Author Comment: Hello fellow reylos! Sorry for my long absence! I imagine I may have lost some motivation for the story but mostly life just happened. Anyways before the movie comes out, I want to post everything I have written so far. So, no regrets whatever happens 😊 Besides this chapter there is another one that is not finished and then 2 others that are loosely related. But it may give some kind of closure. I am not saying I am giving up or finishing it, it will all depend on the outcome of the movie. Anyways I love you all and wish you a great TROS! May our prince not die and live happily ever after with Rey 😉
He looked at the sink waiting for the girl to close the washroom's door. His fist clenched and he visualized blasting the wall where she was just standing into space. Ren had to picture his dying father and bring forth several gruesome details to ease the stiffness in his groin. His fingers still reached for silky skin and malleable soft curves. It was incredibly hard to return dominance over his burning flesh, but he had to appear as detached as usual. He was close now…she would soon crumble and give in to the darkness consuming her. This newly discovered attraction between them he could use to his advantage after all. Primal desires were the pulsing core of the dark side. As his efforts to conquer or recruit her were failing he could still pull her to discover his world, taste the power of darkness, and maybe then…Only then could she decide to finally join of her own will. A teacher and a pupil, a master and an apprentice; and after he took his rightful place…the possibilities were endless for what they could accomplish together.
There was something inside her, the hidden seed of passion. It took some time to discover but he dug in and uncovered her weakness. The way to get to the black hole in her defense. He was out of his mind to attempt such unorthodox techniques to rile her up but he had noticed how she had looked at him after the shower, the barely suppressed tension like a compressed charge ready to burst, her enquiring gaze exploring new territory. The Jedi ways haven't taken root in her yet or she rebuked them?
Himself he hadn't been able to ignore his bodily needs back when he was a padawan. The shadowed side of the force though welcomed passion and nurtured it, the more it grew the stronger the bond and addiction to the darkness were. Now he saw it, she craved the forbidden to the Jedi pleasures, she craved him.
Her shared dreams and visions had been proof enough. He pressed his lips. The feeling was far from dissimilar he had to admit, every time they met the hunger grew, the more irresistible it became to take her. But he had to play it safe, she had to remain with him longer, he shouldn't push her off. Their fits and catfights on the shuttle were intensely annoying and maddening but also stimulating him in ways he had never known. He hated and loved it. Like the tines of a silver fork he wanted to tear her apart, get to her core, turn it around.
There was only a day left before they reached Coruscant; when he had to let her go. He had come up with a loose plan in the last couple of days. He would exploit her craving for the forbidden; he had to make it work. He also couldn't allow her to mess up with his mind again, he couldn't allow himself the remorse she summoned from his dreams.
The longer he stayed within the strange light she cast the further he was exposed and infected by pity and regret. The whispers of the Sith lords and his own master had all but faded leaving only a nauseating whirlpool of doubt swirling in his mind. It had led him to commit a deed…an act too close to treason.
He tried to get his body under control, he didn't know how far he could bring his plan; the electric storm raging inside him may not be contained next time. If she kept trying up stunts like tonight, sucking on his digit; he twitched at the memory, the sweat barely cooling on his brow… He couldn't give in before binding her to the dark side. No, she had to be his before this madness developed further.
He waited until she was out of the bathroom, sat himself on the training mat in his quarters and left the door open. He had made the preparations for the demonstration. Bringing out an ancient relic he had been initiated with back on Moraband when he had been a silly youth like her. In the barely lit by the red panels open space lay arranged a camtono with floating above it a swirling obsidian sphere of around 30 cm in diameter; speckles of gold piercing tiny holes beneath its shifting surface. He stilled his excitement at the view of the relic. The dark aura he expelled was highly intoxicating, feeding the always hungry for the force shining sphere. He swept his curls behind his ears and waited.
In an hour or so, longer than he anticipated, her auburn head peeked out of the doorframe, reminding him of a critter fearing a trap. Come my rabbit.
"What is this?" – her apprehensive voice resonated from the door. Ben kept his gaze on the bulging sphere and answered calmly.
"The other side of the force. True power. Come, see for yourself."
She scoffed loudly and made to leave but he felt her reticence, too curious to leave, too scared to approach.
"You fear?" he asked "No harm will come to you, I promise."
He allowed his gaze to study her, to beckon her. She stood proud, preparing for another fight as her eyes met his, but when they glued to the spinning wonder she froze.
"Come sit Rey" he called her as gently as possible.
Rey did. She reached immediately towards the object, but he prevented her by grabbing her fingers lightly squeezing them before she sat down. Her illuminated by crimson and gold profile was terribly lovely. Wide eyes studying in fascination the ever-changing surface of the sphere. The reflection of the speckles in her clean pupils glistening. He wanted so much to see through her eyes, to know what she saw, how she felt. She must be livid at him. He wanted to pull away all that frustration by kissing her senseless. He shook himself out of the reverie and went on to activate the relic infusing it with his force.
Just like on Moraband it started with whispers. Long dead barely-there words passing though her mind, then the gloom of a thick fog and an eternal nightfall engulfed her. The speckles of gold were reflecting like capsules of light, floating in the air in this cocoon. Strangely she wasn't bothered this time, the terror of the unknown had turned into curiosity, a desire to understand some hidden truth. This warm comfortable embrace of belonging brought her souvenirs of the Ancients' temple on Ahch-To. How at ease she had felt there, like a dear place she had visited before but couldn't remember any more. Rey felt she could touch the sky, but a sky that was upside down. It was an underground where things died and decayed, seeped into and fueled a new force, a new life. She was in the fog, but she was also the fog, the earth and the gloom. She was buried, her essence spreading around. Beyond the darkness, surrounding her, there were always the particles of light, her companions, brimming with new life. But what would that life be without an end, without the suffering, the obstacles? Without the fight to live, there was no meaning in being alive.
She swam in the pitch-dark earth, saw the bones of every living creature that has ever existed, felt the pain but also the peace of death, of ending that brough renewal. Some part of her was still struggling against the idea of being transformed into naught but grains of sand, that the earth had swallowed her, that the sun was far, her breath no more. But it felt so right at the same time, this primal sensation enveloping her so close to the core of creation, the secrets of life and death, the endless infinite power that knowledge granted. And there were the speckles of gold as companions, they danced and appeared as if from thin air. Rey thought they rained from above as they got absorbed into the warm moist gloom tiny explosions of energy resounded everywhere releasing so much force her essence gulped it down like precious water. And then they reappeared like grains moving up and up seeking to become again. Being immersed into this mystical beautiful cycle of life filled her with serenity and peace and she craved to remain in it forevermore bathing in its virtue. But she was a simple visitor. Her time was over.
She slowly felt being pulled to her physical self, sitting on a metal floor in a man-made shuttle flying in deep space. The only life form present for eons around crouched so close to her, burning her senses like a thousand suns, so bright it shadowed the infinite speckles of life around.
Inspecting carefully her serene expression, the slight turn of the corners of her lips, the shadow of her fluttering lashes as she came back to the present, Ren wondered what she had seen. Was that how he had looked the first time he experienced the relic? He was anxious to ask her but willed himself to wait until she was ready.
"It is beautiful…" she murmured as she looked at him or more like through him.
He swallowed, remembering his experience. Had it been like this for him…beautiful? Had it felt that serene? The aftermath of the initiation had changed his views of the force irreversibly.
"I can show you so much more. How to tap into it when you need it. How to draw this power as you want."
Her eyes glazed in excitement.
"There is so much of it! So much power. It is endless. Enough to…to help everyone, everything."
He felt her hope through the bond, a shining beacon. His brows furrowed. It had been for his young self an awakening to the presence to the dark side of the force, its omnipresence…sickly sweet murmurs of greatness encompassing it all. But had it been hopeful?
Nonetheless he was elated to be able to share this unique discovery of the mystic forces that drove this world. Finally, someone who could relate! No Hux, nor knights of soldiers not even Snoke had passed through such an experience. He had been alone in his awakening.
"Rey… tell me more. What did you see inside? What did it show you?" he leaned forward waiting on her words like a revelation from a prophet.
Her eyes bore into his, sparkling with energy he had never seen in her before.
"I was inside and…I don't know where. In the fog, no…in the ground, in the earth. There were these whispers at first, but they faded. It was so vast. And the sprinkles felt like rain, they shone bright then got absorbed, they died…I think. But it wasn't the end. They fed the ground and then flew up starting over and over. I was there…not my body but my essence, my senses were part of them…"
There was a long pause as she spaced out and he digested her revelation.
"What about you Ben? How was it for you? This darkness, it is not at all what I feared…did you know all this time…how important it is?"
His heart gave a painful pang as he struggled with the doubt her word spurred in him. Before he could stop it, the souvenirs came back and he uttered:
"I remember being under in a bottomless abyss, it was comforting…an embracing shadow, but it didn't scare me. And I saw the lights too…but I… master Snoke, he was with me through it all, in my head, like he always was. Like he still is, though I learnt how to keep him at bay. I was happy there, I recall. Felt the majesty of it, imagined it may mean something these dots of energy transforming. But he pulled me back, explained they were but particles of power that the dark side granted to those that pledged themselves to it. The starlight was to be destroyed and collected…and used. Against the enemies of the new order…You know you can only see it once. I cannot access it anymore."
His conflicting emotions gave in and he simply stared at the relic, reliving this part of his dark initiation. The rest had been worse…so much worse. He looked down. No, he couldn't go there. This had been about her, about luring her in. Had he succeeded?
He shifted his gaze and met her lively one, her brow slightly wrinkled as she studied him, thankfully remaining silent.
"If you want to explore further…the possibilities you witnessed come with me tomorrow. To Coruscant. It is a giant city, many places and things I can show you. Many ways you can exercise your abilities. Sleep on it and let me know as we arrive in the morning."
She bit her lip hesitating.
"and Rey…I would be…happy if you accompany me." The words forced themselves out of his lips as he tried hard to still his features.
She didn't answer but nodded and stood up leaving the room as she gave a last lingering look at the spinning mystical relic.
As she left, he remained a long time staring blankly at the dying and resurrecting particles in the abyss of the sphere.