apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

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( For a moment, his ears and the back of his neck feel warm, and he can't determine whether or not it's his own reaction or hers or some combination of the two as she ducks her head away from him in order to break eye contact. Either way, it's a strange feeling, not the strangest that he has encountered today but top ten, easily. Her pleasure in his response is tinged with nothing more than her conviction that they will see this done. There are no ulterior motives or greater purposes threaded throughout the sentiment, and it's frank and blunt in its supreme honesty when he acknowledges it for what it is. It fills him like a cup of warm water, the thrashing and broiling calamity so often a part of him calming in the presence of both her relief and in his own.

Before he has a chance to reply, she is turning on her foot and leading him away from the area, so that he has to lengthen his strides in order to rejoin her and then shorten them again in order not to lumber past her. Her comment doesn't sting, even as the warmth the flexes through their connection wanes on his end to be replaced with something more natural, an apex predator calm and weary but still on the lookout as they step into the burning gray of the Corellian sky. He never lets his guard down in the company of wolves, especially wolves that he has systematically hunted down and destroyed over the years. Not for the last time, he knows, Kylo wonders where that traitor stormtrooper is, where Dameron is, the lot of them moving in circular patterns, weaving in and out of each other's lives. )

Where are we going?

( Kylo asks her once they are beyond the belly of the camp and moving quickly to its outer limbs, winding under grounded ships and hastily assembled camps that will have to be cleared by afternoon if the general hopes to get her people out alive. Corellian high winds have no set pattern and deviate from prediction quite often. The first chance they get to break atmosphere should be taken, but he's only thinking of that vaguely as he catches sight of a pilot emerging from her tent as Rey strides past only to fix him with a scowl that he returns with a dark but blank look on his way to the treeline. No bunks here or anywhere, he assumes, wondering what retaliation Rey will endure for her part in all of this and finding himself somewhat surprised to be considering it at all.

As for his question, he doesn't have to wait long for a response. The trees thin abruptly, having been crushed by the underside of a very familiar YT model freighter, side cockpit looking as scarred and battered as it always has, scorch marks and carbon scoring painting the thing different shades of white, gray, and black. Kylo stands so still at the edge of the clearing that his boots begin to sink into the mud under the heavy weight that seems to press down on his shoulders, all the way into his heels. He knows every corridor and compartment on that ship, knows the frequency by heart and speaks smuggler's cant like a second language. Every hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and he holds himself unnecessarily rigid. )

Still a piece of garbage.

[ Despite making a similar assessment the first time she’d seen it, Rey bristles protectively at Kylo Ren’s comments. That ship was the last thing she had of Han Solo after he’d taken the would-be father figure who’d been its pilot from her. Chagrined, she scowls sidelong at him, then hikes up towards the base of the ship, where the ramp descends to steady it on the surface of its late owner’s home planet. ]

This piece of garbage might save your life. Watch it. [ Her grousing sings in the wake of her moody hike up the ramp, the thud of her boots echoing through the rickety metal frame.

It’s impossible to ignore the bitter metal taste in her mouth that tells her inviting him into this space is a bad decision, is wrong. This was Han Solo’s space, and Kylo Ren killed him. He didn’t deserve to walk the halls of his father’s ship. But if any of this were about deserving, then they wouldn’t have made the strides they already have, and pulling him back from the dark would have been impossible.

He did not have to deserve mercy for it to be given. In fact, if he did, it would not be mercy at all.

She didn’t pause to wait for him, though. Allowing him in here didn’t have to mean welcoming him. Instead, she blazed around the corner of one of the tube-like hallways circling the freighter, looping around to the cramped crew quarters with functional, weak-framed bunks of narrow width tucked into individual closets that sprawled like honeycombs off a central pod on the ship’s port side.

Fur litters the disheveled sheets of one bunk, caught also in the thin joint of panels in the walls identifying the room as Chewbacca’s. Across from it, a small, crudely made doll imitates an X-wing pilot in an orange jumpsuit with a helmet, fashioned wholly of cotton and linen packed together, held together at the joints with thick twine.

She stops in front of the third, lingering near the narrow frame of the door in silent offering. Finn stayed in it last, but it’s not precisely his. To the contrary, he found his place among the other Resistance troops. ]

If General Organa doesn’t move the troops in time, we can load the Falcon up and get past their barricades. [ She doesn’t let the disclaimer I hope come out aloud. Better to sound sure that she can do it. ] In the meantime, you can rest here.

( For Kylo's part, he remains at the edge of the gangplank for a moment longer than is strictly necessary, wondering if Rey is the only one now on board or if he's going to turn a corner and come face-to-chest with nearly eight feet of still-sore Wookie. He knows if the ship is here, then Rey's co-pilot - Han Solo's co-pilot - can't be far off. Kylo doesn't bother casting out in search of his presence but instead presses the bare width of his palm to his flank. Even though the pain has long since faded and the scar is little more than a pucker between his ribs and hipbone, he has traced over it with cool fingertips enough in the last however many months to know its location without needing it to twinge or needing to see it in the reflection of the mirror. )

Doubtful.

( He answers her long after she's left the area, considering the incline in front of him. Going up the ramp is less a test than any of the others that he's faced in the past, so he doesn't dawdle long with the toes of his boots on the foot of the plank and his heels in the mud. Once Rey's footsteps have stopped echoing back at him from inside as if to establish absolute ownership of the ship he is about to set foot on for the first time in over twenty years, Kylo takes the steps necessary to bring him into the ship proper, ducking his head even though he's not in any immediate danger of hitting it on anything.

The smell that hits his nose is so familiar it works at a muscle in his memory like fingertips and knuckles digging into a sore knot to relieve the tension there. Oil, that burnt smell of cooking copper and plastic encasing split wire. Sparks and wet Wookie hair underneath leather. He knows the layout of this ship almost as well as he does the Finalizer, having spent enough time trying to sneak around in it when he was a child and his father was making preparation to leave the planet on some errand yet again. If he turns to the right and goes down the hall leading away from the ramp, he'll be in the cockpit, and he's resolutely and decidedly pleased that Rey's footsteps lead him away from that area, and he catches up with her quickly, making little effort to note what's changed since the last time he was on board this ship.

When he catches up to her, his arms are crossed. He doesn't deny how bizarre this all is, as if under the impression that he's living a very vivid dream that he will describe in detail to someone later only to laugh about the absurdity of it all. The smell of the Wookie's bunk is enough to deter him from the thought and ground him more sharply in the very distinct realness of it all, and he steps away from it, turning his back to bring him more completely into the galley and affording him a better view of the bunk that must be Rey's. There is a poorly made doll fashioned in the likeness of a pilot that catches his attention over everything else, before he looks over his shoulder to find her indicating a remaining bunk that looks like it hasn't been used in some time. He makes no move to approach it. )

Very cozy. You put a great deal of faith in something that's been limping its way to lightspeed since before I was born. ( Kylo leans against the wall across from her, looking completely out of place and alien to this jumble of paneling and wires held together with a bit of chewing gum and old string. He's heard all the stories, been told all the tales. They were never myths but they were stories and that's all they were. Just stories. Now they're stories with ghosts. He looks at the dull shine of his boots in the overhead light and wonders how much less comfortable the command shuttle with the airlock would be compared to this. ) I'll concede a point: this piece of junk has held up the test of time much better than I'd ever assumed it would, and it might be able to make the jump beyond the barricade better than the slower Resistance models, as it has in the past. But there's no way in hell that you're leaving the Resistance behind if Organa can't scramble her troops in time. We both know that.

( There's this word he's gotten hinged on the more it comes out of her mouth. We. )

[ The raw honesty of his assessment, the unfortunate truth, draws some of the energy from Rey. Lowering her eyes, she accepts his assessment, but she doesn’t dim her enthusiasm. Instead, she refocuses it. ]

I’m not suggesting we abandon anyone. But we won't be if the First Order redirects its fleet to pursue the YT light freighter that was last known to be carrying Luke Skywalker, the ship that belonged to your father.. If they're truly sent by Snoke to punish you, their priority will be to pursue us in the Falcon.

[ It’s reckless, crazy, even stupid—in other words, the perfect gambit for the Resistance. ]

With the X-wings to defend the rest of the fleet, they should be able to escape.

[ She’s seen Poe fly. That much, she knows he could do. The real question is whether or not she could draw the attention of enough to make a difference once they knew it was Rey and Kylo Ren on board, and whether she would then be able to shake the tail after or if they’d simply be obliterated.

Battle plans don't become her, for she wears an enthusiasm that's young and bright-eyed and ill-fitting for a war, that is too easy to imagine being drained by it in stages. ]

( Kylo makes a face at that, something between a grimace and a wince. He dislikes the idea of being used as bait in any capacity but can't find fault in its practicality, doubly so if Snoke and Hux, as a matter of general proximity and chain of command, are both aware of what he's done. They'll want to drag him back kicking and screaming in the opposite direction that Rey - and Skywalker and Organa, if he's being honest with himself; he's not - has pulled him toward. Though he very seriously doubts that the First Order's accommodations in the wake of such an upset would match the kindness in Rey's offer. If a bunk on the ship that belonged to a man he murdered could be called a kindness. )

I'm starting to get a clearer picture of what's going on here.

( One step off of the wall that he has chosen to recline against brings him nearly level with her. A second sees him directly across from her, as he braces the palm of his hand flat on the bulkhead under the pretense of checking the specs of the bunk. Kindness, indeed: he's fairly positive that he'll have to curl his legs when (and if) he lies down to simply fit inside this matchbox of a cabin. He's not even sure his head will clear the top of it while sitting and doesn't bother straightening back up in the interest of testing his theory before resigning himself completely to his fate.

He has to duck to do it, but the top of his head does clear the bulkhead with the barest skim along the ridge of his scalp. It will be easy to bang his head into the ceiling if he's not mindful of what he's doing, and the bunk itself is positively claustrophobic compared to the space he had been offered on the Finalizer. Back against the wall, staring down the length of his thighs to his knees, he is reminded of a time when his legs were still overly long but not this long, and he had tucked himself into one of these bunks with ease. Kylo looks up at her from this angle, legs crowded awkwardly in front of him, knees uncomfortable, and finishes his line of thought from before he had decided to sit down. )

You're a crazy person.

( There's little seriousness to be found in his tone. Comparisons could be drawn and quickly discarded as to the people she reminds him of in that instant. He sees a better strategy in deciding to make no comparisons at all, as much as he lets no real accusation bleed into his voice. Truth be told, they're all a little crazy, to be doing anything that they believe in. He admires her tenacity, though, the ferocity and resilience of her spirit, her strength. That hasn't changed in the months and moments following Starkiller. Even if she is trapping him with ghosts and faulty wiring. )

[ If her incorrigible optimism hadn't already thrust straight past the threshold of intolerability, the fact that he begins to settle in and make himself at home on the ship worsens it. The light in her eyes brightens in a flash, excitement leading her away from the wall to stand in front of him at the doorway of his bunk.

Her hands press against the frame, leaning over somewhat even though sitting down really only brings him closer to her height. The frame creaks and sighs with the weight against it, like the whole ship does. Each sigh whispers history to her, helps her feel connected to Han Solo in ways that she can't anymore.

Truth be told, even if he were being serious, the comments would roll off her back: Rey has long since accepted that only a crazy person would try to stand against the First Order. It's the reason the Resistance encampments are always full of the eclectic and strong-willed. That she feels at home among them says nothing for her own sanity, but she's never felt particularly compelled to prize that. ]

So you think it'll work. [ She's choosing to interpret his comments that way, at least. Particularly in concert with the resigned way he crowds himself into the bunk. She won't get hung up on his sour attitude—can't, if they're to make any progress here, and Rey is far more desperate for that, for a victory that means the continued survival of the Resistance, than she is to salvage her pride. ]

( He shrugs one shoulder, and there is honesty in that. If he were to weigh the Resistance's chances against the First Order's, Kylo would pick the latter every time. More firepower, more manpower, the Supreme Leader himself, although Snoke's approach has always been to rule from afar without exerting too much of his direct control. That has always been Kylo's responsibility, and the other Knights of Ren. Even without his own assistance and power backing the Order's military prowess, and as loathe as he is to laud Hux's accomplishments in any way, shape, or form, he must concede the point that the First Order simply has every odd stacked in its favor.

Of course, that hasn't stopped the Resistance from toppling them before.

It's a sour memory for more than just the reason of his own defeat and disfigurement at the hands of the girl currently blocking his path out of the bunk. There are a million memories of Han Solo waiting here, pressed into the cracks and eddies of this trash heap of a ship, and all of them recall with perfectly clarity every line and detail of his face as it was bathed in red light before falling away. Kylo lets Rey become the center point of his focus, grounding himself firmly in the present and future in a desperate attempt not to get pulled under the current of the past.

He wishes she would stop making that face every time he says something that isn't an actual affront to her character or anyone else's just by virtue of having come out of his mouth. He'll stand up again, if that means she'll stop doing it. She looks far too pleased for it to mean anything good, especially when he's nearly eye level with her while sitting down and as such more or less has to maintain direct eye contact or look away. Less easy to do when she crowds and dominates the field of his vision the way that she does, leaning against the bunk. )

I've seen worse plans put into action and achieve more success than was expected. ( It's as close to praise as he gets when he isn't trying to bait her into abandoning her crusade for the Resistance and join him among the ranks of the First Order. Funny how that one worked out. ) They won't send the entire fleet after us, if it comes down to what you're posing as an optional solution, but at least it might afford your pilots some measure of time to improvise and clear a path.

( Again, and he knows not for the last time, the words that come out of his mouth strike him as intrinsically odd. And yet the more he says them the more natural they begin to feel. It isn't the way that he would have things done, not the way that he would go about any of this had he any say at all in it, but his options are limited, and Kylo works with what he has. Speaking of which - )

Where's my lightsaber?

[ The question tempers some of her humor, anticipation of his reply keeping her from properly registering what was as close as he could get to a compliment of her admittedly inexperienced skills in battle strategy. Rey drops her hands from the door frame, straightening up somewhat as if bracing for the bad news. ]

In the hands of your uncle. [ She opts not to mince the words. It would only predispose him to being more irate. ] I gave it to him when I told him that I'd lost mine. [ His, really. Or more accurately, Anakin Skywalker's.

It wasn't until she had trained with Luke that she'd come to understand why Kylo was so set on that blade when he had one of his own making, but she had since determined the link. Any possession of Darth Vader's was his by inheritance, presumably, but that blade had never properly belonged to Darth Vader, by Luke's own estimation.

Truthfully, she can't be sure which he'll be angrier about: the Skywalker lightsaber lost to the forested valleys of Corellia where the battle had scorched the forest and relieved her of it, or the fact that he'll have to make time for a one-on-one with his estranged uncle in order to get his own back. ]

If you want to get it back, you should go find him. I'll track Chewie down and tell him to get the ship ready while I share the back-up plan with General Organa. It'll be difficult for her dispute that strategy, even if she's hesitant to accept your report without the fleet here to prove it.

( Kylo makes an ah sound and considers his hands where they splay on his knees as he sits forward. He'd forgotten about the burns until now, and it's only when he flexes his fingers and stretches the skin over his knuckles that he feels how tender the wounds still are. Having a conversation with Luke Skywalker regarding the proper return of his own weapon, he thinks, would be an even more painful reminder of past injuries. The question of which lightsaber he could be talking about doesn't even occur to him: he's come to terms with the fact that his grandfather's saber had not called to him and never would, that it would never fit within the grooves of his hand and leap to life at the issue of his command the way that he had thought it should for years in its absence.

Rey had proven that much when she ripped it out of his potential, outstretched grasp in the snow, and while his grandfather's legacy still resounds within him in a way that echoes deep and runs in a way that feels true, Kylo can't deny the absolute and terribly crushing silence that he's received from Vader in the last several years. It's not his saber to posses, now, and while he very much might like to feel its weight in his palm and trip the ignition switch with the pad of his thumb, he knows that it would never sing for him the way that it had for Rey.

Had, which he realizes, after a beat, and he looks up at her with stony revelation as he leans forward on the bunk, one hand braced against his knee as he pushes himself up abruptly, knocking the crown of his head against the bulkhead in the process. He presses the heel of his hand to his skull as he winces through aggravated questioning. )

Wait, you lost it? In the woods? ( He can't tell if he's more annoyed that she lost it or that she lost it, lost anything. Hasn't gone back to look for it. He would have, were the blade his. But it's not. His is in Skywalker's possession, and his head is smarting as if Han Solo has reached out from beyond the grave and told him to cut the attitude. ) If you want to get yours back and have a chance at defending yourself in the future against an attack, then you should go look for it.

[ He advances and, even with full faith in the way she'd seen him force Snoke from his mind, seen him choose the middle path for herself, she takes a hasty series of steps back before he reaches full height. Even his clumsiness doesn't dissuade her from her startle response, bracing instinctively for a violent recourse that never comes.

Her breath leaves her then, drawn back into her chest in slow form, accepting that she'd misread when he stills and disarming herself from the defensive stance she had taken in the center of the cluster of honeycombed crew bunks. ]

It's not like I had time to think about it! [ Instead of wearing the defensiveness in her shoulders, she projects it in a raised voice. ] Getting you back here was more important than finding it.

[ Priorities to keep straight. Disarming the First Order of one of their most powerful assets was an incomparable victory, easily outweighing the missing saber. Without it, the Resistance could still win. Without Kylo Ren, the First Order could very well lose. The calculations were simple, straightforward. At least, they had seemed so at the time. ]

It's just a sword.

( She retreats, and far from finding some kind of shame in inspiring it in her, Kylo leans into it naturally, instinctively, drawing himself up in front of the bunk that he has just vacated and finally dropping his hand to his side once his head stops smarting. He doesn't bear down on her in the manner and fashion that he has previously, backing her up into speeders or forcing her to find unsure footing in rocky, snowy terrain, and he doesn't use the considerable height that he has on her with any real intention of intimidating her into some kind of submission but waits openly for the excuse that he feels building up within her.

One of his shoulder blades finds the edge of the wall right where it drops off to create the hollow of the bunk and he leans there, blinking away the last of the pain that radiates outward from top of his head and crossing his legs at the ankles. Kylo doesn't miss her reaction beyond the quick steps that she takes away from him, coming down from the heightened level of defense necessary when being confronted with a hungry carnivore. She's ready for a fight even if she doesn't realize it, and energy and tension hums and cracks in this small compartment of the Falcon. Kylo does his part to dissuade it the way that Rey does when she lets her hackles down by degrees, though he still feels annoyed with her blase response regarding the saber's whereabouts. )

It isn't just a sword. ( Kylo can't say what inspires the annoyance in his voice with absolute certainty, though he knows that it isn't her roundabout reference to him as an important piece of tactical weaponry. He'd made his own blunder when he focused on her on Takodana and neglected the capture of the droid when he should have given the order to secure both of them. How different things would be now if he'd seen the map where and when he'd wanted to. ) I've seen you with a blaster, and I've seen you with a saber. If you think you're going to defend anyone with the former, then I'd like to know what your definition of the word 'defense' is. ( He's never seen her with a staff, though. ) I understand that you had a somewhat heavy cargo to bring back with you, but now I'm actually conscious and not planning on killing anyone in the immediate vicinity, so go find it.

( If she won't go, then he will. It might not ever work correctly for him, but Kylo's not going to let it spend another thirty years collecting dust on some distant planet. Or worse, rusting in Corellian mud. )

[ And there is her tell. She can feel his presence retreat with his efforts to calm the sparking tension filling the space between them, shrinking it and causing him to loom. Only then does she realize how she has bristled, how she has exposed herself and the length of the leash she trusts him on.

If a world exists where she finds herself able to forget or be at true ease with all he has done, they do not live in it yet. He poses a very real threat, or at least he could, if his worse nature were to seize command in any significant way—through his temper, for instance.

She tightens her jaw, mouth set in a heavy frown that seems to linger on the edge of regret—not the kind of regret that merely mourns her mistake, but the kind that wobbles near an apology for it. Whatever it is never comes out, and she shakes it off when she lifts her chin to stubbornly meet his chastising with a distinct lack of apology that’s so sharp in contrast to the look she has dismissed that it makes her look arrogant. ]

I can handle myself. Unless you want another demonstration, I suggest you take my word for it. [ Thank you very much. He has no right, she reasons privately to herself. He has no idea what she’s done to survive, what it was like on Jakku, a small girl—barely more than a toddler—learning very quickly that you either lost everything or you learned to protect it. While Kylo had two, Rey had no teachers, no guidance, only the harsh lessons of violent experience to teach her to fight as scrappily as she does. Not to mention her quite unarmed escape from Starkiller Base. ]

It’s going to take hours to hike back to that plateau: do you really think we have all that time to be fussing about a lightsaber right now?

[ She forces her hands to relax, noticing somewhere along the line they had balled into fists, ready (or perhaps hoping) for a fight. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t contort her mind into understanding the importance of its legacy to him, for she’s never had any kind of legacy to look towards. Survival in the moment has always been her focus out of necessity; there is no switch she can flip to cease worrying about it. ]

( The struggle she builds within herself in determining which way to react is best plays out on her face in a series of deepening and shifting frowns. He watches each of them with great interest, playing a game with himself in trying to guess what her response might be but ultimately deciding that he can't rightfully know without pushing into her mind to tease the answer out for himself. Kylo doesn't, just remains prone against the bulkhead with the focus of his attention solely on her. Even if there was something else for him to pay attention to - a ruckus down in the cockpit or the Wookie making a clamor deep in the bowels of the ship about the hyperdrive - it's likely that Rey would still occupy the majority of his focus, just as she has previously.

Her reaction isn't exact enough to grant him victory within the parameters of the game that he's playing in his own mind, but he still isn't surprised by the outcome all the same. The set of her shoulders is haughty and the weight that she throws behind the admonishments she levels at him to bolster the strength of her conviction calls back to every other time she's realized she was afraid of him and needed to look and appear stronger to counter it. The only difference between now and then is that now he means her less harm than he might have originally, although the concept of harm would have taken a different meaning then, as it does now. )

I'm not trying to goad you into a fight. ( Kylo holds his hands up as if to demonstrate this fact and nods to the balled up fists that Rey's have formed, although the idea of the two of them going up against each other in a contest of skill without bladework to consider interests him in a way that he'd never thought about before. Possibly because he's of the confident mind that he would win. ) I'm just saying that if things don't go with as much optimism and confidence as you're hinging on, then it's going to put you at a disadvantage if the First Order collects the ship while you're still on it.

( The burns on the backs of his hands grin at him upside-down, and the look that he levels her with is as much in recognition of the fact that he doesn't want to fight physically with her right now as much as it is in recognition of the truth found in her defense of her own character. He's said it before, and he will say it again: she's strong and even stronger than she knows. It becomes more of a problem when they're surrounded by delicate machinery that has already taken a beating in its extremely long and violent history. If either of them want a chance at escaping Corellia, it's beneficial not to have two Force users end up in a fist fight on the floor.

Calming himself has always taken a great deal more focus and attention than he's been happy to admit. It's never been a problem for him before despite both Skywalker and Snoke expressing his need to learn to control it. If he's being honest, it's Snoke who taught him how to master it, and while now he doesn't feel the fury that's so often just a chip at the surface away from boiling over, Kylo knows that drawing out the encounter is only going to make it that much more difficult to reel back in. So he pushes off the wall and brushes by her on his way back down the corridors of the ship to the outside. )

I'm going to speak with your master regarding the return of my weapon. ( He answers her before she has time to actively ask the question, long strides carrying him quickly through the ship without even breaking a sweat. ) Track down your co-pilot in the meantime.

[ Turning, Rey watches his towering shape disappear around the corner of the Millennium Falcon’s curved hallways, swallowing the thick lump in her throat that forms as she thinks back on the moment when she believed that she and Finn had been captured by the First Order. The fear feels as real now as it was then, though dwarfed by experience.

A part of her aches to reach out through the force and stop him from leaving on such a dramatic and negative note, but she stops herself for the weakness it would show and the little good it would do any of them. They all have their tasks. She starts after him, short legs carrying her with quicker steps to try and make her way out of the ramp, but she's stopped by Chewie looping around from the cockpit.

An irritated growl rumbles in the back of his throat, high pitched and indignant. Sighing, Rey stops, folding her arms beneath her chest as she looks up at him. ]

It was his home once too. I hoped it might make him remember. [ Gazing back down the ramp, she sighs and adds, ] I think it only made it worse. [ Reaching out to rub the furred arm of her co-pilot, Rey offers a smile. ] I promise it's safe. Or it will be. But we need to get ready to fly as soon as possible.

[ This only draws out another growl from him, this one less translatable, some chagrined realization that she's too damn similar to the Falcon's last pilot for anyone's good. Chewie takes his exasperation to the engine room to give it a good check, and Rey head down the ramp, stopping at the bottom, torn between going to explain their back-up plan to Leia and following Kylo's advice to search out the saber.

He'd gotten this far trusting her advice. Maybe it was time that she offered him the same in return, however misguided she believed his focus to be. Grinding her teeth doesn't make it any easier to decide, but it does help her recognize her reluctance to do what she already knows she is going to. Rubbing her jaw, she pivots on her heels and darts into the dark of the forest. ]

( He expects her to follow him down the ramp and is somewhat surprised to find himself alone on the edge of the forest. Lush Corellian foliage explodes in every direction around him, and it's a moment before he realizes that he's staring up into the sky where the harvest moon will hang later, watching the high winds skim the tops of trees with an invisible hand. Branches crack far off from some of the taller, more ancient structures. Kylo can hear their cascading descent from the summit of their towers all the way to the mossy, muddy forest floor. A flock of birds roosting nearby startles and takes flight, cawing high and loud through the trees and into the sky as they take flight in search of another nesting spot. Then he hears nothing.

Experimentally, Kylo takes a breath and empties himself, the cool breeze finally licking dry the sweat that has beaded along his hairline and up underneath the heavy, high material that covers his neck. His mind clears as much as it ever can, and where he is used to the voice that has filled the void for decades calling out to him in quiet, low tones with wise words and careful comforts, he finds nothing. Just the sound of the wind in the trees and birds screeching in the distance.

Something behind him, from the ship, makes a noise not unlike a hiss, and he turns just in time to watch a full jet of steam break one of the hastily - no doubt - repaired panels on the outside of the YT freighter. A refracted beam of light off the cockpit window catches his attention, and he sees movement behind it: a huge, furry body turning from the gaze he has directed upward and moving with surprising agility through the sea of chairs that line the cockpit's interior. Flashing lights provide readouts and relays that he can't determine and has no interest in, so Kylo leaves and stalks back through the forest to the Resistance camp.

Alone.

It crosses his mind once or twice to duck into an unmanned ship and escape. He gets as far as flipping the ignition in his mind before he's caught. When attacking the problem from a different angle, he makes it all the way back to the Finalizer before the Supreme Leader strangles him for insubordination and disobedience. Kylo never actually makes the attempt and when he makes it back to the Resistance camp under the pretense of searching out Skywalker, he changes direction and heads back into the trees, away from the camp and the distant smell of smoke and the lingering voice of his uncle in his mind saying, Don't be a fool, Ben.

That only sends him further into the forest, stepping over roots and broken branches, slipping in mud and correcting his footing by reaching out and snagging tree trunks with his fingernails and the palms of his hands. Even someone with adequate foresight through the Force would have a difficult time navigating this terrain, and he wonders how running away ever seemed like a plausible idea in the first place. Still, he moves quickly - faster than someone without the benefit of being a Force-user would be able to move - and covers ground enough in a short amount of time to deliver him back to where it all started.

Standing on the edge of the clearing, much of the forest here has been burnt and scorched away. Black, skeletal branches litter the ground like broken bone fragments. The dead lay unburried, though there are no Resistance members among those who have not yet been burned by the Corellians, trooper armor catching the light and curving the way that it had off the Millennium Falcon's cockpit and - there, not far off, a wink of sunlight on the scuffed but still smooth hilt of a saber. Kylo reaches it in several long strides, sparing no thought one way or the other for the fallen soldiers that lay behind him. He remembers the explosion that sent them sprawling and looks around for -

His mask is lying face down in the dirt several yards away, abandoned where he had ripped it off when it shorted out. Kylo considers it for a moment, the way that it seems to draw in the daylight rather than refracting it, but retrieves the saber first, letting its weight fill his palm with a satisfaction he had never anticipated. It isn't the same feeling that holding his grandfather's sunken, disfigured, half-melted helmet in his hands had inspired, but he can't say that it's entirely different either. The same, but different. The saber is heavier than he would have expected, now that he finally has a chance to hold it, but he knows even without tripping the ignition that while he could use the blade the same way that FN-2187 had against him, it would never yield to him or sing alongside him the way that it had for Rey. His thumb does hover over the switch, he thinks of lighting it, just to feel the stability of the crystal inside buzz in his palm in a way that the cracked kyber in his will never be able to duplicate, but doesn't. Instead, he turns on his heel and stalks back the way that he had come, operating on instinct alone rather than letting doubt or thought at all cloud his judgment. It's the closest to meditation that he's gotten in years.

He stops twice on his way into the forest: once at his own mask, staring up at him like a severed head in the dirt and urging him to pick it up and put it back where it belongs; and once when he comes across Rey on her own trek. Kylo feels her coming several moments before she actually becomes visible, so he assumes that his own cover has been blown as well. His hands are empty save for the saber that is no worse for wear other than some grit in its grooves. She'll need to clean it properly at some point. Once Kylo retrieves his own blade from Skywalker's possession, he could probably show her how to do it, if she doesn't know already.

He offers it to her without flourish or preamble. )

[ Trudging through the muddied forest is a grueling, thankless endeavor that slows her movements as her flimsy brown boots sink into the mud, made for sand but not its damper cousin, tracking clumps of soil around with her that renders her movements awkward and limited. The uncomfortable lack of familiarity she suffers with the sodden landscape only sours her mood, shoulders tense along her march.

She understands now how it must rankle him to have her patient nudging at the edge of his mind, coaxing him into certain paths, and knowing that path is in her best interest only makes it worse. Though her quarterstaff would be functional, there is no substitute for the grace and power of a lightsaber, a lesson learned on Starkiller Base and expanded upon as she developed her skills with proper training.

Still, she wants to allow herself to believe that he was biased. Caught up in his own emotional turmoil about the legacy the saber carried, not merely in its utility to either of them in a fight. It helps stew her quiet grumbling, but that fades away over time, and she has plenty of time to traverse the landscape and calm herself in the quiet isolation of the forest.

Exhaustion sets in then, fuzzy at the edges of her mind, and she tries to pull at the Force to keep herself awake and putting one foot in front of the other. Up until now, she'd found forward momentum sufficient to keep her just barely going, but without anyone to distract her, without a constant task beyond the simple hike, she lulls herself into calm for no reason other than her mind can't quite keep up with anything more.

It prevents her from picking up on the hum at the edge of her awareness cuing her in to their proximity, and she doesn't see him until he's coming through the trees towards her. Lifting her head, Rey squints at his figure like she's not sure it's really there or just a shadow of the trees, her own sight betraying her, but he comes to stand level in front of her and offers the hilt out to her, dirty and battered. ]

That's not yours. [ She mutters the words dryly as she reaches out to take it, rubbing some of the mud aside; he knows that, of course, but it gently accuses him of not fulfilling his task. They don't have time for this, to be certain. The First Order could be forming just beyond the atmosphere above them in this moment, ready for a fresh hail of destruction renewed with vengeful fury. But looking down at the hilt, soft gratitude enters her eyes. There aren't many things she's owned in her life that hold value, that she's been able to keep, so despite her willingness to put all their lives before it, it still means something to have it in her hand again. ]

I'm well aware.

( There's scathing quality to his tone that is directed toward her as much as it is himself, both to remind him of his weakness in never earning it before and to distract him from the charity of his retrieving it. He can remember with perfect clarity what it had felt like to be so close to this little, weighted thing on Starkiller Base, to reach out for it with all the confidence he thought was required in his own inheritance to will it to him, and then the bruising anger and pounding sense of disorienting disownment when it had flown right by him and into Rey's waiting hand. He eyes it as it changes hands yet again but with none of the burn found in his tone. If anything, it's curiosity laced with suspicion, and he brushes past her, moving back toward camp, before she notices it. )

I had no idea you were going to change tactics and listen to me for a change. ( He steps over a collection of branches with canopy-level leaves and looks up to see the wind swaying the tree back and forth. Their skeletons and trunks groan under the weight of their bodies and the pressure to bend and break under the strain the wind places on them. He pauses only to look back at her and make sure that she's listening to him, and a little because he still isn't entirely certain that she won't just kill him as soon as she has the chance, despite how much he knows that would go against what she's shown him thus far. ) You might think it's something you can just leave behind. It's not.

( It goes deeper than her strictly needing it to defend herself, but Kylo doesn't want to explain the very complicated and murky relationship he has with that side of his family. Not to her. Not here or not or on this planet. If she doesn't know it already. Instead, he shortens his stride for the umpteenth time today and waits for her to draw level with him before reaching out and grabbing her elbow. Not to direct her or divert her path over a tangle of thorns or damp leaves - in fact he nearly drags her through the latter when he does score a solid grip and secures it with his palm flat against the back of her arm - but in an attempt to bring her up to speed, literally. If she doesn't jerk out of his grip under pretense alone then they'll make it back to camp much faster than they were able to make it out here on their own. )

I had every intention of retrieving my own, but I assumed that Skywalker would be less than willing to hand it over if I was unaccompanied on the walk back to and away from your ship. ( Kylo doesn't bring up his momentary fantasies on the edge of the camp, the thoughts of sneaking away and escaping into the unknown for equally unknown purposes. He hadn't done it, in the end, so it seems a moot point now. ) I doubt he trusts me with it.

[ He's off in an instant, unwilling to allow the moment to linger for longer than it must, and Rey feels all the more a child in how she has to stretch her legs into a near run to catch up with him. The square of his shoulders and the heavy stomp of his movements makes him look all the part the monster he'd been to her from the start, but it still catches her off guard when the wind seems to whisper to her.

You can finish it now. You were too weak before. Startled and frightened by the sudden sound, she whips briefly around, listening at the edges of the forest for a noise that won't come. She never stops following him, even backwards, stumbling across roots. Even if the voice is not, the distraction is real, and it takes her a moment to place it as the same dark whisper she'd heard in Ren's mind, as if the journey there had further opened up an avenue for it to funnel in.

Hurriedly stuffing the hilt of the saber into the pouch at her belt as a deliberate refusal of the coaxing whisper, she scrambles to his side, listening intently not in further urgency to follow his command, but to understand his reasoning to be here at all as much as to shut out whatever else she might here.

She missed the middle. Something about what she could leave behind, something that makes her wonder what he has regretted leaving behind. That's not what she gets from him, of course. No satisfying answers, at least, but by now she knows that would expect too much of him.

The hiss of the wind as it whips around them criticizes her for expecting as much, buffeting her dirty face, but it still isn't as bad as the dust storms of Jakku that threatened to lift her off her feet and carry her away into the outskirts of the desert wasteland. She wonders, faintly, if she will ever stop comparing the landscapes of other planets to Jakku, if it will stop being her measuring stick once the green becomes more natural to her, but as soon as she wonders at all, she doubts it. Good or bad, it was her home for too long.

The urge to accuse him of slipping under the pressure of fear starts suddenly in the back of her throat, but she stops herself for the uselessness of it. Telling him that he was afraid of Luke Skywalker wouldn't help anyone's case, and though shoving it in Kylo Ren's face sounds quite pleasant, there's too much at stake here.

As soon as her mouth is open to refute his presumption of Luke—admittedly, it's a good thing the words never made it out, because even she didn't believe her reassurance. Luke had no reason to trust him, and she wouldn't blame him for being slow to.—there's a hand at her elbow pushing her along, but also sparking indignation that wells in her chest until it comes out as a shout. ]

Watch it! [ She growls the words, ready to yank her arm free, or at least attempt it. ] I can walk just fine without you dragging me along, thank you. I got all the way out here.

( Her retaliation isn't completely unexpected, but the severity of it is a little surprising in its own right, given the close quarters that they've circled and stepped into over the last several hours. Even if the physical contact between them had been a projection of their meditative state, he can remember the weight distribution of her hand on his shoulder as she crouched next to him, pulled him to his feet, and the contouring of her hand in his palm as he had shifted their perspective from her warped and Corellian-influenced landscape of Jakku to the harsh chill of Starkiller Base. It reprimands him in some way and sets the scale back at even where their relationship - for lack of a better term - is concerned.

He glances down at her as soon as the tension in her arm becomes great enough that he either needs to let go of her or literally start dragging her bodily along next to him, so much larger is the span of his stride when she's not working within her own right to even the difference out. They're about halfway back already, so he stops short in his trek back to base camp but doesn't immediately let go of her as he continues to look down at her, searching her face for something that he's not even sure of. All he finds there is clear and bright indignation, from the firm line of her mouth, balanced around the growl of her tone as she spat it out at him, up to the hard set of her eyes, couched around the beginnings of a scowl that Kylo is decidedly becoming very familiar with. From the lines and angles of her face, he looks down to where his hand is still wrapped around her arm just above and behind her elbow, and remembers quite suddenly the way he had grabbed her during the mindwalk, red marks standing out on her skin like individual brands. )

I wasn't dragging you. Don't be so melodramatic. ( Kylo lets her go with a flourish all the same, forcing her arm up in his grip before he releases it to drop easily back down to her side where it belongs. He turns and continues walking without any indication to her as to whether or not she should follow, but it's really the only available option to her, especially as he keeps chatting at her as he slides over a long-fallen tree, rotting bark and foliage scattered around it. ) Not every hand that extends itself to you is a criticism of something that you can't do, you know. Everyone around you is perfectly aware that you're a capable person, mostly because you spend so much time proving it to them whenever you get a chance to make sure that they don't forget . ( His boots hit the ground harder than is necessary and splash dirty water, strewn with leaves, all the way up to his knees. Mud coats his boots up to the ankles. ) You've obviously mastered the art of walking on your own, at the very least.

( Impressive, for a scavenger, he almost bites out at her after but thinks better of it at the last moment. It would be inviting a fight when he doesn't have the patience or the energy for it, and it would be better for them not to be on opposing sides once the time comes to do what they will have to do in order to leave the planet. As if considering this, Kylo glances up through the trees to the sky, almost half-expecting to see a Star Destroyer blotting out the light from up above. The sky is clear, of course, but he can't shake the thought that the wind is full of whispers that have nothing to do with nature itself. Something is coming, and not just Rey slipping through the brush behind him. )

[ Before he calls her on it, she never stopped to think about why she was so opposed to the physical contact that came with aid, why she was so sharply defensive of any movement that seemed to stem from the belief that she required assistance. She does, now, and she's so startled by the keenness of his observation that it staggers her a moment, leaving her frozen in the Corellian wilderness to stare after his retreating form for a moment too long.

On Jakku, weakness made you a target. If you took help, it meant you needed it, and if you needed someone else, you certainly weren't in any position to protect what little you had. She never would have staked out her home inside that half-buried AT-AT had she been comfortable revealing her own weakness. The storms that blew through buffed the residents of the desert planet into smooth rocks, stubbornly independent and wild of temper.

But it wasn't just that. Finn, Chewie, Han, Leia, even Poe and Luke, any of them offering help weren't met with the same rebuff anymore; Kylo Ren was different. Regardless of what she'd seen in his mind, of the connection that they shared, she still shunted him back away from the familiar and casual touch, from seeing her as weak. Both because a part of her believed she would never be through proving herself to the barrage of his insults and because she needed strength to dissuade him from combatting her.

It was a barrier, and he had thrust bodily against it and bounced back off of it, recognizing it before Rey was ever aware that she had created it. Only then does she look around and notice how different their position in the forest is, how quickly they've been moving, and consider what he'd actually been trying to do. That moment is the most humbling of them all, and guilt creeps in and stiffens her joints as she moves to catch up with him. ]

Stop psychoanalyzing me. [ The grouse lacks bite in all its brevity, but she falls in step beside him. A few strides—his easy, hers taken in lunges—pass in silence before she reaches out to touch his arm, a passive apology and correction, accepting the truth of his words while remaining too stubborn to verbally acknowledge it. Show me, her reach urges. ]

( Lacking in intensity or not, he knows that he's struck a nerve long before Rey says anything in retaliation. When she stops moving forward, the sound of her footsteps falling off abruptly behind him, Kylo turns to track her whereabouts while taking careful steps backward, surprised and yet not at all taken aback to find her stock-still with green and brown leaves crowding her boots around the ankles. He's pleased with himself, in a way, to have hit a sore spot, satisfaction blooming like a dark flower, but he can't call his observations clever or even informed by his abilities in navigating the alleys and avenues of her mind, in forcing open the locked doors with a heavily thrown shoulder or a battering ram.

She wears her history and experience in every angle of her body and every sharp line of her face, in every reaction to a hand up or some assistance offered, like a badge or medal earned, a product of a hard life lived alone. Her hands are as rough and strong because they need to be. It's plainly obvious why she might consider any kind of help a catcall to her own personal weaknesses and why she might instinctively be driven to rebuff his guidance as a result, and in a way, Kylo can understand where she's coming from, even if he can't completely empathize with it. He can perhaps blame her only a little less than he was able to when she'd rejected his offer to train her on Starkiller, which he still considers a viable option even though the conditions may have changed to a certain degree.

For a moment, he stares her down, as if waiting to see what she'll do next, but it's only a moment, and they admittedly don't have time for games of chicken in the forest, so he turns again to continue on the path back to camp, his steps and footfalls unnecessarily loud as he lumbers through the forest with heavy strides. When he walks with some amount of purpose beyond a casual stroll, he throws his weight into it, though it's more obvious when he isn't deliberately keeping his strides from reaching their maximum in order for her to keep pace with him once she decides that she doesn't want to be left behind in the woods.

It takes only a moment, and then she's at his side again, matching the length of his steps stride for stride. Kylo only looks down at her once she's finished talking, and he only replies to her once she's made the conscious decision to reach out toward him. )

It's not as much fun when you're on the other side of it, is it? ( She's analyzed him and been vocal about it in her own right enough times that he's managed to lose count. He's done the same to her, he knows, but it feels like it bears repeating now, despite the fact that he extends his elbow toward her so that she might wrap her hand around it in the same manner he had let his fingers span the back of her own arm. Her silent request, her stubborn pride acknowledging his proficiency and experience in this matter, does not go unnoticed. It contrasts sharply with the last time that he encouraged her to follow his lead, the taste of damp earth and fresh air replacing the bitter chill and copper tang of blood he associates with Starkiller. ) This is more effective when you're running, normally, or when you need to slow your perception of the world in a way that has higher stakes, but I don't think we need to be in that much of a hurry.

( He tries to show her, as best he can, what he's doing. Through thought and projected feeling, reaching out to flood her awareness and perception of his ability through the connection that they tentatively share. )

[ The way his retort mocks her for her response also scolds her for her own efforts to sift through his head, but she doesn't let it truly discourage her from the interest that lies at a constant simmer. Still, she grips his arm where he offers it, curling her fingers around the surprisingly lithe limb where it settles under the thick fabric of his tunic.

Silence under the fire of his rebuff prompts him to speak again, this time didactic, and Rey listens with rapt attention when he describes the applications. In tandem, she feels his mind open to her, and she leans into the connection studiously There, the link between their minds feels like a tangible cord that she uses to pull herself in closer to him.

In his mind, she can feel the strides he takes and how he lengthens them with the Force. Though her attempts to replicate it on her own start out without grace or experience, stumbling through erratic back-and-forths in her speed that sometimes translate to her trailing just behind him like a child, she pushes further telepathically to allow him to take the lead, his movements guiding her body in kind, and the muscle memory translates more readily to an understanding than anything else.

And just like that, he's everywhere, flooding her awareness with the suddenness of a tidal wave's final crash, his presence cool in her extremities but not alarming or unwelcome. Their unified movements carry them as far as the camp before, slowing down, she extricates herself from the bond and feels a sudden aching absence to sift and separate which parts are his mind and which are hers.

She comes back into her own isolation with a pitched gasp, as sharp and sudden as a bucket of ice water. ]

( The forest passes by in a blur of color, interrupted now and then by the sudden focus of some tree or a large rock or a collection of brambles when he wordlessly hands the reigns to Rey under the specific purpose of letting her try the task on her own merit. Her start and stop approach to what he's trying to show her is frustrating for the length of time that it takes them to get from one point to another, but Kylo does not allow himself to grow frustrated, tapping into the control that he has been taught in order to master his own reckless impatience and stop him from shaking her off, grabbing her arm instead, and taking the lead completely.

He feels her pushing at the fringe of his perception, a thread that weaves its way along the stitching of his own movements, and Kylo curls his hand into a fist and opens himself to her just as much as she allows him access in her own right. Kylo surges in without the resistance of her own shields and walls to stop him from flooding, though it is without the underlying aggressive threat of a maelstrom coming to tear her mind apart and more seamless than it may have been in the past. It's easier to teach her, to show her, this way, explaining without words and showing without demonstration, letting her observe what he's doing as if she were doing it herself, and it bolsters the speed in its own right until they are back at camp proper, moving bodies and collapsing tents peeking through the trees in little bursts of color.

Rey starts to withdraw and Kylo does as well, shaking her presence free like casting sand and water out through a sieve, trying to retain all the parts that are himself and separate them from the ones that are her and managing to get a complicated and messy collection in the process. He hasn't hide time to really examine it at length. He needs to. It's an abrupt absence that she is perhaps expecting less than him, given her reaction, but the hollow emptiness that rides high in his chest as a result, he imagines, is something unique to them in tandem. )

Next time you'll take lead. I can show you other things in the same way.

( Kylo pulls his arm away from her and wastes no time examining the withdrawing ache that seeps out of his sternum like retreating ice water. He leads them back into the camp, sticking naturally to the outskirts as he takes heavy, borderline painful steps toward the bright and converging center where he feels Skywalker's presence most keenly. Detours aside, he wants his saber back. )

[ When he jerks his arm free, she feels a more acute finality in the loss, but she crowds it out of her expression, stiffening her features to look over the camp. Heavy dread clouds her mind as she drew in the details of the camp, the stacked supply bags, the oiled metal entrances to tented shuttle cabins and crudely structured sheds that bunked soldiers and communication officers alike. Her eyes pore over it like they're searching for pieces she won't see again, acknowledging the potential that she might not, that these last minutes on solid ground will be a goodbye.

She doesn't know how long it's been since she left camp, let alone since he did, but she knows well enough that there isn't time to waste. So instead she nods, accepting without complaint what he proposes, even if it makes the tacit assumption that she will welcome him to teach her anything again. They both know that curiosity will inevitably win, that she will permit it, and that they will both be glad for it in the long run: war cannot make room for pride. ]

I'll alert the General. When I leave you this time, can I trust you to actually go find Luke? [ The implication is heavy that her own lightsaber was nothing but an excuse to avoid the encounter. She doesn't shy away from it for the same reasons that she can't be allowed to shy away from the inevitability of his training. ]

( Kylo glances at her sidelong, attempting to pin her accusation in place with little more than a look and not indulging her further by making a comment for the sake of drawing an argument out. They've proven their capabilities of sustaining disagreements, literally, over several galaxies, and Rey's priorities are in the right place in terms of being pressed for time. It's clear that he's aware of the implication all the same, regardless of the distinct lack of attention that he calls to it, already turning his attention outward and away from her as he turns away from her physically.

Walls go up like keying up the shields of a command shuttle, forcing her out with a distinct snap that isn't so much rude as it is done with cold efficiency. Necessity. Whatever happens, whatever is said when he leaves Rey to her task in order to complete his own, retrieve his blade, Kylo doesn't want her looking in or getting waves and snippets of what he's feeling. There's a good chance his disdain, which has lain dormant and undisturbed, slumbering, for years, might look up and shake off some of the ancient dust that has settled once he is alone in a room with his uncle, but it's not something he wants anyone else being privy to. If he can keep her out, he will.

So he takes a long step back into camp, his boots leaving deep imprints in the muddy earth. They move in opposite directions now, Kylo pointedly does not answer her question though he walks backward for a few paces to keep her directly in his line of sight before he turns around and makes his way, unaccompanied, into the interior of the camp. Whether it's to regard the expression on her face as he does out of some search for amusement or as a means of offering proof that he's capable of the task she's expecting of him, Kylo makes no indication, but he does slink back into the camp with his chin aloft and his shoulders square, looking no one in the eye while daring everyone to do so based on his existence alone.

Not for the first time and very probably not for the last, he wishes that he would have retrieved his helmet from where he and Rey had fought. He'd drawn that line in the sand and stepped over it, though. Now came the time to map out the other side. )

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