Author's Note: Update! Not so long as a wait from before. I really am trying to be more consistent...somewhat. Anyway, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not 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...
Kylo Ren
Pain. The screaming of nerve ending's as flesh burns.
It is only pain, an emotion I am long familiar with. Even so, I am forced to retreat.
Rage and frustration as I am so close to my prize only to have to abandon it.
Mustafar.
The fortress that my grandfather built no longer exits, except for it ruins that are heavily guarded by the zealots who flock to his memory.
I...misjudged them. I came alone, not wanting my commanders to know just yet what plans I intend to enact on.
Even with my skill there are simply too many of them to take on at once. Dozens died by my hand and hundred more would take their place.
I failed and now I must return to my ship in orbit to recover from my wounds. I hide the tatters of my armor beneath my cloak as I stalk to my room, locking the doors and sending out an order that I am not to be disturbed for several hours.
I peel back the charred remains, a snarl from behind gritted teeth as cloth sticks to skin, the smell of iron in the air.
I have had deeper wounds than this...my thoughts go to Rey and our first fight, and I quickly wrap the worst of the burns.
It was time to see if my months of digging through my grandfather's journals and my own exploration will bear fruit.
My grandfather spoke of healing through the Force...a way to channel the bodies energy to heal ruined flesh.
I was about to attempt the same thing but on a much larger scale then I've done lately.
This will take time and focus and I settle into a meditative pose. The wounds across my body throb with the beat of my heart and I have to remind myself it is only pain.
I must embrace it rather than reject it.
I turn my focus inward, follow the flow of power that resides in me. It is there, a maelstrom that is never calm.
Except when I think of her...or when I am touching her.
I turn my thoughts away from Rey, she is a distraction I cannot afford now. I must focus or I will lose control like my grandfather.
Down, deeper now, to the core of myself.
Of who I am...my perception of the outer world falls away...there is only myself and the Force.
But something is wrong...there is another presence waiting, malignant and cruel, cutting through my connection with the Force.
I tumble into darkness, all of my senses blinded as my spirit is wrenched through the void.
I come awake with a clarity that I am not where I'm suppose to be.
But I know this place. It has haunted my dreams for months now, ever since I first learned the name Exegol from my grandfather's journals.
The shadows sway and pulse as I get to my feet. I am no longer covered in bandages, my sleeping robe gone.
Once more I am clothed in the armor of a Sith warrior. But there is something...wrong about this place.
A coldness, a vast presence meant to crush the spirit.
Then I hear it, a sibilant voice calling out and even I shudder at the sound of it.
I know I am a monster in the dark but this...this is beyond cruel ambition.
This is evil in its purest form.
"Who...are...you?"
Who are you?
Who are you?
For a moment I believe the voice is speaking to me, I have no intention of answering, but I'm wrong.
A woman's tormented scream rends the air. Blue lightning crawls through the darkness and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up in primal warning.
I am already running to that sound.
How could I have not felt her and how was she here, of all places.
Rey...in the shadows of Exegol, where only a Sith may travel.
She is no Sith...and she should never have come here.
Revulsion crawls through me as cruel, malicious laughter fills the air in the wake of that display.
"Good! Again! Give...in!"
Give in.
Give in.
I can feel the pressure to submit beating inside my head and that sinister command was not even projected at me.
I have to reach Rey. Before she breaks beneath this madness.
My training to deal with these darker emotions is acting like a buffer, allowing me to move unimpeded to her side.
She has no such training as I hear her ragged sob, taste her despair.
This voice without a face is feeding off of her fear. Reveling in her horror as she tries to fight.
Fighting...and failing. The tears that slip down her face are of blood, the crimson drops the only color in this void between worlds.
"Rey. Stop."
Her body shudders at the sound of my voice and she turns, with difficulty, to look at me.
"R-Ren-"
She cannot see me, not as I see her and that scream of drowning despair rips from her lungs.
The smell of charred ozone as blue lightning streaks across the shadows in the wake of that screaming.
I refuse to follow the path my thoughts take at seeing a Sith power manifest around us as I come up behind her.
"Another...arrives..."
Another.
Another.
So my presence is known. I wasn't exactly trying to hide. The voice tries to claw into my mind, but I am not Rey who has never touched the Dark Side of the Force.
He cannot find purchase in my mind and I turn his power from me, my every focus on the woman who cannot survive here.
Her skin is like ice, the blood from her tears like rubies, crystallizing.
I slip my arms around her, channeling my energy into her. I feel her shudder again and I quickly close my hand over her mouth.
I have a growing suspicion why that lightning is here where it should not exist.
There is a part of me that prays I am wrong about this.
"Don't listen to the voice Rey. Fight it."
She has the power but not the experience or the strength to throw off this malignant influence.
I have both and through our Bond, I give her my strength.
"Familiar...you are...who are...you"
Familiar.
Power tearing at my mind, a relentless pounding that makes me grit my teeth and turn it away. Again and again.
Who are you.
Who are you.
Sinister fury ripping at me, Rey nigh insensible in my arms as I shift my grip and drag her body away from this place.
There is a way out of here, there must be. I have but to find the key.
That voice in the darkness does not cease and I feel her soul slipping from me, succumbing.
"Don't answer," don't let him find purchase in your mind, "Listen to me. Hear only me."
There, just a fraction of the light inside of her, pushing back the dark tide.
Her lips move against my hand, trying to speak.
If she can speak, then she is aware enough to fight and I lift my hand.
"Ren...how?"
Her voice is like a catalyst in this place. That one spark of Light, of goodness, and I hear the howl of maddened rage in response.
I wrap her in my power. I will not let this madness touch her, I will not let her be destroyed.
"I sense...Skywalker blood..."
That is impossible. There should be no one, save my mother and the woman in my arms, who knows of my heritage.
Unless...my concentration slips and I feel Rey suffer for it.
A snarl curling my lips, a clever ploy to divert my attention but not clever enough.
I will not let go of Rey. Not ever.
"I have you. I'm not going to leave you." The terror gripping her has her shaking in my arms and it is all I can do to keep her with me.
"Where," a guttural sound that if I were not holding her, I would not have recognized it for her voice, "are we?"
"In a nightmare."
The truth...but not all of it. We are...between worlds.
"Whose?"
My flagging spirit lifts at that short response. If she has the strength to ask questions then she is not lost to this place.
Not yet.
But I dare not answer. That...presence is far too silent. The stillness of a serpent, watching its prey, waiting to reveal a weakness.
I press a single finger to her lips, knowing she will understand.
She and I do not always need words to communicate.
A brief dip of her head and that is all I need.
She shifts in my arms and I look down just as she looks up and I see the flair of swirling amber, her eyes a light in the darkness.
The strength of her will, her power, crashes into me reinforcing the shield I wrapped around us.
She is no longer dead weight in my arms, her soul rekindled and fighting the effects of this place.
There is a reason I consider this woman my equal.
The shadows recoil, a writhing mass of muted fury as our strength combines.
She is pulling from my arms and I let her get to her feet. Their reaction to her...to us...I think I know how to leave this place behind.
I reach for her hand and I do not have to go far, she is already searching for mine.
"Let's get out of here."
No longer guttural but still raw from the screaming, I am in agreement.
Now is not the time for either one of us to be here.
The air around is vibrating, I sense the Force in all of its darkness coalescing around a single point.
I'm already bracing myself for what is about to come next.
"Nooo...noooo...I will not let you leave."
Will not leave.
Will not leave.
Putrefying evil, malicious and stinking of death and decay, wash over us in a maelstrom of unleashed fury.
She does not scream, but I can see tears of blood welling in her eyes, the absolute terror that has locked her in place.
I won't let him win. He will not defeat us. He know nothing of what we are.
She lifts her head, red-stained eyes locking with mine and I lift my other hand to her.
Palm to palm.
I can feel her, in this place. That beautiful, unwavering light she holds in her is guttering under this miasma of hate and rage.
Even now, in this nightmare, she takes my breath away with the beauty of her soul.
I know what needs to be done. Light to push back the Dark.
What is terror but the fear of pain?
I pull the darkness from inside her, a rush of unremitting anguish at her own helplessness, of her drowning rage at being trapped.
Even I am not all-powerful and the limits of my own ability shatter beneath this additional weight.
"Ren," her voice a clear, perfect note in the howling fury inside me, "stop."
Her fingers move against mine, interlocking our hands.
She is the most beautiful aspect of my life and I will not lose her.
"Find..."I bite hard on my lip as screams build inside me from the crippling pain, "the light...Rey...it will guide you-"
Too much, I can no longer restrain the madness within and despite the blood I feel trickling down my skin, the scream rips from my lungs.
"I'm not leaving you here. You're coming with me."
I can barely hear her, our connected hands my only physical anchor.
"Skywalker...I will have the blood...of Skywalker..."
I would have laughed...had I the ability to speak now, having found my answer without the use of the wayfinder.
I knew, beyond doubt, who was speaking to us now.
The 'dead' Emperor.
Palpatine.
"I won't let you have him!"
Rey, screaming her defiance at him...for me.
The light that had nearly flickered out in her is a blaze in this dark maelstrom now.
Serrated blades of power dig deep into my mind, I can't hold him back.
"Foolish child...he is already...mine..."
He is inside me, a fetid weight on my soul, whispering to me that I will serve him...as my grandfather served him.
That the blood of Skywalker was always meant to serve the Dark Side.
Always the Servant, never the Master.
"No! Never!"
That voice...whose is that voice...
That warmth I feel, my single anchor, is gone and I can no longer stand.
If that warmth is gone...then what reason do I have to hold on?
Something catches me and the warmth that had left is now a blaze of heat across my soul.
A soft, lilting voice in my ear, but I am deaf to all but a few words that make no sense.
"He...home...take..."
Home. What was that? Did I even know what is was anymore?
Eyes of burning amber, lilting laughter and the shy curve of lips turning upward as they shape a single word.
"Ben."
"Nooo...nooo...get away-"
A caress of light, chasing the darkness from me by agonizing degree's.
A feathered touch to my mind...a voice, soft and haunting that has the echo of my mother but is not her...
"There is still good in you...don't fight it..."
White light blankets my mind, the weight of death lifting from my soul...
...and I feel adrift, cut off from everything.
I wonder if I shouldn't just stay here. No pain, no confusion. My soul is quiet, not in the perpetual state of conflict it has become.
"Ben," a gentle touch I can somehow feel and a voice of heartbreaking beauty, "wake up."
How could I have forgotten her? She is my reason for living.
"Come back to me."
Rey.
I no longer feel weightless. The burns across my body are a sharp reminder that I am very much alive and the breath I take is a painful one.
I open my eyes to beauty.
"R-Rey."
My throat feels as though I swallowed shards of glass but I see the etches of sharp relief on her face.
My hand is lifting to her face and she presses my palm to her skin, her hand a tender cradle for mine.
"Ren...we're back. You got us out."
Her relief is nearly as palatable as my own. However, she is mistaken. I wasn't the one who freed us.
"Not...me. You."
She is denying my words...and the shaking of her body makes me realize where I am at.
My head in her lap, sprawled out despite the fact that I know had been kneeling before all of this had started.
I sit up, pain flaring up where the bandages pull against the open wounds and she is there at my side, helping me.
"Why are you so badly hurt?"
Concern and worry color her question about my well-being. Perhaps I should have felt more apprehensive about her seeing me in this state of vulnerability.
But I don't. Her presence at my side...it feels only right.
"A," sweat breaks out on my body as I try to stand, "...miscalculation on my part."
Her shoulder slips beneath me, her hand across my waist and between the two of us, I make it to my bed.
I still feel off-balance, my hands on her shoulder as she kneels by my legs.
"What happened to us? Where were we?"
Her practical nature is asserting itself and for once I am grateful for her endless questions.
It is taking my mind off of my injuries...and the press of her body against my legs.
I will never stop desiring this woman.
I lift my hands from her shoulder, needing to prove to myself that I am not as weak as my body is telling me.
Her hand is resting in my knee, the contact somehow soothing.
"That place...," I have no idea how intimate her knowledge is of the Sith, "how much did Skywalker teach you about the Sith?"
I can see my reply startles her and after a pause to gather her thoughts, she shakes her head at me.
"Almost nothing," and I am not surprised to hear this but then her eyes darken with shadows, "...except that they use the Dark Side for their own, cruel ends and that strong emotions lead down that path."
Ah, yes. That endless debate about how 'strong' emotions will always lead to corruption.
As if sentient being's should simply pretend emotions like anger...or passion...are somehow inanely wrong.
"A discussion for another time."
She wrinkles her nose at me, an adorable quirk of hers, but she doesn't press me harder.
"Why are you asking me?"
She only knows the basic teachings of what it means to be a Jedi...and I find myself...reluctant to expand her education of what separates a Jedi from a Sith.
But I made a promise to myself that I would never lie to her. Even if the truth causes only pain.
"Where you were," where she should not have been, "is a place...called Exegol."
A change in her breath, a subtle trembling of her hand at the name I mention.
"You've heard of it."
There was no other explanation for her changed demeanor. I wonder, not for the first time, if when she was with Skywalker she had a chance to look over the books he always kept with him.
Even during my youth I knew that Skywalker was obsessed with the Sith, certain that they were not dead...merely waiting for the right moment to reemerge.
"I think so," she isn't looking at me, her eyes clouded as though searching for a memory, "but I can't remember..."
Considering my own fogged mind upon leaving the shadows of Exegol, I would have been more amazed if she could remember.
A heavy sigh, clearly frustrated by her own lack of recollection and she returns her attention back to me.
"No, it's gone." Resignation and she fixes her troubled gaze on me, "What is...Exegol?"
Revulsion and terror as she speaks that name.
I never meant for her to know of that place, at least, not yet.
But somehow my timetable has been sped up and that...thing, I will not call it a man until I see his body for myself, is aware of her existence.
"It was thought to be a myth," of the nightmare variety, "...but I have discovered that it is quite real and it is...the Sith homeworld."
The wayfinder was the key. My soul might be able to travel there, but as I have learned much to my displeasure, I am no match for the sleeping evil that resides there.
Not yet.
"A Sith homeworld," horror in her voice and I look back at her to see the accusations growing in her lit eyes, "and you went...looking for it?"
A note of pleading, to tell me that she's wrong about what I've been up to lately.
I am about to disappoint her.
"I have been searching for it's location, yes."
Open disgust on her face and her lips pull back into a snarl.
"And you found it. Ren that place is evil."
There was no arguing that. I had felt the malevolent energy more than what even I was comfortable with.
However I disliked the way she judged me.
"It was not my intent to channel my spirit there," the open skepticism on her face makes my voice hard, "I am not so foolish as you seem to think."
"Then what were you doing?"
I should have known she wouldn't back down from this. I run a hand through my hair, wondering how to explain when these damn bandages pull at me again, reminding me of what I had been attempting to do in the first place.
A whisper of pressure, a touch of heat to my chest.
I open my eyes, she is pressing her finger to my sternum, where the worst of the blood has crusted.
No anger now, only gentle worry in her luminous eyes.
"What happened to you?"
My arrogance is what happened to me. I place my hand over hers...and push her away from my injury.
The flash of hurt across her face has me keeping a hold of her hand as I put it back on my knee.
That patient look on her face, she is still waiting for answer to her question.
"Searching for answers when I was met with opposition that I hadn't anticipated fully."
I didn't lie to her...I simply refuse to elaborate on the details.
Her look speaks volumes. She is not pleased with my reply.
I expect her to push, she doesn't like evasion.
However it seems she is starting to know me better.
"You said we were in a nightmare...was it yours?"
A change of subject and one I honestly didn't expect her to bring up.
Another thorny topic and I find myself picking my way through this conversation carefully.
I search her face, wondering if she knows the truth already about what happened back there.
No. I can see it in her clear, unwavering gaze.
"Yes...and no."
A hiss between her lips, a brief flash of muted anger and it nearly makes me smile, but it is one without mirth.
Time to end this dance and cut through the heart of the matter.
"I have dreamed of that place for," Since the day she left me at Crait, "...well, months now. Always the same."
Endless darkness, an evil without face or form, waiting for me in the shadows of the Force.
A glimpse of raw power, waiting to be mastered.
A trap...or destined fate. I'm still searching for that particular answer.
"How do you stand listening to that voice?" She is trembling against my legs, her voice shaking with lingering terror, "I felt like I was...dying."
I wanted to gather her in my arms, to promise her that she would never feel like that again.
But I don't...because there is an aspect to all of this that was never there before.
"That voice...has never been in my dreams until now." Only one thing had changed in all the months of these premonitions, "When I found you there with me."
Her head snaps up, staring at me with incomprehension.
"You think...I'm the one who brought that nightmare on?"
I wait for her explosive anger, for a denial that will send her scrambling away.
For her to deny that she has any connection to the Sith.
But she does nothing, except lower her head, a more troubled look on her face than I have ever glimpsed from her.
She is hiding something from me. A secret from her past that she refuses to talk about, even to me.
"Rey...I honestly don't know what to think."
An agitated jerk of her shoulder but she she speaks, it is with weary calm.
So what...you were sleeping, had this...dream or vision or whatever it was and I got dragged into it somehow?"
As if it were as simple as all of that.
"Not exactly."
Nothing was ever simple with the two of us.
She pulls her hand from mine, a spike of alarm goes through me...but she is leaning her head against me.
"Ren...you're not making any sense right now."
Exhaustion...frustration...a need to understand, I hear all of it in her.
I am not helping with my stilted answers, but I have learned to guard myself so well it is like breathing to me now.
She deserves better from me.
"I was meditating, using my connection with the Force to heal my wounds." Something no one knows about until now, "During that time my spirit was somehow...pulled away."
I must have drawn more power to me than what I calculated, catching his awareness and in my vulnerable state, capturing me.
That still didn't explain why Rey was caught.
"I am still unclear how you ended up there as well."
Her head is up, looking at me with suspicion tinged with the beginnings of excitement.
"You...you can heal using the Force?"
Her eyes linger on the scar she gave me and I can read the thoughts that speak through that look.
If you can heal, why do you have the scar?
"It takes a significant amount of concentration and a sensitivity that few possess, but yes."
Although my own skill was limited at this point. Smaller wounds, like simple cuts and minor burns, I could heal.
Larger one, like the one she gave me, were beyond my ability. The wounds on my chest was going to my first attempt to expand my limitations.
"How? Can I learn it? Will you teach me?"
A barrage of questions, excitement sparking her eyes.
Too much excitement. I knew her, my Rey. She was not asking to learn for herself.
She gave far too much of herself for others.
"Rey there is more to healing that what I told you," I need to impress upon her the severity of what she is asking and perhaps I do because she is no longer so animated, "Healing...comes with a price."
Teilu, the blood on her ankle...my hand on her ankle when Rey's back was to me...a surge of weakness that left me lightheaded as my energy flowed into her...
"What is it?" Caution now and that was good but I could feel her determination to learn.
She wanted this knowledge and I knew if I denied her, she would go looking for it.
Regardless of the costs. How could I fault her when I had done the exact same thing?
"You must use your own life energy to do the healing."
She doesn't understand. She is like a Padawan still learning what is means to use the Force.
I steeple my fingers, searching through my own memories and experiences to help her understand.
"When you heal your own wounds, as long as they are not life-threatening, there is no cost to you personally." The small lacerations when I trained with droids without armor healed with minimal effort now, "Your body will automatically replenish your energy when you are sick or injured, you're merely speeding up the process." She is no longer looking confused, absorbing the information quickly, "However, to heal another...," Teilu, the weakness...the flow of energy leaving me, "you must be willing to give up some of your life energy to that person. The greater the wound, the more it will cost."
Her eyes widen and she is gazing at the blood-soaked bandages again.
"Could I...help heal you?"
Her question staggers me. I...don't have the answer. It has not occurred to me that two Force users could work in tandem to do a healing.
She nudges my legs apart, now up on her knee's in front of me.
Her fingers once more resting on me.
"Ren," I swallow hard at the lilting caress in her voice, the swirling amber that look up at me with soft pleading, "I want to help you."
My hand is shaking when I touch her. Does she know what she is offering me?
Her life energy...and there is the fundamental flaw in her offer.
"Rey," regret and yearning in the words I speak now, "to heal you must be here in both spirit...and body."
She was only here in one, not both.
I see the disappointment and I want to sooth her, the offer in of itself was enough for me, but something changes in her.
"Then how...did you do what you did on...Exegol?"
I have no idea what she is referring to. The path her thoughts have taken elude me.
"Do what?"
"Ren," exasperation now, she thinks I am being evasive again, " I felt you inside of me when you," silent wonder slips into her eyes, "...took my fear, my anger into yourself."
She is looking at me as though I had saved her from the arms of death itself.
"How could you do that...if our bodies were not there?"
I am not certain myself...but I remember the feeling of it clearly.
"That wasn't healing. More of a transference of power."
She needed to survive, so I took her pain and gave her my strength in exchange.
"You gave me your strength...by taking the darkness out of me," careful words, her mind trying to find the missing pieces of this puzzle, "but how?"
A stray lock of hair slides down her face and I'm pushing it back before she can do it.
The beauty of her soul as it touched mine in that dark moment is a memory that I will forever carry in me.
"I have lived with what you call 'darkness' for most of my life. I've learned how to use it to my advantage." I would not be a Sith otherwise, "Your pain called out to me and I simply took it for my own."
Sorrow etched in her eyes as I speak and I don't know why. She asked me how and I tell her, so why is she giving me this heartrending look now?
I rub my thumb over her skin, remembering the tears of blood that she had shed and I cannot stand to see her this way.
"Don't look like that."
"Like what?" Tears in her voice, pain in her eyes and I touch my forehead to hers.
"Like you're hurting for me," I have caused her enough pain for a one lifetime, "Don't Rey, I don't want you to feel my pain."
I am the monster in the dark. There is no changing that destiny.
The slide of her palm along my skin, cupping my face.
We are mirrors of each other now.
I feel the warm glow of her energy...but something else is happening.
That energy...is flowing into me.
"Rey...what are you-"
The hum of pain always in the back of my mind, the tainted feel of putrid hatred from where he had touched me, fades to nothing.
Sunlight in my veins, the caress of a spring breeze across my soul.
Peace.
Home.
Something warm and wet sliding down my skin and there is a tightness in my throat that wasn't there before.
Tears. I'm crying...and I don't know why.
She pulls away from me and I lift my head, sorrow no longer present in her.
Only tenderness now.
I know why I'm crying.
I found my way back home.
"How did you..."
But my voice won't work, I cannot speak past the lump in my throat.
Her fingers brush the wetness from my face and she answers the question I couldn't finish.
"You took my fear...so I'm taking your pain."
She should not share my darkness. Her spirit burns to brightly to dwell here.
"I told you I-"
Her mouth on mine, stealing the protest from my lips.
Her touch is a tinder to my desire and I hold her in place, needing her.
This fire...our lips gliding, a spark rather than the inferno, but welcome all the same.
The heat of her, the glow of her affection, dry up my tears.
We pull away...and I can breath again.
The sorrow is gone, the pain no longer visible in her eyes.
But she is no longer so tangible in my arms, the fire of soul muting and I know that she has to leave.
Our time together is coming to an end.
She knows it, just as I do.
"Come back to me soon Rey," I cannot hide the ache she leaves in me, "I don't know how much longer I can bear to be parted from you."
"I-"
She's gone.
I lay on my bed, closing my eyes in utter weariness.
Not of the flesh, but of the soul.
This place...it is not my home.
Not without her by my side.