#leofgyth

In the Pines

A Reylo Cryptid AU gift fic for @leofgyth​

by: ssalemghostss/reylo-solo

“Now, yes, I do have a goal of capturing photographic and/or video evidence of this thing if I find it. Even though at this point I kind of hope it’s a hoax, I’ve been given the best chance a person can have at actually seeing it: the exact location of its alleged ‘nest.’”

Ben took a deep breath, cursing inwardly.

“And, for those of you wondering: yes, I am starting to think I may have a death wish.”

A teaser from  @leofgyth‘s fic, the day I take your hand; or, the vindication of Kira Solo:

They do this every Sunday; ride down to the beach together, watch the sun set over the ocean. Ben scratches in the sand and Rey wanders up and down the shore, toeing at the seaweed and shells that the sea discards as it makes its slow travels across the wide expanse of sand. She’ll watch him write, sometimes, but at a distance; she never reads the words. Those are private, his own, and she knows they aren’t for her; they’ll never be for her. She enjoys watching him anyway, low to the ground, the muscles of his shoulders moving clear under the thin fabric of his sweater - black, always black. It’s so different from the smooth strokes of his calligraphy pen. This movement is harsh, straight lines followed by straight lines, as though he’s writing runes.

Rey listens to the soft splashing of the waves and the cries of the seagulls and watches Ben write in the sand. Later they’ll leave together as the sun dips below the horizon and the surf will lap at Ben’s words, carrying them away where nobody will ever read them. They’ll go home and eat dinner together. Rey will wish she could say something meaningful to Ben but she won’t, and he’ll give her that look that he always gives her but he won’t say anything either. After that they’ll sit in the living room and read, or else Ben will go to the attic and practice his calligraphy by the light of oil lamps, and Rey will sit alone in the back garden, listening to the soft peeps of the chickens as they settle in to roost and looking up into the sky and wondering what everyone else in the galaxy is doing.  Eventually Rey and Ben will go to sleep, each in their own bed, and the week will start again, much as every week has started in the year since Ben arrived from the past.

The complete work will be released on February 14 as part this year’s Reylo Charity Anthology: Across the Stars. Donate today to receive your copy!

“Um, I don’t think that’s what you think it is.” 

“Huh?” Rey Johnson looked over at the deep-voiced stranger speaking to her, her mouth still poised to take a huge bite of the apple she held in her hand. 

He held his own plate in his hand, awkwardly gesturing while trying not to drop any of the baby carrots rolling around on it. “That–that thing you’re about to eat. It’s not–do you think it’s an apple?” He peered at her through the lens of his glasses, appearing befuddled and slightly uncomfortable. 

She held the apple away from her face and looked at it carefully. Sure, it had a weird stem and looked a little lumpy, but it was red and shiny and – what was this guy on?

“I’m sorry–” she remarked, unable to keep the sarcasm from colouring her tone. “But what do apples look like on your planet?” 

He cleared his throat and looked pointedly at the bowl she got it from - a bowl that, she now noticed, looked more like a centrepiece arrangement than an actual serving bowl. “Uh… not like pomegranates?” 

*

Send me the first sentence of a fic and I’ll write the next five(-ish)

Summer Camp AU +  Dystopian AU

I was going to go with the first thing that came to mind but NO, I SLEPT ON IT!

Ok so Dystopia AU where the galaxy is ruled by a totalitarian system, by an unknown non-Force user. Force users are now hunted and forced to serve the government lest they wish to die. The thing that shifted power to non-Force users was that a crystal-like weapon was found that could track and immediately incapacitate them. The government saw it was time to level the playing field and used the crystal against the Force-users. To ensure their compliance, every Force-user had a minute shard imbedded into their bodies (or maybe crystal dust via inhalation?) so the government could put down anyone who stepped out of line, or at least punish them.

Rey is found when she’s nineteen and because she was found so late, she must undergo extensive training to be brought up to speed for the government’s army/super soldiers. She’s forced to go to a summer camp where she finds out that not everyone there has a strong affinity to the Force. Some people got in by the skin of their back, which means they will most probably die because they cannot keep up with the training regimes. Rey, however, excels in everything they throw at her. ‘A late bloomer’ she hears people say.

Kylo Ren is one of the leaders at the summer camp. He has served in the military since the crystalised weapons were found. Blood of a Skywalker, he is the most powerful soldier they have. But what happened to Luke and Leia? Back when he was a boy (like a teenager, let’s not get too young here), back when he was still Ben Solo, he was one of the first to be hunted. He was at Luke’s Academy at the time, so when they came, they scored big. Luke and Ben escaped and was on the run but they didn’t get far. They caught Ben first, tackled him to the ground and forced him to watch as they took down Luke too. But with the emotion and power of a fourteen year old, he cried and screamed and begged the Force to free his uncle. In that moment, Leia flashed before his eyes and he wished the same for his mother, and like that, he stole their Force powers. They were worthless to the government so they left Luke and took Ben and the other students.

Now Ben and the other students are top military commanders and trainers, with their hearts and souls emotionless for the things they’ve been forced to do.

Kylo Ren has seen many people join his camp and can tell the ones with such little Force sensitivity that they don’t even make it through the night. When he meets Rey, he expects the same. She’s the oldest person to be found, especially since they’ve been tracking for fifteen years. Usually babies and young children are the first to be found, so it’s curious that Rey has gone unfound for so long. Nevertheless, he doesn’t expect much and thinks she doesn’t have the Force.

He is wrong.

She excels at everything and glows brighter than anyone he has ever seen. She breaks records he had set. Everyone thinks he will be furious, but he’s not. If anything, while everyone else had become cold and ruthless, Kylo remained hopeful that someone would set them all free one day. He gets to know Rey, who distrusts him and doesn’t like him one bit. She thinks he’s jealous and that he will one day kill her.

She is wrong.

She tries to escape one night and Kylo catches her. They fight and are matched with equal strengths. This has never happened before and even Rey knows that their power levels are weirdly in sync.

It also doesn’t help that all of the sudden, they can hear each other’s thoughts. They’re somehow linked but they make use of it. Via their link, they get to know each other. Eventually, Kylo proposes a plan to take down the government from the inside, to go straight to the top and destroy the crystal themselves. He cannot do it alone. He needs her help.

Aaaaaaand that’s the basis of this magical AU I will no way in hell write :3 Thank you for the ask!! <3

Special thanks to @leofgyth (who is an incredible moodboard maker and all around awesome) for making the moodboard that accompanies this chapter. 

It was Lando who assigned Maz (and Ben, if only so Maz could complete his training) with finding Lor San Tekka. “Paige, Jess, Rey and your dad are on their way to infiltrating the stormtrooper complex,” he said. “They’ve got the necessary supplies from Madine. Hopefully freeing these troopers and blowing those facilities to hell goes off without a hitch.”

Ben nodded, grimly. “I hope so too.” A beat. “Where is Tekka?”

”Nar Shaddaa, last I heard,” Lando said. “Which makes sense. Nar Shaddaa is the place you go if you don’t want to get caught.”

Maz nodded. “We had best be careful, of course,” she said. “You never know if the Empress has spies on Nar Shaddaa. There’s also been talk of a bounty on Jedi being restored.”

”Great,” Ben said, sarcastically.

thank you so much @leofgyth!! i am so happy to hear you’re enjoying the fic! i don’t know if i have answered this before or not but either way, i’m happy to do so again! 😊

so the way that @destinieswritten and i have split up the writing of C&C is not by universe but by character POV. you’ve probably noticed in the fic that there is no omniscience, each passage it strictly limited to whatever character is experiencing it. thus: i’m writing venya’s experiences in space–including his interactions with finn and rey–and irena’s experiences with kylo on earth. 

and chel is writing rey’s experiences–similarly, this includes interactions with venya– as well as kylo/ben’s experiences on earth with irena.

that being said, there is a LOT of collaboration involved. we started by planning the overall trajectory of the fic– what we wanted the characters to learn and how, some parallels we wanted to happen in both stories, places where we wanted those parallels to be subverted, some conversations/interactions we thought would be interesting to explore, and how we would wrap it all up. 

our initial plan was to write just 5 chapters detailing both men’s fish-out-of-water experiences, but then we realized… oh right, it’s us. we’re some wordy writers. so we expanded to 8 chapters, and broke up our initial plan for each interim chapter into 2 smaller chapters.

we do consult with each other while we’re writing the chapters, for advice on what a character might do/say. we also RP some scenes, and will sort of cherry-pick the parts we like as a foundation for the actual dialogue you read in the fic. and we look over each other’s drafts after we’ve written them, sort of like a pre-beta-read to check for character consistency. 

it takes some work, but it is, in my opinion, 100% worth it. i have learned so much from doing this with @destinieswritten [who is an incredibly talented writer, and with whom collaborating is honestly a joy]. i’ve always loved things that are a bit meta or genre-bending or that feature alternate dimensions–i blame 90′s shows like star trek: tng and buffy that had multiverse episodes that were so cool–so this has really allowed me to indulge in my navel-gazing tendencies, much to my delight!

4) favorite character you’ve written

For Reylo fandom, virgin!Ben Solo from The Rebel Side of Heaven. By a huge margin.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

To be honest, the fact that I’m writing Reylo at all still surprises me, nearly a year later, lol!  (insert *I didn’t mean to ship it this hard* gif here ;)). The fact that I’m currently writing Alpha Kylo Ren, though, probably surprises me more than just about anything else that’s happened to me in any fandom, ever. How did this happen? ;)

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

When you said your last goodbye 

I died a little bit inside

See you brought out the best of me

A part of me I’ve never seen

You took my soul and wiped it clean

Our love was made for movie screens  

All I want is And All I need is  To find somebody