"He shall endure, by coming in the flesh
To a reproachful life, and cursed death;
Proclaiming life to all who shall believe"
- John Milton, Paradise Lost
There is blood on her hands.
There is blood on her skin and her lips, dripping onto her once pristine gown, falling like rose petals to the fresh green earth she has created. No matter how many centuries he has existed, Bane never tires of this sight. It is a cleansing, a rebirth that can only come from pain, from embracing one's true self. He remembers his own day, how thoughts of his bastard father gave way to the rage that shaped the Sith he would become. Revan's holocron, a long-dead ghost of immeasurable power, and the half-extinguished spirit of Vitiate were his initiators, and they did their job without hesitation. One he has taken the mantle of for innumerable others.
Through pain we gain strength. That is the Sith way.
The blood runs in rivers down her cheeks and strikes the ground, sparking flames which light and extinguish in the breadth of heartbeats, with the age of whole systems. Some settle on mossy clumps like liquid jewels, ruby red and containing the pigment of her eyes. Perhaps they still see, the shiny surface of each droplet holding the refection of the universe. She is blind and she is omniscient. This is the terror of the moment and the beauty, opposite extremes that combine in what the Dark side must exist for. This tenuous balance. This lust and teetering desire caught on the tip of a knife's edge.
Bane watches it all in adoration; her so-called husband—Ben—in horror, as her eyes' true color is revealed.
It's so easy, Bane thinks. As if she was made for it. Even Magess, who wanted it above all else—who Bane broke personally—it took days of exposing all his memories of how his family lived, of how they died, erasing the good to raise up the bad like waking dreams that he relived for hours over; of his planet burning, his mother's hair, Luke Skywalker's voice. All this effort before the colors left him eventually. There was more Light in him than even Magess knew, and certainly more than he wanted to admit. There are some souls who are not made for this, and some who are.
Bane is looking at a natural.
"That's it," he soothes. "Feel your anger. It gives you purpose, makes you stronger."
"Rey!" her husband pleads. "Don't listen, please." He kneels before her, hands cupping her face as the pouring blood singes his palms. Smoke rises, the sweet scent of burning flesh. "I know it hurts," he says, "but you must fight it. This is not who you are; he's only lying—"
She lashes out, eyes still closed; her body folds in on itself, unmoving. The last living Skywalker is thrown back with the pulse of a violent boom through the Force. He disappears amongst a copse of trees, the crack of breaking wood and dull thud of something decidedly more human ringing out.
Bane approaches; he crouches down, reveling in the feel of almost-flesh, a growing weight. There is so much wild energy emanating from her, he is absorbing it just by being near. She is a miracle, he thinks. His miracle.
His Rey.
"My darling," he whispers. He is more than lover now. He is her vassal, her bound hierophant. "I can feel what you feel. You are tired, so very tired, aren't you, Rey? All the ones who have tried to control you. They don't understand. Let them hear you."
Her mouth opens wide and a feral scream escapes. It echoes through the Force, to the core of the planet, to the stars up above. The ground shakes and splinters; there is a growing rumbling overhead as clumps of rock start falling down. The stone walls of the tomb cry out in chorus, living and non-living; all must succumb. The weight of the very air channels to a frequency of near-perfect rage. With an exhale, the ceiling breaks wide open. The cold black of the sky blankets them, tiny pinpricks of light woven into its fabric, and then their bed begins stir.
On her next breath, the ground is moving, roots sprouting up. They climb from the mouth of the great fissure she has bestowed. Like a laceration healing too fast, a tree replaces the damaged black rocky flesh. Huge and ugly and filled with hurt; this is its water and her rage is sunlight, and the tree grows up into the still night sky, growing and growing until all is consumed and the time of day has been swallowed like a secret.
Somewhere in this forest of Dark's blessed creation, Bane can feel a futile struggle. Her husband is trying to reach her, like a fool, arrogant to think he can fight his way back and put a stop to what must be, what must be done. You think you can save her? The stars are crowing from the heavens. The universe is shaking. Bane can feel it, yes. The fleet that accompanied Magess, even they cannot be spared. Rey's branches are reaching out, tugging ships from their orbit. They did this, they are the ones. So wise and so innocent, darling girl. Let them feel you. Share your hurt.
The heat of an explosion as a star destroyer crashes and Bane is replenished by thousands of dying souls. Each final cry of pain is a strengthening elixir, a rare and precious spirit to be savored. Yet her pain is the most exquisite of all.
Bone deep-suffering and this fire will burn for eons, for longer than this planet itself has stood. The noise is a howling, animal thing. His flesh warms with its sound, its bleeding heart. He is remade by the destruction only she can deliver, goddess of Life, devourer of Light. Drink and be merry. Be misery. Drink and drink and drink some more.
Not enough.
"What do you want?" Bane says. His hand, now fully corporeal, skims up a smooth cheek, a finger gathering the red wetness of her tears and bringing it to his lips. He has not tasted anything in over a millennium, but her blood was worth the wait. "Look at me, Rey."
Her eyes open to reveal a burning gold, brighter than any he has ever seen. None were made for the Dark such as this. He is lost to their terrifying beauty.
To her.
"Tell me," he says.
"I won't be hurt." Her voice trembles as a frightened girl. Her eyes glow with the powerful woman who slept inside, finally waking; he feels her growing stronger with each beat of his new heart. "I won't let them hurt me again."
He leans his head against her own, relishing the regained sensation of touch as he feels the weight of her skull pressing back. "Never," he agrees.
And, like any man in love, he means it.
I'm ready to die, Alec thinks.
His throat is crushed and he can't move, wrapped up in vines and now twisted amongst large tree roots that seem never to stop growing. He heard her pain, saw the Force go mad as she screamed loud enough to tear apart the skies and turn the ground sick. All that time it was there and he only stoked it as a fading fire. What was at his fingertips he let die. She was strong and he was weak. She was not in love with him, never capable of returning that which he thought real. What is love? What is anything? He is a broken man and a failure as a Sith.
If he sees Kylo, he will spit at him and smile. You did this. This is all your fault. Enjoy your suffering as your wife destroys the universe.
I will die petty. That is something, he thinks.
He hurts and he cannot move and there is only thick foliage around. He saw a copse grow as Kylo groped her ripe body. Then they were gone and who knows what happened next, how far it went, that it was enough to make her go crazy as this.
Even I was not that bad. Ha!
He will smile. He must laugh. Who, in their dying moments, only cries must be tragic and pitied, and that is not him. There is nothing left to do but let the plants have their way. How long since he has felt a loving caress. Held a woman's body who let him hold it, gave herself to him. He would give back, always a generous lover, if they knew, if they understood. He would take for there would always be taking but he could show so many ways to feel good.
Idiot. Accept your fate.
Let Rey's magic embrace send him to the other side. Fuck this wretched life out of me. Squeeze tight until the hurting stops.
Alec closes his eyes. He waits. Moments pass, and he grows bored again. He looks and the plants around him move, not in life. The Force is tearing them apart. They are wrenched from the earth. Small trees are brought down. A red light glows and slashes through their bigger cousins and thickest bushes and he knows that sound. He fucking knows it.
A red blade slices through the last few branches and emerges, hissing and spitting mad, and its owner, not so mad, not so anything.
Kylo stands with the body of Malaak slung across his back. "Can you stand?" he says to Alec. "Can you walk?"
I cannot talk, you kriffing fool.
Kylo senses his answer and gives a vague smile. "I like you better this way."
Alec does not censor his thoughts as Kylo cuts him loose.
Turns out Alec can walk but not very well.
Kylo half-drags, half-carries him through Rey's gone-mad forest, Malaak still slung across his other shoulder and his saber in one hand.
You always were freakishly strong, Alec grumbles to himself and Kylo hums and huffs but says nothing. He has a specific destination in mind, and he is focusing all of his immense power to get them there.
They reach what used to be a wall of the temple and Kylo follows it until he finds an opening. Through it, the passageways are pitch black but mostly free of vines, and Kylo seems to know where he is now.
"Not much further," he says.
Alec is suddenly flung through a doorway and dropped on the floor. Malaak is gently laid like a sleeping maiden beside him.
Where are we? Alec thinks.
Kylo's saber illuminates close walls and a low ceiling. "Antechamber." He hands the hilt to Alec and says, "Guard Malaak. I'll be right back."
Alec switches off the saber as soon as Kylo is gone. He ponders killing Malaak but where is the fun if the brute is unconscious and no one else is around to see? He ponders killing himself but that would be too easy. He could kill Malaak and then himself and make it look like it was self-defense. Ha! He's really losing it; Kylo would never believe that. Perhaps he could kill Kylo instead. But Kylo can't be killed. Alec's tried that already. Rey brought him back or Kylo's undead or immortal. They're so fucking weird and overpowered, he feels sick. Kylo's blood was black; he saw it. Why didn't he kill them then?
"A little light, please."
Kylo's voice startles him out of his murderous thoughts. It startles him entirely and he drops the saber before finding it to reignite.
This time Kylo has Ersn and Vadanav over each shoulder, both unconscious as well. He sets them down beside Malaak, and Alec has the thought:
What about Pular?
"He's…" Kylo pauses. "You don't know?"
I can't sense him, Alec thinks. I can't—
"Watch them all," Kylo says and disappears once more.
He's dead, Alec thinks. Fuck. Pular's dead.
He's dead. It feels like Alec killed him and he doesn't know why, he was stuck on the other side of an abyss half-buried in rock; it was nothing to do with him and yet it was. He did this. He—
He sees Kylo enter now, the saber still on and casting his tall figure in a demonic red glow. In his arms he holds the dead body of Pular. Alec knows, can see, can feel. Kylo holds him like a child, cradles him close as he kneels down.
What happened? Alec thinks.
Rey.
Kylo does not say the word. It hurts when he thinks the name and Alec feels it too, such intense pain and regret he is returned tied to his bed in a hut by Luke's cursed temple. The moment he woke to find Ben Solo above him, who promised all he yearned. Revenge. Retribution. Finally action.
Fuck.
Kylo holds Pular like his own dead child. He places a palm to a pale cheek and looks into empty unseeing eyes. Alec wants to look away. He wants to be sleeping too like his more fortunate brothers who still live.
Can you save him? he thinks. Make him live. This was all my fault.
"Quiet," Kylo whispers. "Let me concentrate." He closes his eyes and moves his hand to Pular's chest. He breathes in and breathes out; Alec cannot breathe at all.
Are you—?
No. I do not have the power to reverse death. But Death is my power. It will heed to me. Pular—
Kylo is mumbling now in ancient tongues, a soft gray haze emitting around him and the boy's tragic corpse.
What are you? Alec thinks. What are you doing? This is wrong. This is cursed. Not the Dark but the Light, beyond life and taunting death. You are a demon.
Abomination, I've been told.
The Light still glows, the gray almost white now. Kylo's eyes open and Pular's close. They blink! He moves and sits up.
Oh my gods, oh my gods, you did—!
"You're still dead," Kylo tells the boy. "I'm sorry, Pular. How do you feel?"
"Where am I?" Pular speaks; he fucking speaks!
"Bane's temple on Moraband. You were mortally wounded. But the rest still live."
Pular looks around the darkened room, half cast in shadow, half bathed in red light. His clever cat's eyes land on Alec.
"You're okay?" he says and smiles.
Not devious or ruthless but a child's. Loving and pure. Still kept in innocence.
"He cannot talk," Kylo explains. "His throat got hurt."
"And the rest?"
"Just sleeping. What do you remember?" Kylo says. "I have not done this before."
What did you do?!
"I… I remember the fight. I remember stabbing you. I remember hatred and pain. The Force was Dark and it was angry and I could not be sated; it was poison to me."
"Not anymore." Kylo helps Pular stand; the corpse is walking now. "You may go to him. Tell me what you feel when you do."
Alec lies slumped against a wall as Pular carefully approaches. He kneels down beside him. "You're scared."
You were dead! Alec thinks.
"He still is. Understand this is just his soul occupying his body. His flesh has died but it can still be used."
"You use me?" Pular says.
"No, I mean… you were gone too soon. You went too quickly. To the Dark. To a life wasted in hatred and cruelty."
Pular seems to accept this without argument. He turns to Alec. "I remember you," the boy tells him. "When you first arrived; you were beautiful."
I'm so sorry—
"I wish you could talk." He touches Alec's face with both his hands and Alec feels the Force flow between them. "This is my gift; to absorb," Alec grows weaker, "but what if I…?"
"I always wondered," Kylo says, "if you could use the reverse."
"May I?"
Alec is about to pass out but has enough strength to nod at least. Pular leans closer. "It was always one way, wasn't it?" His eyes are ancient as an elder. His girlish mouth parts and delicate lips press to Alec's own.
The kiss is clumsy and inexperienced, cold as death and hungry for love. Alec feels it pour in, all of it, the Force like fresh water, quenching every hurt, cleansing everything.
You could do this? You could always do this?
Why can't I love you? Why can't I love anything?
Alec gasps when it is over. Pular pulls back and wipes his mouth. "Oh well."
"Nothing to say?" Kylo says.
Alec is coughing. He cannot catch his breath. "Fuck… you." He can talk?!
"Amazing. That was amazing, Pular."
Alec is still sure he is going to faint as Pular and Kylo descend into a painfully boring analysis of the mechanics of the Force and what it could mean and was there a reference in that long-forgotten text—
"Who gives a kriff?" Alec snaps.
"Why is he yelling?" Malaak groans, sitting up from the floor. "What were we drinking last night? I haven't felt this bad since—"
"What the—" Vadanav is awake now, scrambling backwards into a wall as he sees Kylo, then Malaak. "Ow! Fuck! Ow!"
"How about everyone stop yelling?" Ersn says, arm slung across his yes.
Alec looks to Kylo and sees him smile. "You woke them all up on purpose, you evil bastard."
"It seemed like the right time."
Alec forgot that it used to be like this:
A barrage of cursing (mostly Malaak) and threats of violence (also Malaak but mostly aimed at Vadanav) as the remaining knights regain their bearings and Kylo fills them in.
It takes Kylo's usual authoritative tone and judicious use of the Force to regain order. It has been a strange other lifetime since they have all been together and now they hang caught on Kylo's every word, trapped by the light of his saber and rendered ominously quiet by a story that sounds like it should not be true.
But it is. All of it. Why else are they here?
Kylo falls silent once more as the knights digest all they have heard. Each looks to the other while Alec stares at Pular. The boy is so alert, how can he not still be alive?
Pular catches him staring and gives a sad smile.
"So." It is Vadanav who breaks the soundless respite first. "Let me get this straight. We killed you, you… put yourself back together and came to rescue the Jedi—except now she's gone crazy and is trying to destroy everything."
"It's Bane's fault!" Malaak barks. "He sent me to find him," he throws a great big paw in the direction of Kylo. "He wanted him here, all the Lords did—"
"And you were happy to obey," Ersn murmurs. "Always the faithful lapdog. First Kylo, now Bane—"
"Traitor!" Malaak shouts and starts to lunge when Pular (or Pular's body or what used to be Pular—Alec doesn't know anymore) steps between them and gently lays a hand on a thick forearm. The larger man slumps, instantly drained of the Force. "This isn't helping," Pular says. He looks to Kylo. "What aren't you telling us?"
Clever Pular, Alec thinks. Lying Kylo. Nothing has changed.
Kylo knows it as well and sinks down to rest on his haunches, staring at his blade as it skims the chamber's dirt floor. "Bane gave her back her memories. All of them. Things she had hidden away from herself. Where she came from and what she is. How I…" he is lost to the rhythm of the flickering red glow. "How I helped make her." Kylo reaches out with his mind and, for a moment, Alec and the rest can see what he did: the scared little girl, the deformed baby. The parents who cast her aside like garbage. And the unwitting role a ten-year-old boy played in it all.
Something inside Alec cracks open. A small fissure that leads to a deep well.
"And now she's turned," Pular says softly. Kylo looks up, startled. "There's no need to say it," he is the youngest amongst them but the wisest by far. "It is written on your face."
"I watched her eyes bleed out," Kylo tells them; pain inside Alec begins to unfurl like Rey's possessed vines. He remembers his own time far too well; he would never have wished it on her.
"Kylo…" Pular says. "We all did this. To you. To her." Alec can see the crease in the young man's brow, as dead flesh and living soul struggle to understand. "Should we not feel your anger? Should you not seek revenge on us?"
Revenge on me, Alec thinks. You are dead now Pular and I must pay. What has been done to the woman he once perceived to love is splitting the fissure inside him; it grows and the well is exposed. I would end me now. I would hate me. I would burn my family's planet to a charred lump of rock.
The hissing of Kylo's saber sounds like the internal tearing Alec hides. They all wait for Kylo's answer as he rises once more.
"There has been too much revenge," he tells them and his gaze pauses on Alec like he can see through his skin. "It was I who failed you. I led you all here and this is your chance to escape. To choose wherever your heart may be swayed."
I hate you, Alec thinks. "Terrible speech," he says.
Kylo looks amused while Malaak is predictably enraged. "Shut it, Magess!" The rest ignore him.
"We should go while we still can," Vadanav says. (On some caustically selfish and pragmatic level, he might really be the wisest.) "We were lucky to make it out alive before."
Pular gives a small shrug as if to say, not all of us. (Stupid and tactless Vadanav, Alec thinks. Fucking idiot.)
Who's to say she won't follow? Ersn speaks into their minds and Alec knows that he heard the unvoiced slight to his lover. She has her own reasons for revenge.
"It's a death sentence," Alec says from his spot against the wall. (Vadanav wasn't wrong but it doesn't mean that he's right.) "This mission. There will be no coming back." Alec assesses Kylo as he talks and he knows Kylo knows it as well. "Even you, the freak who controls death—you can't do this alone. You don't know Bane as I do. He's been waiting for this. For something powerful enough to bring him back. He won't let us near her. There are things in this place you can't even imagine. He'll die before he'll let you get close."
"Then we must kill him first," Kylo says.
"Why are we talking like this is an option?" Vadanav says, as if he's not already made his point. "Ersn," he starts to stand, but Ersn is staring at Alec and Kylo.
"There might be a way," Pular says. "Together."
"This is madness," Vadanav mutters, sitting back beside his lover.
"It is honor," Malaak says. Of course it is to the honorable brute.
Kylo looks to them all.
"You must make your own choice," he says. "I have made mine. A Sith Lord, the oldest and the most dangerous, has my pregnant wife. This is personal for me. I'm going to fight to save her and my unborn child and I will die if I must. You don't have to help me for them. But there is something more."
Truly, a terrible speech, Alec thinks and he knows what is coming next but he waits. All of them do. They have been here before.
His brothers are gathered around the light of his saber. Each face is rapt and eager and he remembers when they used to meet like this, elicit nights stolen together in the hollow of a tree, in a cold dank cave, warmed only by their breaths and their shared desire for knowledge, for something better, something greater than the tired teaching of the Jedi. Of even the Sith.
No one way of thinking has ever appealed to him. No one way to live. Truth comes first and it must guide everything. Truth and understanding then exploration and more learning. We are born in ignorance; we live in ignorance. All my life I have failed to see.
I see you now.
Pular sits with arms wrapped around his knees. His dead eyes reflect the light back, quiet and waiting; you were always this way. The smartest and the youngest. We could've talked for hours. You could've showed me things that I could not see. How to love with an undemanding heart. To give yourself completely and ask for nothing in return.
Ersn and Vadanav lounge to Pular's right. He can see their hands stretched out together, little fingers almost touching, touching yes and pulling back. All the signs were there but I did not look for them. Why was I not interested in these seeds of love? They could've set you free; they could have saved you.
Malaak is digging through a bag, already eager for battle. He has found the stash of weapons hidden here before he was betrayed and knocked out and carried into the temple. Still searching for his precious plasma canon, he claims to somewhat remember but barely to mind, his heart untainted, unwounded, impenetrable and strong. You said you were hurt once and closed yourself off but it's not true. You are just stronger than the wound, stronger than heartbreak because you love and you love freely and you accept love in return. Thank you, my dear Malaak.
Only Alec stands, arms crossed as he leans against a wall. My brother. Blond and beautiful again, the opposite of me, honest to the fault of lying, brave to the foolishness of treason. You have no limits, no limitations, just desires. A sense of justice. A longing for love. You knew it once. You had a family and they cared for you. You would die for them. Die for the things you love. Die for nothing. I should have saved you. I should have helped you then, not succumbed to my own petty hurts and led you down this path.
"One time I promised you we would make something better, but I fucked it up; it is the Skywalker way. But it's not too late, it is never too late, and no situation is more dire. You can go or you can stay with me." His eyes burn with all the words that will remain unsaid between them. "Follow me one last time, my brothers. It is time to remake the galaxy."
Do you understand? Do you hear my thoughts?
Malaak kneels before him. "You do not have to ask, my Lord."
"Stand up and do not call me that."
"What should we call you then?" Alec says, but the rest stand too and they are looking at him.
You already know my name. You always did, he thinks.
Kylo Ren was never real.
He studies his saber for a moment. Slowly, seamlessly, the flickering red flame changes to a cool, calm blue as the crystal inside matches the beat of his heart. His brothers stare in wonder as he smiles.
"Ben," he tells them, his face bathed in soft light. "I am only Ben."