A Living Battleground

just a few quick, IMPORTANT links for the blog.

mobile rules ( link ), a google doc updated to have all of my rules & a quick rundown of all additional verses ben/kylo has outside of the main and movie verses. updated 9/23/2025

muse about ( link ), so you can see all about my divergence and what’s going on with my version of the character.

meme tag ( link ), permanently open! just let me know what the meme is. 

I’m no longer on hiatus. This blog is currently open to the public. Please read my rules and about pages before interacting.

Spotify Playlist here for the blog. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7emBvEAzvI7ip7DKdnexGo?si=QVHDykWxQgaqdDZInEX0Mg&pi=fcoLf5aKQAymM.

      @beautifultragedics​: ❛ are you getting possessive? come now, you know better than to think i could ever belong to anyone, least of all you! ❜ w/ hux

      “As if I’d want to keep someone like you.” Of course, Kylo couldn’t say that he wasn’t being possessive. He didn’t enjoy seeing anyone put their hands on Hux for any reason but he thought he’d been controlling it rather well lately.

Apparently he was wrong about that. 

‘What was there for me to fight?’ So Jacen had given up, too. Kylo Ren, often sweeping, magnificent, fluid in his stillness, went properly rigid when Jacen turned to him. He seemed to have solidified completely. His eyes were glass marbles. He truly was fraught with something, wasn’t he? A need.

“Not to fight,” said Kylo Ren. “To fight for." 

Perhaps he had seen something, but he couldn’t bring himself to look his brother in the eye. His line of vision remained on the plinth. Stars and cold light from floor path illuminators cast long shadows on the floor.

"The Sith mean nothing to me,” he added quietly. “You know that.”

“Why are you 'out here,’ anyway? All this effort to ask me a question you’ve already answered." 

          “Something you wish to protect? To have for yourself? There’s hundreds of planets out there that you could have all to yourself, many of them unoccupied or easily conquered, but you don’t want that, do you?” Jacen had the feeling there was more to it. Deflection worked in his favor, acting as if he hadn’t heard the other question did as well.

He turned his gaze away for a brief moment, if only to give the illusion of watching the way the light danced on the floor. “There’s many questions I have that will never be answered. Could I have kept you from this? Perhaps I could have worked harder to keep you around. Of course, hindsight is often clearer, isn’t it?

Dark eyes caught Kylo’s visage again and he turned, facing the other. “But I know now that I cannot change what has already happened. I can only work to handle my own reactions and how I choose to go forward. Have you become so mindful? Perhaps there’s more to this.” 

A step, another. Then he paused just close enough to inspect the cloth of Kylo’s cape. 

          @hxn-solo​: “You changed me.”

          A ghost. The walking dead. There was no viable reason for his father to show himself like this. The Force worked in ways Ben couldn’t fully understand, so to see this figure so clearly meant that he was either losing his mind or was truly seeing his father. Neither answer was a comfort. 

“Into a corpse, yes.” But also into many different titles Ben didn’t want to think of.

He’d docked his freighter, the Phoenix, at a Corellian shipyard after delivering fuel rods for a new reactor. She was a farcry from the Falcon but she’d make it there one day. That wasn’t the point, however, she was locked down. Ben had made sure of that.

Security had become more than important to him over the years. Paramount, in fact. 

“I’m losing my fucking mind,” he hissed. “If you’re looking to haunt a freighter, I hear Rey and Chewie are usually based out of Ajan Kloss. Good luck and bye.”

Ben squeezed his eyes shut to will away the spectre but when he opened them again, only to find Solo was still there, a frustrated howl left him. Hands bunched and his teeth grinded as he took in the man’s presence. 

“Let me guess, this is the part where you go on a huge, ghostly monologue about all the changes I’ve made to your life by existing. Right? Going to stop you before you start. Were you like her? Did you truly believe I was better off being sent away?”

As he spoke, he paced. Stalked. Knocked things over and gnashed his teeth. Threatening, like a caged animal, ready to strike at any moment. For years, Ben had talked about wanting ot be like his father. He’d dreamed of the adventures they would inevitably have, all of them ending with someone of the group being rescued by glowing blue butterflies. That was how he knew they were nothing but dreams. A child’s fantasies. He’d made sure, there were no such creatures in the known galaxy.

“Surely you must have had an opinion she dutifully ignored for her own, yes? Seems to be something she’s always been good at. Always right. She wouldn’t hear it unless it were her own opinion out of someone else’s mouth.” Even after her death, Ben still found that he was unable to shake off certain memories. Abandonment, being alone. The largest one, truly, but Ben had predicted that. However, knowing that it was coming didn’t take the sting out of the ache.

Pointing at Han with one finger, his lips pressed into a thin line, Ben continued. “Rey saw you as a father figure, you know.” And Ben had told her that Han would disappoint her. “I’ve always wondered, was she supposed to be some replacement for me or was that a happy coincidence?” 

          @tornbetweenthestorm​: “You changed me.”

          “No more than any other trooper.” The answer was dismissive, bored. In fact, the soldier’s identification escaped him. FN surely, but definitely not the traitor. 

Hux’s stormtrooper program often involved indoctrination of some sort, and he was sure it’d only become more rigid after 2187′s betrayal. But he wouldn’t fool himself. This was also the same one whose mind had screamed at him through the Force - demanded his attention above all others in formation. Loud. Distracting. Better to take care of that before it became an issue later on. 

Return the group to its former glory. The former normal. On that note, he supposed Hux would claim there was a certain beauty in order - if the general knew what that was.

Finding the soldier had yet to take the dismissal as it was, Kylo turned to regard him silently.

His armor was the same standard issue white. Regulation. Buffed clean. All clasps and under armor firmly in place. Impeccable, truly. Now the trooper had his attention. Undivided.

“For a changed trooper, I see nothing out of the ordinary. You fall in line, blend in with all the rest. Easily forgotten when grouped with your brethren, and yet you believe yourself special. Changed.”

His voice lowered as he stalked closer. One hand darted out to grab the bottom edge of the soldier’s helmet, then dragged him within inches of his own. 

          @reyjustrey​: “You changed me.”

          “I changed nothing.” Refusing to face her statement, Ben turned his back on Rey entirely. 

At one point, he’d looked forward to ruling the galaxy with her by his side. Supreme Leader and Empress, descendants of darkness, heirs to all that’d been laid out for them. Two iron fists that would strangle the flames of Resistance right out of existence. It wasn’t even that long ago.

His mother had died while sending him her love and forgiveness. Her final act had been to bring him back to the light. Just as his father had tried. Having lost both of them, Ben supposed he could understand where Rey was coming from.

“When I brought you back, have you back to the galaxy, there was nothing trans-formative about it. If anything, you changed me.” The last part was barely a whisper, as if saying it louder would cause something to shatter. Perhaps that something was Ben himself. Either way... “You showed me how to be Ben again. That’s why we’re still here. You did that.”

He busied his hands with the component in front of him, taking in the smell of burning wires and fuel; the smell of the Falcon calming him further. Talking about the events that took place on Exegol would always be a difficult task, but he managed. 

“Why are you saying shit like that anyway? Didn’t we go over this already?” Part of him wanted her to say yes and drop it. “We need to focus on getting new parts in here soon. I doubt these are going to last much longer. Has Poe been lightspeed skipping again?” 

Deflection and distraction were old habits left over from being Kylo Ren but Ben still relied on them. He wasn’t stupid. Ben knew Rey would figure it out at some point. Hopefully, that point wouldn’t be soon. So far, he’d managed to get out of answering numerous uncomfortable questions, not all of them from her. He hoped to be able to continue that way. 

          @hxn-solo​: “I’m sorry.”

          Apologies were only as reliable as the ones giving them. In short, Kylo didn’t believe a word of what came out of Solo’s mouth. Years of being a smuggler meant that Solo was adept at giving seemingly true statements, a face that Ren knew quite well. He was no fool and he reused to be taken as one.

The only one he truly believed was Snoke.

“I’m sure you are,” he answered. Dismissive, quiet. Ren would rather be anywhere but there, facing his father in a random, deserted hallway on the Finalizer. How Solo got there, he didn’t know. “Tell me, would you have been so apologetic had we met anywhere else or is this simply a response made as an act of self preservation?” 

What else would it have been? Nothing genuine, certainly. The idea of the truth coming from a man whose very name and life was built upon dishonesty was almost laughable. And to think that Solo wanted him to believe this. Preposterous. Disgusting. 

A wave of anger and humiliation swept through him and dark eyes narrowed.

“Self preservation. That’s all this has ever been.” Certainty rang through his tone as he stepped toward the man he called a father at one point. But he cut that thought off before it could go further. He refused to allow his mind to make the parental connection again.