The next morning, Jeyna feels a rush of familiar excitement. It usually accompanies an impending discovery. She's downright jittery in her energy, and she has to force herself to ignore the urges to explore the abandoned Wookie village as they cross it. No, she has to focus on the big picture here. They've come for the star map, not to do archaeology.

She's relieved that Ren suggested crossing through the village, and using the last elevator to descend. It cuts out time walking through the Shadowlands, which is fine by her.

As they walk, she tries to observe as much of the village as possible while staying to their path, intrigued. It also helps her to avoid looking at Kylo Ren. She finds herself wanting to examine his face again, to search his eyes, for what she doesn't know. It's much safer to look anywhere but him.

She is drawn out of her thoughts when he stops ahead of her. There is an elevator on a pulley system, and beyond the walkway is completely destroyed. Though it looks like the village might continue on, they are going to be forced to descend here.

"I suppose our choice is made for us," Ren says, testing out the wooden platform before gesturing for her to join him. The descent is slow, the chill growing as they sink further into darkness.

When they finally reach the ground, she notices his lightsaber is in hand. It's not glowing, but very much at standby. "Stay close, and be on the lookout," he orders. She chances a glance at him, and sees his face is stern. She nods obediently.

Deeper Into the Shadowlands

They haven't been walking for long when they see it. An earthen hut, built into the roots of the largest wroshyr tree Jeyna's seen yet. She can't contain her excitement at the sight of it, practically sprinting ahead of Ren to examine it.

"What part of stay close didn't you understand?" he mutters, catching up with her at the door of the dwelling.

"If this is what I think it is, we're going the right way!" she exclaims, testing the door. It opens begrudgingly, catching on the uneven ground. She steps forward, examining the inside. It's less impressive than she had perhaps imagined.

Ren follows, sounding confused as he asks, "What is this? It wasn't in your report."

"Well it's not actually pertinent to the star map, but I believe this is where Jolee Bindo lived during his exile on Kashyyyk," she explains. There are broken, rusting parts of an old bowcaster on the slab of wood that serves as a table, and she ghosts her hand over them in curiosity.

"Who?"

"Jolee Bindo. He was a Jedi who chose to exile himself from the Order, and lived out most of his older years here," Jeyna explains. "He was a known ally of Revan's." There is a grime covered garment hanging from the wall, and she speculates it might be a Jedi robe. She's shocked it held up so well over the years. Doubtless if she tried to remove it, it would probably fall apart.

"Why did he choose to exile himself?" Ren sounds disgruntled by the distraction, but curious nonetheless.

"He disagreed with some of the Order's teachings. A lot of Jedi ended up doing similar back in the day. It's actually easier to find information about exiles than the order itself," she explains. "Bindo also married, which was expressly forbidden."

Ren is silent, so she turns to look back at his face. It's hard to see him in the darkened interior of the hut, but he is gazing around, his face unreadable. Finally, he returns her stare. The dark makes his eyes look as black as his hair, striking against his pale skin. The word beautiful wants to cross her mind again, but Jeyna brushes it away. She worries she might be angering him by stopping for this long.

"We can get going, I'm sorry. I've just always been intrigued by Bindo," she apologizes.

"Why? Because he was a Jedi?" Ren asks. Jeyna doesn't miss the way he says Jedi, as if it is a swear word.

She swallows hard. "No, not that…" She struggles to find words to explain as Ren takes a step closer, his eyes narrowing at her.

"Because he knew Revan?" he guesses, closer to the truth. "What drives your obsession with Revan?" Jeyna knows she isn't imagining that his tone has grown aggressive. She wonders if perhaps the mention of Jedi has set him off.

"I'm not obsessed with Revan," she says, knowing as the words leave her mouth that it's a lie. She attempts to correct herself, squirming under Ren's glare. "I'm… he's impressive, is all."

"From what I've read, he betrayed every allegiance he ever had. Yes, impressive."

His voice is acidic, argumentative. She wants to drop the discussion. But she also can't help but disagree with what Ren's said. Still, she bites her tongue, taken aback by his rapidly changing mood. He steps closer still, forcing her to tilt her head to maintain eye contact with him looming above her. His gaze is far more intimidating than the soulless black mask that lies, broken, in his bag.

"Don't hold back from me. If you think something, say it," he orders. Her mouth falls open in surprise. She tries to drop her eyes submissively, but finds herself looking at his lips instead, which is vastly worse. Embarrassment colors her face for what feels like the hundredth time as she gathers her thoughts.

"Revan might not have been loyal to the Jedi, or the Sith… but not many force users in history were able to walk a middle path. He recognized that both teachings were inherently flawed. That ignoring a part of yourself wasn't a path to mastering a connection to the force. He went his own way. He was brave for doing that," She blurts out her thoughts so rapidly, she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't catch half of them. It's not until she stops that she realizes she might have offended Ren further with her explanation.

But his face actually relaxes slightly, as much as can be noticed with how rigidly he holds it. Something about her answer has defused his temper, surprising her.

"I didn't realize you were also a philosopher of the force, Jeyna."

Her eyes widen, unable to discern if he is cruelly mocking her or merely teasing her. "You asked why I found him impressive, and that is my answer," she retorts defensively.

"An interesting answer," he replies. He finally looks away from her, and she feels like she is physically deflating as the tension leaves her muscles. He has set her on edge, his energy intense and chaotic. How had she fallen asleep so quickly against this man just the previous night? She had even found the closeness comforting. Now she feels like an exposed nerve to him.

"We should move on, if you're quite done examining for signs of your hero. Before you dragged us in here, I felt something interesting ahead," Ren says, voice regaining an unemotional quality. Jeyna nods tiredly, and follows him back out into the fog of the Shadowlands.

Later

The something interesting Ren's felt turns out to be a nightmare of spider webs. They've colonized the forest floor, draping their webbing over everything. It turns the already creepy environment into a horror show for Jeyna, as she attempts to follow Ren's path he slices with his saber.

Every so often, the gauzy material of a sliced web grazes her and she jumps, her heart slamming in her chest. She knows what made these webs, and she does not want to come across its species. But it seems inevitable as he leads her further into her personal hell.

"You're positive what you feel is this way?" She asks again, desperately.

"For the third time, yes," Ren grounds out. "Don't let insects scare you."

"They aren't insects, they're arachnids," Jeyna corrects automatically. "Insects have three body segments, spiders only have two."

"What a fascinating lecture you provide, Professor." Ren's sarcasm is thick, before he proceeds to hack at a clump of webbing that obscures their path forward.

Jeyna pauses to glance behind them while he works, only to catch sight of the glistening, bulbous end of one of the wyyyschokk spiders disappearing behind a branch. It's massive, even from the small part she's seen. She has to force strangled breaths in and out of her lungs, tears prickling her eyes.

"Come on," Ren calls. When Jeyna turns, he does a double take at her face. "Are you crying?"

She shakes her head in denial, rubbing angrily at her eyes. For the first time since she's seen him unmasked, his facial muscles seem to unlock fully. His eyebrows raise, mouth twisting up at one corner. She realizes he's amused at her emotions. It makes her want to slap him, right across his handsome face. She sees his lips twitch as he forces them straight again.

"You didn't even cry over the terentatek," he says curiously. "But you sob at spiders?"

"Just leave me alone," Jeyna suggests, trudging forward and past him.

"We'll be fine. As long as we don't wake the big one," Ren says dismissively, perhaps thinking such a statement would be a comfort. But she doesn't find it comforting when she processes what he's said.

She whirls back to face him, fresh tears springing to her eyes as she gasps out, "The big one?"

"Yes?"

She swears, using the most colorful language she can muster. She doesn't care that he can hear her, she doesn't even care that her meltdown is making her look weak to him. Ren gives her an unimpressed glance as he brushes past her to continue their trek.

As they walk, the wyyyschokk spiders become easier to spot. They're overhead, in the junctures of multiple webs strung between the trees. Jeyna's neck begins cramping from walking with her head held back, her mind supplying images of one of the enormous creatures dropping onto her. At one point a particularly pale and large specimen is blocking their path.

Ren cocks his head to the side, before raising his hand. The spider, which is the size of a child, goes flying into a trunk. It's abdomen splits with the impact, spilling bodily fluid onto the forest floor. It's legs curl up where it lands, shriveling into a freakishly large husk of its former self.

Jeyna feels nauseous at the sight, covering her mouth with a hand. "Did you have to explode it?" she half whispers, half groans in disgust.

"Of course not. Feel free to remove the next one from our path yourself," Ren orders.

"With what? Do you have an unusually large shoe I could borrow?" Jeyna attempts to joke, knowing she is grinding on his nerves. Predictably, he doesn't smile at the humor.

"Use the blaster. You need the target practice," he suggests instead.

Jeyna is about to point out that she managed to hit the terentatek in one of its eyes. A lucky shot perhaps, but still a good one. But its then she notices what Ren has already locked eyes on.

Through the trees, there is definitely an unnatural structure ahead. He takes off at a determined pace, not even pausing as he swirls the lightsaber to take down the suffocating amounts of webbing. Jeyna flinches back as he slices through a hovering spider, and it drops in two singed pieces to the forest floor.

She steps carefully around it, its legs still twitching, to approach the building. It's definitely a building, even as it is compressed on all sides by wroshyr trees growing into it. But that's not the most interesting feature of the structure. It's coated, completely covered, by odd transparent sacs.

Surely, those aren't…

"Eggs," Ren confirms her thoughts. "We should try to not disturb them."

She nods. "I think I'd prefer that, yes." Her eyes find the holocron. Its perched in front of the building, on the forest floor about a dozen feet in front of an ancient computer terminal. Ren immediately strides to the terminal, booting it up. Jeyna looks uncertainly at his back before kneeling by the holocron. She wants to see the next planet in the sequence. She has her suspicions for what it will be.

She reaches out a hand, but before she can touch it, she hears the computer: "Neural pattern rejected."

"Come here," Ren demands.

She stands, joining him at the terminal. She's surprised it even works, the metal housing to the unit looks so corroded. "Look into the retinal scanner," he says, gently turning her chin up and towards the screen with two fingertips. She freezes as a beam of light transverses her sight.

"Neural pattern accepted. Provide a sequence." The computer juts out a device that looks like something off a medical droid. Jeyna can't help but notice the rather sharp looking needle that unfurls from within it.

She shares a look with Kylo Ren. His eyes are turbulent, as ever, but unreadable as he surveys her. She is suddenly, painfully uncomfortable. "It has to be you. It won't accept mine," he states, taking her wrist in one of his large hands.

She jerks away, pulling her arm from his grasp. She's surprised he lets her, even going so far as to hold his hand up in a pacifying gesture. She is still bothered by her lack of understanding, as to why the holocrons only open for her. And now the computer terminal too seems to prefer her.

"This isn't like Dantooine," he says slowly, with forced patience. "The star map here is locked. I need you to unlock it."

"Why me?" Jeyna asks, searching his eyes. She can't help but feel he knows more than he's letting on.

"I know nothing more than you. I think we're both smart enough to take a guess, however," Ren replies, his full lips in a terse line. "I'm not asking again, Jeyna. Unlock it."

Her mind spins at this, trying to deny what he's suggesting. Unwilling to let her think, he growls with frustration. He lunges to grab her arm again, towing her back to where the needle waits. She expects him to shove her skin onto it, but he doesn't. He forces her hand over it, poised a few inches from the metal tip, but goes no farther.

She gives him a dirty look, infusing it with as much frustration as she's felt in the last week and a half. His face is fixed, emotionless, as he stares her down.

She presses her index finger down, feeling the needle jab upwards in response. She breathes in sharply, and Ren drops his hold on her wrist. As she pulls her hand back, she sees the single drop of red blood roll down the thin piece of metal.

"Analyzing…"

Jeyna returns to the holocron as the computer processes what it's taken from her. She doesn't hesitate this time, dropping to her knees and laying her whole palm on one of the sides.

It blooms open, buzzing to life. Where she was expecting to see the planet of Korriban, or perhaps Tatooine, she instead sees a jungle moon.

"Dxun?" Ren asks from behind her. She doesn't confirm, though he is correct about it showing the closest moon of Onderon. Instead, she childishly chooses to ignore him.

The moon rotates slowly, as she studies it in confusion. Dxun was not one of the original star forge map locations, further complicating her theories. Though it did hold significance to Revan, she realizes, recalling the Battle of Dxun near the end of the Mandalorian Wars.

"Sequence recognized. Access granted: Terraforming Project Main Terminal. Loading: Terminal Interface."

Jeyna stands again, curiosity outweighing her lingering anger at Ren. The mention of terraforming thrills her brain, suddenly making sense of her observations of Kashyyyk. Everything on the planet seems so oversized, so extreme and predatory. Could it be a terraforming attempt gone wrong?

She has half a mind to ask Ren to investigate the computer for further reference to the project, but the computer speaks before she can. Of course Ren's of one mind, going solely after what they've come for.

"Loading: Star Map."

And there it is, on the screen. Another section of coordinates she can't recognize from any star system she's studied. Ren wastes no time pulling out his datapad, and copying the map. Its when he puts his datapad away, and attempts to navigate the computer once more, that their luck runs out.

"Star Map Program: Activated. Sequence Prompted: Self Destruct."

Ren gives her a single, startled look before issuing the command, "Run."