The Remnants of Battle
The wound was going to scar.
Kylo studied his reflection in the mirror, focusing on the still-bleeding cut running across his face. It stung, though perhaps more from the memory of the lightsaber blade getting close enough to ghost over his flesh than the damage itself.
The girl, he thought, was bold.
So raw and unpredictable were his powers when he first felt sensitive to the Force, he didn't think she would be able to channel it in her favor as well as she would've hoped. He had underestimated her.
Kylo braced both hands on either side of the sink and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and pieced together the memory of the girl with the blue lightsaber and the glow of the Light in her eyes, and how they had ravaged through the snow and mercilessly swung at each other until they reached a momentary stalemate.
A frown creased his forehead. Why had she refused him?
At the point where their two lightsabers pressed on each other and refused to give way, he had realized the truth of the conflict between them; they were two different energies possessing the same power. Like oppositely charged particles, they had been fated to collide.
But, as with oppositely charged particles, there was a potential to bond and work together. In her he had he seen a fragility and hollowness, one that could be tapped into if she wanted to yield the great power of the Dark Side of the Force. He could sense her curiosity out there on the battlefield. Her stubborn gaze had searched his expression for the tells of a liar, unsure if what he offered was genuine. Although she had refused him, he knew when he watched her disappear into the flurry of snow on the other side of the chasm that he had been right. She was afraid and full of doubt. And she would think about the opportunity he offered her.
He wasn't sure why he'd done it. The words he'd spoken had not been rehearsed. The thought had never crossed his mind before that moment. It had been a…feeling. As though invisible strings within the electric blanket of Force were drawing them together.
She felt it, too, that much he knew.
Rey stood hunched over the sink, her head hung low.
The strips of protective fabric she normally had wound around her arms lay on the floor. She had peeled them off in her exhausted stumble to the bathroom, deciding they were too tainted with sweat and dirt to be put on again after she'd washed her hands.
Though she was back at the base of the Resistance and far away from Starkiller Base, a chill coursed through her body as memories of blood and chaos flashed through her mind.
A planet of eternal winter, cloaked in the darkness of night, only the glow of it's single moon providing light. The snow crunching beneath her feet. She would've admired its crystal-like shine were it not for the circumstances.
Her heart had drummed furiously in her chest. Her hands had shook. She did not know how she managed to keep a firm grip on her lightsaber when she had dueled Kylo Ren.
Rey had never killed another. A few hours ago, she had contemplated it.
Her grip around the sink's edge tightened.
She wouldn't have killed him, she told herself. It was not a scene she could fully play out in her mind. Nevertheless, when she had him at the point of her lightsaber, completely at her surrender, she had considered all the options, including finishing his life. It was her luck that the earth below their feet cracked open and split them apart. Kylo was on the other side of the world, unreachable, and she had been spared from making a decision. For now.
It was not a matter of if, but when. She sensed it. Another confrontation to come. One where they wouldn't be interrupted, and she would have to make a choice.
When her and Finn had made it back to the Millennium Falcon, two images plagued her mind. One was of Han Solo, his limp body falling to the seemingly bottomless pit below the bridge as Kylo Ren remained standing. The other had been right in front of her eyes: Finn's blood, smeared across her hands. It had come from the wounds underneath his clothes, which she touched when she had tried to drag him to safety.
For Kylo Ren, she thought, death would be a merciful punishment.
Once her blood ceased to boil, she recoiled from the thought. The Dark Side- it must have been tempting her. Telling her to let the anger take shape and become autonomous. It might've already been happening. It was an angry fire that had helped her defeat Kylo Ren. She had recognized that same fire in the dark eyes of her opponent, the rage he possessed underneath an eerily calm exterior.
Rey felt sick. She did not want to use the Force if their powers stemmed from the same place. She would not allow it.
When he had offered to be her teacher... Had he seen the Darkness in her? Had he remembered violating her mind and finding a young girl huddling inside a home that was too big for her? The girl with wide hazel eyes, dirty, sunburnt skin, and a betrayed soul?
He had once been in the Light. Then suddenly, he wasn't. Between those two points, he lost a battle with temptation. A temptation that also flirted with her.
He was one version of the person she could evolve to be, she thought, her heart sinking. They were not that different. The only separating them was time; he's had more of it.
Rey shook her head. She turned on the faucet and splashed water onto her face. The shock of the cold made her gasp, but she repeated the action two more times before turning it off.
The Force gave off a strange sensation. Something akin to electricity crackling in the air. It'd been heightened when she had pressed against Kylo's own Force, as though the particles in the air became excited at their proximity and sent them into a frenzy.
Somehow she'd felt more…powerful. As though their energies fed off each other. She could distinctly feel the difference between them. His was steadier, darker. Hers was ecstatic and bright. She was afraid, that when they had clashed, his energy had mixed with hers. She hadn't felt the Force before she met him. Maybe he had had triggered it with a touch of his own tainted power and in the process had tainted her.
Or maybe it was not his Darkness damaging her that scared her. No. Perhaps it was that she had seen the remnants of the Light in him when she had looked into his pained, conflicted eyes. For it was proof that he, too, once tried to tread on the path of good, and failed.
A/N: Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a review!