"Si ricordino i prìncipi, che si cominciano le guerre quando altri vuole, ma non quando altri vuole si finiscono."

– Machiavelli

Somehow, years of rigorous training didn't teach him how to uselessly mingle in the whirlwind of alcohols, decadence, stolen whispers and fake laughs that was the politics realm.

He didn't belong there and – more importantly – he didn't like it.
He particularly despised the luxurious fabrics that kept brushing past his shoulders or his calves: silks and satins, carefully woven to let all of these people appear more appealing. Not really concealing the ugliness of the guests. The goosebumps on their arms, caused by the ever-present chill, were a tell-tale sign of how they weren't fit to survive there: the fat necks of the invitees showed how these men had never seen a war, let alone participated in it.
The First Order's ruling class, the upper echelons of a divested galaxy, mainly consisted of merchants of arms, tale spinners and once powerful remnants of the old Empire. Each of them useful, in one way or another, to the next victory. Their presence on Starkiller Base wasn't welcome but, as the Supreme Leader saw fit to illustrate to them what would be the winning side of the upcoming conflict with the Resistance, invitations were sent and bottles opened to celebrate. And being the loyal soldier he was, he played an almost gracious host to them. After all, this was his home and that was his Master's will.

"You'll be as grandiose as the army you lead. I'm sure of it, especially with the last shipment of TIE fighters you've ordered, you should see how the new circuits have solved the under-steering problem that we've detected last time …"

He let the man drove on, paying half mind to his words. He knew enough of the ships: he was – after all – the one who paid the man a conspicuous sum to produce them for him, the least he could do before placing an order for such a fleet was to know their potential beforehand. Just how incompetent did the man think he was?
Hiding a snort, General Hux let his gaze wander past the unremarkable face of the man in front of him.
He was tired. The low light of the room used to hold this … rendezvous? Gala? He didn't really know what was being held on the Base. Nonetheless, the light hurt him: he much preferred the pale brightness of the neon, instead of this warm flickering light conceived to hide secrets. Secrets weren't conductive in a chain of command; they weren't effective in ensuring the smooth running of warfare operations. He was a soldier and as such he liked to manoeuvre his polished, deadly army of troopers: with an iron fist and clear, stark orders.

"… jumping in hyper-space won't be possible with the new trajectory beam …"

But the low light did the favour of enhancing the smooth fabric of the jacket of his interlocutor, marking another clear difference among them. Whereas the man was a rich, distasteful and futile velvet-clad type, he stood in his sensible black uniform: even in his evening garb, he didn't stray from the warmness and the functionality of wool and cotton. Standing in black, among all the reds and whites donned to honour the wealth of the First Order, he was an awkward sight. He was already sporting signs of exhaustion, although barely concealed by his rigid posture.

His day couldn't have been worse: the childish temper-thrower managed to coax a dirty prisoner in the Base, rambling about its importance to the Supreme Leader. And – as always when Kylo Ren started to mutter nonsense – he knew that it would be his duty to patch his upcoming messes.
The interrogation session was scheduled in a few hours, in order to find relevant information about the location of the last living Jedi. Finding Luke Skywalker was a priority for both his Master and Ren: as such, he could not easily dismiss it. As a man of arms, however, he found the endeavour a waste of time: the Force may be a powerful tool, but a Skywalker alone couldn't lead the Resistance to victory. Not when on the other side stood the Supreme Leader and the entire order of his Knights. Moreover, not when the Resistance were lacking the ruthless efficiency with which he ruled on his army.
So he stood, thinking of how a prisoner in this case should be dealt with: his orders were to leave it alive and to Kylo Ren. He could however already see failure looming. Maybe a bit of pampering before the interrogation could help things go smoother: after all, burn marks always left people particularly willing and he found compliance in prisoners very becoming. Burn marks did not reflect light as other bloody injuries did: they scarred badly, leaving a jarred mark even on the finest skins. They absorbed light in the most endearing way.
He could at least look forward to some marks to inflict soon.

The talkative merchant seemed to take his scowling face as a hint to leave, pleading him to accept his apologies. He conceded him a nod, relieved to be alone again. The irksome guests still lingered and continued parading their graces, borne of wealth and not virtue. He wished they could at least make a challenging target for his blaster, knowing that they couldn't even be used to alleviate his annoyance: none of them could outrun him for more than a few seconds.

"Is it real?"

He felt the hair on his neck raise just a bit at that voice. It sounded eerie, echoed as if ancient and distant, but at the same time childlike, a naïve and sweet product. He didn't know it and he couldn't dismiss the fact that he stopped breathing as soon as the first syllable landed in his ears. He turned, the scowl now very evident on his features, to see the owner of the voice. If it managed to take him by surprise, he didn't let it show. In front of him stood a mere girl, lips upset in a pout, face adorned with nothing but a curious glance painfully directed at him.

"The hair, I mean. Is it real?" she repeated, sounding insistent. She didn't fit in the scene, garbed in a simple black dress, fashioned almost as a nightgown. Plain, like her tied up brown hair or her tiny figure. And she was too young to be already part of the circus they stood in: a daughter of one of the guests, maybe? He couldn't remember her from any previous instances. Still, she was addressing him familiarly, as if he was a long-lost companion.

"Yes. And that's an impertinent question, child."

Her face scrunched up instantly at the moniker, almost comically. She stood in front of him, chastised and defiant, looking very much like a girl who would rather jump in a pool of mud to spite her governess than take another etiquette lesson.
The hem of her dress was raw, as the set of her jaw: defiant, yes. And almost feral looking, with a sun-touched skin and a bold simplicity in garments. He became aware, however, of how wrong he was: most definitely not a child as he took notice of her choice of skipping undergarments. The Base was cold for everyone but she didn't have goosebumps.
He started to feel the hot weight of his coat.

"I'm a woman, red man."

"You need not to insult then, as it won't be tolerated from any civil grownup here."

"It wasn't meant to … I have never seen a colour quite like this, if not among fire."

"You surely must have not seen much, if common hair distresses you."

At that the pout receded, leaving place to something akin to a smirk on her lips. Too thin to be a smile and too shy to be mocking. Her gaze was curious but her stance revealed that she was taken aback by his remark. A girl painfully easy to read, this one. Thus, not a wealthy daughter sent to win his favour. He noticed how she sported a few freckles on her face and a trace of a sun mark on her shoulder. It didn't make sense: there was no sun to tan in the First Order's planets.

"There was just desert and sand where I lived."

"You must come from where the rocks are mined, in the East. Are you here to do business?"

"I can't do much of anything, I don't know anyone here but you."

"And how do you know me?"

"I don't really. But I also don't know why I am here or how. Is it a dream?"

He felt a strangled surge of uneasiness in his stomach at the question. He couldn't fathom how the emotion could have found a way in his body: he was trained to drown emotions of discomfort before they even came to life. The Academy had seen to that, ensuring that he became the spitting image of his father. "It's not. A nightmare maybe." he said, giving a half-truth: the gathering couldn't have been compared to anything else. If she was in a dream, then he could only hope to reach a similar state of delusion.
She shrugged lightly and the uneasiness in him disappeared. "I wouldn't dream of eyes like water in a nightmare. Water and an island are my best dream at night." she said, fixating her gaze on him. "But if this is not a dream, who are you?" she continued.
Indeed, who was he? The right hand of the Supreme Leader, a General and a soldier, he was his sensible black uniform and a now a man instead of an awkward Academy cadet.

"General Armitage Hux. And your name, girl?"

"I'm no one." she said, hesitating like she had a secret to keep but didn't really know how to. The uneasiness made itself evident again through his core. His eyes shot up at her face at the answer, now focusing sharply on her. Not answering was always a wrong answer: he liked his prisoners compliant.

She'd heard that feared name in her previous life, even before witnessing the destruction he could wield with a single nod. Like a fable told to misbehaving children, his name was whispered with dread in households and avoided altogether in public. He was a distant image to her, a girl on Jakku too occupied with survival to bother with faraway ghosts: she almost didn't believe in him. That was, until his name was on everyone's mouth after Starkiller Base erased an entire system of planets. The Force surged powerfully in her at the wake of the devastation he caused. She could still hear the voices in her head screaming about life, death, destiny, balance, pain and peace.
Screaming and just screaming.
He was now in front of her, imposing stance and cold eyes, a colour to them so similar to the stormy waters of the ocean she used to dream of. And yet as icy as his hair was fiery.
Panicking, she started to think quickly: she was trying to escape from a masked figure, moments before, held in her place by brutal Force. The figure was looking for the map that R2-D2 held. And now, she was in front of a First Order general. She was sure she had been abducted and held captive by the enemy. But why did they put her in such a big room, with so many people? Why not restrained? The questions in her head swirled in a blur of fear and adrenaline, keeping her almost paralyzed and wide-eyed in front of him. Where was the hooded creature that hunted her down?

"I'm no one." she then answered, giving up the truth. Lying wouldn't help her if this was some sort of trick to convince her to give up Luke Skywalker's location.

His eyes constrained her again, making her uneasy and wavering. His gaze was unbearable, as if he could just show through his eyes the pain he would inflict upon her. She was sure he knew who she was – a prisoner, that scavenger girl – and yet, he didn't make his move on her.
Confused, she stood and he did too, neither of them attempting to even get out of the uncomfortable impasse they reached. His face betrayed nothing, but something at the back of her head was warning her of his violent thoughts. Fear finished replacing the uneasiness that she felt before.

Then, slowly, as if he could be hesitant about his decision – and Rey briefly wondered if men like him ever faltered in their steps, ever let themselves be seen as fallible – of actually doing it, he offered her his hand. The gesture gently broke their steadiness, making her more curious than dreading. Her look flickered to his leather glove, not daring to openly stare. The material stretching over the palm wasn't as polished as the rest, suggesting that he worked with those gloves: a minor graze in a polished image of distant perfection.
The invite in his posture was clear: go to him. Or else.

"You're a no one, from the desert sand" he replied after a long second, his tone a fraction warmer than before, his cutting words intended to offend her, "and yet you are here, now, among the elite of the First Order. So tell me, girl, who are you?".
He spoke the last words with an intensity she wasn't ready to witness, the promise of pain in his eyes now even clearer. The hand remained lazily outstretched before her, in contrast to his harsh behaviour. Her breath hitched as she gave in. She really should have put up a fight but she was scared. His eyes were as magnetic as the red she couldn't avoid glancing at. She was entranced.

"I'm Rey."

The word fluttered in his conscience like a breath of air. He knew the name, stumbling upon it by chance: Ren had talked about the Force wielder, his prisoner. He briefly considered how a tiny girl like that could possibly be a menace to the Order. But then again, they had thought the same about him in a distant past: he wasn't sensitive to the Force, nor the most brutish or agile soldier of the Academy. He stood today as a superior to all of those who dared belittle him a long time ago.

The prisoner ought to have been constrained as it was implicit in her status of captivity. He wondered how she might have escaped and decided that the most probable cause was mind manipulation: he had seen it before and the myths on the last Skywalker spoke clearly about his abilities. If she knew the Jedi, she might have been capable of the same tricks. The Supreme Leader would have something to say against the lack of security that should have surrounded the girl, preventing her to escape, notwithstanding her abilities. The mess he knew he had to solve was now in front of him.
The available options were fairly limited in his mind: either take her down or coax her into following him again into detention. A public scene in the current setting wouldn't be welcome, so the choice was easily made.
Something, however, didn't sit right.
Why would she seek him if she was trying to evade? That surely wasn't a smart move, unless she had planned something specific. Even if she was there to kill him – slaughter him with the brutality of a savage that the Resistance surely asked of her – there was at least one better target that she could pursue. Ending Kylo Ren would be smarter, since she would have the target at her disposal in the privacy offered by the interrogation room. She couldn't have known in advance that that would be the case, but the Resistance must have warned her before entrusting her with such a mission, at least delineating the possibility of being alone with him.
Her presence was a logic fault in her plan. It didn't make sense and he liked it even less because of this. Strategy and death he could understand, but he had no clue how to deal with this bold madness. Unpredictability was a liability.

There was fear hanging in the air around him, surrounding his body and his mind like a toxic cloud. It stained his vision and unsettled his stomach, churning it. And as her presence there didn't make sense, this did even less. He was not subjected to panic, he eradicated the notion years ago. It was the lack of that particular feeling that separated him from the common mass. As a child, he was taught to fight panic: a shot running through his back reminded him of the injuries he was inflicted in order to learn. He knew he couldn't feel fear and yet there it was, almost clouding his judgement and touching his very core. He wouldn't presently be a general if Snoke hadn't seen personally to his teachings, tuning him like an artist with his cello: he had repressed the memory of the staccato of his screams of agony. Fear was for weaklings and he wasn't one.

"Rey. What brings you here?"

He retracted gently his hand. Like prey and predator, he'd have to tread carefully around her: he wasn't sure yet who was going for the kill among the two, but he would be sure to seize the first opportunity to draw blood.
Blood, he was sure, would make her compliant again: a malleable, tiny slip of a girl to interrogate and hurt. Somehow he couldn't imagine a person with such wild eyes giving up without fighting: in the natural order of things, those who fought him ended up hurt. And he couldn't wait to circle her, make her squirm without even touching her, the anticipation of torture evident in her tremor. The sole idea of her eyes fluttering closed because of the ache caused by his hunt made it almost impossible for him to stay put and not reach her: her eyes spoke of the wilderness of the forest and he longed to see desert and draught in them. He could see his hand faintly caressing her nude, tanned shoulder, going down to embrace her wrist with an iron grasp. His lips, near her neck, whispering empty promises of salvation if she just chose to cooperate with him. She was making him thirsty like a wolf in that desert of hers, at the margins of the galaxy, wherever that might be. She stood, looking at him, and he felt as if he was a starving man yearning for water, so close to an oasis just to find out it had been a delusion of his ravenous mind.
He couldn't stand the anticipation; he hadn't felt like that in ages.
He found he was hot under the collar, again.

"I told you, I don't know why I'm here. Didn't you bring me?"

"I didn't."

"Then how, General?" she hissed, "Why would I be among the First Order, if you don't want me here? You want something I can't give you, that I won't give you, ever. Why am I surrounded by all of this … parade, if I'm a hostage?"

The fluttering panic in him rose sharply. The realization hit him forcefully at the same moment.
He inhaled, slowly, and exhaled a shuddering breath with his eyes closed, taking a moment to concentrate. Then, opening his eyelids and focusing intensely again on her gaze, he could hear it. Faintly, no more than a subtle hint, but distinctively present: another heartbeat pulsating wildly. Hers. All of that fear, it wasn't his.

He became furious. The bloodlust he caressed before as an entertaining notion started to consume him like the wildest desire. She had no right to do this, no power over him, and yet she dared. She projected onto him like he was some commoner, embracing his mind with her Force. Did she really believe it would go unnoticed by him?
Frantically, he searched his mind to sense her conscience, trying to find where she would hide and how she would taste while probing his thoughts. He assumed that she wouldn't feel harsh and cutting like the Supreme Leader or dark, watery and acidic like Ren. He also knew that he couldn't push her away: he wasn't Force sensitive. But he was a trained soldier and he had learnt with pain how to resist this. He couldn't find her even after having dissected each part of his brain.
He answered her in the only way he knew: fighting. He pushed, harder than he had ever done, with his mind against the fear that was still hanging around: he couldn't find her in his conscience so he went for the only recognizable part of her within him. He imagined stopping her heartbeat with his hand. He went for the kill, unarmed in front of her Force.

She didn't even stumble.

Nothing changed. Her heart fluttered in his ears as before, untouched. The fear in her took an edge of expectation, as if she was uncertain about actually wanting to make a new discovery about her situation. Wanting to know why he had been silent at her questions instead of cruelly lashing out and at the same time not really wanting to. He breathed a little easier at the discovery that she wasn't hiding in him: she would already have all of her answers if she had already been inside his conscience.

He registered a hint of shame at the back of his mind, having lashed out like a rabid dog for the first time in years: not holding his temper was a grave sin.
He was a soldier and as such ought to be detached.
He also realised that he couldn't do that, couldn't treat her like another nameless body: there was too much to understand before disposing of her. Death could wait. And that was a truly atrocious notion in itself.

He took one step towards her and then another, stopping mere inches before her.
Her heart didn't skip a beat, pulsating as furiously as before, ready to fight or fly. She was warmer, her vision strangely tinged by emotions she didn't recognize. And she was becoming more irritated by the minute at his obvious reluctance in providing answers: she didn't want to be trapped in some artificial alternative reality, didn't want to be vulnerable like that.

"You're a prisoner. Mine, to be precise. And to say that I don't want you here … would be incorrect." he drawled in the deep, slow tone he had used before, not really giving her an answer. She didn't weaver, continuing to stand proudly.

Two could play that game.

"Then why do you want me here?"

"You have something that interests me. No, before you ask, not the map: that has already been seen to."

She felt the air leaving her lungs in a fraction of a second. How could she have given up Luke's location? The Resistance helped and trusted her and she had betrayed them, without even knowing how. She was sure it had to be the fault of the monster. If he had the map, there was little else she could do but to escape. She wouldn't give her captors the satisfaction to end her. And if she was to die within the First Order, if the Force wanted her to, then she would drag as many as she possibly could with her.
She could be no one for the rest of the Galaxy, but for them … she would be the girl who brought destruction, who died for the Resistance.
It would be a worthy sacrifice.

"There's nothing else you could want from me, if not my death. And I assure you General … I may die here, I may have unwillingly betrayed my friends, but I'll make sure to hunt your soul. You'll not know peace and I'll be the one to ensure that."

He seemed to be a bit taken aback at that. However, the icy stare he had donned before quickly replaced everything else she might have seen. And yet, she couldn't be sure why, there had to be a small measure of regret: his eyes, they didn't tell anything, but the crease between them was deeper, making him look slightly more tired. She shook the intuition off.

"When I'll die, I'll be yours to prey on."

He was good at lying, she had to concede him that: this time she almost missed the fleck of emotion passing through his irises. She could almost believe that in front of her was the imposing, cruel General. He conveyed his resolution well, with that deep tone and straight back. Now, however, without fear swirling in her, she could see more clearly. The moment she decided she would die for the cause if necessary, everything became steadier. That surely had to be something they had in common, the will to die for a cause bigger than themselves.
She wondered if a man who killed hundreds of thousands could feel fatigued. Wondered if he had a choice. She never had the choice of calling something hers.

"I'm not a killer. Predators kill and I don't like blood."

"You're a young one, you don't understand."

He spoke gravely, the tone of regret unmistakable this time, hinged by something she desperately wished was not sorrow. With monsters she could deal, they were straightforward and without a nuance to them. But men giving in, she had never known them: there was just survival on Jakku, goodness in Finn and Han, wisdom in what she knew of Skywalker. They were just black and white: they didn't crumble under any weight.
The General, instead, looked every year of his age, his humanity showing through the thin wrinkles on his forehead. Despite his height and broad shoulders, he was thin and his cheekbones sharp and rude. The pallor of his skin appalled her, an obvious sign of sickness: he never knew the sun and its warmth. She felt compelled to discover if under his stretched, white skin beat a heart like her own, if he too could be saved from the desert.
At the same time, the burden of knowledge would be too much. Another lost soul would let her lose her focus: she couldn't bear the thought of abandoning something so achingly close to her heart. He was her enemy and she was his.
But he was human too and his blue eyes, now covered by his slightly trembling eyelids, were a painful reminder of that.

"You don't either."

"I'm bound by honour. It lies with the First Order: I'll fight until I draw my last breath. Then, Rey, you can take your revenge."

"You know that I serve the Resistance the same way."

"You've pledged your life to a cause greater than you. You probably won't make it outside of the Base. To die this way is honourable."

The last sentence brought a distant echo of yearning, as if it was only death he was awaiting. The death of a soldier, a believer until the very end, asking to rest for the first and last time. She acknowledged his words as nothing more than a given fact: it wasn't retaliation, it was duty. That she could understand, it erased the fear around her. There was now just peace.

She was as pure, as unhinged as he thought she would be.

Manipulating the girl – Rey, his traitorous mind corrected – had been easy: as innocent as she was in the ways of the world, she couldn't have seen it coming. Subduing her had been, mercifully, a tranquil affair. He didn't have to lie to her once.
Too young to die, too young to fight. Too delicate to accept the cold truth. As a Force wielder she should have sensed the deception hidden behind his words. He saw in her eyes that she had chosen to forgo the truth, clinging to the hope that he could be redeemed.
As if he needed redemption.
She needed to be quieted and brought to the interrogation room again: he had now at least a semblance of trust from her and a last languid, sorrowful stare was all he needed to win her over. If he managed to do that, then – once she was restrained once again – he could go and collapse under the weight of his fatigue far from prying eyes. He was deceiving her and yet it felt the opposite.
She would die under the powers of Ren, he knew. It was her fate. He almost wanted to be the one to send her to grace, allowing her to fight and die like she should: as a soldier. No, a warrior. With the honour she deserved. He recognised her pledge as he had made clear his, they were astoundingly equals in that. The only difference between them being the motivation behind their promises: she sought peace, rightness, a dream that the Resistance offered her. He desired nothing but power, at the expense of whomever came in between him and his objective: there was no Snoke, no First Order that could prevent him to reach it. For him to attain it, she had to die. An unfortunate casualty among thousands of others.
This one, though, felt painstakingly different.

"Honour lies in what we do before dying."

She spoke in the same tingling, distant voice she first used. Old and so young at the same time.
He reached for her wrist slowly, not wanting to startle her, to hold her prisoner again and give her the illusion she was not. Gently, she started to bring her hands up, as if she wanted to make his duty easier. As if she knew.
Looking straight in her eyes, he could see that she did know. So much for manipulating, then.
Her irises lit up, greener than before. Full of light and valour and everything he coveted as a toddler, fantasising about war and brave soldiers. Full of the forest he longed to quench his thirst in, now dreading the upcoming draught in them. There was forgiveness in them.
He didn't have use for redemption. But he wanted it so badly.
She held her hands in front of him. Her face was serene. Gathering the courage to restrain the willing girl had to be the most difficult thing he had to do. More than surviving his father, the Academy, Snoke, war and ultimately the guilt.
But he was a soldier and he had a duty.
His gloved hands were a mere millimetre from the skin of her wrists, ready to soil another life. Then it happened, and he couldn't believe it.
Her image, her whole body, flickered like a hologram.

"We'll see each other again, General."

She spoke that one last time smiling, before vanishing completely before him in a dim, blue light. The only proof left of her presence were his wild heartbeat and a surge of fear at her disappearance that, this time, was unmistakably his.
He felt a pang of betrayal upon realising that she was just a Force projection like ones he had seen before. A now unrecognizable part of his conscience, one afraid for her, desired her to be real. A quick check with the deck revealed that she was still unconscious, still restrained in the interrogation room. He was astounded at the power she had in her, if she managed to do that.
He wondered if it was a calculated move on her part, to seek him like that. Yet, she didn't accomplish anything in doing that, other than a strangled conversation.
The sound made by his surroundings flooded again in his ears, making him aware of the reality. Turning around, he noticed that the gathering was still in full swing, nobody seemingly having seen his encounter. Maybe he had gone crazy. Maybe it was just the exhaustion. But he had felt fear, she had to be there: he couldn't bring himself to think otherwise.
Maybe she didn't do it consciously, her inner self strong enough to free itself without the need of a body. She actually did ask him if he was real, leaving him without an answer to the same question. She would now die, in a few hours, without letting him understand why she had come to him and brought havoc.

He realised she never took his offered hand. With a long forgotten surprise, he also noticed that this hurt him.

"At night, desperate to sleep, you imagine an ocean."

Days later, he was sleeping and Rey was in front of him, again, haunting him with her green eyes and her last smile and her bare shoulders and her tiny wrists. A slip of a girl. A warrior.

"Honour lies in what we do before dying."

Power felt a bare and empty dream now. But he would go on and die a soldier. A general.
He still couldn't shake the tinge of relief he felt when she had run away from the Base.
One day, they would meet again.

When she re-joined the Resistance, she had told them everything that had happened: the abduction by Kylo Ren, the interrogation and her escape.
After that day, she didn't dream of the ocean anymore. The waters were replaced by eyes as cold as the waves. She didn't know who they belonged to. Leia told her that Luke Skywalker had blue eyes. They had to be his. And yet, she couldn't place why it felt wrong to think that.
She just knew she would see them again.
In battle or in peace, she would.

Author's notes:

"Let the princes, who start wars when others want but finish them on their own accords, be remembered."
– Machiavelli

This one-shot wouldn't have seen the light without an awesome beta, Nicole (starshine-galaxy on Tumblr).
It's meant to be a missing moment in between Rey's abduction and her interrogatory. Also, I really like reyux.
Reviews, likes and whatever you feel like leaving to the story is very welcome!