"Disappointments are to the soul that thunderstorms are to the air." -P.L Travers

KYLO REN

Kylo
turns, but too slowly to be normal. When he speaks his voice trails slowly like his words are unwilling to take flight. There is a kind of strange sadness in his eyes, the brown too glossy.

"Now you know." His breaths were heavy and uneven. The hair atop his head was a shuffled, inky mess as he kept running his fingers through it, tugging at the ends stressfully.

He stared into Rey's shock stricken face as she clutched her arms around her torso, hugging herself into a muddy ball at his knees.

As she lay almost motionless, spare for the small breath in her chest, her mind whirled with memories of the vision they had just shared.

"I-" she stuttered, pressing a hand to the ground to raise herself up; "why have I just remembered this now? After all these clueless years?" Her voice trailed off as she realized it started to tremble and her eyes shined with unshed tears.

Kylo Ren finally grabbed his bearings and rose to his feet while saying, "don't you see? We're linked! An incredible opportunity has happened upon you, Kira! Join me, we could rule over hundreds of systems. Together as an unstoppable force, maybe even stronger than..." His voice trailed off, knowing fully that if he had said those words they would taste sour in his mouth, to betray his master was almost unthinkable. His lips sank into a firm line, as he remembered his fathers last words about Snoke, his fists clenched.

She remained upon the soil. Unmoving. As her body laid stagnant, her mind was anything but. It was racing; how to get out, his offer, how to defeat him, should she defeat him? The most she feared in this moment was having no fear at all. Why wasn't she scared? Was her mind already so sure of her victory? Was there a light on the horizon? She gritted her teeth, clenched her fists to grab them full of mud and mashed, wet grass. The seemingly long silence was broken then, shattered.

"My name is, Rey."

Suddenly she began to stagger to her feet, ignoring the screams and aches of her burning muscles and bleeding leg. Black flecks circled around her peripheral vision, clouding her senses as she attempted to take a step forward in Kylo's direction. His brows rose so slightly you would've had to be nose to nose to actually see it. Rey hunched her shoulders and rotated her hands to only show the front of her knuckles, hiding her fingers.

Their faces were unreadable, no fear, no invitational smirk, just blank. Neither of them knew what was about to happen, no one did, as of then the future was unpredictable as which way the grass would bend. Rey's demeanor was as low and large as a great beast, about to devour anything within its path. Massive jaws ready to maul, her face twisted into an ugly snarl as if the inner beast was foaming at the fangs.

Kylo was different. He was lost. Uncontrollably, his eyes wide with surprise at her sudden confidence and ability to even move with her deathly wounds. Realizing his lapse, blinking hard and setting his face back into his colder disposition, he reached for his lightsaber hilt. When his gloved hands groped at nothing, he glanced down at his empty belt. He drew a small breath of agitation before he looked back up to see Rey limply approaching. Out of anger and fear, he let out a terrible roar and leaped in her direction, calves burning and arms outstretched.

Rey's hands whizzed around and sent handfuls of mud into his eyes and swiftly as possible, dove under his attacking arms and rolled her body across the grass to end standing behind him. His throat scratched he let out a guttural yell of pain as he rapidly rubbed his stinging eyes, the grit momentarily blinding him. Rey took this advantage to send her boot square between his hunched shoulder blades, causing him to cry out, stumble and fall in a black heap to the ground.

'May the Force be with me'; she muttered to herself inwardly.

Like lightning she wiped her mud-caked hands across her padded thighs then reaching behind her, where her belt clutched her enemies saber hilt. Grasping the large mass, sliding her fingers across the auburn metal, being quick but careful to dodge the protruding wires near the cross guard. Rey's long, slender finger snaked around the hilt in a flash, activating the deadly weapon. Her enemy fumbled about in the mud, attempting to regain clear vision with his feet planted firmly against the ground. Kylo had one knee up before he heard the familiar sound of his lightsaber being activated. His gaze rose up Rey's feet, her torso, then to her face masked with fury. The mop of black hair atop his scalp, clinging to his forehead with wetness clouded his vision just as the grit cast from Rey's cursed palms.

Fear tugged in his chest but he didn't let his eyes betray his emotions. His face stayed solid as carbonate, his lips tightened into the corners of his mouth, his eyes closed into two slits burning with anger. Rey angled Kylo's saber at his unguarded chest, ready to send the final blow for the Resistance.

Do it! Gurgled a deep and ugly cry from within her mind. Rey visibly winced causing Kylo's brow to arch slightly in confusion before his lids lowered as did his chin in defeat as
Rey let out a loud strained cry and brought down her elevated, shaking arms. The crackling weapon sailed towards Kylo's chest.

*****

She gazed out at the sickeningly dry desert that is in all Jakku, with its rolling hills that seemed to vibrate in the hot sun. The Wind stirs up wispy sand in small whirlwinds across the planet's surface, the suns never ending rays would've beat down on her mercilessly if the old underbelly of the gutted AT-AT walker she has been calling home for the past five years, wasn't protecting her with the shade from its carcass. Salty sweat rolled off of her nose, stinging her eyes, causing to renew the trails of tears down the tight, red cheeks of her face. Rey wiped her eyes clean before rapidly tugging at her overwhelmingly hot and sticky clothing by her the chest to make an attempt at air flow.

The stiff, desert breeze blew sand into her eyes and once more making her hair feel stiff and itchy with salt. Her tongue felt as if it were coated with fur as well as her lips, they were chapped and dried. All she could really, clearly think about was when she would take her next trip to Niima Outpost for more water. Not cold water, but water. Her stomach roared in hot and angry protest to her lack of thought to it. 'And more Portions...' she thought.

Her eyes fell to her old, tattered leather knapsack that laid open by her thigh. Only a few rusted, chunky bits and baubles she scraped from her last voyage to one of the junk-heap ships up on the ridge. 'Hopefully, this will be enough.' She chewed over the thought in her head worriedly. Rey couldn't remember a time when she wasn't scavenging for her next meal or dodging death on a regular basis, or battling the ever long and unforgiving sun. She outwardly released a heavy sigh as she rummaged through the knapsack, grabbing a random metal piece and rolling it over with her slender fingers. She raised her chin and stared back out over to the bright yet gloomy horizon, running circles with her thumb unconsciously over the scraped, hard surface of the ticket to her next meal. A warm, harsh breeze whipped through the AT-AT, rushing at her back, blowing bits of glass-like sand at any exposed skin it could seek out. Rey winced, clenching her eyes and fist around the piece.

'Why me?'

*****

She blinked harshly as the fiery red sparks from Kylo's lightsaber bounced around her. Rey could definitely understand how this magnificent weapon could make someone feel so powerful. Her vision slowed as her arms burned with her every movement, bringing down the saber. She caught the side of Kylo's seemingly passive face and the horrid scar that dragged across his forehead past his nose down to the side of his chin, leaving a pink crevasse of flesh in its wake. Remembering how she gave him that scar brought an unknown feeling in her already churning stomach. Giving him that mark gave her a sense of swelling pride, yet her heart tugged at her chest with a feeling she knew all too well as guilt. He's killed so many innocent people yet Leia still had utter faith in her son to return home to her and Han.

'Han.' She thought, then she was overcome by sadness. The anger slowly draining like a leak in a bucket that was about to tip with the weight.

The saber came down almost atop Kylo's head until Rey curved it slightly to slash at the ground by his right thigh. He flinched in surprise as his eyes opened to reveal he still was in fact alive. His head rose at the sound of Rey's breaths coming out in exhausted huffs. With one last burst of energy, she cranked her arm back, drawing in as much Force energy she could possibly muster up, sending the hilt soaring through the air with a small grunt leaving her lips with the effort. Their gazes followed the saber as the hilt caught the glint in the sun, reflecting its brightness for less than a second before disappearing behind the next green hill.

Rey turned to him, staring between the two slits of her eyes before slumping to her knees with a groan. Her hair stuck to her sweaty scalp as did his, their breaths mixed together, sounding like a pair of tired, old mutts.

"Why?" She asked breathlessly, not even caring enough to look up at him. She simply stared at her calloused, mud-caked hands that rested on her thighs.

"Why what-"

"You know exactly what!" Rey spat at him with more vigor than she knew she possessed at the moment.

"Why you were on the island? Why I've been hunting you all of these years? Why is this all happening? Why have I killed so many people to get to that damn droid? Why were you left on Jakku? Why-" His voice was filled with so much venom that Rey wasn't even sure it was directed at her, or to himself.

"Stop." She ordered as calmly as she could, "why was I left, alone, on a desert planet with nothing? No one?"

"You were a threat-"

"I was a child!" She screamed out in frustration, she wanted to punch him, kick, pull at her hair in confusion. Her skin felt as if it were crawling, her anger began to fuel back up with each word they shared.

"I sought you out for five years, Rey." That name tasted sour in his mouth as he spoke to her but he ignored the strange feeling, "Even when Snoke ordered me to stop, I secretly created a search team to find you. Someone on every planet in this system was searching for you. You were never truly alone."

"But they were looking for Kira," Rey stated, the name sounding foreign to her ears, as distant as a dream that you had the other night and you try so hard to remember the next morning.

"There is no difference," Kylo replied darkly, staring at her with his lips tied up in a mean grimace.

"Ben." She spat almost through her teeth but he got her point. He used to have a more humble name too, the one his parents gave to him when he was born in the medical facility of Cloud City. Leia's graceful face came to his mind. His mother, her kind intelligent eyes that sprung longing emotions he had tried to keep shrouded for years with training. There used to be a time where his heart wasn't locked up in his chest with a cold embrace. There was a time when he could reach out to others and help them feel, and they would do the same in return. He used to make people happy. Except for his father.

Kylo ground his teeth together in frustration; to his father, he always seemed to be such a disappointment that he couldn't even stick around throughout his life. Always leaving and promising to come back, which he did, with time yet if you keep ripping the bandage off again and again on the same wound, it will go raw and scab over. His brows furrowed over his eyes as he frowns plummeted down his face, stretching his thin scar slightly.

Then he noticed his skin began to crawl over his flesh in an odd way. Looking up to see Rey staring at him with an unreadable expression.

"What?" He growled, keeping the eye contact as if fighting to see who would look away first.

"Why did you keep the scar? You could've gotten rid of it." She inquired with genuine curiosity.

A few moments passed as Kylo comprehended her question, he wasn't expecting such a simple one. "Why?" He sneered, "am I to hard to look at now?" Jeering with a venomous tone.

"Not that it was any more pleasurable to look at you before." She replied coolly, her exasperated frown remaining it's placed as she regained her confidence faster than she expected.

He huffed out an angry breath before attempting to move his twisted knee forward. He let out a small wince, scrunching up his face as pain bloomed between his knee cap and bone. His leg fell back with a shunk back into the muddy grass.

"Well," he spoke with some strain in his throat,"It's a reminder from you. Knowing I lost that battle,"

"On purpose" Rey muttered but he continued, ignoring her input.

"It helps keep me motivated. That's all."

Rey adjusted her seating, leaning back on her wrists. "Are you sure that it has nothing to do with Anakin SkyWalker having a similar scar?" She questioned with a knowing high note in her tone. He was finally opening up.

'Maybe Leia was right. Her son could possibly be saved.'

Kylo's face deflated, his brows furrowed in confusion. "How could you possibly-"

Rey cut him off with a swift wave of her hand. "He came to me," she began to say as she got up and brushed her hands along her thighs, "in a vision while I was-" She was about to say Tatooine before she quickly thought better of it.

"Away." She finished.

He stared at her from the ground, searching her eyes for all the answers but came back with nothing. He switched his gaze back to the grass, hiding his eyes behind his black lashes.

"It doesn't matter anyway. Anakin SkyWalker was weak."

"I don't know much about him but since you think he's such a villain than he couldn't possibly be that bad." She snapped back.

Rey's confidence was swelling, that was until Kylo began to stand and tower over her once again. Even then she kept his eye contact. The Force was fluctuating like water around them as if someone through a giant stone into a calm pool. Rey searched his eyes, all around the black hole of his large pupils that pierced her through. She remembered the first time she saw him in this mask-less state in the interrogation room on the Finalizer. His eyes were a deep brown like the trunk of a tree, yet now they had a lighter tint. An amber, or yellow glow about them she hadn't noticed before.

Kylo studied her face; her hair as it wisps in the slight breeze, her eyes, her hands at her sides. She seemed calm for a reason he couldn't possibly comprehend.

They simply stared at one another for some time. Lightsabers gone, they were both unarmed. Two people standing in a field, it almost seemed normal if you didn't take in the fact of the war going on only hills away.

Rey finally began to slip out of her stoop, noticing the concussion of cannon and blaster fire berating the air from a distance.

'People are dying...' Her mind reminded her solemnly. 'And here I stand doing nothing.'

Her face hardened and Kylo was almost disappointed. Suddenly, a screech bellowed out of the sky above the clouds. Both bodies snapped their heads towards the cracking sound barrier as the clouds spat out a familiar black and red X-Wing.

Coming through the clouds, Poe flicked and toggled hydraulic switches while rotating the rear shields to forward. His breaths puffed up around him as his heart frantically pumped through his head and chest. Adrenaline was coursing through every move as he gripped the ships handles, looking up through the glass to see two figures standing in the valley almost below him. His eyes widened in shock as he noticed Rey standing in the grass with a hunching black figure he knew enough to be lord Kylo Ren himself.

Without hesitation he loaded the forward cannons, aiming straight for the vilest man he had ever had the pleasure of meeting. Poe's thumbs slammed down against the handles dual buttons releasing the bright red blaster fire to consume the grassy land around Ren.

Rey's eyes bulged with sudden fear as she watched Poe's blasting, red fire race toward Kylo as his ship swooped like a diving bird after its prey. Kylo braced himself as best he could with his injured knee. No time to think, fear overload, heart pounding Rey dove and rolled in the opposite direction of Ren as the ground began to shake with incredible power. Her legs trembled as did the mud beneath her feet, her injured thigh ached and pounded with reverberating pain. Chunks of soil and grass flew feat in the air, sending bits of grit into her eyes.

Poe's fire continued to roar as he swooped again, attempting to make sure he didn't hit Rey in the process. He watched as Kylo Ren lamely ran across the field dodging his ammunition, again and again, rolling, bracing himself, doing whatever he could to stay on his feet. Poe was surprised that he hadn't seen his special fiery red lightsaber yet until the thought of Rey un-arming him came to mind. He smiled at the idea that must have been reality because Kylo still hadn't attempted to defend himself, seemingly playing defense.

"Poe!" Finn's voice barked over the ships com unit.

"Yeah?" He shouted back after pulling up to swerve back over the valley.

"I'm approaching Kylo's drop-off ship!" He sounded out of breath, "they've gotta be keepin' Leia there. We've checked everywhere else!"

"Alright! I'm on him and Rey now, in the valley about three clicks north of the base."

Finn's breathing came over heavy on the com, crackling; "okay...Luke is gonna need you, Snoke. He's here. On D'Qar."

Poe's blood froze instantly. His hands shook the controls as the ship's vents buzzed a retort. Trying to gulp down breaths once more, he took in as much air as possible but his cockpit suddenly felt intoxicatingly small.

"Poe?" Finn's static voice jumped back on the coms.

"Y-yeah, rodger that."

"Alright- sse- ssscchhs..."

His voice broke across the channel. Incomprehensible sounds came through like grunts of another person.

"Finn!"

No response followed, only static.

"Finn!" He tried again, twisting the dial attempting to boost the connection.

"Damn. They must have gotten to the communication controls." He muttered to himself quickly as he switched front shields to the rear. "Sorry, Rey," Poe said as he boosted the forward thrusters sending the ship soaring towards the Resistance base.

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