Before mother. Before father. Before love or hate.
Before he took his first breath in the waking world there was Snoke.
In that beginning the man who would one day bring the galaxy to its knees reached out to him with kindness, with something very much like love. In the beginning there was only the presence of a mind great and powerful and comforting. When he was little more than a toddler and the voices first began to come, in dreams he couldn't understand and could barely recall but that woke him screaming in the dead of night, it was always that presence he felt first. It cut through the dark and calmed his labored breathing, dried the tears. Not hard, not exactly, but strong, something that could support the fears and anger of a little boy who couldn't begin to understand the things at war inside him.
All is well, one day you will know what this all means.
I will help you.
I understand this thing inside you.
Let me show you what can be done with it.
And what wonders could be done with it! Before there was a Dark Side or Light, before Jedi and Sith there was the simple joy of a child who could make his toys fly around the room with the barest thought. And when he was tired of that he found his nurse flew just as easily and she made much better noises! It might not have pleased his mother but he felt the pride of that other voice.
Yes it is for us to bend others to our desires
Why else would we be given such gifts
Power was meant to be wielded
These were his first lessons in the Force. Little magics that made him laugh and helped him steal sweet cakes from the kitchen right under cook's nose. A whispered command that sent his long suffering nurse back to sleep so he could keep building with his blocks past bedtime. A child's notion of power.
But as he grew so did this thing inside him. Power began to mean something else, something darker that set him apart and marked him. That turmoil that came to him in dreams now came in daylight. He could not predict it. A rising tide of voices and overwhelming feelings he couldn't give names to then. Whispers that rose to shouts that rose to screams that filled his mind until he thought his skull would shatter. He could never make out the words or define the feelings as they ran through him like an endless storm ravaged ocean with no shore to break upon. It could last moments or hours, igniting into life like a candle flame and snuffed out just as quickly but always leaving him ravaged and empty as though it had taken all the life inside him to fuel itself.
The worst of it he managed to hide. And Snoke was still there to breathe cold calm into the chaos. Telling him to watch and listen but never give anything away. He must always be mindful of those around him with their judgements and jealousy. He must hide these things inside him, these storms, these voices, these feelings. Above all he must conceal his power.
I will show you how to master this thing you fight.
They cannot know. They would never understand.
They would fear you if they knew.
They would hate you if they knew.
But the boy was still Ben Solo then. A boy with unimaginable power crackling at his fingertips but still only a boy. A boy who looked at other children with their games and squabbles so easily resolved and felt such envy, such longing to be like them. He could do extraordinary things and there was always the promise of even more, even greater things if he could only master his weakness, tramp down his fears and his foolish, childish need for tenderness and love. But promises did not stop his yearning for a life less complicated and painful then the one he had been given.
It did not stop the wanting to tell. It did stop the wanting for someone to take it away. To take up this nameless burden from a little boy who wanted what all little boys wanted, to feel safe, to stand in the sun and laugh and leave nightmares in the dark.
He fought the wanting. He fought the longing to give his fear and pain to those who loved him. He fought that love, fought his need for it. He listened to the voice and quieted his breathing, closed his mind to everything else. He learned to listen as it spoke of greater purpose and higher calling and the great work he would do one day.
And he learned what to call the voice, learned to say the word with reverence and humility.
Not father.
Not friend.
Master.
His mother worried. When he was still child enough to adore her with the blind, infallible love of a son he wanted to take all the worry away and leave only the bright and golden smile he loved more than anything. When the voices were quiet and he did not feel the thoughts of his master he would lie awake sometimes trying to imagine ways to bring that smile to her face.
But when she turned her eyes on him too often he saw the pain he caused her. When he was still small sometimes she would catch him up in her arms and press her cheek against his and he would be flooded for a moment with such a fierce and all consuming love that it was almost painful. It burned away the paralyzing fear and roiling darkness and in those moments he wanted only to stay in her arms forever. It seemed then, in those fleeting seconds, that maybe there was another way to quiet the storm in his mind. The wanting was terrible then. So terrible he had to bite his lips sometimes till they bled to keep from screaming for her help.
But as he grew older the fear and the worry became an itching, burning agony he could never escape. Childish love began to change to something more bitter. When she looked at him all he saw was a longing that he find a way to control whatever was inside of him. That he master it so he could be the son she wanted, needed him to be. That he find some way to be anything but what he was. She never spoke of it, not out loud, but it lay there between them always. So love became resentment and resentment became anger.
You see what comes of loving.
You disappoint her.
You are not enough for her.
So he told her what he knew she wanted to hear. And she believed him because it was easier, because then she could turn back to her work and her endless wars. Her love was a capricious thing. Sincere but fleeting. Constant but always at a distance. Conditional love. Conditional on him, on whether he could be the son she needed him to be. In control, able to take care of himself because she had the galaxy to think of.
She carries the weight of worlds on her shoulders.
She cannot bear your pain as well.
She will not love you if you are weak.
She cannot understand.
His father did not worry. Worry was a feeling for people with responsibilities beyond their own desires. His father was a man who wanted a sidekick more than he wanted a son. Someone to set up the joke or more often provide the punchline. Someone to clap on the back after a con well played. He didn't know what to do with a boy who seldom smiled let alone laughed. He was a father always waving goodbye, on his way to the next great adventure.
And if Ben Solo ever thought to ask him to stay, to ask him to spend a day tramping through the woods in search of Teeks or asking for a lesson in flying the small speeder they kept for emergencies his master was always there to remind him how it would end.
He will never understand.
He does not want to understand.
Better he should go before you disappoint him even more.
And it was better. Wasn't it? When he was alone Snoke could help him quiet the storm in his mind until all he heard was that calm, cold voice. No more screaming, no more yearning or fear or endless wanting. Just the voice and the promise that one day he might be strong enough to join his master.
When they sent him away he should have been relieved. He should have welcomed the escape from her sad, searching eyes and his half hearted farewells. Now he was the one saying goodbye. And if he felt grief what then? If he was so weak that he could not stamp down the tide of sorrow and loneliness that threatened to drown him then what good was he to anyone?
His father called it a great adventure. His mother told him there was no greater teacher in the universe than his uncle. They both left unspoken their hope that the last and greatest Jedi master might be able to succeed where they had failed, might be able to break their son from his sullen, mistrustful silences, make him normal.
It will be easier for them when you are gone.
They have each other.
They do not need you.
They do not want you.
It was on that long and lonely voyage to Ahch To that he first let the rage consume him. When there was no one to see him, no one to hide from, for the first time he let it flow through him. He let himself feel every moment of loneliness and fear and he knew that all the years he'd spent stamping them all down, building his walls, had meant nothing. Because none of it had gone away. Not really. He pummeled the walls of the ship till his fists bled. He screamed until his throat was on fire. He wept until he had no tears left and his body convulsed with dry, heaving sobs.
Weakling. Child. Pathetic. Unworthy.
That was when he knew that Snoke's thoughts had become his own. He did not need the voice of his master to remind him of his weaknesses, his inability to put aside foolish needs that did not serve the greater purpose he had been created for.
These are the thoughts that plague Kylo Ren the man now his master is dead. He cannot see where Snoke ends and he begins. He cannot tell which memories are his and which are tainted with the words of a man who never loved him, never cared, never wanted anything but access to the raging maelstrom of raw power that still blows like a hurricane through his first knight's veins.
How many of these memories are real? How many are colored by Snoke, by his subtle insinuations and gentle prodding? He doesn't know. And that is the source of the agony. He doesn't know anymore if the rage and loneliness was real or if it was all part of the plan that has brought him here. To this silent, empty throne room on a ship designed for death.
And could he bear it if he did? Could he survive the knowledge that a life spent sullenly in shadow, afraid and envious and so angry at everyone was built on nothing? Worse than nothing. Built on the very things he has fought from birth to overcome. Envy, desire, wanting. All those things Snoke labeled as weakness in his apprentice were, in the end, all that mattered to him.
So Kylo Ren sits on the throne of his dead master staring into an empty room and waits. He think this time when the voices come, when the maelstrom rises again to catch him and fill his mind with chaos that he might let it take him. Perhaps this time he will give himself wholly to that ocean of pain and fear and longing and let it take him where it would.
Perhaps she would be on the other side. If he survived the storm perhaps she would be waiting at the end. And this time, if he offered his hand, she would take it.