Two pairs of feet stood pointed at one another, planted firmly into the soil. A line drew itself in between, graying the punctures of their surroundings. Dark eyes flittered over the woman that stood on the other side, draped in a long, silver gown that hung like a constellation on the small frame it adorned.
It blinded him. She was crystalline, a gift from the heavens, itself. Her hair had grown longer, hanging in auburn curls around her shoulders as she stared back at him. Those hazel eyes seemed to pierce the distance between them with electricity.
Rey had finally become imbued with the Universe and he had fallen into the realm that rested beneath her. His heart stilled for a moment, caught in an algorithm that strayed out of tune.
It had been many moons, many systems, many lightyears since his eyes had steadied on her appararition. Her power wilted him.
Kylo drew in a jagged breath beneath his rebuilt helmet, that seemed more menacing than its previous incarnation. It was thick, bronzed with harsher metals and winding circuitry. He felt the intoxication of her light spilling into his bones, unearthing the creature he once was.
I know you are still in there, Ben. The woman soothed, softening her gaze as she watched the man's hands quiver as they wrapped around his helmet. Do not make this harder than it has to be. I did not come here for you to dissolve.
Removing his fixture, he felt the cool sting of the atmosphere kiss his balmy skin. His hair was dark, wild beneath it. He breathed in her with his own eyes, absorbing to her presence.
He had waited aeons for her.
Rey, what have you become?
Their bond pried at them, scowling at the difference in their own hearts. The Force tried in vain to keep them from harming the other, yet they stood on different planes, suffering their own stubbornness.
I became what I was meant to be.
The woman thrummed against their bond, cheeks flush with life and color as the man before her began to kneel.
I have but one last offer, Rey.
Ben lowered his head, watching the length of her skirt dissolve into a plume of smoke as it drifted beneath her. She strode closer, eyes like diamonds flickering over his form. She took his tall stature in as curled.
His cloak draped along his body, keeping it hidden from her vision.
I cannot deny you. I have no desire to stand to the wayside. I see your nothingness and I see you as you are now, but I want whatever is in between. I wanted you when you were fledgling, and it has never changed.
Ben, you already made your choice.
She hummed, lowering herself before him. Her small hand, still scarred from battle, extended to his chin. She held him securely, feeling the heat that pulsed through their connection. His eyes burned her, narrowing as they welled with an unprecedented emotion.
He basked in the warmth, feeling her thumb roll over his scar.
We seem to disagree on our own decisions. As it were, you have your place. I have mine. Yet, I can still feel your loneliness as you wait for an answer befitting of your own desires.
The man pushed. His body trembled as he peered into the depths of her soul, prodding at the compartments of her memory she had tried to hide.
The darkness you tried to eradicate in me is ever present in you. I am a part of you, little bird.
He saw them all as though they were endless streams of film burning before him. They were all of her wants and he was at the forefront. The good parts of him, the bad, the mottled gray area that he truly believed to be his truest form.
Your love for me cannot change what I am. Nor can my affection change what you have become, Rey. If this is all that we are able to have, I will take this existence over one without you.
Rey retracted her hand as though she had been scolded. Her mouth parted, as she tried to spill the words that daunted her. The sincerity in Ben's eyes made her still. His image flickered in out of her vision as she knelt before him.
Her drapery shrank beneath her, as she pulled the fabric to extend her hand to him. Ben met her eyes, ravenous with a want that neither could ever satiate. Their stations were too destructive; two extremes that seemed to submerge into one another whenever they made contact.
She was a princess, whether she was born as such. And he was a prince. They disgarded centuries of prophecy and forewarning for these moments of solitude in the dimensions within their minds.
Please.
The woman billowed through the silence. Her eyes hung like the stars, not able to meet his own as her hope began to drift to the crimson walls of the Supreme Leader's throne room.
She remembered him gesturing, almost pleasing for her to acquiesce. Rey held her breath, rattling the fiber of her being with his darkness.
Ben, the boy she loved, trembled as he reached forward. He forwent her pallid hand and reached for her face. The feel of her skin beneath his bare hand felt smooth and delicate. She pressed her face into his palm, gripping his hand as though she refused to let it go.
Since we are opposing sides of this war, please let us always have this. If this is all we can have, I want it. I feel your desires, too. We will always be lifetimes apart.
His forehead met hers gently. And she began to weep, sending rivulets of moisture over the hills of her face.
Ben, give me your darkness and I will share the light with you. Balance me, please. I'm torn apart. I can no longer be what is expected of me. I want to be at the center of the universe with you.
Ben flinched, his grip tightening on her face as he slid closer. His long arm slithered around her spine and pulled her close. She looked at his partitioned features and stared into his eyes. The infinitness of time ran through them as they unified.
The Force hummed between them, connecting fragments into a whole. Everything seemed so foreign around them as the galaxy seemed to still. He pressed his mouth to hers ravenously, pulling her deeper into him.
I feel you believed that this would go differently, but you are human. I am human beneath all else. You and I are always together, even when you feel so alone. You're the one in my mind, and I'll never be free of you.
Rey swallowed his darkness. She felt it rising inside of her. The man beside her pulled away, resting his head upon her chest as her fingers knit into his mussed hair.
You are the belonging I sought after and I cannot deny you of that. I will find you wherever you are and I will find you a place in this with me.
As time pressed on, their bodies seemed to disappear into an all encompassing void. They disintegrated and lost touch of one another as their bond chose to expire. After all of this time, they could only hold on for so long. Each passing second seemed to stretch on for days as they imbued one another.
Each visit became harder to bear as the weight of the universe ground upon their hearts. The flickering lights that stood out amongst the blackness seemed to chart a path to one another. Yet, as it were, they were far too stubborn to chase it.
Kylo would wait upon his throne for her to arrive and sit beside him as the starlight danced outside of his vessel. Rey, ever steadfast, pressed her hands to the glass that separated her from the vacuous continuum and stare into the solar system for her prince to arrive.
Raising her head, she saw a cluster of stars becoming one in the distance as the Force ignited inside of her. She inhaled sharply at the sensation as she took the Lightsaber by her side and ignited it.
The low glow of blues and silvers illuminated her face. She stared recently at it, wishing that would have been there to stop her.
Yet she knew, as she closed her eyes, his red saber was burning for him too. She pressed her hand back to the glass, willing every part of her to see him.
She knew this would be the last time her eyes could see him as he was. And in the silence, the saturine cosmos would finally know peace and balance.
Yet, as the woman felt her mirror's turmoil, and paused with the saber in hand. She screamed against their bond, feeling his hand grip against her shoulder.
There is no balance without you. We are the night and the day. We cannot exist without one another.
And with that, Ben was gone leaving Rey to cast her weapon aside. She turned to run down the cooridoor of the small Resistance ship to the hanger. Her heart beat was rapt as she pulled her hair from the tethers and tore away the delicate fabric of her gown.
The pull was so strong she could barely withstand the pressure. The pilots stared at her, watching her unravel as she heard the sound of a ship careening into the loading bay.
She slammed her hand upon the release and the door slid away, leaving her breath in her chest. She couldn't move.
The pilots in the docks became panicked and began loading their weaponry upon shaking and ready arms. As the cockpit opened on the Silencer, she saw him.
"Hold your fire!" The General screamed violently, extending a hand to thrust the rebellious men and women back as though she parted the sea.
Poe barreled around the corner, furrowing his brows and anger. "What are you doing, Rey?! Kill the bastard! If you don't I will!"
Rey turned around, her own darkness permeating violently around her elegant facade. The scavenger in her bit with verocity. "I am no longer running from the man I love." She gritted.
The man did not cower. He reached to grab her. It boded ill for the pilot as he was painfully stilled by the currents of the Force. She stared intently at him, "Do not lay a finger on him. I will strike you down, Poe. You have no idea what he has done for me in this war."
The dark eyes man glowered, his jaw clenched as he watched the woman that he, himself, loved walk towards the black ship in the hanger. Finn skidded not far behind Rey, begging her to turn around. The steely man, who had grown, saw the malicious Kylo Ren exiting his craft. The blackness of his helmet, more menacing that the previous incarnation, hissed as it released.
His breath was baited. His eyes, heavy with confusion - concern - rested on his best friend gliding with a delicate gait towards the serpent that had caused so much pain, so much destruction.
He looked back at Poe, who reached for the blaster at his side. The man's eyes were wild and his blood boiled.
Rey could sense the fear like a saturine mist encapsulating the hanger as all eyes fell upon them. There was an unprecedented silence as time seemed to stop.
The woman's eyes flickered over the man descending from his post. She could feel the heaviness of their bond ringing through her molecules as they edged closer. She had waited for this moment her whole life, and seeing him - him in the flesh - made the astral gardens they had lived within seem as though they were nothing.
Ben stood before her, sticking his helmet to the ground as he disarmed his cape to the ground. He stripped away layer after layer of black, until it there was only the simple militant garb he wore underneath.
His stood tall as his steps closed the distance between them. Ben's features were askew with color and glistening with worry as his eyes drew her small body in. Every minute detail became engraved into his memory.
The both of them knew that Poe was readying his weapon and Rey took a deep breath. She could sense his ire, his anguish of the matter. The guilt she should have felt was swallowed by the impervious pull of darkness and her own selfishness.
Ben sensed it, too. Yet, he swallows hard and removed the saber from his side. In the low light of the hanger, frenzied with pilots and trackers - and God knows who and what else - he knelt before her.
Lowering his head, he held his saber to her. He stared at the broken reflection of himself in the polished areas of the floor as he waited.
Rey gasped softly as she held herself together. The muted sounds around her flittered in through one ear and out the other as she watched his large frame crumble before her.
He knelt before her on Crait. He knelt before her when he committed treason in that red room. He had always knelt before her.
And all of the eyes that befell upon their bodies, they nary took the moment to move. Poe furrowed his brows, gripping to Finn's shoulder in an attempt to formulate any coherent thought.
He wanted to shoot the bastard, or at least try. Yet as the scene unfurled, he couldn't. No matter how desperate of a feeling he had, he watched as the heart of war seemed to stop beating.
The halo of light that dimly glowed from the overhead electrical system hung like a constellation. It outlined their forms like ghosts in the furthest reaches of a dream, or a nightmare.
Rey shook with trepidation. Her choice had been made years before, when she felt the warmth of his skin and they protected one another. Ben had been her secret and she his.
She looked down upon his dark crown, watching the curls slink around the scar upon his face. Gently, she knelt before him and placed a hand upon his chin as she had in their bond.
The electricity of his skin pierced her as she inhaled all of his presence.
"Ben," She said softly, placing her forehead against his. She could not find enough closeness to satiate her desire to touch him.
"I'm not above you. I'm nothing to bow to."
Ben raised his head, his eyes full of an inexplicable sea of emotion. He shook his head slightly, "Remember, not to me." He swallowed hard, taking a nervous breath. " It took me not having you to realize that what I wanted is meaningless without you. The galaxy that I want is not worth fighting for unless it is you."
Rey lost her breath and found her fingers clenched to the fabric around his shoulders.
Finn looked down at the man still hanging tightly to him and knocked the blaster from his hands. They both knew the truth and they had to accept what had already been written.
They both wanted to kill Kylo Ren. Yet, in a moment of refrain, they watched the woman they cared for deeply bridge the gap between she and the nefarious spector.
And in the awe of it, a warmth surged through the ship. It was strange, enlightened. And for Rey, as she bore her love into the action, Ben embraced it as the war inside of himself died.
Beneath the weight of the world came the relief and the purity he had longed for. And he found solace in the Light as Rey made her bed in his Darkness.