A/N: If there was ever a chapter where the illustrated version was a good idea, this is one of them. The pictures really add to this. Search Keryl Raist Public/Private, and google will send you where you need to go.
5/10/2
Bright and early, or it would be if they were anywhere with an actual sun. As it is, it's early, but exactly the same, unchanging light that Kylo and Rey's room always has.
Jon's not exactly fluttering around their room, but he is laying things out, and directing the droids. "Okay, stylish but casual."
Kylo doesn't swat at the droid in front of him that's doing… something… to his face. "I better still have my scar and moles when this is done."
"It's not putting that much makeup on you," Jon replies. "Just enough to even out your skin tone and make you look a little better rested."
Kylo rolls his eyes, and shares a look at Rey. He doesn't want to admit that maybe he's a tad nervous about this and didn't sleep all that well. Apparently, though, his skin, or at least the dark circles under his eyes, are traitors and telling the story loud and clear.
Rey's not saying much at all, she's sitting quietly, as the droid plays with her hair, fluffing it up a bit.
"You two okay?" Jon asks once the outfits are laid out.
Rey rolls her eyes a bit. "Feel jittery. Don't much like it."
"That's normal," Jon replies. "We're going to start off getting some pictures of the two of you together. Just…"
Kylo perks up a bit at that. Rey smiles a little.
"You like that idea?" Jon asks.
"I was thinking that I'd like to have some images… Something… real, about this life," Kylo says. "Would you be in any of them?"
"No," Jon says flatly. "These'll be for public consumption. Not private. And… uh… you'll see. These won't be… real."
"Yes, but I run this ship. I can ask for some private images, correct?"
"You certainly can. But… Or you can just get a camera and take them yourself, later," Jon says. "It's… more fun when you do them yourself."
Rey and Kylo share a look, and both decide to back off on getting Jon in the professional pictures.
It's bright.
Like, stupidly bright.
They're in the not-a-throne-room, which more and more these days is beginning to look like a functional courtyard, with things like plants and fountains, reflecting pools, and a view of the galaxy spinning out around them. They're standing, and then sitting, and standing again, with more lights around them than Kylo knew existed, and other people are flashing more lights at them, and moving the lights around, and suddenly why Jon didn't want to be involved in this is making a hell of a lot more sense.
He glances over to Jon, who's hovering at the perimeter of lights, keeping an eye on things. Jon grins at him.
There are people who keep... circling, around them, calling out instructions, shining more lights on them. "Okay, Master, just… let's get you to turn just a bit more… Lady Ren, look up just a tad, and… Okay, smile!"
This is impossible. The smiles feel etched on and appallingly fake. And after every series of shots, the photographer wanders off to look at things, and then mutters about things neither of them wants to focus on, and then comes back and says something like, "That was great, how about we try…"
If Rey understands what they're looking for (and it's likely she doesn't) they somehow want some sort of image of the two of them, looking pretty, and adoringly, at each other, while their faces are easy to see. This has not worked, because it's not physically possible for two people to look adoringly into each other's eyes while looking at a fucking camera.
After a series of shots, where she feels like her neck is going to collapse because, in general, she doesn't have to look up at Kylo like this. Generally, if she's trying to look him in the eye, she's either on top of him, and how tall she is doesn't matter, or she's far enough away from him she doesn't have to crank her neck up so much.
She must growl at the photographer when he suggests another pose of her looking up, because next thing she knows there's a stool, and she's standing on it, and suddenly she's a lot closer to Kylo's height, and that works better.
Maybe they get a good picture or two like that. It feels like there should have been at least one good one. But then the photographer wants her back to his chest, and both of them looking at the camera, and at this point Rey doesn't think she could muster a real smile if her life depended on it.
She feels Kylo think: It doesn't.
Jon, hovering in the background, watching, and occasionally adding comments as he looks at the images behind the photographer's shoulder calls time after an hour. He shepherds them off to a quiet, and significantly dimmer section of the courtyard. "So, how was that?"
Kylo glares daggers at him, and Rey spends a moment with her eyes closed, wondering if the greeny-purple after images of the flashes are ever going to fade.
"Yep. Exactly, how I thought it would be." Jon sounds very amused, and smug. "On the upside, some of the pictures are good."
"Lovely," Rey says. "We did that for some?"
"That's how professional photography works. At some of the weddings I used to work, there would be literal days of photography to make sure that everything had perfect pictures. It's normal to take thousands of pictures to get three good ones." Jon nods to the small table next to them. And the food and drinks. "Eat, sip something, relax for a bit."
They almost flop onto the sofa, but a look from Jon makes it clear that there are people here, so no flopping. So they sit, nicely, down, and get drinks. One sip in, Rey can feel that the drink is very mildly alcoholic. Just enough that she can almost feel a little layer of everything smoothing out.
Kylo takes a much bigger gulp than she does. He closes his eyes and waits for the booze to hit. It does, and he can feel some of the muscle tension start to leave.
"You think we'll ever enjoy this?" he asks Rey.
She rests her head on his shoulder. "And will we still be us if we do?"
He kisses her neck, nuzzles her bare shoulder. "I didn't say it before, but I do like this on you."
She smiles a bit. It's a pretty outfit, a pinky-purple shirt and tan trousers, and the sleeves, which leave her shoulders bare but her arms covered, does hearken back to a look she used to wear. "Thanks."
He's got on his 'new,' vaguely nice, casual-ish stuff. Not only is it not entirely black, the cuffs and collar have a dark green and blue pattern on them, but the collar doesn't close. There's a little v of visible skin on his neck and the top of his chest. She touches the little bit of exposed skin. "This is nice, too."
"Okay, both of you are looking a little recovered," Jon says, coming back. He's got… Kylo blinks, surprised. That is a camera in his hands. "I was thinking that you didn't want anyone to ever take another picture of you again, but…" He hands the camera to Kylo. "Here. Budge over a bit."
They're on a sofa, so Kylo budges, making room for Jon.
"Rey, get on his lap, we can't pull it back too far for this to work, so we've got to get in close." Then he's sitting right next to Kylo, hip to hip, and Rey's on his lap.
He gestures for the camera back, and Kylo hands it over. Jon holds it at arm's length, pointed toward them, and flips the view finder so they can see the image.
"Okay, just… be you for a minute." No one's really smiling. Except Jon. No huge grins. But the expressions are soft, and real, pleased, and a moment later, Jon's got the camera back in his hand, hitting a few buttons, and then deleting. "Okay, it'll be on your personal data pad, and mine, and nowhere else. Let me go give this back."
Kylo takes his pad in hand, opens it, finds the image, and looks at it with Rey.
It's the three of them, together, looking pretty happy.
And just having that makes him feel so gloriously content.
Rey's just staring, eyes soft, and… "Are you crying?" he asks.
"I'm really trying not to," she says blinking, looking at it. She looks up at him. And he smiles at her. And then gives her a soft kiss as they both hold the first image of the two of them, together, with their dear friend.
The first image of their family.
"I'm here today with Master of the Order, Kylo Ren and his lady, Mistress of the Maji, Rey. Or, as the rest of you know them, the two, most talked about, least known about, people in the galaxy. They've agreed to sit down with me today, and ease that second condition a bit."
Holoran is, exactly as Kinear said, pretty in an intelligent sort of way. (Which at the time Kylo had no understanding of, but he does now.) She's warm, friendly, and would be really good at putting both of them at ease and getting them to talk except both Kylo and Rey can feel that being warm and friendly and putting people at ease is her job.
There's no real affection there. This doesn't feel like sitting down with Jon, or Unthar and Amilie… This is a professional doing her job, which for the moment is them, and that's… off-putting.
But they're here, in the courtyard, on a comfortable sofa, sitting across from Holoran. There are three cameras pointed at them, and recording gear all over the place, and Kylo's not sure who planned this detail, but there are cups of what is obviously coffee waiting for sipping, and…
It's a show. And they're the stars.
"So, let's start at the beginning," Holoran says, with a warm smile. She doesn't have a script or any sort of notes, so, apparently, she memorized everything they're going to talk about. "Master Ren, I understand that's not your actual birth name."
She's bright and eager, looking like anything he's going to say is the most fascinating thing ever, and she's waiting patiently for him to respond, as everything he's ever had to say about himself goes skittering directly out of his brain, and his skin goes two sizes too small, and they're all staring, and… And he can feel he's squeezing and releasing his knee over and over, and he wants to get up and bounce around. Well, no, he wants to get up and leave, but…
Rey takes his hand, and as he hears I'm fairly sure this is nervous in his head, a flood of her own calm hits him.
He makes himself take a slow breath. Why aren't you jittering?
Because this question is yours. You can help me calm down in a minute when we get to mine.
He doesn't nod. He does give her hand another squeeze, takes another slow breath, and then says, "No. It's not. I was born Ben Bacca Organa-Solo."
"That's a name all right."
He smirks a bit. Then stops when he realizes he's supposed to say more, but hasn't, prompting Holoran to say, "But you left that name behind…"
He nods. "Yeah. Uh… My mother was born the day the Rebellion began. Literally. And I was born the day it supposedly ended. The first Concordance Day. So, she says I was named for hope. Ben, for General Obi Wan Kenobi, who came to her, and the Rebellion's, rescue when they most needed it. Her last hope. Bacca is a short form of my dad's best friend's name. Kenobi may have saved the Rebellion, but," and for this, Kylo produces Chewie's actual name in accented, but passable Shariwook, "saved my Dad over and over. Those two were hope to them."
"But you didn't keep that name, obviously."
Kylo nods again. "Yeah. Uh… The thing about hope, is it's an ideal. And…" he chews his lip a little, and Rey gives him another little squeeze. "I'm a person, not an ideal. And people… don't live up to ideals. I mean, they can't. Ideals are something to strive for, not obtain. So, all Ben Organa-Solo ever did was disappoint people who wanted him to be… something he couldn't be."
"And Kylo Ren is a person?"
"Certainly, trying to be." He can feel that Jon, and a few of the camera people really like that answer. That feels… good.
Holoran turns her attention to Rey, and she does feel a stab of nervous go flowing through her, and the sensation of Kylo's thumb stroking the back of her hand gently. He doesn't have a lot of calm to offer, but she can feel he's trying.
"Now, Lady… Mistress… Rey? He's got too much name, and… It certainly seems like you're a bit light on them."
Rey smiles, or tries; it comes off okay. "Well, Kylo has family going back to… as far back as people have kept track of things like that. I don't. My earliest memories are of my parents leaving. I believe they called me Rey, and when people asked me my name, that's what I've told them.
"I don't, actually, know my birth name. I've looked myself up in the register, but the people who abandoned me, also didn't register my finger marks or retinas.
"But Rey is what I've been calling myself for as long as I remember, so Rey is who I am."
"You basically named yourself," Holoran says.
"I guess. I have memories of being called Rey, but… Birthname, nickname, pet name… I don't know."
That catches Holoran's attention. "How about pet names, what do you call each other?"
Kylo and Rey freeze, because that was not on the script. Holoran smiles pleasantly, and says, "You've got final control over the edit. I'll throw things in as they seem to be needed; you'll answer or not as you see fit. When the editors are done with it, everything will flow."
They look away from her, to each other, and then Kylo smirks a little and says, "She's been known to call me 'smartass' on occasion."
Rey bursts out a laugh, and looks down, hiding her face. When she stops chuckling, she looks up and says, "Not that often. I normally call him Kylo, sometimes Love or Opal."
For the first time, Holoran seems genuinely interested in them as people. "Opal. That's got to be a story…"
"It is, but—" She looks to Kylo, and he shrugs. If it's too much, they'll cut it out. So, Rey continues. "When the Jedi monopolized the understanding of the Force, they broke it into light and dark. And to a degree, that's a useful way to think about things. The light side is calm, passive, stable, nurturing and cherishing. The dark side is active, vibrant, destructive, and volatile. If you put both together, you've got someone stable enough to provide a good foundation for things, and destructive enough to see the problems with the current situations and how to change them and put new things into place. So… Opals, black opals, are dark, but they're also flecked through with sparks of color and light." She squeezes his hand again. "My opal."
Holoran smiles at that, a real smile, and then looks to Kylo, waiting for him to add his own pet names.
"I'm less creative. I call her Rey, or Love."
"But her title is Mistress Rey of the Maji. So, I guess where we go next is, what's a, or the, Maji? Right now, there are rumors going around ranging from The Maji being a school to, it's where you live now, to some sort of new Jedi-type, Church-of-the-Force religion."
This one is easier to answer, likely because it's on the list, just a lot further down it, and Rey takes it. "It's not where I live. As for the rest, yes? The Maji is… a reaction, I guess. It's a look at the world around us, and specifically the spiritual and Force-based understandings and actions of the galaxy around us, and trying to come up with something that works, better, than what we've currently got.
"It's stripping away centuries, millennia of, 'We've always done it this way,' or 'It's right because it's old' and really looking at how things work and trying to figure out how they work better.
"There aren't a lot of good things about being orphaned out in the middle of nowhere and left to your own devices, but one of them-"
"The only one," Kylo adds, voice dark. The camera doesn't miss he's still angry that happened to Rey, or the way he snugs just a bit tighter against her as she talks about her early life.
"Is that I'm not mired in many traditions. The… thing… that 'raised' me, didn't exactly spare a single moment on any bit of education not involved in finding him better junk so he could make more money off of my labor. Which means I'm coming to a lot of these ideas with fresh eyes.
"It's… difficult to see the issues with something you were always told was right. It's even harder yet when you've been told something is right, and all the people telling you it's right have a lot invested in it being right.
"I…" she shrugs a bit… "Well, no one ever placed any hopes in me," though Kylo squeezes her hand as she says that, "so there's no one for me to disappoint. I didn't have years and years of being told there was only one right way to do something. No one went out of their way to make me believe that if I did it the 'wrong' way, everything would fall apart and all of my loves would be consumed by unending evil."
"Add in a brilliant mind, and a fearless soul," Kylo says, much less nervous talking about Rey.
She smiles a little and doesn't directly respond to that. "Anyway, that's the kind of background that lets you actually examine sacred things, and see if they're sacred because they work, or if they're sacred because they're old. A lot of 'sacred' things… Well, they're just old. A thousand of generations did it a certain way, and maybe for the first three our four it was a real improvement over what they'd been doing before, but eventually it got so entrenched no one bothered to see that there had to have been a reason for doing it that way in the first place, and was that reason good, and could we do better?"
"The Maji are iconoclasts?"
Rey blinks, it's clear she doesn't know that word, and the interviewer stops. "Okay, we'll cut that." She pauses, the camera men do their thing, and then she says, "So, the Maji are tradition breakers?"
"Sometimes. In some ways. Again, just because something's old doesn't mean it's good. But it doesn't mean it isn't, either. Sometimes, something gets old because it's genuinely useful. So, we're not breaking with traditions just to be new. We're… just really looking at why people do things the way they do, and then deciding if that's useful, and valuable, for everyone, now."
"So, you're the Mistress of a church?" Holoran leads.
"Maybe?" Rey shrugs. She's still not sure what exactly makes a church a church. "Or a moral philosophy. Or maybe it's just a club with an unusually intense set of ideas about how people belong in the universe." Rey smiles a little. "It's a work in progress."
Kylo adds, "It's a faith. These are the things we believe about out place in the galaxy, and how to, hopefully, make ourselves, and our worlds, better for ourselves, and those around us."
Rey smiles at that, too. "As you can see, one of us was trained in religious philosophy, and it wasn't me."
"Though she's been doing a lot of reading and studying over the last few years."
"And you've also been going out and doing diplomacy work for the Order. How are you liking that?" Holoran asks Rey.
Rey shrugs. "It's useful. I've been meeting people I've liked and seen things I could have never dreamed of, and some parts of it are really enjoyable, and some parts are really intense, and some are just exhausting. But… what jobs don't work that way?"
Holoran looks amused by that answer. "The diplomacy outreach, going to places and seeing people, inviting them here to use our space to talk and seek accord, markets, an eventual senate, all of that is new. Is this… mostly your idea, Mistress? Part of being the light one?"
Rey smiles a little, and looks to Kylo, who smirks a bit back, and both of them look at the interviewer.
Kylo licks his lips. "Idea isn't necessarily the right way to think of it. Hers or mine. There are things we both want the Order to be able to do, and when we sat down with my advisers to talk through how to do them, both of us, together, and on our own, doing diplomacy-type-things, seemed like one of the easier ways to get the Order where we wanted it to go."
Rey tries to add a bit more, "After Snoke was gone, it was very easy to see what we didn't want to do and where we didn't want to go, but knowing where to avoid isn't a map to get you where you need to go. It's just a way to make it easier to get there."
"But, as for… ideas… and who comes up with what… I… am much more light than he is, so for me staying in one place is much easier. So, most of the changes, most of the tearing down the old and building up the new, that's his."
Kylo takes over. "Giving me the stability to be able to see what new could be, the hope that it's not going to all spiral into disaster… Anyone who's paying attention knows I've got galaxy class skills at breaking things and tearing them down. Nurturing isn't my strong suit, seeing the optimistic version of things, also not one of my natural skills, and that's part of where she comes in.
"Neither of us ever expected to be… well… Here. Running something this big. But, when it comes to new ideas, well, I was at least raised with some ideas of what a functional government looks like, so I have a little bit of an easier time coming up with concrete ideas for where to go next," Kylo says. They're well afield of the questions on the paper, but this feels… good, so he's okay with going on.
"Ben Organa-Solo wasn't supposed to be a politician? Didn't train to follow in his mother and grandmother's footsteps?" Holoran asks.
Kylo winces. He did open this up. "On more levels than you can possibly imagine. And… I suppose it's true that we're literally in the business of politics, but I really don't like to think of myself as one."
"How do you think of it?" Holoran asks.
"You mentioned my mother and grandmother, but when I think about what we're trying to do, and how, I think of my uncle."
"Luke Skywalker?"
"Force, NO!" Rey adds.
"My 'uncle' Lando Calrissian. My Dad's other best friend. Head of the Calrissian Corp, Governor of Cloud City, first Senator of Cloud City. He had a military, and probably a hundred million people living with or working for him, and he did it without conquering anything. No one died because the Calrissian Corp bombed a planet from atmo to get it to behave. Cloud City grew because he made it a place people wanted to live."
"And he looked great in a cape, and someone really likes a good cape." Rey says with a little smile.
Kylo shrugs a bit at that, too. His formal blacks include a cape, but he's not wearing them now.
"Everyone likes a good cape," Holoran adds with a smile. "So… you want to run this as a business?"
"To a degree. I want to have the biggest, most-open, freeport in the galaxy. I want anything that's Order territory to be a place where people can come to live and work and find the lives they want. I want us to use this huge military machine I grabbed from Snoke for defense and security, rather than oppression and conquest."
"He wants to re-write the rules of the game by playing it differently than those who came before," Rey says.
"Yeah. My mother was all about the New Republic… And, to a degree…" There's a sardonic set to his face as he says the next bit, "From a certain point of view, that was great. Representation for planets and systems, let people have some say in their governance, treaties for trade and travel, but… The New Republic didn't care about individual people. If whoever was in charge of your planet decided to join up, you were bound by those laws, and if they didn't, you became an outlier.
"I don't care about planets beyond the level of what they can do for people. I care about people. If you want to be part of the Order, we're easy to find. If you don't, leave us alone, and we'll leave you alone."
"So, you want to create the first entirely voluntary political entity in the galaxy?" Holoran asks.
Kylo and Rey look at each other and shrug.
"I don't know if we're the first, but that's the idea. Come and help build something great, and if we're ever moving in a direction you don't approve of, leave. We'll live or die by how many people we can convince to join and work with us," Rey says.
"That's one of hers." Kylo says. "Back… when this was starting, when it was just the two of us, she told me that I'd do what I'd do, and she'd abide or not as she could, and… That's a good template. We don't try to force each other into a mold more to the liking of the other one, but we value each other, so we shift ourselves. This… The Order, will do that on a larger scale. We'll be who we are, and attract people who want to be with us, and if enough of them don't, then we'll shift or fall apart. But the thing that will keep us going and strong is the ability to attract people to us, so we've got to be something that people want."
"The Order has to offer value, beyond the idea of join or die, that's a core of where we're going," Rey says.
Holoran looks… her face is approving... under the smile… Kylo gets the sense that she doesn't buy this idea. Or that it's a fairy story, nice on the surface, but not able to work.
Find out what she did under the First Order. Rey thinks to him.
He mentally nods at her.
Holoran appears to be a little uncomfortable at how they're watching her so, she says, "We're well off the script. Want to get back to it?"
"Sure," Rey says.
Holoran nods. "Rumor has it you wear a child's toy around your neck, Master Ren. What's the story behind that?"
And suddenly the neckline of this shirt, which does allow, if he's in the right position, the edge of the Maji pendent to show, is clear.
Kylo smiles a little at that. "I keep forgetting that that's what it was." He glances to Rey. "She gave it to me."
"As a token of affection? A junjan disk? There's got to be a story there," Holoran says.
"There is. I… didn't know it was a toy at first either, but…" She gestures, and Kylo slips it over his head, giving it to her. "A dear friend of mine found this, and thought that it might be a good symbol of what I'm trying to do with the Force. Or what the Force is, and I'm trying to teach people about it. You can see it, black and white sides swirling into each other, gray in the center. Perfectly balanced in itself and between the two. So that became the symbol of the Maji." And she hands the token over.
Holoran looks at it, holds it out so the camera can see it, and then hands it back to Kylo who slips it back over his head and tucks it under his shirt.
"And, for a while, I was the one wearing it. But… I guess like all couples there was a time when we were still learning each other, hadn't yet made the leap. And then there was a time where we had, and when the leap was made, I gave it to him."
"And for a while we shared it. I'd wear it, she would, we'd pass it between us. But we kept… maybe changing isn't the right word, but evolving our ideas of where we were going, and how it would work, and when it became clear that we were going to be in each other's worlds, fully…" He gently touches Rey's pendent. "I had this made for her. It's the Order Hex with the Maji spiral. The Order of the Maji. I suppose, over time, we'll see more and more of us moving around the Order with this mark, but for now it's pretty rare."
"And that's when he started wearing the Maji spiral full-time." Rey says. "He basically is The Order, at least for now, so he doesn't need any additional Order branding."
"Or maybe I just like having the touch of balance against my skin at all times. Helps me keep centered a bit better."
"It's… marriage jewelry?" Holoran asks, "A mark of a promise? We understand you're getting married soon…"
"That's not exactly accurate," Rey says. "On a few levels." She holds up her hand, showing the shiny black band. "We do wear marriage bands. That's… our own private promises to each other."
Kylo continues, "We are married, and have been for a while. We're having a wedding in the not too far future, though, and hope to invite a lot of the galaxy to celebrate with us."
Rey expands on the idea, "We've talked a little about the Maji, and though it's a new faith, and thus shifting about, I think one thing that will be true is that we marry first, and have weddings later. We understand a marriage isn't something that just happens all at once. It's not the sort of thing where you can look at a point and say, married/not married. For example, we weren't married the first time I slipped that pendent over his head. We were moving in that direction, but not there, not then. But we weren't just Rey and Kylo then, either. The foundations for The Rens were being built, and strengthened, when I slipped that token over his head.
"To our way of thinking, a marriage is… a gradual building of a relationship and commitment, and the wedding is held after that commitment and relationship is solid, as a way to celebrate it."
Kylo's nodding along. "It's a public declaration of a private commitment, and as such, has to be held long after said commitment is made."
She's holding his hand, "And, unlike many faiths, we don't believe that a wedding, or any ceremony, can make that commitment. It's the people, not the ceremony, that makes a marriage. But, suffice it to say, the commitment is well and truly made, and at this point, all that's left is the party."
Kylo smiles at that.
"So, given you are married, I guess you can answer this, Mistress, what's Master Ren like as a husband?"
Rey sort of blinks at that one. It's just not… on any level, how she thinks about that. "Uh… Good?"
Kylo raises a brow at her.
She rolls her eyes and leans into him a bit. "I love you, too, but… I don't know. I don't have any other husbands to compare him with. How do you mean 'like as a husband?'"
Holoran's looking at him as she says, "Well, he's got a reputation for being volatile, easy to anger, and intense…That's your… dark stuff, right? Is he like that at home?"
Rey blinks again. "Uh… I mean… yes, all of that can be and is dark stuff, but… At home… No." Rey's smiling softly. "Well, okay, yes. He's intense, but in a way I like. And volatile and angry are things, because who doesn't have at least some things in life that makes them angry? But it's anger at the wider world, that we share, and help each other cope with, not anger aimed at me. At home, for us... gentle… understanding… Part of that is we're just well-suited to each other, but he understands me in a way no one else ever has or does."
Holoran looks surprised by that.
"Passionate, affectionate… Uh…" She looks to Kylo, not sure how much to reveal.
"Tall," Kylo says with a solemn nod. "Little known fact. I'm rather tall for a human."
His face is dead on serious, and it's not until Rey laughs and gives him a little shove that Holoran figures out that he's joking. "Smartass, huh?" she says.
"He's funny, or can be, and that's part of why I call him smartass sometimes," Rey replies. She's smiling as she says, "He's mine. That's what he's like as a husband, mine."
"And…" They both feel the split second of decision in Holoran's mind. She's not sure if she should, but if it works, it'll go well, and… "Kylo, same question." Her using his first name wouldn't have even been noticed by either of them if she hadn't been mentally concerned about it.
"What am I like as a husband?"
"You really are working the smartass angle, aren't you?"
"I've been told to stay with what I know," and he tries a smile to go with that. He looks at Rey, a soft smile on his face, and his thumb caresses over the back of her hand. He looks down for a moment, trying to put the billion thoughts into words. He knows Rey can feel where he's going, and his complete lack of any way to sum that up that's even remotely cool, let alone entertaining. He shakes his head in a little 'no' gesture.
"No words for Rey as a wife?"
"Thousands of them, all good, but that's for me and her and quiet whispers in the dark. Not here."
That also gets a smile.
Apparently, they've done such a good job of putting Holoran at ease that she decides to go way off script. "They say you're a Jedi. Luke Skywalker's nephew and all. Is that true?"
She feels Kylo freeze at that, and glances to the camera, knowing what the problem is, before saying to him, "If it's a bad question, don't worry about it. Trust me, if you don't like it, it's not going to get out."
"Oh," Kylo says. He's not having a hard time imagining what happens to newsreaders who let the wrong information slip out. Especially newsreaders who worked under Snoke. Were there newsreaders under Snoke? There had to be, right? Hux probably personally vetted them and made sure they only recorded him from the right angles…
Rey's nodding, and that jerks Kylo's attention back to here and now. Then she says, "The Jedi are gone. Luke Skywalker was the last one of them."
Kylo nods as well. "I am not a Jedi. That said, I am, to the best of my knowledge, the only living person formally trained as one."
"Okay. Did you leave or were you kicked out?" Holoran gestures to Rey. "I don't know much about the Jedi, no one does, not anymore, but passionate, attached, romantic, and dark all sound like they weren't part of the code."
Kylo smirks a bit at that, and inclines his head in agreement. "I left. I trained as a Jedi from the age of eight to twenty, obtained the rank of Master, and spent the next three years working with Luke Skywalker and Tash M'Gll of the New Jedi."
"Does that mean you can do magic?" Holloran looks genuinely interested in that.
Kylo smiles a little at that, rolls his eyes a little, too. "I have more aptitude and skill with Force manipulation than most people. And, yes, from the outside, it does look like magic. From the inside… It's just… feeling the currents and using them."
"What can you do?" Holoran asks.
He shrugs a bit. "Some tricks. I can float things, which comes in handy significantly less often than you'd think." Though he does hover his coffee cup to his hand, and then take a sip, and hovers it back to it's tray. Holoran and three of the camera people are deeply impressed by that. "I have a general sense of anything moving around me. That makes me hard to sneak up on. The stories from the battle of Qualee Prime are true, I can stop blaster bolts if I'm paying attention, and I'm extremely good with a lightsaber. I have a general feel for the emotions and motivations of the things around me. All of which mean you really don't want to fight me."
"You can't actually read minds?" she asks.
He half shrugs. "I used to think I could, then I met someone who actually could, and let's just say, compared to him, no, I can't. It's more like I'm paying very close attention and am exceptionally good at reading body language. I can usually feel when people lie to me, because usually they're nervous about lying, especially to me, but, for example, I don't always, or often, know exactly what the lie is."
Speaking of lying, Rey says in his head.
I don't think I need to be caught on holo saying, 'Yes, I can read your thoughts like they're written on your forehead if I concentrate.'
He feels her mentally smirk at that.
"But being a Jedi isn't what gave you those powers?" Holoran says. "It's been so long since there have really been Jedi, many people are curious, and if you're all that's left…"
Kylo nods. "No. I don't have whatever powers I have because I was a Jedi. Though my skill with those powers is sharper and more refined than they would have been if I hadn't been trained as a Jedi. The Jedi existed as a way to deal with power." He pauses, fiddles with his fingers and Rey's for a moment, and then says, "Let me back up. The Force grants some people, for no reason any of us can tell, immense power. Stupidly large amounts of it. More power than anyone really should have. So, the Jedi came up with a way to deal with that power. To control it and use it constructively. They hoped.
"I don't think they came up with a particularly good way to deal with it, but that's between me and my ghosts."
"And between me and the Maji and the future," Rey says, and Kylo squeezes her hand.
"The basic level remains. Some people will gather power. Some people will then use that power in ways that hurt everyone else. And, to the extent that the Jedi existed to try and teach people with more power than normal how to use it in a constructive way, that was a good thing.
"The difference between the Jedi and the Maji is not just in how to use one's feelings and motivations to corral their power, it's that the Maji understands that Force sensitives aren't the be all and end all of power."
Rey takes over. "The Maji exists of and for anyone. You don't have to be Force sensitive to join, and unlike the Church of the Force, there are no Maji Knights with their special skills. We're all Maji, equal before the Force. Some of us have flashier talents than others, but that's true of non-Force sensitives, too. We treat Force sensitivity like any other natural talent. Some people are smarter. Some are stronger. Some are more dexterous. These are natural talents that can be honed; Force sensitivity is just another one of those talents."
Kylo rubs his lips together. "If… The most dangerous man I ever met, and I'm not ashamed to say this, one of the few men I've ever feared, was not Force sensitive. Some of you likely remember Armitage Hux. I don't know if they still show the video of his speech before he blew up the Hosnian System. But, suffice it to say, he, personally did more to mark the galaxy than any other man I've ever met, including Snoke, including Luke Skywalker, or Leia Organa, or… anyone." Kylo's getting fidgety as he talks about this, his foot bouncing up and down, jiggling his leg.
The interviewer nods, and Rey takes Kylo's hand in both of hers. His foot starts to slow down, but the bounce doesn't stop.
"Hux had less Force talent than some rocks I've met in my day. In addition to having no Force talent, he actively derided it, too."
"Interesting position to take working with you and for Snoke," Holoran says.
Kylo gestures with the hand Rey isn't holding. "He knew it was real. But he didn't fear it, wasn't mystified by it, and considered it something of a crutch. Probably because he knew, without the Force, Snoke would have died a long time ago, and I would have, too, but he, just on his own, with his wits and his tools, had gotten to where he was."
"The pride of the self-made man among the princelings," Rey says.
Kylo's never thought about it that way, but that's exactly right. And likely explained a lot of the chips on Hux's shoulders.
"And he was the most dangerous man you ever met?" Holoran leads.
"I'd be very interested in seeing the logic of someone who disagrees with that statement," Rey adds.
Just before Kylo says, "Yes. The only reason anyone could even consider that a controversial statement is we've still got this bizarre idea floating around about the power of the Force." He hovers the coffee cup again. "Yes, that looks impressive, and yes, there are situations where it's useful, but this is not, on any level, similar to being able to design a weapon that can obliterate an entire system." He lowers the cup. "Hux was the one who ordered the strike on the Hosnian system. Not just ordered it, but it was his idea, too. Snoke approved, but it was Hux's baby. So was Starkiller. He didn't design all the ins and outs, but he is the one who put together the larger design, worked out how to make everything work together, poured through the research, found the holes in Erso's designs for the Death Star, located the engineers who could take his ideas, and Erso's, and their own, and put it together into StarKiller.
"Tens of billions of people all died in an instant because of Hux, but because he wasn't Force sensitive, the Jedi wouldn't have considered him much of a threat. Wouldn't have even bothered with him until it was too late. There's the story about Darth Vader telling the Engineers of the Death Star that it paled in comparison to the Power of the Force, and it's true, Luke Skywalker, the Force, luck, and a good pilot at his back took out the Death Star, but not before they blew Alderaan out of the skies.
"History remembers Vader and the Emperor, but outside of certain circles, Galen Erso is forgotten. History will likely remember Snoke and I, and eventually Hux will fade to the ethers, too. But Galen and Hux killed more people, faster, than any of us ever dreamed of, or could. I'm likely the most powerful Force user alive right now, and on my own, really concentrating, I've won a twelve on one fight. I absolutely do not have the skills to build a Starkiller. I had the imagination to see that a battering ram canon on a ship could be an impressive weapon, but I can't design either of those things on my own. I could pilot one, but even if you gave me all the parts and the specs, I couldn't put it together." Kylo stops to arrange his thoughts more. "The Jedi spent so much time on magic and the Force and the power of the light and the dark, that they forgot the power of technology. Forgot how many people died because of sharp engineers and sharper minds." He shakes his head a bit. "That's one of the reasons I'm not a Jedi any longer. Too much focus on the Force, not enough focus on the real, here and now issues of this galaxy."
Rey adds, "That's one of the reasons the Maji is what it is. Everyone matters to us, everyone has a reason, a purpose. That's reflected in how the Order works, too. There's no such thing as a meaningless life."
"Are you Force sensitive?" Holoran asks Rey.
"Every living thing is part of the Force. It flows with and through and around us. We feed it and it feeds us. Anyone who can hear this interview has some level of Force skill, though like Kylo said about Hux, for some people it's a very low level. For me, I have more Force sensitivity than the average person. It's given me an unusual aptitude for languages. I can read almost anything that's ever been printed, which actually does come in handy quite often. I'm good with plants and animals and children. Two of our friends have a little girl, our niece. She's not quite talking yet, so I can hold her and get a sense for what's going on, same with plants and animals. That comes in handy quite a bit."
"I'd have given my left arm to know why my daughter was fussing all the time."
Rey smiles at that, thinking of Paige fussing yesterday. "If she's anything like our niece, the correct answer is, 'I'm just in a bad mood and sharing it.'"
Holoran sighs. "That makes a lot of sense."
"Yeah, apparently, sometimes, babies are just grumpy."
Holoran laughs. Then says, "So, you two have a niece?"
"Yes," Rey says with a smile.
Kylo's smiling at the idea, too. "Yeah. I mean… The core Maji are mostly children, or young teens, so we actually spend quite a bit of time with kids."
"And he especially enjoys the little ones who just know him as Kylo."
He shrugs. "I especially enjoy spending time with people who aren't afraid of me. And the little ones aren't. They mostly just know me as the big guy who teaches lightsaber, and will let them climb me like a training gym."
Holoran is just staring at him. "You let… a herd of children climb all over you?"
"Not all that often, but yes. Especially if they're doing well on their lessons, they like to 'rough house' a bit after, and I'm game for that. Anyone who can 'break through my defenses' gets bragging rights, and they seem to enjoy that."
Holoran's chuckling. "Off record, people are going to love that story. You really play with little kids?"
"Does five-to-ten-years-old count as little?" Kylo asks.
"Yeah, it does."
"Then, yes, about twice a week. I work with the older ones one on one, at least once a week, and there's less rough housing and more form and focus work." He looks to Holoran, "A Jedi Master is someone who has both gained enough knowledge to control him/herself and their Force, and a teacher. M'Gll and I primarily obtained the rank of Master because we were able to teach the younger New Jedi. According to Luke, back in the day, the rank of Master meant you were on the high council or something like that, but there's no council any longer. So, Master meant that you'd gained enough skill to pass on what you knew and teach it to others."
"And that's the title that matters to you?"
"Yes."
"And Mistress of the Maji?"
"Normally, I prefer going by Rey. But, I've been told that it's important to have a title, and so… It matches his. And I am a teacher. Though a lot of the time I feel more like a student. So… Why not?"
"Lady Ren?"
"I'm not going to object to people calling me that, but… My power, my place, it's my own, not his reflected. The Force balances, light and dark swirling into and supporting each other, merging into a single, harmonious gray. So, yes, privately, personally, my name is Rey Ren. Politically, I prefer Mistress Rey."
She feels the surge of pride from Kylo at that answer.
"The children you've been seen with on the Supremacy they're… some of the Maji, aren't they?" Rey nods at that. "Do you have any children of your own?"
"Not yet," Rey replies.
"Yet, meaning you hope to have them at some point."
"We hope to have them at some point. Though… Growing up with famous parents isn't necessarily fun or easy, so… That's something both of us think about," Kylo responds.
"And you know all about that, don't you?"
"Maybe not all. My parents did their best to keep me away from fame. I knew my mother was important, but that's about all I knew of that. Probably because my father wanted nothing to do with the New Republic or Royal Alderaan, at least, on the political level. He supported it, fought for the Rebellion… A lot of people forget about him, because my mother was Princess, Senator, General Leia Organa, and he didn't want to be in the Senate or the Army. He was happy going back to private life. But, if both of them had been in the political sphere, they likely would have had a more difficult time keeping me out of it."
"Did they keep you out of it for your sake or theirs?"
Kylo shakes his head. "We're not doing that one." He looks at Holoran, really seeing her. "You're bored just doing interviews, aren't you?"
"I thought you didn't read minds."
He smirks a bit at that.
Rey says, "You don't have to read minds to see it. You got comfortable with us and wanted to make it clear you've done your research and are interested in seeing how far you can push this."
"I am bored. I'm here to be a pretty mouthpiece." She shrugs a bit. "I could do more."
"Keep your questions for us in line, and I'll see about setting you up to do more," Kylo says.
That has her attention. "What kind of more?"
"Pretty people who ask good questions are useful. Even we know that. The only question is where can you be most useful," Rey says.
"Do you like parties?" Kylo asks.
"I don't hate them."
"How about traveling?" Rey says.
"I have small children, so I prefer to be home most nights."
"Well, we're supposed to host these things, too, and Jon wants us to have polished, pretty people to go to parties and talk to people."
She looks pleased at that idea. "People, especially powerful ones who are in it for the power, generally enjoy having pretty people fawn at them, listen to their every word, and ask them about themselves."
Both Kylo and Rey can see how that'd be useful. Then they understand how it might apply to them.
Kylo shoots her a look. Holoran shrugs.
"Shall we get back to this?" Kylo asks.
Holoran shrugs again. "Do you want to? I've got more than an hour of material. We can cut this into a wholesome get-to-know-the-Rens conversation that people will gobble up and then beg us for more."
"Sounds good," Rey says.
"Or we could actually talk about some real things, like where you're taking the Order, and what your role in it is Rey, and get into those questions you left off the list and all the other dark and niggly bits and actually get something real out there."
Kylo and Rey glance at each other, and then her.
"Real is for your loves. This is for the public," Kylo replies.
"That said, there will be a time, closer to the elections, when we'll want to talk about what the Order is and what it means and why we built it, and where we want it to go. And when we get there, we'll talk," Rey adds.
Holoran smirks, slightly. "You're better at this than I expected."
"We hear that a lot," Kylo replies.
"Can I give you some advice?"
"Certainly," Rey replies.
"If you keep being better at this than people expect, soon, they'll begin to expect you to be good at it. The only way to keep being underestimated is to, at least occasionally, live down to the image. Now, I don't know if you prefer to be underestimated or not, but… keep it in mind."
Kylo nods, and Rey says, "We will."
"Good. So, more questions, or are we done?"
Kylo checks the chronometer. There's still another hour booked for this, and he really wouldn't mind doing something else with that time. "I'm done. Rey?"
"Me, too."
"Okay. My team will edit this, put it together, send it to your people, they'll sign off on it, and in a few days this'll be live, and you'll likely have people hawking Maji pendents all across the galaxy. Or at least someone trying to get a contract to make them exclusively."
Kylo and Rey sort of blink at each other at that. He shrugs. She nods.
Holoran nods back at them, and begins to pack up her things.
A day later, Ellie and Mirina are watching the 'final' cut.
"Better than expected," Mirina says.
Ellie's nodding, watching critically. "Next time, make sure we've got explicit instructions for the camera men to avoid shooting him below the chest. Everything he's feeling is in his hands."
They've done their best to cut out how often Kylo's either got a death grip on his own leg, is jittering with his hands, or Rey's holding them to calm him down.
"Better in his hands than on his face. He almost looks comfortable in some of those questions," Mirina replies.
Ellie's nodding at that. "They're both better on real questions than on fluff."
"She's genuinely good at this," Mirina says as she watches another of Rey's sections.
"It's a good smile. It feels real and warm. Makes you happy to see it," Ellie replies.
"If she wants to spread the Maji, this is her fastest way to do it. Get more broadcasts out about what it is she's doing and why and how. Maybe… at least one a month…"
Ellie likes the idea of that. "That's good. Try to get a real talk with the two of them at least once a month, too. I think he'll get better at this the more he does it."
"Probably."
5/13/2 Get To Know The Rens goes live. It plays on every Order channel, at least once a day, for the next week.
By 5/14/2 every single swirl junjan token sells out. And though the manufacturer sets up a rush run to make thousands more, he'll never be able to keep them in stock without back orders again.
By 5/15/2 hundreds of letters have come for Lady Ren, wanting to know more about her balanced Force. By 6/15/2 there will be tens of thousands of them.
And, though the formal uniform of the Order does not allow for visible jewelry, by 5/30/2, around the C-D-E-and-F decks some of those little swirly jungan tokens start to appear on necklaces, or pinned to collars or cuffs, or tucked into the band of the uniform cap. Some worn openly, some hidden under shirts. As best Kylo and Rey can make out, at this point they seem to be mostly worn as… good luck tokens, or… maybe a way to show extra devotion to the Order, but…
As Rey sits at their kitchen table, looking at a data pad filled with letters… From scads of people who want to know... everything... about her and the Maji and the Force and balance, and...
The Maji starts to grow.