#killingpast

Power was the last thing Rey had wanted when she’d last seen Ben. She was no hero, no leader. It wasn’t her job to fix the galaxy. That was his job, or Luke’s or Leia’s or anyone but herself. She was willing to help becuase it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t mean she had to be up front and center.

Except that was exactly what had happened. SHe had saved the Resistance and since then she had been with Leia almost non-stop. The Last Jedi. She had killed Snoke, officially. Rey was a hero in her own right. Even though she wasn’t the one who killed Snoke, or really done anything of use. She’d tried to hand a lightsaber to an old man and tried to save a young one. And in both actions, had failed.

She was no hero.

Still, she was forced to stand before dignitaries and planetary leaders and take their praises and smile and pretend she wanted to be there. She was good at that, at least. The mask of the pleasant and happy Rey was well learned and she sometimes almost believed herself when she explained that she was proud to be a part of a long and honorable tradition for the hundreth time. Except she wasn’t. She was no Jedi. She knew that intrinsically. She would have been ill suited to the Jedi. Too wild, too angry, too violent. Too in need of connections. Too passionate. Sure she might have compassion and kindness, but she was as much sith as she was Jedi.

It felt like her entire life was lies anymore. Even as Leia tried to remind her that she could define the Jedi however she wanted, she had that right as Luke’s last student (Rey wasn’t sure she could have that honor either), Rey just gave her lip service. She lied to Poe about nearly everything. She didn’t trust him and couldn’t bring herself to. He wasn’t a bad man, she knew that, but he was too arrogant and demanding. A leader for soldiers. Not for her.

She even lied to Finn and Rose. That she was fine, and didn’t feel left out when they did things together. She had to be alright, she didn’t want them to know how bitter she felt to watch them being happy, finding something good in the terribleness that was the galaxy under the First Order. And she was happy for them, happy to have a new friend in Rose, to know that Finn had found a path that suited him.

About the only beings she didn’t lie too were Chewie and Artoo. But they didn’t demand anything of her. And so she spent much of her time hiddle on the Falcon. Taking apart old wireing and putting in new things, rebuilding entire systems or replacing them. Ripping out systems that were unnessesary or did double duty. It was a project that was soothing, and made her feel like she was in control of... something.

Even the books were confusing and while 3PO could translate them, he couldn’t give her all of his time to do so. And the lightsaber... well one couldn’t really be a Jedi without one could they? And her’s was still ripped in half, hidden away under her bed because... she couldn’t look at it without the immense guilt and pain filling her. The pain Ben had done to her with his words, spoken oh so softly but sharp as knives, still lingered. And she’d abandoned him on a dying ship. She knew it made no sense that she was guilty over that. He was the enemy and she knew... that he likely wouldn’t have cared about her if in a similar situation. He’d made that clear. And yet she still felt the guilt for leaving him behind.

She was half the way into the hyperdrive fixing another issue, dwelling on her faults, when she felt that silence decend over her, the soft hum of the force. She growled angrily. “What do you want?” She wasn’t about to stop what she was doing just to talk to Ben. She was wearing less than the last time they’d seen one another on Crait. The dark tunic and flowing overwrap thrown on the floor across the room, longer pants, better suited for the jungle planet that they were on, were black, along with the matching black boots. But her shirt was pale, possibly gray or white. She had a leather band over a now healed scar, and seemed to have gotten some sort of grease on her face.

She sounded less than pleased as she shifted just a little to work on whatever she needed to fix. She refused to look at him, almost wishing that the death of Snoke had ended these stupid meetings.

@killingpast

jakku had been the entirety of rey’s existence and her identity for the majority of her years alive. when her parents had abandoned her there, junk traders who needed extra money to get elsewhere in the galaxy, she had made the desert planet into who she was, waiting desperately for their return. she had been sculpted on the sands, turned from a scared child into an angry force of nature and she had been hardened by the landscapes, crafting her into someone not to be trifled with. 

she thought for a time, a quiet moment of consideration, before she began. ❝ jakku was a dangerous place for anyone, let alone a child. ❞ carefully, hazel eyes focused on the distance as if she could see the outline of niima outpost and hear the arguing and snarling of the scavengers who resided there. 

❝ that being said, it was a way to guide me into the person i am today. if you couldn’t scavenge, you couldn’t live. the remnants of the empire and the rebellion were meal tickets and it taught me from a young age that the only person you could rely on was yourself. ❞ the rolling sand dunes floated into her memories, ❝ i learned how to climb from a group of scavs when i was still young enough that i didn’t know better. i thought it was thrilling to scale the relics and broken starships, when it turned out they needed someone small to get into the tight crevices that hadn’t been picked over already. ❞

fingers carefully pushed up through her loose hair. ❝ they underestimated my usefulness. i went off on my own whilst i was still younger than pretty much everyone else on jakku. i found my home, i learned about it from the inside out. it drove me to figure out how to make things work and to see the beauty in the relics that were there. these massive memories that were full of data and information that people weren’t utilising. it started out so wonderful, realising i could have a purpose. but the longer i was there, the more hard it became to want to study and harder to find new things to learn. ❞ 

𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 : How often does Jhin kill? Is it always at the request of another, or does he seek his own victims of personal taste? How does he justify his murders?

            𝐊𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐀 𝐉𝐇𝐈𝐍 𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝟓-𝟕 𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐏𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐇 .  Out of these 5 - 7 kills ,  2 - 3 of them are normally hits that are requested by another -— he’s extremely picky about what  ❛ projects ❜  he takes on , as the motives behind a kill have to match up with his own artistic desires and / or personal code .  His murderous art is meant to SEND A MESSAGE to both the victim , as well as those who were in business with them at the time .  There is nothing subtle about Jhin’s kills  ( which is one of the many reasons clients seek him out in the first place . )

SHE HAD WONDERED FOR A WHILE IF THEIR BOND HAD BEEN SEVERED BY HER REJECTION OF HIM, BY HER CLOSING THE DOOR TO THE FALCON AS SHE’D CLOSED OFF THEIR MEETING. The Force had other ideas, as it seemed always to do. She hissed her frustration when the telltale silent roar of their connection spiked around her. Her fingers flexed as if her lightsaber might be a good idea, remembering that night by the fire and how despite their distance they had touched, but she instead remained still and kept her gaze trained on him as he spoke. She wasn’t afraid of him, she realised. Despite the sting of knowing instinctively that he was hurt, she also knew that he could not actively seek to harm her. He could have killed her, but he didn’t. 

Crait had been good fortune, she realised, that the First Order had not been able to kill each of what remained of the Resistance. She and Chewie had managed to rescue Leia, Poe, Finn and the others, but it had left their numbers severely depleted and in need of somewhere new to hide. So they’d searched and made base on a number of planets, they’d spread their small numbers even thinner to establish some new strongholds. They’d reached out and begun to fill their numbers once more. 

Rey immediately closed her mind to him. Ben was a master at seeing into people’s thoughts, and she changed the image of where she was into one of Jakku, of her lost home, and of Ahch-To, where she knew what was left of Luke Skywalker remained. 

┌ @killingpast​ ┘is purely staring at rey’s lips.

THEIR BOND OFTEN INTERRUPTED HER AT THE MOST INCONVENIENT MOMENTS. She’d been with his mother of all people, trying to talk about him in a roundabout way to avoid Leia realising whom she was talking about. The general, however, was perceptive enough to know exactly what was going on in the jedi-in-training’s mind and had sat her down, pulled her hair out of her buns and started brushing it as they discussed Ben - without using his name - and how all Rey wanted was to have him home with her. 

She knew, when Leia’s hands stilled in her hair, that the older woman wished the same. 

A braid was almost finished when the familiar thrum and silence stilled everything around them, and Rey looked up, immediately flushing with colour and pausing in her ramblings to meet his gaze for a brief moment. Time stood still around them, holding them hostage in a tableau of uncertainty before Leia - always hyperaware - gave Rey’s shoulder a little squeeze and muttered something about needing some caf before standing and heading off back toward camp. 

Only the end of her hair was left unbraided, and Rey stood herself so she didn’t have to crane her neck when she met Ben’s gaze. ❝ Now I think the Force is trying to make it difficult. ❞ She said softly, biting down on her bottom lip as if that might have been enough to counter the tension that lingered between them. They’d seen one another a lot since that first night in the spring and now she couldn’t do much but look at him and imagine that moment. 

He seemed to be watching her closely, examining her. And then his eyes were on her mouth and Rey’s flush darkened considerably. They hadn’t said anything and yet she could feel the rush of emotions through their link as he considered kissing her. 

pin my muse to the wall to protect them ┌ @killingpast ┘

THE SOUNDS OF BLASTERFIRE WERE EVERYWHERE, raining down around them. It was rare that they ended up in battle together - they chose to avoid it, for the most part - but there were always moments that the Resistance would clash against the First Order and their bond would sing, alerting one another to their shared location. Their meetings were secret, private, just for them, and Rey had never felt any need to tell her friends or the General explicitly about them. 

This was one of the times that she thought that maybe, just maybe, they should have been alerted. 

She yelled as one of the Order’s fighters flew overhead, raining down beams of light that caused explosions on the small base. Taking her saber, she threw it hard into the air. The fighter crashed immediately into a hut and fire spread around them. She could feel Kylo - no, Ben - nearby, clashing against the ground forces as he pushed through toward her. He was trying to get to her not so they could fight but so he could be there if things were to go south. She could hear his emotions clear as day, yelling through the Force that she had to be safe, to stay alive.

Rey could feel her fingers trembling as her saber swung back through the air and into her awaiting hand and the distinct sound of her voice split the air in a roar. 

Everything happened like time had stopped. Ben’s arms crashed around her and flattened them both against the wall as fire and blasters exploded around them. He seemed mostly unharmed through her senses, but he was struck by at least one of the shots meant for her. ❝ Ben!? ❞ She couldn’t even hear her own voice as she yelled, clutching at him. He had shielded her, protected her, guarded her against his own forces. Ben had saved her, for if he’d not made it in time she would most definitely have died.