apparare | i found something in the woods somewhere.

i found something in the woods somewhere.

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( Her reaction is one hundred percent the reaction that he was expecting and sort of hoping for, and Kylo, though probably out of place and unwanted, feels a small smile creeping up the side of his mouth that he doesn't discourage. It's hardly nice in nature and entirely at her expense, which is why it seems more appropriate to let it manifest than to chase it away, but it doesn't reach beyond the apex of a smirk, and he finds himself nodding along to her assessment of herself in a similar fashion. He's reminded of their trek through the woods back on Corellia, her absolute rejection of assistance in the form of a lesson as if eager to prove that she didn't need the help in the first place, and the thought leads to the idea of Rey against a full battalion of his Knights with the same attitude.

His mouth is suddenly full of saliva and though the smirk at the corner of his mouth remains in half-bloom, he swallows sharply and opens his mouth to reply to her only to snap it shut again as the ship vibrates, like a speeder coming too close to a rock in the dirt and jumping as a result. Kylo tracks his gaze upward, wondering if some system is about to go, pitch them into darkness or drop them out of hyperspace or blow them up, and only looks over again once Rey gets to her feet and moves away from him. For once, Kylo realizes, the effects of tension and stress as it moves through the Force is not majorly from him, though he can't pretend that he isn't exacerbating it to some degree. )

You've met real opponents before and won? ( His voice is a little more incredulous than was leading himself to believe right up until the nanosecond before he decided to speak at all, and he has the overwhelming urge, despite his prior amusement at her reaction, to stand and crowd her as if to drive home the idea that he is trying to communicate. The ship continues to groan, however, and he is careful to keep his own frustration, so ready to jump to attention at a moment's notice, in check. ) Were you listening when I told you that I've never seriously tried to kill you before, or do you just choose to hear the parts that you want and ignore the rest? ( Some of the frustration is his affronted pride, displayed no better than it is in the great scar across his face. ) I could have killed you on Yaga Minor, you were paying such little attention to what was going on around you. And I could have killed you on Corellia if I wanted to. I could have killed you on Starkiller, if I wanted to.

( All points that are debatable, but Kylo chooses not to see them that way. The fact remains that at least on Starkiller he had the upper-hand for the majority of the battle and used it only in an attempt to subdue her, his injuries at the time notwithstanding. Kylo refuses to look at the tear from the bowcaster or the burn FN-2187 had scored prior to Rey's involvement as excuses for his performance, won't use them as a crutch in trying to drive this point home. )

You are about to come up against a faction under the Supreme Leader's command that does not adhere to the established rules of warfare, who are not part of the war itself. I didn't want to kill you on Yaga Minor, just as I didn't want to kill you on Corellia or Starkiller. You've seen it yourself. The Knights of Ren won't share my perspective when it comes to your involvement in my defection. In the event they don't come at you with everything they have right at the outset, if their goal is to capture rather than kill you, the real opponent you will face in the end won't be them, and it won't be me. It will be Snoke.

( Even as the words leave his mouth, he recognizes the potential for this reality even more strongly than the prospect of Rey's death at Dryx's or Ji's or any of the other Knights' hands. Kylo has gone rogue, from their perspective, and that to them is unforgivable. Even if he were to weave a lie complicated and complex enough at the feet of the Supreme Leader to satisfy his master's outrage and disgust, it wouldn't spare Kylo the punishment that waits for him as a result of his actions. But Rey. Snoke looked right into his apprentice's head as Kylo shook him free and it was Rey that he looked for, Rey that he saw, and it's Rey that he'll come for, as much as he'll come for Kylo initially. There's a bad taste in his mouth when he continues. )

Give the situation the respect and gravity that it deserves.

[ Trapped by the sting of direct confrontation with the fact that he wasn't trying to kill her, that he's never wanted to, Rey feels cornered into acknowledgment of a point she still won't agree with, and the reluctance grinds her teeth together with the same sawing sound that trembles through the Millennium Falcon's bones, though that's more likely a result of the ship's age than anything she's venting.

He forces her, in this way, to address the unease she meets his confession with. She cannot deflect and claim that he was trying to cut her down, can't declare that he merely wants her to die at another hand regardless of what intelligence he's offered, because he preempted it with a declaration that she still doesn't know what to do with, but nor is she ready to truly examine what that means. The conflict leaves her in an infuriating limbo of inaction, with a ramrod straight back and the stillness of an ancient oak as she weathers the hurricane of threats and warnings that he slings at her. ]

You think in order for me to take this seriously, I have to be afraid. [ A sneering accusation hangs on you, as if digging the knives of her words under his fingernails, calling him a coward in a secondary whisper. He registers everything, she concludes, in stages of fear—the fear of inadequacy and failure, the fear of confronting his past and his crimes, and his fear of retaliation by Snoke.

That last one, she must admit, chills her bones in a way that cannot be dismissed as the recycled air pouring out of a vent onto her, yet even in that threat, it's not a warning she hears but something very near jealousy, as though the attention of the Supreme Leader—even negative—is something that Kylo wishes he had, begrudges her. She would happily let him have it if she believed he could withstand it without being crushed under the weight.

A million voices in her head rally to join Kylo Ren in declaring her training, preparation, and performance inadequate to fact the demon that awaits them in the Unknown Regions, but she rebuffs all of them. Kylo Ren's injuries on Starkiller Base may have been a handicap, but they were one weakened by her inexperience; his goal to capture rather than kill her tempered not by the fact that she had no desire to kill him, for she did—and often—but by the fact that she chose not to try. ]

But fear has never accomplished anything, and I won't be calling on it now.

( Kylo visibly bristles at the accusation she hurls at him, sitting up so straight that his back begins to ache. He wants to stand, can feel the tension coiling through the muscles and tendons in his arms and legs sharking with the concentrated effort it has not to get to his feet in a hurry and advance, but the unlit game board in front of him prevents doing so with any fluidity, and clambering around it would just be an awkward-looking endeavor in his haste to extend himself to full height. As a result, his fingers curl into a fist that groans leather on the tabletop, and the ship lurches around them. Kylo knows that it's a byproduct of its tired framework and excessive years because it's the dejarik board that suffers as a result of his visible affront.

The whole thing collapses in on itself, crumbling down the middle like someone has just dropped a massive weight directly into the center of the board. It groans and screams and surprisingly does not erupt into a shower of sparks and black smoke signifying some mechanical failure and structural damage. It's almost as if the thing was being held up by sheer willpower alone, looking for an excuse to buckle under some external pressure. How fitting that Kylo Ren be that external pressure. He can think of several other things that have collapsed as a result of the force he exerted over them until they were diminished into nothing as well. )

You have no idea what I'm afraid of. ( It's the implied accusation apparent in her manner of speech when she tosses comments at him like grenades that earns the bulk of his attention, not necessarily the retaliation that she responds with. Finally, Kylo gets to his feet with all the broad-shoulder intent of trying to intimidate her into submission, though he doesn't immediately take steps toward her and, rather, lingers next to the destroyed dejarik board with his hands gathered together in fists at his sides.

But his response in itself isn't entirely true. She is the only person other than Snoke who has withstood the battering ram of his insistent willpower adequately enough to not only remain standing but to push back. Rey has seen what it is that Kylo Ren is afraid of, and it had startled him enough in return to allow her the opportunity to call him out on it. Looking across the hold at her now, he sees the same determined set to her jaw, can recall with perfect clarity the way she had gulped great lungfuls of air, the dark light in her eyes that would be seen again in swirls of snow and a haze of red-blue-purple light, and he has an involuntarily urge to push her, striking him with the same sharp precision that it had when he'd wanted to draw her into his fold on Starkiller. It leaves a sweet but heady taste in the back of his throat, and it takes everything he has within him to swallow it down.

Survive, he thinks, something thinks at him, and Kylo takes one step, two, three toward the girl across the hold from him before stopping. He allows the sweep of disdain and aggravation and anger he feels to flood through their connection, lets her feel it despite the fact that it might make him look weak and vulnerable to her implications. It's too late to hide it now, and he casts one look over at the dismantled dejarik board before stalking out of the room entirely. )

[ Neither of them needs to verbalize their recognition of his lie for it to hang between them as he swaggers over, the crumpled game board standing in testament to his fury and the power it holds. No wonder Snoke chose to cultivate his unhinged rage, to fan that flame until it was an unchecked inferno, one that Rey would be happy to see burn the Supreme Leader for his arrogance in believing that he could control it for a moment. Rey knows, looking at the wildfire that blazes before her, that she can't either, even though the Resistance has premised its acceptance of Kylo Ren's surrender on the condition that she can.

Regardless of how barely perceptible it is, she jumps ever so slightly when the board crumples, but her spine refuses to recline and lean back as he swarms her, a suffocating cloud of black ink that descends like locusts blotting out the sun. Her tongue darts out to wet cracking lips, and she lifts her chin as she swallows the lump in her throat, determined not to let her weakness show even as his pours through their connection in the reaction to her goading jab.

It's not as if she didn't realize while she did it that she was poking an already incensed wild animal, one who's already developed a taste for her blood.

The intensity of his anger assures her that this will be the time it goes beyond his limits, that she will be left to defend herself from suffering the same fate as the Dejarik board, and she's ready and—if she's being honest with herself—even excited by the prospect, her blood thrumming with the promise of a fight right up until the very instant he turns on his heels and billows out of the room, leaving Rey to deflate into sagging shoulders and heady confusion. Even if she wanted to lash back, she would not strike a blow on the swaggering titan that shrunk her like he did; he's already gone.

Instead, Rey makes her way to the cockpit and settles into the pilot's seat to find serenity in the busy streaking light of hyper space. She closes her eyes and imagines Han here, thirty years ago, warring with the Empire and either fleeing or seeking out Darth Vader's iron grip wherever it held pull over the galaxy, Leia packed into the cockpit with him. She wants to believe that can be her too, that she'll chase Snoke out of every dark corner that he can hide in within the known galaxy until all that's left is the small political scuffles fought in X-wings and TIE fighters by people like Finn and Poe, or by people like Leia who, at Finn's behest, has been pouring resources into deprogramming possibilities for the swayed stormtroopers.

She doesn't leave the cockpit, even after she extracts herself from dreams of eventual peace; instead, she pulls records from the Falcon's archives up onto the view screen, including a file on Mandalore. Her eyes gloss over the words, skimming it without committing much of it to memory beyond some that she can recognize by sight. Ultimately, it only stokes her frustration, and she closes it soon enough as well, scrubbing hands over her face in dissatisfaction with her own ineptitude, in a rare moment able to appreciate the fear of inadequacy she'd sensed in Kylo Ren those months ago.

A lot of people are counting on them to come back and promise security, offer hope. She can't afford to let them down. ]

( The problem with leaving in a huff aboard a ship that is currently careening through space is that there is nowhere to go other than different wings of said ship. The problem with leaving in a huff aboard a ship that belonged to a father you recently murdered, a father whose association is stronger with no object other than the metal box that currently surrounds you, a father whose many transgressions and faults and failures could not be contained by the volume of said ship alone, is that no alternative wing of the ship is safe from further reminder of the very thing that you are trying to storm out on. Kylo supposes that, realistically, he could be storming out on Rey and Rey's perceptions of his inadequacies and anxieties - not fears, he won't call any of it fear - but they both know how intrinsically incorrect that would be.

He has to walk away, though, not only for the sake of his own self-preservation in terms of saving face in front of her but also - if the game board is any indication - in a very literal sense as well. Storming out of the main hold does nothing to quell the trembling that threads itself down through his arms and extends into the tendons and bones of his hands. He can feel the skin that he'd patched with gauze tear open again as tight fists become tighter and then searing pain flashes across his knuckles and down into the back of his hand and wrist as he turns a corner far from the confines of the hold and slams his coiled hand into a section of metal paneling. It doesn't have the same therapeutic factor of release as reducing pieces of metal to rubble or crushing bone and stopping air, and it has the added disadvantage of sending a spike of pain shooting through his own arm, but it gets the job done in providing an outlet for the anger that he feels.

And it needs channeled into something - in both their cases, it needs channeled, he can feel it; Rey possesses the same tendency toward dark rage as Kylo does, just in a smaller, better controlled dose - or they run the risk of damage the ship in a way that spells imminent doom for the both of them. So he punches a console and then punches it again, until his hand feels bruised and his vague, hazy reflection in the metal is distorted beyond recognition. With each strike, his eyes close as if to absorb the intensity of the impact, and all that he can see in those brief flashes of darkness is the drooped and sagging helmet that belonged to his grandfather.

It's distorted, too, melted down to nothing but a shadow of its former glory, and Kylo can't help but think of all the ways in which he still has not lived up to that expectation, all the ways in which Rey's assessment of him might actually be correct. He knows better than anyone that he's afraid. He lived too long in the shadow of numerous fears as a child and has inspired it and used it as a weapon too many times in his past not to be intimately familiar with the feeling. It led him to Snoke, in a way, and it guided him to walk the path that Snoke laid out for him, and it made him powerful and strong, but it still exists within him, and that's the burn that fills the back of his throat and bleeds down into his gut. It leaves him cold and clammy with uncertainty, forces him to consider the idea that maybe he has made a mistake in allowing everything that has transpired since and on Corellia to take place.

Weak, is the only thing that he hears over and over again in his head, and Kylo bows his face to the metal paneling in an attempt to cool the sweat that has collected on his forehead. But deep down within him, where that cluster of light still lives, still breathes, takes great heaping drags and claws at him in a desperate attempt to be heard, he knows that what he's done isn't wrong, and it isn't weak. Weakness is sinking under the black tide that sweeps in and carries him out under a starless night. The inherent difficulty of the rest of it, of resisting the easier, darker nature that he has mired himself in all these years, that is strength. Han Solo's face lives there, and Kylo remembers the expression on it so acutely that it starts a high-pitched buzzing sound ringing in his ears, and that image washes away that dilapidated mask and all the inferiority that comes with it, leaving him feeling angry and hollow and weak and empowered all at the same time.

It's too many things to be feeling at once, so he finishes off the wall with one final smash of a sore fist and sits down, the rippled surface of the panel dotting his location as it hovers just above and to the left of him. He does not reach out to Rey. )

[ Even coiled in the cockpit on the other end of the ship, Rey finds the banging impossible to ignore—probably for the best, for she hears the grinding sound of rent metal and grimaces to think that he might be damaging the last vestige of his father's memory in what amounts to a tantrum. It feels wrong to designate Han as his father, when from their given perspectives, he properly feels more like he belongs to Rey.

That sense of ownership keeps her rooted to the pilot's seat for longer than she probably should remain, unable to trust herself to engage him in a reasonable manner, but soon enough, his desperate, conflicted scramble for an identity he's never built bleeds through into her sufficiently that she can't ignore it. He doesn't reach out in a traditional sense, but the entropy surrounding him and billowing outward acts like a beacon; it draws her to him.

On some level, she's always drawn to him.

Rather than examine it, Rey pops up onto her feet and chases him down in the hold, rounding the corner of the narrow steel corridor that rattles with the vigorous effort of the ship tearing through the fabric of space. She understands the feeling as she continues to smash her nose into the impregnable bubble of inculcated fear and hate that surrounds Kylo Ren; the very act of trying to smash her way through it shakes her until she wonders if she might be coming apart too.

Without making an effort to mask her presence, she moves just past him and stares into the warped metal that reflects only distorted, blended colors of flesh and hair and black robes, not any likeness of anyone. If Leia were here, she'd take the opportunity to try and pick him up from where he sits, urge him against the hate that he demonstrates for his own reflection, but gazing into the twisted, mutilated sheet of paneling, Rey doesn't find that kind of sympathy.

He stared in the mirror every day while he became what he is without flinching or stopping himself when the time came. It was too late, by the time he had. He deserves the punishment he doles out on himself, and she permits the way he stews in self-loathing. Turning towards him, she sizes the seated figure up, weighs and measures, and decides that he's not a broken shell of the beast he'd once been—whatever conclusion the metal panel had been sacrificed to bring him to contained at least some measure of resolve in it. For now, that's all she can ask. ]

I'm not afraid because I'm not coming up against them alone. [ It's the closest thing to a concession or an olive branch that she'll give him; it's hard to even offer that much, thinking of what he's done and all the reasons she has not give him any of her gratitude for the position he fills at her side. People don't have to earn that for her to give it, though, and Rey finds herself more enamored with the notion the further she considers it. For now, then, she puts it off. ] Now will you come help me or not?

( The acoustics of the ship mean that Kylo hears her coming long before she rounds on him, though the only liberty it affords him is time to gather his scattered pieces together into some semblance of order. With the sheet metal twisted as it is, having made the racket that it did, it's unlikely that his outburst will go unnoticed, never mind the fashion in which he had left the hold, but he's less concerned with that in the wake of his behavior on the Finalizer. His reputation for wanton destruction and seemingly random acts of violence had been assigned for a reason, after all.

As such, he's still sitting on the floor when Rey shows her face, knees drawn up and arms extended over them, fingers dangling and hands relaxed though they throb with the memory of how tightly wound they'd been. One more than the other. The pain is not instructional or useful in this case, and as a result Kylo finds it more annoying than anything. For a number of reasons but not least of all what it says about his own perception of himself than anything else. Reflection on that is as useless as the pain he feels, however, and he's almost appreciative of Rey's appearance as it detracts from the overall task of examining himself and his myriad failures and inadequacies while he sits on the vibrating floor and tries to get a grip on himself, like a child coming down from a tantrum.

Kylo meets her eyes as they sweep from the loose puckering of the wall and skip down to him, casting his own gaze in turn from the flat of her dirty boots on the metal grating underfoot and up past her knees to her midsection and beyond, until he arrives at her face and determines that he likes what he sees there about as much as she likes what she sees in him. There's no denying that she is not wholly repulsive as far as appearances go, though, and he can't deny that he'd been drawn to her in more ways than he cared to count from the moment she resisted him right up to and beyond the hand she'd offered him on Corellia. But listening to her voice rumble out from somewhere deep down and brimming with conviction, despite the nature of her approach, he's left wondering how much time remains until he turns and bites the hand that she's extended toward him, how long until he proves her doubts and suspicions right. It's inevitable, as Leader Snoke might say. )

If your vision proves to be correct - ( He clambers ungracefully and awkwardly to his feet, leaning the top half of his back and the breadth of his shoulders against the cool wall behind him. Eyes that are nearly black with the shadow from the corridor that eclipses them close the distance between them with far more ease than his legs and torso could hope to manage, and the wall soothes the heat from his skin until all that's left is stale sweat. ) - you will be alone. ( Kylo keeps his voice neutral despite the threat laced within it. They all think so little of him, despite what he's done. Vader, Luke, his mother and father. He'll never amount to their achievements despite the pressure placed on him to carry the mantle by name alone. What she's suggested is merely the most logical outcome, though he does not intend to take it lying down. ) But not yet. ( He cracks a smile, all teeth and not nice, and it fades around the formation of his next curiosity. ) How close are we to Mandalore? I'll help you bring the ship out of hyperspace, and then I should take the gunner seat.

( Not just because a surprise attack might be waiting for them, but because it might be beneficial to keep some distance between them until they're off the ship and out of space. )

[ Not yet. Even if his smile holds something of a sneer, those two words reassure her that he understands in some capacity what she is holding onto here—so tightly, in fact, that she stands fast under the belief that hiding the fact that he'd stood with the Knights to his back best serves his continued presence at her side. An explanation will manifest itself, she decides, one counter to the paradox of Kylo Ren being both her savior and slayer in the same breath, counter to the persistent fear that he might only protect her so he has the chance to bring her back to Snoke for the same treatment he warns her off now.

If she does not trust him, they will fail. With little other choice, she holds onto what she can use and deludes herself with it into the belief that they are secure in this tenuous truce they've built, one with a card house for a foundation.

Instead of bogging them both down in further argument, Rey curtly nods and turns her attention to the task at hand, casting her glance back to the cockpit. Pushing away the dissatisfaction she feels over anyone but Chewie taking the gunner seat these days, Rey focuses instead on prioritizing their survival by accepting the logic of the plan. ]

Close enough to drop out. Come on.

[ She leads the way into the cockpit, unconsciously bracing herself for the steadying breath she predicts he'll draw, a prediction that results from the narrow membrane that separates their minds, makes them all but one and, as such, makes her subconsciously aware of his ticks and pauses, even when not consciously considering them.

Desensitization should, eventually, ease the sight for him, but it hasn't yet, and his apprehensive tendency towards steeling himself has become hers, but Rey maintains an air of grace and comfort in spite of it as she lowers herself into the pilot seat and points to the lever on his side. ] Lower the throttle slowly. I want to give the scanners time to pick up whatever might be waiting for us before we're completely defenseless. Be ready with the shields.

[ The orders come out naturally, not exercised for the sake of power but for the sake of practicality, and patient besides. More importantly, though, she assumes he'll follow them, if the way anticipatory way she palms the hyperdrive switch on her side is any indicator, tight trip ready to bring them down slow in tandem with him. ]

( The breath that he draws as he crosses the threshold back into the cockpit starts as a hitch in his chest and then expands outward like a network of roots working its way from the body of a tree. He feels it in his fingers and every nerve ending that can trace its origin back to the vault of memories that categorize his time spent on this bucket, sealed off and locked away long ago. Their emergence had been fresh when he'd boarded the vessel on Starkiller, had wracked him with nausea, and he's experienced something similar every time he's stepped not just aboard but into the belly, into this cockpit.

His dark clothing is still lined with Chewbacca's hair and the air still smells of stale leather despite the Falcon having only been back in Solo's possession for a short time. It's enough to confirm Rey's expectations, and he feels them, too, the way that he feels her at all times, unless she's actively and purposefully blocking him. At the very least, it provides a necessary distraction - as much as her instruction does - from the waiting darkness that huddles in every corner of their prolonged isolation with one another, hoping to catch either one of them unawares so that it might strike and bring the whole structure around them down into a violent implosion.

The Knights. Snoke. Organa. Skywalker. The Resistance. All of it. It's an overwhelming amount for the both of them to grapple with when they already have their hands full in grappling with one another. The cockpit, his father's ship, and keeping it flying is enough for him to deal with that the rest of it - Rey's presence in his mind, their connection, his actions, her stubborn belief, all of it - becomes unimportant to the task at hand. However, in the interest of keeping the established order together, as it were, Kylo frowns at her and shows Rey the sharp V of his brow as he does so. )

I know what the throttle is. ( In response to the gesture she grants him in pointing to the lever next to him, whether she's being patient with him or not. He doesn't have the same appreciation for flying that Han had, that Han had hoped he'd have, that Rey does, but Kylo does as he's told despite not having anything positive or particularly helpful to say about it. His tone, though, isn't overly defensive or hostile; it just is. Blank, plain, flat.

The throttle lowers slowly and the scanners whir to life as Kylo leans somewhat to pivot closer to the shields. Not for the first time, he wonders how she managed to fly this ship off of Jakku on her own: even with his wingspan, piloting solo - no pun intended - would be difficult. Despite himself and the colorless cadence of his voice just moments ago, Kylo inclines his head and the fading frown that creases his face with the intention of asking that exact question when something washes over him that draws his attention to the viewport before the scanners have time or ability to pick it up. )

Something's coming.

[ For a moment, Rey feels a flicker of something she doesn't quite recognize in him, lifts her head and turns her gaze to scrutinize him while he reflects on the impossibility of her escape from Jakku, but doesn't delve telepathically deeper than the feeling. Confusion knits her brows together, narrows her eyes, but the white streaks of stars through hyperspace fade and leave them in the black hollow of the seam between the Outer and Mid Rim.

She brushes it off quickly, turning her attention out the front window with his warning, her eyes darting back and forth between the space that stretches endlessly before them, the planet coming into sight as a speck among dust and debris, and the radar in the instrument panel, blipping with the deceptive pleasantry of non-recognition.

Kylo Ren's judgment supersedes the passive assertion of the device. ]

Yes, thank you, you've said that plenty of times today. Is this all you do? Throw out vague and bleak fortunes like some kind of conman with a deck of cards.

[ She guides them around floating rocks, and it occurs to her only on the other side of it that the blank radar in and of itself is suspicious. Looking down, her brow furrows with second thought. For there to be no ships in space this close to Mandalore … surely someone must always be coming and going, but it was coming up empty, as if something were jamming them or cloaking everything else. Her head turns fully to pin Kylo Ren to his seat. ] You're going to need to be more specific. Fast. We can't rely on scanning equipment. Something's disrupting it.

You're the one who's been going on and on for the better part of two days about a vision you had in a basement somewhere. ( The words tumble out of his mouth without much provocation and without a resource and background check to determine the validity of all of them, but they all feel right in the order that they transpire, and they feel even more satisfying encased in the tone that he chooses to delivery them with. Abrupt and scathing, knocking down the credence of her claims with sharp barbs determined and designed to deflect as much as they are call her out on the accusations that she levels at him. ) Stop filling the cockpit with pointless and obvious observations if you want me to come up with something that's not going to get us shot out of the sky, your preternatural ability to fly your way out of insane situations be damned.

( An image burns itself into he back of his eyes as he barks at her, a dog held back by the tightening collar attached to a long leash leading back into a dark house. He can see his father bent over these controls and issuing commands and disparaging comments in the same way, without actively having to mine his memories of long-forgotten stories or search through the scant collection of them that Rey has, wherever she keeps them.

It's just a passing thought and then it's gone, leaving him simultaneously hot and cold as he sweeps his gaze over the scanners and does a perfunctory search of endless space out in front of them. Nothing. The scanners are empty, blank, and he comes to the realization of what that means almost the moment that Rey voices it. Kylo's brow furrows as he peers at the scanner, that same sense of dread seeping out from every corner of the ship, every blank stretch of space, every pore and healing scar on his body. It isn't a feeling he would associate with one of the Knights, who have their own signatures through the Force regardless of whether they are sensitive or not. This is oppressive and deep and old, and whatever it is is hiding itself and everything around it. It feels like - )

Snoke. ( But even in giving that notion a voice, Kylo knows that it can't be right. That door may be closed for the time being, but he does not believe for one second that at this proximity the Supreme Leader would fail in sniffing his former apprentice out and turning the inside of his skull to broken glass and polluted sludge. In a last ditch effort to exert some control over the situation, Kylo curls his hand into a fist and slams it against the console right above where the scanner's wiring is located, as if he might be able to intimidate it into working correctly. Failing in that, and because they are likely to be loud enough that Rey will hear them anyway, he begins thinking out loud. )

He wouldn't be this sloppy. Scrambling our sensors or cloaking Mandalorian air space would draw too much attention to him, and he wouldn't personally take on the task of hunting us down when he has others available at his disposal. Hux and his fleet are busy with the Resistance. ( He begins running through a mental list of other generals and admirals available to dispatch but ultimately knows what the answer must be. It's as unexpected as it isn't. Only one other Knight of Ren is Force sensitive, and for as much as he had doubted that Ji would be the first to find them, and for as loathe as he is to admit it, this isn't the first time he's been so utterly and painfully wrong. ) Put the ship down.

[ Astonishingly, Kylo Ren continues to demonstrate an uncanny ability to stir what should be a compliment in with a slurry of insults and leave her more infuriated than if he'd never acknowledged her abilities at all. In fact, Rey finds herself incensed with her own mind for daring to seek significance in an acknowledgment of her prowess by the creature beside her. Her grip tightens on the yoke before her.

She doesn't consider herself lucky that it's thoughts of Snoke that distract the both of them from petty squabbling, and she can feel the creeping chill that she associates with his influence tightening around her spine, an automatic response to the mere threat of his involvement or an actual sensitivity, she can't be sure. For that reason and more, she feels a rush of relief replace her breath as it leaves her lungs when Kylo Ren dismisses the possibility, assuring her that any feeling she'd gotten was the mere recollection of his signature. The impression that he leaves terrifies her in ways she refuses to examine at the present moment. ]

I can settle us on Concordia, but there's nothing closer than that. [ She balks visibly at his expectation that she can land the ship as suddenly as he demands, a scoff ringing out of the back of her throat as she redirects the ship to the nearby forest moon. Another forest moon, Endor was the end of the Empire, she recalls. That's what the galaxy decided, anyway, even if the Battle of Jakku was long after. She wonders what will end on this one.

It's a bleak thought because she knows it grows out of the concern that it will be them, given the serious implications of Kylo Ren's abrupt demand. She doesn't fuss with rebuffing him, offer protest for the sake of protest and pride at a time like this; better for both of them that they focus on working together instead. But she does dip unsolicited into the tide pool of his mind, fishing around for thoughts memories scuttling near the surface to lend the context he doesn't offer to his demand.

The dark mask of a Knight greets her, and she knows implicitly that this woman's name is Ji without ever having personally met her. ] You need to be sure. I'm not interested in theories; we need certainty, and a plan. How are we going to subdue her without alerting the rest of the Knights to our location?

( In the brief moments available between Rey's proposed change in direction and the actual altering of their course to support it, he tries to think as quickly as he can, leaving his thoughts loud. Mandalore would be a preferable landing strip upon which to descend for reasons that have as much to do with the number of faces to blend in with, throwing Ji's perception of her leader through her scant understanding of the Force into a serious downward spiral, as it does with the superior resources available to them on an actual planet. The moon itself is agricultural in nature, despite the mines that dot the landscape, and still recovering from civil war decades and decades ago. Its lush forestry might prove decent for cover but wouldn't overwhelm Ji's ability to track the way so many bodies with so many thoughts and alternating pulses and heartbeats would.

But there's little choice in the matter, and he refrains from arguing any further as Rey angles the ship in that direction, his silence serving as support enough for the decision that she makes with or without him. The scanners can't pick up Ji's transport and if she has Snoke cloaking her from afar, tracking his newly appointed leader of the Knights the way that he was able to track Kylo, there's little chance that either Rey or Kylo himself will be able to pick her out of the limitless black blanket of space. Still, he keeps his eyes trained on the viewport in an effort to distinguish star from satellite, stationary rock from mobile figure, the emptiness of Mandalorian air from a hollow point in the galaxy bending light and sucking the world down into a vacuum.

After a moment, Kylo looks over at her. Not at the provocation of her voice as she airs her concerns but at the first hint of real doubt that flashes through her mind. He sees Endor, tall trees and a funeral pyre that burned high into the night sky, leaving behind ash and twisted metal, duarsteel and plasteel collapsed into a pile of melted obsidian. The end of an era, in more ways than one. Rey's thoughts grow deeper, darker, and he realizes it's because she's wading into the sea of his own thoughts and memories in an attempt to understand. Something in him is pleased at that notion, and despite the severity and time sensitive nature of the moment, Kylo spares the necessity of his attention and senses on the viewport to allow her to see what it is that she's looking for with greater clarity than she might encounter were he to resist.

Endor is there, a cross-contamination of her own thoughts as they spill into his. His grandfather's mask, warped and destroyed and leaking energy, power, influence, like sweet, cold water. Another mask, more defined, a helmet Mandalorian in design with a network of crosshatching; a long, black cloak pulled tight over strong shoulders, parting at the waist at the end of a diagonal slash in order to reveal a lightsaber, short and blunt, clipped and hanging next to a blaster. Gloved fingers rise to lift the helmet from her head but Kylo terminates the memory before it has the chance to become that tangible, as if the reminder of her face makes too real the possibility that Rey's concerns will manifest as reality. )

I'm sure. And I'm sure that she'll come alone. Ji does not play well with others. ( He says this with no small amount of conviction, somewhat frustrated that she would have the wherewithal to question him on a subject in which he is the utmost authority as opposed to her inexperience dealing with any of them outside of himself and the vision that she'd seen. ) Even if what you saw turns out to be true, it's unlikely that Snoke will pool his resources together so quickly. He needs to find us first, and the Knights need to test the boundaries of what they are and are not able to do under circumstances such as these. They know how I fight, what to expect. ( As much as it pains him to admit it, although admitting it does not mean that because they know his tries and tricks, they are somehow superior or stronger than him. His position at their head has determined that much already. But Rey. He glances over at her again, briefly, before skipping his eyes to the scanner and back to the stars ahead of them. ) You are an unknown factor.

( Even Snoke would have to assume as much. The only knowledge that he has of the girl that sits next to his apprentice now is what Kylo had told him on Starkiller, followed shamefully by her swift embrace of the Force and the abilities that it had granted her. Kylo swallows against the memory, unwilling to let it rise to the surface and sit within the broad cavity of his chest like a tumor, growing black and ugly along his insides and threatening to drag him down in a direction that he cannot afford to go at this late hour. Instead, he watches the sky and waits for Ji to make a mistake, waits for her impatience to get the better of her. A few of the Knights are excellent pilots that operate more like adrenaline junkies than people with the preternatural ability to fly. Ji is not one of them. Ji flies with the sort of skill that enables her to get from point A to point B without disaster occurring, but if she's tracking them now, her impatience won't stop her from showing up in some way, regardless of whether or not Snoke is shielding her.

It only takes until they are close enough to begin the landing procedure down toward Concordia, and then she shows up at the edges of his perception, angry and coming in hot. Rey, he knows, won't miss a beat in sensing her malevolence even at this distance. Kylo refuses to believe that their end comes in a similar fashion based on landscape alone. Ji will not be their undoing. )

[ Staring as she is, with all the wary discomfort of uncertainty and the prying intensity of her telepathic search, Rey meets Kylo Ren's gaze levelly when he turns towards her. She doesn't look away when he catches her eye. Instead, she allows images from his mind to flood her, first Endor, Vader's mask a relic of a time never known by either of them, and then Ji.

Just as she's getting a good look, mentally lifting her gaze to try to peer beneath the helmet, Kylo rebuffs her with sharp dismissal, sharp enough to jar her somewhat and wonder at the nature of it. Without assuming too much, it almost seemed to give the impression of some possessive sentiment that he still maintained—that only strengthened the threat that being out here alone with him against the Knights he'd led. If there was some significance to the bond between Kylo Ren and Ji, it would make it all the more likely that he might turn on Rey to rejoin her.

Rey tells herself it's pragmatic self-preservation that produces her not inconsiderable interest in what that history might have looked like, and not personal, but it's a hard lie to tell when she feels the numbing surprise of how Kylo then identifies her—an unknown. Appalling, given how much Kylo himself knew of her, most of it discerned during a time he still served under Snoke. They had battled through an inextricable bond for months across the galaxy, linked despite all their best efforts and training, stubbornly silent on the subject when it came time to report to their superiors. It took her longer than it should have to tell Luke anything of it. Apparently, he'd told even less to the Supreme Leader, and Rey finds herself deeply engrossed in exploring the reasoning for that, staggered by the implicit protection offered by his silence.

Only the sudden, blazing sense of righteous fury and vengeance flashes and brands her mind does Rey manage to wrench her gaze away from the steely prominences of Kylo Ren's face, as though jarred from a dream into a much more nightmarish reality. Rey composes herself in a scramble, a surprising amount of labor in her breath as she sifts her mind from his and tries to cloak herself in a net of energy that suppresses her own signature against outsiders. A technique that would have been useless against Kylo Ren due to the depth of their bond might earn them a few minutes' head start against Ji.

With a generous push of the gliding lever to her left, Rey accelerates towards the surface of the moon with startling speed, ready to put the inferno that must be Ji well behind them. They need to get to the surface. They'll have no luck from up here, fighting a Force-user in a more capable ship without the ability to see her sense her with enough accuracy. With Mandalore too far off now to be reached in time, their best bet lies in the forests of Concordia. ]

Hold on tight. [ That's all the warning he gets before the moon's atmosphere tries to skip them off the surface of its ozone; the turbulence that results from resisting the surface tension of that glorified pocket of collected air rattles the ship so hard that its whole frame skips off course, and Rey has to manually drive it back down towards the surface. They hurtle as if she's intending direct contact until they're barely above the treeline, at which point she pulls up suddenly and aims the Falcon for the craggy rock faces at the edge of the forest, which promise a mining pit in the mountainous region beyond. A good place to disrupt scanning equipment, a better place to lie in wait to ambush a Knight of Ren. ]

( If any of Rey's thoughts - her curiosity regarding his relationship with Ji, her surprise and interest in exploring the reality of what he had and hadn't shared with Snoke about her, the weight and existence of their bond in and of itself - bleed through the screen of his own mind, permeate natural fortifications built up over the course of a lifetime of subservience and discipline, or otherwise distract him from the nature and speed of Ji's approach, Kylo makes no indication or mention of it. He barely notices it himself, if it does, caught up in their unified acknowledgement of the small craft that barrels toward them seemingly out of nowhere, gunning for their back end and looping around to pull into a dive. Of course it's just as unlikely that he doesn't get some sort of chatter as a result of their crossed wires, but there's little time to separate Rey's perceptions from his own when the bulk of his attention gathers around Ji's signature hurtling toward them and what it is that Rey plans to do next.

Kylo can't get a read on either: Ji is still a garbled collection of static despite being present and Rey. Rey is too quick at the controls to anticipate anything other than a dash of anxiety mixed with vertigo-induced nausea as she rockets the ship down along the moon's atmosphere and does her damnedest to scuttle them all in a fiery mess that will streak across the sky. He's about to shout something about incoming fire - it hasn't manifested physically yet but he can sense the intent even as Ji momentarily blinks out of existence before winking back into it again like an open eye - when Rey banks the ship and he has to shut his mouth and grab first onto the wall to his right and then onto the console as the entire ship begins to feel like it's about to vibrate into a million pieces.

He's known how to fly a ship almost as long as he's known how to read and write, has done enough recon missions in all types of terrain and had to set down ships in electrical storms without a decent-sized crew to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. He has never seen anyone or anything fly the way that Rey does. Save one. It's as if her life depends solely on pulling off the impossible, if the way that the jagged horizon, comprised of the tops of tall trees and waxing waning hills, rushes toward them is any indication. Kylo glances over at her once, uninterested in watching rock face and cliff side collide with the viewport even as he knows instinctively that she will pull up with more than enough time to clear it, from her point of view, and fixes narrow eyes on the lines of her face and the stiff grip of her fingers around the Falcon's controls.

Kylo can't be sure of the sentiment that forces his expression the way that it does. It might be thinly veiled resentment or stern consternation. Or an attempt at deciphering the gears that make her turn without diving in to skim the surface of her mind the way the ship's underbelly does the tops of the trees. He doesn't investigate, whatever it is, and turns away after a moment once the ship is clear to set down. He can still sense Ji's approach somewhere on the planet, but it's far enough away for the moment to exist as a dull perception, an advancing bad feeling, than a bright star on the brink of explosion. )

Right there looks good. ( Kylo gestures toward a clearing that houses a mining pit adequate enough for their purposes. It's only when they've touched down that he glances over at her again. ) It's a wonder you haven't pulled this ship apart flying it the way that you do.

[ In the heat of their descent, she can feel his gaze burning the side of her face, wave after intense wave buffeting her with his investigation, but it barely registers in her conscious mind, which is fully focused on their survival of the insane feat she pulls to put Ji well behind them. The gambit seems to work, but he's turned away by the time she, breathing hard, turns to meet his gaze.

Rey lets her clueless stare linger for a moment before she follows his direction to nest the ship in the cradle of the open mine. The white shell of the Millennium Falcon is covered with dust and pock-marked with holes and divots, which helps it to camouflage with the mine. It'll have to do, and she'll have to hope that Ji's interest lies outside of blasting their ride out of here half to hell. ]

If this ship were going to come apart, it would have done it long before I got my hands on it. [ She abandons the yoke, lifting her gaze out the front to try and spot a speck of a ship in the clear sky above. Nothing. A hollow effort. She turns away immediately and tears out of the cockpit like a bat out of hell. ] Bring everything you'll need. I can't promise you we'll be back here.

[ She's come a long way from refusing to let go of the nightmarish hovel she'd called a home on Jakku for the delusional hope of her family that it represented; now, she's able to accept that there is every possibility that their survival will need to take precedent over the memory of Han Solo that steers this ship. At least his ship would see a burial, even if it was on some nowhere moon in the Outer Rim.

For her part, Rey only stops to stuff ration bars into the leather satchel at her hip with a fistful of bandages and tubes of low-potency bacta gel. War left no place for sentimentality or creature comforts, so she lowered the cargo ramp and waited at the head of it for Kylo Ren to join her. ]

( He's confident in their landing - and in Rey's talents for flying, even if he's too obstinate to say so out loud in a way that doesn't also act as a scathing insult - to serve as a method by which to confuse the stray they have managed to pick up along the way to Mandalore. Despite her impatience and aggressive nature, Ji's lackluster piloting skills make her a poor candidate for following their path to the exact letter, daredevil antics and all, and although the majority of their trip moon-side had been spent in a tailspin of whiplash apprehension, Kylo had not sensed anyone else as he'd sensed Ji. There's no guarantee as to whether or not there isn't a squadron behind her, waiting to bring up the rear, but that possibility is a bridge they will have to cross when the time comes, if it comes at all.

For a moment, they both stare up into the sky with the intention of spotting incoming chatter, but there's nothing beyond the lip of the mine they settle into, casting the majority of the ship into shadow and giving the appearance of artificial twilight. Rey stands first, but Kylo is quick to follow, breaking off from her in the interest of gathering his own things along with a glowrod that he finds stored in a cabinet above one of the bunks in crew quarters. It flickers ominously when he switches it on but holds true after a moment, and he carries it in his left hand so that his right is free in the event that Ji appears, as he has every belief that she will. There's a canteen near the galley, and with no clue how long this excursion might last or what the outcome might be, he fills it with recycled water - lukewarm - and slings it over his shoulder.

With little else to be gathered, he joins Rey at the mouth of the ship, staring down the length of the cargo ramp into the mine shaft. Dark eyes track a path from the metal flooring up to the bright splash of Rey's gaze, and Kylo nods, striding down the ramp ahead of her. He harbors little love for what they might be leaving behind and as such makes no effort to stop and say any sort of prolonged or even momentary goodbye. If anything, despite the nature of their endeavor, he is glad to be off the Falcon and everything that it represents, and has little to no issue with the possibility that this might be a permanent parting in more ways than one. )

As far as I'm aware, the mines are abandoned. ( And it shows. A few of the structures that denote lodging and office space have collapsed with time and age, though the only thing that has taken care to fill the hollowed out spaces and depressed sections of paneling is dust that has blown in from beskar mining. The possibility that members of the Death Watch are still active within the mines or that the mines themselves are still in use doesn't appear to extend itself to whatever mine it is they have landed in, if the stillness of it all is anything to go by. If anything, they should be able to feel Ji coming from a mile away, and it's with this in mind that Kylo throws a quick glance over his shoulder at Rey. ) Picking up on anything?

( He isn't, but maybe Ji has finally learned to hide herself from him, if Snoke's influence hasn't extended itself again to give her a shield to hide behind. )

[ Rey draws a deep breath, staring up at the bucket of rust that she's begun to call her home, then turns away from it with every bit of resolve she can muster and doesn't look back as they descend the cargo ramp. In fact, she doesn't look back even as it shrinks with its retreat as they surge onward towards the ruins of what used to be the mine; the ruins are a graveyard that reminds her of a home she'd had earlier than the Falcon, reminds her of the felled starships that she had scoured for usable parts on Jakku for years.

The only movement comes from the dust their boots kick up, and Rey takes slow, deliberate steps that try to mask her trail across the layer of dirt that settles atop the mine's pit. She stops at Kylo's question, turning her attention skyward and squinting as though she ere using her eyes rather than the Force to search. The same cloak of darkness that blacked out the scanning equipment persists like a dense fog that attenuates her field of view, and she shakes her head, dropping her chin with some marginal disappointment. ]

No. [ She turns and continues towards the mine facilities. ] But we don't need to know how close she is to know she'll come for us, which gives us plenty of time to stage an ambush for when she gets here. [ It's been rare, in her experience to have the drop on anyone from the First Order like this, let alone someone else with Force sensitivity—even Luke and Leia had sensed her arrival when she came to D'Qar and Ahch-To respectively. She plans to make the most of it. ]

We can suppress our signatures as well, lie in wait and draw her here. [ She points up to the ruined offices and barracks, squinting at the pile of dust and searching for a point of egress. ] Then collapse it to trap her.

( Her answer, however negative, inspires in him some relative cause for relief as much as it does some relative cause for alarm. Ji, while trained somewhat in the Force, does not at all carry the same aptitude that he and Rey have been privileged with as a result of their focused tutelage under masters brimming with knowledge of their own respective sides. She's picked up tricks through her own volition and learned how to swing a saber as a result of sparring with Kylo when the others yielded and he was still hungry for more, and she abandoned a planet that raised warriors and taught their daughters to be unconquerable; Ji is second in command for a reason, her tenacity notwithstanding, but this preternatural ability to cloak herself from arguably two of the strongest Force-users left in the galaxy stinks of Snoke and his desire for retaliation.

It is and isn't something that Kylo should have been expecting. He had been well aware that the Supreme Leader would stop at nothing to see the Knight he raised from a boy into a weapon punished, and it would be foolish to assume that Snoke's influence could not extend this far across the galaxy when Kylo himself has felt the heavy cruelty of his master's hand sliding against his mind, moving aside the thick bone of his skull to do so. But that had been understood as a result of the connection established between master and apprentice, the link that Rey had allowed him to break, spiraling down into this situation in the first place. That he is able to shield Ji from them in this way, presents two options, both equally as alarming as the next, though Kylo seriously doubts Ji's abilities within the Force growing so rapidly in two days' time, if Snoke has chosen her to replace Kylo in more ways than one. )

I don't know how likely it is that Ji wouldn't sense a trap with or without training in the Force. If Snoke is shielding her, then it's possible that he's helping her in some other way, too. ( But it isn't a disagreement or an admonishment. Just a statement of fact made as Kylo ignites the glowrod and holds it low. This doesn't afford them much light to see by as they pick their way through ghoulishly twisted buildings and husks of cold machinery, all of it rusted and rotted from old age, disuse, and time. ) I could project myself, if you were to cloak yourself. Draw her out that way so that we aren't waiting for her for two days while she scours the moon looking. Collapse it and trap her inside once she responds to the call and shows up.

You're offering to be bait?

[ She doesn't bother to hide her shock, presenting it with blunt disbelief that thrusts air from her chest in a scoff: he'd loathed the suggestion last time, and here he was being the one to make it. More and more, Rey has to wonder if it's a dogged pursuit of their goal, of the destruction of Snoke, or if it's merely a sense of reckless disregard for his own safety born of losing what he had to drive him. She doesn't pity him for that, though—rather, her acknowledgment of it comes only in the context of the danger it poses to her if she's right.

Luckily, it stands mostly at odds with whatever else he's been willing to do to ensure their mutual survival, and Rey holds onto that as reassurance that his death wish won't somehow get her killed (though she wouldn't disagree with him, if pressed, that he has it coming). Rey peers up at the craggy face of the graveyard of the mining operation that once lived here, narrowing her gaze to try to make out the details as she mulls his suggestion over.

Somewhere along the way, they found their footing in similar thought patterns. She suspects it's no coincidence that it comes on the heels of the covalence of their minds. ] Alright. [ Even if Ji knows, as Rey suspects she will, to expect Luke Skywalker's apprentice at Kylo Ren's side, standing as bodyguard and paragon of the Light, that won't inform her of where Rey comes from. They just need to pick the right stage.

She pushes a rusted iron door off its hinges, bent from weathering over the years, dinged and in disuse, then moves through the opening it makes beneath the low, sagging ceiling of the operation. Time seems to have manifested into a heavy weight, sinking the facilities as much as it has rotted them out. She winds her way to a staircase that can't name itself sturdy, but at least avoids the sprawling cancer that has blackened the rest of the place. Up she goes. ]

Somewhere open we can stand our ground in a fight, or something closed off where it'll be easy to bury her. Your call.

( Kylo says nothing for the time being, allowing the stone wall of his silence to serve as an effective response. He hadn't thought of it that way initially. Rather, he'd viewed it as a more reckless way of approaching the possibility that one of them might die in the next handful of hours and what it would mean for the one left alive. His confidence in his own ability and his pride along with being very confident in knowing that Snoke will want him alive means that Kylo doesn't stop to consider the idea that he might be the one to fall, but he doesn't know what it will mean in the event that Rey does, and he's uncertain what it says about his position on the board that he chooses to step in front of her, now, when she's already indicated that she believes he will later. This is a less direct method of approach, to be sure, more convoluted in their prolonged survival, but it exists as much as the disregard for his own safety. He knows Ji, at the very least, and he isn't afraid of her.

Glancing over at Rey once the blast radius of her shock clears the air and begins breaking up into the atmosphere, he doesn't doubt her ability for survival in the slightest, but that doesn't stop the thought from crossing back and forth over his mind all the same. What happens if one of them dies? How strong is the link that they have not only forged but strengthened between them in the days since Starkiller, since Corellia? If he exposes himself to Ji through the Force, does he risk exposing Rey where she lies in wait at the same time? How deeply within one another have their talons sunk? Questions for a master, no doubt, but he'd never shared his connection with Rey or anything about her at all, and now, as it all threatens to come crashing down around them, Kylo can't determine whether or not he's glad.

There's no time to imagine a world in which these questions are realized, though, and he distracts himself from it for the time being by steadfastly refusing to answer her, turning his back to peer in the direction that they came from, beyond the belly of the Falcon and cringing when the sound of rusted iron scrapes over his ears with a loud scream. Rey has moved several paces away from him, but he is behind her once more in half the time it takes her to cross the threshold on her own. And the threshold is every bit as decrepit and ancient and imposing as he would expect it to be. Not even the breath of ghosts stirs the dust that fills his head and coats the back of his throat, threatening to choke. Their boots are the first to have stepped here in decades, and the skeletal framework of the mine itself stretches up and down and ahead, reminding him of some of the ancient temples he has perused on his personal quest to eradicate the memory of the Jedi from the galaxy.

Rey's footsteps call him to attention as they tap up a staircase he isn't sure can hold the both of them, despite looking less affected by the slow decay of time as the rest of the mine is. He doesn't follow up the stairs after her until she's cleared the landing, and even then he's slow going, his footsteps naturally much heavier and louder than her own. His weight makes the steps groan, but the staircase holds, and when he emerges on the next level, the bright blink of her eyes in the dark is the first thing to catch the high, warm glow of the lamp in his hand. )

Out in the open, I think. I don't know that any of these buildings would be able to support the added stress if we were to draw her indoors, even if it would be more convenient. Here. ( He glances around, holding out the glowrod for her to take while striding to a spot that creaks and squeals ominously. Rey's weight seems supported for the most part, but it's entirely positive that between his body and the added weight of the clothing that he's wearing, she'll be able to go places on lighter, quicker feet that he will not. The path across the floor that he is able to take leads him to the broken framework of a busted window, jagged clari-crystalline jutting like canines. Through the web of fractured glass, the entrance to the mine proper sags. ) Or we could draw her into one of the actual mining shafts.

[ When it's offered, Rey readily takes the glowrod off Kylo's hands in a quick brush of fingers, the shifting light wobbling the shadows cast across his features and, she imagines, hers as well. She turns her attention away and takes off on deft feet that are used to rust and the wear and tear that comes with it, instinctively avoiding the weaker areas of the room, likely to give in under the weight of either of them. She's spent a lifetime prowling through the carcasses of the behemoths felled in another age, and it shows in her ease here.

Messy crates and machines fill the office, stacked upon desks and spilled over on bench seating, a variety of testing equipment, measures, leather straps and tie-downs—equipment used to haul product out of a mine. None of it looks usable anymore, though. That's the trouble of these more well-terrained planets; rust, mold, and a plethora of other weathering effects crept inside everything in ways that they didn't on dry, sunny Jakku. The worst she'd ever had to worry about was sun damage, and she'd learned fast that anything capable of being damaged by the sun was of no worth to Unkar Plutt anyway.

His commentary from the window draws her attention, as well as her ire. ]

Get away from there! [ She marches over and grabs for his arm to yank him back a step. The floor creaks, sighs, and something in the walls settles. ] You think that glass cracked on its own? [ She points to the maw of the window, then guides his attention up towards the bent uppermost edge of the frame. ] Pressure from the roof. You put more weight on this side of the room, and the rest of it could come down on you. It's not well-supported. [ She waves him back towards her. ] Now, come on. Slowly.

[ But while she waves him on, she redirects her attention out the window, fixed on the open shaft of the mine that he'd proposed. It looks even worse for wear, and plunging down into it could get them buried just as easily as Ji—permanently. Given her Force sensitivities, burying her beneath the administrative buildings would slow her down, not necessarily kill her; it'd be easy for her to protect herself from the compartment syndrome and other effects until she could wheedle he way free. But collapsing that much earth—minerals and sheer dirt volume alike—would kill her, unquestionably, and it could kill them too; it proposes the question of which they're really trying to do. Stop her for now, or for good. ]

How sure are you that we'd be able to make it out of the mine ahead of her? [ Rey, obviously, has her doubts—her only experience fighting other Force-users has been with Kylo Ren, and she has no doubt that he'd have been able to chase her out, had she tried this with him. After all, he'd survived the explosion of Starkiller Base. He was a cockroach. ]

( The sharp edges of broken glass hedge his vision as he bends to peer out the window with perhaps not enough sensory outpour dedicated to tracking the durability of the floorboards beneath him, if Rey's sudden snap to attention is anything to go by. Kylo turns just as the first word grabs his attention with a snag, half-expecting her to have spied the red dot of a rifle's sight along one arm or the high point of his forehead. Instead he finds the crook of one elbow caught in the strong curl of her hand and stumbles back off the course he had been taking at her forceful insistence. )

He - ( Is supposed to be something along the lines of hey or get off but she speaks over him and Kylo drags his feet back over the floor, away from the window. Behind him, something seems to slither down the interior of the wall, drawing his attention for a moment but not long enough for it to do anything other than make the floor groan again. His steps are slow, as instructed, and after a long moment he joins her on a more secure section of the second story.

Even the building seems to sigh in relief as, for once, he follows directions and takes careful steps where the imprint of her boots shows under the glow of the lamp, shadows jumping out of corners and stretching long-limbed along the walls. Kylo frowns at nothing in particular though the ire of his gaze settles more firmly on the floor and Rey's boots than anything else, his distaste practically palpable at being bossed around in any manner not at all dissimilar to the way he has ordered her about. )

All that scavenging for parts around half-collapsed structures must have paid off. ( It's supposed to sound scathing, but the urge to clear his throat of dust becomes too strong and instead it comes out sounding observant as opposed to anything productive like irritated or defensive. He clears his throat and throws his attention back into investigating the angles that the room throws, knowing that wherever they go risks trapping them alongside the Knight they are trying to trap in the first place. The mine seems like the best option, although it poses its own set of problems without even the threat of collapse, and Rey seems to pick up on them even when he can't feel her nosing around his idle thoughts and curiosities. His only response, for a moment, is to exhale and push his hair out of his face, thinking. ) Not enough to be confident in the decision, but I'm not exactly confident that we would be able to escape if one of the buildings collapsed either.

( That begs the question: what are they really trying to do? It hangs in the space between them, drawing dust with each breath and settling like a new layer both on skin and tabletop alike. Kylo sees no alternative other than the inevitable, operates under the assumption that not killing Ji here and now will only prolong the eventuality of her catching up to them again - with a greater number at her back. His mind skips immediately over the threat or possibility of surrender or abandonment here in the mines, where she will absolutely escape and live to fight another day, and goes straight for the jugular. The only world in which they walk away from this is a world in which Ji does not, and nothing about that notion sits irregularly with him. Knights have killed each other for as long as he's been a part of them, the survivors culling the initiates with brutal fervor. It's a wonder he and Ji haven't tried to kill each other before. )

If the mine itself is out of the question, I prefer the open air, at least initially. ( Kylo chances a quick glance over his shoulder, marking the entrance to the mine, calculating the distance mentally and committing it to memory based on sight alone. ) You're right, though. I thinking drawing her here and then backing her into one of buildings is our best chance. ( He looks back at Rey. ) You're lighter on your feet, and you can move better in structurally compromised buildings. It wouldn't be difficult for you to get the jump on her, trap her inside, if I pushed her there. We've hidden from her long enough. I'm not going to play coward and prolong the inevitable by continuing to hide.

Trap?

[ Rey echoes him, shifting a question to the end of the word to fall just shy of parroting. Her gaze lifts to his, searching his features—there's no judgment in them, just absolute honesty in her question; this isn't about telling him what he can or can't do, but finding out what he will do. It would be easy to offer her suggestion, firmly require that they stay on the side of trap, or even the more difficult route of making her own decision on whether killing her here is really necessary—a back up plan to allow for it, provided she doesn't take an opportunity to turn away from the darkness she's mired herself in. But that's not what this is about—Rey knows who she is. ]

Is that what we're trying to do?

[ Because the mine is a surefire way to kill her, and now he's hedging at the idea. Rallying her outside seems like a similarly effective way to push this to violence that they can't easily disengage from, can't draw a clear line of when to stop. The memory of how easily she'd stumbled upon the aching desire to spear him through with her lightsaber on Starkiller blooms in her mind as though it's fresh, and she can't imagine Kylo Ren is any less inclined towards violence.

In normal circumstances, they might not have the chance to discuss, to decide, but while they do, Rey plans to take it, damn him to philosophy and moralizing for as long as needed to come to some consensus. It helps that, to a certain extent, he's cornered. Sure, he could pop back down the staircase at a snail's pace without her guidance—he'd done mostly alright for himself—but even he has vocalized now that it's not the smart choice. ]

What if she's just as lost as you and needs a way back out of the dark? Shouldn't we … Shouldn't we at least offer that to her? [ Which only opens up the question of whether or not that really gives her a choice—death, or redemption. Rey tightens her jaw. The pragmatic, reasonable side of her knows what needs to be done in order to eliminate the inarguable threat against them, but looming darkness threatens the edge of her vision as if to warn her that it's a path she can't come back from, simply cutting down problems because she has the power to. ]

( The inflection at the end of that word - trap - light and lilting, drawn around the bright clip of her accent - another anomaly about her; what is a Core World accent doing on a wasteland like Jakku? - brings the heaviness in his gaze to level with her own, already waiting for him across the short distance that separates them, highlighted by the low burn of the glowrod. Kylo doesn't need the cloying shadows provided by the building and the landscape itself to darken both the color and the cast of his eyes as he glances at her, interpreting the meaning behind her question before she speaks again to clarify it.

Before he answers, he lets his eyes linger on hers, on her face, roving over the architecture of her bone structure and the map of her expression in an effort to suss out disagreement, a building argument, the combustion of the tension that has been leaking out of every interaction - extended or otherwise - between them since Corellia. He's surprised not to find it, is equally surprised to find instead an open curiosity as to his opinion. In some ways, it feels like a test, but there's little she can do if he doesn't pass it, and for as much as their individual responses spell out more than enough about them without the burden of detail, he knows that whatever answer he gives, the solution is more complicated than a yes or no buried within an explanation.

Eventually, he turns away from her, showing her his profile as he glances again out the window, the opening of the mine edged with the long, serrated teeth of the window. Fingers curl into fists of their own accord as she hedges around questions and hesitates in her delivery. They aren't tight but the strain that it builds in the muscles that comprise his forearms feels like stretching at the start of an early morning, bone-deep and relieving. Dark eyes skim the floor, travel to her boots and up the dirty material of her pant legs to bottom out on her own eyes with his chin tipped down. A frown twitches at the corner of his mouth, and the question she poses makes a giant ball of lead gather and drop into the bottom of his stomach like a stone. It's hot with the fusing together of many different things, and it's technically the ire that wins out first, but it's correcting her that noses ahead at the end. )

There are some people in this world that you can't save, Rey. ( His tone aims for brokering no argument, steeped in greater knowledge that she can possess about the enemy - what a word - they prepare to face. Of course, labeling Ji in such terms leaves wide open the notion that he is someone who can be saved, which isn't a connotation that he wants associated with himself and the choices that he's made. It leaves a bad taste in the back of his mouth, but if he's to prove any point to her at all, he can't call it into question. ) You can try, with Ji, you can give her the option, but she'll never make the decision to walk with you the way that I did. She isn't in the dark. She doesn't fight that -

( Glass breaks in the same moment that Kylo throws his arm out, halting a red bolt of blaster fire, wide and pulsing, in the air. It hovers just inches from where they are standing, as unaware of its intended target as Kylo is. His arm shakes momentarily with the effort of containing it before another greeting of tinkering glass shatters on the opposite end of the floor they stand on, a brief pause separating that noise from an ominous hissing as the room begins to fill with smoke. He reaches out to extinguish the glowrod in the same moment that footsteps clatter on the other end of the collapsed building, and Kylo drags Rey close enough to smell the sweat on her skin as he hisses at her over the plume of white mist. ) Move.

( Ji blooms in full manifestation at the forefront of his perception - and, he knows, Rey's - and he can almost hear the melodic drawl of her accent as he lets the blaster bolt tear a hole in the floorboards. )

they are a proud people full of proud mandalorian pride

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