"What happened," Kylo asked evenly from a collapsable chair, elbows on his knees and eyes fixed on Vicrul who stood with his arms crossed.

"They blasted the support beams out of their own buildings. The whole thing was timed to sink, with the buildings in the back falling last." Even through the mask, Kylo felt the glare of mistrust. Vicrul's tone turned sharp. "Speaking of which… how exactly did you two find yourselves there? No one else made it as far as you did."

Kira was standing to the side, face stoney and pale. She'd ripped her mask off awhile ago and the straps had left visible red lines on her jaw and neck. Her voice was flat. "I discovered a way in and made the call to proceed. Kylo followed." She looked up, eyes flinty and defiant. "I got a look at their leader. Though she escaped, her lieutenants are dead. The Crimson Dawn won't recover for a long time. You should be thanking me."

Vicrul grunted, making it clear he thought otherwise. They had been sniping at each other for the last half an hour and it was getting old. Kylo turned his head, glancing at the bundle of limbs in the corner, of which a few faint snores could be heard.

They were in a small pop tent some fifty kilometers from the conclave. Outside the noise of drop tanks and marching platoons filled the swamp. In the corner sat the kids, each wrapped in a First Order standard issue blanket. A pallet had been laid out for them to rest on. Most of the kids were already asleep, exhausted by the frightening events of the day. The oldest boy, however, still clung to consciousness despite his drooping eyes, jerking every once in awhile to stare warily at the adults on the other side of the tent. The careful looks he kept sending Vicrul in particular had Kylo suspecting that the boy did in fact understand Galatic Basic, even if he didn't speak it.

Their slave collars still hung around their necks. Though the location sensors had been deactivated, the security features for removal attempts would not have been. Only the manufacturers would be able to remove them at this point.

Vicrul grunted. "Leave them here. We don't need more mouths to feed."

"Don't worry yourself," Rey snapped scathingly. "They'll get dropped off at the local authorities."

"With who's ship."

Rey's jaw clenched. "I'll take care of it. It won't disturb you in the least."

Vicrul sneered. "See that you do," and then he left them.

Silence filled the room in his wake. Neither of them moved to leave; the kids were asleep and Kylo had nothing else to do. He stared at Rey over steepled hands. Her gaze remained stubbornly fixed on the floor, her mouth in a flat line.

Finally, Kylo's patience ran out. "Are we going to talk about it?"

Rey glanced at him, then at the kids in the corner. The oldest boy's head had finally slumped on to his chest, eyes shut. Her eyes flicked broodingly to the floor. "What's there to talk about it."

Now this was a ironic role reversal for them. Normally it was Rey who wouldn't stop talking, Rey who'd pry information out of his cold, resistant fingers.

"So that was her," he said quietly. "Your master."

Rey jerked violently, teeth bared. "She does not own me," she spat, and he realized, feeling foolish, that the word meant something very different to her than to someone like him who had trained under the jedi teachings. He recalled how the word had never left her lips when they had spoke with the Supreme Leader.

The thing was, Q'ira had been her master — in both senses.

He would have pitied her except for the fact that Snoke was their master. He owned them in all definitions of the word. Kylo had accepted that.

But he could see now what Snoke did— that Rey never would. A fine thing to have in an apprentice, as long as you could control them.

"What you call her doesn't matter," he said carefully, studying her expression closely for signs of duplicity. "If you kill her then you complete your training."

Rey's lips curled in disdain. "Her? No. Killing her does nothing for me."

He latched on to that. "Why? Because she has something you need?" Her face flickered, just a little. "Because she knows about you? About your parents?"

Rey looked away. "I don't trust anything she says. Q'ira lies. Everything she has ever told me is some twisted half truth that benefits her."

But she didn't sound confident. And in that moment, he saw it —her greatest weakness. The carrot stick that Q'ira and Snoke must have dangled in front of her all this time. More than power, more than blood, Rey wanted to know why her parents had left her. She could not stop needing them until she knew that there was a reason for all of this. All her suffering.

There was only one piece left of the puzzle that didn't fit though.

"…Who was he?"

Rey stilled, expression turning wary. "…Who?"

She was going to be stubborn, then. "You know. Her master. The one who died thirty years ago."

Rey's face twitched. "It doesn't matter. He was no one. He died before I was even born. Q'ira is the one who can't let go of him."

"Then why," he said slowly, "did she insist his legacy lives on in you?"

Rey slowly straightened, eyes flicking between his. There was something in her eyes he had never seen before, not directed at him. A calculation. A cold evaluation.

They were interrupted when Vicrul suddenly stormed into the room. Kylo had never seen him so twitchy, the force rippling in agitation around him. He barked, "Change of plans. We're taking the brats with us and dropping them off at Kijimi. Get them ready."

He would have walked straight back out if Rey had not vaulted to her feet.

"Kijimi? That is a stormtrooper camp. You can't be serious."

Vicrul went rigid. His hands flexed at his sides. "I'm not asking for your opinion, Kira. I am ordering."

Rey's mouth flattened. "Vicrul, some of these kids are hardly older than five—"

Vicrul turned and backhanded her flat in the mouth. Kylo jerked to his feet than stopped, teeth clenched, as Vicrul immediately pulled his scythe from his back, pointing it at him. Vicrul's gaze never left Rey. "Don't make me repeat myself," he said lowly. "I do not give a single shit about those children's lives outside of the Supreme Leader's will."

Rey brought a hand to her face, expression cold. A speck of blood gleamed off her knuckles as she passed them over a now red and puffy mouth.

Vicrul's voice was cold. "Now. Either you will accept the generous blessing the First Order has bestowed on them and follow orders…or you can bring your complaints to the Supreme Leader himself."

Rey glared at him fiercely, and for a moment Kylo thought she might go for her lightsabers. Finally, she looked away, eyes black and furious.

Vicrul grunted. "Good." He re-slung his scythe and then in a whirl of his cloak, he was gone.

Kira stood rigid in the center of the room, looking about to explode. Kylo contemplated what to do until a sound from the corner had both of them snapping their heads in that direction.

It had been the toddler, snuffling and beginning to cry. The older boy patted his back, rubbing in soothing circles. His eyes were clear though. So he'd been awake during the outburst.

He didn't look enraged, or frightened, or resentful though. He looked…. resigned.

Kira took one look at the kids, mouth flat and expression full of brittle emotions, and then she stormed out of the tent.

Kylo started after her. Leaving her alone would only spell trouble, he could see it. She was on the tipping point of a knife's edge.

He caught up to her at the demarcation line of marsh grubber trees, a hand grabbing her elbow. "Rey—"

"No," She hissed, jerking out of his grip, and then whirled to face him. "Don't patronize me. I don't care what Vicrul says. This is…it's…" her mouth twisted, language failing her, and then, she finished on a whisper, "…it's wrong."

She said the word like she was almost embarrassed by it. But she didn't take it back either. He paused, considering her. Then he asked simply, "What would you do?"

She ran a hand through her hair, growling. "I don't know. There must be something." She laughed, high and cold. "We are Snoke's apprentices. We hold the power over thousands, millions of lives. What is the point of that power if it can't be used to save even one."

"It's the Supreme Leader's will," he pointed out.

Rey sneered. "Snoke doesn't care about lives, he cares about tools. In the grand scheme of things, tools are replaceable."

Kylo nodded. "And so are we."

Kira shot him a look of disdain. "You mean I am. Snoke always meant for you to replace me. It was only a matter of time."

Kylo didn't bother trying to deny it. "So what, you'll do this just to spite him?" When she said nothing, he took a step closer to her. "Don't throw away your life for something that has no chance. What are you going to do with a bunch of kids? You can't take them with you."

"I know that," she hissed. "But I—Ben, I can't. You can't ask me to turn a blind eye to this."

"I am and I will," he said evenly. "You know better than anyone what the life of a slave is like. The First Order may not be kind, but those kids will survive. That is better than most."

"Don't," she hissed, drawing away. "Don't justify one form of slavery for another. Not to me."

He shrugged. "We don't always get to choose our masters."

Her eyes flashed. "No. But we can choose to not become them."

At that, he drew back, brow furrowing. "Then why are you here?" At her blank look, he raised his hands, gesturing at their surroundings. "What are we doing, what is all of this even for, if we are not trying to replace them?"

They stared at each other. Shock registered on Rey's face, then dismay, then anger, then a flurry of emotions too fast for him to decipher. Then, her face shuttered closed, and it was like watching a door shut forever.

They stood at an impasse.

"What is the real issue, Rey," he said finally.

She struggled for a moment. Then, "If I let them go, I am condemning them to the life I hated."

"And if you take them with you," he said gently, as he would only ever be for her, "you condemn them to death."

In the end, the kids came with them. The drop off to Kijima went without a hitch. He watched through the transparisteel view from the pilot seat as the six children were taken into custody by officers and escorted to a shuttle.

Rey did not see them go.

Rey had not been there at all.

She had walked away from Kylo outside that tent in the swamp, eyes dark and burning, and had disappeared.

Rey didn't return to the Finalizer.

At first, there were rumors. The Knights were sent off ship, one by one, until only he remained.

Then came a deadly quiet. No news, no mention of her name. As if she had never existed in the first place.

And then, finally, what he had been waiting for since the day she had left him standing there in Artoid Minor finally happened.

Snoke summoned him to his chambers.

The moment Kylo stepped foot off the elevator, he was jerked forward by the force, dragged by his heels to where Snoke stood menacingly in the middle of the room.

There was no pre-amble. This was no test. This could very likely be the end.

"Ben Solo," Snoke bellowed, and then Kylo was being lifted into the air and suspended like a puppet on a string as the full extent of Snoke's power opened to him for the first time. And there were no words for the fear that rose in him, for which all others fears paled in comparison. He was a fly caught in a spider's web as expansive as the galaxy, as bright and burning as a thousand suns.

This was not a fight he could win.

"You will give. Me. Everything."

The world shook. Sensations, vibrations down to his very atoms. The leviathan of force toppled and crashed into him, submerging him, crushing him, filling him to burst, tearing him apart.

There was no enduring it. It simply was.

Afterwards, Kylo came abruptly to consciousness on the floor, his heart in his throat, his body jack knifing in paroxysms of shock as Snoke paced nearby, expression contemplative.

"Interesting," Snoke was saying above him, tone now cool and remote. "So you did not know. Good. I am spared having to lose a second apprentice."

Snoke moved away from where Kylo sprawled on the ground, returning to his throne. He sat down.

"Tell me Kylo…would you like to know who she really is? This woman who seduced you—" the room shook with vitriol and scorn" —so easily. Would you like to know how she lied to you?"

Kylo said nothing. His raw throat had given out long ago from screaming.

Snoke leaned back, waving a hand in the air. "She is the last of a great legacy, though she knows it not. A legacy possibly even greater than yours. But just like you, she was trained by the hands of lesser men and traitors. By disciples to a powerful, though pitiful, man who's life was so consumed with destroying the legacy of his former master that his singular will extends, even now, beyond the grave."

His hand dropped. "And she—she was his crown. She would be his greatest vengeance."

Then Snoke leaned forward, fingers steepled together, his eyes glittering and cold.

"Tell me, my young apprentice. Did you ever hear the tragedy of Maul, the Shadow?"

x

Author's Note: ...As a pre-TFA fic, it seemed only fair that this would naturally lead into a TFA role-reversal sequel. :D This is certainly not the end for these two, which is wonderful since I grew to love them both over the course of writing this.

This fic was written for Merixcil on AO3 with the following prompt:

As a young child, Rey is captured by the First Order. Upon realising that she is Force Sensitive she is drafted into the Knights of Ren. This is the story of how she sees beyond the First Order's directive and breaks away from them. She can take Ben with her or not when the time comes, depending on what you think works best for the characters, but I would prefer that Rey does some bad things before she realises that what the FO are up to is not cool