To get myself ready for writing this story, I ended up writing what were supposed to be flashbacks for my character. However, I believe that said flashbacks will be a good intro to a story that starts post Kylo Ren betrayal and pre- Force Awakens.
The Royal Palace of Theed was filled with the richest and most powerful people in the the New Republic. They had all gathered at the galaxies hub of wealth and prosperity to talk politics and trade; and Elena was hating every second of it.
As her younger sister was a prominent figure in Naboo (the Queen), it was apparently deemed necessary that Elena attend this spectacular event as her sister's special guest. In other words, Aimee Riga Thaliana, her Royal Majesty Queen of Naboo, could not resist the fifteen-year-old urge to make her older sister's life miserable.
Both girls had been sent to the most prestigious academies on their planet in order to prepare them for a future life in politics; but where Aimee thrived, Elena did not. Elena did not have the political mindedness or charm of her younger sister and so gravitated to the more physical aspects of their schooling, engineering and fighting. Lacking the ability to bargain or reason, Elena had often ended up taking matters into her own hands, literally, which often got her in trouble. Thankfully, her parents high standing in society allowed her to remain in school rather than getting expelled.
"I could feel your spitefulness from across the room," a deep, amused voice interrupted her train of thought, "you're not even trying to hide it." Elena huffed not yet looking at the person who had approached her.
"Just wanted to let my sister know how I felt about this whole affair," She responded, glancing at the girl in question who glided around the room with impeccable grace moving from military official, to senator, wooing them with her innate ability to make anyone like her.
Clearly they didn't know her.
"Not very Jedi of you," He commented lightly. This time Elena turned with an eye roll to face her companion. Ben Solo, five years older to her eighteen, the son of the famous rebel leaders General (then Princess) Leia Organa and Captain Han Solo, stood by her side at the edge of the palace ballroom observing the party around them. Wearing all black, in addition to his dark hair and dark brown eyes made him an imposing figure, including the fact he was a giant.
"I'm holding sisterly contempt," Elena scoffed, glancing up at him, "not turning to the dark side." He chuckled, making Elena grin. Yes, Elena ended up being force sensitive, a shock to her family. Once she left with Luke Skywalker to train with the force, she ended up being her Master Jedi's reckoning with her 9-year-old attitude, but Elena felt she had a special bond with him nonetheless "I'm glad you're here," she added, "thank God your family's important enough to be invited to these stupid things."
"Yes, I am so thrilled," he responded dryly, making Elena snicker "at least Master Luke gets to suffer with us." Elena glanced across the room to where Ben's family stood. They were quite a sight, so many of the galaxy's hero's in the form of General Leia, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca standing and being ogled at. Yes, their Jedi Master was definitely thinking the same thoughts they were.
"That's not a very Jedi thought of you," Elena decided to shoot back with a smirk, making Ben roll his eyes. They stood in silence for a few more moments, observing the mingling or dancing around them as soft orchestra music filled the room.
"You look nice," he commented after a while, making her jump slightly.
"Oh, er thanks," Elena said cursing herself for flushing. She glanced down at her dress, it was a product of her sister's desire, who didn't want to be embarrassed by Elena's Jedi regalia. The dress was a Naboo classic that was apparently to show off the elegance of the planet. A silver choker around her neck held up the dress in the front and it fell down the front of her in a silky waterfall of various shades of blue, there was pretty much nothing on her back and shoulders (which was the main thing that unnerved her about it) as it came together around her waist to create the flowy bottom part of the dress. Her sister had her obnoxiously wavy brown hair done in a thick plait with a metal tiara on her head.
It was gorgeous really, she just disliked in on principle, and because of the stupid look on her face her sister had announcing the outfit to her.
She was pulled from her thoughts when a hand appeared in her field of vision. Ben now stood in front of her the intent clear in his eyes.
"Really?" She groaned.
"They might let us leave if we humor them by being a part of this party," he reasoned. Elena gave him a scathing look which he returned smugly, Ben knew he had won. With a huff, she slapped her hand into his and they both moved to the dance floor. The dancing was simple, as neither of them were super talented at it, but they were also decent at it because of their own fight training, which was kind of like a dance.
What Elena had forgotten in her initial annoyance, was that there was nothing to the back of her dress and so wasn't able to control her flushing reaction when his hand touched her back. Embarrassed, she looked anywhere else but at him. Which honestly wasn't hard considering he was more than a head taller than her.
The more time she spent with him the harder it was to ignore the ever present feelings she had.
Elena Riga really, really, liked Ben Solo.
It had started as a crush, as the older boy had come into her life as her Master's family member, relative of the somewhat infamous Skywalker line and child of two rebellion heroes; on top of that he had a natural affinity for the force which gave her something else to admire. She had willed it to go away as they became friends but as time went on he started showing hints of similar affection towards her. Master Luke never gave any specific rules that Jedi couldn't have attachments, they had just never acted on it before.
They were kind of tragic that way.
Of course, while she was lost in her train of that she forgot both of them were force sensitive and that one of them (Elena) had been doing nothing to shield her conflicted thoughts. It was when they stopped moving that Elena realized and felt exponentially more embarrassed. She glanced up at him and found him staring at her, which if at all possible, made her face more red.
They kind of stayed in that position for a while before he swooped down and kissed her right on the mouth. It took Elena a few shocked seconds to respond before she eventually did, and she had never felt happier or more relieved. Caught up in the moment, she threw herself onto him, blissfully ignorant of the eyes of the Republic's heroes burning into the pair.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
From the moment Luke Skywalker met Elena Riga he knew there was something special about her. She didn't have the personality one would often associate with a Jedi, not that he ever really fit the definition either; Elena was brash, emotional, and forthright, but she was also loyal, generous, dedicated and witty. He admired her desire to learn and achieve, as well as just simply having her around. Luke figured it really shouldn't have been a surprise that her and Ben would gravitate towards each other so quickly after meeting.
Ben came under his tutelage much later than his new peers, but he was also significantly more powerful, and he knew it. The fact he knew it and seemed to have a grasp about the less appropriate side of the force was the reason Leia sent him to learn the ways of the force in the first place. Though Jedi were told to be open minded and accepting, his other apprentices seemed to have a hard time accepting the young Solo, whether it be his heritage or his displays of power.
Much like her peers, Elena found him as competition, but she also found him as someone to admire. From the moment Luke met her he knew she had a great admiration for the old Rebellion and by proxy his friends and himself. Meeting the child of some of her greatest heroes was exciting to her, and finding out that he seemed to inherit some of the "power" made her all that more delighted to work with him.
Ben loved the esteem she seemed to hold him in, especially after getting relatively cold shoulders from the others. Elena had been thirteen at the time they met, but as she reached of age it became clear that he had started to see her in a different light. The look in his eyes was something he'd seen in both his sister and best friend many a time.
Clearly his speculation was now truth as Luke watched the display in the Theed ballroom.
He was concerned though, as open as he was to not using the Jedi rules of the past, it was hard to not worry when Ben had already shown signs of the dark side. Luke however, was wary to give any warning to Ben; much like Elena, he also had a very volatile personality, though mainly when angered, but at least with Ben he knew where it came from. Having been around Han and Leia for many years, it was not hard to compare the child to the parents, and the child seemed to inherit both of the parent's desire to not be told what to do.
As Luke looked at the happy couple embracing one another, he could only hope they knew what they were doing and that they wouldn't hurt themselves in the long run.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
A rock floated up and down in the air methodically, the only sign that anything was controlling the object was the slight movement of Elena's eyes as it continued its pattern. But the rock was only taking up a smidge of her thoughts, the other part of her brain was flooded with concern.
Ben was having nightmares again.
Not that he would tell her what they were about of course, he would just wake up in a panic and when she'd ask he'd say not to worry about it. Because nightmares were a totally normal thing for a force sensitive to have constantly. He'd started becoming increasingly distant as well and angry. Whenever she'd talk to another male Jedi he'd get extremely jealous and tell her off about it, which of course set her off. Though generally the fights never lasted that long, they'd been becoming a more frequent occurrence than they should to be.
Her main issue was whether she should tell Master Luke about it. He probably had a general idea, but probably not to the extent she'd seen or heard, she added thinking about the time she heard the word "Snoke". Elena's logical side told her that Master Luke would be able to help him and lead him away from the worriedly dark path he might be on. Her selfish side however, knew that Master Luke might want her to call off the relationship as he'd warned her in the past, attachment, though not forbidden, is not something to be taken lightly especially with Ben's history.
She just loved him to damn much to let him go.
Elena was ripped from morbid her thoughts when she found herself more than a couple feet in the air.
"Kriffing hell!" She exclaimed, looking around to spot a laughing Ben making her roll her eyes, "yes you're very funny; now let me down!" He did as he asked, making Elena drop rather unceremoniously into his arms.
"Must you do this?" she sighed.
"How can I not, when you react in such a hilarious way?" He asked smirking. With how happy Ben looked at that moment, Elena couldn't bring herself to scold him, especially when he kissed her. He seemed fine then, maybe her and Master Luke were just reading too much into things?
Wouldn't have that been ideal.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Ben had been gone for months. He had a heated argument with Master Luke then flew off planet in a fury only to never return. Master was sad, her fellow apprentices suspicious and Elena was sick of all of them looking at her in pity.
It never would've lasted. She was only going to get hurt in the end, you know how unstable he was.
Oh, was she so tempted to do the un-Jedi like thing and tell them to shove it up their asses; but she resisted because it's what master wanted, Elena keeping her head in this horrible situation.
Unfortunately, they were more right than Elena would've wanted to admit. While their relationship had its ups, there were a lot of downs to go with it. Ben's ever growing obsession with the dark side being one of them; he often got angry because she just "couldn't see it in the way he did". He also ignored her when she pulled evidence from the past, the past his family had helped put an end to.
The moral of that story is that their fights had escalated past the nightmare skirmishes.
Elena had begged him to listen to his Uncle, she even tried to get him to talk to his parents, which was something she learned to not try again. She didn't know why she kept wanting to help him, when he so clearly wouldn't listen to her.
Love, she guessed. But soon she had started to feel as if that love was one-sided, that his love had moved from her to the dark thoughts in his head.
It was the day before he left where Ben asked her to come away with him, to leave Master Luke and join the "Snoke". When she had told him "absolutely not" that's when he stormed off to Master Luke then off planet to not be heard from again.
Master Luke and General Organa were distraught, and Han Solo had scampered off to who knows where. It hurt to see their pain on top of her own. Elena could tell that Master Luke believed he had failed his nephew; she had felt it from him every day since Ben left.
None of them would ever have guessed that Ben would come back and with a vengeance.
So there Elena kneeled, drenched from the rain, among the bodies of her fellow apprentices and the looming figure of "Kylo Ren" or the the man she once loved among his new friends "The Knights of Ren". He wore a mask, and he had constructed a new lightsaber, it looked hurried and flawed, but it couldn't be a better metaphor for the person holding it.
Kylo Ren stood before him, lightsaber poised to strike and for a minute she considered letting him. Everything was gone, her friends, the Jedi, who knew where Master Luke was, there was nothing left for her now.
But anger got the better of her.
Her lightsaber flashed on as she quickly jumped up to attack him. Of course he'd been ready and parried her attack holding her lightsaber with his.
"I can feel your anger Elena," his voice seemed to growl from behind the mask, " all you need to do is let it in."
"Shut up!" She hissed, knee coming up to hit him in the groin as she swung again. The problem with fighting someone that knows your techniques is that they know how to block them; she hit her first mark which made him grunt, but he blocked her swing and as he was bent towards the ground, swiped her legs out from underneath her.
Elena hit the ground with a groan.
"Join me Elena," Ren asked quietly, holding his lightsaber over her menacingly, "you have the power, it doesn't need to end like this."
"You're going to have to kill me then," She snapped, glaring at him from the ground. For a minute he seemed like he wanted to, but then turned off the lightsaber and stormed back to the other Knights of Ren, gesturing for them to leave.
Elena got up with some difficulty as soon as they left her vision, which wasn't long considering the power of the rain coming down. Looking around her gaze fell upon Jak, a young boy who had just recently joined the line of apprentices, and saw a massive lightsaber made hole in his chest. Elena crawled over to him and shakingly put a hand on his head, brushing his dirty blond hair away from his eyes, and proceeded to close them. It was a horrible knowing that the last feeling those large brown eyes got to show was fear.
Ben, or Kylo Ren now, had done this. He murdered them all, everyone they had trained with, everyone child they were planning on training, the young, the old, all gone. She wanted to hate him, she did. But she couldn't, she just felt numb, disbelieving and mainly sad.
For the first time since Ben left, Elena burst into tears.