Snoke is capable of more than mere observation. ]

Unless there's more he can do than simply see into you that you're afraid of.

I am not afraid.

( His answer is petulant and automatic, the crispness of his tone buffered by the childish retaliation weaved in it. It's a lie, of course, to some degree. The fear that members of the Resistance, of the Order, of the known galaxy have for Snoke is different than the trepidation that Kylo harbors for his master. Their fear is distant and realized based on the perceptions they have of this figure lurking in the shadows, commanding his armies like a ghost, a wraith that breathes life and purpose into the First Order's mission. Their fear of him exists like a rumor, whispered quietly and spread from ear to ear throughout star systems as gossip. Kylo's fear of the Supreme Leader is intimate; he knows the strength of Snoke's absent grip at his throat and the careful, sharp touch of his master's pull in his mind, sifting through memories like dragging fingers through sand to get at the hard dirt underneath. Therein lies power, though, in that knowledge of the Supreme Leader's retaliation. )

I know about Force-bonds. ( As if he wouldn't, and his tone suggests as much, though his knowledge of their severance is less broad than he would appreciate. Mainly because it's never come up as point of discussion, certainly not between Snoke and himself. That connection has never been given a classification, besides, and he's not keen on labeling it now, even if describing it as a bond isn't wrong. It's certainly a link, if nothing else. ) And I think we're both well-versed enough on defending ourselves against the strength in their connections that you can spare me the Padawan-level inroductory lesson on the concept.

( He would like to walk away from her and retreat back into the shadows of the bunk, but there's no relief to be found in continuously pacing the length of the containment cell like a big cat with nowhere to displace its energy. So he remains, which allows her front row access to the combustion of his thoughts as he wrestles with himself. His mind isn't open to her, but every small movement at the corner of his mouth, the angle of his head, is its own tell.

It's a coin toss. For every way in which he feels the hard pull to needle her for information, slip his way in and convince her of his high treason with the sole purpose of exploiting her power and her misplaced faith in his ability to shuck the Dark Side like a layer of dead skin, there is a tiny, buzzing part of him that finds it actually wants to know the answers to the questions that he's asking. He knows without having to be told that the outcome of this is one that neither of them will want or anticipate, from any angle. He knows that Snoke - whether or not he can effectively reach across time and space to close his fist around Kylo's windpipe or impart in him new orders to carry out on behalf of the First Order and the Knights while he is mired in the Resistance's camp - will deal a hand they have shuffled and stacked the deck against.

She carries the weight of the Resistance on her shoulders in this task, Kylo can see that, and if she fails in any capacity, brings him or Snoke down on this grassroots campaign in that failure, she will bear that cross indefinitely. There is power to be found in that responsibility, and the power that he carries within himself in the same way raises its snout to acknowledge it. But he sees that tired sag in her shoulders and knows instinctively that it's the result of carrying him through miles and miles of Corellian forest, of chipping away at him piece by piece. Why she's lifted him at all, when she could have killed him, is as strange to him as the knowledge that he would have done the same were their positions switched.

Coin toss. )

I won't allow Luke Skywalker to walk around in my head, if that's what you're suggesting.

Luke wouldn't be doing it.

[ The reply is simple because she does not doubt his ability to eliminate the options and arrive at the reality that it would be Rey's responsibility. Because of her actions here, Rey has—however unintentionally—assured that what becomes of Kylo Ren will ultimately be her responsibility in all arenas.

That burden weighed in the way that Finn's first question after they'd warmly reunited with hugs and relieved, laughing tears, was suspicious interrogation on why she had not killed the unconscious Knight of Ren when she had the chance. He would have, he'd told her, and it's what Ren would have done to her. Poe's reaction was more understanding, expressing diplomacy that Finn did not possess, but the expectation and subsequent confusion still lingered. Poe had not forgotten his own run-in with Kylo's Force telepathy, and would not any time soon.

The guilt that flooded her in answer to their barrage of expectations did not erode her certainty of purpose, and though she could not adequately explain to them, who did not feel the Force as she did, who had never glanced into him to feel wracked with that fear, suffering, and isolation, she did not relent her position.

No. This was not Finn or Poe's matter to decide, regardless of how close they were to the matter as well. It was not Leia's or even Luke's journey anymore: it was hers. And she would be the one to decide what became of it. She would be the one to take the burden of searching his mind and attempt to scare away the darkness, to see for herself if it could be done or not.

And if it finds that she cannot, she knows what her responsibility will be then. What she must do, a step she has been too afraid to take, knowing that it grants the dark a foothold in her own mind. ]

( It is a simple reply and the most obvious one. As soon as the rejection of Skywalker's free pass to Kylo's mind had been established, perhaps as soon as he had thought the words to form them, he knew without question that it would fall to her to see this particular task through. He would be impressed if it weren't such an obvious conclusion, maybe even a little surprised that she would open herself up not only to the knowledge of what happens next should her task work but also to the dark inside of him itself, which might embrace her and find root as it has him. There is no surprise to be found in that possibility either, given her decision to let him show her the potential of that reality on Yaga Minor.

Although Kylo gets the impression that he doesn't have the luxury of time to decide - nor the luxury of a decision, in all actuality - he takes a moment to straighten up on his side of the command shuttle and turn his back on her. The effort of keeping his defenses raised so acutely for so long is an exhausting burden, and he feels a pressure beginning to build at the base of his skull. With no real concept of time save for the slant of twilight that he can perceive beyond the threshold of the shuttle, he can't accurately say how likely it is that Hux will have made contact with Snoke by now. It seems likely, at this point. Despite his failures today as a general, failing to report would look even worse.

Kylo works his throat and turns. Why is on the tip of his tongue, but he says instead -)

How confident are you in your ability to actually do this?

( The underlying insult is obvious but not reinforced, and he's not even trying that hard. He's called her a scavenger like it's a slur enough times in their brief history of knowing one another that the sting he delivered while interrogating her on Starkiller must have worn off by now. It's plainly obvious he recognizes that she's more than that, but her ability to actually perform is reliant upon how much training and of what caliber she has actually received. If she fails, then she fails, and if it came down to it and Rey found that she had no choice but to kill him in order to preserve her growing role in the Resistance's war, he would not begrudge her that decision but also would not, under any circumstances, allow her to see it through. His death is an absolute he will not allow her to hold in her hands. )

[ His slings and arrows can only sting if she considers them unwelcome and permits their injury, but this particular barb, well-placed as it is, strikes against a truth that she has long acknowledged. Where Kylo Ren's strength comes from training and experience, Rey lacks the same: her talents with the Force are intrinsic, easily picked up due to her lifestyle and history and her latent ability, not hard-fought skill and tested mettle.

In stark contrast to Ren's feral pacing, Rey is a redwood, boots firmly rooted to the ground as if they've been fixed there for centuries, allowing the blows to wash over her to no effect. It does not hurt her to accept this truth, and with the stakes what they are, perhaps even considers it wise to acknowledge out of the gate. ]

If we were to succeed, [ that disclaimer really says it all, hypothetical and wary, devoid of guarantees. The Force requires the commitment of certainty, but Rey knows her limits and accounts for them. ] It would be a first. Not just for me, but for any that Luke is aware of.

[ She does not qualify that with defenses about the records of the Order lost in the Galactic Civil War, decimated by the very genocidal eradication executed by the Empire in order to purge any trace of the Jedi from the collective memory of the galaxy as anything but a myth. Surely, it has been done before. Surely, some Sith was brought back from his mentor, those connections weakened and that influence purged as any Force ability could be.

Similarly, she does not bother educating him on what he likely already knows, that a cleanse can unravel Force abilities that have been exerted on the mind, but have not been used on a scale such as she describes. What they undergo is not a single psychic surgery, but hundreds of them, remodeling the twisted landscape left behind by Snoke's influence. ]

I won't do it unless you allow me. [ The stubborness in her voice is of a moral sort, and with it comes a relenting flicker in her brow that softens her gaze. The same strict adherence to what she believes is justifiable that had her carry him over miles of burning Corellian landscape to this base now stops her from forcing such a change upon him. She would be no better than Snoke if she were to bend him to her will simply because she may potentially have the power to do it (she can't really be sure, can she?). Worse, she knows the weight of what she asks: if they attempt this, there is no telling how different he could be when they resurface from the mind walk. ] And I don't think I can unless you allow me to see everything.

[ A tall order, to be sure, but the compassion thick in her voice seems to genuinely anticipate that he will accept her offer, that a part of him wants this, and that she can reach that part yet. Earnestness draws one of her hands up to the glass between them, and only when she feels the cold against her fingertips does she realize that she's leaning in with her efforts to persuade him. Her shoulders slump and she draws back slightly. ]

( He recoils from the glass as soon as he can see the lines in her hand pressed flush against it, not a harsh, jagged stumble back but the slow slouch of gently withdrawing, as if physical distance might impede the surge he feels within him. His eyes remain momentarily on the splay of her fingers, the width of her palm, and then raise to look at her directly. He searches her face for any signs of betrayal and after a moment of finding nothing but quiet, earnest determination, lowers the fortified walls in his mind that he has built brick by brick through the Force alone to check for cracks in her armor that way. It's a brief moment, but it is enough, not only to assure himself that she isn't lying but to also be flooded with the warmth of her acknowledging what's left of the light in him. Kylo feels her anticipation, her apprehension, her hardwired determination and moral righteousness. Compassion. Worry. Morality. Fear.

Whatever happens, now or ever, there will always be a line that splits them, from each other and from everyone else. Deep down, he knows that whatever she manages in her attempts to walk the hills and valleys of his mind, the fundamental aspects of him will not change. Her concerns regarding his rewiring are not so realized within his own thoughts. He's known since he was a child the kind of person that he was, even without Snoke's steady, unbroken stream of manipulations and promises and dark secrets there to guide him in the right direction. He's known without having to stumble upon the hidden image in his mind of the two of them turning to face Snoke that he would one day raise his hand against his master the way that the Sith who came before even Darth Vader had done. Kylo Ren may not be Sith, but the verse repeats all the same.

Her argument is compelling, even if she argues for reasons that do not necessarily resonate within him. He hasn't been able to remember silence since before he was five-years-old, that hazy point in childhood where memories could be memories or imagined realities designed to substitute them.

Kylo does not move for a very long time, stretching into the territory of minutes with the two of them simply standing and staring at one another. He reassembles his defenses brick by brick, piece by piece, not to keep Rey out necessarily but to delay the inevitability of Snoke's arrival for one minute longer than it might take otherwise, and then presses the bare flat of his hand against the glass where her palm has been placed. The surface is cool and solid, and the burn threaded into his skin grins back at him lopsidedly. )

Why?

( It's a question he had not anticipated asking, and it's raw in its genuine honesty. She could have killed him, back in the woods. She could have killed him on Starkiller Base. She doesn't want to exert power over him, doesn't want to control him or utilize his abilities for her means to an end. The reward of navigating his framework to cut Snoke's cord is directly proportional to the risk. She must realize the potential for this to go disastrously wrong in so many ways regardless of what they - she and Organa and Skywalker - hope to gain, and yet she remains. )

[ The steady lift of his hand to match hers is genuine enough to surprise her, eyelashes fluttering as she glances briefly down, then back up to search him. Rey's heart aches with the weight of his question—that he feels like he must ask it, that he cannot trust good will, that he is so damnably cautious with taking hold of the life raft she offers him now—because she knows what it means. That question is one more of the many scars he bears from years of manipulation and cruelty, isolating him from the only people who could help him.

It leaves her short of breath, not only because it's overwhelming to conceptualize, but because she understands it too clearly. Her stoicism tapers off into the thick tone of eager, swelling hope, twisting her expression into one that almost pleads with him to allow her that. ]

I want to help you.

[ It doesn't fully answer his question, though, in that it doesn't adequately express why she feels so driven to offer him this hand up, a question she's avoided asking herself since it began. His insistent disbelief compels her to turn inward now and pinpoint that moment in the vision he'd shown her of the two of them, side-by-side in battle, playing off one another with seamless ease into a more devastating threat for the light or the dark than either could be on their own.

And it affords her a simple sense of clarity.

Even when he's beside her, training her, Luke Skywalker feels miles away, a relic of another time, lost long ago and returned only as a learning tool and a guide, not a companion. And among the Resistance, there are no others with the skill or sensitivity to be Jedi, to take up the mantle and use the Force for the light. The responsibility has fallen to Rey and left her, in the wake of Han's death, even armed with Finn's friendship, precisely where she started. Alone.

It's like she never left that desert in Jakku, why even the calm and focused corners of her mind that she reaches out to silence the loneliness as she suffers insomnia are an island, silent for its isolation, not its peace. For as long as she can remember, Rey has been alone, and now she's seen a glimpse of what it could be like if she weren't. The cool serenity of understanding settles over her features, drawing the intensity of her passion out like a sieve.

Killing Kylo Ren would mean killing the one person who understands her experience and how she perceives the world thanks to the lens of Force sensitivity, and shutting herself off forever from anyone who could offer that specific empathy to her, which is sadly impossible for Finn or Poe, and he has expressed the same interest himself in his desire to teach her, to groom her. She knows, based on Han's stories, that Kylo Ren is the one responsible for ripping away any other opportunity to meet students of the Jedi way. It is his fault that she feels this fear. And yet …

The lure is not enough to draw her from the light, but that selfish desire is enough to make her desperate to pull him free from the darkness.

Some mixture of shame, surprise, and resignation strike her features and she breaks Kylo Ren's gaze with this realization, dropping her eyes to the spot where his hand touches the glass. She doesn't recoil, not fully, but her eyes tell the full story—she knows why, now, and she cannot pretend at ignorance any longer. ]

I refuse to believe that our fate lies in destroying each other.

( Her initial response is not the answer he is looking for, regardless of the sincerity in both her tone and the look she fixes him with. Rather than retaliating immediately, Kylo quiets the swell of annoyed, knee-jerk anger - he does not want her pity - and waits. It isn't easy. Patience has never been a strong card in the hand he works with, but he has the impression that what she grapples with internally is legitimate enough that he doesn't want to miss it by slamming the heel of his hand against the plane between them in an effort to shatter it. The thought does cross his mind, and he feels the keen absence of his saber as if it were a physical ache deep in the bones and muscles in his hands and arms, but he quiets it.

Instead of pulling back and then surging forward, his hand remains on the glass, watching conscious thought flicker across her face and behind her eyes like a series of candles being lit, one after another, after another. He doesn't need the Force to pick them out one by one, gathering them together like the pebbles he had cupped in his palm in the forest, but before he can assign them any real value or merit in his own mind, she looks away from him, cuts her eyes to where their hands might be pressed together if not for the paneling separating skin from skin, tendon from tendon, bone from bone. The slight bow of her head as she focuses the point of her perception toward the five-point star of his left hand is enough of a response in and of itself, and before she can open her mouth, Kylo has the distinct impression that he has an idea of what she's going to say in the same moment she does. It still isn't what he's expecting.

He watches the bow of her lips form syllables and speak but the weight and story in her eyes paint a clear enough picture for him without her words to solidify it. He holds very still where he stands, something in him shifting and settling into place. The image, the idea, of them, half-remembered, that he had shown her what feels like lifetimes and galaxies away, now, burns his retinas as if it's a reality. Darkness in him wells and sings, a chorus of echoes and whispers and chants, then quiets, dims, falls silent as he remembers laughter, tastes salt, smells the tang of the ocean and wet grass, thick moss, smooth stone beneath his palms, damp biting at his knee through his pant leg. Kylo thinks he can feel the warmth from her hand spilling through the glass and seeping into his own, and he pulls away so that the cool, filtered air of the downed shuttle can chill his skin where his palm has begun to sweat. )

I don't believe that either.

( It's a lot. When he speaks, it's with the careful, guarded quality of someone who does everything alone, who shares nothing of himself or his agenda with anyone unless specifically ordered to do so. Even Hux, who so frequently operates on a wavelength in tandem with his own, has no such advantage. None of his Knights. Captain Phasma. No one. The totality of his loneliness has not been so precise and crushing as Rey's - Rey, who spent decades on a desert planet, who sung herself to sleep on her shoreline dreams, still alone in her self-isolation even when she could imagine comfort anywhere, still alone in the bracket of arms she has fallen into. Rey: the island - but it has been present, it has been constant. It rests in the darkness within him and thrives. For her to reach for him with that sort of statement, to present it honestly and plainly with the promise of her intentions in what she plans to do, the look on her face wrought with the weight of it - it digs fingers into him and hooks, no matter how deftly he attempts resistance. )

I don't know the precise length of his reach or how Skywalker's presence might be problematic in his attempts to establish contact. Or yours. But if he were able to do anything other than reach out toward me, as you suggested, it wouldn't be the first time that the Supreme Leader's ire manifested itself in a physical way. ( He finally admits it after ignoring the question long enough for them to arrive at this bend in the conversation. With everything else that's on the table between them, it seems pointless to withhold information from her that will only assist him in the end. His tone is still reluctant, however, as if confessing a sin he's been holding onto for twenty years. ) His reaction depends largely upon what Hux tells him, and my absence, both from the Finalizer and from his perception of the Force. I haven't felt him try to reach out yet, but I'm hardly searching for him or opening the channel up to welcome him to look around. I doubt he would appreciate what he finds there. He will, though, eventually, recognize that something isn't quite as it should be.

( On Starkiller Base, he had screamed traitor at FN-2187's back so roughly that his throat had felt hoarse after. A voice inside of him shouts with the same intensity, and it resounds throughout him, all the way down to the soles of his boots. )

Edited 2016-01-19 01:28 (UTC)

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/sits on this tag for 100 hours

writes a short novel and traps you in this thread like kathy bates in misery

hahahaha hey that's okay i brought a tent and rations for just such an occasion

excellent preparation

ty ty

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every time i think i'm not gonna write a novel, i write a novel -__-

it's ok i love it !! also did you see SNL pls tell me you saw SNL

this tag is dedicated to matt the radar tech

he told me kylo ren is shredded

i ran into him in the bathroom and he wanted me to give you this card

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