So Pale and Precious
Main Theme- New Dawn Fades by Joy Division
Rey wishes that the sun rays would burn her retinas to spare her from the sight of Prince Ben Organa in a bathing tog. Bathing togs are supposed to act as covering when one is bathing or swimming in public, but Ben's lacks any of the dignity that comes with such swimwear. His bathing tog consists of a black sheer top that confirms her suspicions that Ben shaves his chest, while a far too tiny shorts cover the groin. His legs are also shaved and taut with muscles that would make some of her fellow padawans, the ones who never trained with him, swoon. His sunblock makes him smell like oily coconuts. He lounges on a form chair that she knows must've been imported from one of his luxurious apartments. He wears sunglasses and has a pink-colored soda in his hand. She steps directly into his sunlight.
"This is a Resistance base, not one of your skimpy beaches!" She wants to knock his ridiculous black shades off with the butt of her quarterstaff, but she didn't want to give into such childishness.
"I'm well aware, Padawan Rey, but I need a break and I cannot just leave on such short notice."
"What about Hapes? A planet of the galaxy's most beautiful women and men didn't do it for you?"
"Family affairs mired my time there." You're lucky to never have to deal with that. He doesn't say, but she could hear it blaring from his mind since he's in a passive-aggressive mood.
"And your response is by dressing like a sunbathing rent boy?"
"Best way for me to get the sun rays," He pauses to take a sip of his soda before continuing, "Would you fetch Hux for me?"
"[Oh by the desert winds!]" Rey exclaims in Teedospeak and then switches back to Basic. "You're really going to seduce him!"
"It would be for the Resistance if I did, but he won't cheat on his beloved Kylo!" He rolls his eyes.
"It looks like Kylo is doing that now."
"He's a blunt instrument. Seduction requires a finer tool."
"Which you are."
"I could stay here for another five hours, and you'll just have to use the training room. But there's a training exercise going on in there, so you'll have to participate if you're in there. Poe and BB-8 are exempt because they're on mission. Sounds like a great time to make new friends." He smiles smugly and sips at his fruity soda. He knows of her reluctance to mingle with strangers and it doesn't help that she isn't a natural conversationalist.
"What are you going to do to Hux since you can't seduce him?"
"Just talk and enjoy the sun like friends." He smiles again and then waves her away with his free hand. She quickly spins on her heel and walks away. Once in the halls, she sprints, channeling all her useless anger into energy and breezes past the guards and into Hux's suite.
He's conservatively dressed in a white tunic and pants with a shawl wrapped around his shoulders. If the lights were stronger, she would've been blinded by the white and the gold.
"Kee chai chai cun kuta?" The blind redhead jabbers.
"Very good, Master Armitage!" The neurotic protocol droid praises him before turning to her. "Master Armitage asked in Huttese: 'What are you doing here?'"
"Oh, I thought he was speaking Sith." She remarks dryly.
"Modern Sith may sound like Huttese, but Ancient Sith is far more musical yet sharper to the ear. Like a dagger that can sing!" He grins like a goof, and maybe she would've find it charming under different circumstances.
"Ancient Sith? I didn't know they taught that in the First Order."
"Oh, they never would! And the Academy didn't have a robust galactic languages program because most of the translators went to the Chiss Ascendancy with Pellaeon's Imperial Remnant. My father taught me Ancient Sith and Naboo alongside Basic, so learning languages became like a hobby."
"How many languages do you know?"
"Fluently, nine. And about a dozen or so to hold a conversation." Her eyes widen for a moment.
"And what about you?" He inquires.
"Two. Basic and Teedospeak." He turns his head in Threepio's direction.
"See-Threepio, does Teedospeak and Huttese share any similarities?"
"Both are languages found on desert worlds, but Huttese is far more popular of the two in the galaxy. Teedospeak is only spoken on Jakku. Yet, it does have a similar sentence structure to Huttese." Threepio pauses and glances at the chrono. "Oh my, I didn't know it was so late! I must leave now, Master Armitage, I'm late meeting with the Princess–oh, General, I mean General!"
"Thank you for the lessons today, See-Threepio." He inclines his head and the droid bows before hurrying away and muttering about his poor time management skills.
"Since when are you hanging out with the resident neurotic?"
"Oh, he's not so bad. You just need to have patience and far too much free time like me. I decided to play a little game with myself and see how many languages I can learn before I'm freed."
"Freed? Haven't heard anything like that from the General or Master Luke." And I doubt they'll release him back to FO in his current condition.
"They can't hold me forever. Either the General's going to accept the truth that the First Order isn't building another Death Star, or the Council will send a search-and-rescue team after me and they will find me. I'm putting my credits on the latter, but the latter will take far longer than I like."
"When do you want to be released?'
"Before the thirteenth day of the twelfth standard month."
"Is there an FO holiday on that day?"
"Nope, it's my life day."
"I wouldn't get my hopes up then." She blurts and regrets it when Hux loses his smile. He doesn't scowl or glare at her, but looks suddenly weary. Like the bags under his eyes darken to a violent shade of purple.
"What do you do for your life day?"
"My crew likes to throw me a surprise party, but it's not much of a surprise when it always happens after my shift for the day. It's always in the Officers' Lounge too. Cardinal and Mitaka would escort me in and plasticine confetti would rain down. The officers, the ones who are either off or won't start their shifts until later, would shout: 'SURPRISE!'" She jumps back at his sudden shout and then hears him giggle impishly.
"After that they would bring out the cake, I'd blow out the candle, and there's only one because melted wax and frosting do not mix. Then, everyone in my fleet would get a slice of cake."
"Even the Stormtroopers?"
"Of course, which is why the cake isn't terribly sweet. My first surprise party's cake was so sugary. Stormtroopers eat nutritional yet bland paste most of the time, so the cake went through nearly all of them. The medbays on all of my ships were filled with troopers sick from the cake. Only two were spared because their stomachs were blessed by the Maker: JB-007 and FN-2187."
"Good to know that excess sugar can take down Stormtroopers."
"After everyone's sated on cake, I open my presents, even though no one's required to get me a present. Most of them are gift credits, while some have sentimental value."
"Is there anyone you're always happy to get a present from?"
"Well, there's one. His presents are…" He drifts off and then just smiles. "I would go back to my quarters, have some tea, and then go to sleep."
"That sounds like a perfect way to celebrate your life day." I don't even know when mine is. And even if I did knew, it's not like I would've been able to celebrate it on Jakku. There's no holidays when you're just a human scavenger.
"I do hope they still serve cake this year." And he means it, she can tell in the Force.
"Maybe, you'll get released when you get your sight back." She suggests halfheartedly, and Hux frowns.
"Yeah, if Ben suddenly stops being dopa maskey!"
"What?"
"Two-faced. I'm pretty certain it was Ben who blinded me."
"I know you two don't get along anymore, but he was trained in the ways of the Light. Blinding someone is what Dark Siders do."
"No, they don't. I know many Dark Siders and they don't blind people at the drop of a hat." He grumbles and crosses his arms.
"What did you do to him?"
"I slapped him across the face for kissing me."
"You should've punched him in the throat." She blurts out but doesn't regret the words.
"To be fair, we were drinking. And I wouldn't have slapped if he wasn't in a relationship with someone else at the time." It only takes a few moments for Rey to process that Ben and Kylo were an item and why Hux is with Kylo now.
I don't think revenge should be the primary motivation in being a couple, but Ben is the kind of person who had this coming. Granted, I doubt this pairing will last terribly long once Leia realizes how serious he is about Kylo. But is Kylo serious about him?
"Speaking of Ben, I came here to bring you to him."
"Why?" He frowns slightly.
"He wants to have a talk."
"Then, why doesn't he come here?"
"Because he wants to air out his business for everyone to see. Literally."
"He's naked?!"
"No, but that would've been more preferable than what he's actually wearing. Which isn't much. It's best that you're blind now."
"Fine. Let's get this over with." He takes her arm.
I need to tell Poe about this when he gets back. And he won't tell anyone of this, except BB-8, but who is that droid going to tell?
She forgets that BB-8 talks to other people, such as technicians.
Ben watches like a hawk-bat as Rey brings in Hux. Homespun clothes dress him like a temple virgin of old. She brings him close enough so they could both hear each other, but not to touch without one of them compromising their positions. She departs with a disapproving frown.
"I hear you're still trying to piss off your folks. Did mommy cut you off?" He sneers, adding to his holier-than-thou charm.
"I wish to rid this enmity between us."
"Then why dress like you're going to seduce me?"
"Because I'm sunbathing!" Ben snaps.
"And that's just it?" Hux raises a thick, ginger brow.
"Yes! I only tried to kiss you and I got slapped. I get it: you weren't interested then and you certainly can't be interested now."
"It wasn't like I wasn't interested. I found you attractive, but I knew you were in a relationship with Kylo."
"And you didn't wish to be a side-piece?" He jokes, and Hux runs his hands through his wild hair.
Why does he find it so distressing? Is it because of his less-than-honorable origins? Or, maybe, he finds that he wouldn't have mind being my lover if he thought there was nothing between Kylo and me. Force, I should've just told him that I'm Kylo, but, no, I just had to lie. At some point, this farce will bite me in the ass much like that pittin did.
"Well, I hope you can do right by Kylo, but I'm not certain he'll be able to satisfy all your needs. He's not a sexual being." He wasn't, but then I met you! He wishes he could throw the words in his freckled face, but he manages to restrain himself.
"I rather take things slow."
"What if he never wants to have sex with you?"
"I'm fine with that." Hux smiles with his slightly crooked teeth.
"Did the FO leave you oversexed?"
"Oh, far too many have propositioned me, but I always refused them."
"How noble!"
"Sloane made it very clear that fraternizing with my inferiors would be quite detrimental to my career." He rolls his eyes.
"She sounds like my mother."
"Your mother accepts all of you. Why else would she let you leave the noble Jedi Order? Sloane only sees half of me. I'm afraid that she ever got the complete me it would drive her mad."
In a flash, there's gold amongst the white eyes like a sun about to break through the clouds. In a blink, it's gone.
Author's Comments- Here are the links:
Here is an image of Ben's bathing tog. I don't think even he can pull it off, but I thought it was the perfect outfit to traumatize Rey: a href=" . ?partno=15419&width=498&view=img1"Link/a
Armitage's outfit in this chapter is Luke's from the cover of Star Wars Vol. 7: The Ashes of Jedha because he couldn't wear his date outfit again and the prison jumpsuit is getting laundered: a href=" . /revision/latest?cb=20180409080501"Link/a
The Huttese phrases Hux's used is what I found for the Legends section of the Wookie article for Huttese. Also, I love Threepio and even bought a shirt of him to wear to RoS and completely forgot to wear it.
Still working on characterizing Rey since, again, the films really don't give me much. But considering how Kylo tried to kill her for like two films, I presumed she'd never be attracted to him. RoS proved me wrong, but I dislike that film and the Sequels never happen in any of my stories. So Rey in this, and in any story featuring her in, has no attraction to Ben/Kylo and never will. Personally, I think she should've end up with no one in the trilogy just like Luke at the end of the Originals. But if she had to end up with someone, I think Finn would've been the best choice. They were both raised in fairly loveless surroundings and searching for some kind of purpose in their lives. Both have a natural sense of right and wrong. They also had chemistry with each other on-screen (and possibly in the comics, but I don't really know since I don't read them), and Rey seemed visibly upset/surprised at Rose and Finn in TLJ. When Finn is hurt, Rey is worried and vice versa, so they care about each other. They could've worked, especially if there were time skips like in the Originals that the Sequels (mostly RoS) want to be so badly, and we could've seen how they grew together over the years. Instead, the Sequels take place roughly a year. Not saying you can't mature over a year, Avatar: The Last Airbender proves it since the story itself takes place over a year, but RoS failed utterly.
Finn gets a mention in this, but I don't know if I'll ever incorporate him into any of my stories. The problem is all of my stories take place in an AU where Hux is actually nice and raised with love and Hosnian Prime never gets blown up because either Starkiller Base blows up long before that happens or the base never existed. Also, Cardinal is the only Captain of the Stormtroopers; my version of Hux would never let Phasma replace him. Instead, she'd be working under another general, preferably as far from his fleet as possible. Cardinal is characterized as very caring to his Stormtroopers from the Phasma novel, so I think Finn would be hesitant in leaving with someone like Cardinal around. Since there's no Kylo Ren looking for Luke, there wouldn't be the mission that opened Finn's eyes. If I ever get to him, he's probably going to be just as difficult as Rey to write. Look at that, another similarity they share!
From what I got so far from The Rise of Kylo Ren mini, Luke had only four padawans before the Temple's destruction. It also tries to absolve Ben himself of any wrongdoing, aside from destroying the Temple, and even has him accidently kill a fellow padawan through a deflection of a lightsaber. I am not using the other padawans because they're just nothing characters, even Voe, who has a cool name and I like her character design, is not worth doing anything with because she's just there to be the jealous rival/token female of the quartet. Yeah, I think this comic like RoS is doing its damndest to forget what TLJ established. My money's on Voe and Tai, who is Ben's so-called best friend and the bald one because he needs something interesting in his otherwise dull design, are going to die since they are stupidly going after Ben, so maybe Ben/Kylo will kill them on purpose to cement his Fall. Or the Knights of Ren, who in TLJ were made up of the six padawans and Kylo after they killed the rest of the Order sans Luke, will do it for him because he sucks at killing Jedi. Either way, I don't care.