She walked about twenty meters away from him into the hot sand. The sun was burning onto her exposed skin on her thighs and arms. With every step, she wondered when something will happen and if he will just let her go like that. Her doubts were justified the moment she felt rendered immobile. She wanted to turn her head around, but she couldn't move at all. It was the same feeling she had in the woods of Takodana, when they first met and he had her paralyzed.
She heard his footsteps approaching behind, now his dark figure was coming into her vision from beside.
He positioned himself broadly in front of her, arms crossed he let out a deep, metallic: "No" then made a small gesture with his right hand, releasing her again.
Her muscles relaxed and she knew what he meant with the "No", ordering her like a dog to stand still. She angrily stood there and they kind of shared a glancing duel,
even if she just could assume where his eyes were behind the mask.
She ended their little fight with a: "I loathe you with every inch of my body." between gritted teeth.
"I know." he said in a monotone voice.
"We'll go into this direction. My ship is there." Kylo nodded over to her left.
He started walking past her, his wide steps digging deep into the sand. She sheepishly followed him and nearly had to sprint some time, to keep up his pace.
After some minutes they reached his TIE fighter, parked between some dead trees. Some metres in front of the ship, he abruptly came to a halt and she nearly crashed into him.
"Shit." he spat out.
She looked over to the fighter, now realizing what he meant. There were metal parts scattered around all around the ship. It looked like some parts of the vessel were taken apart and the unusable parts were thrown aside.
They both went closer to the ship as she saw a small cloud of smoke inside the cockpit. Rey just took the freedom, to open the hatch and to climb inside it. He raised his hand, wanting to stop her first, but then saw her already fumbling with the electronics, so he just let his hand glide down again and watched her interestedly.
He leaned onto the door with one hand, watching closer what she did in there. She ripped out some cables, at least stopping the smoke coming from one wall, then she turned around and faced him with her eyebrows knitted together. Cables and a metal plate in her hands she explained: "They stole your ion engine, some parts of the boarding computer responsible for the deflector shield, your temperature system and your communicator."
He looked at her for the longest time not saying anything at all, then turned around and went away from the ship. Suddenly he pulled his saber from the belt, ignited it and started slashing the dead trees into tiny flaming bits. Whilst doing so, he screamed some swearwords she couldn't fully make out because of his mask. She watched him from the cockpit of the fighter and was both terrified by his anger, but also in awe because of his pure strength he emitted right now.
After some seconds, when all the trees were cut down, he stopped and stood there with his back turned to her, panting, his shoulders slightly rising with each breath.
His lightsaber was still buzzing next to him, where he held it and it brushed the ground slightly. Finally, he turned it off again facing her and walked back into her direction, still emitting waves of anger around him.
She gulped and looked over his shoulder, where she saw in the far distance a dark, large cloud coming up. When he reached the ship, he stood in front of her, his angry breathing sounding rattled through his mask.
"Uhm..." she started looking at him, then again over his shoulder, then again at him.
"What is it scavenger?" he hissed out.
"Behind you. There is a sandstorm coming up. It seems pretty big. We should get into the TIE fighter right now. It's gonna be here in less than two minutes."
She stood up now leaning against the door, pointing in the direction of the dark cloud.
He followed her eyes and also looked at the dark cloud. It seemed pretty far away and he couldn't make out in which direction it moved.
"How would you know?" he snapped at her.
She scoffed: "I lived on a goddamn desert planet my whole life. If I ever learned something there, its when to fucking hide from a big sandstorm. But of course, you can stay outside if you don't believe me."
She started to close the door of the ship when Kylo Ren reached up with his hand to stop the door. He slipped into the fighter too and closed the door with her. They stood close to each other now when she remembered how much bigger he was. He also looked down at her with his dark mask, maybe thinking the same.
One last glance and she plopped herself on the sitting area in the ship. Similar to the one in the millennium falcon, but much smaller, because of the ship being smaller.
He watched her like a predator while taking off his mask, placing it on the table in front of her. His glance gave her shivers as she didn't know if he was angry at her or at his ship being broken. He went to the windshield and watched the cloud coming closer at an incredible speed, whilst the sky went dark extremely fast. He could hear the first small pebbles and sand hitting the ship, making loud noises while doing so, the sound increasing with every second.
Turning away from the window, staring at her, he dryly admitted. "I'll give you this one."
She sat there arms crossed, the smallest triumphant smile playing on her lips, then rubbing her temple: "Yeah...told you so." she mumbled, then took a look at her hand,
now fully covered in blood. Her gaze then wandered down to her ripped clothes, which pretty much exposed a lot of her skin.
She didn't realize that too much before, but now in this moment of calm, she suddenly was a little bit embarrassed about her appearance and also showing too much skin for her taste.
"I look like shit. Don't I?" she asked him.
He focused on her face, his gaze wandering down her body, then again into her eyes.
"You don't look too bad." he stated and stood up to walk to a door. Then he nodded his head behind his shoulder and said:
"You can wash yourself off in the room back there. It has a small sink."
She nodded and stood up, walking to the bathroom. She had to press herself through the door to keep enough distance to him, as Kylo kept standing in the doorway, watching her every move as if he did not trust her to walk around on her own in his ship. His hazel brown eyes were slightly squeezed together as he watched her slide past him as if he was silently telling her to not pull some crazy escape moves in there.
She finally could see herself in the mirror and was shocked about all the blood and dirt smeared across her face. Also the big gash, she had on her left temple, with blood still slowly dripping out of it. Her hair also was a mess and had some dried blood in it. She let some cool water run over her hands, splashing it on her face and tried to wash out the knotted blood clots in her hair.
Not that bad... she thought. How could he say, she doesn't look bad? She looked like a pile of shit. Unless...did he mean her usual appearance? Did he? No! Did this guy just make her a compliment?
She shook her head. Of course, he didn't. Kylo Ren doesn't make compliments.
After she cleared her face, she started to tie her three buns again, as she usually wore them. When she was done, she exited the bathroom and went back to the main area of the ship. Kylo Ren sat in the pilot's seat, putting in some coordinates into the partly functioning ship's computer. She didn't find anything to dry herself, so she just brushed the water away with the remains of her clothes, which didn't work too well. So she just needed to dry then.
Rey sat down on the couch again, watching him for a while, then looked at the helmet on the table in front of her. Next to the mask laid something which wasn't there before, a bacta bandage.
"Oh!" she mumbled surprised, taking it into her hand. Kylo must have put it there when she as gone. "Uhm. Thanks." she said, whilst ripping the packaging open and applying it to the gash on her head.
He turned around in the pilot's chair, seemingly surprised by her "thanks". He watched her applying the patch and realized her hair and her face were still wet.
Why didn't she dry it? He thought as he saw one drop slowly running down her neck onto her small shoulder.
He blinked to focus again and glanced at her face to ask: "How long will the sandstorm last?" Fully expecting an exact answer.
"I do not know that. There are sandstorms which are gone after seconds and others stay for days, or even weeks. On Jakku we had all kinds of them.
You couldn't say how long they will take, or how long they will stay in one place."
He snorted and ran a hand through his black hair, obviously annoyed.
Then he crossed his arms and put his feet on the table between them both. Closing his eyes, he seemed like he wanted to relax or even sleep.
Without opening them he warned: "Scavenger, whatever you'll do, I can feel your presence. Have that in mind when your head get's some smart ideas again."
She watched him as she understood his threat. Is he really going to rest now? Was he tired? She looked around, trying to scramble together a plan as this could be her chance. Then her glance fell back to him and wandered down to his belt, both their sabers dangling there. She could try to force it into her hands as she did on Starkiller base. He would probably attack her then. "Yes I would." he simply stated, obviously having read her mind as he opened his eyes for a second to throw her a warning glance.
"Just go to sleep. You are wasted."
Rey was angry at him reading her mind like that, but actually, he was right. She was wasted and in dire need of some sleep after this whole situation.
After a while, she tried to get comfortable on the sofa but started shivering pretty fast, because the sandy cloud didn't let any warmth from the sun into the ship.
Also, she merely wore any functioning clothes right now. She was thrashing around, finding a comfortable position where she could hold most of her body heat and was now
sitting in some kind of fetal position, holding her knees. He opened his eyes again, watching her struggle.
Kylo stood up and released his big cape from his shoulders and threw it wordlessly over the table into her arms, then instantly sat down and closed his eyes again.
She caught it and looked surprised over to him, but he didn't say anything.
Finally, she put the cape around herself, it being enough to completely cover her body. She snuggled herself in the warm texture of the fabric, feeling better every second.
It smelled of blood, sand and Kylo himself.
He smelled like something between burned wood and something else she couldn't get a grip on.
But she decided she liked it a lot and while drifting to sleep.
