Disclaimer: Star Wars is the property and creation of Lucas Film and Disney. I own none of the characters and places mentioned in this story.
Special thanks to my beta-reader Chridder (from AO3) for helping me out with this.
Somewhere in the vast space of the Outer Rim, one ship was moving steadily. The Purge was once used to transport prisoners in the Galactic Empire era and this was its only purpose until a deadly virus killed the crew. It wandered unmanned through space until Han Solo stumbled upon it and acquiesced it to the New Republic, who in turn disinfected it and kept it for academic purposes. Their possession of the ship ended with the rise of the First Order, its long arms spreading through the galaxy to take what once belonged to the New Republic.
Now it served as a way of transport for the Knights of Ren... not the original ones that once served under Ren but a new faction that worked independently of the originals.
It was composed of 8 humans and was created by Kylo Ren sometime after he became the leader of the original Knights.
"Vitus Ren, your turn," a man in his early fifties said with a sly smile.
"My turn? No matter what move I make now, I'd still end up losing, Uthar Ren, so I yield," Vitus Ren replied, a little peeved.
"Good choice, son, good choice. It hasn't been born yet the one who could possibly defeat me at sabacc."
"Sabacc again?" a mechanical voice intruded.
"Instead of honing your fighting skills, you train your sabacc skills, fath... Uthar Ren?!"
"You should ease up, Thannor Ren and allow an old man to indulge in the small pleasures of life. Fighting it's not everything to it, you know?" Uthar Ren added with patience.
"Kylo Ren would probably kill you if he knew how you spend your free time," Thannor Ren added, annoyed.
"That boy needs to relax. He need to be..."
But he never finished the sentence, interrupted by the beep of his comlink.
Only one person could be at the other end, and Uthar felt a headache coming. He wasn't in the mood to deal with anymore children.
"Speak of the wolf and he shall appear," Uthar mumbled under his breath.
Then he got up from the couch and went into a more private room, away from the others. As soon as he got there, he opened his comlink, and the hologram of Kylo Ren came to life.
"Did you find any trace of the Resistance?!" the mechanical voice of Kylo asked without preamble.
"No, we went to Birren, but general Organa made no attempt of communication," Uthar replied with certainty.
"Right now, we are on our way to New Alderaan. Maybe the Resistance asked them for help."
"Good. I will leave everything in your capable hands," Kylo replied in a cold voice.
A few minutes passed by... or maybe seconds that seemed like minutes as Kylo lingered on the open transmission.
By this point, Uthar started to be concerned about Kylo's behavior. Right now he acted so odd... so unlike himself. Usually he went straight to the point, eager to finish the conversation as quick as possible, but right now he seemed to want something he couldn't articulate.
After a few moments, in which Kylo hesitated and seemed to fight with himself, he asked: "Are you alone, right now?"
"Yes," Uthar replied even as he sensed the force signatures of the other knights at the doorway, eager to eavesdrop.
"You had a relationship, before, right? I mean you and Thannor Ren are..." Kylo hesitated.
"Kylo stop stalling and get to the point!" Uthar replied strictly, like scolding a child.
Everything froze in the room. Any force sensitive could feel the darkness leaking off from Kylo, even if he wasn't really there, swirling around, creating a suffocating atmosphere.
"Uthar is in so much trouble right now for bossing Kylo around," a feminine voice, from the entrance added in a whisper, worry lacing her words.
"Shut up, Harth Ren!" Thannor Ren replied tensely.
But as soon as Kylo's temper flared to life, it ended just as fast.
"Use that tone again and I'll make sure you'll be in a world of pain before I kill you!" Kylo boomed in a threatening voice.
"Understood!" Uthar replied, not disturbed in the slightest by Kylo's almost-to-be temper tantrum.
"So how do you... um... how to you, treat a woman?" Kylo asked in a whisper.
"You mean, how do you court a woman, right?" Uthar asked dumbfounded.
His answer came in form of daggers coming from Kylo's eyes. Even if he had his mask on, Uthar could feel his gaze.
"Um, I thought you didn't need to do this. After all the both of you will get married at the end of the month, so why would you need to know this?"
Kylo growled in warning.
"Okay, maybe you can take her out to dinner?"
"I already tried that," came Kylo's annoyed telepathic reply.
"Then try to take her to a place she would be interested in? Maybe the Jedi temple from Coruscant? Her grandfather was Obi-Wan Kenobi, after all," Uthar added, hopeful.
"No. I will never set foot in a Jedi temple again!" Kylo spat, venom lacing his words.
"Then I don't know what else to suggest" Uthar sighed.
Kylo huffed under his breath and ended the transmission.
As soon as his hologram vanished from sight, laughter could be heard from just outside the entrance in the hallway.
"Rough day, Uthar Ren? You don't need to hone your sabacc skills, you need to hone your matchmaker skills!" Kaan Ren said between bouts of laughter.
The knights were so busy laughing at Kylo's expense that none of them felt that Uthar got to his boiling point.
"Enough!"
And then the laughter stopped.
"Kylo Ren, can be a pain in the ass, sometimes, but if it wasn't for him, we could have a lot worse life than our current predicament!" Uthar added with authority.
Then he went to his sleeping quarters without waiting for a reply. He was really worried about Kylo and felt that soon something bad will happen to him.
Colony Region: Aquilaean system, Ophuchi planet
"We have to strike now!" Poe said decisively.
"Hold your fathiers, Poe. We still don't have enough strength to launch an attack against the First Order. The New Republic is gone and Ken risks much every day to send us supplies, so no we definitely aren't ready, yet!" a brown haired young woman chastised firmly.
"Oh great, so we keep hiding like rats? Soon enough we will be running out of places to hide and then what?" Poe huffed with impatience.
"Stop it, both of you!" a brown haired man bellowed.
"Jaina, you need to not let Poe rile you up, anymore," the same man added tenderly.
"Sorry, uncle Jarik!" Jaina replied, apologetic.
Poe smirked in response.
"As for you, Dameron, you need to think before you open your mouth. The way the Resistance it is now, it doesn't have a chance against the First Order," Jarik scolded.
"The way it is now? We have Jedi among our ranks, don't we?" Poe shot back.
"May I remind you that we never finished our training?" a young brown haired man added with a hollow voice.
"You didn't? Oh, I forgot, your elder brothers decided to join the Dark Side. One destroyed Luke's Jedi temple and tortured me, while the other killed Luke's wife in cold blood! You, surely, have a great family, Anakin!"
Pang, was the only sound that could be heard in the room as Jaina slapped Poe.
"I won't allow you to speak about my family like this!" Jaina added darkly as she stomped out of the room, bumping shoulders with her mother, Leia, on her way out.
As soon as Leia entered the room, she saw her son Anakin with his head hung down, Poe holding one of his hands on his cheek and Jarik face palming.
Based on the mood of the room and Jaina's anger, Leia figured out immediately what happened. Her daughter slapped Poe.
She felt so tired these days. Two of her sons gripped by the Dark Side, her husband dead at the hands of her eldest son, her sister-in-law dead at the hands of her middle son. And now what was left of her family was falling apart.
Her daughter Jaina took out her anger on anyone who spoke askance about their family, her youngest son Anakin was suffering from depression, refusing to share any of his feelings to anyone, her nephew Ben wanted nothing more than to kill Jacen to avenge his mother, and Jarik, whom she considered part of the family though he wasn't related by blood, was still trying to find his lost daughter.
And the bad news didn't end there... she received the news from Garma that she will be returning alone.
"Another soul lost in the cycle of hatred," Leia thought with sadness in regards to Garma's sister.
Author's notes:
Hope you all liked the small moments of comic relief.
So what did you all think about Kylo asking one of his knights for dating advices ?
So about my decision to introduce a new faction of the knights of Ren for this story. Well this is comes due to two reasons: 1) there is not enough info about the Knights of Ren from canon universe to be able to use them here; 2) I really liked the theory that surfaced after TLJ, that the Knights of Ren, were Luke's students that joined Ben Solo, so I decided to use that theory here.
If you want to find more about the characters and the other elements (the knights's ship and the Aquilaean system), read the author notes on AO3 (FFN won't allow me to post links here). My username from AO3 it's HelenFlower92 (the name of the story it's the same).
Feel free to leave a review.
Until next time!