Ben Solo
War could paint the most beautiful sunsets.
Ben had learned this throughout his years in the service of Snoke, and the grim necessity of great violence did not prevent him from admiring small glimpses of beauty. And this - this was more than a glimpse. It was a full symphony of color and light, transforming what was already lovely into something breathtaking.
Smoke from distant Theed drew a crimson curtain over the horizon, a red so deep and astonishing it seemed especially chosen for the blood-soaked occasion. Just above it, however, the dying sun cast angled golden rays across an emerald landscape, turning waterfalls and lakes into shining sheets of light. The sprawling countryside knew nothing of the terrible events of the day. Nothing bad had touched this place.
Rey basked in the overwhelming beauty of it, the nourishing peace. She leaned against the stone railing of an expansive balcony, the spacious manor to her back. Ben stood beside her, elbows propped on the same railing, feeling how her soul soaked it all in as hungrily as a dying plant takes to water. He had always harbored a secret fondness for beautiful things, pleased by the elegant concordance of shape, color, and form flowing together harmoniously — it was why he'd been drawn to calligraphy in a world where writing on paper was a thing of ancient history. Perhaps in another lifetime, without the Force, without the parents he'd had, his artist's heart might have been able to flourish. As it were, he could only scrawl his archaic lettering and allow himself to observe the natural art around him once in a while.
But his admiration of this glorious sunset was nothing compared to the pure, innocent joy radiating in the heart of the girl beside him. Images flashed through her mind — echoing through his own — of various visitors to her dusty desert home speaking of a place she longed to visit. But nothing they'd said had prepared her for this.
"It's more than anything I could have imagined," she whispered reverently.
Ben turned his head slightly to observe what expression might accompany that observation. Of course it was childlike. Dusky eyes wide, capturing the light in a way that transformed her grey-brown irises into something more complex, reflected over and over within itself in the glittering flashes of an endless prism.
Suddenly the countryside seemed dull compared to what was before him. Ben made himself look away. He'd already spilled open his greatest secret; he didn't need to be caught ogling like a love-sick schoolboy.
"There are many beautiful places in the galaxy," he said quietly.
"You must be right." She shook her head. "But I don't believe anywhere can be as good as this."
In spite of himself, his mouth toyed with the idea of a smile. "We'll see."
She turned those complex eyes on him, and he was compelled to meet them again. "What does that mean?"
"You've proposed the theory that this," he waved his hand at the verdant hills and scattered waterfalls, "is the best the galaxy has to offer. To be sure, we must conduct a thorough investigation. We'll visit them all, and then you'll decide which you prefer."
This coaxed a laugh from her. He approved of the sound. It was good to hear after such a harrowing day.
"Alright," she said. "I like that."
Ben returned his attention to the scenery, satisfied with that simple plan for their future. Everything else was in flux. His mother had given him a charge, and he intended to fulfill it — somehow. But he was no closer to understanding himself now than he was on Evryn. In fact, in some ways he felt further from it. The taste of power today had reawakened his desire for it, and although he believed he could accept any fate for himself so long as it was with Rey, he couldn't deny that something inside him still hungered for authority. Assuming control over the First Order would give him that. It was exactly what everyone wanted from him, and it was what he wanted himself. But the galaxy needed him to tear it all down. To lead by taking apart. That would be…difficult. Rey had pulled him back from the abyss today, but could she stand between himself and the seductive nature of absolute power?
Probably she could, he decided. It had been a few weeks now since he realized he'd burn the entire galaxy down or take it all under his protective wing if she asked him to.
"I'm glad they'll let her stay here," she murmured softly after a few minutes of silence. "She chose her new home well. And they seem happy to have her."
Ben nodded, letting her redirect his thoughts away from brooding questions about the future. The Naberrie relatives had been nothing but gracious and warm since the moment Rey made contact with them aboard the Falcon. They'd prepared everything in advance of the party's arrival and had furnished Ben's mother with a legion of servants and protocol droids. They'd insisted C3PO be given full run of the household, under Leia's direction.
Ben did not know how to behave towards them. The two old women who introduced themselves as his mother's cousins were very kind. They recognized him and began tittering to one another about his resemblance to his grandfather, for whom they'd both harbored feelings as very young girls when Anakin came around with their aunt. The cousins' children had been less familiar towards him, but still pleasant and accommodating. He didn't quite know how to feel about it all. Family, in his experience, was something to keep at a wary arm's length. They seemed to want to draw him in close.
He expelled a long breath. "Yes, I'm grateful to them. I…didn't know they existed until today, to be honest. At least someone in my family had the sense to keep in touch with extended relations."
Rey smiled, though he felt a flash of wistfulness move through her. "Your family just keeps going and going, doesn't it?"
He guessed the reason for it without even needing to search her thoughts. "You're thinking of your own?"
"You have a true family tree, one with branches and forks. Mine withers at the stump. If I even knew their names, I might be able to see if my parents had relatives. They had to have come from somewhere, didn't they? But all we know is what you saw."
Ben didn't say anything to this at first. He didn't contradict her assessment — though his own family tree contained only one branch. The Naberries were his only surviving family. Anakin's family was extinguished on Tatooine. Leia's adopted relatives had gone with Alderaan. Han was as completely orphaned as Rey, so his line didn't branch out either. But pointing all of that out wouldn't help Rey, and it didn't refute her point. He could trace his ancestors back at least a few generations, and she couldn't trace hers even one.
His own crimes were black stains on his soul which would never be fully erased, but he didn't believe any of them were as evil as the one committed by those two cantina rats who dumped their only child off into the sand in exchange for a few fistfuls of cash. Just thinking about them made him seethe with anger. If they weren't dead already, he'd be fully prepared to hunt them down and force scenes into their minds of the powerful person their unwanted nuisance had become, just before he shoved their drinking glasses right through their skulls.
"Ben?" Rey asked, glancing at him in alarm.
He wrestled this fury back down. No doubt she'd felt it, though thankfully had not seen the reason. He cleared his throat and offered an alternative to her withered stump.
"I believe my mother gave you full access to our oddly-shaped tree."
Her expression softened and she smiled a little. "She did. I've never —" She paused, as if suddenly embarrassed. Still, she forged ahead with her statement. "I've never belonged to anyone before. I've never heard those words spoken about me. It felt nice."
Ben looked down, away from the vulnerability in her face at this sentiment. It provoked other thoughts in him which he was not ready to examine, so he turned his attention to the manor behind them and the dining room they'd abandoned.
"We can sleep here tonight, if you want."
Rey lifted a brow. "Leia was pretty clear, Ben. She told us to go."
Yes, his mother had more or less demanded immediate action. Poe had obeyed, returning to Theed immediately to rally what Resistance fighters remained. Chewie had gone too, off to communicate with his family and who knew what else. But Ben's next moves were not so clear, and he knew they'd be useless for complicated planning tonight. He needed a little time to get his bearings and choose the right course of action. Besides, they'd already delayed by accepting the meal the servants had set out for them. Not that either he or Rey had been able to eat much. As the intense, prolonged adrenaline rush of the day finally wore off, it left both of them exhausted and a little sick.
"She'd understand the necessity. When was the last time you slept?" he asked.
She blinked, surprised at first, and then chagrined when her fuzzy mental calculations dredged up a confused and indefinite answer. "Not since before…our practice duel?"
"Longer, I think. We flew with Finn and Rose the morning before." He felt it. The weariness clinging to his bones. More than that, there was a weariness settling into his very soul from so many wrenching emotions tearing through him in one day.
Her eyes widened, and she nodded slowly. "We can't leave tonight. We'd pass out before deciding where to go."
This drew a half-smile from him. "We haven't even decided how we're getting to wherever we're going. So we stay, we sleep, and then tomorrow, we'll make better decisions."
She relaxed. "Good. I was hoping for something like that."
They lapsed into comfortable silence again, neither quite ready to separate for that much-needed rest. Being here together among the shifting gradients of sunset was too good to give up just yet. Ben savored her nearness, her contemplative quiet. When he emerged from his mother's room, she'd wisely left him to his preoccupied thoughts while still allowing her warmth and affection to cocoon him through their undefinable bond. He wasn't alone at any moment, even when she wasn't beside him.
Rey set her forearms on the balcony and examined her bandaged hands. The wrappings she'd tied were stained, but dry. Ben watched her unravel them to reveal a thin, scabbed line of split skin snaking across the backs of her fingers, beneath the second knuckle. It looked deep, like it would scar. She curled her fingers and flexed them again, testing the pain.
Ben reached for her, taking one of her hands and drawing it to him. He traced his thumb lightly across the wound. Goosebumps scattered up her arm and he felt her gaze lift, but he kept his own trained on the injury.
Softly he asked, "Which one of them did this?"
"The — the one with the plasma whip." Rey searched for a name. "Sion?"
He nodded, attention shifting to the cut across her cheek. With his free hand he brushed it the same way. "And this?"
"Also her, I think."
There was one more. He'd noticed it earlier, but did not bend to touch it now. "And the leg?"
"The sister."
He drew in a deep breath, gaze dropping to her fingers once more, fighting back sudden self-loathing. She hadn't been wounded before he left her so outnumbered. His impulsivity, his blind single-mindedness, had spilled her blood. He had allowed them to hurt her.
"Hey," she murmured gently, pulling her hand out of his grasp. "It's fine. I'm fine, we won, and you saved Finn and Rose. That means more to me than these little scrapes."
She said that, but the evidence of his foolishness was spattered across her white clothing. His gaze moved from drop to drop, resenting each one for his role in their existence.
"Stop," she said firmly, stepping in closer so he was forced to focus on her face instead of her clothes. "Enough. You came back for me, that's all I care about. Besides, your relatives gave me some things to change into when they saw these. I hadn't done it yet because I didn't know when Leia would wake up and I wanted to be ready when she did. But I should have, if I'd known it was going to bother you this much."
Ben caught himself mid-smirk, an amusing image passing through his mind of the ornate, elegant dresses worn by the Naberrie women clinging to Rey's lithe, athletic frame in a way no garment had ever done before. "Perhaps it's best you didn't. We wouldn't have known you at all."
"Oh." Rey saw his speculation, and color rose in her cheeks. She backed away from him quickly. "I didn't even look at what they gave me. Well, my other things are on the Falcon. As long as Chewie didn't take it, I can get them."
"I believe he did take it, but I'm certain he'll be back in the morning."
"How do you know?"
"He's not going to leave my mother as easily as that. I believe he'll stay for a while to ensure she isn't lonely."
Rey smiled at this thought, a gentle, affectionate smile that Ben found quite striking. "Yeah, that sounds like him."
Unless she wanted to sleep in blood-soiled clothes, she'd be forced to utilize what the relatives had given her, Ben mused privately. He couldn't reconcile the high fashion of Naboo with scrappy, practical, grease-mynock Rey, and trying to do so gave him a degree of entertainment. Too bad she probably wouldn't let him see whatever it was.
"How did you manage to escape all the fights today without a single scratch?" Rey asked, scrutinizing him with puzzlement.
"I wasn't fighting you."
She rewarded this offhand remark with a surprised cadence of laughter. "Ah, of course. Makes sense."
He played with a mischievous smile, something in his gut twisting with pleasure. "I already suffered injury at the hands of those imbeciles. They'd have succeeded if it weren't for you. Fortunately they weren't able to repeat their performance today."
"Baize's poisoned blade," she remembered, nodding as her gaze flicked to his hidden midsection. "I'd almost forgotten."
"He did get someone with it today, though." He hesitated to remind her, knowing it might put a damper on the pleasant evening if she suddenly started worrying for her friend.
"Finn," she sighed. "I'd forgotten."
"His wound wasn't severe."
"But it won't heal, either. The pathogen will spread. Ben, I think we need to take him back to that moon where I found you. To that village."
It was the same conclusion he'd filed away in the back of his mind the moment he watched Baize plunge his defiled weapon into Finn's shoulder. That was their next step, then. It was a good one, as it allowed him to put off the First Order difficulties a little longer.
"We'll get him there in the morning," he agreed lightly. "He won't die tonight, and he need sleep as much as we do."
"Alright." Rey looked out over the dimming landscape once more. "What about you, Supreme Leader? Don't you need to seize control right now while it's all in chaos?"
"Chaos will work in our favor." He knew what would happen next — rumors and reports of what had happened over Naboo would filter throughout the galaxy, changing with each retelling, becoming more dramatic the further they spread. Reports among the First Order itself would be less romanticized, but misinformation would sow seeds of discord among the upper ranks. Without a clear, strong leader stepping up, they would turn on one another and vie for top position. He could use that to his advantage - play them against one another.
At Rey's inquiring glance, he elaborated. "I'll send conflicting messages to various generals to rendezvous in the Unknown Region. The competition and confusion will buy us time."
A sly grin slid over her face. "They'll think you're trying to sift out the disloyal."
Ben nodded, pleased that she'd so quickly caught on. Once more he toyed with the image of what might have been if she'd accepted his offer aboard the Supremacy and become empress of his empire. Then again, he wouldn't have to imagine for long. She'd be beside him this time as he once more assumed authority. Even if it was only for a short while, she would be his queen.
Rey's complex, prismatic eyes watched him, darkening now in the receding light. Did she see his indulgent thoughts? What did she think of the fierce vision he composed for her?
If she saw, she said nothing, and revealed nothing of her own, but just watched. So many times she'd leveled that same gaze on him with varying levels of malice, or hurt, or empathy. He knew the many moods that shaded those emotive eyes. Tonight, however, her face held something else. It made him want to touch her, to draw her in and perhaps kiss her once more. But he resisted. They'd opened and stepped through that door already, so he wasn't sure why he hesitated. Perhaps because tonight he knew no one would interrupt, and he wasn't sure how far they should go. All of this was so new and so completely overwhelming. He didn't know what he wanted.
Rey didn't know either. He felt in her equal parts yearning and nervousness.
"We should get some sleep," he decided quietly.
A flicker of disappointment passed briefly over her face, but she looked away and nodded. Rey was too practical a person to argue against the logic of this proposal, however much he might wish she would. They both knew it was better this way.
So they left the balcony and the sweet night breezes stirring up over the lake, passing the servants clearing the table, and headed to the rooms the relatives had prepared for them. Leia was in another wing of the manor, a comfortable suite of her own set in a quiet and secluded part of the great house. The Naberrie relatives had a spacious house in Theed where they usually stayed, but the conflict had driven them to another of their country manors, only a mile away, right along the water. It meant that except for the servants, Ben and Rey were entirely and completely alone.
Ben wanted to say something more as they paused at the door to her room, but he couldn't think of anything. What could he say? This was Rey, and all the things she stirred up within him sounded so inadequate when he tried to articulate them.
She grinned, glancing at the door behind her. "Look at that, I'm the one being delivered to my room first tonight. You get to go to yours of your own volition."
His gaze fell to her arm where she no longer sported the wristband that had given her power over his fate. Irrationally, he found himself missing it. That innocuous little band had tied them together, an external manifestation of that internal bond nobody else could see.
"Strange," he replied, "To be allowed to go into a room that won't be locked behind me."
She reached for the handle of her door, offering by way of parting, "Good luck. Be careful of all those rebel assassins who'll be sneaking in to kill the mighty Kylo Ren."
He smirked. "They'll be disappointed. He won't be there."
This made her pause, and she glanced back, surprised. "Oh?"
"That isn't me. That isn't my name." His gaze flashed to hers, cheekiness threatening to break through his careful mask. "Mine's Ben Solo."
Her eyes widened and he felt a rush of pleasure surge through her. To mediate whatever reaction might come after she'd processed this, he bent to gently kiss her cheek and whisper, "Goodnight, Rey from Jakku."
He felt her stare follow him as he turned and headed off to his own room.
A/N: But wait, there's more! Another mini-chapter will be up in the morning. They wanted to be split, even though I intended to post them together. As always, thanks for your lurvley reviews!
And Ori - I appreciate the thoughtful questions and feedback. I do have answers for you, but I'll mostly save them until the end of this fic in case you find some answers in the next couple chapters. For now I'll just say in brief that I believe the new trilogy is trying to demonstrate that light =/= good and dark =/= bad. "Balance" is therefore achieved when Ben and Rey learn to draw upon both sides of the Force as needed, ultimately to be agents of good. The light is all about temperance, compassion, wisdom, discernment, fairness. The dark is all about emotion and passion, strength, decisive action, control. By utilizing both, Ben and Rey both become balanced within themselves and balanced with each other. Although Ben may be on the side of good now, it doesn't negate his natural inclinations to darkside tendencies, and those dark leanings don't make him bad. And yeah, he's still trying to find himself. He clings to the identity Rey gives him at the moment because that's the only thing he's certain of. Everything he thought he was has been dumped upside down so he's trying to figure out who he's gonna be now.
Well, that was more long-winded than I intended. Sorry! I think I could write a whole blog post about my take on the whole Star Wars fairytale and the Ren/Rey Yin-Yang balance, but this isn't the place for it. We'll discuss more at the end of this fic. But thanks for your feedback! I love digging around the sandpit of Reylo and uncovering new ideas and perspectives.
Also I've upgraded the rating of this fic to "T" because these characters seem to want to go some lime-y routes. I'm not big into smut though so I'll keep it light lime.