Kylo swats an insect from his face and glares at the fallen log before him as if the weight of his stare alone might cause it to shift.
It doesn't.
Shaking out his fingers, he reaches out with his right hand. Flexing and extending. Curling his fingers into a fist. Teeth gritting so hard, it makes his jaw ache as he tries to budge it with the Force.
Nothing.
He has tried a hundred times since sunrise to use the Force in one way or another, and all to no avail. There is a strange, still, silence within him now. An uneasy hollow deep within his bones where cosmic energy once thrummed.
For as long as Kylo's lived, there has never been a time when the Force did not hum like a live wire beneath his skin. As much an essential part of himself as the movement of blood through his veins and the shifting of air in his lungs.
To be without it now is to be without both of these things.
Hot anger pulses at his temple but stirs nothing but a sheen of sweat to his brow. Frustrated, he strides to the log, hauling it up at one end before slinging it into a shallow pond. The plop of its impact causes a slurry of water to wash over his boots and flick muck across his face. He drags the back of his hand across his cheek, smearing it.
A quick movement to his left catches his eye and he whips towards it, only to come face to face with a small furry creature hanging from a bough by its long tail and watching him with large green eyes.
"Stupid momong," he grumbles, "lucky for you I can't make a fire. Or else I'd eat you."
The creature lets off a piercing array of chatter, its lips pulled back tight across small pointed teeth as if the threat is nothing short of amusing.
"Perhaps I'll eat you after all!" With rage and frustration reaching combustion point, he veers forward, reaching out to snatch the creature from the tree.
"Two days without First Order fodder and this is what you turn into?"
The voice stills Kylo's hand as a whisper of orange fur slips through his fingers. He spins on his heel to meet the unlikely sight of Rey, standing in the small clearing with his cloak draped over her shoulders, its hem pooling around her feet like a collapsed shadow.
Feeling foolish, he scrubs the outstretched hand across the nape of his neck and blinks at the oval face almost lost beneath the heavy cowl. His mind draws a useless blank as he searches for words, distracted by the way in which the darkness of the thick fabric seems to swallow the girl whole.
"I threatened it out of anger, not hunger," he manages finally, drawing his hair over his ears in a subconscious gesture as he steals a sidelong look at the would-be Jedi once more. Swathed in his cloak.
The light touch of a smile tugs the corners of Rey's lips. "Remind me not to pull faces at you then," she snorts, pushing the hood from her head to reveal a wild tangle of loose auburn locks. Unclasping the cloak, she bundles it up and throws it to him. "Thanks for the lend."
"You're welcome," Kylo catches the heavy wad of fabric as it hits him in the face. "The Knight of Ren look suits you. You should've joined me when you had the chance."
She shoots a sharp scowl as he bites the inside of his cheek. Idiot.
"You didn't wake me for my watch," she chides, ignoring his comment, "Is that why you're yelling at six-limbed swamp rats?"
"I believe it was a momong."
"Thought you described them as a somewhat more terrifying flesh-eating beast last night."
"Perhaps Chewie's description was far more terrifying to my nine-year-old mind than I remembered," he sighs, "besides, wookies always exaggerate."
"The way you talk of Chewie… It sounds like you two had a great bond," she says quietly.
It's only when Kylo stops smiling that he realises he'd been doing so in the first place.
"The pond water is safe to drink. And the plants growing at its edge will provide some nourishment," he says rigidly, moving to pass her, "if you can handle their bitterness."
"Oh, I've become quite accustomed to bitterness lately."
The pointed reply is like a barb at Kylo's back as he walks away. He grits his teeth and ignores the way it needles him.
The shelter, when Rey returns to it, is almost difficult to find - it's so well hidden amidst the thicket of undergrowth. She climbs one of the great trees that loom nearby, to find it almost indiscernible from above. If one didn't know precisely where to look, one would never see it.
"Someone made this," she states, dropping neatly from a bough, ten feet above.
"A detail I thought we'd established already," Kylo lugs a branch across the entrance.
"No, I mean, someone made this. As in, a sentient being. Not some wild foraging beast in need of a burrow."
"Well, I suppose some clever captive of the trandoshans survived here long enough to put together a hut," he shrugs, "we'll go a step further and hunt down the hunters. Then get the hell off this planet."
Rey chews her lip at his words. Their alliance is so fragile. So unexpected. She highly doubts there'll be a "we" in the equation when the opportunity comes to leave.
"What?" Kylo adds another dirty smudge to his face as he scrubs a hand across it, before dragging his fingers through his hair to rake ebony locks damp with sweat from his brow. "What have I said or done this time?"
A micropause. A hesitant shrug. And then Rey's grasping for a subject change. "You're a mess. You should've had a bath in that pool when you had the chance."
"You're not looking so sparkly yourself, Your Highness," he scoffs, snatching up his belt from the ground and clipping it into place. "Now let's get going."
Rey watches him walk away. And not for the first time considers who he reminds her of in those moments when he forgets what he's trying to be.
When the rumble of the airspeeder cuts through the forest, they're ready for it this time.
The plan is simple. Rey will get the trandoshans' attention and, being more nimble than Kylo, she'll lure them through the forest to where he will wait to pull a crude web of vines into the path of the vehicle, crippling it enough for them to launch an attack, overpower their captors and steal their craft.
It's simple. So simple.
Except that it's not.
When the trandoshans catch sight of Rey, they launch into pursuit, yipping and yowling in triumph while firing wild shots in a bid to make their quarry give a good chase before the game comes to an end.
Swinging from vines and leaping branches is no longer difficult for Rey, now that the debilitating effects of the tranquillizer have worn off and she's somewhat-adjusted to the planet's denser gravity. For a time it seems like the plan is going to work.
She follows a series of pre-established tracks just wide enough for the craft to follow, and perhaps that's what makes the hunters suspicious. Before Rey can lead them into the area where Kylo waits, they veer off, choosing instead to give up the chase.
"What happened?" Dropping neatly to the bough Rey perches on, Kylo releases a bundle of vines to the forest floor and crouches beside her, a frown marring his brow though it doesn't seem aimed at her, for once.
"I don't know." Rey wipes a thin sheen of perspiration from her forehead, before glancing over her shoulder. "I guess they grew suspicious when I didn't take the routes they couldn't follow."
"Mmm, I guess so," a thin sigh escapes him, "well, we can't try to lead them back this way again. I guess we'll have to carry on and find another way to trap them."
Rey nods, but her attention is on the dark hollows beneath Kylo's eyes and she remembers that he's yet to have a wink of sleep. "Let's head back to the shelter. It's time for you to rest, and me to find us something to eat."
"There's no time for rest," he protests, indignant, "we need to keep moving -"
"No." Rey insists. "The Force alone can't sustain a person - not even the likes of you. We're going back to the shelter - no argument."
She moves ahead of him then, shifting through the forest with a determined pace. For a long moment, Kylo just stands, baffled by her concern. And worse still, oddly warmed by it. Until he reminds himself that her insistence is based on pragmatism, of course. One does not conquer an enemy on willpower alone. Certainly not when one has been running without food or sleep for two days.
"You coming or not?"
"On my way, Your Highness," he mutters, blinking himself out of his reverie. And kicks himself into a jog to follow her.
Chapter note: hope everyone's faring well! Thanks for the comments, I appreciate the feedback and encouragement. Also thanks to TheOriginalSuki the-east-sea and SassyArtichoke for the feedback and proof-reading on this ahead of posting.
This chapter was kinda short. Shall I post the next chapter mid-week, or wait until Sunday? Let me know your thoughts!