just a child in a mask.

Rey didn’t flinch as he leaned forward, knowing that he couldn’t hurt her here. Not in this space between reality where the Force found it necessary to connect them even after Snoke had been killed. Who even knew if his manipulations were actually real? She could feel the light in him, even with all of his talk and his attempts to hide it. There was still good in him.

She squared her shoulders as he attempted to insult her, but she let it roll off her back. And then the utter hopelessness that came from his last words had her heart seizing in her chest for a moment. “But you do still have some light left….Ben…I’m no more a Jedi than you,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I have darkness in me too,” she nodded. It took a lot for her to acknowledge it, but she did. It was there, and she’d be a fool to ignore it. “You don’t have to be one or the other…You said let the past die, so let it. The Jedi…the First Order, the Resistance. Start over with me.”

     Rey’s words call up an echo. Words she must have said some time ago; but not to him. There is no light left in Kylo Ren. If that were true, would he feel like he was being shredded from the inside out? But it is true. This is what anger and hate feel like. Agony. He refuses to believe anything else is the truth. Especially when she’s throwing a reminder of what he’d said aboard the Supremacy in his face.

     It’s time to let old things die. Snoke... Skywalker... the Sith... the Jedi... the rebels. Rey. I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.

     She said no. She left him behind, and now she had the audacity to ask him to turn away from his chosen path for her again. Stupid scavenger. Nobody. What a fool to think he can’t hurt her through the bond.

     Fingers pinch just out of sight, and in his mind’s eye, her windpipe. Distance be damned, he would choke her belief in his light out of her - because it stung him. Because it reminded him that there was nothing but destruction ahead, and he had no clue what to do about it. “You called me a monster more than once. Yet you keep trying. Jedi or not, darkness or not, there’s nothing you can do to save me. You’re really nobody, now.”

@lightswept

Send ‘ 💬 ’ for a starter based on a random line of dialogue.

@sensitivewanderer

kylo ren

Rey was exhausted. The pain had allowed her to open this bond, somehow, but it was taking a lot more effort than she thought to keep it open. She wasn’t about to pass out - not just yet at least - but it was certainly something that she was worried about. How would Kylo find her if she was unconscious? He couldn’t cross a Galaxy and find her with nothing, he needed something. She had to stay awake, at least until she saw his ship. 

She’d broken bones before, but nothing like this. Nothing more than an ankle. And once upon a time it had been easy enough to keep going. The pain of her stomach rumbling was enough motivation to grab her staff and use it as a crutch to continue to scavenge for parts. But this? Kylo was coming to rescue her, she had no reason to move, and because of that the pain felt worse. Not just because it was a worse break.

“Thank you…” Rey whispered quietly. The prospect of someone coming back for her filled her heart with enough warmth to fight off the chill setting in as the rain hammered down harder.

@itscallingmc​

     When she’d rejected him, he’d understood more than ever just what she’d meant when she said she’d never felt more alone when the dark place on Skywalker’s island had failed to give her the answers she wanted. No more was Snoke clawing through Ren’s mind, leaving in his wake a discord that threatened to tear him apart. Even without that, he’d wavered - nearly fallen from everything he’d done at the sight of her pain. Please.

     But her refusal hadn’t lasted. Alone was a temporary state. How fortunate that he wouldn’t have to navigate leading the First Order unaided and unbalanced. If there was but one thing he knew, it was that Rey could balance him. So soft where he was all jagged edges. Self-assured when he was torn between polarity.

     Her thanks struck him like a dagger, though. Right now she was the one lost and by herself. She’d thrown everything away and it was too late to turn back. Always, they were the same. Amusement melting into tight-lipped worry, Kylo stalked the halls with one destination in mind: wherever Rey was. “Don’t thank me. Not yet.”

     Not until he’s there.

Padme was still shocked about the fact that Ben of all people could see her–and not just see her, hear her–very much awake. It was more than what she had ever hoped for, she had had lost hope of being seen and heard a long time ago but now her boy was doing both. 

He seemed curious and a little unhinged–he was always unhinged. If she could only hug him and tell him things would be okay.

But she had been blessed with enough as it was and she shouldn’t ask for more. She should enjoy this moment of connection with him, and make it count, not knowing when or if it could happen again. 

“I’m–I’m Padme. I’m your grandmother. I would never want to hurt you Ben,” she couldn’t believe the words that leaving her mouth and actually reaching his ears. Taking another step closer to him she kept smiling and looking up at him with watery eyes. 

“I didn’t think this was possible… it’s been so long… I’ve been like this for so long…” she sighed and wet her lower lip–or mimicked the gesture, “I want you to be happy, I want to see you smile and relaxed and enjoying life. I want to see you sharing it with someone.”

     To see something even beyond the Force, surely that must mean something. Though what, Ren didn’t care to consider. He was occupied with how this could be happening to begin with. This was someone long dead and gone, just like the name she’d used as if she’d said it a thousand times. Some part of him stung at the fact that he wasn’t angry that this apparition had the gall to be near him in the first place - but he wasn’t. He... couldn’t bring himself to be.

     Padme was a beautiful, glowing thing trapped between life and returning to the Force, and he found that he couldn’t stop looking at her for a long moment. ... nor could he stop listening to her words that cut like knives at all the already broken pieces of his soul. Didn’t she see? He couldn’t have those things.

     Taking a step back in an almost desperate attempt to escape her and the feelings whirling around in him like a thundercloud. Brows pushing together, Ren tried to look anywhere but at her. The ceiling. The mask on the floor - a disappointing relic with no answers for him. It didn’t work, and so he glowered at her.

     “You’re no manifestation of the Force, yet you’re here. I find that hard to believe. You should have returned to the Force. All living things do.” He accused, allowing himself several more paces back. Retreating to the safety of distance. “Grandmother, what you want for me died long ago. Along with that name.”

     He felt not anger, but fear. Darth Vader, he would have expected. This stranger? No.

@fraxasi IS WHAT HAPPINESS IS MADE OF

 fraxasi replied to your post: yo mama so poor she had to work in a soup kitchen…

Joke’s on you. That wasn’t the Resistance pilot.

YOU OF ALL PEOPLE—

@virtusferocia

     It’s insulting to think that there are places in the galaxy where his name has never once been uttered in fear. Everyone knew to fear the First Order - Stormtroopers were familiar. But perhaps it was best to save the most terrifying for last.