2/5/1 Y.O.
"Okay, everyone got a rock?"
The eleven children in front of Rey all have their rocks.
In the last month, Poe's brought her three more. A family. Elias, Muni, and Ostrae. Two of the three of them, Elias and Muni, have some level of Force talent, the third, the youngest of the lot, has a different father than the older two, which probably accounts for the difference in talent.
No matter, all are welcome at the School of the Maji.
"Great." Rey sits comfortably in front of them, and gestures for them to all settle down, too. "Comfy?"
They nod and respond.
"Close your eyes. Reach out, feel the rock. Feel the Force. Feel the air and the wind and the balance between them. Gather all of that together, find the point of balance, and just, shift it, a bit, and move the rock."
She knows only three of them, Marrok, Elias, and Muni can move the rock, so that's only part of the lesson.
After ten minutes of trying, there are three levitating rocks, and eight rocks stubbornly sitting on the ground refusing to move. Which is exactly what she expected, though it looks like several of the children were expecting different results. And of those several, two of them are distinctly disappointed.
"Okay, good job, all of you."
"Even us," Opal says, pointing to her and her twin's rocks, both of which are still on the ground.
"Yes. Even for you who didn't move the rock. Today's lesson isn't about floating rocks. Master Skywalker told me that floating rocks is a trick. And it is. An impressive one, but a trick. And we're not here today to learn tricks.
"Now, here's the real lesson. Every day you will run into tasks. Some of you will find them easy. Some of you will find them hard. Some of you will work desperately, you'll do everything right, you'll be perfect, and it still won't happen. No one can do everything. You will fail. I'll fail. Everyone fails.
"Coping with failure is not a trick.
"Now, what do we do with failure?"
They look at each other, but don't seem to want to respond. (Though the disappointed children are starting to feel a little better about not floating their rocks.)
"A lot of things. But let's put them into two main groups. Light reactions. You failed, but maybe your friend didn't. So, you feel happy for them, and tell them they did a good job. Dark reactions. You failed, so you feel bad, feel worthless, and maybe you start to hate your friend because they could do it and you couldn't." Rey moves around, between the kids as she's saying this. Sensing eleven variations on the feelings she's talking about.
"That's normal. Most people, most of the time, have a lot of feelings about things. Your job is to feel them, and understand them, and decide how to use them.
"The Light feelings… If you use them to make your friend feel good, if you compliment him or her, that's constructive. But if you leave it there… Nothing happens. Your rock is still sitting on the ground. You've made the world outside of you better, but you've done nothing with yourself, and you didn't solve the problem.
"Dark feelings, if you cut off your friend or say something mean, you've made the world outside of you worse, and again, the rock is still on the ground. If you let yourself feel worthless, then you've made you worse, and your rock is still on the ground. Maybe you do both, yell at your friend and make yourself feel bad about your failure. That's the worst possible outcome, you've hurt your friend, hurt yourself, and didn't solve the problem."
"Does that mean those feelings are bad?" Torine asks.
"The feelings aren't. What you do with them might be. Example, if you use those feelings to motivate yourself to find a different way to do it," Rey uses her staff as a lever and flicks one of the rocks into the air, "You've made yourself better. You've found a way to solve your problem.
"Find the balance. It's in there, waiting for you. Find how to use your light feelings and your dark feelings to make yourself, and your world, better.
"Motivation comes from all sides, so use it, but balance it. Not all you and no world, and not all world and no you. Too much light and too much dark can paralyze you, leaving you feeling too content to do anything of value or too hurt to move. Stay in the middle."
She stands up. "Okay, rocks. We've got a ton of rocks here, and we want rocks on our road. If we want Threepio to be able to move around easily, we've got to build him a real road." Her town is up to nine cottages, a workshop, her chapel, a communal kitchen, and a classroom now, and they walk around enough between them that the grass has worn away, so the path is getting muddier and muddier with each rain, which, since it's full on autumn now, is every other day. So, it's time to add some cobblestones. "So, let's move some rocks. Any method you can find to move the rocks is great. Do it yourselves. Do it in teams. Find ways to move them as easily as possible. Use your light feelings and dark feeling to get those rocks moving!"
Eleven children get up, and they get moving. Some of them are carrying rocks. Some of them figure out how to get the Faviers to carry rocks. Eventually, they come up with a system where the Force users float the rocks into carts that the Faviers carry to the street, and then they dump them out and everyone helps spread them around.
Rey feels like that's probably as good as they're going to get, and everyone feels like they've done something useful.
All in all, one of her better days of developing, and teaching them, the way of the Maji.
It's late.
There's knocking at Rey's door. She drags herself out of her bed, and opens the door.
"Rey, I had a bad dream…" The voice is very small, and the child attached to it is even smaller. Rey's exhausted, and doesn't want to move, let alone walk said child back to her bed in her cottage on the far side of the town.
"Okay," she goes back to her bed, lifts the blanket, and Rugh scrambles under the covers.
It's only when, "Rey, did he have a bad dream, too?" comes out of Rugh's mouth that Rey remembers there may be a reason to not let little guys into her bed.
Of course, by now, Rugh's cuddled up right against Kylo, who is dead asleep right now, and it's really dark in her room, and Kylo's tossed an arm over her, pulling her close, and… "Shhhh…" Rey whispers. "Just sleep."
She's fairly sure Kylo will be gone before the girl wakes in the morning.
"Who's your friend?" And variations hit Rey over and over the next morning.
"More building and less gossiping," she says, hoping her voice is properly stern. "Rocks aren't moving themselves."
This would be when it occurs to her that A: The children know she has a friend who visits at night. B. They have, apparently, caught the occasional glimpses of him when he goes to the chapel to meditate at night. C: Said children did a pretty good job of not peppering her with too many questions when Kylo was actively mourning. D: Rugh would not come to her if she had a bad dream; she'd go to her brother, whom she shares a cottage with. E: Those little boogers set this up to find out more about Kylo.
On the upside, apparently all Rugh can tell them about him is that he's big, warm, has dark hair, his stubble can be tickly, and he smells good. (Which Rey agrees with wholeheartedly.) And they've all been giggling, somewhat scandalized, to hear that Rey and her friend don't wear pajamas when they sleep.
She glares at them, teeth gritted, and they all look at her like the picture of innocence.
Apparently, they are taking her lesson of working together to heart.
Though this was not the goal she'd hoped they'd choose to tackle together.
"You've got a naked sleepover friend?" Poe asks, eyes sparkling with pleasure at the idea of this, as he drops off yet another child.
She rolls her eyes, and glares at her charges, who are suddenly utterly fascinated by the rocks they're moving. She knew this was going to happen, sooner or later, but… She'd been hoping for later.
"This your boy from that school? The one who crashed Finn and Rose's wedding… The one you just couldn't go along with? He change his tune and decide to go with you? Do I get to meet him?"
Rey glares at the children again, but they all look up at her with big, innocent eyes, none of them could possibly have told Poe about her friend. Rey supposes it's possible they asked Threepio and he asked Poe. There's not much gossip here, but that droid is a gossip hound, and any and every bit of it, he's up to the second on.
She sighs. "Yes. No. Yes. Not exactly. Sort of. And absolutely not."
Poe blinks, trying to remember exactly what order he asked the questions in with no luck. But he knows what the last one was.
"You afraid I'll scare him off?"
She laughs at that. "If Chewie didn't, you won't."
He lights up. "Chewie knows him! Oh… This is serious… Or… Wait…"
She can feel his thought and jumps on it. "Every Force user is welcome here, and not all of them are children."
"Chewie found one."
Rey nods. That's true… from a certain point of view. "He's got a job. Mostly just here at night, and… Really, he's here for me, not to learn, but some of it's rubbing off, too."
Poe snerks. "Oh, I'll bet there's some rubbing off." Magiit and Elias, the two oldest children, thirteen and fourteen respectively, catch that joke, too, and start to snigger as the younger kids ask what the joke was.
Rey elbows him in the side at that one. "What'd you bring me besides nosy questions?"
Poe lights up. He's been really enjoying his quest to build up this settlement and the Maji. After more than a year of doing everything he could think of to help the Resistance, and getting bugger all results from it, this kind of work, that results in real, tangible progress, makes him very happy. "I've got some goodies you're going to love… Structural steel, eight metric tons of plastcrete, a decrepit speeder that you can likely beat into shape without too much effort, and a small print forge."
"Oh… you know what I love!" There have been a lot of small tools that she would have liked in the last few months that she just doesn't have, and can't cobble together, but a print forge can make just about anything she can code into it. That's getting pride of place in the cottage that's currently doing duty as a workshop for their village.
"I saved the best for last," he pulls a small, dark crystal out of the pocket in his flight jacket. "I don't know what color it'll glow, dark purple or green maybe, but I have a feeling you've got a use for it."
Rey nods. "Oh, I do!" A grin spreads wide across her face. The kyber crystal is small. She doubts she could make a full lightsaber with it, but right now, none of the people she's seeking to train need a full length lightsaber. It'd be much too long, even for Magiit or Elias. But a light short-sword… That'd be just right.
Rey and Poe are lugging crates out of his cargo ship, putting them into carts to be pulled by the Faviers, when he notices she's not wearing her token.
He thinks about it. Since he made his own, he's felt no desire to take it off. Sometimes he wears it under his shirt, sometimes out where everyone can see it, but he feels naked without it. Once he slipped it over his head, he just felt right.
But with the way Rey's shirt comes together, there's no possible way she can wear the token and have it not be visible. The little bit of her chest where it lies is always visible, so the token should be, too. Which means she takes it off.
And he just can't imagine she's any less attached to hers than he is to his, so… He does a quick headcount. Him, her, and twelve children. Assuming they're all Maji, that makes fourteen, total.
She's not paying too much attention to him right now, she's making sure the print forge gets settled in the cart carefully.
"Rey, there's what, fifteen Maji now?"
"Yeah," she says, not even thinking about it.
Poe nods. So, not only is her 'friend' a Force user, but he's one of them, too. He's got to meet this guy!
They eat dinner together in her cottage, and he notices she's getting edgy as he intentionally drags dinner out longer and longer.
"Looking forward to your nightly meditations?" he asks, with a big, stupid smirking grin.
The children have told him that Rey's friend does seem to spend the night every night. She goes to her cottage and "meditates," and while she's doing that everything is silent. ("Because she's not here," Marrok says, and Elias confirms.) Then she and her friend come back and spend the night.
They've never seen him in the light, but, some nights, Rey's friend will go to the chapel to meditate. He likes to kneel in the center and watch the sky. One time, while he was there, the whole chapel glowed blue! (They're very excited to tell him about that.) The kids tell him Rey's friend is tall, and big, with long, wavy dark hair. They sent Rugh in for more information, but forgot that a four-year-old isn't the best gatherer of information, especially late at night. So, they've got confirmation of big and dark wavy hair, and added no pajamas and doesn't snore to the list of things they know about Rey's friend.
So, for the time being, Rey's boy is a mystery, and if there's one thing Poe loves, it's flying, but if there's another thing he loves, it's solving a mystery.
"Yes," Rey replies, voice sharp.
He gets up, stretches. "I'll help you wash the dishes, and then you can get to them."
"Thank you."
He stretches out the cleaning up, taking a long time, washing slowly, and drying even slower, while telling her a complicated story. She glares at him, annoyed, not angry, yet. They both know what's going on, he's just trying to get her to admit she's got a date.
As she's about to boot him, literally, from her home he says, "Come on, at least tell me his name."
She glares at him, and he feels himself pushed, with the Force, out of her place.
"I'll find out, sooner or later!" He yells to her, chuckling.
"Kids are little shits!" Rey says, by way of hello, once she finally gets to Kylo. "And Poe's a big one!"
Kylo goggles at that. He's never heard her curse before. He gives her a quick hello kiss before saying, "What happened?"
"I've got a dozen children, all of whom are wondering your name," Rey says, settling onto his bed, and he comes to sit next to her, gently stroking her back.
"Weren't there eleven this morning?"
"Poe showed up with a new one today. An older girl, Savarah."
"Force sensitive?"
"Yes. You'll sense her when you get there, she's got a nice glow to her. But, like the other eleven of them, as soon as she heard there was a mystery about my 'friend,' she was all over it. And they don't shut up about it, and then they ask Poe if he knows who you are, so now I've got him hanging around wondering who my 'boy' is."
Kylo just looks at her. He'd slept through their companion joining them (and he's not sure if he should be relieved that he can sleep through someone joining them, or horrified that he did sleep through someone entering his bed), but did notice the tiny lump under the blanket between him and Rey in the morning. (Especially because said tiny lump had some very sharp, pokey knees, one of which was wedged into his bladder in an extremely unfortunate manner.)
She catches the image in his head, and the simultaneous curiosity, and softness it inspired. Seeing it from his view, her with a tiny person snuggled up next to her in the dim, almost dawn light, she can see there is something… desirable about it. Something that's resonating with both of them. "They want to know who my friend is, and if he has nightmares, too."
His lip quirks a tiny bit at that. "Not recently." Which is when he realizes that's true. He hasn't had a nightmare in months. As best he can tell that's a record for him. He'd spend more time thinking about that, but he can feel that nightmares isn't the main point of her question. Names… That's where she was going. "I take it you'd like to have something to refer to me by?"
"Yes. Master…"
He thinks back, remembering more about the little lump with the tiny hands and dark hair. "Didn't the… is it a girl or boy?" It was fairly dim, and nothing about a four-year-old in a shapeless sleep shirt mostly covered in blankets screams boy or girl.
"Girl. Rugh."
"Did Rugh just call you Rey?"
"They call me Rey… I don't feel like I'm Master… Mistress… Teacher… They're all wrong. I'm just Rey."
"And you'd like them to have something to call me?"
"Yes. Not Kylo, obviously. You aren't Ben. Skywalker, Organa, Solo, or Ren and anyone, even four-year-olds, will know what's going on…"
He thinks back, looking for any other name he can legitimately claim. A sliver of memory hits. "Padme. Master Padme."
"Who's that?"
Kylo sighs. "I believe it's my grandmother. Anakin's woman. I don't even know if that's a first name or a last name or a pet name. He told me it was fitting for the grandson of a slave to free them, and I said something like, 'My grandmother?' and he replied, 'No, not Padme.' That's the only name I have any claim to that's not widely known."
Rey nods. She's feeling a faint spark of memory at that, but can't place it. Not yet. There's something else, though…
"She didn't recognize you, because it was dark, and you were sleeping, and… naked… but…"
"Do you want me to not come?"
"No!" And she doesn't. The idea of Lirium being just her and the children, Threepio, and the occasional adult visitors feels empty. The idea of him not snuggling up next to her every night feels worse. It makes her ache in her heart and bones. "No. I want you there, every night!"
"But what you want and what's wise may not be the same thing?"
She nods, and feels how that hits him. "That's not what I'm thinking. I'm just acknowledging the larger point." Then she snuggles into him, and flicks the collar of his tunic. "Do you have any… less… Master of the Order clothing?"
He thinks about that for a moment, wondering why she'd ask and then gets an idea of it. "You think putting on a pair of blue trousers and a white shirt, or something like that would make me less recognizable?"
"Wouldn't hurt. The images of you are all in black and white. Throw some color in there, and…" she strokes his hair… "Maybe pull this back." Here, on his ship, working, he wears it back most of the time now. Taking the hair tie out is pretty much the third thing he does every night, after locking his door and taking off his gloves. But in every pictures she's seen of him (granted, not a lot) he's always been wearing the mask or had his hair down and been covered in chin to toe black. "If they saw me walking around with my companion, at night, they wouldn't immediately recognize you."
"Would you walk around with me, at night?"
"Stroll hand in hand around the lake… Been a while since we've done that."
"Since the children showed up."
She nods. "Join you at your meditations?"
That fills him with a palpable flush of pleasure, one he wasn't expecting.
She feels the flash of it, and nods to him. "The ones who've mentioned Kylo Ren all have an image of the mask in their head. If Master Padme shows up, I don't think they'd recognize you."
"The children, at least."
She shrugs. As Poe bunking in his ship proves, not everyone in her town is a child. And she's got no idea if or how Threepio could be fooled. "People see what they expect to. If Master Padme looks like a trader stopping by to keep me company, and maybe work with the Force some…"
He can feel that's not completely wrong. Almost anyone who might be in her town would likely fall for it. Almost… If her town weren't a stopping point for every living member of the Resistance who've seen him up close… Let alone the home of a droid who's known him since literally the day he was born. Granted, said droid almost never leaves his cottage at night, but…
"When it's just you and the children," he says. No set of new clothing or hair tie will blind Finn or Poe to who he actually is. Let alone Chewie. But a group of people who are under fourteen… Who've only seen images of the Supreme Leader from afar, or wearing his mask…
It should work.
And if any of the little boogers are too observant, he can take care of that with a flick of a finger and a few words.
Poe doesn't normally do this. Usually, when he stays at Lirium he stays in his ship, eats there, and then joins the rest of them when they're up and about and doing stuff, but… He's just curious. So, bright and early, he's got muffins. (Okay, not great ones. They're freeze dried and reconstituted, but he lives on a ship, and that's pretty much the extent of his cooking skills. Besides, they're sweet, and the kids he's been shuttling around like them.) So, he's off to Rey's place to 'drop by' and 'be neighborly' and offer her some breakfast.
He knocks, and waits. Eventually, he hears feet padding across the floor and the sound of a lock unlatching. He doesn't miss that she's got the only door that locks on the planet, and he really doesn't miss that it's locked.
"Poe?" He also doesn't miss the sound of the door to her bedroom shutting behind her. She's in her robe, with her hair loose, and looking fairly sleepy.
He holds up the muffins. "Breakfast?"
"Uh…"
"You told the kids you wanted to get started nice and early. Magiit, and Opal, and Muni want to take their cottages apart and put them back together into one bigger one, so there's room for Savarah in there, and I said I'd help with that, so… Breakfast?"
He heads in and puts them on the table. He can feel there's someone else here. Even if he couldn't see the pair of boots by the door, there's the sense of another presence here.
He glances at the boots again. The kids aren't lying, or mistaken because they're all little, Rey's friend is big, if those boots are anything to go by.
She shrugs, and nods to the muffins. "You want coffee with this?"
Poe's eyes go wide. "Real coffee?" He can't imagine where she got a taste for coffee, let alone laid hands on the real stuff. It only grows on a hundred or so core worlds and it's expensive as sin.
Rey looks over her shoulder at him as she's reaching for the jar the coffee beans live in. "As opposed to what, imaginary coffee?"
Which means not only does she not know what she's offering him, she's obviously not the source of it. "Your friend has money."
She blinks.
"He brought that, right?" Poe nods to the jar of beans in her hand. His eyes caress over the little dark morsels inside. Not only is it real, it's fresh, not freeze dried crystals made of a second brewing.
"Yeah. He likes it. I do, too. It's good with breakfast."
Poe whistles at that. This isn't just some one off treat for them. This is a regular part of breakfast. There's a least a kilo of beans in the jar Rey's measuring from. "That's worth more than the entire rest of the settlement, including my ship, and the Falcon, combined."
She almost drops them, and then very carefully measures a scoop out to put into the machine that makes it into a drink.
Poe looks at the boots. "Good boots, too. The leather's expensive. And at his size, those are custom made for him."
Rey rolls her eyes.
"Shy?" he raises his voice a little when he asks that. He's sure the man in question is on the other side of the door to Rey's bedroom, but he doesn't come out when challenged.
Rey glares at him.
"You're wearing your token today."
She shrugs. "Those better be amazing muffins."
He grins, and then shakes his head. "Nope. You weren't yesterday."
"I don't wear it every day."
"I know." Poe stares at her long and steady. "Your boy wears it the other half of the time, doesn't he? You swap or something." A grin spreads over his face.
"Do we have to do this?"
"Yes!"
"Fine. When he's here, his name is Padme. Yes, he's Maji. Yes, we share the token."
"Awww…" Poe thinks that's the most darling thing he's ever heard and he lets it show on his face.
"Stop that."
"It's cute!" She glares at him, and looks like she's about to call her staff to hand just to swat him with it. "So… what's he do… how'd you meet… Was the story about the school a complete lie, or just mostly one?"
Rey rolls her eyes extravagantly. "Mostly. Probably just about as true as your girl on Canto Bight."
Poe smirks. He didn't then, but he does now, know better than to lie to a Force sensitive Maji. Then he notices something Rey said.
"What do you mean, when he's here?"
"He…" she glares again, not sure if she wants to do this, but commits to it, "this is secret, got it? For my safety and his…"
"I've been keeping secrets since the dawn of time. Spill." He gets up to grab the coffee. It smells so good. He got one cup of the real stuff in Canto Bight, and this is… Gods… He inhales deeply. This is better than what he got there. He's pouring it very carefully, not wanting to waste a molecule, and then carries it over to her.
She looks up at him, and says, quietly, "He's with the Order." And Poe suddenly gets where the boots, and the coffee comes from. This guy's snatching it from one of the Order's ships! Poe laughs at that, very much liking the idea that Rey's man is funneling away the good stuff to them. "I met him the same way I met you, fighting for the Resistance. And it's a good idea if not a lot of people know what face that name goes with, got it?"
Poe raises both hands. "Completely. I'm not going to screw that up." He can remember the one time Kylo Ren interrogated him. The only information he could have kept from Ren was information he didn't know. "I don't have to know anything more than that."
"Thanks."
He inhales the coffee, savoring the smell, and shakes his head. "He's got to have balls of steel to go undercover in the Order as a Maji. Let alone go undercover and do this," he caresses the cup, "Back in the day, Ren and company killed every Force user they could find."
"Why do you think he's there?"
"Oh. Steel." Poe thinks about that. "What's he doing… now?" Since there's no Resistance left? Since Ren stopped the execution of Force users?
She sighs. "The same thing a lot of the rest of you are, trying to figure out what to do next."
What Kylo is attempting to do next, in fact, instead of in theory, is lay his hands upon some non-black clothing. As soon as he heard Poe's voice, and realized he wasn't about to go heading off, he slipped back to the Supremacy, and went about getting his day started.
Which kept him decently busy until mid-morning, when a half hour of free time opened up, leaving him time to think.
He's aware of the fact that markets are a thing. He can tell you how they work and why, though he's never personally been to one. He's aware of the fact that people shop. That's part of how markets work. He's even, vaguely, aware of the fact that there are markets on the Supremacy and that most of the people on this ship do not, every minute of every day, wear their uniforms.
He's just awfully sketchy as to how to put those things together.
The fact of the matter is Kylo has never gone shopping. It wasn't anything he needed to do as a child. Luke's temple was in the middle of nowhere, so it wasn't like he could just meander down the road to a market. What they needed, they made or grew for themselves, and Luke was in charge of making sure the things they needed to do that were available. And, once he joined Snoke, his status meant whatever he wanted or needed was given to him as soon as he expressed the want or need. Occasionally, before he expressed it. (Of course, as someone properly trained by Luke, he was beyond reticent about expressing wants.)
The other fact is, he has a closet. There is clothing located inside of it. It fits. It's clean. It's black. There's always enough of it. He has a dresser. There are socks and underwear and pajamas in it. Like his closet, it's always clean and ready. When he first came to the Supremacy, once they finished treating his wounds, he was given a set of rooms, and there was clothing, very much like he's wearing now, sitting in the closet, waiting for him.
For all practical matters, his clothing situation is basically magic. He puts used clothing in his hamper, somehow it magically gets cleaned and pressed and put back into his closet or dresser. If it gets ripped up or destroyed, new clothing magically replaces it. He has no idea where it comes from, or how to get more of it, should he so desire.
He's pondering the question between meetings, and says, "C8, how to people get clothing?"
C8 cannot be surprised, but Kylo's fairly sure this pause is its way of debating what Kylo's actually asking.
"How do you mean, sir?" And apparently it gave up.
"If I wanted some new clothing, how would I get it?"
"Do you not have clothing? The laundry service brought in fresh clothing two days ago. I can call for more."
"I have clothing. What if I wanted different clothing?"
"Why would you? Is your current outfit insufficient?"
Kylo's fairly sure that he's thrown C8 for a considerable loop with this request, after all, as a droid the idea of clothing is fairly sketchy for it, too.
"My current outfit is fine. But, if I wanted to wear something else."
"Why?"
"Buggered if I know," he says under his breath. "Sometimes people like to look different from day to day."
"You've worn the same uniform for the last 211 days, as long as I've been here."
"And most of the time I will continue to do so. Just… If I wanted something different. How would I get it?"
"I honestly have no idea. Speak to the laundry service? I could call one of their droids and see if they know."
Kylo's never been in contact with the laundry service, but he can't imagine they bothered to spend the kind of money necessary for those droids to have awareness of anything besides how to take care of clothing. "I'll ask someone who wears clothing."
"Thank you, sir. General Hapian will be here in a minute."
Kylo nods. He lays his lightsaber on his desk. "Good. C8, alert the janitorial staff that they're going to be needed in about three minutes."
"I take it you are displeased by the General."
"He's been a bit too friendly with a few heads of state who'd prefer I weren't one."
"Ah." C8 cocks his head. "He's here. I'll show him in."
"Thank you, C8. And, while you're out there, could you call up Major Frakes? I have a feeling he knows where to find pants."
"Major Frakes," Kylo actually smiles at him.
Frakes looks ready to pass out. Whatever it was he did to get to Captain, it did not appear to be the sort of thing that often resulted in having to be present when the janitorial staff was removing parts of a body from a room.
He makes a little "Ungh!" sound when one of the droids removes an ear from Kylo's wall.
"General Hapian decided to put up a fight." Kylo's in a fairly decent mood from that. The man actually could fight and had three hidden blades on his person. It took him close to three full minutes to dispatch him, and the experience was invigorating. If he hadn't been so stupid as to allow himself to think of what he was going to do as the Supreme Leader (none of this Master of the Order stuff for Hapian) in Kylo's presence, he might have had a chance of actually pulling off the coup. Alas, not only did he think of that, he also thought of his conspirators while Kylo was dispatching him. C8's sending out the orders for their immediate arrests.
Frakes swallows, hard, and musters up the courage to say, "Yes, My Lord."
"I need to ask a… probably silly question… If I wanted to wear something other than my command blacks, how would I go about getting it?"
"Sir?" Frakes is still staring at the cleaning droids who are scrubbing… he doesn't want to even guess what that is, off of Kylo's wall, and between his terror and the mundanity of Kylo's question, he's having a very hard time coming up with an answer.
"If I wanted to wear something other than this… how would it happen?"
Frakes slowly pulls his eyes away from the cleaning droids and what they're doing. He blinks, equally slowly, licks his lips, swallows, and then says, "What kind of clothing? Formalwear? A new uniform?"
It occurs to Kylo that he likely does need some sort of formalwear, too. He keeps getting invited to 'formal' things and C8, and several of his generals, have suggested, gently, that it might be a good idea to expand his concept of allies from 'enlist and serve me' or 'how about we just don't kill each other for a few years' and that doing so might involve some sort of mingling and fancy dinners, and that 'looking the part' is part of this.
He's been skeptical as to the value of this, but they keep hinting that it might be a good plan. Something about 'letting people see him' and 'getting to know potential allies.' Apparently, this isn't the sort of thing one does just once and then never again. (And if he realized he may have been signing up to do this over and over again when he set his Master of the Order rally, he would have thought significantly longer and harder about doing it.)
"Formalwear, and informal wear." (And apparently decided to do it anyway.) "My command blacks are fine."
Frakes blinks again, and half turns so that the droids are outside of his line of sight.
Kylo stands up. He'd been sitting comfortably behind his desk, enjoying the glow of a good fight, but it's becoming clear that if he keeps Frakes in here, he's going to have some sort of mental breakdown, and that will not get him any closer to a pair of non-black trousers. He heads to his door to his private quarters, opens it, and steps into his room, waving for Frakes to follow him.
"Come."
And Frakes does. He looks nervous about being invited into Kylo's home. Kylo shuts the door behind them with a wave of his hand, and Frakes blinks one more time, looking around Kylo's private room. "Would you like to sit?" Since he and Rey have been eating actual meals in here, he's added a table, with chairs, to go with his bed, workbench, and bath.
Kylo sits at the table, and a quick gesture of his hand pulls out the other chair for Frakes. He sits, gingerly.
"You've never seen a dead man before, have you?"
"Just my grandfather, at his funeral, in the coffin."
Kylo nods. "And he was…"
Frakes swallows. "In one piece, among other things."
"I will not summon you again, when there might be… disturbing imagery around. Can you continue, or do you need to be excused?"
Frakes squares his shoulders. Kylo can feel he's not about to disappoint him. "No, no sir… Um… Formalwear… And casual… Like… pajamas?" He's looking around, seeing Kylo's bed, the black walls and black furniture, the black bath, the cold, blue-gray lighting system, the complete lack of soft edges, besides his pillows and mattress.
"I'm fine on pajamas and underthings." Kylo hasn't worn pajamas in months and is rather pleased by that. "Casual like…off-duty wear."
Frakes can't stop himself from asking, "Are you ever off-duty, sir?"
"I'm not discounting the possibility of it happening."
"Ah… Okay. Well… Most of the time, if you wanted formal wear, you'd have it made for you. You'd find a tailor, explain what you want it to look like, and get measured for it. Then they make it for you."
"Okay, and casual clothing?"
Now Frakes is looking at Kylo like he can't believe he has to explain this, but… "Have you ever been to the F-deck?"
Kylo shakes his head. The Supremacy is huge. It's sixty kilometers across. It's larger than several major core-world cities, and at its height, before the attack on Starkiller base, held 2.3 million people, and had capacity for 22.7 million more. Before Starkiller, this was Snoke's main base of operations, and it was built to hold everything. He knows that the F deck stretches all the way from wingtip to wingtip across the Supremacy and houses a large expanse of dormitories and apartments for his officers. He's aware there's a similar section on the C, D, and E decks for his enlisted men. But he's never been there. Just like, if you ask someone if they've ever been to a part of town that holds nothing for them, they've likely never been.
He can feel that Frakes is genuinely stumped by the idea of an adult person who's never wandered over to the part of the ship that offers things like food and entertainment.
Still, he continues on. "There are markets there, where, if you wanted, you could buy just about anything you might like. That's generally where we go to get things like off-duty clothing, or books, or food, or… whatever."
Kylo nods, and then tries to imagine striding over to the F deck and buying clothing.
Frakes is already ahead of him on that. "I know. Not for you. Everyone would talk and you don't like that."
Kylo inclines his head. He doesn't think he's ever said anything along those lines, but Frakes is attentive enough to have figured out things he's wanted just by being near him before.
"I'm an awfully good tailor, sir. Clear an hour or so, and I can get you measured and design some clothing for you."
"Thank you…" He pauses, not sure what Frakes' first name is.
"Jon, sir."
"Thank you, Jon."
Kylo is not, by any stretch of any imagination, rare, in ordering some non-work clothing. Many officers and enlisted members of the Order wear whatever they like during their off hours. There is, however, some gossip when Major Frakes personally measures him for a collection of… 'lounge wear' that just happens to include a few pairs of low-waisted trousers in gray, tan, and blue, a collection of white, gray, and ecru shirts, a brown leather jacket, and tan boots.
The addition of a blaster and holster, worn low, on his left hip, just feeds the rumors.
Notes:
Okay, that chapter was fun to write!
Anyway, judging by last chapter's (and a few earlier bits, too) comments, some of you are a tad nervous about our Reylo relationship hitting the rocks. And, especially if you didn't follow me from Shards To A Whole, I can kind of see why. There do seem to be a lot Kylo (or Rey) (or both) are emotional turds and fuck each other over stories.
So, while I intend to write a lot of fucking over, I like writing the (wink, wink) *good* kind of fucking over. The bad kind... I *hate* it. I find it painful to read. I do not write it. There's enough shit coming at these characters from "real world" sorts of things that I have no desire to up the drama with emotional bullshit.
Basically, everything I write, the main character will always act (in regards to their relationships with each other) like adults who realize that other person is the most valuable person in their universe. Sure, we're gonna have ups and downs, but in that our characters are magically linked mind readers with an emotional bond, miscommunications, hurting each other for the sake of hurting each other, and behaving like adolescents who thrive on drama are all off the table.