apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

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

( Months ago, before Starkiller, before Snoke had seen fit to burden him with the greater purpose of the completion of his training, he might have reacted accordingly. Were they alone on Yaga Minor, were their circumstances now anything but tenuous and hinging on the trip switch of their conjoined efforts, Kylo might allow the perfect retaliatory rage to course through him like a lit firework. He might let it burn him up, but he measures the control he is able to utilize over the current predicament out in doses relative to his personal successes, and only lets the slightest trickle of ire out through a pinhole, calling on control, calling on training.

It's in the interest of keeping the ship together physically as much as it is not calling unnecessary attention to their endeavors on the whole. A full scale meltdown might in turn create a blip on the radar, and while Snoke is sure to be cognizant of where his pupil is even if he cannot reach out to him directly, Kylo has no desire to unleash whatever fresh hell is waiting for him in those hidden shadows, lurking at the edges of his perception. Self-preservation keeps him objectively level, even if internally he needs to distract himself with the menial, laborious tasks required to keep Han Solo's ship in working order.

Rey corrects his assumptions regarding her plan, and Kylo basically rolls his eyes, turning halfway back around to finish sealing up the paneling in the interest of not creating a shower of sparks when the shield inevitably overloads from attack and and covers the floor in dirty electricity. When he turns back around, she has rearranged her face into something more beseeching, softening the strong angles of her jaw and cheekbones, the hollows of her eyes. It is not unlike the expressions she has drawn on him before, staring him down from the other side of an airtight sheet of glass or in the mental construct born of his own recollections of Ilum, Starkiller, and Yavin IV. )

No. ( His answer comes abruptly, instantly, eager to be spoken as soon as she poses the question. It's honest in its brashness and in conjuncture with the expression he fixes her with in turn. Part of him inherently and stubbornly wants to believe in his own ability, in his own prowess, has actual confidence that he is stronger than Snoke - Snoke, who wants him for his power; Snoke, who plucked him from infancy because of the potential that he knew he could cultivate and exploit - but hubris has left him wanting before. ) But it doesn't seem like there's much choice in the matter. ( Kylo crosses his arms over his chest, elbows sticking out at tight angles, the line of his shoulders one unbroken rod of tension. He lowers his chin to pin her in place with a dark, heavy stare. ) One leash for another.

( He doubts the credibility in drawing the First Order out of hiding by goading him into giving chase due to the Resistance leaders' presence coupled with Kylo's own, but he sees the merit in her suggestion all the same. As such, he doesn't offer her much of an opportunity to critique or concede the point of his temporary ownership, and he doesn't doubt her piloting skills to her face. She'd obviously been able to escape the First Order on Jakku with FN-2187 and the droid in tow, and she's flown the Falcon all these months without scuttling it on an asteroid, so it seems a moot point. The fabric of the lie is more imperative than her navigational ability. )

How do you feel about the illusion of captivity? ( A plan begins to weave itself into the tapestry of his thoughts, imagining himself bound and at the mercy of the Resistance, trapped not unlike the way that he was previously. It's a pitiful reach out to bite at the hand that has fed him, and he knows that whatever deception he crafts will have to be carefully constructed so as not to affront his pride in a way that the Supreme Leader would see as suspect, but Kylo is confident in his ability to do that much. ) General Organa and Luke Skywalker escorting a prisoner, a son and nephew, back to a Resistance base. With you. It's a legitimate assumption to make.

( It would prove tempting, but not tempting enough for Snoke to leave his seat in any capacity. He would never stoop so low when he has Hux and Phasma available. )

There's always a choice.

[ She steps in closer as if to try to impose her will on him by the force of her presence, but only serves to dwarf herself in proximity to him, glowering up through dark lashes. It almost feels as though she can't bring herself to let it go because her restlessness demands a fight still, that it hasn't been satiated by the way they have orbited around each other without colliding since emerging from the dark shroud of his mind. Her molars grind. ]

You're not a luggabeast, and I won't be your master.

[ She doesn't want that responsibility, truthfully, but more to the point, she wouldn't be freeing him if she were only trading him into Resistance service. Her own ethics resist the notion, a visceral distaste that comes from being indentured into servitude on Jakku for more than a decade. They'd both had their fair share of leashes for one lifetime.

For that reason, she won't evaluate his suggestion: not yet. Until they get through this disagreement, there is no place further to go. The hiss of engines starts, though the shields remain down, telling her that Chewie is in the cockpit unable to bring them up himself even with his extensive reach. The weightless sensation of take-off jostles their feet slightly, but though Rey sways, she does not falter to catch herself. ]

As soon as we are free of the First Order's fleet, if you so wish it, you're welcome to go wherever in this galaxy you want. I'll send you with one of the escape pods. Resistance fighters don't blindly follow orders: they follow them because they believe it's the right thing to do, and they trust that the General knows the best way to do it.

[ So that helps to sufficiently dig at what she wants out of this: to be trusted in her judgment the way Leia is, to be respected without being feared. She does not want him to follow out of necessity, but out of agreement—but she does want him to follow. ]

That's a nice thought.

( Rey might harbor that illusion for herself, but Kylo Ren holds no such faith in her illustrious and wonderful leaders. He's a criminal. He's murdered countless people and ordered the execution of many, many more. He struck down Han Solo when the smuggler was offering him a way out, a way back, and tortured Poe Dameron and kidnapped Rey. He would never bet money on the Resistance letting him walk away, let alone his own freedom, so while Rey might believe in the validity of what she offers him, Kylo knows that it's a reward with no actual reward attached. His reward will be leaving Corellian airspace alive and free to decide what he wants to do with the key that has been given to him so long as it lies in tandem with what the Resistance expects of him. It's either that or execution, he assumes, regardless of the political sway that General Organa and Luke Skywalker might be able to conjure between them. )

But that's all it is, Rey. A nice thought.

( The truth remains that he also has nowhere else to go. It isn't as if he can steal away in an escape pod and crash on some rock somewhere in an attempt to make an honest living of it. The First Order won't take him back as things stand, and the other Knights are sure to be scouring the galaxy for any trace of his presence in a collective effort to bring their master under the hands of the Supreme Leader. Realization blooms within him at the finality of the situation like a sick flower, and Kylo understands in that moment that it is the cold wash of comprehension that he has been circling since he took his first voluntary steps out of the command shuttle and into the Resistance camp.

This, of all places in the galaxy, is the only real place that he has left. )

I've made a choice. ( He says it as his stomach drops with the inevitability of their take off, and all around him the Millennium Falcon comes to life in a way that no ship has since he was a gangly, awkward-looking child. There is no going back now. ) I would have left long ago if I hadn't.

[ The dismissal, sharp and abrupt as it is, fractures something in her chest—optimism flags and she drops her shoulders, hands hanging loose at her sides. Though she flounders for a reply, a defense, she finds herself crashing uselessly against his shoreline, lapping at unchanging rock faces.

To tell him that she never meant to do this to him, to entrap him in a gilded cage apart from the one he'd spent a lifetime in, seems insulting to voice, but the sentiment carries through in her gaze, the way her eyes soften and her brows knit together. ]

It'll do. You have everything you need to construct it in your memories. [ His initial confinement, the pallid expressions of Luke and Leia as they saw him, the stubborn guard duty she kept outside his airlock.

Chagrined, she drops her gaze and turns away, stepping just outside to move herself out of the way of the doorframe and permit him the freedom of movement around the ship, at least. There is nothing more she can do for him then, and all they can hope is that when he sets his lure, Snoke will bite, and Kylo won't betray them. ]

Do what you have to. I'll keep us in the air.

( He waits until her footsteps have disappeared down the hallway, splaying one palm against the lurching, metallic skeleton of the ship as it hurtles itself through tree and cloud on its way to kiss atmo goodbye and break into the cold, unflinching silence of space. Alone in this portion of the freighter, the cresting reality of the situation is able to press down on him on all sides, and with Rey deposed to deal with the navigational controls, prepping the ship and her own ability to outmaneuver the First Order fleet that waits for them at the other end of their controlled ascent, Kylo allows the growing nausea of what he's done on Corellia to buckle and blindside him. It's been kept at the edges of his perception since he woke on the command shuttle, intensified following the sever in the Force that he had felt when he clipped Snoke sloppily from his own mind, and it leaves his mouth thick with saliva and the taste of bile as he sets his mind to the task of what it is he has to do.

What waits for him on the other side of this endeavor is a region of reality as unexplored as the Unknown Regions, pockets of deep space that crush gravity and turn energy back in on itself. Kylo can't search his own feelings to determine whether or not the decision that he makes is the correct one, but he knows ultimately that it is the only one. Much as the choices he had made to deliver him to the First Order had been choices born of his own desperation and beliefs, he knows now that every move that he makes is a step that will determine the course of his path and how rocky or smooth the terrain is. What waits at the end is a mystery, although the fleeting images that he has seen of Snoke's demise color his perceptions with the conjoined red and blues of plasma swinging in vicious, tandem streaks.

It's impossible to find a spot on the ship that does not remind him in so many ways of its previous owner, though Kylo avoids heading in the direction of the cockpit more than anything. He finds himself in the galley, settling onto a low bench opposite the counter and heating units designed to function as a stove top. The banality of the environment strikes him as ironic, given the task that he is charged with carrying out, but there's little time to reconsider or weight his options in light of their climbing altitude. His fingers curl into fists where his hands bracket the slope of his knees, and Kylo leans forward to brace his forearms on his thighs, waiting for the nausea to abate before grinding his molars together and turning the questing lens of his gaze inward.

Snoke is waiting for him like a cloud of poison gas when the walls come down.

Kylo Ren drops to his knees in the projected auditorium of his own mind, rough stone biting his skin to bloody as he hits the ground and bows his head, showing lines of bone and muscle and thin skin under the tangle of dark hair that peeks from underneath the manipulated image of his helmet. It's an exercise in perfect deception, and as such he constructs brick by brick the walls and shields required to keep Rey from seeing should she choose to look. She can't be here, can't infect the projection, the connection, with the spray of sand and her wash of bright, warm sunshine, applied like a burn. He can only make room for the frostbitten breath of the Supreme Leader as fingers that carry the texture of dry, dead leaves ghost over the back of his neck, turning inward to bite into his skin and apply pressure to caverns of his mind behind his eyes.

Kylo Ren. His master's voice is the cold wash of a dead, salty sea in his ears and his throat, and Kylo knows better than to look up, knows better than to argue. The pressure in his cranium builds until it is unbearable pain, a sharp, white light picking the locks of his mind to reveal the severity of his betrayal. In the waking world, Kylo bites down on his cheek so sharply that blood flows into his mouth and saturates his tongue with copper. The cutlery on the galley table vibrates, whether from the impact of lift off or the sweeping current of his acute focus and rage as it ripples through the Force. Supreme Leader, he responds inside the valley in his mind, sharp stones cutting through the leather of his gloves as he falls to knees and hands underneath the onslaught of Snoke's power. Master.

It's not going to work. He feels it in his bones, up and down the tight muscles of his arms, his attention drawn and quartered down so many different paths. The weight of his betrayal is so heavy between them, the channel thrown open to let Snoke flood into Kylo's consciousness like a battering ram. Even if the connection has been broken, Snoke is still supreme for a reason, and his power is consuming in its totality, so much that Kylo finds himself unable to even look up under the weight of Snoke's punishment, filtered across time and space and star systems bursting with life. His rage is precise, a perfect beam of focused disappointment filled with a cleansing fire that neither Skywalker nor Organa could ever hope to posses. It licks underneath Kylo's ribs and burns him from the inside out as Snoke shoves into his head to see what he sees through the projected, false image that he is shown.

Kylo Ren lies with more conviction than he ever has.

He is bound at the hands and flanked on either side by Rey and Skywalker, the General across from him as she confers with Ematt while staring at the black slash of her son's figure as it sits incapacitated aboard the ship that once belonged to his father. Gone are the streaks of grease that stain his skin and force his hair to stand on end; gone is the plain black flightsuit, swallowed instead by the surcoat and armor that he wears underneath the damaged - torn and dirty - shroud of his cloak, hood drawn to hide the resemblance that he bears to Han Solo; gone, too, is the welcome weight of the saber that hangs presently at his hip, carried instead in Rey's curious hands as she ghosts her thumb over the ignition switch, watching him from the rise of Luke Skywalker's shoulder as they, too, speak quietly about what should be done with him. He projects his captivity with shame and fury, pouring every ounce of himself into it in order to make it all the more likely that he reality he creates is an actuality.

Your failure has been spectacular, boy, but the sacrificial slaughter that you offer may redeem your weaknesses yet, Snoke says to him, and Kylo buckles under the Supreme Leader's discipline. The heating unit explodes. )

[ Rey settles restlessly into her seat beside Chewie, her hands itching with the stress of inaction as she thinks of the battle that will be waged in the hold while she steadies the ship to navigate it through whatever barricade waits for them beyond. The atmosphere burns up around them, barraging the shields, and she keeps an eye on the starboard side sensors while the ship lurches out of Corellia’s gravity.

Two Resurgent-class Star Destroyers waited for them, ready to snipe the Resistance’s fleet with poised turbo lasers. At the sight of the Falcon breaking atmo, TIE fighters pour out of the belly of the ship. A green flash of a turbo laser fire narrowly misses the Falcon by the skin of its nose, a warning flashing on the display screen that monitors the shield resilience. The ship swings around like an attraction at the fair, jostling its passengers while it dodges further fire.

Rey navigates the Falcon like she was born to, ducking quickly behind Gus Talon to seek cover fire, but the pursuing TIE fighters force her to plunge near the moon’s surface, following the grooves and craters that pepper dusty settlements there. Beside her, Chewie lowers the power while they drop flush enough to the moon’s surface to be protected from radar by its magnetic fields, and the great white freighter clings near the surface as it shuffles into deeper corners of space.

Once they’re free of active fire, her mind reaches out and comes up against a smooth wall of glossy black metal rebuffing her from sensing Kylo. He is aboard, she knows, and through the Force she can sense his unease, but the details beyond the ghosts of impressions elude her. Pink knuckles turn pale as she grips the yoke tighter, pushing the nose of the Falcon upward and outward into space. ]

Alright, Chewie. [ She nods, eyes fixed out the front window. ] I’m going to bring us to light speed. Bring down any that follow.

[ On radar, she can see one of the Star Destroyers—a large, angry blip too close for comfort—steer wide and turn to pursue them once, indubitably, stormtroopers report back from their zippy fighters. With a series of adjustments to the instrument panel, Rey listens as the ship begins to tremble and bob, white starlight peeling at the edges of their vision. The Falcon lurches and jumps in the same moment that everything goes to hell.

A series of alarms sound and flash on the console and in the cockpit above the pilot and copilot’s seats. On her feet in an instant, Rey searches out the codes, reading symbols and then barreling, anger burning her heels, out of the cockpit. With a disgruntled howl, Chewie turns his attention more fully to their set course, which carries them far from Corellia to the Outer Rim. ]

What the hell is going on?! [ She wheels through the circular corridor full of secret smuggling compartments in search of Kylo Ren and, with him, answers. The heating system is blown—completely, judging by what she finds when she stalls in front of its control panel. Even with the warmth provided by the Quadex core running the hyperdrive wouldn’t keep them from freezing to death in the depths of space if they didn’t get it back online in some capacity. No life support systems in the world could keep oxygen breathable at subzero temperatures.

Immediately, Rey pulls the faceplate off the control panel and sets to work evaluating the extent of the damage, which looks irreparable due to the apparent explosion that set off within, leaving charred tubing, melted wires, and jagged holes in the metal casing. Panic and anger color her presence as she forces it out again at the slick metal wall that blocks her from Kylo Ren’s mind, and she grits her teeth as she tries this time to bulldoze straight through it. ]

( He is on the floor, hands and knees pressing hard into the metal grating that hides cabling, power couplings, and the hidden compartments that, he knows, Han Solo used to smuggle spice in his days before becoming a general in the Rebel army. Kylo's fingers spasm around whatever he can find to hold onto, halfway to catatonic with pain that bursts like blown star systems behind his eyelids. His head is on fire, skin hypothermic, every beat of his heart pumping metallic blood through his circulatory system as he struggles to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide and not throw up at the same time. Blood floods his mouth where he grinds his teeth down into the meat of his cheek in an effort not to cry out, to ground himself in the vertigo-inducing sensation of Rey's piloting skills as she steers them away from Corellia.

Kylo lets Snoke feel the shaking of the ship around him, the floor vibrating under the length of his palm as something takes a hit. In his mind, General Organa barks orders for updates, and Skywalker, despite his innate desire to be behind the wheel of the Falcon's controls, remains as a guard to flank his nephew in the event that he tries to utilize any power in order to escape. Rey is called away, to the cockpit for assistance, and he imagines that he can feel her footsteps pounding away down the hall enough that the echo of them resounds perfectly in the dome of his head. Snoke stands in his mind's eye, and the helmet in Kylo's vision falls away so that long, spindly fingers can thread through his hair like wisps of smoke, like clouds of vapor made corporeal, trailing motor oil down the back of his neck in rivulets.

He only realizes that it's sweat that's congealing under the strain of the illusion when Rey actually does bark at him, breaking through the haze of heat and bringing him away from the summit of the experience with a barrage of her own presence against the sheer cliff wall that he has constructed in an effort to keep her out of this. Teeth gnash, lined with bright red blood, and he makes a noise not unlike something savage and wild, a sharp grunt that might be a shout were his teeth not pressed so tightly together. Stay out, he hits back, shoving at her with a burst of strength that would upend her and send her sprawling back the way she had come were it made physical. It's a peer back at her through a crack in the door, the wild white of his eye visible before he slams it shut in her face and looks up at the beckoning hand of the Supreme Leader, extended toward him as if in conciliatory acceptance.

The Outer Rim, Kylo says simply, eyes tracing the sunken, misshapen face that he has looked to time and time again for understanding and guidance, for wisdom and respect. Twin eyes, black as Ilum's glacial plains, curve in the darkness toward him. In the projection of his projection, the bulky width of his frame straightens and stares ahead at the general, meeting the softness of wide brown eyes. Snoke says to him, I will not abandon you as they have, boy.

And then he's gone. The pressure on Kylo's head and neck swells to a paralyzing crescendo before it abates and washes away like the faltering of the tide, and he is left to blink his way back to full consciousness like coming out of a stupor. He breathes loudly, each inhale and exhale punctuated with a half-choked scratch of sound that rolls outward from his larynx like it's being ripped out of him. Alarms blare in his ears, the floor swimming into focus where his face has nearly pressed into it. Something is burning, melting, and when he swallows his mouth is full of saliva and blood. He fights with the urge to vomit, blinking black spots out of his eyes, curls his hand into a fist and strikes viciously at the floor before pushing himself back onto his hands and knees. The wall separating himself from Snoke slides back into place, allowing Rey to once again tumble face-first into his mind as he frees up her end of the connection. )

The Knights are coming.

[ This time, the head-splitting pain never comes, and she staggers blindly into his mind, briefly losing physical sensation as she charges so assuredly into the telepathic link forged by their Force bond. A moment later, she detaches, hearing the heavy weight of dread in his voice fill her to the brim, though she has no personal concept of what to anticipate of the Knights of Ren.

In the wake of the dread comes the immediate and obtuse complaint that they don't have time for the Knights of Ren to come beating down their door right now. It's an indignant huff, whispered in her mind as she stares at the backfire caused in the heating unit. There's nothing she can do about the heating immediately, and they have time before the effects really start to sink in. The shields, the pressure in the ship afforded by the atmospheric controls, and the circulating heat of the hyperdrive should keep the ship at tolerable conditions until the mess of melted wires and metal have cooled enough to touch.

She shakes her hands out, flicking molten rubber wire casings off the edge of her reddened thumbs, and draws herself into the closet he'd steadied himself in for the task—right where she'd left him, but for the heap that he'd puddled into on the floor. Rey crouches, but not to soothe him. The hand claps quickly onto his shoulder, and though reassuring in its promise of teamwork, still grabs a fistful of his surcoat to drag him up by it. ]

Hey. [ She leans in to try to catch his gaze, steady him, sift through the immense and apparent strain that the task had put him under. As much as she wants to alleviate whatever trauma was reopened by the mission she had offered to him, they simply have too much to prepare for.

His breath roars over the sound of the engines, a desperate gasped wheeze that clouds her mind with guilt, and she can't tell if it's the image of Snoke or the knowledge of what the Supreme Leader has sent after them that sends him into this panic. Her nerves prickle at the sight of him so acutely unhinged, a picture she's only been on the other end of once before, one she doesn't want to relive. ] Come on. Don't make me do this alone.

[ The statement, clear and reverberating in the metal coffin they hurtle through space in, exposes a raw nerve that she had hoped not to offer to him but can't avoid now. He is her only chance not to be alone in this galaxy. Jakku was a very literal, physical isolation, but since then she's felt the blind and wayward confusion of stumbling through her understanding of the Force and training with it, watched Luke keep secrets from her, fought off the influence of the Dark Side in a way that she had hoped Finn could understand but was so different from his own experiences. Kylo's mere presence offers her an illusion of solidarity, even if it is unwilling on his part at best.

It's not that she'll be alone—Chewie would still be on board, after all—but that she would be without him and everything his presence at her side entails. The image he'd painted for her on Yaga Minor still burns in the corners of her mind, begging to be realized. ]

Not now. ( His voice tumbles out of his mouth like a pile of rocks rolling down the side of a hill, unbidden and uncalled for. ) Eventually. Soon.

( Kylo isn't sure whether or not he's responding to something that Rey has actually said, a perceived inquiry bordering on a complaint that remains unvoiced, or a follow-up to the aside he had offered upon emerging from the bog he had been wandering in. What he means is that the Knights are not coming now, but they will. Eventually. They'll scour the Outer Rim and scorch the earth in their attempt to find him, find them, Rey included. The only benefit to knowing ahead of time that they'll be looking is that he will be able to feel them coming a long way off, casting wide nets to drag the sea of space in an effort to find their master.

Her hand claps on his shoulder as she hauls him to his feet with strength that never fails to both impress and surprise him, and Kylo lashes out automatically, catching the bones of her wrist in the tight circle of his hand, unable to stop himself from trying to ward her off physically. He squeezes and pins her in place with wild eyes, and he takes a couple steadying breaths before dropping her arm in favor of wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. Leather smears with damp blood and spit, and be begins to come down from the manic high of having the Supreme Leader claw at the contents of his mind like a child scooping porridge from a bowl.

Rey's words offer little comfort in the cold world of space, but he accepts them for what they are nonetheless and finds that they resonate with him in a way that he has felt before, what feels like countless times now that he has come to know and understand her so much better than he had when he'd initially encountered her. Kylo can read between the lines and intuit her actual meaning despite the state of the ship around them, the hissing of the heating unit that had burst as a result of his poorly maintained control and focus, and he nods in response, the after-image of an island, unique to her thoughts, her perceptions, finding a niche within his own thoughts and bringing with it a poor substitute for comfort. It's an action that ignites the pounding of a migraine deep in the dome of his skull, but he doesn't let it slow him down. )

Step back. ( He warns her in time for him to lurch out of the cramped space he has crawled into to angle his face over the galley sink and spit into the drain. He doesn't waste water on the taste in his mouth but takes a few steadying breaths with metal bending under his palms before righting himself enough to turn back around and face her. There's no schooling his face into impassivity now, so he doesn't try. ) Did it work?

[ When he grabs her, she's not sure which version of Kylo Ren she gazes up at, the hard edge of his gaze echoing back a void that he'd stared into too long, one she recognizes from the landscape of his mind as the cold and barren wasteland occupied by Leader Snoke. But she keeps her jaw tight, her chin high, and she doesn't relent to his grip.

Eventually, he releases it, and relief carries the breath out of her lungs just as quickly as her eyes study and process the blood she sees smear on his leather gloves. Powerful indeed. It would seem the Supreme Leader is not to be underestimated; if his hold on Kylo Ren can cause such minor physical injuries, there is no telling that it can't draw out something more severe through the pain he inflicts mentally.

She does not question Kylo on what he saw or heard, but accepts his report with a kind of implicit trust that he has not earned: rather, she offers it to him to spare his dignity and leave him to bury his reinvigorated traumas. Not trust, then, but respect. As a result, she takes a series of wary steps back, offering him breathing room. ]

At least half the ships they sent have begun to pursue us, but I don't know that we'll make it to the Outer Rim without making repairs to the systems they've damaged. [ She shakes her head, then fixes her attention with apparent distraction on the melted heating unit, the furrow of her brow debating its role in triggering a meltdown across the rest of the system. She opted not to make accusations—it wouldn't make a difference, anyway. It still needed to be repaired. So instead, she looked back to Kylo and offered her suggestion. ]

We should be able to lose them around Kessel, but we won't be able to make it back to the Hapes cluster for a rendezvous with the rest of the fleet without a pit stop to repair the systems that took damage. [ Which makes the whole lure them to the Outer Rim and shake them there plan something of a bust, unless they wanted to be stranded and frozen in a nonfunctional antique. She launches quickly into a contingency, revealing a certain reverence she offers for Organa herself in the apparent imitation. ]

I think our best bet is to adjust course for the Roche asteroids, lose them in the rubble, then slingshot around for Hapes to regroup with the General and Master Luke once they've made it off the surface of Corellia. Their escape should thin the herd of the First Order's fleets to something properly manageable, and as long as we're within the Hapes Cluster, we should be safe from their interference.

( Kylo's eyes follow Rey's to the blown heating unit, which still belches dark clouds of smoke that stinks of melted rubber and overheated metal. It's a distinct, sharp stench that flood his nostrils and clogs the back of his throat. He should try and fix it, he realizes, but he's at the disadvantage of not really knowing how. The attention that Rey spares the destroyed component makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end at the accusation she doesn't level at him, but the guilt inherent in knowing complicity that he was responsible for something that may have set them back in their trajectory makes him uneasy: a child reacting with anger at having been caught with his hand in a jar of sweets while the jar is also in pieces on the floor and his hand is also bloodied from the broken glass.

The charge never comes, though, and he's left tense and waiting against with one hand gripping the counter hard enough to turn his knuckles bone white and practically warp metal. He doesn't relax until Rey lays out the finer details of her plan and even then it's only by various degrees, letting go of the counter once his vision stops prickling at the sides and he's swallowed most of the blood that fills his mouth. When he speaks, there's a sharp prick of pain where he's bitten through his cheek, but Kylo knows exactly how to draw strength from pain and doesn't see it as a bother. )

As long as you think that the ship can hold together long enough to get to Roche and get through Roche, it's a plan with merit. ( Kylo pushes himself to his full height, casting a sideways glance over at the heating unit, which at least is no longer on fire. ) The real problem comes after, when Snoke realizes that we've changed course and not gone to the Outer Rim territories and systems as he's been led to believe. The Hapes Cluster might be able to shield you from First Order chatter and scouting, but it isn't going to do much to dissuade a Knight.

( That, still, is something that they can discuss when it's upon them, hurtling toward them like a comet rather than burning threateningly like a far off star. Ultimately, though, it comes down to one truth between them: )

You're the pilot of the this bucket. It's your call.

( It's likely the most control he ever has or ever will cede to her, but that doesn't make it any less accurate. He's an adequate pilot in his own right, but her skills are impressive enough that he can put the responsibility of their escape in her hands and not feel slighted by it. It's also as close to a compliment as he's likely to get as well. )

It'll hold together.

[ Rey growls the words out instinctively, casting a look up and around at the walls of the Falcon as if it could hear Kylo slinging insults at it. He can be thankful that she stops far short of reaching out to pet it with tender reassurance, at least, and turns her attention back to him instead of extending her moment of defense for the ship. ]

You think it's dangerous to reconvene with the Resistance with the Knights still pursuing us. [ Rey makes the evaluation carefully, sizing him up as she does, like she's not sure whether to believe him or attribute it to some personal distaste for the group. Unfortunately, his arguments carried solid reasoning in them, and she couldn't help finding herself in agreement that it was dangerous and irresponsible to lead the Knights straight to wherever the Resistance leaders moved themselves.

Whatever they decided, it needed to happen soon. Without adjusting the trajectory, they'd run out of options in the heart of Kessel space with no choice but to land on the barren, spice-laden asteroid with no hope for reinforcements.

She cycled through the nearby planets she'd seen on the astrogation chart in her mind—Nar Shaddaa would have the supplies they needed, but attract the wrong kind of attention; she'd heard stories of it from the earnest hunters who visited Jakku hoping for treasure of some kind that fell from the sky during the Galactic Civil War. Tund, Gand, and Kubindi were all marked as uninhabitable to humans (for reasons she certainly didn't want to test). Rey folded her arms over her chest while she worked the problem, finally bringing herself to think aloud for Kylo's benefit. ]

Mon Cala's too far. Kegan doesn't have a spaceport for us to find parts at. [ She rattles the planets off one by one, cutting down each option with a swift and brutal chop until finally, exasperatedly, she drops her hands. ] We don't have a choice. I can get us through Roche, but we have to reconvene with the fleet for as long as it takes to complete repairs. A few days, maybe more. Then we can pack off to the Outer Rim as we please to draw them off the Resistance.

[ She doesn't look happy about it, eyes already hardened by the prospect of whittling days away on another planet as desolate as Jakku, waiting to be hunted like animals. Given her rathers, Rey would hunt the First Order and the Knights of Ren down personally and meet them where they live, but she knows it's not a workable plan, and Leia would skewer her had she any idea the young Jedi was even thinking it. But given the choice, she'd rather stay the bait and use that to protect her friends from a battle they couldn't possibly win. The Force seemed to command that the Jedi fought a second front of this endless war, and Rey could only move through its streams to where it guided. ]

You know the First Order better than anyone: worst case, how long before the Knights find us?

( Kylo lets her talk it out, acting as a sounding board more than anything else, although he gives minor adjustments in expression or small indications at the corner of his mouth to either agree or disagree with her. Were it him, he would set them down on Nar Shaddaa and be done with it, but she's right in assuming that landing there would garner them the sort of attention that they aren't looking for. It's difficult for him to think like a Resistance operative when he has spent so long moving unperturbed and uninterrupted through the galaxy, unafraid and unaffected by the sorts of problems and cautions that they run into now. Part of him wants to risk their presence on Nar Shaddaa regardless of the risk involved, knowing that between the two of them, he and Rey could cover their tracks through the Force quite nicely, with relative ease, but it's not a tactic that she's likely to be fond of, and if he's being honest with himself, Kylo doesn't know that he has the strength left in him right now to wipe their existence from memory were they to regroup there. )

Rejoining with the fleet could be beneficial. ( He pushes away from where he's been leaning and paces a slow, steady path between the galley unit and just a couple of feet from where Rey has taken up her position. ) They might assume a change of hands has taken place and be unsure which ship to focus the bulk of their attention on. It won't be an unexpected move, necessarily, but navigating through Roche will buy you enough time to stop them from breathing down the back of your neck, long enough for the First Order to begin looking in the territories I provided the Supreme Leader with. I think it's dangerous to reconvene with the Resistance with Knights pursuing you, yes, but the Knights aren't going to pursue with the sort of immediacy that the First Order is. It doesn't work like that.

( Which isn't an answer to her question, and Kylo knows that, but he needs a moment to talk it through himself in order to arrive at the other end of the spectrum, perceiving the idea of his Knights attacking a problem from an end opposite his, without his direction, without his command, without his control. )

Worst case? One of them finds us in the Roche asteroids and tails us to the Hapes Cluster, brings the entire First Order back down on the Resistance, unaware and unprepared, but that would mean leaving immediately, and Snoke is not going to scramble them so abruptly. Knights - ( He has to forcibly stop himself from saying my Knights, though the desire to do so is there, right at the tip of his tongue as it draws away from his teeth to pronounce the syllable necessary to complete the thought. Every word that follows feels like an acute betrayal of not only a collective that he spent the last decade believing in but also of a tight unit of some of the most gifted warriors - Force users or otherwise - that he has ever known. It's a betrayal they will see without question, once the smoke clears and the concussive glare of the blast wears off, and it's that bloodlust and thirst that they should be most concerned with. The First Order does not suffer traitors; the Knights of Ren dare not even breathe the word into existence. ) - operate independently of the First Order. When our efforts are coordinated, then we collaborate, but they are a unit distinctly different from what the First Order is and represents. They don't defer to any chain of command within the Order. They defer to me. And in my absence, they'll defer to Snoke directly as opposed to carrying out his orders through a channel and go to him for instruction when they're beckoned. ( Kylo levels a look at her, making sure that she's paying attention to this part. ) It's imperative that you understand the kind of people that you're going up against.

( The odds had been stacked against him, the first time, and partially even the second time, during their battle on Corellia. He had been injured on Starkiller Base, and he hadn't wanted to kill her in either skirmish, attacking with the controlled ferocity intended only to subdue. Rey knows the story, however she wants to paint it, but the reality is that had he been interested in killing her, had he been operating at full capacity, Kylo could have overpowered her without a second thought. The warm tendrils of darkness, offering to wrap her in a soft, powerful embrace, that she encounters every time she turns her head in the wrong direction is nothing compared to the tangle of Dark power that surrounds some of the Knights of Ren. Kylo glances at the lightsaber that is strapped to Rey's side, and he is immediately proud of his decision - and hers - to go back into the woods to retrieve it. )

I would keep the time that it takes to repair your ship to a minimum once you rendezvous with the Resistance on the other side of Roche. It won't be an immediate hunt for the Falcon's bumper, but it will come quickly once Snoke realizes that the Outer Rims are not actually our intended target. And he and the Knights won't exactly be pleased.

[ The blunt edge of his assessment shocks her, fear crawling beneath her skin in a way that sends her turning away from him to busy herself at the smoking heating unit. At the very least, it would help her to work with her hands while she mulled it over: the mechanics of the ship offered her a comfort and safe haven where things made sense, but better still, it offered her the opportunity to mask her expressions from Kylo as he spoke.

It unnerves her, the way he lumps himself with the First Order and rebuffs her plans and the Resistance's to the impersonal you, as if he claimed no part in them, but she tried to assuage herself that it was habit, not confession, and thus she doesn't allow it to hinder the way his relative assurance that they're unlikely to arrive quite so quickly prompts her to shut her eyes and breathe a single moment's relief, though she doesn't dwell in it: after all, it's only supposition. All of it.

She pries the melted panel off the front of the unit and lets it clatter to the floor in a pile of charred steel, backing away from the cloud of smoke that effuses from the ashen interior of the unit. Without parts, she won't be able to repair even this, but taking stock will do for the time being.

Already, she shaves time off with a series of mental tallies. Everything about their plan relies on cooperation from the Hapans, but she can't afford to presume that Leia fails in diplomacy when she lands. At the very least, they should receive safe haven. Maybe even mechanical assistance, which would speed things along. But it wasn't a guarantee either, any more than evading the Knights in Roche would be. Even with her and Chewie working around the clock, there was no telling how extensive the damage through the heating systems were: it looked as if the explosion had kicked back through the circuitry and fried the whole system by overloading it with the energy created. ]

Yes, well, I think we'd be in worse shape if any of the people you just listed were pleased. [ It would mean they were already captured, and nothing that followed could bode well for either Force-user. Rey scrubbed a hand over her mouth, looked away from the heating unit and back at him. She catches his eyes on the lightsaber at her belt, and absently, she reaches for it, suddenly aware of its weight. At least that's one thing working in their favor. ]

I'll do as much diagnostic work as I can before we have to drop out of hyperspace near Roche. That should shave maybe a day off our time on Hapes, if we're lucky, and get us back in the air hopefully before Snoke realizes we haven't lost his strills in the Outer Rim.

[ The whole plan wobbles in the air between them like a house of cards, rattled by their very breath, by the smoke of the disabled heating unit. One wrong move, one sharp breath, and the whole thing would come clattering down around them. She straightens her spine and squares her shoulders like a soldier preparing for battle, bracing herself against the coming storm, then breezes past him into the ship's main corridor. ]

But you're right: I should understand the kind of people we're going up against. While I'm working, you can brief me on them.

( Kylo has to concede the point that she makes about the Knights, the Order, and Snoke being in a position of far greater superiority and delight were they happy in any capacity, and he also has to concede that he has utterly bunked the heating system. And by the looks of things, not just in the galley's stovetop unit. Even from where he comes to stand crowded around the doorway, he can see that he has done real damage. His arms cross and he takes a sideways step toward where Rey has peeled the warped metal door that encloses the unit's innards. It doesn't look good, even from the distance that he maintains in the interest of not squatting down to take a closer look or crowding her too completely, operating in a peripheral sense until Rey straightens back up and catches his eye, slipping her hand over the reflective surface of the hilt at her hip. Kylo mirrors the gesture half on instinct and half just to feel the weight of it in his palm. The metal of the hilt is warm even through the leather shield of his gloves, and the exhaust ports in particular feel oddly hot, as if they had been recently ignited.

Skywalker, he thinks, and resolutely does not imagine his uncle examining his blade with the kind of abject despair and resignation contingent upon the crushing totality of guilt. Instead, he nods once, shallowly, to the plan that Rey is laying out, getting the impression that she's talking more for her own benefit than for his understanding or in search of his opinion. He's given it already, and from the resolution in her tone, Kylo gets the sense that there's going to be little deviation from their course from here on out. He doesn't look forward to running to ground on Hapes, and plans to stick to the ship as much as he's able both in the interest of not drawing attention to his person as First Order fugitive - he's sure of that, regardless of what he had done to deceptively earn back some of Snoke's scuttled faith in Kylo Ren's loyalty, he is still a traitor in ways that many people will never be able to understand - but it's their only option, it seems, and he'll see it through.

Rey skips around him, and his hand uncurls from the relaxed grip on his lightsaber just in time to grab the door frame and follow her out into the main hall as she chatters at him over her shoulder. Kylo has to take several long strides to bring himself up to pace with her, and experiences no small amount of indignation as a result. His knees hurt, like they've been pressed flush to stone for hours, for days, an immense weight on his back driving the distribution of pressure to the task of his kneecaps alone, but he gives only the slightest indication of discomfort as a manifestation rippling through the Force. It's nondescript and fleeting, and it's quickly overwhelmed by the bubble of dark amusement that swells and bursts at her inquiry, curling cool fingers through his perception of the Force, a tree comprised of seven roots, sturdy trunk, black bark, at the center. He doesn't laugh or even smile, just follows her lead with heavy steps as he talks above her head. )

There are eight of us, myself included. ( It's as simple of a beginning as any. There are eight of them now, but the ranks have thinned and thickened with the culling and strengthening of their number over time. When he assumed his position at the head of their faction, there were three, including himself: all leftover Jedi hopefuls from the ruins of his uncle's collection of potentials, Force-sensitive and scared and scared of him in the wake of what he had done, rallying to his cause in an effort to prove themselves but to also stay alive. That had been enough, then, their survival instincts and desire for self-preservation above all else carving out an adequate gully in the Dark Side. One had fallen under Kylo's hand at Snoke's behest, leaving only one connection within his ranks to the boy he had once been. A Mandalorian warrior named Ji, his second in command and one of the three remaining Knights with any degree of Force sensitivity. ) Two of the others are Force sensitive, though they haven't been trained, strictly speaking. ( Snoke had been adamant in taking on one apprentice and one apprentice only, and Kylo Ren had been it. ) The rest are formidable warriors with various areas of specialization. They have all been trained in lightsaber combat, similar to Stormtroopers. However, unlike Stormtroopers, their propensity for creativity and thirst for violence remains unchecked by the hierarchical standards of obedience that General Hux and Captain Phasma are so eager to promote.

( It's halfway through the debriefing that she's asked for that he realizes putting the Knights' abilities into verbal representation doesn't do them justice. Despite the splitting headache that's beginning to wreak havoc behind his eyes, Kylo reaches out and grabs her elbow before they're able to get too much further into whatever task she's going to throw herself into. He doesn't wait for her permission but shoves his way into her thoughts like jamming his foot between a door and its frame, shouldering it wide open and letting a flood of images and sensations pour from his memories into her thoughts with all the power of a hurricane.

Ji is nearly as tall as he is and just as fast, and they duel to first blood - hers - during a reconnaissance trip to Moraband. She is the only other Knight to carry a saber, and it pulses green - a relic from her time as one of Skywalker's hopefuls - before she extinguishes it and trades it for the heavy blaster strapped over her back, turns to line up a target in the sights and lands a hit with deadly accuracy, an advancing party's face blown to black, charred ashy muscle and bone under the steadiness of her hands. The mask that she wears is an aberration of Mandalorian design, a twisted representation of her homeworld better suited to the house that she now serves. More images and impressions follow: the taste of blood, human and otherwise, flooding their mouths and rusting the air; screaming, crying, the vague stench of burning flesh and acrid smoke totally unlike the concoction that chokes the galley on the Falcon; a pop of electricity, not unlike the charge of a Stormtrooper's riot baton, cracking the air like with a sharp pop; an advancing figure, a dilapidated, beat up helmet, concussion grenades and primitive looking blasters arranged over the breastplate that covers his chest; the swing of a wide, heavy broadsword, the steel cut of the edge wet with black blood, a slick hood throwing the slash of the mouth underneath into shadow, red eyes glowing dark from underneath as they search for and pin.

She'll recognize them all, their shapes and figures a familiar outline against a dark blue, nearly black, sky streaked with sheets of rain and forked with lightning. Kylo, of course, has no way of knowing that she's glimpsed any of them before in a vision, though the road map that he affords her now is not the same thing she had seen upon touching Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. This isn't a vision; it's a warning. He lets go of her arm, dropping it as if it's burned him and steps back toward the wall, sweating again. His voice is strained and his throat dry. )

Ask questions, if you have them.

[ Terror rocks her, for even if the image transferred isn't identical, it is close enough for her to place the dark helmets and lean forms of the Knights of Ren to that vision. She wrenches her elbow free from Kylo to end it, staggering back into the arched doorway that separates the main hold from the forward hold with a clang that echoes through the ship.

A shake of her head tries to kill the connection, but she can remember stumbling to the ground, rain pounding down on them all, and a red lightsaber piercing through someone she couldn't recognize. From behind the fallen warrior, Kylo Ren advanced, footfalls splashing water up with each heavy thud of his boots. Behind him, a small army of dark-clothed warriors who look just as menacing, Ji among them. A sharp gasp draws her back to herself, eyes blinking wide, trying to make sense of what the inclusion of Kylo's Knights in her vision could have meant. That long ago, could the Force have felt this moment weaving itself into the universe's fabric? Was it a warning?

Frazzled by the emotional intensity of being brought back to that moment in the basement of Maz Kanata's castle, Rey takes a moment to collect herself, turning away from him and pushing off the wall to guide herself through the forward hold to the freight loading room and the number two hold after that, where the life support systems waited. She traced circuitry back to make sure that the heat hadn't fried anything there either, but she can't get her fingers to remain still on the panel. Quietly cursing them, she glances up at the ceiling, jaw clenched, and drops her hands, resolving herself to questions before she sets about testing for what needs repairs. ]

I've seen them before. [ Around the words, her breath comes out ragged and heavy. It was a dark knight, the rain still crashes down inside her head. She can remember Luke's metal hand reaching for Artoo. And she can remember the frozen forests of Starkiller Base. That, she knew now, was the Force showing her path to her. In the back of her mind, a voice echoes from that moment: these are your first steps. But she still hadn't figured out where those steps were leading her. ] The Force showed them to me. When we meet, it'll be raining. And dark.

[ Her eyes close, and this time, she deliberately tries to remember, but though her fingertips search her memories for the seam in the vision, something to tell her when it changed from the fiery oranges that cast on Artoo to the dark, heavy rain of the massacre that Kylo Ren and his Knights stood over, she can't find it. It's as if it were a blurry daydream.

Opening her eyes, they fix with a controlled accusation on Kylo. He was with them, in her vision; if it were an image of the future in any sense, it would mean he had betrayed them again. Even though every atom of her body resisted the possibility, her mind refused to divorce it entirely from her perception of what may have not yet come to pass. She couldn't ignore a warning of the Force. ]

Can we fight them as we are now?

( Kylo can feel the fear that rolls off of her in waves, flooding the corridor that they stand in and feeding into him in a way that he hasn't felt in a very long time, especially not from her. It's an intoxicating draw, to know that he has cultivated and inspired fear in some abstract way, and it's a struggle not to let it overwhelm him and rip a hole in him wide open so that it can crawl inside. The desire increases tenfold once he realizes that the terror she's experiencing isn't solely a result of what he's shown her but of something remembered, some nightmare or twisted daydream that feels familiar but alien all at once. He gets flashes of it in the connection that she has yet to terminate: the smell of rainwater washing topsoil away to reveal thick mud underneath, the splash of deep puddles up to the ankles, and the buzzing crack of his lightsaber in the darkness, a glare off the warped durasteel of his helmet as he turned his head to look right at -

Kylo flexes his hands and the leather of his gloves scratches over the untreated lightsaber burns and it grounds him somewhat, moving in tandem with the sharp sound of Rey's gasp. He doesn't move toward her but keeps his distance with the same long, lean look that had colored his expression when the Resistance had had him caged in the command shuttle. A predator hunted and defensive, ready to strike should the blow come. But Rey doesn't lash out at him, through the Force or otherwise, though she might technically have every reason to do so. Rather, she turns on her heel and enters the hold without saying a word to him, giving Kylo little choice other than to follow her, waiting for her to pepper him with questions that don't immediately manifest. What he is treated to is the trembling of her hands as she tries to peel back layers of the ship in order to continue chipping away at small problems with larger problems of their own. His own hands don't shake, but they do throb.

An inquiry hangs on his tongue, which she answers as if perceiving its existence before he can even give voice to it, although that answer only inspires further questions in its own right, similar to the way the accusation inherent in the gaze she levels at him inspires his own hackles to raise and his neck to prickle. Her mistrust only serves as a necessary reminder that while they might be on the same side for the moment, their status as allies is questionable and unnatural, and as such he takes a moment to consider whether or not he should answer in any true capacity but ultimately decides that if the day ever comes in which they don't mistrust one another at least a little, they will have larger issues to contend with. )

Prepared to practically scuttle ourselves on the Roche asteroids and barely keeping our eyes open? I'd say probably not, and that would be terribly optimistic of me. ( Kylo crosses the secondary hold from where he has remained by the entrance and crouches down next to her. It's hell on his knees, but he's able to work the panel off where she couldn't, wrenching it free with a sad, metallic whine. His voice is low and hesitant between them, as if reluctant to admit anything. ) Together, I think that we stand a chance against them. But I wouldn't expect them to attack as a unit. In groups of two at the most, maybe. My second-in-command is more likely to pursue on her own.

( As a general rule, Ji dislikes almost all of the other Knights, including Kylo on various occasions, and prefers to work on her own. His tone, however, gives no indication that her choice to operate solo will make her any less of a formidable opponent; on the contrary, she's the one that is likely to give them the most trouble. The inevitability of her tracking them down eventually does not interest him so much as Rey's admission to having glimpsed them standing as a united front, and even that does not interest him so much as the fact that she has seen anything at all. Wading through the Force in that way is a murky and confusing affair, and while he'd sensed her awakening to the Force itself, gotten a sense of her in some way through Snoke's guidance and his own connection to his ability to perceive the universe in ways that non-sensitives could not, it wasn't with the same detailed explanation that she's giving him now. )

The Force showed them to you? ( He tries to keep his voice level with patience, but it's never been his strong suit, and it rises somewhat in pitch and volume as he interrogates her. ) What did you see?

I already told you. [ The words come out in a feral growl, defensive now that he has offered his unsolicited aid in the task she set about to distract herself. She snatches the panel from him. ] Darkness. Rain. And the Knights of Ren.

[ She turns away from him, setting the panel aside and hunkering down at a better level to examine the wiring. One arm reaches fully into the belly of the ship, fumbling, and she draws a thin cord with a metal box attached out of it. A fuse of some kind, by the look of it, and a meter on one side. She rubs the back of one hand against her forehead while she reads it, but she seems ultimately relieved by the news it offers and stuffs it back in without clarifying. ]

I can't begin to guess the planet, the system, or even the day. It wasn't— [ Rational or concrete. It didn't make sense, didn't offer answers, only more questions and the stir of fear and responsibility. She'd fled from it then, but the Falcon hurtled towards it now.

Speaking of which— She pushed to her feet and moved for Kylo with tense purpose, but stepped around him at the last moment to slap her hand against the panel for the comm system. It crackled to life. Not as bad off, then, as she thought they might be from all that backfire in the wiring. It could just be the heating system, not translating to anything else. ] Chewie. We need to change course for Roche. I'll be up before we drop out of hyperspace to explain, but trust me. If we keep heading the way we are now, we won't make it to anywhere we can make repairs.

[ A yowl from the back of his throat answered her in understanding, echoing from the comm panel and further down the central spiralling corridor of the ship. She turns it off and glances back at Kylo. ]

Until someone comes up with a way to fly, sleep, and repair a ship, I don't see our circumstances improving anytime soon. So if you want to help, you can start by getting out of my way!

[ The frustration in her disparagement seems more pointed as his general presence than his specific position in space. Rey rounds harmlessly around him to grab a toolkit and set back to work at the heating control panel. She retrieves a pair of gloves from the bag, pulls them past her wrists with her teeth, and sets about working in the half-smoldering wound in the Falcon's interior. ]

( How helpful, he thinks, and only belatedly realizes that he's thought in a way that's broadcasted itself across the open line of their channel, like blaring an access code across the holonet. Kylo scowls, annoyed with her and annoyed with himself and not in the least bit sorry that he's projected something acerbic and pithy at her, only that he didn't say it aloud in the first place. He straightens up, both of his knees cracking as he does so, and gives Rey space to work without running the risk of being bitten by her in the off-chance that she decides to revert back to feral desert rat.

When she begins barking into the comm at Chewbacca - whose voice makes him feel uneasy in a hundred different ways and his flank pulse with remembered pain - before turning around to bark orders at him, Kylo decides that he's had enough. It's either orbit around her like a moon as he gets more and more frustrated with her and with his predicament until he or something on the ship explodes, or remove himself from the situation entirely and retreat somewhere far enough away from her that they won't affect one another's presence. There's little that he can offer as far as contribution to keeping the ship hurtling through hyperspace goes, as much as it pains his pride to admit it, and he is out of things to say to her that don't involve insulting her or goading her into an argument just for the sake of fighting with her.

So Rey brushes by him crankily and grabs her tools with probably more force than is required, and Kylo spends an appropriate amount of time trying to burn holes in her back with the weight of his scowl alone before resolving to not only do as she's requested but also make himself useful in other ways. )

Alert me when we're in Roche space.

( He says it on his way out the door, long, heavy strides carrying him out of the secondary hold before Rey has the chance to either argue with him - likely - or apologize - extremely unlikely. The layout of the ship is as familiar as the back of his hand at this point, after having the winding corridors refreshed over a collection of hours. Even so, it's a very short trip to the main hold, which is thankfully empty. It's also uncomfortably close to the cockpit, where he assumes the Wookie is, but there's little to be done about that. The ship is large but not so large that he's going to go the entire journey without literally running into walking carpet. Kylo assumes that Chewbacca is going out of his way to avoid him entirely, too, and he's just fine with that.

He ignores the low sofa curving around the Dejarik board and settles on the cold floor next to the control terminal, back against the wall, eyes on the door. If Rey is so intent to stretch herself thin despite his warnings about the Knights - logically, it's their only option, but annoyed as he is with her, he's not going to give her that much in the security of his own frustrated anger - then he's at least going to try and repair the fractured crack of his mind as best he can. And if he can't sleep, then meditation is the next best thing he can do, both for himself and for the other individuals currently aboard the ship. And for the ship itself, if his encounter with the heating unit is anything to go by.

The Millennium Falcon hums around Kylo as it continues hurtling through hyperspace, and he tries to focus on stripping away all the lacquer coating and coloring his anger, melting it away until he should be able to concentrate on the purest part of the emotion in itself, an exposed, pulsing vein of power. Should be.

He's terrible at meditation. )

[ In the back of her mind, she keeps hold of her awareness of him, more like a gentle brush of elbows than digging her fingers into his brain precisely. But she knows this much: he can't calm herself. As much as she wants to blame him for that, she knows her desire to criticize him is born out of her own tired mind demanding the same of her. It's a survival tactic in every sense of the word, keeping her alert so she doesn't pass out beside the wiring and get them all killed.

So she doesn't seek out the calm center of peace in the back of her mind, doesn't reach for the island or Jakku, but focuses on the heat pouring off the wiring as she checks it where it courses throughout the ship. By the look of it, the worst is the link between the heating unit and the central control, with a few of the other connectors fried — or potentially functional themselves, were the control panel itself functional. She tries to temper her hope for an easy fix without giving up on it entirely.

There's not much in the way of wiring and spare connectors on the Falcon—every part it has is hanging on for dear life, rummaged from a waste bin at one point or another when it should have been retired, and some key bolts are even missing, deemed optional by its previous pilot. It takes long enough to diagnose the problem that she's entirely sure she wouldn't have much time to start replacing parts anyway before they neared Roche.

But there is something else she can work on fixing while she's absently tracing wires and tensing her jaw. Reaching out with her mind and the help of the Force, she breathes an air of calm into him, which fans out and blankets the fire of his restlessness soothingly. It's not a perfect technique, but she'll at least make the offer of it. Just because she can't put herself at ease doesn't mean he can't, if he's able. ]

( It feels like hours that he's at it. Trying to be at it, at least. When the stripping down of all base emotion to get to the pure part of his seething, perfect rage does not work, Kylo tries emptying his mind in the traditional sense, falling back on practicums that had been drilled into him over and over and over again by Skywalker in his ramshackle fortress serving as an academy. He had been unable to sit still then as much as he's unable to now, which has always struck him as somewhat odd given the amount of patience he can display when it comes to interrogation or intimidation. Although that in itself is somewhat different: a waiting game rather than an exercise in focused silence. A task with a purpose.

Meditation seldom feels like it has purpose, and he's halfway to resignation and cramming his shoulders into the bunk that had been assigned to him or on the bracket of the main hold's sofa in an attempt to take a nap - like a toddler - when a wave washes over him and quiets some of the storm that his mind is tangled up in. The headache that has surfaced shifts from needlepoint to wider stitches in the wake of it, and Kylo finds that the rumble of the ship around him is less extreme underneath the gentle lapping of these waves. There is nothing but the sound of the careful back and forth of the tide in this place. Even the vibration of the hyperdrive and the Falcon's response to its ignition falls away, and he floats, navigating nothing in a search to rest his mind.

This goes on for several minutes, although it could be hours in the crisp gray nothing of nowhere, until a single thought pierces his trance and shakes him out of the meditative state that he's slipped into. The glare of sunlight as it scorches the sand. A smell not unlike ozone and the earth, sweat and oil. The imagined lilt of her accent warped over the comm system in the Falcon, the buzz of her saber's ignition. Blood in mouth his again, dirty snow on his lips. The weight of her hand on his shoulder, in his own.

Rey.

His eyes crack open in the main hold, just in time to see Chewbacca step in, start to say something to him, and then think better of it before turning on his heel and backing out of the area. )

Stay out of my head. ( A lot of the anger has burned out of his tone. He's left sounding impatient and anti-social. ) Find some way to recharge your own batteries.

I'm only trying to help.

[ Her defense would be more feeble if he hadn't explicitly confessed himself poorly disposed to meditation not so long ago. In the edge of his perception, she picks up on Chewie, so by the time the wookiee reaches her, she's already looking up and expecting him.

He makes disgruntled sounds blaming the choice to bring Kylo aboard as she explains to him the damage, then rises to her feet, ready to help him bring them out of hyperspace. She towels the grease off her hands, though the cracking edges of her knuckles hold onto it persistently, softening them and giving them a weathered look at the same time.

She doesn't blame Chewie for his distaste, and patiently waits out his persistent complaints as they walk towards the cockpit: it makes sense. The wookiee, by his own account, had owed Han Solo a life debt. It must have felt so wrong for him to go on when Han was dead, and now to be forced to cohabitate with the murderer. It was a lot to ask, but she looked him in the eyes, soft and resolute, and asked it of him anyway. He reluctantly nodded his affirmation, then for her to enter the cockpit ahead of him. Rey did so smiling. ]

How are you feeling? We're about to switch to manual at the edge of Roche space. [ She doesn't tell him to cast a net for Knights or hints of the First Order through the Force, but the thought does occur to her that it would be a useful application of his skills were he feeling up to it. Unfortunately, he hasn't seen fit to share the extent of what the Supreme Leader did to him; she can only tell that it took a considerable toll. Beyond that, she refuses to push, and she knows he is unlikely to offer: still, somewhere buried under all that exhaustion, frustration, and keen focus, concern for him nags at the edges of her mind. After all, whatever consequences he suffered were inflicted for the sake of her goals, her plan, her request. ]

( He can accept her statement for what it is and still dislike it for its existence all the same, which he does, with bells on. Although he doesn't necessarily project concrete thoughts with words attached toward her, he lets the sour taste of his foul mood flood her perceptions as a method of childish retaliation, brought on by exhaustion and the tasks she has assigned to him. The longer he sits on the floor, the more uncomfortable he grows, and the more uncomfortable he grows, the surlier he becomes.

He knows that he could actually stand and act like an actual human being in approaching the cockpit or at least stop attempting to avoid the Wookie, but both of those thoughts are about as appealing as coupling with a rancor, so Kylo neglects to entertain them for long. )

Fine. ( He answers her regardless of the internal, mild tantrum that he is projecting toward her, annoyed with her and with Chewbacca and with himself and with Snoke and anyone else whose name pops into his head. The thought of navigating through Roche and being one step closer to their destination tempers the flare of irritation, though, so he tries to focus on that in an effort to be more useful to her in the interest of not distracting her with his persisting foul mood so that she doesn't crash them into an asteroid. ) What's the estimated time remaining between Roche and Hapes?

( Kylo unfolds himself from the floor and stands, bones and muscles popping as he does. Deliberate steps carry him from the corner of the room he has holed up in over to the curved sofa, which is just as stiff and uncomfortable as he remembers it being from childhood. When he sits on it, it does little to buffer the trembling of the ship around him, and he listens and casts his senses out for the moment that Rey kills the hyperdrive and drops them into manual control. Moving this quickly, he can't be of as much use as he would like to be in feeling out First Order lackeys or Knights through the Force, and even though Rey hasn't indicated that searching for them is something he should be doing, Kylo gets the impression all the same. He can't fix the ship or stand to be in the cockpit long enough to attempt to fly it, but he can alert them if something is about to get the drop on them.

Even if he can't pinpoint a specific location or trace signature when they're crossing so much space in such a compressed amount of time, Kylo tries to listen to his own intuitions and tap into his own perceptions of the Force as they hurtle through hyperspace. The prevalence of a bad feeling is hard to rely on as a substantial intuition, though, as he hasn't stopped having a bad feeling about the state of things since he was five. )

That depends on how quickly I lose whoever's followed us through hyperspace.

[ She gives him the honest answer first, though she isn't sure that it's at all likely to defang him to have ambiguity to chew over while she settles herself into the pilot's seat. As hard as she tries to cast a net of calm out through the tendrils of the Force that persist through this corner of the universe, she finds she cannot see as far forward as she'd like to, the black of interminable dread setting in without informing her if it is or isn't well-anchored in reality versus paranoia.

As reticent as she remains to use Jakku as her reference point, Rey finds herself doing it once again when she reaches back to recall that she had never had to deal with anyone so intractable as Kylo Ren when she was in her isolation there. In fact, dealing with people at all was mostly optional, aside from the utterly repulsive slime of a lifeform, Unkar Plutt, who all but ruled Niima Outpost with his relative wealth. She now knew that in the grand scheme of the galaxy, he was but a poor trader and a salvager himself, but on Jakku, he was tantamount to royalty, and still Kylo seemed often more entitled in his behavior by comparison.

She flexed her hands on the yoke and, with Chewie, dropped the ship out of hyperspace, welcoming the swath of black out the view screen as it replaced the streaking stars. The ship lurched, the metal paneling on the outside rattling while the bones that kept it from collapsing under the pressure of hyperspace sighed with age. The whole ship had been stripped down and reconstructed with spare parts at least twice over since Han first acquired her, but the skeleton was still original, and more than thirty years of service wore on it in ways that led the Dejarik board to flicker ominously. ]

It should only take an hour to navigate Roche and be on our way. Three more and we'll be touching down on Hapes. Best case scenario.

[ Rey knew not to anticipate best case scenario as true. Ever. In the time since she met BB-8, she could not truly count any events as best case, for even the more fortuitous outcomes were reached only after hitting rock bottom, often courtesy of Kylo.

Sure enough, though the ships were still too far out to be visible, scanners picked up on nearby vessels that were likely First Order ships approaching after dropping out of hyperspace some lightyears back, pursuing with haste only because the TIE fighters possessed superior speed capabilities beside a simple freighter. Rey cursed and pushed the wheezing engines to guide her more quickly towards the minefield of asteroids. ]

( What begins as a viable option still resting somewhat on skepticism's shoulders bottoms out in a full fledged impression of pursuit. Initially, Kylo is more than willing to bet credits on the existence of his pervasive feeling of wrongness as a result of the groaning and lurching of the ship's integrity and second and third generation mechanical successes and failures. For all Rey's posturing about the ship being good and solid - despite a mound of evidence to suggest the contrary - the Millennium Falcon itself seems to shudder violently in retaliation as Rey and Chewbacca coax it out of hyerspace. One of the lights above the control terminal across from him actually flickers upon deceleration, goes out for a moment, and then blooms back into artificial, yellow light.

Once they disengage the hyperdrive, Kylo can no longer blame the ship itself and its many structural problems for the surge of intuition that rises in him. It fuses with Rey's voice in his head and sits squarely on his shoulders, breathing dark breath and thinking heavy thoughts. He casts his senses out, beyond the skeleton of Han Solo's freighter and out across the cold vacuum of space. The galaxy is huge, but Kylo can feel the blips in the radar signifying First Order fighters like spreading his hand over a black cloth peppered with broken glass. He isn't dissatisfied, in a way, recognizing the achievement inherent in the goal that they had set out in hoping to draw the fleet away, but he can't deny the bitter tang of contempt and conflict that sours his tongue at the notion of being tailed by pilots who operate under First Order command. His command, in a roundabout sense.

Two days ago, he could have given the order for them to desist, could have given the order for them to fire, take prisoners, take no prisoners. Now he is a command on the other end of that order, a target to be sought out by the twin cannons that will hurtle after them as they break for the Roche asteroids. In the main hold, where no one can see, Kylo scrubs his hands through his hair and stands, reaching out in every direction in an attempt to get an estimate. He feels Rey on the other end of their connection, and speaks before she has a chance to tell him what's going on. )

How many follow? How far to Roche?

( If they can make it to Roche before First Order TIE fighters have a chance to track them and hone in on their exact location, then they have a better chance of escaping the area without engaging in any sort of dogfight. Rey has escaped from the updated models in the past, but with the advancement of a significant chunk of the fleet behind their pursuit, Kylo has little interest in drawing the confrontation out. This is precisely why he prefers fighting on the ground, with a saber, with the Force. Every scar earned and injury scored is an opportunity for growth, and despite its warbled construction, his lightsaber is still less likely to fall apart under his hands than the Falcon is. )

i am so proud of you. i never retain any information. i literally looked up 'glass' the other day

ok but like how much sleep had you gotten i feel like that is an important fact to consider

i mean probably like 7 which is 7 more than i usually get

oh .............. look i tried to excuse it idk what you want from me

and then i slept for like nine hours anyway it's fine you are forgiven

After this tag I know way too much about start wars spacecraft

hahahah totally applicable to every day situations absolutely

i'm so ready for the GRE question about quadex cores

my friend said he kylo ren told him quadex core questions are definitely on the GRE

truly a credible source

you can cite him your thesis

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/quietly hides my massive knights of ren boner

no get that back out hoW DO YOU EVEN FIND THESE THINGS

i stared FOREVER at the vision scene. and used lots of name generators. IDK MAKING THIS UP AS I GO

you are truly a hero to your people

more valuable skillsets for the real world

um it's super valuable ok you can write baby naming books and win staring contests

omg an untapped goldmine awaits!!!!!

now you're thinking like a murrican

drinking my miller light and eating my corn dogs

waves an american flag

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