Kylo Ren is born to a pitch-black space, one that allows no stars or suns to shine on his newly made self. He comes, bathed in shadow and blood; alone aside from the whispers haunting the corners of his mind. Dark gossamers of bloody sinew tie his ragged pieces together, keep him whole and obedient- grateful in a way- to his maker.
Snoke's guidance is the only light he can see – his north star in an otherwise blank sky. He is Kylo's maker and creator, being with him the longest. His master is always inside him. Talking, listening, and nestling down in Kylo's mind.
It's a comfort, the pain and presence of him. The way Snoke pushes the force away and lets their connection be the only one of meaning to Kylo. He basks in the trust and burden his master places on him. The important duty that separates him from the rest.
Master and protégé are one and the same. The dark conceals them, strengthens them in its murky waters. It is their pride and power. The dark side of the force connects them and only them; connects Kylo only to Snoke and isolates from every other weaker creature in the galaxy.
But a thought comes to Kylo Ren that he does not wish Snoke to see. It goes against everything he's been raised to believe. Blasphemous he calls it, but still, Kylo can't stop it when the thought comes unbidden.
Darkness cannot be so without its opposite. There is no shadow without sun. No dark corners without a light in the room. The sky can't be night unless the stars are shining, otherwise it is nothing but a hulking expanse of nothing.
There is no meaning to the dark without light to oppose it.
Kylo thinks this when he's as alone as he can be. He sits at his desk, letting stillness settle in the air and calming his blood so it doesn't stir. In a meditation he conjures a breath of an image. Sometimes, Kylo can hear a hint of a laugh or feel the lingering breeze of clean air on his arms. On rarer times, the sun breaks through his dark sky and sun, a dying remnant of the sun, shines on his face. They are memories, he supposes. Merely, fragments of memories from a past life. They are nothing more than thoughtless daydreams that haunt him.
They are of the light side of the force, he is certain of it by the weak response in his force. The rising of the dark to combat them. He feels powerful after remembering but won't linger on them for too long in case Snoke is watching. They leave his heart pounding and though it only lasts for moments, he feels a renewed vigor. He can't admit this, even to himself, but he longs for them. Kylo has never felt such warmth before.
Snoke professes that Kylo is the darkness. He is the embodiment of Snoke's rage and power. The sword and weapon created to execute his master's vision.
But how can he anyone be pure darkness when it is nothing without a light to extinguish?
He never allows himself to think any of this. It's forbidden and wrong. Sacrilegious. Kylo is the sword forged in the dark. He is a weapon. He will not let himself be seduced.
But can't bring himself to purge that speck of light and locks up those memories. They make the dark side in him more powerful and he would be a fool to cast off something like that despite what his master teaches. Kylo is the dark side but he keeps a bit of the light chained in the deep recesses of his mind. What he isn't sure of is if he keeps them locked up to push them away or keep them close?
Kylo is always aware of the force. Though Snoke cuts him off from it as best he can, the force lingers around him, moving inside of him. It's always touching, modulating, trying to connect him with the universe even when he desires solitude.
The disturbance happens when he's in the brig. It breaks through all of his own barriers and all Snoke erected in him. Kylo stands at a railing watching the very planets they pass part ways for their fleet. Being at the head of the ship makes it feel like the space they fly through is moving just for him. He taps a finger to his side as Hux speaks about something he can't bother to listen to.
Without warning, Kylo is connected with everything. He can't feel Snoke in his mind and automatically reaches out for his master. The absence of pain is mind-altering. Kylo still feels the hooks and walls Snoke's created in him but they aren't tearing into him anymore and he's not sure how to react to the absence of something there for so long.
There is color and light and warmth like he's never felt before. Kylo Ren is ablaze. He can feel the force traveling down his extremities, tingling in his fingertips, heating his belly and the very blood in his veins surges. He's alive in a way he's never been before. The tendrils of the dark side quake inside of him. They rise up at the threat consuming his every thought. Growing in agitation with each second the light penetrates through him.
His vision blurs as pure light floods it and, just as fast as it came, everything recedes. Dark descends in him once again like a heavy blanket of snow. Snoke claws his way to control, his master's whispering grows stronger in retaliation.
Kylo is bent over grasping the railing in front of him. His imposing figure bowed as he gasps for breath.
What is that?
"Ren?" Hux says and Kylo clenches his fists around the railing. The man's voice is… unsure. Hux is always a pain, always snarky but hesitation is new, like something strange has happened. He's shown a weakness to the man because something has happened but he shouldn't have shown it. Kylo should have controlled it.
He forces himself to stand tall and look down on Hux. There's a flicker of something in Hux's eyes and Kylo turns before it can fade. It's enough for him to storm out. Hux calls his name again but the door snaps shut behind him. His feet pound against the floor and this time, he lets himself hurry.
It's all he can do to make it to his room. His fingers itch toward his saber. The urge to destroy something attempts to take over but this is his sanctuary, one he's destroyed too many times in fits of rage. Pacing to his desk he sits and tries to even his breathing.
His fingers continue to tingle. Kylo clenches them, grits his teeth, but still it persists. He slams them down on the desk. Pain blooms, hot and white in his hands and wrists. The objects rattle on the surface but it isn't enough. A growl claws its way up from his throat and he slams them down again and again before sweeping his arms across the table. Papers fly into the air, objects clatter and break against the wall. It isn't enough.
Kylo grips the edge of the desk and yells as he flips it. The desk tips over, knocking into the other wall. Destruction left in his wake. His force is volatile, strong enough it coats his tongue and invades his lunges.
He falls to his knees.
It's addicting.
Kylo tears off his mask and grips his hair, pulling not enough to hurt, but enough to feel something other than the fire inside of him. His locked-up images of the light are nothing compared to that feeling in the force. If those keep his darkness black, this new sensation plunges him into an obsidian so pure that nothing could stop him.
His first instinct is to run from it. The sensation is too much. It's caused him to show weakness in front of something, to bend over from the sheer magnitude of it. He's breathing hard, still. The aftereffects coursing through the force make him tender, make him enraged at the connection forged in a way Kylo has never had or wanted before.
He wants to block off this foreign disturbance.
But he also wants to control it.
Kylo could take this sensation whole and use it. He could swallow the source whole. Keep the warmth and light all to himself so that his darkness can prosper to unknown levels. The possibilities are endless. He could rule the world on the feeling alone, he's sure of it.
He can feel Snoke now, the probes drilling into his mind but for once he ignores his master.
The force encourages Kylo to push past fear and into his curiosity. It's his opposite, that blinding light, and he wants to take it for himself. There's a tugging inside of him, a need for it, whatever it is, that grabs hold of him.
Kylo concentrates on the feeling that enveloped him in the brig. Synapses form inside of him. He follows them, trails the fire from where it kindles in him through to the universe to … He closes his eyes and reaches out. He's so close.
Kylo feels the sun again.
There's a glimpse of skin. A rounded curve framed by wisps of brown hair. He realizes it's an ear, tanned from the sun and impossibly small. There's a smattering of freckles on it, a light pink tinge gracing the top curve. He follows it down, tracing the skin to the lobe. He swallows as the head turns. Kylo holds his breath and …
Nothing.
Kylo grits his teeth and screams.
Whispers of destruction, control, power course through him. Edging him to take the pain tinged hate further.
Kylo second guesses himself before hardening his mind. He will fulfill his grandfather's legacy. He will complete his training and be everything Snoke wants him to be. If he had this power, though, he could be more. He could rule over them all with that power at his call, he thinks.
Another secret gets locked away in his mind, one he doesn't admit to himself: Kylo wants to feel that warmth on his face. He wants to be under the same sun as that tanned ear he saw.
His master knows about the disturbance, the awakening he calls it. Of course, he does, but it's okay because Snoke's sanctioned a search. He doesn't say anything about Kylo's lapse in control and Kylo doesn't bring it up either.
Kylo can hardly control the way he wants to take hurried steps to his ship.
He's going to find her. Because he found out the brown hair and tanned ear belongs to a girl. That the awakening is her. The disturbance and subsequent need, her fault. That it is her he will steal to advance his power.
They're on Takodana. It's his duty to find them, to find the map, and his want to find out if his force will react even more up close. Will he be more powerful with close contact? Will his darkness surge for her light?
The force waves around him, almost parting for him as it urges him to connect outward. He clamps down on it. Kylo doesn't want to feel anything until he is in front of her.
After her awakening, he'd woken on the floor surrounded by papers and bits of desk. At first, he didn't notice, distracted by his new goal, how could he notice something so small? But now, surrounded by forest, he can't help but see the difference.
Takodana is bathed in green. Memories of the last time he saw it are faint but he can't help to remember the vivacity of the terrain. It's not the same as his faint memory. The color isn't as vibrant now. Its verdant foliage is lacking something. The waters they'd passed on the ship are the same. They are too dark or not nearly cerulean enough. His reflection in the mirror is the same dull tones.
Fear creeps in that he will never see anything the same after the disturbance in the force. After her.
His mission commands it and yet, deeper, he must find her and see. She's escaped them thus far with the traitor stormtrooper, might think herself an agent of the light but it's inevitable she will be his savior. The one who will finalize his place in the dark.
Kylo stalks through the forest. She is everywhere now. Her light seeps into the leaves and hidden crevices of the trees, illuminating the darkest place of the forest's underbelly. The force tingles the closer he gets until, she is there.
Small is his first thought. How could someone with such a large presence in the force be so small. But he soon learns she is tough, forged in the equally tragic stone as him. The way she fights, all bared teeth and wild abandon with everything even when her loss is guaranteed. He revels in the fight; in her fight. Light always fights the hardest right before it's extinguished. And this is no different. Every advance of his is met with a higher flame.
The force dances between them, feeds off of their energy giving them both more power. He smiles behind the mask.
Fear clouds her eyes. Her body taught with energy. If he's sinking into the black tar of his force, she's a phoenix in her own force. She's burning up, becoming something new, something powerful. Kylo stops before it can finalize. He uses the force to stop the fight; keep her paralyzed.
Kylo takes a breath before he talks.
"The girl I've heard so much about." Kylo says watching her every move. He comes closer and basks in the fire radiating off of her. The force fluctuates between them bringing him closer still to her. He called her a girl earlier but that's not what she is. She's a woman, strong and able to hold her own against him or anyone.
Her head is bent at an angle. His eyes land on her ear and he shivers. Hair dampened from sweat clings to the skin around it, the tip pink from exertion. He watches as a bead of sweat drips down the crevices and disappears under the antihelix.
It's her.
She sets him afire. Power courses through him, rising to meet her own light. He can hardly stop from testing it, seeing what lengths he can go now. But duty stills his hand. Snoke expects answers and he will deliver.
"The droid." He says walking around her until he stands in front of her again. Kylo swings his saber up toward her face and basks in the way her eyes reflect red.
The dark side ripples through him. The fear is palpable, burning brighter with every second he holds her with the force, every moment she struggles against him. He inches his saber toward her. Red grows larger in her eyes. So does the fear.
"Where is it?"
He doesn't expect her to answer, but he asks all the same. Kylo reaches for her and the force. His hand hovers. This is the moment. She's seen the map and he knows she must come with him.
His hand hovers in front of her. They connect through the force. He slips inside of her mind and it's just as blinding as he expects. She's so bright and warm. And he's never felt anything like this before. A desert lays before him protecting her mind, hiding it's secrets underneath the grains of sand.
There's something hidden too. A secret of her own growing under all that light and land. Kylo can smell the despair and something else, something sickly and familiar. He wants to explore it further but it can wait. For now.
Kylo's darkness surges forward, intensifies against the light. It's like he thought. His power responds to the light. Strengths with it, improves beside it. The force undulates between and every second they interact. Their energies, still so separate at the moment, react to one another. Beg to combine into something new. The potential whispers to him.
The girl is coming with him, he decides. Now that he's found this he won't let it go. He won't let her go. She falls into his arms and now he can't help but marvel at the strength he feels coming from her. Kylo scoffs at his first assessment of her.
As he takes them back to the ship, he can't help but notice how green the trees look.
Rey wakes and her eyes zero in on him. Though he can see her arms testing the restraints, she doesn't look around the cell. Only at him. Fear floods her body, taught against the table but Rey doesn't let it shake her.
"Where am I?" She asks. By her tone she already knows so he doesn't answer her question directly.
"You're my guest." He's wearing the mask like before in the forest. Her eyes trace its form and he fights the urge to shiver at the sheer intensity of her gaze.
"Where are the others?" This produces a sharp laugh from him.
"You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends? You'll be relieved to hear I have no idea." He has some but he doesn't care about them now. She shouldn't care about them when they've done nothing but use her. They are nothing compared to him.
Her eyes don't waver from him. It's a heady sensation to be at the end of them. To feel that calculating mind sizing you up. Rey focuses only on him and Kylo takes more joy in it than he should.
The humor doesn't fail to come through in his next sentence. "You still want to kill me."
Not a question but a statement. Her eyes harbor an ill-concealed fury. The rage and passion from the earlier flight has not left her yet.
"That happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask." His breathing stills. It's not expected. Rey is beyond right. She knows what he is and the truth sits heavy between them. He is a creature in a mask, but what kind of person wants to see what's underneath? Her eyebrow quirks in a challenge.
Kylo moves in measured breaths and takes it off. It's the first step to build a trust between them. He realizes that Kylo doesn't want to hide from her. The piece of her mind he's seen in the forest is enough for him to want to know more and if this show of trust is what he takes, it is a small price to pay. He shows her his face. Rey stares and swallows. He zeroes in on the rise and fall of her throat.
Does she still see a creature now that the shell is gone?
Kylo wants to ask but the heat flooding the tips of his ears stills his mouth. It isn't the time or place. Instead, he asks her about the droid.
"He's a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal hyperscan vindicator-"
Not good enough. She's not taking this seriously. Rey doesn't know what's at stake for both of them. He has to push her now. To see how she reacts to him.
"He's carrying a section of a navigational chart. We have the rest, recovered from archives of the Empire. We need the last piece. And somehow, you convinced the droid to show it to you. You. A scavenger."
She creases her brows, like she really doesn't know why the droid gave her the information. Something about the expression on her face leaves his chest aching. The desolation of not belonging anywhere. He knows what that is like. Cruel words hover at the tip of his tongue and Snoke whispers in his ear to indulge them but Kylo reaches forward. Rey flinches back until her head presses against the table but he advances until his glove touches her cheek. What does her skin feel like?
They both watch as he pulls back. A tear soaks into the leather on his finger.
"Tell me." He says so quietly he's not sure she's even heard him. Their eyes connect and their forces press against each other.
Rey breaks eye contact first. She shuts her eyes as if she's trying to shut out the world. Her head turns from him and Kylo can't help but stare at her ear. Again. Still sweaty and tiny but hers all the same.
He reaches forward, probes into her mind and now that the passion of their fight has passed, other things are easy to see. Her mind is a sea of sand. An endless amount of grief filing down like an hourglass, drowning her little by little in the bottom.
"You're so lonely. So afraid to leave…" He says knowing the statement doesn't begin to describe the depth of her emotion. Kylo digs through the sand. "So afraid to stay…"
Her eyes snap to his. Fire quick to rise but it dies as fast.
"You're crying." She says.
Kylo frowns. He hasn't cried since he left the Jedi academy. Her fingers twitch up but the restraints make movement impossible. Kylo mirrors her aim and brings a glove to his face. Again, they stare at the liquid there seeping into the material of his glove right where her tear sunk into.
"I may be a monster but I'm human, Rey. I understand you."
"No, you don't!" She yells. "No one can." Rey trails off in a soft tone and something in his chest aches as she bends her head. The force dims around them, colors dull.
He doesn't think. Kylo reaches out. This time not to probe for answer. His hand comes up, hesitates a moment, before cupping her cheek. Rey stiffens at the sensation, tensing in preparation for another interrogation but that's not his aim. He slides his hand back so he cradles her cheek and jaw, a gloved finger resting over her ear.
"I want to." He doesn't think he's ever spoken so true before. Rey leans her head into his hand. Her eyes look like she wants to believe him, like she could if she let herself. The force pulls them closer, breaths mingle together. He sees golden flecks in the colors of her eyes.
Their eyes connect and they recognize one another. Two souls to one in a moment. Understanding between them.
Agony rips into his skull. Kylo cringes away, rearing back from Rey. Snoke demands answers from him. His master's tethered hooks pull at him, threatening to rip him apart. Kylo pants.
"Kylo? What's wrong? What's happened? Are my friends okay?" Rey sounds worlds away.
He grits his teeth and remembers his duty. He squares his cheer and faces her, ignoring the way her eyes widen at his cold stare. He is a weapon and nothing else, though watching Rey's reaction he longs for more.
"I know you've seen the map. It's in there… and now you'll give it to me."
"I'm not giving you anything. Not this way."
His head splitting in two. Snoke reaches into him as Rey pulls away. He's weakened from the strain but can't show it to her.
"We'll see." And meets her gaze.
He's back in her desert, orange as far as you can see. Kylo tries to dig deeper, to climb a sand hill to see her secret better but falters a step. The sand wavers like a mirage. Flickering to something else.
Rey's fighting him, battling for control. He catches a glimpse of something, that sickly, familiar smell from before. Rey knows he's going to find it and she pushes back at him. He stumbles again and she's pushes harder until the sand disappears.
Rey pushes and pushes and demands until she enters his mind. They appear in a temple, half fallen and disintegrated. Fallen limbs and crushed vines adorn the ruins along with a sky with no stars. It's the complete opposite of her mindscape. His is damp and the very air is murky and heavy. Snoke's gruesome aura rests thick along the temple floors.
He can feel her rage along with her curiosity as she sees inside him. Kylo strains against her. He's not ready for her to see the true extent of his darkness. Her light burns inside of him, illuminating everything he holds hidden.
"You…You're afraid. You're the sa-"
It's too much. She's too much. Kylo falls back. Eyes furrowed at her triumphant expression. She breathes deeply still looking at him. He can't do anything now. Not shaken as he is. She's far stronger now and if he wasn't shaking he could admire the natural gift Rey has.
Turning away from her is almost as painful as staying but Snoke summons him. Kylo leaves Rey in the interrogation room.
Kylo wonders if she regrets seeing the creature behind the mask.
His world is dull again. Rey - a fitting name for her - escapes the holding room and takes the possibilities with her.
Something twists in him.
Her curiosity is a surprise.
Hate is what he expected. In a way her hatred of him is what he wanted. That black emotion would spur on his own, feed into his own negative emotions in turn. But curiosity, pity, and understanding – that leaves him reeling.
It's nothing Kylo has known and nothing he wants to know now.
She violates his mind in a show of power not unexpected but certainly unwelcome. Rey sees into his truths with startling clarity. He's flayed before her eyes. Her presence presses into him, examining the dark molecules binding him together. She recognizes his fears and violent actions.
Curious.
It's such a strange reaction. Fear he can understand, how could she not be feared of him with everything he's done, but Rey's defiant and almost open to him in the force. Her own force licks the jagged edges of him, curious indeed about their differences, just as his own seek to understand her.
The possibilities continue to plague him, now more than ever.
When faced with his father, Snoke's whispers become shouts echoing in his mind. It's palpable how strong the urge is to run the man through, to kill Han Solo, to be rid of his past. But curiosity breeds, it seems. Kylo is curious of the future. Where before he wanted to enslave it, to erase his past like it never was, now he sees a way to bow it to his will. He has no want for needless shows of power, not when he knows his true strength now.
He steps into his rage and takes glee in the fear he sees in Han Solo's eyes when his light saber comes an inch from his throat. His father falls back, staring up at him and Kylo turns from him. As he's walking away, ignoring the rage from both father and master, Kylo grins in triumph. Han Solo is nothing to Kylo Ren, not father or enemy or threat. Just a man.
Kylo realizes there is a shift to his vision now. Where before he saw a means to an end, nothing more than a bright light to usher his darkest parts into motion. Now he sees a combination of them both. A shared rise. A compromise.
After all, what is light but the opposite of dark? What are they without each other?
He follows her to the forest, knowing if she is burning, he wants to burn with her, too.
Rey crosses sabers with his in an ease that makes his stomach warm. She shines with potential if she ever went through training but the instinctual movements, their ferocity and grit, leave nothing off the table.
Snoke's whispers of caution are with him still but he ignores them.
This is it. This feeling. The blood roaring. Force pulsing. She pushes against his saber and he calls out to her.
"You need a teacher! I can show you the ways of the Force!" Her eyes widen and something flickers. Her light reaches towards him even if she leans away.
They are equals in a world of inferior beings. Each of them two sides of the same coin. Together they can conquer whatever they want. People will want to bow to them because of their wealth of power.
The air ripples through them. The force has joined them. Maybe they have been since her awakening or maybe there has always been a bond they've shared. The connection strengthens each time their sabers touch, each blow between them. Kylo can feel it with every movement he makes.
Rey.
Rey.
Rey.
The fight intensifies but he swears he sees her smile at one point. Kylo lets all his secrets out in his mind. A smile forms on his lips as their sabers create a new color, stronger and royal. Both light and dark. Purple. Them.
This is his destiny. He's thankful to his creator for making him the creature he is now and imparting a duty to give him purpose. Without that, she wouldn't be called to him and he wouldn't to her.
But the time has come to step away from his maker. The reality is they are not the same. Though they are one with the dark, Kylo must let the light shine in order to achieve his goals, not snuff it out.
It's time to step forward to her.
He physically steps toward her. Their fingers flex along the grip of their sabers but she doesn't back down. Rey snarls at him and he responds in kind.
Her strength is astounding and he can only watch when she closes her eyes. Is she thinking about his offer? The force oscillates around her before calming. Like the eye of a storm, the force centers around her. He is swept into the current at the edge of the eye, raging energy bombarding into him. But Rey is serene in the middle.
If he thought she is something before, her true strength shows as she breaks through the eye. Rey throws herself out of the safety she created to knock him back. Parry after parry, jab, swings, and single-handed swipes. She's all motion and growls. This woman is everything.
Kylo is no longer sure why they are even fighting. Just that they are together and his world is better for it. When she slices his face with her saber no anger comes. He revels in the burn of the wound. How his skin seeps open and stings in the cold air. It's a scar that professes her mark on him, her power for the world to see.
Rey stands over him in all her righteous glory. How could he have thought to keep her locked away? How could he have thought to use her light for his own purpose?
She's radiant and strength. Kylo knew it from the moment he felt her in the force.
So, when she runs he doesn't follow. When the world fades to colorless tones, he pays no attention.
All of his secrets are spilled out into his mind like the papers over his floor. In careful order he pulls them back, cradling each memory. The hint of laugh and lingering breeze are packed away first. And then he pulls in Rey. Protects that piece of light still residing in him, the connection between them, with everything he has.
They will meet again.
Of that he is sure.
He thought they were opposites: only light and dark. But in truth they are the same. They burn in the force. They are one with the force.
And together, they can do anything.
