#reyjustrey

Trayous hoped he looked less nervous than he felt. The gentle blue glow of the archives' holoterminal calmed his anxiety somewhat, but the knowledge of what could happen if things went anything but smoothly was too much to ignore--especially this close to crunch time.

"Go, Q," he finally ordered, and with an affirmative whistle from the black astrodroid, the connection was established and he found himself in contact with the Millennium Falcon.

The figure that appeared on the Falcon's projector could have been mistaken for Kylo Ren at first glance, but with deliberate mistakes: His hair was much longer, to start with, reaching well past his shoulder blades; his posture was more refined, his robes less of a tabard style and much more reminiscent of a traditional Force user (though still black as night).

There are moments where time stills for Rey - that seem to stretch and span infinity in seconds - and this, the jump-off before she declared her own personal war against the First Order, was one. She wasn't alone. She had allies around her - Resistance fighters and others of looser though tangential allegiance. But as she looked out of the Falcon's viewport onto the massed fleets of her enemy, she felt time slow. It slowed as she reached up to unclip the armour she wore. It slowed as she tugged at her pocket, retrieving what had been tucked closest to her heart. It slowed as she re-clasped clasps and re-buckled buckles. And it slowed yet more as she wound the ribbon Keni had gifted her as a girl around her wrist and through her fingers. She kissed it, pressed it tight to her lips and whispered to her Master - not present, disapproving of her being on the frontlines - that she loved her like she thought she would have loved a mother; that she missed her, and that she would come home to her again. This she swore on the Force as time sped forth once more; as the sentiment in her eyes was burned away and replaced with the iron will and the resolve her Master - her mother - had passed on to her.

Token Meme || Accepting

She could not meditate if her life depended on it. Every bit of fibrous tissue in her body was stiff as bark ~the living kind of death, that was a sacred honour amongst her kind, and what she hoped for, when her hundreds upon hundreds of years of torment finally came to it’s natural end, so that she might be planted over the grave of her Za’lali, there entwined with his bones forever~ and she could feel the fires of anxiety licking up through her chlorophyll.  All over the fate of one little desert gremlin.

The apprentice she never wanted, that she felt the Living Force had thrust upon her because it sensed for all that she would sooner poison herself than to admit she had been lonely.

The child who had grown into a woman and a warrior in her own right. The child she had never been able to bear for Anakin. The idea of General Organa-Solo, of the one they called Luke... all of it gets under her skin, up to and including the grandchild she should have raised. All of it soothed though at the idea of Rey taking the galaxy by its throat until it begs for mercy, then ripping out the throat of those upstarts who sullied everything she and Anakin had tried to build together.

She uncoils her limbs and begins to make her way toward her home ~and tries to think of it as something other than an empty nest~ when she’s stricken so powerfully by a whisper that it not her own thoughts but is poured into her from the Force.

She slowly bears her teeth. It isn’t exactly a smile. So it is very much that, at least as far as Melakeni Skywalker ever did. When she leaves her house again the doors are sealed and locked behind her. Her cloak whispers around her boots, the black armour worn only that once for effect on her apprentice’s psyche. Her sabre is at her side, worn and welcome this weight. As it has not been in quite some time. She goes to one particular spot in the endless green of her grass, and makes intricate hand gestures, eyes closed as she feels the energy rise up around her.  Doors retract as the platform rises automatically. It is an old fighter. One he hadn’t managed to crash, fly until it was nothing but bolts and worn parts. No one had ever really wondered where it had disappeared to when the Empire flexed with birthing pains. She’d have liked something not Nabooian, but she won’t complain.

She still doesn’t fly well. She still doesn’t enjoy it one single bit, but she can feel him in the seat. Putting her hands where they ought to be. Talking her through things like drag and hyper-space lanes.

Only when she’s in the air and hurtling toward the sky, does she breath out and reach for Rey.

      Cold. Darkness. There had never been anything waiting for him in the beyond. No Force ghosts to guide him, none of his family, no one he could call a friend - he should have expected it, really. He’d driven everyone away from him in his lifetime, made sure that no one wanted him, and he supposed this was the universe’s way of telling him he succeeded.

Oddly enough, the warmth of her lips still rested on his and, for a brief moment, he thought that maybe he’d felt her holding his hand as he died. A passing dream, most likely, just his mind trying to comfort itself in his last moments. It’d been a nice thought though, that maybe she’d tried to give him something to hold on to, but he didn’t hold his breath.

More than that, he was aware of something being said to him. Repent. Atone. Fix. It made no sense to him. He couldn’t fix anything he’d done. 

Hear, feel, think...

No, he knew that voice. At least, he thought he did. Mom... It was a passing thought. Nothing but stray energy but, if only for a second, he felt a tug on his chest, as if two small hands were pulling him up out of... what?

His soul floated about the darkness, eyes never opening, but he felt the warmth that came with the place. It washed over him and wrapped around him. It felt like her. Rey had been a beacon, she’d warmed him so quickly within those two years, had totally turned his life on its head, had done what he couldn’t. So why did it feel as if he were laying on something? It was solid under his back and, as he started to come to, he felt the heat. 

Warmth. solid ground under his back, the shifting of sand. What?

Ben opened his eyes only to find that he was looking at the rusted guts of a metal dome. It reminded him of the old AT-AT series walkers and it certainly got his attention. Only as he shifted did the pain finally blaze through him. His right leg was a mess of pain and his ribs weren’t much better, he was injured. How?

No, he didn’t think Palpatine did this but something did. A pained noise left him as he forced himself to sit up, a shaking hand came up to his chest and he started to pull, clawing at the wound. “The fuck...?” This wasn’t Exegol, the Finalizer, or any place he recognized until dark eyes came up and found the opposite wall. 

Scratch marks.

Tallying the days. Rey. Without a single thought, he got up despite the soul shattering pain in his leg, just to put his hand on the wall. Yes. Yes. He’d seen it in her mind. He knew this place. But how did he get here? Where was she? ...How was he here? Was there another version of himself wandering the Finalizer as he was on Jakku? 

So many questions and yet they all fled him when he heard noise behind him. Ben turned quickly, just enough that he fell on the broken leg with a soft whine of pain. But there she was. He couldn’t begin to process anything she was saying as he leaned against the wall, a near hysterical laugh leaving him. 

|||Munday Meme||| still accepting

       There’s a few things that will make me drop a thread instantly. I think the first one would be if the other writer was consistently trying to play out how my character felt, or moving way too far ahead in actions. I’m usually pretty loose on that with his superiors, because FN-2437 is for the most part going to do whatever his superior says. 

       Another thing I don’t care for is a thread that has to be plotted every step of the way? If that makes sense. If something is playing out more like a D&D session than a roleplay thread I probably wont enjoy it. (Not that I don’t like D&D) Will I instantly drop the thread though? I feel like I would talk to them first, if that’s their style that’s great but I don’t click with it well. Sometimes we just don’t vibe and that’s okay!

* interview the muse