The Bacta bandage is used still - Ben feels regret for having all those nasty and naughty thoughts about the shoulder wound. If I remember the Throne Room scene correctly, she gets grazed by a Praetorian with him losing focus in fight over it. Awe, sweet boy Ben. I imagined he would re-iterate that moment for many times during his sleepless nights post-Crait (with Luke's spirit to haunt him and slurp the blue milk all over his Vader memorabilia).
She collapsed on her bed fully clothed yesterday. When she wakes up, she is re-invigorated, but the clothes glue onto her with her dried sweat underneath. It reminds her of sandstorms on Jakku: but here she has at least an apparently endless source of running water, both warm and cold. No freedom – again, now even more enslaved than before, but she can at least wash herself clean. Oh, the luxury, she thinks bitterly. But the warmth does feel good and welcoming. Only there she discovers her shoulder wound re-opened from the strain. She has some difficulty peeling the fabric off from the surface of her skin. Rey cleans the wound with pouring water. It stings, but somehow it feels empowering. Weird things come into her mind in this place.
Where is that Bacta bandage again?
She finds it among the books on her desk. Presses against the wound – it soothes her. It tingles pleasantly, cooling down the torn flesh.
Very good. They are now officially terrified of you.
Convenient good-morning rituals. She didn't even have her proper cup of wine-coffe yet.
(But at least she's dressed because otherwise it would be just… Hosnian system and molten lava come to her mind.)
Rey twitches.
They bought into that?
Why wouldn't they? It looked terrifying. The Force has that effect on the plebs.
Plebs – such a bloody elitist he was.
They have never seen Jedi in action. They thought them extinct. They thought the stories of their powers exaggerated, a fairy tale for simple minded fools and slaves. Now they had to face with the fact that a mere girl, a Force user, can wreak so much havoc. I told them that their technology is nothing in comparison with the powers of the Dark Side, but they didn't listen.
Now I have their attention.
Wait, did she just help Kylo Ren strengthen his position? To hush the mutineers – to push them back into obedience?
Oh, he was a dark apprentice very much – all about intrigue, and deception, and lies.
If I have you, then I can have the rest of the galaxy as well.
His voice inside of her head was now something between a purr and a roar.
I'll send you the recording. You'll see for yourself. You looked just like you should have.
There was something unpleasantly intimate in this sentence – the recording, the compliments on her appearance.
I looked how – exactly?
She couldn't tell exactly, but she was left under the impression he was grinning from across the halls and the corridors.
Like I've turned you, of course.
The ceremonial droid (the one that replaced the first one) comes in and plays her the disc containing that fight – the same raw material will be distributed to the bases and to the academies, for whole galaxy to see how feral a Jedi is. Her jaw drops – she doesn't recognize herself. If she'd stop the reproduction, she'd die of shame. There is something lascivious about the whole conundrum and about her shrieks and… Propaganda – the Resistance will see this. Finn, Poe, Chewbacca! Gods! The shame!
She crushes the disc with her foot and sends the ceremonial droid against the blast door. The door moans, the poor unsuspecting machine yelps almost as if it was alive and breaks into smithereens. The hard metal is scratched and the troopers rush in.
She regrets it in an instant, but as troopers retreat under his orders, she can sense that he is incredibly pleased. He doesn't feel alone, he doesn't feel abandoned.
It's really as closest to happiness she has ever sensed off of him.