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Disclaimer: I do not and nor have I ever owned Star Wars. I simply play in their world.
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Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away...
Rey
I awoke in darkness, the cold kiss of the wind making me shiver as I sat up, rubbing my arms.
I am not where I am suppose to be.
The shadows sway all around me and there is a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me that I need to get as far away from this place as possible.
If I had to put a name to it I would call this place...evil.
A seething mass of hatred and muted fury that is everywhere.
My heart is a frantic beat beneath my ribs, a thunderous echo in my mind.
I'm on my feet, everything that is within me telling me to run, run and don't look back.
Fear locks my throat and I cannot move and there is something waiting for me in this darkness...a presence that watches me with a calculating hunger that terrifies me.
"Who...are you?" Sibilant words from a shattered voice that resounds all around me.
Who are you?
Who are you?
My teeth ache, clenched in an effort not to speak.
"Answer...me. Who...are you?"
Answer me. Who are you?
Answer me. Answer me.
I clamp my hand over my ears, feeling tainted by this voice that echos with a hundred dying screams through my mind.
I will not answer this voice. I will not tell...it...who I am.
"Strong...you are. To have...come...this far."
Strong.
Strong.
I don't want to be here and a rage like nothing I have ever known wells up in me and I scream my defiance.
Blue lightning rakes through the air, the smell of charred ozone in its wake.
Harsh laughter, a blend of evil and malicious glee, follows quickly after.
"Good! Again! Give in!"
Again. Again.
Give in...Give in.
I'm being pulled in, I can't move and I can't cry out or that...thing...will devour me.
I am so cold...crystals in my blood, my breath coming out in jagged gasps.
"Rey. Stop."
Tears freezing on my face at the sound of his voice.
His darkness I know. It is not the cold, empty void around me. It is the sweet caress of night, a thousand stars spilled across the endless sky.
"R-Ren..."
I barely get his name out from my clenched lips when another, enraged scream tears from my throat and the sky crawls with blue lightning.
"Another...arrives..."
Another. Another.
Warmth flowing into me, the heat of his body pressed against my back. I feel his arm around my waist, his gloved hand across my mouth.
"Don't listen to the voice Rey. Fight it."
I want to tell him I trying, but I can't.
I feel like I'm dying in this place and I've never been so scared.
"Familiar...you are...who are...you?"
Familiar.
Who are you.
Who are you.
But Ren doesn't answer and I feel him pulling me step by agonizing step from this place.
"Don't answer. Listen to me. Hear only me."
Soft words with his absolute will behind them and I feel the overwhelming grip of fear loosen around my constricted heart.
I move my lips against leather and feel his hand retreat.
His warmth, the solid feel of his strength around me, anchors my soul.
"Ren...how..."
But another voice answers, the howl of trapped souls tearing at my mind in his response.
"I...sense...Skywalker blood..."
I am shaking so hard I can barely stand and Ren is practically dragging me now.
Why am I so helpless here? What is it about this place that leaves me unable to act?
"I have you. I'm not going to leave you."
I cling to the sound of his voice, my shield against the madness that surrounded us.
How did that...thing...I couldn't call it a person...know about Ren's parentage?
"Where," knives in my throat, cutting myself on every word I speak, "are we?"
I can barely hear my voice and I wonder if Ren heard me.
"In a nightmare."
This was a dream...not a dream, as he said, a nightmare.
"Whose?"
The silence stretches and I want to ask again...but then I sense why he does not speak.
Someone...no something is listening to every word we speak.
A touch of his gloved finger to my lips and I just barely nod my head in understanding.
He'll answer me, but only after we get the hell out of this place.
I lift my head and see the gleam of obsidian flames in his dark gaze.
He will not abandon me here, surrounded by darkness, to save himself.
The fear that chained my mind snaps in the wake of this thought and the trembling of my bones ceases.
His tight grip around my waist loosens, I don't know how he knew the change in me, but I am able to stand on my own two feet again.
I am still terrified but no longer paralyzed by it.
I am reaching for his hand, the shadows move in a frenzy now, and I don't have to go far to reach him.
He was reaching for me too.
Our hands clasp and that murderous voice in the pulsing shadows lets out a scream that makes my skin crawl.
"Let's get out of here."
If I ever questioned if there was true evil in the galaxy, this place has erased that doubt. I want no part of it.
"Nooo...noooo...I will not let you leave."
Will not leave.
Will not leave.
"Look at me."
I lift my gaze to Ren, somehow able to see him so clearly in this black void.
He lifts his other hand to me and we press both of our hands together, palm to palm.
I can...feel him, inside of me. I have to bite my lip to stop myself from crying in pleasure. He is sweet, caressing darkness and I can feel the fractures of light in him as well.
My terror...my helpless rage...somehow he is taking them from me.
Leaving only peace and a clarity of mind within me. A buffer of strength that pushes back the darkness.
His breathing changes, a harsh ragged sound that reminds me of myself when I awoke in this place.
He is exchanging my fear for his strength and paying the price for it.
"Ren," I interlock our fingers, I won't let go of him, "stop."
"Find...the light Rey...it will guide you-"
An agonized cry from him and I see the blood spill from where he has bitten through his lip.
"I'm not leaving you here. You're coming with me."
"Skywalker...I will have the blood...of Skywalker..."
Screaming wind that buffets me, trying to dig icy claws into my skin, tearing at me to get to Ren.
"I won't let you have him!"
Cruel laughter, malicious and vile washes over me and I feel Ren trembling.
"Foolish child...he is already...mine..."
"No! Never!"
I feel the kiss of fetid breath on my skin and I close my eyes and focus on the one thing, the only thing that matters to me.
Ren.
He took my fear for a reason. To find the light...
Of course. All of this chaos and fear, the Dark Side of the Force.
I closed my eyes and turned my focus inward.
I could feel the power of the Force inside of me, soft and gentle as a spring breeze and as deep as the oceans.
It was there, everything that I needed...and I had no idea how to get us away from here.
To get us home.
Home. A place of safety, a shelter from the storm.
What was my home?
I open my eyes...to see Ren's face, a single tear slipping down his face as the darkness consumes him.
I let go of his hands, he crumples as I catch him in my arms, both of us dropping to our knees.
"He is my home," I whisper, reaching out to the Force, "so take me to him."
"Nooo...nooo...get away-"
I shut my mind out to everything except the two of us.
"Be with me," I don't know where the words came from, "just be with me."
A presence at my back, one that aches with familiarity but that of a distant echo and a voice that I do not recognize whispering to me.
"Save him Rey...do not let him walk my path and share in my regrets..."
I cry out as the Force fills me with energy, a sense of love and loss that is not my own and the world around me fills with a brightness that blinds me.
I cling to Ren...it was too much to bear...
...and it's gone.
I blink, wondering why I feel so hollow, and look around.
Stark white meets my gaze, a familiar starscape of sweeping blackness out of a window with a padded seat.
I know where I'm at. In Ren's private quarters, the first time we connected after Crait.
I turn back to the man in my arms. There is a stillness to him that has my heart climbing back into my throat.
I push raven hair away from his face that is far too pale. His sleeping robe is open...and I see the bandages the cover his chest, soaked in blood.
He's hurt and I don't know how or why.
"Ben," I whisper, pulling his head into my lap, "wake up. Come back to me."
A flicker of his eyelids, a ragged cough and I am looking down into obsidian.
"R-Rey."
His fingers reach up to touch my face and I cradle his hand closer still.
"Ren...we're back. You got us out."
"Not...me. You."
I shake my head and help him to sit up, a grimace of pain flashing across his face for but a moment, his hand on soaked bandages.
"Why are you so badly hurt?" His armor was suppose to protect him from wounds like this.
"A...miscalculation on my part."
He is trying to stand and I am moving to his side, taking his weight so he can sit on the bed close to us.
I am kneeling at his feet, his hands resting on my shoulder.
"What happened to us? Where were we?"
Ren catches his breath, removing his hands from my shoulders as he straightens.
I place my hand on his knee, needing this contact.
"That place...how much did Skywalker teach you about the Sith?"
That was an odd question and I shake my head.
"Almost nothing...except that they use the Dark Side for their own, cruel ends and that strong emotions lead down that path."
"A discussion for another time."
"Why are you asking me?"
"Where you were," he is hesitating in a way I've never seen from him and I'm frightened for him, "is a place...called Exegol."
Exegol. I knew that word...I had seen it somewhere but I couldn't remember.
"You've heard of it."
Not a question but I answer anyway.
"I think so," my head feels fuzzy and oddly hollow, "but I can't remember..."
The memory hovers at the edge but I can't grasp and I sigh, frustrated.
"No, it's gone. What is...Exegol?"
That name...it made my skin crawl just saying it.
Again that hesitation that is unlike him and I meet his troubled eyes before he closes them off to me and turns away.
"It was thought to be a myth...but I have discovered that it is quite real and it is...the Sith homeworld."
If he had reached out and slapped me across the face I could not have been more shocked.
"A Sith homeworld," no wonder it had crawled with that murderous fury, "and you went...looking for it?"
"I have been searching for it's location, yes."
"And you found it." I couldn't keep the disgust out of my voice, "Ren that place is evil."
"It was not my intent to channel my spirit there. I am not so foolish as you seem to think."
"Then what were you doing?"
A sigh as he brings his hand up to run through his hair, the bandages shifting as again I see the flash of pain cut across his face.
I shift closer, reaching out to rest the tips of my fingers on his sternum.
"What happened to you?"
His hand closes over mine...and pushes me away from his wound.
A feeling of hurt washes over me until he places our joined hands on his knee.
"Searching for answers when I was met with opposition that I hadn't anticipated fully."
That told me nothing and I knew if I pressed harder he would either evade...or simply keep his silence, and secrets, to himself.
"You said we were in a nightmare...was it yours?"
His eyes search my face, I don't know what he is looking for, but there is resignation in his voice when he speaks.
"Yes...and no."
I make a frustrated sound and I see just the brief curve of his mouth, but it holds no warmth.
"I have dreamed of that place for...well, months now. Always the same."
I shudder at the remembered violence in that voice and drop my head.
"How do you stand listening to that voice? I felt like I was...dying."
"That voice...has never been in my dreams until now. When I found you there with me."
I snap my head back up to him.
"You think...I'm the one who brought that nightmare on?"
I want to be angry, to be outraged that he would even think of such a thing...except there were times when I was young, still waiting for my parents to come back, that I heard that fetid voice whispering in my dreams.
I would wake up, shivering and so frightened I couldn't go back to sleep, afraid that the monster would find me again.
"Rey...I honestly don't know what to think."
"So what...you were sleeping, had this...dream or vision or whatever it was and I got dragged into it somehow?"
"Not exactly."
I pull my hand away from his and press my head against his leg.
"Ren...you're not making any sense right now."
"I was meditating, using my connection with the Force to heal my wounds. During that time my spirit was somehow...pulled away. I am still unclear how you ended up there as well."
I lift my head, certain I had not heard correctly.
"You...you can heal using the Force?"
My eyes instantly go to the scar I put across his face.
"It takes a significant amount of concentration and a sensitivity that few possess, but yes."
"How? Can I learn it? Will you teach me?"
To be able to heal using the Force! Did he know how much good I could do with that kind of gift?
"Rey," there is caution and warning when he calls my name that dims my enthusiasm, "there is more to healing that what I told you. Healing...comes with a price."
Of course it did. I should have known that something that sounded so good couldn't be true.
"What is it?"
"You must use your own life energy to do the healing."
I blinked and I must have looked as confused as I felt because he sighs and steeple his fingers.
"When you heal your own wounds, as long as they are not life-threatening, there is no cost to you personally. Your body will automatically replenish your energy when you are sick or injured, you're merely speeding up the process. However, to heal another...you must be willing to give up some of your life energy to that person. The greater the wound, the more it will cost."
My eyes go to stained bandages across his chest.
"Could I...help heal you?"
I'm already on my knees, pressing my fingers to his sternum again.
"Ren," we are inches from each other, I can see the shifting colors in his eyes, "I want to help you."
His hand over mine and I feel him trembling.
"Rey," his mouth shaping my name, his voice low and intimate, "to heal you must be here in both spirit...and body."
I wasn't. The Bond connected our spirits, but my body was still on Scarif. I didn't even know where Ren was, except that he was in space.
But another question arose in my mind.
"Then how...did you do what you did on...Exegol?"
"Do what?"
"Ren I felt you inside of me," haunting shadows fractured with light, "when you...took my fear, my anger into yourself. How could you do that...if our bodies were not there?"
"That wasn't healing. More of a transference of power."
"You gave me your strength...by taking the darkness out of me," I was feeling my way through this, "but how?"
His hand lifts to my face, brushing a stray lock behind my hear, an odd look on his face.
"I have lived with what you call 'darkness' for most of my life. I've learned how to use it to my advantage. Your pain called out to me and I simply took it for my own."
He makes it sound so simple, as though it cost him nothing at all. Yet I know I saw the tears he cried, felt his body crumple beneath the weight of my own darker emotions.
He brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, a tender gesture so at odds with his pragmatic nature.
"Don't look like that."
"Like what?" My voice feels thick and he leans his head against mine, his hand still cupping my face.
"Like you're hurting for me. Don't Rey, I don't want you to feel my pain."
But I do. He constantly thinks of himself as a bad person, that this life of darkness and death is his only choice.
He doesn't see the goodness in himself. Not the way I do.
I reach up and cup his face, mirrors of each other now, and I can feel his pain.
I want to sooth him, help him, like he helped me.
"Rey...what are you..."
Peace flows into me and through me, into him.
The pain...it is less now, no longer so vibrant in my mind.
Something warm falls on my face and I pull back...to see tears slide down his face.
"How did you..."
He is at a loss for words and I reach up brushing away the wetness.
"You took my fear...so I'm taking your pain."
"I told you I-"
I cover his mouth with mine, cutting off his objection. His hand slides around to my neck, holding me in place.
A soft, gentle glide of our lips, coaxing each other into responding. It is not the same feeling as being with him in person...but this is just as sweet.
We pull away and the tears have dried on his face and I can breath again.
I didn't realize how much seeing him cry affected me. I thought I was dying in a different way.
My body feels heavy now, my mind stretched to its limit.
I have come to recognize when our time is at an end.
I see the reflected knowledge in his gaze as well.
"Come back to me soon Rey, I don't know how much longer I can bare to be parted from you."
"I-"
The world shifts and I close my eyes against the disorientation.
My eyes open, a familiar canvas in my line of vision.
I'm back on Scarif, inside my tent, where I am suppose to be.
Except it doesn't feel like home.
Not without him by my side.
