4/28/1
Kylo's not a stranger to pain. He's felt more versions of it in any given year than most people do in a lifetime. That said, waking up with his head throbbing, the room spinning, and his stomach violently attempting to go galloping out of his body is an entirely new flavor of pain, and he'd really like to never, ever feel this again.
He does make it to the bathroom (though he trips over his own feet on the way) before he starts to retch.
A second later, Rey's behind him, stroking his back and shoulders, and her touch, along with her calming, healing light side Force eases the rolling in his stomach and the thudding in his head.
He gingerly stands up, swishes out his mouth with water, and then carefully sits on the bathmat with his back against the tub. "Thank you."
"What was that? Did you get poisoned or something?"
He winces; her voice is not exactly a gentle or dulcet tone right this second. He slowly lowers himself to his side, and rests his head on her thigh, putting her hand back on his head, and says, quietly, "Yes. Your light is taking care of you. My dark doesn't lend itself to automatic hangover cures."
She gently pets his hair, and as she's doing that, he feels the all over muck of… Force… Okay, he can remember at least five of those drinks, and they did split them, and the first few didn't seem to pack any punch, but after that… He's thinking more and coming to the conclusion that she wasn't really drinking them after the third one, and that just possibly he may have ordered a sixth one that he had all to himself and…
Wincing, he says, "This is why I don't drink."
She kisses his temple, and he feels another wave of her magic easing through him. "Better?"
"Getting there." And he is. He's not immediately hoping someone will shoot him to put him out of his misery.
She gently strokes his forehead, brushing his hair back, and looks around. She can't see a chronometer, but its morning, it has to be, though the light it still gray and dim. She kisses his temple again. "First full day together."
He gently squeezes her thigh and gives it a little kiss, before trying to see if he can muster any of his own Force skills to help his body feel better faster.
"This is not how I was intending to start it."
Later than either of them anticipated, they're packed up and on the move.
Next stop, Theed, where, hopefully, the Great Library has a book or two about a certain former Queen of Naboo.
And, maybe, someone knows a place where one could locate rings.
Ulinada is, all things considered, a fairly small place. About 50,000 people live there full time, and another twenty-or-so-thousand tourists are there at any given time. On the scale of places Rey's been, it's mammoth, but, really, it's a small city between two lakes that people like to go to to get away from a real city.
Theed is just such a 'real' city.
It's the human capital of Naboo, and the largest above ground settlement. Sixteen million people call it home, and other than a soul deep aversion to being anywhere with this many people for any long bit of time, Rey can see why.
It's the most beautiful place she's ever imagined.
They take two passes over it, before getting cleared to land, which is more than enough time to see the elegant domes, in all shades of copper, from turquoise patina to screaming new orange. The buildings under them all seem to be made of the same pastel coral stone, and all of it stretches out along a cliff blessed with tumbling waterfalls at the edge of a wide green plain.
"Why would Palpatine ever leave?"
Kylo shrugs.
"Everything you could want is here. It's beautiful!"
He smiles a little at that. He's piloting, so both of his hands are busy right now. He cocks his head a little, a touch me, here sort of gesture. She rests her hand against his cheek, and he lets her feel his dark and the niggly voices that live there.
She does, sensing that gnawing need for more.
"Not everyone has enough light to smother that voice. I doubt he ever had a day of his life where he was content."
She strokes his cheek. "Have you?"
He half-shrugs at that, too, looking like he's focusing on bringing the craft down in their allotted space. He's certainly had moments, maybe even stretching into complete hours when he's been content; he's not sure about an entire day, though. So he focuses on landing the ship, though they both know he doesn't need to concentrate that hard on landing the craft. "It's better than it used to be." He shrugs at that, too. "I'm building and securing right now. A lot to keep myself occupied and feed that need. If I'm ever really secure… I don't know how it'll work." He's intensely watching the spot they're going to land, intentionally not meeting her eyes, "He kept the Empire stable for a good seventeen-eighteen years, maybe he was just biding his time, waiting for the Death Star to get finished. He was patient enough for something like that. Or maybe he hit the point where the challenge was getting stale, so he started to blow things up to make himself feel alive."
She kisses his cheek, feeling how scared he is that that's the path he's standing on.
They've got two hours before they can check into their hotel, so the library is their first stop. It's a temple to information, soft peach stone rising up before them, capped off with a pastel greeny-blue dome, high, wide windows in violet and gray stained glass, and huge beaten copper doors.
Rey hadn't been entirely sure about Ulinada, but this, this she likes.
He can feel her appreciating the feel of the place. "Maybe it's a Jedi thing. Luke loved this sort of look. His temple was built like this, smaller scale, not as expensive, but, arches, domes, big windows… He'd have been happy here."
The doors open for them, sliding back, allowing them entry. "He may have been born here." Rey rolls her eyes. "For all I know, I was, too."
Kylo shakes his head. "You don't have the accent for it. Whoever taught you to speak was from a core-world." They walk through an open, empty area, floors gleaming white marble, sofas and tables with people reading, and a main desk in the center with several people, very quietly, talking to a few others.
"Doesn't mean I wasn't born here."
He inclines his head, about to respond, but they both feel the Librarian glaring at them. Apparently, this is a place of silence. No one else is talking in their normal voice, and… as they look around, it's fairly clear they're also not dressed like the locals.
Rey'd moved up to the local dress for Ulinada, deciding that since they were still on vacation, she could keep wearing her fun, little dresses, but apparently that's freakishly casual by the standards of Theed, or, at least, it's library. Kylo's still in his Padme clothing, which is vastly more casual than his blacks, which are about a thousand times less ornate than the robes the men around them are wearing. Everyone around them is covered from head to toe in expensive, ornate, jewel-bedecked outfits of splendorous wealth.
She glances up at him and thinks, Poe said they were kind of stuffy here.
Kylo bites back a quick laugh.
The glare intensifies. Not only are they not dressed for it, but apparently this isn't a place where people laugh.
Looks like your pilot was right about that. I haven't been glared at this hard for stepping over the line since I was eight.
What did you do?
Mis-remembered my nine times tables.
She nods. Tragic.
Pretty much.
They've made it to the main desk, and Rey decides that this is a job better handled by her than Kylo. "Excuse me, we were wondering where books on the Queens of Naboo would be?"
The Librarian, an older woman, in rich brocades and the most elaborate hairdo Rey's ever seen, eyes both of them, making it clear they don't really belong here, but she'll deign to help them, probably because she approves of what they wish to learn more about, and then gestures behind her. "Nine rows back, seven down." Her voice is hushed, and Rey wonders if she's ever spoken at full volume.
"Thank you."
They've found the right set of shelves. He's scanning book titles, and she's supposed to be scanning them, but really she's watching him, crouched down, reading through one of the lower shelves.
His hair is pulled back in a tidy knot. He's left the leather jacket back in their ship; it's too warm for it. His lightsaber is back at the ship, too. He's in a simple white v-neck shirt, dark blue trousers, and brown boots. There are still the faint ghosts of her marks on his right arm as his fingers glide from book to book.
Maybe there never was a Ben, but she's got the sense that this is what he was supposed to look like.
Tan. Lots of tan. He thinks at her without stopping looking at the books.
She smirks at that. She sits next to him, cross-legged, and rests her head against his shoulder. Was Ben supposed to be a scholar?
He shrugs. He was supposed to know things. Be deep and wise. Not sure if anyone ever took the time to think about how Ben was supposed to get that information. Or how ridiculous it is to expect a twenty-year-old who'd never been anywhere other than his home or a school, never met more than fifty people, to be wise.
Did you do a lot of this with Luke?
We only had a few hundred books. I read them all the first three years.
Rey tries to imagine ever saying only to go along with a few hundred books. Even with Orlac's library in her possession, the idea of a few hundred books still feels like more than she'd ever imagined. Did you like reading?
He sits back, back against the stack behind them, and pulls a book toward them. It's not the right one, just the first one that caught his attention. He cradles it between his hands, and gets comfy. Ben would have happily spent ages here, or with his calligraphy brushes.
If the little voice that wanted more didn't keep calling to you?
He inclines his head at that, and kisses the top of her head. Maybe. He sighs and looks around. No books for you?
No. She looks around. That's not strictly true. Well, not like these. Technical specs. Instruction manuals. Scavengers grab whatever might be valuable, and if you know how things work, you can make them more valuable. So… you raid a downed Star Destroyer, and if you can find not just the power couplings, but the specs for them, too, it's worth more. If you keep the specs, you can fix the next coupling you find, and that's worth even more. I'm sure I saw books like this; there were personal quarters, and I raided them for clothing and bedding and whatnot, but books didn't fetch anything of value, so I never brought them back. They weren't worth the sweat.
He kisses the top of her head again. Books were a way for me to have more, without having to deal with my failings and flaws. In a story, you're whoever the story is about, and even Luke's library had stories. Jedi heroes of old. Men and women who were effortlessly calm and centered, capable of finding their peace, always using their power the right way. Warriors who ferreted out the dark, inside themselves and outside, too, and destroyed it. He doesn't say it to her, or put the thought to words, but there's a reason why the first thing he burned at Luke's Temple was the library.
She gives him a little hug.
The heroes didn't scare their classmates when they got frustrated because all of the 'good', 'light' things didn't come easy to them. He rests his cheek against the top of her head. Did you ever want more?
She sighs a little. I wanted my parents to come back. I wanted it to be a mistake. I wanted enough food to eat and to feel safe at night and… I'd tell myself stories, that they were great, important people, people who were in grave danger, and they'd dropped me in Jakku to keep me safe, because no one would ever look for me there, but they'd come back for me. I couldn't leave because they'd come for me, sooner or later, and if I wasn't there, then we'd never be together again, and never go on to do the great things we were meant to.
He rubs his cheek against the top of her head again. They were great, important people. And there was real danger. Every other week someone new was trying to kill one of them. And they were trying to keep me safe, from their enemies, from the monster in my head, and the monster they were afraid I'd become. He kisses the top of her head. And it didn't fucking matter at all. Even Darth Vader seems great, if he actually gives a damn and pays attention to you and tells you you're good enough and meant for something important.
She rests against him, and he rests against her, and for a moment, they just both feel it.
Then he reaches up, and puts the book back. Come on, let's find the right one, and go to our hotel.
"Think this is it?" he says, looking at a title a few moments later, speaking in a quiet whisper.
"The Queens of Naboo: Padme Naberrie Amidala… I think that's it. How long is it?"
He flips through the actual pages. "Three hundred pages. So… Most of the rest of today."
"Think they'll let us take it?" There are signs about how to get a library card, but they don't actually live in Theed so…
He flashes her an are you kidding me look.
"Oh."
He nods. "Maybe not let, but we'll make sure they get it back, okay?"
She smirks a little. "Okay."
There's nothing old-fashioned or quaint about this hotel. It's about ten minutes past modern and as slick and comfortable as the capitol city of a capitol world could make its top-ranked accommodations for honored guests.
In fact, it's so high ranked, and so comfortable, and lush, and rich, and plush, that the desk clerk spends a good five minutes ignoring them because they aren't dressed like the usual high-muckety-mucks who go to places like this.
Kylo's staring at the man, thinking about what'd he do if he showed up in his full blacks and gave him this exact same gaze, and Rey is holding his hand making it very clear that she'd really appreciate him not choking the jerk.
He'd wet his pants if I used my real name. He can feel she's vaguely amused by that idea, and there's a tiny little spark in the back of her mind that wants to see him try it, but the "better" part of her nature jumps on that and pushes it down.
No.
She whacks the tip of her staff against the counter. Not a hard hit, but enough force to make a loud crack. The desk clerk jerks at it, finally deigning to notice them.
"Yes?"
"Seven minutes it a long time to wait when you're doing nothing else," Kylo says.
"We're booked."
"Lovely. We have a reservation." Rey replies, "Amidala. Ben and Rey."
That startles the desk clerk more than the crack. He looks from Kylo to Rey and back again. His eyes linger on Rey, really looking at her, not sure if he's seeing a ghost or not. He eyes their clothing. They're either not rich and powerful enough to be here, or so rich and powerful they don't care if they blend or not.
And with that name… "What brings you to the Theed?"
"Learning more about my grandmother," Kylo says. "She lived here. Died here about fifty-five years ago. You've probably heard of her." He puts a hint of the threat he could put into that sentence, not wanting to annoy Rey, too badly, but not wanting to just let that twit just be.
The desk clerk swallows, hard. His eyes skitter down to his register, which is completely digital. "Amidalas, Ben and Rey, yes, we have you on the list." He ducks behind the counter and comes up with two key cards that he runs through the register. "Room 1687. Do you need help with your bags?"
Rey glances at the one bag over Kylo's shoulder, and the one bag she's carrying. "I think we're fine. All we needed was someone to pay attention."
"Ah… yes…"
"So…" Rey asks when they get into their room, and put their bags down.
He's already digging out the book. "Reading?"
"Sure. Food, too." She's hungry.
He looks around the room and eventually finds what he expects. A menu. "I can't be the only person who has food brought to him." He tosses it to her, and then flops onto the bed, ready to start reading.
"Do you want to eat?"
His stomach's still a bit off, but it's been hours since he had a piece of dry toast and a cup of tea for breakfast, so food is probably a good idea, even if he's not feeling enthusiastic about it. "Yes, but I don't much care what. Something bland. I want to get into this."
"Okay." She figures out what to get and places the order, as he pulls off his boots, and takes off his belt.
She smiles a bit at that, deciding they likely should keep their clothing on until the food gets here, but… as soon as it's here, off it's going. A lazy afternoon nibbling, reading, resting, and just laying around with each other sounds awfully good to her.
Rey's listening to him read. It's interesting, and she's enjoying this history of Amidala. She sounds like the kind of lady Rey'd like to meet. And though the prose is precise and passionless, she's getting hints of Kylo through Amidala, or maybe seeing shadows of her through him, bits of stubbornness and attachment to shaping the world the way she wanted it.
How she ended up with Vader… or Anakin… that's still a mystery. As of this point in the story, she's just been elected Queen. Rey knows some people fall in love young, and she supposes that might be what happened, that fourteen-year-old Padme met fifteen-year-old Anakin, still on the light side… or something like that.
But that doesn't work. Luke and Leia were born more than a decade from where they are in the history.
Doesn't mean she didn't just meet a young Jedi. After all, that likely wouldn't be in the official history. And, as he keeps reading, they eventually hit the point where she's coming into contact with the Jedi, but… neither of them know who Qui Gon Jinn is. She makes a note to go look him up, see if there's anything interesting about him, but later.
She's laying on her side. Kylo's on his stomach, pillows propped under his chest, book in front of him, reading away. His voice is soft and low, and she watches his eyes skittering across the page, feels him gravitating to another line of family.
She kisses his shoulder, feeling his ties to Vader, to the idea of welcoming dark, and enjoys how rapidly he's sinking into Padme's light.
He's all spread out, taking up even more of the bed than he seems like he should. He's big to begin with, but something about a bed and a good book makes him seem to melt to expand and cover the whole thing.
She lays a finger on his shoulder, tracing lines between his freckles and moles, brushing his hair to the side to connect the one from the top of his shoulder to the one just below the nape of his neck. He's got a lot of them on his face, and not so many on the rest of him. Still enough of them to draw pretty patterns on his back and hips, though.
She gets up, finding his brush and ink. He looks up from the book, sees what she's doing, and smiles, and goes back to reading to them.
He's going back to the Order covered in little ink drawings, and both of them like it.
He purrs a little, stopping mid-sentence as the brush traces over his back. She's not sure what she's drawing, there's no conscious intention there, but eventually, she can see the design starting to come together.
She kisses, gently, above it, making sure not to smear it, then finishes it off, and sends the brush and ink back to the top of the dresser.
He looks over his shoulder to the mirror behind him, and says, "A…" he stares at it, not sure what it might be. "That's not a bird, right?"
"It's a moth." She blows on it gently, and tests, rubbing her finger over one of the lines. It's dry.
"Oh."
She wonders if Anakin was like his grandson, a moth. A dark creature that loves the light.
"Moths get burned by the light," Kylo says, turning his face away from the book, toward her, followed by, "You're thinking loudly."
She gently touches the scar that marks where she stabbed a lightsaber through his shoulder. "Do you think you didn't get burned?"
"I didn't die."
She kisses that scar. "True."
He rolls over, onto his back, and stretches his arms above his head, somehow taking up more of the bed. "What light creatures love the dark?"
She shrugs at that, snuggling into him, resting her face against his chest, feeling/hearing the thrum of his heart. Then she thinks back to some of the artwork she saw at Orlac's school. "Girls. Human girls."
He laughs at that, petting her hair. "I think you're onto something. Do they get burned?"
She thinks about how Padme Amidala, youngest queen of Naboo, with her bright, bright future, and glorious reign ended up. "Probably." That's grim, and closer to them than either of them finds comfortable.
His hand strokes down her head and back, fingers trailing over her spine. He's not sure if this is real, if it's a memory, or a feeling, or him just… hoping, but he says, "I don't think she knew she was getting a dark creature. I think she fell for Anakin, good, light, Jedi Anakin. She didn't know what was under there. Maybe he didn't, either."
She kisses his chest, and lays her hand over his heart.
He kisses the top of her head. "And you saw me on my worst day, at my darkest hour, and walked into the dark, eyes open, knowing what was there, and took it up anyway. I think that makes a lot of difference."
She takes over reading. She's sitting, back against the headboard, and he lays in the bed, head on her thigh, listening.
From Qui Gon Jinn, they find a familiar name, Obi Wan Kenobi. Apparently he and Amidala worked together on several missions over the years, and he was her personal security for a while.
There's even a picture of the two of them. It's the only picture in the book where Amidala's wearing no makeup. The only one where they've got any sense of her actual face, instead of a mask of white and red. They spend quite a while looking at it, and… Rey can somewhat see the idea that Kylo has her eyes. They've both got dark brown eyes, though the shapes are quite different. The rest of him though, that's all his own.
She can understand why the clerk kept looking from him to her. She's got more of Padme's looks than her grandson does. She doesn't know how last names move among the Naboon, if they're patrilineal or matrilineal, but for a few heartbeats he was wondering which one of the two of them had the name first.
And for as much as Kylo's looking at her, he's also studying the man next to her. Ben. His namesake. Eventually, he closes his eyes and looks away from it. Then he says, "That's what Ben was supposed to look like. Tan and brown, a blue lightsaber, deep and calm. The kind of man you trust to protect a queen. The kind of man who shows up to rescue a princess…" He shakes his head at that, too. "She never met him, you know? Saw him for about a minute. Watched him die at Vader's hands, but… He was a friend of her father, and Luke… He was General Kenobi to her, a figure from history, not part of her life. He was Ben to Luke, and Luke really only knew him for two days."
She strokes his hair, waits to see if he says anything else, but he doesn't, so she turns the page, and keeps reading.
There's no mention of Anakin Skywalker, and when they get to the end of the chapter the book veers off to talk about intra-Naboon squabbling between the humans and Gungans.
After a few pages of that, Kylo says, "He was Kenobi's apprentice, so… that must be how they met."
He tries to feel back, through the memories of his bloodline, but… there's nothing.
And then it's there. It's an avalanche of anger at Kenobi and Padme, hard enough he jerks at it.
"Kylo?" Rey's really disturbed, dropping the book, and grabbing his shoulders.
He's choking on how hot this hate is. His hand is clenching, hard, crushing a throat that isn't there, and the desire to strike out at everything is overwhelming. It's hate, rage, on a level he's never felt before. He didn't think this kind of emotional fire even existed, let alone could be survived.
And then it's gone, and Rey's looking exhausted.
They're both breathing hard, him from the onslaught of the emotions, and her from cutting him off from them. Both of them take a moment to regroup themselves.
Eventually he can sort through the feelings enough to figure out what they were. "Everything was on fire. Hot… Glowing red. All over hot. The last time he saw her, she was with Kenobi… He thought they'd both betrayed him, personally, politically, romantically... His best friend… mentor…" neither of those words feel right, "brother and his wife were fucking each other and had just came to kill him." His head is throbbing from how hard that memory hit. "He choked her to her second to last breath and fought Kenobi to what was supposed to be the death. Kenobi was better with a lightsaber, and he won the fight, otherwise they all would have died there. Her, him, Luke and Leia. If he'd won, he'd have ended himself, too. The whole of them would have vanished in flames."
She takes a few, deep, calming breaths, just touching that anger left her shaking. Then she strokes him again, feeling the ache through him, too. "He turned when he met Luke. When he really felt that…"
Kylo nods. "That whatever happened with Padme, it didn't involve Kenobi. She'd been true to him. On that level, at least." He can't really see it. Just feel the echoes of it, but… that was enough.
The last chapters of Padme's life are… politics. Lots and lots and lots of politics. Padme put everything she could, and then some, into making sure that Palpatine never became Emperor.
And she failed.
Palpatine out-maneuvered her and the Jedi, and the senate, and… And everyone who didn't directly benefit from him taking over.
Her last chapter it vague. There's no mention of her being pregnant. The author isn't entirely sure when she died, or how, just that it happened around the time of the Jedi purge.
There was a full, state funeral. The Naboon offer their dead back to the rivers that gave them life. Cremate them, and return their ashes to the water, but even that isn't certain for Padme Amidala. On the orders of the new Emperor, within days of her death, construction on a mausoleum began. It was finished within a year, and there are pictures of a beautiful, solemn place. The author of the book doesn't know if it was just a memorial, or if her body was, contra their traditions, interred there.
Rey's voice goes quiet as she finishes reading that, and Kylo's looking out the window of their rooms, a thoughtful expression on his face. It's fairly late. The sun is long past set, but after finishing that story, he's not exactly tired, and she's not, either.
He glances away from the reflection of their room in the windows, and says, "Would you mind going with me?"
She shakes her head. "Let's get dressed and go."
It takes them a while to find it. It's not exactly a tourist destination, and this late at night, there aren't too many people to ask for directions. So, they likely don't take the most direct route, but Kylo's feeling pulled to his grandmother, and eventually they find her mausoleum.
During the day, it's likely solemn and pretty.
At night it's beautiful and haunting. Two eternal flames burn at the head and foot of a sarcophagus graced with the symbol of the royal house of Naboo, lighting a small gray chamber with a shifting, orange-yellow glow.
Before them, a stained glass window glows from the streetlights and moon behind it. Adding a purple/blue shift to the light.
They both have the feeling that no one, save them, has set foot here for years, maybe decades. Though, since there's no dust, someone has to come, at least to clean.
Most children grow up with two grandmothers. Technically speaking, Kylo had three, though growing up, he'd only known of Breha Organa. Both his mother and father's birth mothers' were question marks.
Leia was adopted. He knew that. She and Uncle Luke had been born, raised apart, and were thrown back together by the Force nineteen years later.
Leia, with that little ironic look in her eyes, would say that the day she lost everything in the world that mattered to her, her home, her family, her sense of purpose, the Force saw her despair and gave her a new family.
Literally. "It was less than five hours later. I'd been in the cell, wallowing in…" He could feel the pain there, real pain, heart-deep pain, constant, motivating, shaping pain, but she didn't like to ever acknowledge that. Pain, that was part of the dark, so people died, loves were lost, the world stopped turning, literally, halted on its axis and shattered to a billion pieces, and she kept it covered with sarcasm and a little bit of genuine humor, "it, and then in walks this guy pretending to be a Stormtrooper, badly, and he whips off his helmet, and says, 'I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you.' It took us a while to figure out he was your Uncle Luke, but we did, and the pieces slid back into place."
He didn't think to ask why she'd been adopted, and she never brought it up.
He wonders if that was part of her staying away, keep her past from slipping out. Not like it finally did slip out, rumors and gossip spread wide across the galaxy, (Though by then he already knew the real name, or at least what it claimed was the real name, of the voice that came to visit in his dark.) but how it too easily could have slipped out, her just thinking too hard about it. He could have pulled an image or feeling from her.
He often did.
He doesn't think she ever knew her mother's name. He's not sure if she ever wondered who would have made babies with Vader. Then a bit of life slots into his head, something his mother likely understood, but, even with Rey in his life, wasn't anything that he'd ever considered: Women don't always consent.
There's nothing in the book suggesting she ever fell in love. Not with Anakin, not with Obi Wan, not with anyone, ever.
And there's nothing, anywhere, to ever suggest that Vader would have cared if a woman consented or not.
Kylo had been so lonely, so longing for anyone to approve of him, take an interest, encourage him to just be, that it never occurred to him to wonder about Vader's lady. Obviously, if Vader was his grandfather, there had to be a grandmother, but… He gently touches Rey's wrist. It wasn't until he had an actual grasp on love and sex and how children get made, beyond a barely theoretical understanding of the technical details, that the idea that there had to be more than just Vader ever occurred to him.
He looks at Rey, who's quietly feeling this space, looking at the stained glass and the mausoleum, and wonders about Anakin and Padme. Did she see her dark knight and fall in love with him? Was the taste of danger sweet between her lips?
Did he see her light, feel it warm him, get burned, and in turn burn everything he touched?
Did he just take what he wanted? Did he ever bother to care about her?
Did she join Kenobi to take him down as an act of revenge?
No… maybe… no… Wife. He felt that. Brother… Vader… Anakin… had words for them. That was there, solid, real… If anyone in the universe mattered to him, it was Padme and Kenobi. It wouldn't have hurt that much if she'd just been a warm body offering a moment of release or if he'd just been a teacher.
His eyes slide shut and he feels that last moment, walls in place so it won't hit so hard, but… It's there, from both sides this time. The boiling rage and hate, that's Vader, and under it, to the side, sorrow… such abysmal sorrow. That's Padme. She loved him, and stood there, watching him lay waste to every hope they'd ever had. And when he was done, when he'd betrayed her, them, their children, and the light, the weight of breathing became too heavy, and she let her light go.
He lays his hand on the cold stone of an ornate sarcophagus with the symbol of the royal house of Naboo on it. There are echoes here, memories… He can feel the pressure of the stone against his palm, but not the feel of it. But a prosthetic limb would only feel the pressure. Texture, smooth, hard, silky, those sensations are denied neural networks made of synthnerves.
"Vader was here, at least once."
"To gloat or cry?" Rey asks.
Kylo slides back, through his bloodlines, feeling wary, afraid that he may want to jerk out of this, fast.
He feels Rey's hand on his wrist. She looks up at him, eyes warm. "I've got you. Go feel it."
His eyes slide half-shut, and he pulls the memories from around him. The image is very clear, the man covered in black armor, breathing labored, chest full of cobwebs and acid, kneeling here, mask pressed to the stone. "Cry. It wasn't until he met Luke that he knew he didn't kill Padme and their children. He never recognized Leia, never felt her. Only knew she existed for a few moments, and never knew it was her."
Rey touches the sarcophagus. "Did he love her?"
"As much as he could. For whatever that was worth." He looks around, half expecting the blue glow of the past made alive again, but nothing with voice deigns to visit them, or disturb this place.
"Why didn't you kill me?" she asks in the dark of their room.
They don't, haven't talked about the fight in Snoke's throne room. Around it, on occasion, but not about it. Somehow… It feels like too much happened to possibly fit into words. But he can more than understand her thinking about that right now.
He is, too. He answers her question with one of his own. "When we touched hands, the first time, what did you see? You said you knew I'd turn, but…"
She's on her side, wrapped in his arms, the top of her head tucked under his chin, and her back to his chest. He can't see her expression, but he can feel it. She doesn't mind him taking the conversation here, knowing its part of getting to where she wants to go.
She thinks back on it, and he can feel her calling that flash of a future, though he doesn't get a glimpse of it. Whatever it is, the Force has decided it's for her, and if she wishes to share it, she can, but it won't let him just see it.
"There's no real detail. It's not a picture, more a feeling. Or… sounds maybe… Like reading the story. You don't literally see the pictures in your mind, there's no concrete image, but you still see it, right?"
He understands that.
"We were building something, together."
"Like your cottage?"
"Like it, but not it. There were children with us."
"Ours?"
"I don't think so. Some of the Maji. It was bright, and sunny. That was clear. Sunshine. You and I and sunlight. And I knew we had to get off theSupremacy for that to ever happen, so…" She doesn't say anything for a moment, and then finishes with, "And I knew that if I didn't leave, we'd never get off that ship. I could feel it when you offered me your hand, that glimpse of the future was dying in front of me as you begged me to stay."
"I didn't beg."
She laughs at that. "Had it been ten full years at that point since you'd said please, or only eight?" She can feel his answering eye roll. She turns in his arms, and then strokes his face. "It's a good thing you did, because that's part of what convinced me you could still be saved. Part of how I knew that future wasn't dead. I woke up before you did, remember? There was time to finish you." She rolls her eye. "Hell, I didn't just leave you alive, I left you with your saber. I wanted the chance of that future."
He strokes her face. "It was an image. No sound, no story, and not particularly clear. The outline of a messy sketch, maybe. But it was us, together. You were wearing a gown, and… Obviously, that wasn't the past. And you showed up in the escape pod and… I'd been rather hoping to have had more time to plan it out, kill him without having to do it on the fly and fast, but that was likely the only way it could have succeeded. Otherwise he'd have the same edge I do against people trying to hurt me.
"But, I knew we'd never get to that future if I did what he wanted. I just… didn't plan to get there that way."
"Was that gown a wedding dress?" Rey asks.
"I don't think so." He feels her think about that answer. And about what she did to keep her vision of the future alive, and what he did, and said, and offered.
"Lord and Lady Ren?"
He closes his eyes. He doesn't exactly like admitting this, because she's made it awfully clear that this isn't where she wants to go… But she told him of him building with her, so… "Yes… Ruling together. My lady, empress, wife, and equal." He kisses her. "The light beside my dark. Both of us, in my throne room."
She nods, eyes solemn, and then says, "Do you feel like that's still… where were going?"
He inhales, a little shaky, not sure what to say to that. "Do you still sense your vision?"
"Yes. It still feels real, possible. Now you."
He closes his eyes, and feels the vision of it, seeing it clearer. "Yes."
Kylo knows he's asleep. He knows his body in lying in a comfortable bed, wrapped around Rey. He often cuddles up behind her when they're falling asleep, but once asleep, they tend to settle onto their backs, side to side, flanks touching. Since they left Padme's mausoleum, he hasn't wanted to let her go. Keeping skin to skin contact matters right now, in a way it normally doesn't. So he's asleep, lightly, still on his side, still wrapped around her.
He knows he's dreaming. That's always been true about him. He can't remember a time when he didn't know the images around him were dreams. That never made his nightmares any less terrifying, it just made him angrier when he woke up because he allowed himself to be scared by figments.
He's not sure if knowing dreams are dreams is a common thing for Force sensitives or not. When he's awake, everything around him is alive, and he's always aware of that. In his dreams, he can't feel that.
So, he knows he's dreaming. And he knows for Force sensitives dreaming is a nebulous concept. Just because it's a dream doesn't mean it's not, also, on some level, real. What he can't tell is if the ghost before him is real.
It's the same barely post-adolescent twit he remembers from the visit to his rooms, but this is a dream, so he's got no good feel for if he's actually talking to a ghost or if he's just imagining this.
The twit is on a balcony, back to Kylo, overlooking a lake, watching the sunrise or sunset, he doesn't know which. He knows they're on Naboo, but it's not anywhere he's ever been. He's deeply skeptical that his mind would conjure this from nothing, so…
"Real then?" Kylo asks.
"Enough," Anakin replies, turning toward him. He looks around. "This is where I remember her… us… The best moments of my life were spent here, and I wasn't even supposed to be here. It was supposed to be Obi Wan. He was supposed to be here, as her security. But Kamino heated up, and he went off to investigate, and left me with her."
"And you fell in love?" Kylo asks, looking around. It's, romantic, he supposes. If he were here with Rey, he'd likely find it so.
Anakin shrugs, and turns to look back over the water. Kylo joins him, notices he's about eight centimeters taller than Anakin, and the image of larger-than-life Vader shatters just a bit more. "We met the first time when I was nine. She was the most beautiful woman… ever…"
Kylo doesn't say, "How could you tell under all that makeup and clothing?" Somehow that feels too impertinent, even for a dream.
Anakin feels it, rolls his eyes. "You never had any business dropping the Solo from your name."
Kylo glares at his grandfather. "He's not the only person in the galaxy to have ever mastered sarcasm." He shakes his head. "And if you'd ever spent any time with my mother, you'd have known that was just as much her as him. Luke was the eternally, painfully earnest one of the two of them." He looks at Anakin. "You felt Luke. I've heard that story, but not her… Why?"
Anakin looks annoyed. "Why does the Force ever do what it does? It didn't deign to let me sense her until it was too late."
Kylo sighs, no argument against that. "Why are we here?"
"Willingly… That's what you wanted to know. Did she come to me willingly?"
Kylo nods, and Anakin looks at him, hard, feeling him. And for a second, Kylo gets a feel for the power of the man next to him, the sense of something colder, darker, and deeper than he's ever imagined. Something that reminds him of Snoke, the same scent but a different flavor, perhaps. Something that makes him want to step away, far away.
Anakin smirks at that. "You're strong in the Force, very strong. And wild and dark… but not that strong." He smirks a little more, and Kylo understands, intensely what that strong means. "If I tested your blood, you'd likely come up at the high end of the normal range for Jedi Midichlorians, call it 19,500. A lot of raw talent, but not off the charts, not even genius level."
Kylo blinks at that.
"And that was gobbledygook. Don't worry about it. The best thing the fall of the Jedi brought about was getting rid of that. Your Rey has the right idea, the Force is for and in everyone, not just those with enough power in their blood to levitate a stone."
Kylo raises one eyebrow. None of this seems connected to what they're talking about.
"I was nine and she was fourteen the first time we met. She was glorious, a queen in her full power. I was a little boy who barely caught her interest. Obi Wan was on the verge of becoming a Master. He was older, stronger, handsome." Anakin snorts. "Charming. He was always effortlessly charming. She liked him." Anakin looks down at himself. "I'm nineteen now, a Padawan. She's twenty-four, a senator. Obi Wan is in his mid-thirties. He's a master, in his full power, and she wants him. In all the ways a woman wants a man, and with full understanding of what those wants entail. He wants her. He shouldn't, he does his best not to, and I know he'd never act on it, but I can feel it in him. That's part of why he's willing to let me act as her guard, he's aware of what might happen if it's just the two of them together for hour after hour, day after day. He's afraid it'll move beyond physical desire, which is of course, excusable, assuming he doesn't let it get out of control, into full on romantic love… into attachment, which is forbidden.
"She was adorable… loveable… So easily enchanting… Any man would want her.
"I want her too, but I'm the idiot tripping over his tongue and feet trying to impress her. But I want her. I want all of her. I want her body, mind, soul, love, desire… I want her more than I ever wanted anything. And there's more power in me than any other Jedi before or since. The test didn't have numbers high enough to read where I landed on the Midichlorian scale. Just by being near her, I can bend her to my will. I'm not even doing it intentionally. I want her so much that my will shifts her, changes her, and she wants me."
He touches the banister. "We married here. In secret. It was too good to be true, and I knew it. As long as I stayed close to her she kept wanting me, because I wanted her, but if I went away for too long, or she did, she'd start to shift back to her normal feelings. Start to wonder why she'd gone along with this. Start to look at Obi Wan again, enjoy his calm and peace and charm.
"The Council kept sending me away. Or Naboo kept needing her to do things for them.
"I hadn't seen her for several days… And then she was there, with Obi Wan… They were there to end me. Maybe she wasn't, maybe that's not why she thought she'd come, but… that's how it was going to work out. If I gave myself up, Obi Wan would take me to what was left of the Council, him and Yoda. They would have executed me if I didn't take care of it myself. And he would have helped her raise our children.
"I saw that flash of it, him free of the Jedi, living with her and our children. Her looking up at him, eyes warm, face soft, flushed, genuine desire… Desire from her own heart, not just mine reflected back at me. I had a mirror shaped like her, and he would have had her."
Kylo can still feel the anger simmering through Anakin at that idea. "And you almost killed her."
"Better dead than that," Anakin says, all but spitting the words.
Kylo spends a moment thinking about that, aware of Rey still in his arms. "I'm not…"
Anakin snorts a laugh. "You aren't that powerful. You could have Midichlorians oozing out of your pores and you still wouldn't be able to turn Rey. You two are too equally balanced for that. Padme wasn't my equal in the Force. If she had been… It would have worked out differently."
Anakin leans against the railing, looking out over the lake. "You asked if we fell in love here. Love requires choice, and I didn't give her that. Love puts the needs of your beloved before your own… And if my will shaping hers was unavoidable, if just being near her would do that, what I did with it wasn't. I knew what she wanted. I knew the shape of the galaxy she was aiming for. I had the power, and access, to do something about it, and I didn't. She begged me, told me I was breaking her heart, and I didn't drop to my knees and vow to put it back together.
"I wanted her more than anything, wanted her more strongly than any man has ever wanted a woman, but no, I never loved her."
Kylo shifts back to awake. He doesn't open his eyes, doesn't need to. Rey's still in his arms. She's dreaming, too, he can feel that, though he doesn't delve deep enough to see what she's seeing.
He breathes deeply, aware of her scent, the feel of her hair against his forehead, the steady in-out of her breath, and the thrum of her heart.
You'll never be as strong as Darth Vader.
He never knew Darth Vader. Never knew Anakin. He knew an image, projected from the twisted mind of Snoke, of an idea of power, Snoke's power. He took a boy, and painted a picture for him, of a dark prince, resting easy in his dark, reveling in his power. He dressed it up in a black cape and mask, gave it a name and a hint of history, a sense of belonging, and deep, complete purpose. He wrapped it in approval, offering praise and accomplishment, until after he'd burned the Jedi Temple, and there was no back for him to return to.
He never saw the face of Snoke until Snoke owned him.
And Snoke owned him by toying with his wants. Giving him all the effortless approval and encouraging his dark he could possibly want. But his wants weren't necessarily needs. And they weren't taking him anywhere he needed to go.
He was strong enough to feel the difference between a need and a want when something… someone, he needed finally came around.
He sees her, at the top of the ramp to the Millennium Falcon, sees the pain etched on her face, feels himself on his knees. She didn't say 'You're breaking my heart,' that would have meant making an admission neither of them was ready to say, but he felt it.
And changed.
Theed has jewelry stores. When they ask the desk clerk, this one a rather helpful man, he points them to an entire street covered in the things.
So, the problem isn't lack of choice, it's too much. How anyone picks one ring out of the multitude, let alone the right one, Kylo doesn't know. He's half-thinking of suggesting just getting some metal and making them themselves. He's got tools. They're both handy. And a simple circle shaped to fit a digit isn't that difficult to make.
But made themselves won't be on their fingers today, and seeing them, shop after shop filled with pretty little sparkly things meant to wrap around a person you love, he's feeling more and more like this is important.
Like this is right.
She nods to the door of one of the shops, more or less at random. This one seems to have a lot of rings, and fewer necklaces and bracelets, so there's that going for it, but it's really not all that different from the one next to it or the one next to that. It's probably ten meters on a side, and inside there are myriad display cases.
Some of them have plain bands of metal. They call to him. Both of them are far too active with their hands for the kind of ring that has flashy stones or little filigree bits, waiting to get snagged on something. But a simple circle of metal… That would fit the lives they live.
Even the bands aren't necessarily plain though. Every color and pattern he can imagine, from thick braids of beaten copper and white gold to thin wires of something silvery woven into intricate designs to simple circles of just one metal polished to a sheen, or sanded to a satin matte.
He'd been looking for about ten minutes when he sees the one that feels right. Though he's not sure if it is. She'd likely want something prettier, or more… less… black, but he's drawn to it, and to the promise he intends to make with it. So he touches it, and raises an eyebrow at her, and the simple band of blackened metal. "This one?"
It's smaller than she was expecting. "I don't think it would fit."
He smiles a little at that. It's not shocking that he might be looking at the ring for him. After all, it's just a band of shining black metal. But she's right, he could probably get it to the first knuckle of his left pinkie finger, it absolutely won't fit him. "For you."
"Oh…" She looks from him to the black band and back, and gets a sense of what he's thinking, and why that color matters. "Oh." She presses close to him, and rises on her toes, kissing his lips. "Yes."
He takes her hand in his, testing each finger, until he finds the one it fits on, her left middle finger, and then kisses it, making a silent promise to himself, and to the life they hope to live.
I will not be Vader.
She spends longer looking through the selection. Part of it is that he's got large fingers, and finding something he can wear takes a bit of effort. Part of it is finding something right. She could get him a black band that matches the one he just put on her, but that's… lacking… something. She wants something with the feel of the Maji, with that intent of balance, and the idea that there's something solid, tangible, real that they're building, with and through each other.
That there's a better galaxy… or at least life… that comes through this.
She snorts; that's a lot to ask a piece of metal to do.
Finally though, she finds something. It's gray, which is probably fitting, with a grain of darker and lighter grays, tightly meshed together. "What is it?"
"Wood, originally," the jeweler replies, "believe it or not. There was a time when the grasslands had trees, and in some places, the trees fell and were covered by bogs. The acids in the water preserved the woods, making them very hard, very strong, and as you can see, this unique gray color."
"Ky—Ben…" It feels very odd, and wrong to call him that, but he's on the other side of the store, looking at something small and sparkly, and it'll look odd if he just comes over without her saying anything to him. However, calling for him isn't helping, either. He doesn't realize she's talking to him until she adds, Kylo, in his head to get his attention.
He comes over, and looks down at it, curious. She wiggles a finger at him, and he gives her his right hand. It doesn't fit any of those fingers well, so she tries his left, and finds its home on his middle finger. "Do you like it?"
He's holding out his hand, looking at it, and nods, slowly. "Yes."
"Good."
She kisses his hand, where she placed the ring, It was alive once, grew in the sunshine. She squeezes his hand.
His eyes shut for a second and he pulls her close, his lips to her forehead, holding her close for a good minute, until the jeweler, no stranger to lovey couples looking for pretty things, clears his throat.
"I take it you've found what you wanted."
"Yes."
"Excellent. Let's get this paid for, then." The jeweler gets everything totaled up, and Kylo looks at the bill and rapidly comes to the conclusion that they don't have enough credits left on either of their sticks, or together for that matter. Not if they want to do things like get some lunch and pay for the parking on his ship.
"Can you do a straight account transfer?"
The Jeweler nods. "Prefer it that way, actually." He takes the bill back and knocks 3% off the price. "The credit company doesn't take its cut with a straight transfer."
Kylo takes the datapad, stares at it for a moment, unlike most of the customers, he's got to actually read the options to find what he wants, but does, and then sets the transfer into place.
"Would I be right in assuming you don't want boxes?" the Jeweler asks after Kylo hands the pad back.
Rey shakes her head, sure that this ring isn't leaving her finger ever again. "No."
He smiles back at both of them, and says, "I hope they serve you well."
Kylo rubs his thumb against the ring on his finger, and glances to the one on Rey's. "They will."
There is exactly one man on the planet Naboo who, if he deigned to read flimsy scandal sheets, though he doesn't, could confirm a certain story about the Master of the Order and his lady friend. Or, at least confirm the fact that said story isn't outright impossible.
But he doesn't read that sort of trash, so he doesn't know that rumor.
He does know, two months later, when he's tidying up his accounts, making sure that all of his transfers have gone through properly, and he's been paid for his goods, that a name pops out at him, because it's a very important name, and he just about swallows his tongue when he reads it, because obviously the man had to have been in his store and bought… He checks his records… the black platinum and the bog wood rings… Marriage bands, though those words were never spoken, he's been in this business too long to not know what he sold.
The Jeweler's not sure what to do with that. Part of him wants to slap a sign on his store, pointing out the Kylo Ren bought his marriage bands there. That would be good advertising. Part of him thinks that since Kylo Ren is not, as best he knows, publicly married, that said sign could get the sort of attention he really doesn't want.
He tells his wife about it, and she mentions it, with pride, to her sister, who tells her best friend, and eventually whispers of Lady Ren start to pass from one set of ears to another through the right circles on Naboo.
Notes:
A few thoughts on Anakin/Padme... Maybe I'm the only one, but I did not, for a heartbeat, buy the romance they set up in the prequels. And not just in a, 'Why would you go for Anakin when Obi Wan is right over there?' sort of way.
The whole dynamic feels off. I mean, for the whole movies, the dynamic feels off. They're setting up an ending that just doesn't come. My pet theory is they were intending to make a much darker trilogy and pulled the punch in the third act. (Yes, I'm part of the Darth JarJar fandom.) And if the whole Padme/Anakin thing had been an unwitting Force manipulation, something where Anakin knew, at least subconsciously, that this wasn't *right* his terror over losing Padme would have made a lot more sense.
Oh well, that's not the story we got, so... I... shifted things a bit. ; )
One last note, the galaxy is a *really* big place, so it takes a long time for local gossip on one system to get off system. Poe or Finn or whomever would have to be actively looking for information about the Master of the Order to even get a hint of that paper. They aren't.
And the one guy who is, who avidly collects every rumor he can find about the Master of the Order, already knows that the Master has a lady friend. (Though he will be pleased to see that, when on vacation, the Master appears to have had a good time.)