CW: Mentions of death of an animal
A few days later Elle woke up to BB-8 whirring around her bed, a message dinging out repeatedly.
Elle crawled out of the bed, her head throbbing from lack of movement throughout the night. She had been sleeping quite soundly, waking up in the same position she fell asleep in. She considered it a stroke of luck, she suspected her dreams-or more aptly at this point, nightmares-would return soon.
Elle all but rolled off the edge of the bed and pressed the message. BB-8 projected the holovid into the middle of the room.
It was Poe, kneeling in what looked like his room, a soft smile on his face. Elle suddenly felt very calm, a soft and shimmery calm like velvet to the cheek.
"Hey Ellie. I hope you're doing well all the way on that little planet of yours, hope it's not snowing too much. But I know you like it. We're doing good here, just trying to outrun the First Order whenever we can for the time being..." Poe rubbed the side of his face and stared comfortably into the camera recording him. Then he struggled to contain his smile, "I miss you like crazy, Elle. I can't stop thinkin' about you." There was suddenly a shuffle outside the hall and Poe glanced up and sighed, "Looks like I gotta go for now, but I look forward to hearing from you. See you around."
The holovid froze on Poe's face and Elle reached forward, touching the pixilated blue cheek. The moment of calm shifted to doubt, and in that moment she questioned her feelings. Was this the smartest choice? To become so involved, so enthralled with and by someone like Poe. Did it matter? She had been in love before when she was younger, despite the lectures from Killian. She had been in love before and she had been foolish.
Within the Jedi Order attachment and possession were forbidden. But Elle was not a jealous person. Jealously was a dark thing. Her brush with the dark side, not so long ago echoed still, as always, in her mind. In the pads of her fingers every time she touched her lightsaber. Every time she thought about using it, or when she did, she felt it within her. What she had done, she was not proud of. She would never find pride in such a rash action. Typically she could trust her instincts, Killian had an endless, bottomless trust in them but now she was not so sure.
Suddenly the image glitched and faded away. She sighed and BB-8 rolled around whimsically in front of her, beeping away thoughtlessly.
"No," She shook her head, clearing her mind quickly, "I'll send him a message later tonight. Today's the big day, remember?"
Elle packed up her utility belt and hovered her hand over the box that held her lightsaber. The feeling arched in her, sending chills down her spine. She paused though and conceded to grab the blaster next to it instead.
"Come on everyone, let's get going." She called and BB-8 whirred out followed by Pax out the door. It was a nice day, no snow falling from the sky and no breeze. Everything was still and grey. With that stillness Elle started her trek up Colt Mountain.
When the trio reached the top the silence of the planet was palpable. It was thick and felt like honey on her skin. Elle slowly edged her way toward the middle opening, pushing caution out the door.
Ella slammed a grappling hook into the ice and tested its security by yanking at it. Satisfied, she nodded toward BB-8 who popped out a flashlight for her. She caught it swiftly.
"If I'm not back up in two hours, you know what to do." BB-8 nodded its dome and Elle slowly let herself down the rope, placing the flashlight in her mouth. Six inches at a time Elle let herself down into the darkness of the summit.
Just a mere hour later Elle lifted herself out of the mountain opening and grunted as she rolled into the snow. She picked the grappling hook out of ice and took the rope up.
Then she glanced around, where was BB-8 and Pax?
The air was silent as she scanned the area. She placed the hook in the nook of a tree and continued to look around.
"BB! Pax!" Elle yelled out, confusion filling her brow. It wasn't like them to just wander off. She passed through a collection of thick trees and peered around. She began to feel a deep sense of dread and darkness, a feeling that brought a slight pain and tingle to her fingertips. She yelled out again, but it seemed like her voice just echoed. Like she was completely alone. It was then that she regretted not bringing her lightsaber.
Suddenly out from behind a tree the butt of a blaster came down on her head and Elle fell to the ground unconscious.
A stormtrooper spoke into a comm, "We got her sir, bringing her aboard now."
Elle woke up with a groan and a searing pain in her head. Gradually her eyes opened and she found herself in a bright, hot room, laying on a metal surface. Sweat coated her skin and she quickly removed her outer layer of clothing and heaved out a breath. She sat up reluctantly, her eyes blurry, glasses missing. She was in a cell of some sort. What had happened? Her memory was even fuzzier than her vision at the moment.
Then there was a loud clanking at the door, a lock being opened and it swung open. Two stormtroopers came in and ordered her to stand. Then they grabbed her arms and pulled her out of the room and down the hall.
She struggled mildly against them but the headache and the added over-heating caused for a momentary lack of response.
They drug her into a darkly lit room. They cuffed her to a chair in the middle of the room. Suddenly she felt her focus return and she kicked one trooper across the room. She broke out of the cuffs and grabbed the blaster from the other and shot him.
Quickly another trooper ran in and stunned her, another one walked in and threw her back into the chair and cuffed her again.
"Height, Five foot, 3 inches. Weight, 115 pounds. Healthy, athletic, requires specific eye wear. Blaster wound healing on left hip, looks like it was treated by a professional. She definitely has some involvement with the Resistance." A doctor read off to General Hux outside the room containing Elle.
"Good. Anything else particularly out of the ordinary?" He asked.
"Not physically, no." The doctor responded. A trooper next to the doctor spoke up.
"We confiscated a utility belt and two blasters from her person, we lost her droid but it was an old unit, most likely held useless information. And if it means anything, she's a fighter. We're still waiting on results from the scavenger ship massacre sent down earlier this week, but by the looks of it she acted alone."
Hux smiled sickly, "Good, Supreme Leader Ren will be pleased."
Elle slowly opened her eyes, breathing out heavily. There was a bright light on her from above, and she felt like she was burning up. Beads of sweat fell from her temples, her hair stuck to the skin of her neck. She breathed out heavily. She wasn't used to such thick, hot air. Her body felt like it was going into mild shock.
Groaning out, she tried to focus her mind over her body's callous reaction to air over 50 degrees. She tested the cuffs around each wrist but they were tight and unmoving. She sighed and twisted her head around, attempting to find a way out of this situation.
Just stay calm, she told herself. Trying to slow her heart rate so she could breath in the thick air and focus her mind. And as she was beginning to feel more inside herself the door slid open and a tall, skinny man strode in with two stormtroopers trailing behind. He slowly walked up to her, his sickly pale skin reflected the light of the room-making his eyes seem more sinister and dangerous. The door slid shut and the two troopers flanked each side, ready for action.
The man bent at his hip and leered close to Elle's face.
"A little warm in here isn't it?" Elle refused to say a word, she just looked straight in his eyes, emotionless. His breath smelled like rot. "A bit different climate than you're used to, I'd imagine."
He stood up straight and fixed his hands behind his back, a powerful stance for anyone attempting to intimidate a captive. Though Elle ignored him, mostly, and began to conceive a plan of escape. First out of the room, then out of the ship. Maybe she could steal an escape pod, she'd never flown one before but they couldn't be all that difficult. Poe did it easily enough.
Elle observed the man, who was standing in front of her silently now, he himself equally observant. She noticed he didn't have a weapon on him, that she could see anyway, and with his long robes he was probably some sort of general, someone with high importance-or the internal perception of high-importance.
"Listen now, we are in a position to make this as painless as possible-if only you answer our questions and answer them honestly, then we won't have a problem. And your condition for release will be met and assessed forthright." He waited for a response from her but Elle just stared at him. He began, "Why were you on Astoria?"
Elle then sighed, content with that first question. For now, they had no idea who she was-which was good. Very good. They just cared about the planet. They did not know who she really was.
"I will not ask you once more, why were you on the planet Astoria?"
Elle blinked then for a few beats, then decided to comply, "Because I live there."
The man visibly clinched his jaw, and Elle almost smirked.
"You voluntarily live on a snow planet in the middle of an abandoned system with little to no resources?"
"Yes." She said softly, confidently.
"Why?"
"Because I enjoy the weather."
The man sucked in a breath, calming himself. Elle's attitude was slipping under his skin.
"And it has nothing to do with the coltide crystal said to be housed in the center of the planet?"
"I'm sorry, a crystal? Unless it was made of ice I've never seen any crystal." Elle said innocently. The man narrowed his eyes at her then, in an attempt-she assumed, to decipher whether she was lying or not. After a moment he seemed satisfied.
"So you live on this planet, in the middle of an abandoned system with no resources and nothing but a small cargo ship accompanied by an out-of-date droid and an endangered mutt." Elle bit her tongue at his references to Pax and her droid, "You'll be pleased to know we searched your ship and found nothing of question. Your droid is still missing but we did find the dog."
Elle's breath hitched and she breathed out heavily, nervous. Pax was just a dog, could barely defend himself again crystal snakes, much less the First Order.
"Interesting creatures, dogs." He pondered, stepping around the room. "Sad, weak creatures, it's no wonder there's only a few left in the galaxy-if any."
"What did you do with my dog?" Elle asked, a hint of threat in her voice. The man quickly turned to her and eyed her clinched fists.
"We killed your dog, hardly a practical use of a blas-" The man suddenly coughed internally, and rubbed his neck.
"You killed my dog..." Elle said quietly, looking at the floor. They killed Pax for no reason but to kill him. The man started coughing, like he had something stuck in his throat. Elle smirked to herself through the anger, this part of her-she hated it. This coldness was so easily attainable. She was not a jealous Jedi, but she was obviously easily attached-even to an animal.
The troopers rushed over to the man but she used the Force to throw them back against the wall. She thrust her fist forward as far as it would go inside the cuff and she threw the man face first into the wall. Satisfied the the crunch of his nose she let him go and breathed out, equalizing her breath, letting go of the Force-if only a little. It stayed there with her, ready to act.
The man groaned out and breathed heavily. He struggled to stand but quickly punched in the numbers to open the door as he yelled out, "Retrieve the Supreme Leader immediately!"
Elle rolled her eyes and adjusted herself in her seat. She thought of Pax and how gentle and quiet he was. How good of a companion he was. A pain in her heart was suddenly present and it would not leave anytime soon.
The door slid shut and the last thing she saw in the hallway was the man, his face covered in gushing blood. Proud of herself, would be an understatement.
A/N: Please let me know what you think!