Kleenex Alert :*(
Unlike Batuu's beautiful landscape and flourishing marketplace, Dagobah was known for its marshes. For the dozens of different species of reptiles and birds inhabiting its cypress forests and swamps.
Mangroves thrived with Spanish moss drooping from their limbs. Crocodiles prowled the bayous beneath murky waters. Egrets and blue herons waded down grimy riverbanks, perusing the shallows for crayfish and smaller aquatic lifeforms during the humid daytime hours.
At nightfall, twinkling fireflies pranced above sodden embankments. Frogs croaked and crickets sang as the sun disappeared from a watercolor sky. Save for the moon emitting its reflection upon the Nymeve River's surface, there was nothing except darkness guiding Armitage Hux and Mitaka toward the First Order's secluded hideaway.
"D-Do you think they'll help us?" asked Mitaka, breathily after rowing miles from the bay to their new destination upstream. Seated behind him, the captain tightened his pursed lips, his keen eyes narrowing at a pair of torches blazing in the distance ahead.
Truthfully, Hux didn't know what to expect.
In subsequent to Snoke's death and the Supremacy falling under Kylo Ren's command, the First Order had scattered like roaches fleeing a light source across the Caribbean. Their power to ward off the Jakku navy nosediving as a result. Months later, those who had been fortunate enough to elude persecution had fled to the swamps of Dagobah, dwelling in seclusion as mere ghosts from the past.
One of those survivors had been the First Order's iniquitous commander, Captain William Phasma. Relentless and cunning, Phasma did just about anything to ensure he got his own way. Even if it meant going against his own kind. Needless to say, Hux's trust in the captain was no greater than trusting a viper not to strike while standing an arm's breadth away.
But Hux was officially at a loss for alternatives. If he wanted to defeat Kylo Ren, he would need Phasma's assistance and all who had persevered from the First Order fleet.
"They will help us," Hux replied coolly. "Or, they will kill us." Mitaka's response to that was an unintelligible squeak.
It really was a miracle this little mouse of a man was still inhaling the same moldy fumes as him.
Near the mouth of the river, a shabby bungalow, nestled within sprawling cypress trees and muck, presented itself as the pirates' hideaway. Their laughter roaring from indoors discernible over paddle oars sloshing in water as Mitaka maneuvered the craft towards the dock, torches on posts steadily ablaze. Wobbling, Hux clambered out of the dinghy, onto the dock, before his first mate had the vessel secured.
"Wait here," ordered Hux. "Do not go back to the Supremacy until I return." As the captain pivoted on a sole and began marching down the boardwalk, he heard Mitaka quietly stutter y-yes, sir.
And I will be back, Hux pledged to himself. Even if the chances were extremely high that the First Order would kill him for just being an outsider. Nobody would recognize the former first mate to the late Captain Snoke. Not when he held no resemblance to the cursed individual he had been before turning his back on Kylo Ren.
Luck. His survival tonight depended on whether Lady Luck was on his side or not. He hated it—hated being so mortally fragile and weak. Hated how he'd already wasted so much time searching for Kylo fucking Ren's heart when he could have been more patient and stayed on the Silencer all those years ago and waited for that opportunity to strike.
It was a mistake he swore he would never make again.
Several pirates, slurping ale or rum from their steins, were sitting at circular tables in front of the front windowpanes, decidedly tipsy and drowning in clouds of smoke from puffing cigars. Too engrossed in their valiant tales of yesteryear, none of them, or the dozens of others standing about, noticed Hux slip inside.
Tables were situated at random, candles for centerpieces and five to six chairs circling each. Burning wall sconces hung on support pillars, which rose to the second floor and a vaulted ceiling. And it smelled...horrible. So rank it made the swamp smell like a goddamn lupin field in the summer days. A compound of stale alcohol and nicotine and piss and—
—Christ, were these animals living here or people?
"Well, well, well..." uttered a pirate approaching the captain's left, his voice familiar, deep and eerily mellow. He was tall, pale-skinned and middle-aged, the muscles in his arms and chest exceedingly toned underneath an olive green shirt, its short sleeves rolled twice to his shoulders. His head shaven except for a sandy-blonde stripe down the middle. Crisscrossing his chest was a leather holster, sporting a dagger above his right hip and a flintlock at the other. He stopped in front of Hux and studied the captain intently, his blue eyes piercing. "Armitage Hux," he chuckled, folding his arms. "You're sure as hell not a snake anymore, but fuck—it's impossible to miss the arrogance in that stench of yours."
Hux was too flabbergasted to take offense. "Captain Phasma," he frowned. "How the hell did you—?"
"I have my ways," Phasma cut in, smirking. Hux thought his reply unsettling. "So I heard you had quite the run-in with the Silencer recently," Phasma remarked, turning to claim a seat at a vacant table nearby. "Going after the undead alone?" Shaking his head, he pulled up a chair and sat down as Hux took another opposite his. "I gotta hand it to ya, that's some pretty ballsy shit right there."
Hux grit his teeth. "That's why I'm here," he scoffed. "I need your help."
Phasma's brow quirked. "You're really hellbent on killing him, aren't you?" Hux responded with a subtle inclination of his head and the amusement on the other captain's face slowly dimmed. Forearms braced on the table, Phasma took a breath and leaned over towards the redheaded captain. "In case you weren't already aware, Armitage, Ren isn't gonna be an easy man to kill."
Hux sneered at this. "Ren has the compass," he affirmed. "Find him and the compass and I can assure you we'll have no problem finishing him off."
"Why the hell do you need the compass for? All ya gotta do is put a knife through the fucker's heart."
"Ren may not be the leader Snoke was, but let's just say he was more clever in dissimilar aspects," growled Hux. "He cut his heart out and hid it someplace on land."
Phasma's brows shot up to his hairline. "This...is definitely news to me," he admitted as if he should have already known that tidbit of info beforehand.
"So will you help or not?"
Phasma reclined in his chair, considering this. "That all depends," he shrugged. "You killing Kylo Ren means you intend to take his place. You want the First Order's help, then what reward is in it for us?"
Hux grinned knowingly. "How about a share in immortality?" he suggested. "Two immortal fleets: we would own the ocean, Phasma. Lords of the sea. I keep the Silencer and you stay captain of the Finalizer."
Phasma took a few moments to contemplate the other captain's offer, and Hux waited with bated breath. "Alright," said Phasma, directing a finger at Hux. "But double-cross me and I swear to Hades I'll fuckin' kill you myself."
Hux didn't doubt that either. "I'm a man of my word."
"And if I'm gonna help you, we're doing this my way," Phasma proceeded to explain. Hux's brows furrowed in confusion. "We're not gonna find Kylo Ren. I can tell you there's another way to obtain his heart without that bloody compass."
Hux stared at him blankly. "How do you suppose we do that, exactly?"
Phasma snorted and rose from his seat. "You're not the only man that has a witch he can look to for guidance," he replied, gloatingly.
What the hell was he talking about? He has a witch…?
Well, it explained how the First Order captain was so knowledgeable about Hux and his not-so-successful-tango with the Silencer.
Without Armitage having to demand an answer, Phasma led him to a backroom on the bottom floor. Shrouded in darkness and displaying minimal decor on its sooty walls. A cauldron was fixed inside a stone hearth on the wall parallel to the entrance of the antechamber, steam rising from its liquidy content.
Whoever the witch was, it was clear she wasn't morally ambiguous like Maz Kanata.
"Rescued her a few years ago from the gallows on Naboo," Phasma explained. "Long story but anyhow, since then, she's helped me by keeping tabs on everyone in the world here. I hope you didn't think you were that special to believe people were talking about you, did you, Armitage?" The smug grin Phasma threw at Hux had him tasting the metallic flavor of blood from biting his tongue.
The ginger's perception went past the captain to a woman sitting at a table on a long, narrow bench in the left corner of the room. "Captain Hux, I want you to meet Bazine Netal," Phasma announced, stopping three or four paces shy of the witch who went by the name Bazine.
Glancing from over her shoulder toward Hux's vicinity, Bazine set aside the inky mug she was holding before she stood and turned to face the two men. She was...quite beautiful. For a witch, Hux noted. Young and very much resembling a woman of her nature that exercised the blackest of black magic.
Her skull was entirely clean-shaven with one, long swirly tattoo in Sanskrit, beginning at her crown and vanishing underneath her obsidian dress, revealing more skin in places on her slender figure than Hux had seen women wear at brothels. Below the large bindi centered on her forehead, she glowered at the captain through black orbs, measuring him up then down.
"Relax, sweetheart," Phasma crooned, next to her. "We just need your assistance in locating something of great value to us."
Bazine cast a long look at Phasma and then crossed her arms, returning to Hux. "Alright, and just so I make myself clear, Armitage," she advised, "my services do not come free of expense. For whatever it is you seek, there is a cost that must be paid."
Hux's grin turned sinister. All those years of scouring beaches and townships for a compass he was beginning to think was nonexistent were finally over. The clock was ticking for his adversary and it was now only a matter of days before Kylo Ren would be dead.
And the best thing about it—Ren would never know what had hit him in the end.
"Trust me, you will have your payment one way or another," Hux promised. Still grinning, his hands clasped behind his back, the captain inched closer to Bazine. His cold blue eyes fixated on the witch's equally cruel gaze. "Now, tell me where I can find Kylo Ren's heart."
Rey emerged from the bow stairwell within minutes of the moon rising into a sky full of stars. If Ben had needed a reason to believe there were angels among them on earth, he certainly did now.
Her hair was framing her face in loose waves. The dress resembling a bridal gown with delicate lace for cropped sleeves. Four of the top clasps in front were unfastened, baring the slightest hint of cleavage plus her own matching locket.
His tentacle squeezed the locket she had given him prior in the night. Watching her ascend the quarterdeck stairs, with the moon's iridescence her personal spotlight, it occurred to him how much she looked like a bride meeting him at the altar. He wondered then if there could ever be a real wedding for them in the future.
But before he wandered off thinking marriage, he needed to tell her tonight that he loved her. Easy peasy, right?
Wrong.
So fucking wrong. His stomach felt as if it had twisted itself into a pretzel just by standing there.
"It's not too much, is it?" Rey asked, a tendril of doubt filtering through her query. Drawing her bottom lip beneath her upper incisors, hands at her sides clutching her skirt, she tipped her chin and peered down at the toes of her boots peeking out from under the lace, adorning its hem. Such a simple act made her appear more innocent and pure than she did already.
It made Ben smile.
Of course, that wasn't anything new. Rey had this impeccable knack for making his stormiest of days shine without putting forth the effort.
"No," he said softly. "You look beautiful."
"Yeah?" She peered up at him and Ben nodded in affirmation.
"You always look beautiful," he rasped, arms encircling her waist. Grinning as she pressed her palms to his chest, he caught her lips and kissed her tenderly. "Although," he uttered with his mouth looming above hers, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't imagining you wearing nothing right now."
A part of him - a very, very small part of him - was tempted to say there was no surprise and spend the remainder of the night worshipping her body inside his cabin, murmuring praises and listing those million reasons why he loves her. Good thing he didn't though because Rey scowled in mock annoyance and playfully swatted his shoulder.
"You are such a scoundrel sometimes Ben Solo, you know that?"
Ben smirked. "Seriously, though, you look amazing."
Rey beamed at that. "Much better. And thank you," she said shyly. While he couldn't see if her cheeks were blushing or not he was willing to bet there was red underneath the shadows on her visage. "I'm glad you like it 'cause it's the second half of your gift."
A gift he didn't mind unwrapping…
Fuck. Why was it such a chore all of a sudden to keep his cock and his brain running on the same frequency?
She slid her hands upward and threaded her fingers behind his neck. "Since you said you had something planned for us tonight I figured it was a good excuse t—." The faint song of kettle drums and guitar playing in the wind ceased her train of thought, calling her awareness toward the island. "Hey..." her eyes darted to him then again to Batuu, scanning the shore in hopes of identifying the melody's source. "Do you hear that?"
Ben nodded, his vision transfixed on Rey. "That is actually your surprise." She furrowed her brows in reply to his confession and looked at him, head slightly tilted to the side. For a fleeting moment, he forgot what he had wanted to ask her.
No measure of time could ever help him get over the way she perceived him.
Clearing his throat, butterflies tickling his gut and his clammy palm splayed across the small of her back, Ben lifted his claw for her to take. "Will you dance with me?"
Rey blinked and took half a step back. "I—Are you sure? I mean, of course, you are. Otherwise, you wouldn't have asked." She breathed a nervous laugh. "Sorry, I just...I've never danced a day in my life."
Ben chuckled. He loved her rambling tendencies whenever she was anxious. "It's just a slow waltz. You'll be following my lead while I do all the work."
Rolling her lips, Rey exhaled loudly through her nose. "Okay…" she sighed. Relaxing a smidge, she accepted his extended claw, cupping the bottom cleft; her left hand grappling his right shoulder. "You can't say I didn't warn you."
"You did," he assured, his palm urging her closer. "It's a risk I'm willing to take and I accept that I'm wholly responsible for any injuries I might receive. You can play nurse for me though in the aftercare," he concluded with a mischievous grin, waggling his browline, twice. Rey flung her head back and laughed.
"You're ridiculous," she scolded lightly.
He took that as a yes for later activities.
As the music arrived at its crescendo, Ben guided her through the steps. Muttering rhythmic counts quietly for Rey and reminding her to concentrate on his eyes rather than worrying about not stumbling over his or her feet. She caught on quickly and soon, they were moving as one. Connected and perfectly insync. Lost in the cosmos sparkling within the other's gaze. When the tempo slowed he spun her outward and Rey gracefully twirled back, her dress fanning out as peacock feathers would. Her laughter frivolous and carefree.
"See? You're practically a natural," he praised. "And no injuries."
"Yeah, so it's not as scary as I thought," she replied excitedly. "Who taught you how to dance?"
"My mother, surprisingly. Didn't have much of a choice though. With her high profile in the community, I was drug to a lot of galas and social events."
Rey wrinkled her face, cocking her head. "Is that really a bad thing?"
"The dancing, no," he groused. "When you're a wallflower corralled inside the smallest room with every bootlicker in town, you're a hare amongst wolves. Women were there solely to appease their parents, to find a suitable husband. The wealthier your family was, the better off you were. Dollar signs over love kinda bullshit."
Rey nodded, her levity fraying a smidge. "I can relate. But when you're a little girl and forced to live alone among those wolves, you tend to view them a bit differently than just people starving for money," she gave him a sorrowful smile. "You were fortunate to have had the family you did growing up, Ben. From all that you've told me, they seemed to have always had your best interests at heart. And in spite of the awful things that have happened since then, I know they still love you."
Guilt flared inside his chest. His childhood paled in contrast to the deplorable tragedy that was Rey's and it hadn't been until the forthcoming years when he was hit by that doom and gloom in life. And in reference to his parents' love for him still, Rey was probably right...Han and Leia would forgive him before Ben could even think about forgiving himself for his sins.
How his parents would react to seeing the creature their son had become, however, was a question he had been afraid of learning the answer to, and perhaps why he had been holding back from asking Rey to go home with him in less than a week.
"They were foolish for abandoning you," Ben noted evasively. "You're the most incredible woman I've ever known and I think my family would agree. Whenever the day comes for you to meet them, I know they'll love you too."
Her head tipped sideways. "You think so?"
He gave her a lopsided smile. "I know so."
Rey considered him then nodded in response, a wan smile curling the corners of her lips. Her left hand slipping between Ben's arm and ribs to the back of his navy and gold-trimmed overcoat, she pressed her cheek to his right breast. With the music nearing its final chords they held one another close, swaying in place. He deliberated telling her then and there that he loved her but the frog lodged in his throat wasn't letting the words pass.
Turns out, nothing was more nerve-racking than telling your first love you were in love with them.
"I wish my family was here to introduce you," Rey said, despondently. "I think about my parents and it's like...every day that passes, it's getting harder to remember them. I've barely any recollection of their faces or voices but I can remember the irrelevant things. Stupid things like the color and design of their ship flag," she muttered bitterly. "It had this—this purplish-blue background with stars in a crescent shape. And the bottom point had a bigger cluster, kinda like a star bursting."
On second thought, some things were more terrifying than love confessions. Because that was the moment Ben felt as if the world had suddenly shifted off its axis. The music resonating from afar had stopped. Rey may have been talking still but all he detected was tinnitus ringing in his ears and the ache inside his chest from an absent heart had awoken after years of dormancy.
That flag…
Three years into his service on the Silencer, roughly a year before Ben removed his heart, he and the crew had come upon a merchant ship sailing a couple hundred miles from the American panhandle. Billowing in the wind above its center mast was a flag identical to Rey's description. His orders had been explicit that afternoon, utilizing terms in plain and simple English: do not engage. And yet it was Armitage Hux who deliberately defied Ben's orders, applying his seniority's influential hold over the Silencer's original crew and ordering round after numerous rounds of cannon ammunition into the hull of the lowly merchantman.
The Stardust. They had been close enough to the Silencer for Ben to have heard those that miraculously survived the onslaught shouting to abandon their ship. Up until now, he had forgotten their screams. Had forgotten them pleading for mercy before thirty of his men rendered that patch of ocean red.
Fuck!
"I keep thinking back on everything that's happened," said a woman's voice. Blinking from what he hoped was a horrible dream, Ben was met by a familiar pair of hazels staring up at him admiringly. Rey's arms were looped around his waist and his, at some point, must have mindlessly wrapped around her shoulders. "It's almost as if all of this was meant to be. The compass. Our meeting. Me taking Solo for a surname when I snuck onboard the Supremacy, without having met you or your father."
Ben couldn't help frowning. An unshakable feeling nagging his gut that the very same force which brought them together was about to drive them apart. If it had been written in the stars for him to be captain of the crew that murdered her parents and witness their demise, then fate apparently held a morbid sense of humor. Or was this the universe's method of punishing him for slaughtering those hundreds of innocent lives over the seven-year duration afterwards?
"Ben?" asked Rey, craning her head for a better glimpse of him. "Are you okay?"
No. Frankly, he was wishing the floorboards would open from under him so the ocean could swallow him whole. But he needed to tell her no matter how bad the truth was going to hurt. "Rey…" he choked. "They're gone."
Rey batted her lashes rapidly, brows furrowing. "You're not making any sense. Who's gone?"
"Your parents. Their ship was a merchant class called the Stardust, wasn't it?"
Rey's breath hitched in her throat. Disentangling herself from their embrace, she stepped back with her eyes rounding in utter dismay. Avoiding Ben's hand reaching impulsively for hers. "How…?"
"Rey, please. It's not what you—."
"I've never told you that name. How could you know?" she demanded sharply. "It was Stardust, yes, but how do you know that?"
She was staring at him like she did when their first dinner together had begun to flop, and he hated it. Hated being made to feel he was as much a heartless monster now as he was then. Unfit for love or to be loved whereas today he'd readily give his life for Rey so long as it meant she would be safe.
Christ, this was so unfair. He hated that bastard Hux with a reinvigorated passion. Hated he hadn't killed him when given the chance.
He closed his eyes and swallowed, willing the ire that was building inside him to ebb and he gave Rey the answers she had been asking herself for a decade. Excluding the gorier details. Hux's insurgency that resulted in the uprising of thirty other men who had yet to be so willing to adapt to his principles, minus Poe and Chewie.
By the time he had finished, tears were cascading down her flushed cheeks. And every time he reached for her, she slipped further and further away from him. "You could have stopped him," she castigated, hiccuping. "You were the captain why didn't you stop him?"
"I tried. Okay? You gotta believe me when I say that I tried. But once I realized what was happening, it was already too late. That fight was over before it had even started and those men below deck right now—it's taken me years to earn their respect. Years to make them want to change."
"You could have tried harder!" she cried, gesticulating a hand at the crew quarters' stairway behind her, the other held across her chest. "All that power you had over them, over Hux. What the hell was holding you back?"
"Rey…"
"My parents could have been coming back for me!"
"They weren't coming back!" Ben exclaimed. Rey stood there, frozen, chest heaving. And he regretted the outburst the minute he realized she was not only crying about her parents—but because of him. "They weren't coming back," he repeated again, softening his voice. Two paces were required of him in order to bridge that rift between himself and Rey yet doing so was like trudging a mile through tar just to get to her.
When he reached for her hand this time, she didn't even flinch, didn't even budge. Just stared at him, trembling. "The Stardust was England-bound. They were never coming back," he continued hoarsely. "I'm sorry. I'm so...so sorry for what happened. If it was possible to go back and change the outcome of that day, I would. But Rey, they left you. I won't."
A pause.
During that lull in their discussion, Ben lifted her hand and a tentacle presented Rey the key to his heart. Her bottom lip quivering when she looked down at the bronze object in her palm informing him it wasn't necessary that he explain what it was.
"I can't begin to emphasize how much I care about you," he said, releasing her hand. "There's so much I want to tell you but the easiest way for me to say it is that I want you by my side. Tomorrow. Next week. Hell, seventy years from today. I would never leave you. And I'd give you anything you could ever want if you would just tell me how I can fix this."
Rey kept quiet for another minute, examining the key. Although eons could have flown by and it wouldn't have been long enough for him to prepare himself for what was to come.
"I want to go home," she whispered. Her words knocking the air out of him as he struggled to respond with anything that didn't resonate as a strangled what from his throat.
Rey bit her lips and peered up at him through watery, bloodshot eyes. "I need some time," she sniffed. "I know that I made a promise to help you and I'm sorry. All of this is just...It's too much for me to process at once. And I care about you, too." Fresh tears began to gush from her clenched eyes at that. "I do, Ben. I care about you so much. More than you probably think right now but I just need some time alone for a while."
Pressure welled behind his eyes that stung like needles. Confirming that even though his heart was missing he was still susceptible to emotions he hadn't felt since his fall into darkness. A blend of sorrow and anger and pain. His anger directed more at himself than at Rey for the fact that not even his love had been enough for her to stay. Had she not attempted to return his key to him, he may have been more attentive to the lone tear trailing a wet streak from the corner of his eye, down his cheek, disappearing somewhere in his beard of appendages.
He should have taken the key, hailed a falcon or a raven or a fucking pigeon and had it delivered to Hux. Called it a day and say maybe, in another time, in another life, things could be different between himself and Rey. But instead, his hand pushed hers away.
"No, it belongs to you," he said, his voice faltering at the end. "It will always belong to you."
She hesitated to move, to speak. And it wasn't until after he pressed a kiss to her forehead, Rey firmly squeezing his hand, that he did what had to have been the hardest thing anyone had ever asked of him.
He let her go.