apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

open post.
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( Their feet break through the first layer of permafrost that forms halfway down the dune's southern side like punching through brittle, cloying glass. Sand swirls in with the snow and mud, creating a substance not unlike glue that freezes in a thick stretch of dull gray. The back of his neck feels burnt with remembered sunlight: a byproduct of her presence, her memory, as the landscape behind them is still bathed in alternating moonlight. Even in voluntarily and purposefully handing the focus of their illusion toward him as he takes it from her, they remain mired in her world, her mind, in certain, small ways. It makes him wonder how tightly wound this bond will be when they emerge, whether they will be able to keep anything from one another regardless of the success of what they endeavor to do here.

Eventually the desert terrain gives way completely to ice, swallowed up behind them in the sweep of mountains. Kylo does not feel the chill on his skin as intensely as Rey does, swaddled in heavy, padded armor and the clothing underneath, and yet he does. Goosebumps pebble underneath the fabric covering his sleeves, chill swirling its way up his spine and out into his uncovered hands, which ache down to the bone underneath the brutal assault of the wind. His heels feel heavy and numb as they trek across the landscape, and he knows without her having to specify by opening her mouth to do it that she's freezing, can feel it thrumming off of her in waves without having to turn and look at her to see the vapor of her breath and the stern shadow of her face. )

Maybe if you dressed appropriately. ( It's a thin, dry attempt at humor, which sounds as awkward coming out of his mouth as folding himself into the meditative position in front of her had felt. ) I prefer it to the heat. It's easier to dress for the snow than it is for the sun. All the black.

( He's spared the agony of continuing by the pause in her step, coming up short himself just on the edge of the forest. Starkiller Base looms like a scab on the horizon, and the darkness lingers at the threshold of the forest - the forest - like thick fog. It's always been present on this planet, leaking into the atmosphere and cultivating a hurricane of power to draw from, attracted to the technological prowess of the Order's weapon, but it's never been so prevalent in reality. Nothing like Illum. Kylo resolutely does not think about Illum, shoving it as far away from this place as he can manage while understanding that the more he tries not to think of that distant planet in deep space the more it creeps into the edges of their forged connection. Rey's memories overpower it, and he in turn focuses on them, losing ground in his own right when they are supposed to be gaining it but giving her more in turn.

They fought, here. Their tracks are in the snow. The broken quillon of his saber catches light deep in the forest and winks. Trees creak and groan with the remembered intensity of her overhead slashes as she cut them down in an attempt to block his path. The exposed image of her across a gorge from him surges to mind, and he recalls now that he thought he had heard a voice on the wind, then - Kill him. - before she turned and ran. But that isn't right. There had been no voice. Only the two of them there, in the dark. He had advanced on her at half-power, hoping to herd her rather than kill her, and Kylo feels like he could advance now, like he could turn and not fight her down but gather her to him and keep her there. It catches him off-guard, the darkness that filters through her and threatens to overwhelm him. It feels like swimming through tar and sinking beneath the warmth in relief against the freezing temperatures of Starkiller Base.

He could drown in it, let it consume him, pull her under with him and show her the power she's capable of wielding. He wants to, it's that easy, that natural, but even as he wants to give in and slip under, Kylo knows it's an impossibility. The bright white meltwater from the bridge will always keep him suspended, hanging indefinitely in a bright glassy surface. The wind whips through the trees with new intensity, filling their head with whispers. )

I want them all gone.

[ Her teeth set, resisting the tremble of the cold just long enough for her jaw to tighten and accompany a roll of her eyes at his criticism before her muscles loosen to allow for the steady shake and chatter. She steels through it, forces her jaw loose enough to at least quell the sound, which sounds to her like weakness, and she’s sure when she manages that she’s beaten the cold.

But then she hears it again, whispering on the gust of winter, telling her to kill Kylo Ren. It is a half-remembered hiss, recounted from their battle. So easy. So quick. When he was half-dead already, wounded and disarmed, but not now. Yet she can’t stop herself considering how readily it would solve their problems once the voice has stuck in her mind, and she has to forcibly extricate herself from that course of thinking by turning her gaze upward towards him and considering the deep gouge that she left in his face, scarred to a reddish welt now.

She has felt the sting of a lightsaber since then, licking her skin as cleanly as it burns it, the welts still fresh on her body from their earlier fight on Corellia—it’s hard to remember that they’re still there, but that’s a good sign. It means they maybe aren’t. It means they’re plunging deeper. ]

Don’t listen to them. [ It is presumption that tells her he must hear them now, but she feels certain in drawing the conclusion, confident in her understanding. ] You need to clear it out of your mind. That’s what’s stopping you from centering yourself.

[ A guess, at best, but an educated one. She cannot claim his or Luke’s wisdom of the Force and how it works, but her intuition serves her well, and training reinforces her mindsets.

Snow shuffles off the trees and sticks in her hair, a stark contrast to her reddening nose and ears that betray just how unused to this chill her body is. Acutely, she wonders if her physical body reflects the same symptoms, or if somewhere apart from her mind she is wrapped in the muggy warmth of Corellia. ]

I used to imagine that my parents were all sorts of places. [ It feels like ripping open a healed wound, baring nerves raw from injury, but she keeps her voice level, fixes her gaze on the base ahead and forces herself not to look on him and acknowledge how she exposes herself now. ]

That they came from Coruscant, where they were important diplomats, who only left me so they could go on a dangerous mission for the Republic. That the planet we were really from, where I was born, was all marshes with plenty of water. [ And still, she couldn’t have conceptualized what Takodana would look like to her nearly a decade later. ] I want the chance to see it. I’ve heard Naboo looks like that. Maybe that’s where I’ll find them.

[ The lie remains just under the surface, dormant but persisting. The lie that she will find her family one day, that they are out there—alive, waiting for her. That it will somehow help her find what is missing. It hurts to expound for him to hear; she braces herself for the worst, for him to tear these childish notions apart, wondering if she can survive the devastation, but she needs to keep talking, and her life as it was has never been eventful enough to go on about at length. Not until Han Solo entered it, and that seems like a sure way to keep him from finding calm, not aiding him to reach that place. ]

( Denying the existence of those whispers would prove nothing, especially as they grow in volume and severity. What she hears and what Kylo hears may be different beasts entirely, each hush tailored to something individual within them. He can't decipher whether or not it's the soft sigh of snow falling that tells him that he could best her, that he could turn her, how happy Snoke would be with him for doing it, for cultivating his own apprentice from snow and sand and striking down the Resistance, eradicating the Jedi once and for all. But in that promise lies another, and he knows it as plainly as he knows the stuttered chatter of her teeth and the cold blush across her cheekbones: she will best you.

He's moved ahead of her, the rise of her voice following him further into the forest until he stops with his head full of potential promises. Kylo knows those dark thoughts. He has embraced them long enough to be able to greet them like old friends, arms open to accept the pat on his back even as the other hand holds the firm tip of a blade to his neck. A threat and a promise. Seduction laced with pain. Rey's voice almost startles him, beating into his head like a war drum. She tells him to center himself, and he doesn't say anything, searching for the source of the voices in the forest in an effort to get to the hive and drive them away. Spindly branches of the trees above and around them throw jagged, broken shadows across her face when Kylo turns his head back over his shoulder to look at her. His own face overcast by the same shifting light that leaves her half in and half out of the darkness makes the gouge of scar tissue across his face look more knotted and angry than it actually is.

He does want this, the quiet she's promising him. What it means in the end, he doesn't know, but for now the focus is putting one foot in front of the other.

The pain is obvious in her voice, but he doesn't feed off of it, doesn't capitalize on it the way that he had when he saw her island in her head. There's no pressing need to draw the agony of her memories out of her this time, and so for the first time since he struck Han Solo down, he allows himself to find a channel in which to empty all the rage and hatred out of him, rather than calling it to him. It doesn't work completely - he suspects it never will - but it seems willing, at least, to drain away, not replaced with light or warmth but a clear, definite void. )

My grandmother was from Naboo. ( The information comes to him unbidden, flooding his head like a memory, exploding out of his mouth like a tap has been broken and the knobs ripped off. Snow melts under their boots, and he picks carefully through the stories that he knows in order to protect the mythology that he has cultivated with such dedication over the years. ) She was a queen, then a senator. I remember my - ( He stumbles over the words as if saying them aloud for the first time. ) I remember being young when we went there. I can't remember why we did. There were beaches, and the water was surprisingly cool. ( Leia had kept him so close to her he had been unable to sit still, squirming out of her grasp and running full tilt down the shoreline. White sand had just started to scrape the unblemished skin of his knees when Han Solo caught him under the armpits and swung him up, up, high on his shoulders to be chastised but held aloft. He'd gotten a bad sunburn. It's the one memory of Solo he has that doesn't end with disappointed scorn and it easily recalls all the black, tarnished thoughts he has of the man despite his death, despite how killing him had made him feel. ) There's nothing worth finding or looking for in the past, Rey.

( Why wouldn't they come back for her if they were well and truly out there, he wonders. Why would they leave her at such a young age on a desert junkyard planet with no guarantees of return? Just a single burning memory imprinted into her brain to turn over for years and years. Her lonely isolation is so tangible he can almost taste it, and he wonders, as briefly as he can in this shared space... how the time line matches up with when he defected from the Jedi and burned the whole thing to the ground. It's fleeting, and dark, and singed at the edge with some emotion he has no name for nor time to examine at length, watching, instead, snow land and melt on her skin.

It occurs to him that the world is quiet, just the soft brush of the wind in the trees and ice pinging against frozen bark as it begins to rain. After a long, quiet moment of deliberation, he holds the bare stretch of his palm out toward her, and sees lush greenery, rolling forests dotted with lakes that reflect the stars. It's not Naboo, but Yavin 4. )

Edited 2016-01-21 20:56 (UTC)

[ What had he been ready to say? Her gaze cuts away from the trees to fix on him, studying the shadows reflecting over his strong features as if she hopes to siphon secrets from the very appearance. His mother? Father? The thought choked in his throat, never to make it past his lips, and she wondered how many more stumbles like that she would find before they were through.

Her short strides hurry to keep pace with him, lagging constantly just behind, often leaving her with the sensation that she must leap through snow drifts just to manage what he breezes gracefully past. The stuttered dance she performs in comparison is reminiscent of their first battle, shuffled steps only just keeping her off the ground, while he came at her with all the weight and ease of a freighter.

He must mean Leia’s mother; she decides it quickly as a sort of surrogate solution to her uncertainty of what followed “my.” Naboo, royalty, political leader, none of it seemed to be the kind of life that would lead Han Solo into smuggling. Maybe, though. Maybe she had a senator somewhere too. ]

There’s nothing worth fearing in the past, either. It cannot hurt you more than it has. [ Something she learned long ago in her dwelling on that day, wondering why it had happened. It didn’t hurt anymore, but it chafed. She no longer felt wracked with uncertainty, possessed by her grief, but accepting of the facts and curious about the truth. ] It—

[ His hand extends, and the snow melts into the trees ahead—not off, exactly, for there is no moisture. It’s the chaparral of Yavin IV, thick with greenery but still temperate and dry. She stutters and stops in front of him, looking at his hand like she wonders what snake will bite her from inside his sleeve, as startled as she is suspicious, but there are so many more ways to hurt her that she can’t imagine this being the true threat. Her hand clasps in his. ]

Why here?

[ She remembers finding him here. The Resistance base, the broken speeder; it is significant in her mind, but she suspects it is rather a construct of his all the same. ]

( The lines on their palms cross and intersect, weave highways and star charts out of burns and impacted dirt and dried mud. Whatever it is that is solidifying between them in this shared space, it thrums like a separate, deep heartbeat, tangible yet still abstract, physical yet incorporeal. He can't say for certain what it is that inspires him to reach out for her, only knows the deep well of satisfaction that fills within him when her added input across the bond brings Yavin IV's flora into sharp focus. Snow and ice does not immediately recede but gradually disengages, sloughing off of trees not in a way typical of snowfall but more akin to washing dirt away with water.

Before long the air is full of the scent of pine, sharp, dry needles crunching underfoot as Kylo shifts and drops her hand. There is no cloying darkness here, no heavy, dense fog that rolls through the underbrush, chokes the vegetation and blots out the sun that manages to wink through the trees. The forest around them is thick with tree trunks, resembling those on Starkiller Base inexplicably, and they stretch high enough that he would have to crane his neck all the way back just to catch a glimpse of the topmost layer of branches. Save for the wind that rustles leaves and bushes as it whispers through the foliage, the world is quiet. No whispers, no encouragement. Just their breathing permeating the atmosphere.

Kylo knows that he might have killed her on Starkiller. Or at least attempted to persuade her the way he has in previous encounters, draw her down to his level and below, build her back up in his image, in Snoke's image. Their conjoined lean toward the dark there was great enough that he could feel it manifesting, grabbing at him, pulling him back willingly with an old beckon. It isn't conducive to what he's trying to accomplish here, and while he's not sure where the knowledge or motivation came from in order to change the path they walk, he thinks he can pinpoint it to what she had said. There's nothing worth fearing in the past. He's never been afraid of the past, but he's never been interested in revisiting it until now. She said she needed to see everything. )

There's more control, here. It's quiet. I know you can feel the difference. ( He assumes that she'll know what he means by that, note the distinct lack of persuasion inherent in the landscape. High noon sunshine winks down through the treetops, piercing the grove they stand in with little pockets of light that illuminate the world only partially. ) Starkiller Base was mired in darkness. It would have dragged us both down. ( He turns and starts to walk again, crunching through dry leaves and twigs. When he glances over at her under the shadow of a heavy brow, Rey's cheeks are no longer the high red of frostbite. The words that come out of his mouth are unexpected given his dissociation from the boy he was, and they feel strange and clunky on his tongue. ) I was born here. If there was ever a time when things were quiet, it was here. Not completely silent, but quieter than it would be eventually.

( She had started to say something, before he offered her his hand, and he considers revisiting the curiosity now but decides to tuck it away for the time being. They're drowning in the past enough as it is, for two people who claim that it holds little bearing on the present and the future. )

You said you needed to see everything. ( They step over a fallen log, moss-eaten and sprouting flowers thick with thorns. His boots crunch underneath the impact of his weight on the other side. ) Define everything. What do you need to see?

[ Dark eyes search the memory-summoned scenery with the immersive interest of a newcomer, poring over every detail, not for the truth of him, but for the truth of something she has not encountered before. An adventure, a safe haven, an escape. Questions burn fresh in her mind, and she finds herself subconsciously searching for fresh or flowing water.

There are no songs in the trees, no chirps of birds. The rustle of leaves in a soft breeze welcomes them as travelers from a long journey, offering them rest and some final sense of peace. The crunch of earth joins it in chorus as they move, and she understands then. Hidden under the nature sounds, there are no whispers. No dark shadows licking at their heels.

He was ready.

Even preoccupied with the particulars of their task, he finds clarity of mind in the forests of Yavin IV, and Rey feels a strange surge of pride in witnessing it. A ghost of a smile fits her lips as she looks up at him, not fond but still pleasant. It blinks away as she replies. ]

Everything that pulled you to the darkness. [ Her calm makes a Herculean labor sound like falling off a log. Despite this, she knows how much she asks of him, and she would not ask it if she weren't prepared to consign herself to share whatever fate becomes of their efforts. The slide into the darkness is easy, just as the pull to the light is strong. Resisting either, finding a path between the two, takes strength of will, one that she believes she has seen in him. ]

The best way to break its grip on you must be to determine whatever allowed it to seize you in the first place. [ This is codified bullshit, like most things that have come out of Rey's mouth since she scrambled to find her way off Jakku with BB-8 and Finn in tow. So although she sounds committed and certain, it's not rooted in knowledge or experience—barely more than a guess, really. ] I think you're ready to begin.

( Ready or not, dedicated to the outcome on a grander scale as opposed to something more intimately personal or not, arrogant and bloated on the confidence in his own abilities or warring with the conflict within him, at his heart Kylo isn't entirely convinced that they can do this. He knows doubt leads to downfall, and that they need equal strength in their convictions to see it through, but what he knows of Force bonds - rudimentary at best - leaves the ground that they stand on shaky and their footing unsure. Something drastic needs to happen, some cataclysmic shift needs to occur. He can sense the doubt in her, the inexperience, and it twines with the deep well that taps within him and leaves him doubtful of their ability to see this through.

Fear is a common sentiment among his kind, and as such he's not surprised to find it pooling in every indentation he leaves behind him, stepping through thorny, clawing underbrush. Every step they take further toward the planet's central city, toward Ben Solo's home, brings the question into sharper and sharper focus, from the back of his mind where it lies unconscious to the forefront, where it rests a heavy, soothingly familiar hand on his brow. What if they fail? What if in attempting to surgically remove Snoke's free access to the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions and Core of Kylo's mind, they ring the bell of the bond and invite the Supreme Leader to their front door? He will know of Kylo's betrayal - the First Order notwithstanding; it's the keen betrayal of Snoke's influence and power over his apprentice that will concern him the most - and of Rey's involvement. He doesn't care about the Resistance suffering because of his actions but the havoc that he could wreak on Kylo's mind alone at the barest suggestion of defection is enough.

That fear, that doubt, is a sharp contrast to what he feels of Rey in the vision that they share: her unwavering conviction in the face of her distinct lack of knowledge; the calm center that she finds amidst the storm of his flickering perceptions and emotions. Inexplicably, pride. It isn't that he hasn't experienced it before. Snoke has cradled the back of his head and held him in higher regard than he could have ever imagined he'd experience while training under Skywalker, had been proud of him in ways that he could never have fathomed before turning his back on the path that was chosen for him. It slipped in and sung in his veins like a heady drug, just as the Dark Side had found its way in so easily, invited and welcomed. This is different. It's familiar but foreign, the echo of something long ago, and it would have perturbed and very probably even enraged him at one time - before the Corellian forest, before Yaga Minor, before Starkiller.

Her words run over him like water. Cool. Bleeding some of her calm into him, measure by measure. Kylo sees an island, an ocean, fresh flowing creeks and streams, but they don't manifest. Not yet. )

You're still trying to assign chronological value to events. ( His voice is patient, which shouldn't come as a surprise given his initial tone and cadence when they held each other's minds in their hands like pliable, malleable objects. ) It might be easier for you to visualize the history of things that way, but the reality is there was never a definite starting point. Snoke and the darkness were always there. ( Without the mask, with his face this open, he knows that he looks about twelve-years-old. There's nothing to be done to change it. ) I'm not sure where to begin.

( It alarms him, somewhat, to think that when and if they manage to find a way to not necessarily break the bond between himself and Snoke but at least bolster his defenses against it, what might take root in the connection that he and Rey have in its absence. He continues leading her, though, further and further into the heart of the moon, toward home. )

[ Lack of understanding turns to a huff and slips past her lips, blowing loose hair from her face as she marches along beside him. For Rey, it is so simple to identify the moment that shaped her, it has plagued her for so long, that it feels impossible for Kylo not to be able to fix on it. How can a life change so radically without a place to point to and say, "This. This is when"?

Dealing with people has never been her strong suit. Silence is easier. But right now, their success is dependent on her ability to steer him, and their shared ability to crack their hearts open and find the darkness where it hides. ]

Not the first moment, then. [ As she speaks, her tone seems to carry the whirring sounds of her mind working to calculate another route in. At the same time, she watches the ground beneath them, scouring it for glimpses of what might have creeped in even when he was as young as this. ] Show me why you turned away from Luke. What happened to the other Jedi?

[ In her request, she manages not to sound accusatory, though she knows the truth of what he has done already—or can conclude it. Han Solo had willingly confessed that a young Jedi destroyed everything Luke had built; it was not hard to put together, upon seeing them on the bridge, that Ben Solo was the Jedi responsible, turned into a monster and left it all behind him. But he already knows these things. She would not be the first to sling mud and call him a monster for it, and it would not serve their cause here.

Every step she takes prompts a fresh series of questions about whether she's approaching this the right way, if she should have killed him at Starkiller Base or on Corellia, but it was the darkness that whispered that to her, and she had seen what it did to him. She would not allow the same to become of her. ]

( The answer to her question hangs between them in the air, thick and heavy with the weight of expectation, of knowing better. Kylo harbors no illusions as to whether or not she knows the truth: if Solo hadn't told her the particulars of that past, then Skywalker surely had, whether in a quest to make her understand Kylo himself more or to understand Skywalker better. Or to simply give her a picture of the past and what she would be going up against in the future. He isn't sorry, either way. Maybe it's willful ignorance, a distinct stubbornness to look beyond the present veil to the vast unknown beyond once they breach it, but he can't conceptualize the remorse that the Resistance might deem necessary or expect. Not here, not with the weight of what she's pushing him toward pooling in his hands like muddy water. )

I killed them all. ( His voice is plain, and he halts abruptly, boots cracking down on a particularly loud collection of twigs and branches, dead leaves and thorns torn from bushes and wildflower brambles, and looks at her. There's no malice in his voice when he goes on, leaving room for a plethora of possibilities in defining what roots itself there. ) I thought I had. ( A pause heavy with a thousand unsaid things, and then Kylo turns his head as if being beckoned toward the sound of someone calling his name. He stares for a long moment into the break in the trees and steps forward again without directing her. ) This way.

( Yavin peeks through the trees in the forest like a scar, looming on the western side of the moon with the claustrophobic promise of impact. He remembers staring at the gas giant from his window when he was Ben and wondering if the two would ever collide, if Yavin would ever kiss the treetops before knocking its moon out of orbit, crack the surface in half and cover it in darkness before propelling itself throughout the galaxy on a quest to the end of all things. Now Yavin winks at them with light from the system's star before dropping out of existence behind cloud cover, dark and heavy with the threat of rain, of lightning, the shuffle of their meditative state honing in on the next piece of the verifiable puzzle.

If the darkness that had encroached upon them when they stood in the snowy manifestation of Starkiller Base had been anything to go by, what waits for them on the steps of Skywalker's rag and bones academy will be consuming in a way that he has not felt, quite possibly, since he was barely out of childhood; in a way that Rey may not have felt in her entire life, certainly not on Starkiller Base or in any of her training with her master, never mind her time spent in the camps of the Resistance. The memory of that day exists like a black spot in the tapestry of events that have shaped him, stitched with exquisite and loving detail, and it becomes a reality as soon as they step out of the treeline.

It's Yavin IV and it isn't, some nameless place in a collection of images weaved together to create something both of memory and of manipulation. It wasn't raining the day that he struck them all down, but the promise of precipitation was there and is now. The sky hangs and hung low with fat, gray clouds, the sound of thunder very distant and soft but present on the horizon. The grounds are tensely silent, a crackling electricity that has nothing to do with the approaching accumulation of a storm and everything to do with the static shock of burning ozone that so typically follows a lightsaber battle. It's still clinging to their clothing hours after their skirmish on Corellia, threaded under their skin as a permanent perfume. It's met with a copper tang and smell not unlike scorched iron as he leads her toward a building not unlike the Rebel base - now a relic - that marks Yavin IV's landscape. Kylo's skin tingles underneath his clothing, an itching in his fingers. He feels the darkness here, too, as keenly as he had that day. )

Your family sent you away for a reason. ( The possibility that he may have had something to do with it, his actions here, given her sensitivity and what someone may have recognized that she'd become, does not escape him even now. ) They thought that you'd be better off alone than with them. Maybe they thought that they were protecting you from something or sparing you some harsh fate by sending you away and marooning you on Jakku. ( He's looking at her with all the intensity that he had bestowed upon her on Starkiller Base. No one else has seen this day. Even Snoke has only seen images, the act itself proof enough of Kylo's unwavering loyalty and dedication. What he offers now is just a scratch on the surface, but it's a scratch all the same. ) Han Solo and Leia Organa sent their son away, too. They abandoned him. They marooned him in a place when they realized what was happening to him and who he was going to become. Solo - ( He fumbles, regains his balance. ) - was weak from the beginning. Organa couldn't find the strength necessary to do what needed to be done to protect her son, so she sent him to Skywalker. The one person she thought could change the course of things.

( Rey and Kylo are in the building. Hallways span off in different directions, some leading down and some leading up. Three bodies are crumbled on the floor. There are no lightsabers anywhere. The bite of blood and burnt metal is thick in their mouths. )

They all failed.

[ No apology threads through his lips, and it solidifies a truth that she had already accepted with great reluctance, leaving Rey to squeeze her eyes closed in an effort to shut out the gruesome scene. It didn't help. The silence penetrated her, louder than drums, and when he beckoned her, his whisper seemed to drown out an unholy din.

Eyes open, she trailed him through the trees, firm in her steps but ill at ease with what came into view. Thick smoke, heated air, and the familiar stench of plasma greeted them as they entered the defunct building, and Kylo Ren seemed to stretch and grow before her like his shadow was rising up to join him and merge in some terrifying chimera.

She chokes her dread. ]

They were protecting me from you. [ It has been a long time since she has properly sneered his name, a long time since Han Solo's body was still warm and wracking her with fresh, first-time grief. But she does it now, now when he takes responsibility for so much of her suffering.

She paces through the hallway, staring around at the lifeless bodies of those who were once tasked with the same duty she carries on her shoulders now. To keep the balance of the Force. Crouching beside one of them, Rey rests a hand on a back. It should still be warm. It looks recent. But her fingertips touch and it's stiff and cold as ice, so cold that she flinches away and closes her hand into a fist.

Rage simmers. The kind that Luke tried to prepare her for, gnawing at the back of her mind as she screws her jaw shut to try and tamp it down. Everything he robbed Leia and Han of, he'd also stolen from her. A chance at a family, at peace. She doesn't notice the tears burn at the corners of her eyes because she's focusing on the biting pain of her nails digging into her palms, reining herself in. She knew she would not have the peace Kylo Ren does with what she would find here, but conceptualizing it and facing it are two different beasts, and she feels aflame with indignation.

Turning to glower up at him, she stops holding it in, comes unhinged. ] They didn't abandon you! They were trying to save you from this monster you would make of yourself. [ Pushing to her feet, she advances on him and grabs him by the arm to force him to face her only to push him back then. Theories as abstract and intangible as air slip through her fingers into the atmosphere about her own history, but she knows his. ] Even after you'd done it, after you'd ruined everything, they didn't give up on you. [ Spitting, she finally rules, ] You failed yourself.

Luke didn't leave to hide from you, all those years ago. He went to find a way to bring you back. You would blind yourself to everything they have done for you to fuel your hatred when you already know who's really to blame for what happened here.

( This is familiar ground. Wave after wave of hot rage rolls off of her, chokes the room like a heat wave, barely contained and ripping through and from her with ferocity, and her eyes fill and threaten to spill as she grabs him. Muscle memory jumps to attention at her touch, reaching out to encircle the band of her arm with fingers tight as a bracelet, an aggressive parody of a handshake, but before he can utilize any of his superior physical strength against her, Rey is shoving him back, disgust and abhorrence fresh on her tongue, in her posture. He lets her go easily, unsure of what might happen should they come to trading blows in this shared space, and the heels of his boots squeak against the tiled floor, smearing blood.

He surges forward, bound maybe from advancing on her with any amount of violence or aggression that he might normally employ but hardly stopped from filling this space with himself, dominating the small chamber by bearing down on her. The darkness in him is all his own, no manifestation of past atrocities, no subtle influence from the outside. Ben Solo was dark before Kylo Ren emerged from him, after all. )

What did you think you were going to see? ( One step in her direction closes the distance between them, and Kylo gets up into her personal space in a way that is the same yet different from all previous iterations. There are no barriers here, physically or otherwise, no hiding or recoiling without advance. He's more than a head taller than her, has to stoop to bring himself within adequate eye contact, but he does it, showing teeth when he talks. ) What were you expecting to find? ( Kylo takes a step and attempts to crowd her back away from the center of the room, hands curled into tight fists at his sides. Were this reality, the skin of his hands would have split by now. ) I have no illusions about the things that I've done that have brought me here. I know who's to blame for what happened, just as much as I know that no matter what happens now or in the future, or what you think, there's no happy ending waiting in the arms of the people you believe were doing what they thought was right when they traded one voice for another. Because that's the reality of it. That's what they did. And this - this is what I did.

( He steps back, breath quickly coming and going, all the signs of a trademark conniption brewing but bottling right at the surface. The center of the room is five paces away and he takes them, fingers clenching and unclenching, white-knuckled and then awash with the rush of blood underneath his skin. His hands are shaking with something that's barely contained, balancing on the hairline fracture of two sides pulling within him. He feels like screaming, like he's going to vibrate out of the armor of his skeleton and shake apart the entire illusion brick by metaphorical brick, like he's going to sink down into dark water and kick until his lungs burn, alone underneath the bleak chop of the current where they left him, the current that he believed Snoke pulled him from. )

I was ten when she sent me to him. When she couldn't - when it became clear to her that she was powerless to stop what was happening. Luke was overconfident. ( It's the first time that name has come out of his mouth in over a decade. ) Snoke got louder. The Dark Side got louder. ( The dark water churns, fills him to the fingertips, threatening to spill from ears and mouth and nose and eyes. Kylo gets the sensation that if he opens his mouth again, murky water will rush out of him and drown them. It swells in the back of his throat, raising like a stone and settling hard behind his Adam's apple. His head fills with the weight of it, lashing out through the Force like a tidal wave, and it only occurs to him moments after he swallows and finds his throat too full of black salt water to actually do so that what he's feeling isn't anger or hatred or disgust. It's despair. ) It's too late. How can you say it isn't?

( What a mess. )

[ Every effort to center herself comes back to one place, to the black pit of loneliness that she can attribute to him. Years spent mourning when she couldn't properly mourn because no one was dead, spent clutching naive faith that her well-meaning parents would return, spent scavenging. The pure hatred that fuels her rage stems first from grief and loss, never properly confronted, and she tries to sift through the coals to accept and refine her fury to that fine point, a distant ache.

But he looms over her, every bit the part of the haunting specter—a towering, imposing darkness that reinforces every hateful thing she can think of him in this moment.

She hates him. More than anyone else, she has reason to because of what he has stripped her of. All at once, she lets it flood in, angry tears streaming freely down her face in a show of sorrow and frustration. Imagines what would happen if she were to leave him dead on this floor with the bodies of those he'd laid to waste when he destroyed everyone who had tried to help him. In childish outburst, she scowls at him, opting to start in the simplest point of her outrage. ] Don't you dare walk away from me! Away from them!

[ Voices seem to echo in the halls of the one-time temple around them, through the hallowed ground of Luke's unrealized Order, as she stalks towards him. Soft voices, kind and wise, caution her to guard her heart and her thoughts, to separate herself from them rather than allow them to rule them, but dark whispers beg that she give into them.

The unsteadiness of Kylo Ren's voice gives her the impression hears them too, that Snoke and Luke are getting louder in tandem as he relives the panic and confusion of his betrayal.

Black and white. No matter which side she looks to, they all seem so desperate to see the Force in black and white, a dark and a light. Luke and Snoke in direct opposition, stewarding their apprentices to the same while they both suffered the pull of the other, could not reconcile it with what they were learning. Hands in every direction waited to steer them, whisper in their ears, and believe they had the wisdom that the next generation sought.

Instead of relenting to the light, letting Obi Wan's cool calm wash over her, she holds onto that passion, all the anger she feels over what Kylo Ren stole from her, but she holds it apart from herself, using it for fuel, but not allowing it to burn her down with it. ]

You're a coward! You want it to be too late because then you can give up! [ Shouting still, she advances. Instead of turning him towards her this time, she steps around to push herself in his way, an impediment that won't be ignored. ] You won't have to try.

It's easier to shut out the light than it is the darkness because Snoke has helped you believe that you'll never reach it. But you'll never reach the darkness either, not entirely. You'll never feel like you belong in it.

( There is nowhere for him to go, nowhere for him to stalk off to, to retreat and center himself the way that she tries so hard to do in her own right. He can't pull the paneling off the walls with a sharp motion of his palm or activate the ignition on his non-existent lightsaber and tear angry red scars into the floor and ceiling. He can't cross the distance that his strides have carried him, the distance that Rey seeks to make up now by stalking forward herself, by reaching for her through the Force and halting her with pressure flat against her windpipe. The indignation and hurt and anger at himself for such a pathetic display of weakness and inability has nowhere to go, no channel to travel to stop it from backing up and reaching critical mass.

He should be beyond this. He should be above this. That was the rule. That was the idea. That was the test that he had been tasked with. Rey had stumbled into Han Solo's path and she had brought him to Kylo Ren and he had killed him. He killed his father. That was supposed to be the beginning and the end of it, the final task in a transformation that he had leaned into and leaned into and convinced himself was innately his nature, his birthright, his duty, the natural course and blessing of the power that he had, all his power. He was special. He was different. Over and over, in whispers and conversations and shouting matches since before he could remember. Now, more than anything Kylo can remember the bite of the durasteel as his knees hit the weaving of the bridge's floor, the white hot pain that erupted in his chest like a nuclear blast and licked throughout his core until the distraction of a second detonation in his flank actually brought him down to his knees.

Rey surges in front of him like a wall of rock, impenetrable and immovable, a steadfast structure that makes up in persistence what it lacks in overall physical size. Her voice is loud in the antechamber and in the echoing dome of his own mind, and she seethes in a way that he perceives as natural, a dam let down within her, supreme power and potential and this is what he has been trying to make her realize and accept since the beginning, this ability within herself that she could siphon into a deadly storm of perfect power and rage. He should lean into that, stoke it, build it, bring her out of this with him and harness that power. Make her gaze into the abyss and see how difficult it is to truly feel torn between plunging into the darkness while being ripped backward by the light. Because there is no place left in their respective worlds to straddle the line, as Skywalker and Snoke would have them believe. Up close, however, he sees the damp on her face and the tracks salt makes before she has a chance to smear it away. It rips him open, and he can't be sure if it's a manifestation of her feelings the way her rage fills the air like toxic humidity or his own answering anguish that beats through him on a level he hates but can't shake. Or something else entirely.

He can't walk away from her, so he doesn't, lets her get up in his personal space and scream in his face. Every word that spills out of her mouth lands somewhere within him and rips a hole in its endeavor to find a foothold. She calls him a coward, and he knows without having to combat the point and draw the argument out any further that despite all the ways in which she's wrong about that, Rey is right in a way, too. Because it's true, Kylo takes offense. She examines him with a critical lens, the fibers of what has sewn him together visible to her on a molecular level, the way that she was able to look into him and see the fear in him laid plainly, like the freckles and moles that map constellations in his complexion, the same way in which he was able to peer into her and extract her loneliness like drawing blood from her veins. )

I'm not a coward.

( He grabs her arms in retaliation, fingers locked around biceps, palms scratching the fabric of her sleeves into her skin. It's petulant, small, and his fingers flex on her as if to drive the part home in the only way that he knows how: through violence and intimidation. It's making a point for the sake of making a point, but even as he does it, he realizes there's no point to be made and that he's going to lose this fight. She's right, that's why they're here in the first place, even if her perspective is distorted and manipulated. His fingers are white where he grips her so he lets go, steps back and turns his face from her with burning eyes. )

You expect me to just walk away from all of it. Like it's that simple.

( It all boils down to one distinct truth: )

I can't.

( Something in the back of his throat comes apart like a clumsy mechanical failure. He feels like he's choking on his own tongue. His legs come out from underneath him, and he sits down heavily on the floor, knees raised and bent at the apex to allow his head to hang between them, the broad line of his shoulders a rising tide of jagged breathing. The bodies vanish but the blood remains. )

Edited 2016-01-25 22:56 (UTC)

[ He crumbles in the way great monuments do, unraveling from the top down until he's nothing but a pile of rubble at her feet, but Rey does not feel better for having toppled him. A biting cold stings her skin where his hands had tightened around her arms. This will always be the way of them, a tide ebbing and flowing—or maybe it's just Kylo Ren's natural current, and she's the one getting swept in how he swells and retreats after he crashes against her shore.

It was no easier for the hidden reminder, for blood still smeared the tile below them, and hatred still ached to be heard. But hurting him will not end the cycle of pain that denied her a family: it will only perpetuate it, and Kylo Ren's death will not give her another chance at a childhood any more than it will resurrect Han Solo.

The bloodlust clawing up her throat, contorting in her chest, wilts into placid acceptance. Her fist opens, and Rey rests her palm on his shoulder. Even in ruins, Kylo Ren is massive, and she finds no physical difficulty in her pacifying efforts; the struggle is all within her. ]

I never claimed it would be simple, just as it would never be simple for you to leave the light behind.

[ She lowers herself slowly, and in her crouch, she is again dwarfed beside him. Though she doubts her voice is the only one he hears now, or perhaps because of it, she urges him with patience drawn from a wellspring that she believed had run dry. ]

You can feel it, can't you?

( That's the difference between them, Kylo thinks, as he feels her anger recede, washing away in the wake of her calm center, as she wills it to come to heel. An eye in the storm. She has control in so many ways in which he never has. She feels that overwhelming surge of black power in her but doesn't let it consume her. Whether it will always be that way or not, he can't say for certain, wouldn't hazard a guess on the floor of this dark projection, but the way that it lifts now is telling in itself. He's strong, threatens to burst at the seams with power and ability, yet at her very core Rey is stronger. Where it comes from, whether it's part of her ancestry or some manifestation of the Force that he can have no knowledge of, if it's just her nature, Kylo can't say for certain.

He probably would have killed her. But then again maybe not.

Her hand descends on his shoulder and he doesn't flinch. It's incorporeal but still real, the weight and warmth of it drawing his head slightly from where it hangs so that he can re-memorize the pattern in the tiling. Blood has dried between cracked ceramic, creating new lines in the floor that blur. His face is hot all the way down to his neck, and for as angry and ashamed as he is, every ounce of control and willpower that he has left in him goes to making sure that he doesn't make himself look any weaker in front of her than he already has. Sitting on the floor at her feet, Kylo doubts there's much lower he could sink, and then proves that notion wrong when she relieves the pressure she places on his shoulder to squat down next to him.

Her voice is one of many in the echo of the fledgling Academy and the only one that he can pick out distinctly from the swirling mass of suggestion and support and reinforcement and coaxing. It has everything to do with proximity, he thinks, right there in his ear and the loudest and most resolute in its sheer existence than the rest of them. )

It's agony. ( Kylo doesn't open his mouth until he's completely positive that he's gotten some measure of control over what's going to come out of it, how it's going to sound. His voice is raw but it's solid. When he looks up, his eyes are red-lined and the wall opposite him wavers. He swallows again, thick, and collects himself enough to glance at her. It's a superficial and wasted action; Kylo knows she can feel all of it. ) Cast one away in exchange for the other. It's all the same. The pull is always there. ( Her face is still damp. He can see the overhead light catching the tears on her cheeks. His hands curl against his kneecaps. ) You feel it every time we meet - doesn't matter if it ends in a fight or not, you feel that pull, don't you? But you don't let it take root.

( There's a whisper at his ear, and for a moment he turns his head vaguely in its direction, glancing down an infinite hallway. It's a fleeting grab at his attention, doesn't last long enough to detract him from her, crouched beside him. )

Everything I've done - ( His molars grind. ) - it should have solidified allegiance to one side of things the way that I've always been told it would. Good and evil, the dark side and the light, they're always absolutes. No room for middle ground. But - ( He inhales - acute pain surges, sharp and bitter, rests where and how it always does - and exhales. ) Snoke knows when I feel that pull away from where he's taken me in his tutelage. He can feel it as much as you can when you're overwhelmed and thinking that maybe you should kill me. ( His tone holds no promises or affirmations. It and his presence in the Resistance camp, his willingness to see this done despite the outcome or the risk, has always guaranteed that much. ) I don't have to show you what pulled me to the darkness. You already know what it was. Now show me how to break it.

( It will never go away, not completely, but maybe there is an alternative to the absolutism of it all. Down the long hallway, the whispers swirl. )

[ In the steady grip of his voice, she hears the misery yet trickle in like it's filtering over smooth rocks and crashing around within him. Although it may not manifest in desperation to avoid the dark, it is desperation all the same—a thirst to reconcile these conflicting halves of himself and quell their constant battle.

That much, at least, she can sympathize with, and it helps her stay soft in a place where all she wants is to be hard and unforgiving. She feels, and the crack of her voice sounds, genuinely regretful in her disappointing reply. ] I can only show you the way.

[ Close enough now, she searches his face, taking in the pulse of muscle in his cheek as his jaw grinds, the twitch of his mouth as he tries to gnaw through the gristle of his conflict as if he could find a solution by pushing it around. ]

Your darkness isn't mine to banish, but I believe you know what is to come. There is no light or dark, not without the other. You can only have peace once you've accepted both.

[ No one hovered around her through her childhood to flinch at every tantrum and tearful night, dreading it would be the tipping point for the battle waging within, just as no one took her by the hand to guide her into the light. She had to hold the light within herself while searching for clarity in her rage, which was otherwise lacked utility in the wastelands of Jakku. ]

But I don't need to help you embrace the darkness: you've already done that. [ Snoke had seen fit to cultivate in Kylo Ren the understanding that his darkness was as natural to him as breathing, a component of his fully realized self, inextricable from the identity he forged for himself in manhood. ] You need to come to grips with the light that you've tried so hard for so long to snuff out.

You began to run from it so long ago. Can you remember?

( Kylo knows that what she says, just as when she'd called him out for being afraid, for being a coward, is a truth that he's long been reconciled with, despite his exhaustive efforts to deny it. He's just shoved it down so far underneath the responsibility that both the Jedi and Snoke had tasked him with that the idea of a middle ground easily became as ludicrous as any lingering notions he'd had about his past life as a Solo had been. Snoke had extinguished all of them with the same ease with which he had Kylo believing that there was only one path, one way. Even under Skywalker's leadership, he was never allowed to recognize balance as Rey presents it to him now, despite the sermons they all endured on the subject.

He's known it every time he peered into the warped, half-melted helmet that had belonged to his grandfather, every time he called out to Darth Vader in an attempt to ground himself in that life Kylo had so strove to emulate, only to find silence as his answer. The silence wasn't the distinct lack of an answer, but an answer in itself; he'd just been too unwilling to admit it. )

What you're saying - it sounds more like the definition of balance as I understood it at one point, rather than everything I've ever heard about it from anyone else. ( The far corner of his mouth tries to hitch itself up into the closest approximation of something resembling a trial run at a lopsided grin, not unlike that of a certain smuggler's, but the muscles have atrophied, and Kylo looks like he's frowning, more than anything. Dark eyes, still bloodshot with unshed tears and the heavy exertion of this particular mental jungle gym, come to rest on her face as she continues to invade his personal space. She's closer than he realized; he can see the star map of freckles dotting her nose. ) You've brought me this far.

( It's a statement that speaks legends in its simplicity. Layered underneath the syllables and hesitating consonants that scratch their way out of the back of his throat and somehow cross the barrier of tongue and teeth to manifest between them, the truth in that confession hangs like a specter, makes him feel small in the wake of her dedication to seeing this through. He hasn't felt small in over fifteen years, definitely has never let anyone see him sprawled on the floor, but then he's never come against an equal, a mirror, and looked long into it in this way. )

I'm afraid - ( There's an awkward lilt to his voice, an almost sing-song quality that seems somehow forcefully nonchalant on such a deep baritone. Kylo feels it reverberate all the way down into his solar plexus. ) - that I pushed it down too far. The light. The constant back and forth between the two has always been there. One was never stronger than the other, just more persuasive, easier. More accessible. Divorcing yourself of all emotion is so much harder than giving into it. ( Thumb and forefinger of his right hand encircle the wrist of his left, twisting. ) I don't know what the defining point was. When they sent me to train with my uncle, it became easier and easier to stop trying to hear what I was supposed to be listening to and just listen to what sounded better instead.

( He was stronger, he was better, he was more powerful than all of them. He didn't need to be held back by his uncle's foolish perceptions of what made a good Jedi. The Jedi weren't even that good. The Jedi were ignorant and weak and they had all died out for a reason. They deserved to be dead. They squandered their power. They wanted to put limitations on his potential. Why would they do that? Who would want to hold him back? Why, when he was capable, when he was special? Ben could be so much more than the rest of them. He could command them. He could rule them. He could rule the whole galaxy with his power. He could send them away, rather than get sent away.

They manifest now. He can hear them, drawing his attention down the long hallway to their left. Kylo looks again that way and braces a palm against the tile, intent on rising. )

Do you hear that?

[ Though her instinct is to hide behind whatever she can to lessen the accountability of her role in his journey, his face is raw and open, and she cannot slip away from the weight of his acknowledgment. In answer, her gaze drops, but it only makes her aware of the small space between them, fixes her attention on the matching cadence of the movements against his wrist and the intonation of his voice.

Her hand reaches out as he finishes to cover his, but his palm moves to the floor just as quickly and she shrinks back, catching herself mid-motion and curling her hand into a fist. Turning her head, she searches the hallways, trying to sift through the silence for cries, but to no avail. The hollow silence presses down on her eardrums, crushing in its emptiness.

A tremulous shake of her head answers him. This time, when she reaches for his hand, she seizes it in a clasp that readies her to pull him onto his feet. ]

Lead the way. [ She hefts the burden of his heart off her shoulders only then, and they loosen as she pulls him to stand, allowing her to stare up at him with fresh eyes. The difference it makes reveals that she had been carrying him on her back since long before they collapsed to that dirt in Corellia. ] Listen to your fear, but don't let it command you. It gives voice to the Dark Side.

[ She will not tell him to shut it out, for she has never shut it out. Only tempered it, turning it to steel for her to wield and wear in her fight against the darkness, against the First Order. ]

What do you hear?

( The tense, long column of his back twists as he strains to peer down the adjacent hallway, unsure of whether or not it is a detour they should take or something they should investigate from a cursory distance. If their disagreement here, in the entryway, is any indication, then Kylo assumes they would do well to stay away from the revelations that await them deeper within the structure. But Rey is shaking her head in his peripheral, and then she is clasping his wrist in her hand, and then she is wrapping her fingers over his and pulling him to stand. Everything happens in such a sequential order that when he finds himself no longer sitting but tugged to full height, it seems the natural course of things to meet her eyes and see what has shifted there.

She looks at him with something renewed, though he's hard-pressed to identify it. The dampness on her cheeks has dried enough in the cool air that he can no longer make out the shine of the overhead light as it cuts across the swell of a cheekbone, and she seems lighter, reinvigorated, and something in him - small and quiet but there - feels lighter in response, dispels some of the gathering tension that has coagulated behind his breastbone and made it so difficult to breathe. Maybe it's the active bond between them, more to do with their shared space inside of each other's minds than anything else, but then again maybe it's just something innate. Either way, it encourages movement, urges him to continue moving forward, though not before dropping his hand to her shoulder, thumb tripping over the bone before withdrawing as he steps away.

Rey's voice chases him as he approaches the new hallway, which spirals downward about five feet in. In response to her instruction, Kylo snorts. Of the two of them, he has the impression that he's the one vastly more learned in sinking to the Dark Side than she is, but that's beside the point, and he doesn't want to waste valuable silence essential to hearing by quipping at her. The hallway, moving ever downward, is cloaked in darkness, a blue-white glow emanating from close to the floor, running the length of the wall as they descend. )

It's unformed. I can't tell what it's saying. ( He finally answers, straining to hear. Not for the first time since they began, he gets the impression that they are not alone. The whispering intensifies, pressing down and growing louder until the hallway is filled with whispers that have no immediate source or translation. His eyes begin to burn and it's only when they begin to water, forcing him to blink heavily and dig the palm of his heel into his right socket, that he realizes it's because he's kept them open throughout the entire trip down and down and down into whatever abyss waits for them at the bottom of the Academy. ) It sounds like -

( Ilum. The hallway gives way to absolute darkness save for the high beam of cold, white light reaching down to pierce the cave's constant night with a hazy glow. Their breath pools in clouds in front of their faces. Colder than Starkiller. Colder than Hoth. Colder than space. There is light here, and just as much darkness to match it. A sacred place now corrupted, he has been here only a handful of times in the real world in order to stand in front of Snoke, to run the gamut of his master's training, to endure hours of agonizing punishment not made tangible enough by a holographic projection. The first time he came to Ilum, he was only sixteen - already a murder, a Jedi killer - and he stood on ground cracked by ice and received praise for what he had done. If he ever felt the darkness more keenly than on that day, he can't remember it, but it isn't what he had been expecting to find at the bottom of the hallway when he led them down it.

A voice calls out in the darkness, eerily close. The whispers have gone. )

I see you.

( It isn't some long ago voice of one of his classmates, not Skywalker's voice bounding after him down the hall. That voice is a collection of ash made dense enough to form shapes. It is a hollow rattle at the back of a throat, the scrape of a cough in deteriorating lungs. It is the scratch of nails on the front door, a slab of stone pulling back to reveal the darkness of the cavern underneath. It is the tide and the crash of waves on the shoreline, terrifying and calming all at once. It carries the promise of cradling comfort, shelter, guidance, while threatening death, desolation, despair should it be disobeyed. Snoke has found them, and he is speaking to Rey. )

[ Crisp, frozen air greets them, and though it settles across her skin like a thin layer of frost, it burns when it fills her lungs, needling her throat even as she exhales. Starkiller Base was a warm bath next to this. For all the unforgiving wilderness that spread across Jakku, the piercing winter of Ilum was worse, ready to submerge her in the dreary stagnation of sleep and suck her down beneath the ice where she could wait an eternity undisturbed.

Even the light seemed frozen as it filtered down onto the lifeless landscape.

Huddling up, Rey wrapped her arms around herself to stave off the onslaught, hunching her shoulders to try to protect her ears and stepping in to follow closer at Kylo Ren's flank as if she could use him to block the chill before they were entirely surrounded by it. A few quick glances absorbed the new landscape, but her investigation was cut short by a distant rasp that reached out like a gnarled, bony hand for her.

Every hair on her body stood at its end, fear an ice bath even compared to this bitter frost. Wide eyes watered, chapped and pale lips parting as awareness crept up her spine. She had never before heard Snoke's voice, not with her own ears, but she had discerned impressions of him through Kylo Ren's mind and memories, a shadow of a shadow, yet still a colossus in his power. There was no doubt that he was the one to call out to them now.

He's found us. Panic reared its ugly head, and alongside it, survival instinct urged her to cut and run, to forget Kylo Ren, Luke, Leia, all of them in a pragmatic bid for self-preservation and escape Ren's mind; it would not be long now before his fleet searched out their physical bodies as well now that the link was made. But her feet don't budge beneath her.

In all likelihood, it would be easy to rend herself from Kylo Ren's mind, to return to her body, but Snoke had a stranglehold on Han Solo's only son, one that he could as easily manipulate to crush Ren's throat as he has nudged him along. She could not abandon Ren to fight his way out of that fate alone, not when she had been the one so insistent to rouse him to this fight to begin with.

There is no lightsaber to call to her hand, no blaster to raise, no weapon to find in the great span of his mind with which she can fend off the Supreme Leader. Still, she takes that moment to step out from Kylo's shadow and move in front of him, stance wide and chin high, the very picture of the Jedi as the guardian. ]

You aren't welcome here anymore! [ She shouts, though her voice seems to be caught and muffled by the thin, echoing air of the empty wasteland of Ilum, as useful as shouting into the void of space. Looking over her shoulder at Kylo, she seems to think twice of being the one to make the declaration, searching him for affirmation as she asks point blank, ] I trust you've had enough of voices in your head, on either side.

( In the real world, Kylo jerks.

Sharp hands dig equally sharp nails into his rib cage, slip between the bones and curl around the bottom to find strongholds in the gaps and pull. It isn't enough to yank him from this mental construct of Ilum, but the strength and violence behind the actual, physical act of this manner of retribution leans him forward under the weight of it, disrupts the steady inhale-exhale pattern of his breathing with a hitch that sounds similar to choking. A steady hand travels up, up, through his lungs to his trachea, applies pressure, just enough to turn the rhythm of his breath to a wheeze, thin and reedy, then nothing at all before it falls away.

He almost slips, almost loses focus enough to emerge from the mind walk like breaking the surface of water after being held under for far too long. Snoke's presence encourages him to wake, promises forgiveness in its existence at all if he just turns his back on this endeavor and escapes. He knows there is no escape. Standing in the dark on Ilum, seated in the uncomfortable chair within the Resistance camp, there is no freedom to be found on either side. The only path that might lead to some semblance of the idea, the word, is the one that they walk right down the middle.

Soft, spoken words return on Ilum, creeping through the cave like heavy fog, forming black words under the guise of a soft touch. )

Bring the girl to me, and all will be forgiven, Kylo Ren. ( Snoke says it to him, only to him, but in this shared space there is no only, and the delicate boom of the Supreme Leader's voice makes rock face tremble and ice crack. The power that his presence holds here, even without physical or projected form, makes Kylo believe, understand, that it's real. Another failure, another weakness, another mark against him. He should drop to his knees and beg for mercy, but he stays standing, ice cracking underneath the weight of him in his own right. ) Return from this moment of weakness, and you will be exulted, not punished.

( Rey steps in front of him, a quick sideways maneuver that he doesn't see coming. He half-expects her to pull out, to leave him stranded in this darkness to warn the others of what's coming, their failure as he slips back underneath the dark waves of the Force as he always has. She is defenseless in the void, the comma of her frame just a figure in the darkness, the barest suggestion of a presence suspended here as his has become, but she steps forward all the same, and it strikes him then that it would be strange to consider her doing anything else. Foolish, suicidal, but brave. A scavenger. She yells into the face of this unknown being and her voice is swallowed by the vacuum of space, by the emptiness of the cave, desperate to consume life so that it may persist. Something shifts very distinctly in the air, the rearrangement of atoms, a new distribution of gravity. Before Kylo can answer her, Snoke begins to laugh. )

I see you, girl. ( He isn't here but he is. He doesn't appear but he does. He is nowhere and everywhere, peering through time and space to look into every part of her with a sharp, distinct lens. Klyo feels the burning focus of his master's intense anger, the cold sting of his perception of Kylo's betrayal. No matter what line he had stood on in the command shuttle, as a prisoner of the Resistance, every step through this landscape has been one further and further from the Supreme Leader's reach, and that, in itself, is inadmissible. Kylo sees that for what it is: he does not stand with his master, and he does not stand with the Resistance; he barely stands next Rey, but he does stand on his own. ) I see the darkness within you. Untouched, untapped, don't hold it at bay, afraid. Use it.

( The intent in his instruction is clear, though hard to facilitate even for someone of Snoke's scope and reach of power. There are no sabers here, no blasters, no weapons to raise against one another. They could unravel one another's minds or tap into arcane abilities to destroy one another. If the cloying darkness Snoke aims to inspire in Rey takes root, she could turn to take Kylo's place at Snoke's side like the Supreme Leader aims for. Anger blooms in him, bursts through his blood vessels, finds a path out through the curl of his hands, freezing cold and stiff and white in Ilum's frostbitten air. It isn't a new feeling, but the source of it is suddenly new. )

Enough. ( The voice that cuts the tangible silence of the cave is his own, loud and dark and twisted with anger underneath the calm rumble of Snoke's, verging on hoarse as it strains against his master. They can't win, can't beat him like this. It's a thought that presents itself completely and unquestionably, as much as the knowledge that killing Snoke is going to be the end goal, as much as what he and Rey had seen together on Yaga Minor. The ambition of all Sith is to defeat other Sith, and while Kylo Ren might not be Sith, the hierarchy of their existence as Knights underneath the Supreme Leader models the hierarchy that his grandfather subscribed to. And Vader threw Sidious down a maintenance shaft. He grabs Rey's arm by the elbow and pulls himself in front of her roughly. ) Your power spans the entire galaxy, Supreme Leader, but it does not reach this far.

[ The deep hiss of Snoke’s voice rattles through the landscape, threatening to throw Rey off balance, but she shifts the distribution of her weight as it teeters beneath her, keeping her footing on uneven ground as a crack runs through the ice beneath them. It turns to laughter, a wheezing rattle that even in its superficial frailty mocks her and makes her feel infinitely small beside the power of the Supreme Leader.

The tremble echoes into the physical world, the camp, Leia, Luke, and all of it too ignorant to see what’s coming for them. Defenseless. The inevitable second prong of Snoke’s attack creates an impossible gambit; one of them will be without Rey’s protection, either Kylo Ren, or the entirety of the Resistance, and she must choose which can better handle the onslaught to juggle against which would ultimately be more valuable in the war to come.

Even as she accepts that she must stay and see through what she committed to, accepts that she must entrust Leia and Luke with the defense of the Resistance and believe that they can raise their banners quickly enough to make a stand against whatever back-up finds its way to Corellia, Rey feels guilt sink deep into her bones for what she knows could deliver a devastating blow to the small remaining hope for the galaxy.

Her preemptive grief opens the door to darkness, not her hate, but she clamps down on it the moment she hears the patronizing hiss coaxing her to give in and allow it to rule her. But Snoke’s offer is even less tempting than Kylo Ren’s, lacking the appeal to her ignorance and inexperience, the lure of untapped knowledge. Snoke has nothing that she wants. ]

I don’t need it. [ She growls the words against the whisper, whipping around as if blown about by the shifting landscape to search out some manifestation of his presence to no avail. He is nowhere and everywhere, an all-present shadow looming over Ilum and enveloping them in its inky black.

The surrounding wasteland only stops spinning when Kylo Ren’s hand settles on her arm, an anchor that he uses to pull her into position behind him, as if in a petty battle of who has greater need to be defended. Looking up at him, confusion furrows her brow, and instead of indignation over the way he impedes Snoke’s path to her, Rey finds herself too startled by the surreal chain of events that is Kylo Ren bodily defending her at all.

It takes her a moment to shake the shock of it off, a brief cut of her head from one side to the other metaphysically extricating her from such a state. ]

You’re the one with the power here. Not him. [ Not that he apparently needs the reminder, a fact for which Rey finds herself both stunned and grateful. ] Get rid of him.

( Deep down, he knows that it won't be that easy, and he has the distinct impression that Rey knows as well. Kylo stares into the abyss, the point where he feels Snoke's presence converging with the most strength. It is like glaring into a black hole, being pulled endlessly toward it and then through it, stretching and stretching into infinity with the darkness spiraling down and down and down. He imagines it as the gaping maw of Snoke's holographic representations on Starkiller, the wide slash of his mouth drawing breath to devour them both. His body, physically and otherwise, presents no barrier by which he might shield any of them, including himself, and is if to demonstrate this failing characteristic of Kylo's power, the wind of Ilum turns damp and strong, blowing snow and ice into their open mouths and eyes.

Rey's voice comes from behind him, and her arm does not withdraw from where he has gripped it, as if she might be blown away, as if keeping her secured in such a manner might prevent or predict her lashing out toward him. He can't be sure whether or not who he should be prepared to defend himself against in this situation, though given her encouragement and corporeal state, the fact that she is not slowly, slowly building pressure behind his eyes and ears, against his Adam's apple, lends credence to his theory that the faith - if it could be called that - he has put in her has not yet been misplaced. )

Your resistance and reluctance to utilize and explore the potential for power you posses so innately has only intensified since the last time I felt your presence in the dark. ( He speaks to Rey again, ignoring Kylo's surge forward for the time being. Indignation flares to life inside of him once more, melting the chill of scattered ice and snow as it dries and stings his eyes to the point of watering. His throat is arid, every gulp of air that he takes sharp as knives. He presses his mouth into a thin line and lets every muscle in his body stand at attention. The thick band of his fingers where they have wrapped around Rey's forearm tighten abruptly, and he recalls without having to hunt too deeply the look on her face as she bested him on Starkiller: teeth bared, higher ground won. ) You don't need it. You will want it. You can take it.

( It's a tone that Kylo recognizes, a voice that spoke to him even while sleeping, even before he could speak himself. Slipping in with untold knowledge, a deeply rooted with personal understanding of character. Snoke knew what Kylo Ren was before he was Kylo Ren. He knew what Ben Solo was. He knew what Ben Solo would become. Now, he looks to instill that same reality in Rey. It drips from his voice like molten sugar, but it can't last, not in the wake of the both of them still standing. As such, his attention leaves Rey for the brief moment to fix solely on Kylo, and he feels it like having a bucket of ice water dumped on hypothermic skin. )

Kneel. ( The compulsion is there. He feels his knees and calves strain under the weight of that absent gaze. Rey will have bruises on her arm when his fingers finally unfurl from where he has grasped her, whether in a malformed idea of defending her or as an actual, physical anchor or as something else, he doesn't know. But he doesn't kneel. Snoke is furious. ) Kylo Ren, you will kneel.

( The cave trembles. The sound of crystals shaking free of the rock bed fills the silence, hundreds of delicate, soft noises that seem out of place. In the real world, Leia Organa sits down, and her twin places one hand on her shoulder, the pad of his thumb ghosting the knob of her spine. His fingertips press white into the starchy fabric of her uniform, and her hands curl so tightly around the seat she folds herself into that her grip mirrors that of her son's where it has yet to release Rey's arm. They sweat.

Kylo answers the Supreme Leader - ) No.

( Ilum explodes.

He's felt his master's hand wrap around his throat and squeeze until he thought that he was dead; he's watched General Hux fall to his knees and beat a fist into the floor as his face turned purple. Kylo himself has dragged deck officers across the bridge into his waiting grasp just to see how frightened they were of him and what he might do. He has watched two of his Knights crumble and collapse under the weight of Snoke's discipline, and his own. He has never seen anything like what unravels in front of them. The inherent power and enormity of Snoke's ability and cohesion with the Dark Side in affecting Kylo Ren's construct is horrifying, and his anger begins to pull it down piece by piece. Never having faced anything of this magnitude in his training or in the field, he has no preparation, has no idea what to do. He looks back over his shoulder at Rey, as if expecting her to have some answer, as if because this was her idea she knows all the rules, and thinks of the only thing that he can: the last place the light touched everything.

It does not happen immediately, they linger in this collapsing world with Snoke's voice and presence filling the air, trying to hook fingers into the both of them, but eventually the world will right itself, and eventually the smell of powder, of engine grease, of fresh flowers, will fill the air, and everything will quiet and warm. The Supreme Leader can neither find them nor chase them to Ben Solo's home on Yavin IV. He is gone. )

[ Pain, real enough by the feel of it, howls through the bones of her arm, chasing from her forearm through her wrist, his fingers seeming to depress muscle as they squeeze. It chokes her out of the lilt of Snoke's voice, leaves her blinking hard and gasping through the strange heat it brings that chases away the cold around his grip, radiating upward.

But she doesn't draw back, sees the tension in his joints, feels that his hold on her is as much to keep himself standing as to keep her close, a desperate grab for control and certainty in a sea of chaos as he pushes away from the shores of the First Order.

She hears his refusal, then nothing but ringing. Around them, ice turns to powder and sprays, a geyser bursting from the cracks in the ground, showering them in frost and thick chunks of combusted ice showering like volcanic rock.

Rey throws her free arm over Kylo Ren's shoulders, pushing him to the ground in a vain effort to hurl her body across his to protect him from the collapse. Panic and dread press her eyelids shut, holding her tense there while the world comes apart in a flurry, black stone blending with clumps of frozen wasteland to swirl around them in a destructive whirlwind.

Seconds stretch into hours, with no idea how long she holds there, the crumbling landscape never properly thrashing them in any true threat, but her muscles remain tight and sprawled over Ren until the din dies down, the roar retreating into a comforting silence.

For a few moments, she refuses to accept the shift, but the warmth of a sun beats on her back, stirring melt in the ice that rained down over her, and only that familiarity convinces her that it's not some kind of deception. Slowly, Rey lifts her head, hands still pushing Kylo Ren to the ground, barely even covering his size with even the greatest effort.

Sunlight winks at them through rustling branches over the forests of Yavin IV. She can smell the familiar burn of engines, oil and grease and fuel, sticky on the perfumed forest air. Withdrawing the rest of the way, disentangling herself from him, she raises to her feet, treading in a short series of cautious steps across the forest floor as she looks up. Uncertainty colors the brief flicker of a smile that strikes next, but she dare not be the one to give voice to the victory, however small on the galactic scale.

The wonder of the forest doesn't hold her attention for long, and her eyes trace back over to her one-time enemy, now something else, a few steps away. She searches him with some form of empathy mingled with affirmation; in the same instant she came to finally understand the pressure of Snoke's insistence over the ages, she watched him push it back, stand firm against it. Instead of offering him words that would fail to measure against the weight of the steps he takes here, Rey waits to hold his gaze and incline her head, a steady nod. ]

( Kylo tastes ice and crunches grit between his teeth as Rey's sudden full body weight is thrown into his back like an oncoming speeder, one of her ankles catching the trunk of his calf in the process and sending them both to the ground underneath the blind force of her intent. He's in the middle of flinching back from the explosion of something pressurized underneath the cave's surface when she wrestles him to the ground, shaved ice pricking the exposed skin along the back of his neck, Snoke's fingers intent on snuffing the life from him, from them, bringing them to heel. He can see it all written clearly in the spray of debris as he keeps his eyes wide open and then -

It's all gone.

He sits up in the tall grass once she's moved off of him, nose assaulted by the perfume of dense forest, of pine and dirt. His mother's perfume, personalized by Han Solo's permanently dirty hands moving over her skin every time he was planet-side. Through the trees behind them, a home is half-visible, open windows white with curtains. Melting ice has turned the earth underneath of him to damp topsoil, and it smears down the front of him where Rey had pushed his shoulders down, covered him, exposed the back of her neck and the knots of her spine to whatever onslaught could have fallen on them. The band of her arm pressing into the long line of his shoulders is still a buzzing memory of pressure as he digs one palm into the ground and pushes himself up and to his knees. Snoke's voice, his presence, is a sharper one, and Kylo turns his scarred face up to the treetops as if expecting the Supreme Leader to be baring down on them through the canopy branches, but there is nothing, just the warm wash of sunshine.

The first real breath that he takes is deep, a steady inhale through his nose and out through his mouth. He bows his head, letting sweat and melted ice collect on his forehead before he swipes it away with the back of a hand that shakes, despite his best efforts to keep it still. There is dirt on his face, and he wipes at it. His stomach is in knots, a nausea rises and bile burns the back of his throat as it becomes more and more clear what he has done. Repercussions have not set in yet, not quite, and he isn't even sure if what they have accomplished here, now, will be enough to keep Snoke from possessing him at a later time, once they return from this, but he has never before shut his master out with such finality before. Kylo feels sick with power, and he has to look away from the trees in order to make the world stop spinning.

Rey meets his eyes over the long grass, and neither of them say a thing. Whatever has built between them in the past now hangs in the balance like a weighted band. He doesn't know what that means, what it will mean, and is loathe to examine it following this last encounter but it doesn't go away. It doesn't lessen or abate. It stretches warm between them, an open hand, and he returns the nod that she affords him, offering some semblance of the affirmation that she seeks in looking to him. Even though he can't be sure of their success with absolute certainty, Kylo trusts the churning in his gut and the strange, static emptiness that fills his mind where before there was the reassuring presence of a voice that had always been there.

Silence stretches, just the wind wandering softly through the trees, the sunlight warming the exposed skin that's dirty with sweat and dirt and, inexplicably, sand. Finally, he finds his voice somewhere in the back of his throat. )

You didn't have to tackle me.

( Then he turns and dry heaves into the grass. )

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