A/N: Ayyy. It's your girl, Autumn. You know, your favorite piece of shit?

So, I want to start off by saying that this is a re-uploaded fan fiction. I started this fic in February of 2018 and came back to in in May of 2019, so things started to go in different directions. It started off as being loosely based off of Moulin Rouge and delved into being just a full on Historical Fantasy. If you've read this before I've fixed some plot inconsistencies, added another plot point or two, and tried to clarify a few things. If you haven't read this before... I think you're going to have a fun time reading this? Eh, if it's a trash fire, it's a trash fire.

Also, chapter titles and the song in the first chapter are ripped straight from Pippin lyrics... as is the title of this entire fic.

Here's a little background:

It is a time of art, entertainment, and prosperity! …for those in the positions of power and class to reap the benefits of this momentary peace that the New Republic has brought. For those in the slums, they continue to struggle to get by.

This is inspired by Moulin Rouge, but due to the fact that I don't just want to retype the plot of Moulin Rouge with a few names switched around, we'll be having a little bit of fun with Coruscant standing in as Paris during fin de siècle. … with magic because I'm a whore for fantasy elements.

Also, the song in this chapter is With You from the musical Pippin.

As always, if you enjoy please, please, please let me know in the comments. If not, eh. Live your best life.


"I haven't seen your uncle in years, young Solo—"

The old man's tone held no kindness, using the name as a shield to shake him. As if that, perhaps, if he held his past aloft for him to face, it would bring him sympathy. What he didn't know is that the man he was searching for had taken any chance that he would yield.

With a rough squeeze of his gloved hand, Kylo Ren had balled his fist in the air. The man, Lor San Tekka, choked for air as he met his cold gaze with his own, remaining unwavering as he struggled in his unseen grip. As he stood there, he could feel the tendrils of his magic ripple from him, pressing at the man's throat and probing into his thoughts.

Truth…

As he searched the halls of his mind, darting through the passages of the elderly man's memories, he found nothing. No sign of the man he searched for. Rage boiled as he gave the man's throat another harsh crush, watching him struggle for a long moment before Tekka went completely limp. Dropping him, a harsh grunt escaped him as he looked down at the old man, his dark eyes wary. On the ground, he was shallowly breathing, staring up at Kylo as if he were trying to understand what had just happened. As it was, no proper inspector would look at the man and suspect foul play. Elderly and brittle, Lor San Tekka would be considered a pathetic old man who had died alone in a dirty alley that he'd designed, struck by a heart attack.

"Ben…" he wheezed one last shattered gasp before he went still. As if to echo the death rattle, drawn to the anguish of the dying man, he heard a familiar whisper promising whisper from the edge of the shadows. As always, the voices were eager and excited by his violence always at his back. As a child he had tried to face them, turning quickly as if he could catch a glimpse of the demons that had plagued him. He had only caught the wisps of dark energy that moved like smoke that had often enveloped him. Had they ever not been there, beckoning him with power that only succumbing completely to their siren's call could give him?

They promised him power in his waking life and gifted him with nightmares whenever he managed to fall asleep. In reverie, he had seen whatever these demons were only to come to waking forgetting their form and faces. After nearly thirty years, he had grown used to them just as if he was used to his own thoughts. If he tried hard enough he could push them away for a time, but they always came back with a vengeance.

"Another dead end, Ren?" Armitage Hux called coyly from behind, pulling Kylo's thoughts away and bringing his focus back to the world around him. Hux approached him, his suit impeccably pressed as it always was. He walked in steps long and rhythmic while his hands were folded behind him. A cool sneer lit up his pale face from underneath a shock of perfectly slicked ginger hair. "Your leads keep turning out no information. What use is magic if it doesn't further our investigation?"

The disdain in Hux's voice was clear. The power that flowed within Kylo was an old, forgotten energy and even though Hux had seen what that power could do time and time again, he remained suspicious of it as if one day Kylo and their master would reveal that everything he had seen had been one, elaborate trick.

"We're close," Kylo insisted as he turned from the body as he walked hurriedly down the dark alley, walking towards the dim light of the lamps that lit the main streets of Coruscant. The pristine buildings of the newly widened street were stark in comparison of the back alley they had just left.

The New Republic had promised reconstruction after the old Empire fell, but the slums were still in shambles. They had taken the narrow roads of the old city and expanded them, beautifying the face of the city while the soul remained as corrupted as it always had been. If anything, they had pushed the scum of the city further back, packing them even tighter together. Meanwhile, the senators and the rich thrived in a new Renaissance era, living on their own double dealings and whispered deals. It was all a powder keg waiting for someone to light the fuse.

"I can feel it. My uncle can't hide for much longer." As the sound of Kylo's voice hit the air, he flinched at how shaken he sounded. Young Solo… Ben… The closer they got to the elusive old wizard, the more he saw of the past he had long fled from.

"That's what you said last time and the time before," Hux argued as he kept up with his hurried pace. A series of red herrings had led him astray, no doubt planted by his uncle to throw him off the trail every time he had gotten close. This time, especially, had been fruitless. He'd ended up with nothing but a dead old architect.

Despite the failures that he spoke of, he didn't sound worried or even angry. Instead, his words dripped with eagerness. No doubt, he was craving to see what the response would be from their master. Kylo grew tense at the thought.

"Snoke won't be pleased," Hux sighed, unable to hide the sneer forming at the edge of his lips. "You keep making promises that you can't keep, Ren."

"I know how close I am this time," Kylo bit out a lie. He didn't. Every time he thought he had a lead, he had thought that it would be the lead to the end of their investigation. They would take Skywalker into their custody and it would be over once his master gained whatever it was the old man had to offer. Even in that moment, the feeling that he was close to a break was vague at best a twist in his gut.

As he turned the corner once more, he faltered to a stop as a dull sensation struck him. Glancing around, he half-expected to see his uncle on the street, ready finally for their long-awaited confrontation. He found that instead he was face to face with a poster for a burlesque.

His eyes traced on the face of the woman on the lithograph, her sweet lips pulled into a darling smile, her expression beckoning with a come-hither glance. She leaned back on a swing, her slender legs fully extended as she sat under elaborate print that read: "The Castle, a grand spectacle! Meet our Rey of Sunshine from the far reaches of Jakku!"

It wasn't what the poster promised that he froze him in that spot, tracing over her face again and again with a fevered gaze. Kylo was a man who didn't go to night clubs, who couldn't be bothered to spend the night at a cabaret. He had spent his days studying to become stronger, training in his magic, and now, acting as a well-trained hound hunting an evasive fox.

This woman, though, he had seen her before. As he looked over her face one last time, it struck him. He knew her. Only from a dream, vague at best, but he couldn't shake the familiarity that he saw in her features.

A lead? Or another red herring?

"Oh, yes, whores," Hux drawled sarcastically. "That's what will solve your inability to do your job. Paying for a night—"

Before Hux could finish his remark, Kylo reached up to rip the poster from the wall where it had been plastered with gloved hand before hurrying down the street with purpose in his step.


"Are you finished?" Leaning back on a pile of blankets, Rey gave an exasperated sigh as she dared to peek in the artist's direction even as he continued to scribble away in his pad of paper. It had been nearly two hours since she had settled down for a quick session. By quick, she had assumed that he had meant at most a thirty-minute study, but as the minutes ticked on into two hours, she had realized that he had gotten fixated on the pose.

Frozen, she rested her head against a propped arm while the other laid across the slight curves of her waist. Her arm had begun to cramp, her fingers numb from the way he had her settle.

In one of the back rooms of Maz Kanata's beloved Castle, they had set up a small studio with the gracious madam's permission.

The Castle was a grand music hall, a night club of sorts filled with entertainment in both the front and, if the money was right, private shows for those who had the cash to toss around. They dealt with both old and new money; dukes with gold long held by their fathers and their fathers' fathers as well as the lucky men who had put their money in with the industrial boom they had just begun to see as Coruscant lurched into the new century.

The streets of the city had been widened and revamped, sweeping out the slums, pushing those who had nothing closer together, and forcing them to struggle a little more, to hide from the shining walls of the city. The Castle held hands firmly with both worlds, uniting them for long nights before dawn parted them all once again with its judging glow.

Those who entered into the Castle were the face of Coruscant, all glittering and gold, coming to visit the underworld that they had pushed into the gutters, so they could have their new age of beauty. While they had no qualms about spending an evening in the Castle, rejoicing in their colorfully depraved world to escape their own existence in polite society just for a while, all to ready to sweep them from the streets once morning light broke once more.

Maz didn't discern when it came to money, and if she were being honest, neither did Rey. She knew what it was like to be hungry and desperate, and she had vowed that she would never go back to anxiety of wondering where her next meal would come or what lengths she would have to do go get it.

"Finn?" she tried once more to get his attention to no avail. Blinking her hazel eyes in annoyance, she heaved a heavy sigh as she quickly shifted legs while he took another glance at his drawing. Rey cleared her throat, stretching her toes. As the evening came ever closer, she doubted that the woman would want one of her precious backrooms used as an artist's retreat once there was entertaining to do and money to make.

His eyes were far from her question, focused as he glanced between her and his pad of paper, seeing her body while not truly seeing her. Within moments of disrobing, he had disconnected from her as a person, easily slipping them into the role of artist and subject. Bare as the day she was born, she acted as the young man's model, sprawled in a reclined position as she fought the urge to gather one of the rich blankets piled beneath her.

Finn was a fine artist, though he had been a starving one when they had first met. Dressed in an old suit, poorly fashioned and ill-fitting, he had wandered into the alley behind the cabaret, carefully catching rainwater from the gutters when Rey had found him. His hands, dark umber, had been collecting a trickle of water. He'd hardly waited for his hands to fill before raising the cool rain to his lips, swallowing what should have been a sip of water in an eager gulp before raising his hands to the sky for more.

She had been standing in the alley, eyes closed as she let the rain drench her skin, trying to shock a nightmare that clung to her mind. It had already fled from her, the memory of what she had dreamt, but she found herself still trembling at what was already forgotten. Tears and sweat mixed with the downpour, washing away the signs of her weakness. Rain, to her, was beloved and baptismal.

It had only been the sound of him choking that had shaken it away, her attention swaying to the bizarre stranger. Staring at each other for a long moment, she had ambled towards him as he held his breath as if that would solve the issue that was his inability to breathe. They had taken each other in with a long stare, a beat passing between them. With a wheeze, he doubled forward, and the coughing commenced. Rey began to beat his back with her fist, forcing him to stand straight with her other arm until he managed to take in a shaking breath.

"What are you doing out here?" she had asked.

"I could ask you the same."

Neither pressed for answers as they made a silent agreement to let their reasons go unspoken for the time being, but Rey had taken him out of the rain and they had started their friendship over a kettle of hot tea.

That night had been three months prior. He was still shabbily dressed, wearing clothes that were secondhand from a friend and haphazardly patched despite the fact that he was making a steady stream income based on commissions. Instead of scrounging in the back alleys for water, he painted for Maz, creating the posters and prints for her Castle to draw the crowds in. Although Rey thought that they hardly needed any advertisement, she had been happy to become somewhat of a muse for him, her face lining the streets of Coruscant on his prints.

"Did you move?" he blinked, dark eyes glancing between the page of paper and her form frantically, lifting his stylus in the air as he angled it carefully to compare her and the drawing. She stretched her toes once more. "The way I took down your legs…"

"Finn, I have a performance in nearly thirty minutes," Rey sighed as she sat up, reaching for her silk oriental print robe before getting to her feet. "And while the throng of gentlemen out there would love for me to descend from the rafters nude, I rather not."

Rey pulled the robe around her as she approached Finn, careful of the seams that had begun to unravel. She looked down at the charcoal drawing, frowning softly.

"I'm not that flat," she complained quietly as she looked at her chest, tying her robe a touch tighter with one hand as she pushed a few chestnut strands of hair behind her ear with the other. Everything else seemed about right, she noted, from the slight curves of her hips, to the upturn of her nose.

He rose his brows, clearing his throat as he glanced up at his model.

"To be fair, you are that flat," Finn said with a teasing grin that only widened as she gave him a rough, yet playful slap on the arm. "Luckily, you clinch your waist and push them in the right way to make you look… you know," he struggled to keep his gaze on her face. "…when you're doing your bit."

"You could at least… make them look a little… more voluptuous…?" she murmured as she scrunched her face, tilting her head at the charcoal draft.

"I only put the truth down on paper," he sighed, his tone playfully wistful. "I'm a man who favors more than anything else three things: beauty, truth, and love."

"You're an impressionist," she muttered flatly. "You don't even paint from local color, you paint vaguely what someone might look like, and you madly attack your canvas with a flurry of strokes, but you can't make my breasts a little…" She gestured slightly, curving her hands over her chest, becoming flustered at her own request.

"This is my impression of you," he laughed. "And it's just a sketch, Rey."

"A two-hour sketch?" She leaned back, stretching her back as she gestured over to a ticking clock on the wall, it's hands just a half an hour short of the start of the show. "You were supposed to take a look at my journal. I did what you said, draw from life and nature. Now how will I ever know if I am any good as you've placed me, yet again, in the corner to play as your model. There are dozens of pretty girls, who have… more pleasing forms," she gestured once again at her chest. "Yet, you keep asking me to sit for you."

"No one else will sit for two hours without interrupting me," he teased as he watched as she hurried towards the door.

"And now I'm going to be late, Maz is going to remove me as a headliner, and I'll be back on the streets," she moaned woefully, tossing her head back as she covered her eyes with the back of one hand. She peeked one eye out as she gestured towards her journal that sat just a distance away from where she had been laying. "Look over that tonight. Tell me if you see anything good. I had one of the girls who works backstage sit for a portrait."

He grabbed it, flipping it open as he frowned slightly, squinting his eyes and flipping the book upside down. "She doesn't look… like this, does she? Poor girl…"

"You're a cruel man, Finn," Rey snapped as she scurried out of the door, the preamble of light music in the main hall alerting her that they were about to warm up the crowd. Whatever critique he had would have to wait until later as she had a full face of makeup to powder on and an entire wardrobe to be squeezed into.

Darting through the back halls of the night club, her bare feet hit the old floor, creaking the wood as it squeaked cries to plea for a renovation that it was years from getting. Paint peeled from the panels, flakes of vermillion paint speckling the mahogany. Twenty years before, Rey had heard that Maz's place was all luxury and show. Now, the front of the house had been maintained, allowing the illusion that the Castle was as vibrant and alive as it was the day that it had opened.

As she made her way back towards the dressing room, she caught sight of the small, old woman who lead their troupe barking orders to the dancers as she moved in a flurry.

Maz was possibly the smallest person Rey had ever met, bustling with energy that no elderly lady should have. She wore large spectacles with glass so thick that they magnified her russet eyes and dressed like a man in a pair of well-tailored suit, her kinky curls pressed into a cap on her head.

"Rey!" she gasped as she approached, taking the girl by her hand. She gave her a look over, noting her robe, before giving a large, knowing roll of her eyes before pushing her into her dressing room. It was a messy space, small and packed with an assortment of costumes. Her vanity was packed with an assortment of small trinkets that she had collected over the years, leaving little room for the make-up, jewelry, and assorted accessories that it was meant for. The chair was cluttered in scarves and robes. "I said you both could use that room if it didn't interfere with business. You being late to perform, Rey, that interferes with business." She punctuated every word with a soft jab to her arm.

"I'm not late," she argued as Maz started to dig through her costumes, her fingers ticking through her wardrobe in a flurry. Rey stripped her robe off as she reached for a pair of canary yellow heels. "I've got half an hour! What are you looking for? I've already got my costume pulled out. We're doing the 'sunshine' number, so I'm wearing that little yellow outfit with the stockings and heels."

"There's been a change in plans," the older woman grunted as she continued to poke through her wardrobe.

"What?" Rey choked as she approached Maz who was still furiously searching for something. "Why? We haven't rehearsed for anything else."

"Tonight is going to change everything for you, Rey," she murmured as she fixated on a cream-colored corset that was embroidered with an elaborate lacey pattern. She ran her dark fingers over the boning. "I can feel it in my bones… and if things are going to change for you, it's going to change for us."

She was always feeling things in her bones, as she liked to put it. When Rey had joined Maz's troupe, she had asked why she had taken her under her wing.

She had been a grime-covered girl, barely fourteen, picking pockets and scavenging the streets for a man named Plutt who kept a gang of street-children under his employ. Most were orphans, others were placed in his care by parents who couldn't care for their children in exchange for a few coins. For as long as she could remember, she had been picking for him. In the dim recesses of her mind, she remembered the heat of Jakku. As cruel as her life with Plutt had been, crueler had been the thirst she had suffered in that hell on earth.

On an impulse, she had tried to steal from an old man who had seemed distracted in the market, asking a book merchant a question in the glow of early morning dew. The plan had been daring, but in her little mind a distracted mark was the best mark of all. That had gone south quickly as soon as his dog started barking rabidly, and the scrawny girl who barely stood a couple heads above the massive creature had fallen back, scrambling for an escape. Instead, she had been brought to the Castle where the old woman had started to chew at her ear with a lecture on thievery.

After fifteen minutes, she had begged for her to turn her in or at least let her go back to Plutt empty handed. Instead of turning her in to the nearest constable, Maz had given her a small room in the Castle, cleaned her up, and given her the first warm meal in years. The man, an old war hero, had promised to return before he left to return to whatever errand he had been on before she had stumbled into his life.

When she had asked why she wasn't being taken in for trying to steal from the old man, Maz had merely smiled and said, "You belong here. I can feel it in my bones."

That was all the invitation Rey had needed to leave Plutt.

Crossing her arms, she gave her a tired glance as Maz continued to scour the room, picking out a string of costume pearls and a gauzy bustle.

"I need more than that, Maz. We've gone over this." She had spent eight long years with the older woman and in those eight years she had grown tired of that vague explanation. It was always right, her intuition, but that came with waiting for the explanation to come out on its own. She had spent years waiting. It grew tiresome.

"You'll do that new number we've been working on," the old woman said with a nod. "The one where you wrap the audience around your little finger. We can still have you make that dramatic entrance—"

"Maz!" she cried out exasperatedly. First Finn, now Maz. It was as if she might as have been mute the way that no one seemed to hear her. "What is going on?"

"There is a change in the winds," she said vaguely as she attempted to wave away Rey's worry. "And this will be the catalyst!"

"A song and dance will be the catalyst?" She doubted it. Nothing came that easy. Even if she had been taken in by the woman from the streets, she had just moved from one part of the slums to another. It was dressed up a bit prettier. She would never complain as the Castle was better than being under Plutt's thumb, but it was far from the life she had imagined when she daydreamed her hunger away as a child. After she had moved from stagehand to chorus girl and then chorus girl to headliner, she had thought that something would finally change.

"Yes, yes," the older woman murmured as she put together the outfit. She nodded in approval just as the door cracked open.

"Rey, did you ask—" A round faced girl with unruly black hair paused in the doorway, blinking as she saw the pair. "Oh, I didn't know… I-I can come back!"

"Rose!" the older woman ushered her in. "You have perfect timing! I need you to help Rey get ready. She was sitting too long with Finn and now… I'm already running behind. I have to warm up the crowd." She turned as she moved towards the door, "We're doing the new number, with the scarf."

Rey had no time to argue. As quickly as she had been tearing through Rey's wardrobe, Maz left. Rey gave Rose a weak smile as she disrobed once more and started to put on what the woman had left behind. The other woman acted as a stagehand, helping the performers get ready and making sure that every show went off without a hitch. As long as it was behind the scenes, Rose could fill any role that Maz needed her to. The girl was a jack of all trades, and she had long proven that she wasn't a master of none.

From the dressing room, she could hear the crowd cheering. No doubt Maz had run straight from the room and onto the stage.

"I've shown Finn that picture I drew of you," she said as they both worked on getting her clinched into the corset. "I didn't get a chance to ask if he would be interested in having you sit. He just… laughed at how poorly I drew you."

She pinched her lips as she took in a sharp breath as Rose gave the corset a firm yank.

"Oh," she murmured disappointedly as she gave a hard swallow. Rose didn't look at her as she led Rey over to a chair and started to carefully pin her hair from her face. "Well, if you if you get the chance…"

Rose had approached Rey the night before, asking if she could see if Finn would be interested in having her sit for him. While Rey hadn't found the request odd in and of itself, she had never seen Rose as someone who would want to sit as a subject. She worked hard, keeping every show on track, but she had struck Rey as someone who wanted to remain backstage, far from the limelight.

She was a quiet girl with a sort of sadness that clung to her. It was sadness that Rey had never dared to ask about as that would open the door for Rose to ask about her own. The troupe was an assortment of broken pieces that came together to make a colorful mosaic that seemed to please the audience.

"I'll ask him the next time I see him, I promise," Rey insisted with a smile as she started to apply rouge to her lips and cheeks as Rose continued to work on her hair. "He could get your likeness down far better than I could."

As they finished, Rey found, as she always did, that she didn't recognize the girl in the mirror. Her diamond shaped face was still hers, but her cheekbones were heightened by the rouge on her cheeks, her smile whitened by the red of her lips, and her eyes brightened by how she had lined them. She looked like a doe-eyed doll.

A thunderous applause announced that it was time for her to leave her dressing room as no doubt the ensemble and Maz were readying to do a quick encore before she was expected to meet the crowd.

"You should go," Rose said as she pinned one last curl into place.

"It's perfect, thank you," she breathed as she glanced back at Rose, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze as she left the messy room.


"She comes from the far reaches of Jakku! Hot, beautiful, exotic… a desert rose!" Maz's voice boomed. "Our Little Rey of Sunshine!"

Descending from the rafters as she sat in a wooden ring that had been painted gold, Rey breathed as she clung to a purple scarf. Jakku, wherever it was, was no better than the gutter she had crawled out of, but it sounded far more exotic. They would never know the scorching heat of its sun, nor how their throats could ache after days without water. Instead, they wove stories about desert oases and gently swaying palm trees. The patrons, she had been assured, liked the stories. The more extravagant, the better. A desert rose was far more enticing than a scavenging rat.

As the spotlight struck and the music began, she twisted alluringly, using the scarf to pull herself into a standing position as she moved with the careful precision of an acrobat on the ring as it began to swing over the audience.

"My days are brighter than morning air," she began, her voice a rich mezzosoprano. "Evergreen pine and autumn blue…"

Another careful twist as she swung, her eyes scanning the audience for potential participants. Maz had wanted her to do this song for a reason, for the interaction. As she maneuvered herself, she used the scarf to lower herself down to the stage. With a pointed toe, she landed on the floor as she pulled herself into a graceful twirl.

"But all my days are twice as fair
If I could share
My days with you…"

One hand on the ring, she leaned forward and twisted the scarf around one man in the audience, watching him blush as she gave him a wink before releasing him and moving on. The act was playful, promising her love from one man to the next, watching them squirm beneath her sweet touch and pretty words. It was a series of three, flirting with the first man shortly, the second man a few moments more, and giving the third man all her attention for the rest of the act, and end with a playful kiss.

If she had known that she was doing the act, she would have had her marks picked from the backstage as Maz warmed up the crowd, but instead, her gaze was darting as she attempted to decide who would be getting her attention.

Moving to the next man, she found a regular and a friend of Finn's, Poe Dameron. He was a captain of the guard in the city of Coruscant and had a cocky grin that the girls whispered about backstage. As she caught him in her cloth, she found herself understanding what all the whispers were for. Catching her with a crooked smirk and a wink, she could see how someone could fall headlong for the rogue. He had a reputation of an impulsive flirt, something that she found she saw too much of in the Castle to entice her to take him seriously.

"My nights are warmer than firecoals
Incense and stars and smoke bamboo
But nights were warm beyond compare
If I could share
My nights with you…"

Her eyes flitted across the crowd as she looked for her next prey as she flourished another spin with her cloth. The final of the three she would share the act with, she decided. A man with a scar marking right side of his face and a humorless expression caught her attention. His gloved hands clung tensely to the armrest of his chair. Beneath his dark gloves, she didn't doubt that his knuckles were white with strain. Any other man looking as dower would have given her pause, but something in her called to her to make him the final part of the act.

He was sharply dressed all in black. His clothes were finely tailored, alerting her that he was from money. Whether or not he had it on him, of course, would decide if he was the bringer of change that Maz had been so excited about. Regardless, she did find herself drawn to him as she felt some sort of energy move between them. A brushing warmth like a breeze that made her skin prickle with goosebumps.

As soon as she had met his gaze, the color of cognac, she had felt caught by the heat that was there. Everything about him drew her to him, distracting her from the rest of the crowd as she struggled to continue. The style of his black hair that was cropped around his chin with its finely trimmed beard brought out the angular, long features of his face. He was handsome, she decided. Not traditionally, but with all the pieces as they were, he was by far the most attractive man in the Castle that evening. If she had to give someone a kiss, it wouldn't hurt her to share it with him.

"To dance in my dreams
To shine when I need the sun
With you
To hold me when dreams are done."

She twisted the cloth around his neck, lowering herself to him. While most men would have seemed flustered, he remained stoic as his gaze bore into her as he weren't there to be entertained. Unlike the rest of the crowd, he was watching her in a way that she was unfamiliar with. He was studying her like she was an oddity instead of a dancer. It was enough to make her breath catch, but she inwardly shook the feeling away.

He wasn't a man looking for a kiss, she decided as she thought briefly about going to a fourth man, breaking the routine. Anything to regain control of the situation. He wasn't reacting as he should, tense and aloof instead of flustered and enticed.

"And oh...
My dearest love
If you will take my love
Then all my dreams are truly begun…"

It was just a performance. He was just a man, mostly dragged in by a group of friends, forced into having a night of fun. This was nothing. The pulsing sensation as she neared him was nothing. The crackling heat that she thought that she felt between them, all in her head. She felt nothing in her bones, she told herself.

This is nothing, she insisted to herself. Just another night. Just another performance.

The more she moved, the more frustrated she became with the fact that he refused to play along. She should have moved on to the man seated to his right, a red-haired man who was covering mouth with his hand and trying his hardest not to openly laugh at his companion. The one who had dragged him into the Castle in the first place, surely, by his choked laughter that he was desperately trying to swallow. If it hadn't been for the coldness that hid behind the mirth in his eyes, she might have considered switching over to him. While the black clad man was aloof and tense, she preferred that over the cruelty that seemed to ooze from his companion. There would be no change in routine. She'd win him over.

"And time weaves ribbons of memory
To sweeten life when youth is through
But I would need no memories there
If I could share
My life with… you…"

She reached out, her middle finger trailing his jaw just a quarter of inch above the skin as she leaned in close. He truly felt electric to her, that air barely between them crackling with an energy that was both exciting and frightening. What would her lips against his feel like, she wondered?

Parting her lips, she watched him stiffen as realization struck him. His eyes became troubled, yet eager as she came close. His façade had broken and once again, the act was hers. At his reaction, his lips parting ever so slightly, she felt relief.

Control.

Her lips broke into a grin as she reached over with a hand to give his proud nose a squeeze, a playful substitute for a kiss. As she pinched it, she felt herself rock on her feet as something passed between them at their touch.

She was thunderstruck, shaken to her core as everything part of her seemed to hum with the heat as her head felt as if it had cracked open, aching as if she had been struck hard on the head. At the action, the crowd roared with laughter and applause as the sweet song ended so simply, not aware that she was suffering. She leaned back against the swing, gripping for something as she fought to stand.

Her body felt inflamed as she stumbled back against the stage as she let him out of her grasp, staring at the odd man in shock as her consciousness began to fade. Rey met the man's gaze, no longer aloof but his brow furrowed with concern. Had he felt it?

Breathe, she told herself as blackness prickled at the edge of her vision, the heat of a mysterious energy erupting over her. Just breathe...

Over the gasps of the crowd, she could have sworn she heard someone call out her name as she slipped into darkness.


A/N: Hope you enjoyed this fucking trash fire. Lemme know in the comments.