Welcome! I have always disliked traits of the jedi, and felt drawn to aspects of the sith. I feel as though both paths will lead to chaos because of how destructive they seem to be. This story will felt my train of thought.
Enjoy my reylo piece and review. I always want to be better for you :)
Everyone is always so focused on what they think is right; so focused that when they hear a different opinion, it baffles them. How can they not see the right choice, they ask. How can it not be as obvious to them as it is to me? The answer is simply X, clearly. Without a doubt, the answer is this.
Rey used to be like that too. She admits it. It was all very black and white. The strong should protect the weak. Those that take advantage of their strength for their own personal gain were wrong and unjust. She almost smiles looking back. So simple, answers used to be for her.
It seems as the more you see the world, the more you realize just how complex answers are. Everything is variable; it depends on its situation. People, it would seem, are just like that; constantly changing, evolving and moving in different directions. There are no constants, not really.
When she met him, she couldn't see past the scowl or his undeniable passion for his own answer to the big question. What is the right path? She, through their bond, watched as he tore himself apart. Frustrated, she would yell at him to just see the right choice. The First Order is evil! Just come back to us!
And he would just turn and look at her, his expression conflicted, always… always conflicted. Thought he would never say anything. She could feel his light, and his warmth, even his affection for her. Why couldn't he? Why was it so hard for him to see the truth? Killing was wrong; violence was wrong; war was wrong.
She supposes now that the reason she didn't see it was because she couldn't see all of it; it being the First Order, that is. To see past all of its blood and war, to what lay on the systems that were finished with its violence and anger.
After their battle on Crait, she tried desperately to just shut him out on the flight away from the battle. All of his pain and conflict… she wanted it gone. Why force herself to try and save a lost cause? He was a man who would never see the truth, or the light, again.
The resistance, down to stragglers and those who were born with a luck that you couldn't compare fled to Luke's world of Ahch-To. It was the only place she knew that the order could not find, with enough supplies to help the survivors gather their wits.
"Here, this will help tonight. It is always cold outside. If anyone needs any shelter, the lanai will surely have some space if asked nicely. Just don't blow a whole in their wall. " She said as she smiled at Poe, handing him a blanket she had left in her hut before leaving to find Kylo. There had been sparse supplies on board the Falcon. She had found it in the back of a closet. He took it from her hands with a nod of thanks, the events of what had happened sat heavily on his mind. He had blankly looked at her before turning to leave. She felt disappointed as he left without a word. She had tried to make him feel better with her joke, but obviously failed.
As he wandered off, she remembers turning to look into the distance. The sun hit the water in just the perfect way to make it sparkle. Golden streaks struck the surface, making it look like it had been made of glass. She remembers sighing at it, but couldn't figure out why. She just sat there, before turning to look at the thin group. Ben – No, kylo, she had thought, had devastated and almost completely destroyed the resistance. She shook her head and headed up to her old meditation rock. He had been so close to seeing the truth of it. He had defeated his own master, but then for some reason became him.
As she reached the peak, the salt in the wind became stronger. Perhaps that is why she liked this spot the most, it reminded her the least about Jakku. But in a way, she always thought of it while she was here, as it was so opposite of her home world.
She sat on the cool grass, allowing the fresh dew to tickle her calves. As she crossed her legs, she could finally feel the weight of her exhaustion.
She recalls thinking they were lucky to escape when a voice she had never heard spoke softly from behind her.
"You know, in my experience there is no such thing as luck."
She stood quickly, hand flying to her belt, where her saber waited to be drawn. A ghostly figure of an old man sat on a rock, with his legs crossed. He gave her a sad smile before he looked toward the glass-like ocean. "The force works in mysterious ways, lending aid to those it deems worthy."
"You speak of it as it's a living being." She retorted, hand not fully relaxed yet, but the tight tension of muscles in her shoulders slightly giving way.
"Ah yes… I guess he never got that far, did he?" His hand wandered to his beard to slightly stroke it. "And I'm sure he didn't even explain what happened to him." The ghost shook his head and let out a weary sigh. Rey recalls thinking they should rename the island Sigh Island.
" Who are you?" She asked, not sure she wanted the answer.
"A man who made many mistakes, and wanted to change things without stepping out of the lines set by my predecessors." She raised an eyebrow to him.
"Are you a master?" Her hand moved from her belt. She quickly glanced around to see if anyone was watching her interaction. Satisfied that no one was, she crossed her arms to look back to the blue-hued form.
He chuckled heartedly, "I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to call myself that. The jedi were very strict in their ways and I am sure masters of the past would've stripped me of my rank long before I passed." He chuckled again when her eyes narrowed at him. "Do not worry, I am not one of the sith lords either. My name is… well I guess, was Ben Kenobi."
She gapped at the man immediately. The form that sat in front of her was the Ben Kenobi? He had taught her master!
"Honestly, I would not call him a master either." Ben smirked at her. "He was a flawed man, just as I. He followed the code just as well as I did, I am sure."
"Is mind reading a part of your skills as a ghost?" She asked, slightly insulted he would say that to her. Luke was a great hero who defeated Darth Vader! He saved the galaxy and tried to bring stability!
"And look at where that got him…. But also," He paused, unsure of how to phrase his next words. " no I am not actively trying to read your mind. You are projecting, another simple skill that Luke did not pass on to you. Mostly because I don't think he knew how to. With a lack of force users to face, he never had the opportunity to hone the skill."
She recalls feeling the budding sensation of anger at the judgmental master that had sat before her. It was not Luke's fault that the entire order had been annihilated just after he was born, and the last remaining member had been willingly struck down before even a few weeks into his training.
"Ah yes…. One of my many mistakes." He sighed yet again. "I feel as though even after this long, I am unsure of myself. I don't know where to start." He looked up at her in a way she could never imagine a master look. Almost desperate for guidance from an unknown entity. She heard him mumble under his breath. "Of course no one comes now. Jedi, never coming until after they are needed."
The confused feeling she saw in him, reflected her own insecurity in herself. She was the 'last jedi' afterall. She would be depended on and counted on, and yet she had no direction to go in.
"You are not the last Jedi, Rey. They died off decades ago." He stated it as a fact.
The worlds are simple, but coming from him, she felt as if a weight had been taken off her shoulders. She wasn't happy about it, but she wasn't torn about it.
"Oh don't get me wrong, you will have the choice to lead a new generation of users, but I hope they will not be jedi." Another sentence that came out as it was matter of fact.
She had been confused. "But if not jedi, they will be sith… I cannot fall to the dark side. I wont do it! And you cannot ask me of that, no matter who you are. I don't even know if you really are Ben Kenobi! You don't sound like him at all!"
Chuckling came from behind her. As she spun, she was face to face with another blue hued ghost. "Don't blame his poor choice of words on him. He was taught by myself after all. It isn't his fault that I died before I was able to impart my wisdom fully on him."
"Qui-Gon, I was wondering when you'd show up…. You did say that if she had been your padawan, than none of what has happened would've occurred." She could sense the ghost's sense of relief at seeing the other one before her.
But…this was a name she was unfamiliar with. She had heard of Yoda being Kenobi's master. So who was this?
"You must really be taught how to not project, Rey. It can be quite jarring to us old farts that are not used to it anymore." The ghost named Qui-Gon chortled.
"My name is Qui-gon Jinn, and I was one of many that had paraded around pretending to be a Jedi."
She felt her animosity fill her again, ready for him to tempt her to the darkside.
He shook his head slightly at her before glancing back at Ben, who was ever so slightly trying to fade out of the conversation. Ben could tell his old master was looking at him though, and became vibrant again.
"Just because you are not a jedi, does not make you a sith, Rey." Ben had spoken quietly. "It was something I wish I had learned in life... I am sure it would've saved many people."
She glanced over her shoulder at Ben, who had a sullen look on his face. As if he was ashamed or even embarrassed at his previous lack of knowledge.
All Rey knew was that she was confused in that moment. Everyone had always told her that if one was not of the light, they were of the dark. It was one or the other.
"Unfortunately, the world is not as simple as that, youngling. We are all on a spectrum and each extreme has grave faults." Qui-Go had finished for Ben. "Not only do the extreme sith have their flaws, but the masters of the old order had their errors as well. With each emotion the dark fully embraced, the masters actively denied. Each is a perversion of how life truly is; how the force truly wants the galaxy to be."
Rey felt overwhelmed. She had just fled one of the biggest and most terrifying enemies she had ever had, landed on her deceased masters planet and now was being swarmed by the most confusing jedi she ever could imagine encountering. She turned to look at the skeleton crew down the path before her, wishing desperately to leave this conversation and join them around the campfire they had made.
It seemed as both men had felt her wishes and exchanged a look. Qui-Gon disappeared first, just as quickly as he had appeared. Ben remained a moment to speak to Rey. "Please reflect on what my own master had said. I was never good with leading my own padawans. All I will say is to read the Jedi texts. They are as dry as can be." As she nodded to him, exhausted, he began to fade away. "However, please read them with a critical mind."
She felt the slight whip of the sea wind hit her as he left, its salt filling her lungs as she breathed deeply. She didn't know why they had come. Perhaps it had been because she had felt conflicted over the last few day's events. Kylo Ren had seemed so sure in his path, and his resolve had shaken her own.
Kylo had trashed his room to an almost unrecognizable state. In the middle of his tantrum, a robot had puttered in, warning him that he could destabilize the ship if he was not careful. The droid fell to the tantrum as well.
Looking around his room, he saw the scorched marks from his saber. His bed and other furniture lay in pieces around him. Even the dresser with his other clothes lay disheveled on the ground. Panting, he slammed his hand onto the control panel beside his bed.
"You will send someone to clean this room, immediately." He glowered into the air. Taking his hand away from the panel, he stood and left the room.
He made his way to Snokes bedroom. He knew the moment he entered the ship, he would take the room for himself, anything else would've been seen as weakness. As he stood in the doorway, he glared at the room around him. Snoke had filled the room with beautiful pieces of artwork and statues. In the corner sat a small fountain with plants surrounding it. He ignited his saber again.
By the end of the hour, this room too had been torn to shreds. The art lay i pieces around the room. Anything of beauty had been removed without so much as a flich from the dark haired force user. He had given no quarter, no mercy to literally anything in the vicinity.
He paged for another droid to come and replace some of the furniture and left the room.
Half an hour later, he stood in the training room. Just in his training pants, he still felt too hot. Eight droids with ion blasters shoot around him, firing. He twirled, not thinking, but feeling his way through combat and slashed his saber through one. Before it's arms had even hit the floor, he had taken down two more. He felt a sting in his right shoulder, he had been to distracted to sense the droid firing at him. Pissed off at his own weakness and vulnerability, he slammed the droid against the wall in a fit of anger, wishing it was someone else.
At the end of his session, the blaze inside of him had yet to recede. He felt his legs give way and had collapsed to his knees. Sweat streamed down his back and chest as his anger banged against his ribcage.
"Rey…" He glowered. She had betrayed him. She should've chosen him. He would have her by his side and together, they could save the galaxy.
How can she not see that?
As soon as he had seen Rey in the forest, he had been enticed by her. When he met her in the bond the first time, she had screamed at him. Seeing him as he wanted to see himself. A monster, a terrifying monster, that would destroy everything she loved.
But eventually...she spoke to him as a human. A regular, normal man.
And that is where things had gone south for him. Slowly, he had realized she had an awkward charm, the type that's both endearing and laughable. She has the type of gravitational pull that lured you in slowly, without warning, before pulling you in all at once. And even then, as it begins to dawn to you that you have, indeed, been sucked out of what has once been you and only you and thrown into the harsh environment of her and only her, you can't find it in yourself to back away from it.
Near the end of it, before she had come to him, she had struck him as beautiful, but not in the most conventional of ways. It was clear to him that she did not have a perfect personality that shines through above all else – nor was she perfection in a quaint box. Though this only enticed him more. She did not need to fit into a mold, she boldly defined new limits every time he saw her.
He had once watched her sit with Luke over dinner. He was usure if it was a gift he could watch her and she could not feel him. But after watching her for hours one night, he noticed that despite his dreams about her, she did in fact, not have a laugh comparable to the chorus of angels of the light that aimed to blind him. But nor did she have a buxom body that is more than qualified to be on the front page of a holonet site. But she did have a smile that can light up an entire room and bring a sliver of happiness to his dark and depraved soul. Once he has seen her training and while she did not notice him, he had noticed the long legs that he was sure could turn heads.
It was when he stood next to her in the elevator, that he noticed she had hair that, when loose, fell softly down her slim shoulders, the tips curling with the humidity in the air. When she stood to turn and look at him, was when he noticed her skin that's pale and soft despite the harsh climate she grew up in; skin that, when it touches his own, elicits an abnormal reaction that involves the hard thumping of his heart and staccato breathing. It's skin that, if she's not careful, he may... love over and over again because at this point he's too far in that vortex of love, unrequited.
He's too far in to even think about getting out, to even hope of escaping.
Kylo sat in that training room, on his knees and looked to the roof. How disappointing he was, even to himself. He could hear Snoke's soul crushing laugh as he taunted Kylo with his feelings. Rey won't ever feel the same for you. Nor should you want her to. Love IS weakness, Ren. It was as if his master was in his mind, trying to torment him further than he could do to himself.
His scream echoed through the corridors of the steel halls.
Hey everyone. It's been a while since i've written. More than likely i will edit and redo this chapter again, since im not completely satisified.
I am not sure yet how long this will be, but knowing myself, it will be like my other stories. For warned though, i am reylo trash.
R&R please :D
- to enkindle courage.