Breathe.
The world was out of focus. He needed to reach inside of himself - the anger, the fear - but it was all slipping away. The darkness was giving in under the onslaught.
When you're afraid, think of everyone who loves you. Think of how we'll never leave you. Breathe in, and when you breathe out again, the fear will be gone, because we're there. Even when you can't see us. Even at the other side of the galaxy.
Even when we're dead, and one with the Force.
Kylo Ren screamed, hand immediately twitching for his lightsaber, but it wasn't there. The energy he put into it came from everywhere that had been trying to heal, and his vision blurred again.
For a moment, he wondered if perhaps he hadn't been able escape soon enough. He couldn't remember leaving the Starkiller Base.
That must be it. He remembered Unc- Luke, Luke had mentioned Force Ghosts several times. He'd even mentioned that Grandfather had appeared as one.
None of this made sense.
The world blurred some more.
…
Breathe.
Despite all of his training, both under the Jedi and under others, he was sweating. He could feel his muscles straining. He could feel old wounds fighting to stretch, warning him that if he pushed too far, he would pay the price.
It mattered not. Nothing did. If he did not win, then there would be far worse prices than just old wounds bleeding anew.
If you find yourself overcome in a fight, find a chance to breathe. Centre yourself. When you can think clearly, the Force will show you the way to move forward. Trusting on instinct and gut reaction is one thing, but being calmly within the Force and able to listen to it is another.
Listen to the Force, and you might be able to make miracles. Maybe even find a way to stop the fighting without any more death.
There was a cut over his eye - he'd had to take his mask off long ago, when it had been singed badly by the other's lightsaber. Now, that cut was bleeding. Blood in one eye, sweat dripping into both.
He was supposed to be better than this. He was supposed to be the best. The best. Like Grandfather had been.
Kylo Ren inhaled sharply, and exhaled slowly, narrowing his eyes and focusing on the flow of the Force around the area, listening to what it was saying.
All the while looking for one thing, and one thing only.
The destruction of the one who called themself Jedi, who carried that lightsaber - one that should be his.
There was a disruption, a disturbance, and more Resistance fighters came in from the west, calling out. One came crashing through the bushes.
In a fit of rage at his interrupted hunt, his lightsaber cut through several trees, and one suddenly terrified man.
I didn't win.
Why wasn't I winning?
…
Breathe.
He had been through this before. He had faced worse odds, he had come through, without succumbing to the temptations and pulls that the situation gave him.
But now, he was off kilter. Out of balance.
Conflict, fear, aggression. All of these were good conductors for the Dark Side, but only in moderation. Only when you could control them. Even better when it was inflicted upon someone else.
The girl wasn't even trying. She never had. It simply came naturally, it seemed, that she would repel him and strike back with just words, and the strikes to his heart would be all the worse because he had no defence, because he had no expectation that he would need to.
It made him angry. It made him want to lash out, and he did - over, and over, and over again.
But still, she was there, and still, nothing worked.
When you aren't sure of something, especially when it's something that's tearing you up inside, the best thing to do is to search your own feelings on the matter. The Force might have already been trying to tell you for a while, so the conflict isn't caused by what you're being told, but by the fact that you're trying to fight it.
Sometimes, you'll have to accept truths you'd prefer to die than submit to, but rejecting them will only cause more pain, in the end.
You can trust me on that one.
His vision was blurring. Perhaps he had looked into the sun - or the light of her lightsaber - for too long, last time.
His heart was racing. Nothing was going right.
The Force was screaming at him, but he couldn't understand what it wanted.
Sharp, hot pain drove the questions from his mind.
…
Breathe.
He came to, suspended in batca. Not anywhere he knew, but certainly not anywhere that the First Order was in control, by the looks of things. Which meant only one thing.
The Resistance had him.
Either that, or some foolhardy native with too much charity and compassion for their own good, who would soon be dealt with as soon as he was feeling better and well enough to dress himself and gather his things.
Well enough to hold his lightsaber again.
The pain was now a dull ache, which he fully expected to be healed over and gone by the time he awoke next.
Knowing that they would not dare to injure him further, he let his eyes drift closed once more.
Hey, kid. They said you'd hurt yourself pretty bad back there.
Yeah, I know, I know. I wasn't there.
I'd say it was important, but- nah. You'd be able to tell that's a lie, huh? Yeah… I should've been there. Sorry.
How's about I tell you a story, instead?
You know it, kid. I only tell the best stories. This one's even true.
What, no! Whaddya mean you've heard all about that before?!
Then how about this.
Once upon a time, me, your mom and your uncle Luke were fighting in the war against the Empire, and-
What's that? Is this a story about Vader?
Funny you should ask that.
He heard someone talking as he drifted back into consciousness. He didn't open his eyes this time, just in case they noticed that he was aware and stopped short of letting something slip.
Nothing was clear enough to make it out, though. It was all just the light hum of voices, as though from far away. It was almost soothing, if it weren't for how he knew that soothed was the last thing he wanted from a place like this, or anyone who might be here.
He wasn't in the bacta any more. A gust of fresh air that felt cold against his face and anything not covered by the soft blanket on top of him told him that.
"You… got hurt badly that time, didn't you?"
A surge of panic welled up in him - he hadn't sensed the other's presence, not in any right way, and if they were speaking, then they knew that he was awake.
And yet, they did not seem afraid. They didn't seem to be angered by his presence.
The very fact made him want to make them be afraid.
The man in his medical room laughed, although it wasn't the cold or bitter one of the officers he'd worked with, yet nor was it the bright, full-of-light laugh that he'd become used to when he was with his family. It was somewhere in the middle.
"I saw, you know. I've been there all along. Watching you."
A spy, then.
He clenched his fists, tensing as he realised for the first time that something was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong-
"I wanted to help you, you know. I tried. You just… wouldn't let me."
He could feel the person shrug, and wondered why he couldn't hear them as well. Perhaps they were that good at being quiet, and if they were that good, then they were also that good at sneaking, and that good at making other people die without anyone else know they'd even been there.
He needed to get free, and the sense of wrongness increased.
"It looks to me like you need something to take your mind off everything for a while. Perhaps a story might do."
He opened his eyes, and stilled. For a single, dizzying moment, he thought that either his parents had hidden away a twin somewhere in the galaxy, to keep them safe from something - the First Order, him - because the similarities were so stark. But of course that wasn't true. He knew that he was an only child.
It meant nothing. Facial similarities were inevitable - especially with an entire galaxy, the odds of there being someone who looks similar were not outside the realm of possibility. Some even made a profit from it, either through entertainment or by becoming a stand-in. It could simply be coincidence.
Although that didn't feel quite right either, and his facial scar ached as he frowned up at the stranger who was still, amazingly, in his space.
The hair was the most obvious, most prominent, although it was lighter than his own. The facial structure was similar, but not quite the same. There was a scar running down one side of his face, dangerously close to the eye. Eyes which were blue, and… smiling.
It would be good to just get out of this damn medbay, retrieve his lightsaber, and cut this infernal annoyance out of his life. And then, find and commandeer the nearest available shuttle. Send out a message. Await orders from the Supreme Commander, or co-ordinates to rejoin the First Order.
But when he tried to use the Force to get out of his bindings, it escaped his grasp like it had been slicked with motor oil. He was still drowsy, still drugged.
He evened his breathing. Losing his temper here and now wouldn't do anyone any good. He'd only make a fool of himself.
"It looks like I don't have much choice," he spat out.
He was fully expecting a 'story' to mean a recounting of some Resistance fighter's life and losses, and what he, personally - or those affiliated with him - had ruined his life.
"Have you ever wondered how stories are passed down," the man started, the cadence shifting from the conversational to something more learned. Something of a rhythm to the words, almost a ritual to how they were spoken that implored others to listen. "How the tales are spread from one to another and never lost? Here. Let me share with you one of the first tales - of how Ekkreth was remade anew, and created from their own name."
The story was a simple one, the kind that might be used to lull a child to sleep if not for the fact that he was no child, and the one telling the story wanted it listened to, not slept through. The Force itself wove through the words, playfully singing out look! this is important! and this, and this, and this! so much that he couldn't help but pay attention.
Ekkreth, as the story said, was a trickster, and yet although they were clever and strange and had many talents, no one knew where they had come from, only that they were - although none of that had saved the being from being taken into slavery.
The masters - 'depur', the man called them - were both happy and thoroughly frustrated. They wanted to control this slave, and the way things were, they had nothing to hold over them, not the way they did with the others they had indentured or bought, and Ekkreth would not say a thing on the matter.
So it was that, when they thought Ekkreth was busy and not aware, they asked those the newest slave was known to interact with. They asked who this one was, and what they knew of them, and where they came from. But not a single one yielded any answers, for none of them knew, and the depur could do nothing, for to punish the slaves was to admit that they had been asking, and if others knew what they were asking, then they might be more close-lipped.
Next, they went to ask of the slaves who lived in the nearby settlements, places that Ekkreth was known to go to on errands. They asked who that person was, what they knew of them, and where they came from. But just as before, even though they might know or know of Ekkreth, none of the answers were useful, and not a single one yielded any answers, for they could not tell what they did not know. Again, they could do nothing, nothing obvious at least.
Lastly, they went into the cities.
Names were dropped, in the story, ones that tickled old memories with a feeling like stretching scars. He turned his mind away from them, certain that simple place names were not important enough to dwell on and get distracted by.
Here, there were far more people to ask, so the depur had high hopes - someone must know something. Ekkreth often came into the cities. And so, in that subtle way of theirs, they asked the slaves who the one they sought after was, what they knew of them, and where they came from. But they had no more luck than the last three times, and with no further use for silence and subtlety, the slaves were punished for their lack of knowledge.
So it came to be that the depur looked upon their lack of accomplishments, and felt both despair and anger at their failures. Yet anger was greater. They decided that if they could not have anything on this slave, who was theirs now by all rights, then no one would ever again, other than them. No one, they decided, would know the true story if they could not.
They spread lies, and rumours, and encouraged many to believe that this one slave in particular was no good and that they did not work. The stories they had spun became so powerful that, for a time… even some of the slaves themselves began to believe them. And most of all, they gave Ekkreth a new name, one that they demanded be the one Ekkreth answered to from that day forth.
But still Ekkreth stood strong, and when they were brought to depur to have their failings made clear, Ekkreth laughed.
He found himself shaken out of the story by actual laughter, the storytelling intruder with that infuriatinglyfamiliar face finding something funny, as though he himself was this mysterious 'Ekkreth'.
The laugh was somewhat self-deprecating.
"Ekkreth laughed," his visitor continued, "and said, 'Here is one thing that you have never known, and you do not, and you never will - for a name is not something that can be worn once and then taken away. We remember our names, for they are whispered on the winds, even when they are no longer spoken. And we know who we are, because the desert knows, and the desert never forgets'."
And while they had been talking, news came that the slaves that they had tried to gain Ekkreth's secrets from had vanished, and little did they know that in asking, they had shared what they knew with each other and not with depur, and they had done so also with those from the settlements and those from the cities, and all were far outside the reach of depur and his punishments now.
When depur grew angry, Ekkreth merely became as heat-haze, escaping first one blow and then another, and depur was left with no secrets to control.
For the stories are the storm in the desert that cannot be stopped, the truth is the sand that is not soft, yet always finds some entryway in, and even all of the masters in all of the world cannot stop the winds from still whispering the name of Ekkreth even now, and no matter how they may change, no matter how different their shapes, the stories are still Ekkreth, and because of that, Depur can never keep his hold. Even now.
He felt like the intruder was trying to say something. At times, it was almost as though the Force was pressing down hard onto him with all the subtlety of an anvil. Ignoring it had done little good, although there had always been patience, and knowing that staying here would not last, and that he could forget all of this in time, no matter how compelling it had been, no matter how familiar the stranger's appearance was and how it had kept drawing him to look closer.
And yet now when he felt that the story was over, he could allow himself to relax somewhat, to close his eyes and turn his head away.
It was his undoing.
The atmosphere changed. What had been warm and comforting (not that he'd needed such things, he told himself, nor had he wanted them) now became like crackling static.
The sound of a respirator filled the room, and his eyes quickly opened again, only met with a vague darkness, a sudden yet cloying fear that had been entirely unexpected. One that almost made him stop breathing for a moment.
"I tell you this story to save your life."
The presence left, all at once. He tried to sit upright, to stand, to chase down the apparition because that was what he had asked for, not some stranger, not some force ghost, but Darth Vader, and that was who had appeared-
He was caught short when even though bindings weren't enough to keep him down, his body did the job of betraying him instead, unbalancing with the sense of something missing.
The crash of medical equipment brought the doctors into the room, but by the time they arrived, Kylo Ren had vanished, fleeing from the base, keening loss into the stump of his left hand.
…
Breathe.
It was harder to achieve than he would have liked. Easier by far to remember blue skies and clear air. But the truth that he could not escape was a matter of harsh winds, baking hot temperatures and a sky hidden by the sandstorm.
His old wounds ached. Old training scars that had long since healed over, almost forgotten. Blaster burns from when he'd been careless, not least the one he'd had courtesy of Chewie- Chewbacca. The scar across his face, that burned as the hot sand irritated it further.
His mask would have been useful, here. It would have kept the sand out, and he could have been able to breathe, and maybe even see more clearly. Too bad it had been lost when the fight between him and his cousin had started, before the storm had hit and they had both run for cover.
Kylo Ren did not know sandstorms. He knew planets that were covered in forests, and the Starkiller base he had worked on with the rest of the First Order had been cold, snow covering the ground for most of the year, and turning anything not paved down into mud and slush the rest of the months. He had been to desert planets, yes - Jakku was not the only one - but never longer than was necessary.
The sand was always coarse and sharp and got into everything and everywhere, and currently it was finding its way into his eyes and mouth and nose. It was the most he could do just to focus on not hyperventilating in sheer, utter panic.
The dark side is in anger. It is in hate. It is in fear. The dark side is not in panic, which sowed seeds of discord into everything it touched. Confusion, conflict, panic… all are things that are the harbingers of change and chaos. Not one thing nor the other.
Such is anything that has the potential of shaking your convictions.
A hand grabbed at his arm, and the owner could count herself lucky that he had turned off his lightsaber so that he didn't have glass flying about, or he would have returned the favour and cut it off.
She only said two words - Follow me - and then used his confusion to start dragging him in a seemingly random direction.
…
Breathe.
The cave was blessedly cool despite it still being the middle of the day, and - thank the Force - more or less free of sand, save for the odd wave that wafted in every once in a while only to settle in the entranceway.
He gulped down air like it was water, no longer caring as much about getting light-headed, because he could breathe.
"You're going to pass out if you keep that up." He'd almost forgotten that someone else was there. "Though. If you do? I might just get BB-8 to record it. You know, something to show the family that's not you killing people. It'd be nice."
He sent her a level glare, full of what he hoped she recognised was full of hate. Hate, and anger, because the words had come so easily and without thought, yet despite what he wanted, they still affected him. The reminders of who he had once been, and had turned his back on.
"The storm's going to last a few hours at least," she continued, as though she hadn't noticed him or his expression. "So you might as well get comfortable."
She went back to what she was doing. Cleaning out her things, so that they were at least serviceable.
Several thoughts circled through his head, each on the tail of the other.
I could kill her right now. It's either that or she submits, and she isn't ever going to submit.
Leader Snoke would want that. It's easier to deal with a dead threat than an unpredictable one.
And a one thought, more petulant than the others; I bet Darth Vader never had to deal with anything like this. He would have been above sand. And he wouldn't have lost his helmet.
Those weren't what he ended up saying, though. Indeed, the words that fell out of his mouth were, as had become a bad habit around the girl, not something he'd been consciously thinking at all.
"Why are you doing this?" She raised her head from her task, and blinked at him, owlishly. "You're only causing more trouble for yourself by aiding the enemy. I could kill you. It would be easy," he said, leaning forward with intent.
She opened her mouth as if to start, but closed it again with a shake of her head. Only then did she actually start to speak.
"You know… we don't actually want you dead," she said slowly. It should anger him, that he was being spoken down to, as if he were a child, as if he needed to be taught a lesson. "You do know that, right?"
He was ready to stand and show her just how deluded that statement was - they were enemies, didn't she getthat? Where had all that talk of him being a monster gone? - when she hesitated.
"Well, that's not entirely true. A lot of people do. You've hurt people. A lot of them don't have any reason to not want to see you dead where you stand. But there's also a lot of us who'd be able to put that aside. If you wanted to come back."
Come back with us. Just stop all this, and… come home.
It was a tough thing to calm his temper so that he didn't carve the cave entrance wider than it already was, or bring the roof down on them both, and Rey gave him a warning look for just that reason, doubtless feeling his anger through the Force.
You have great power through anger. Yet if you expel it all all in senseless outbursts, you will do more harm than good. You need to control it, use it, let it guide you.
One day, you will find that you have destroyed the very thing that would bring about your victory when enraged by a smaller loss when viewed by the grand scheme of things.
He lashed out, scattering all the pieces that Rey had painstakingly laid out to clean into the sands of the cave, but apart from a flicker of bitter amusement at her reaction, he was only left feeling hollow inside.
It would be at least another hour before either of them spoke again, and by that point Rey had finished cleaning her things and had gone on to meditate, something that she could only have been taught by her master. Luke.
The laughter was unexpected.
"What? Oh. Sorry. I just - I started wondering what it is about Skywalkers and sand. Why did you come here, anyway?"
Kylo Ren narrowed his eyes.
"I heard that you were in the system and followed your ship. I don't see what's amusing about that."
He wanted to remind her that he was no Skywalker - that even before, before his new name, he had not been that. And yet two things stopped him - one, was that even though it had not been the name he had become great in, Darth Vader had also been a Skywalker. The other, that she could have been talking of herself, and he did not want her to assume that he associated himself with a name - a family - he had left behind.
"Huh." She shrugged, a peculiar look crossing her face. "Just coincidence, then. D'you even know where we are?"
His glare only grew in intensity. The sooner this sandstorm was over, the better.
She didn't tell him.
When the storm did finally die down, there was the awkwardness of wondering if they should get back to the duel that had been interrupted, which was a very real possibility - until it was broken by his comm going off, summoning him straight back to the fleet for an operation that was ready to be carried out, and that required his presence.
He looked up the planet once they were in hyperspace, and the name burned into his eyes from the screen. It could have been anywhere. Anywhere else. But even he had heard of this backwater planet, and he-
He hadn't asked her why she was there.
When he left, the next officer assigned to the station had to deal with a com unit that looked like it had been punched with great force, the screen now flickering but at the same time stuck on the word - Tatooine.
…
Breathe.
The scream that was being torn from his lungs was loud and raw and burning.
The rapid onslaught of hostile emotions only added to the confusion both inside and outside of his mind. He found himself clinging to the one thing he had left, but unable to remember anything good or bright or happy. Only pain and grief lived here now, and he was the cause.
The light had finally caught hold of him, and he had not been able to run far enough, nor choke it down. Its dying embers had reignited in his heart, despite his constantly covering them up with the cold darkness that he had sought after.
Of course it's going to burn, you silly boy! You went and put your fingers in when the water was still hot, didn't you?
The water's just fine.
You, however, need to remember to adjust to it better. Get in when it's warm, and then put the taps on again, if you want. But of course you're going to burn if you aren't ready for it.
Just be glad you won't need bacta for that, and try to remember next time, okay?
It was too much, too fast, the Force pulling him in different directions again - but this time it was telling him that there were people in every direction that he had hurt, things that he had broken that he needed to make right, and there was too much.
He wanted to go back to being cold, to not caring, to pretending that he didn't care. It was easier, that way. But he knew that he could not.
He wanted to go back to before all of this, before he had first been swayed by Snoke's promises, but knew that to be impossible.
He had his mother, and she was holding him, and all that he could think of was the way that his father had held his face in his hands as he died, life taken by his son's own hand.
He wanted his father back, and felt selfish, because that was merely the most personal loss, and others had lost more than he had.
When he heard boots come close and felt his mother's grip on him go slack, he let go, the strength within him dwindling as his lightsaber was taken from him and he was led, one Resistance fighter on either side of him, their hands locked around his arms so that he could not move anywhere other than where they led him.
(He could, if he wanted to. It would be easy to reach out for the power and it would respond, shoving those who would restrain him away. But there was no need. No point. And now, all of his anger was directed at himself.)
…
Breathe.
For the first time in his life, he was at a complete loss, and unsure of what to do, where to go, what place he had.
He was avoided. He was not unaware of the glances and looks that were sent his way if he came too close. And he was, above all, not allowed anywhere near Luke's new Jedi Academy or its students.
They thought they were being subtle, but he could see straight through them. Their fear was almost palpable, their anger as well, to one who had, for so long, thrived off of such negative emotions. It tempted him, like poisoned fruit in front of a starving man, the light always within reach but never quite close enough. Not anymore.
Even more than that, he had developed a habit of looking at the skies. So much so, that he didn't even notice that anyone was there until someone tapped on his shoulder.
"You're afraid," Rey said, an ironic echo of one of the first times they had spoken. But this time she wasn't using that fear against him, just stating a fact. "They'll come eventually. But they're going to anyway."
He didn't say anything. The skies remained clear, and he remained without a weapon.
"You should talk to Finn."
He snorted.
She left, and didn't understand why he felt all the more alone and afraid than before.
It was several days before the former First Order Stormtrooper 2187 approached him. It was a public place, with plenty of people milling about, ready to come to the defence if necessary. He was all nerves and fear, but he stepped forward nonetheless.
Finn, Kylo - no, Ben, Ben Solo - was slowly coming to realise, had been wasted on the First Order.
"Rey told me - I mean, I thought I-"
"I know," he snapped out. He didn't need to hear about how much he was being pitied.
And of course, he immediately regretted his sharp tone at the spike of anxiety from beside him. As hard as it had been to ignore the light, it was equally hard to stop the dark from yapping at his heels and infecting his every move.
It was something he'd have to work on. He'd never be as strong as he needed to be (as strong as his grandfather, Anakin, as strong as Luke, as strong as Rey) if he was constantly in conflict like that.
Luke had warned him about it when he was thirteen and a headstrong learner, top of the class and already with Snoke manipulating the way he saw the world. It seemed like nothing much had changed.
"It's just, it's terrifying."
Pulled out of contemplation, he frowned. He hadn't expected the former Stormtrooper to stick around.
"You think you know the way the world works. Everything makes sense. And then it doesn't. You make this decision - you don't know at the time if it's gonna be reckless or just plain stupid, but you do it anyway, and then nothing makes sense any more. Nothing."
His fists were clenched before he knew it. Knuckles white with the strain not to hit out.
How did anyone have the right to assume they knew what was going on in his head? How dare they-
"When it's first happening you don't have time to think, because everything's happening. Too fast. Either you keep running or you die. Or someone else does. So when you get to stop, that's when it hits. Nothing's the same, and it's never gonna be, and you've gotta learn how to fit in again. Everything from how to eat to what you wear and how you talk to everyone. Everything."
And it's only now that he was starting to realise that if the younger man was talking about him, there were several things that stuck out as… not wrong, really, but off.
Also, there's the energy in his voice. This isn't something that's being imagined. This is something that's been lived.
"And… you keep looking over your shoulder. 'Cause they'll be coming for you. There's no way they won't be. You might've done the right thing, but those were your people. You worked with them. You owed them. And then, then you betrayed them, and that, it doesn't just get forgotten."
After that, the silence drags on for a while, but it's less awkward than it was before, and it's filled with a slow sort of understanding, and the faint idea that he was just taught something new, from someone who wasn't a Jedi or a dark-sider.
It had been staring him in the face the whole time.
Finn. FN-2187. Those hadn't been projections of how he assumed that Kylo Ren must be feeling - those had been his feelings, Finn's emotions.
For the first time in a great many years, Ben thought he knew what it meant to be understood, if only a little.
"You're right," he said. "You're so right."
And release.
...
AN: This took about ten days to complete, starting off slow and then gradually gaining longer sections and more things connecting it to an overall arc rather than just mere snapshots - although really, that's what it remains. Moments within a several-year timeframe, within which (and after which) many other things of great importance occur. Not pictured: Finn and Rey and Poe off being heroic, the victories and losses of the Alliance and the First Order, the little things in between.
It also took quite a few tries to get the entire thing up onto ffnet. Which was very, very frustrating. But on the plus side, it's up here now!