… off to the Home Base…
"So I'd ask you if you want to talk about it, but I'm pretty sure you'll start to complain about the weirdest things…" said Freya collapsing in a chair opposite me. She pushed a cup of hot chocolate across the table, which was definitely the right strategy.
If I knew that's what it will earn me I'd be sitting here staring into middle distance with a very confused expression hours ago.
"I do want to talk about it," I admitted.
Freya just sighed. "Alright… Regretting it in advance, but I'm doing this. What do you mean by it…?"
I took a sip from the cup and let the sweetness flood my system as I sat there in complete silence. I knew I needed to say it out loud if I hoped to ever begin getting over it. I knew it, Freya knew it… The fact she was here ready to offer some free therapy spoke volumes. After all, last time I checked I was not exactly her favorite cousin.
So I took a deep breath and just made myself say it. "It's… Kylo Ren…"
"What did that bastard do? We're going to get him and skin him alive, thorny…"
My first reaction – one I chose not to go with, for obvious reasons – was to put my chocolate down and give her a hug simply for how seriously she clearly meant what she just said. So instead I just shook my head and said "I used to feel like that. Except louder. That," I waved in her direction, to indicate the promise of barely restrained violence that pretty much radiated off her, "was my whole thing just a day ago. I hated him for so many terrible reasons – and one or two actually appropriate ones, too."
"And now…?" she said, clearly confused by my tone.
"And now I can't hate him anymore. That's what he did to me… the worst thing he could possibly do to me. What do you do when you realize that monsters are actually human?"
"Remember that that alone doesn't excuse them?" she suggested.
"You didn't see him. He was… just… broken in this terrible fundamental way that had nothing to do with his physical injuries. I didn't know what – don't want to know what he's been through just before Starkiller was destroyed. I know it was bad," I said grimacing when I realized, even as I said it, that that word didn't even begin to cover it. And by the flicker of understanding in Freya's eyes she could tell me if I only asked her. But we both knew I wouldn't.
I didn't really care what happened to him. Having an answer wouldn't change the fact that there was no Kylo Ren for me to hate anymore – that he was replaced by someone I could only feel sorry for.
"I'm sure you'll find someone else to hate," she said. As a joke. So why did I find it so strangely reassuring?
"Oh I do have that," I smiled.
Freya stiffened – seeing something in my eyes no doubt. "Right. You're going to give me a name and we won't stop until we find him and destroy him…"
"No. I mean yes, obviously, we're doing that," I corrected. "But you need to stop jumping on any chance to turn into a goddess of vengeance. I'm not lying about how things were in the First Order. I wasn't mistreated. Not in any of the obvious ways you're thinking of. It was more subtle than that – and I'm not even sure they knew they were doing it. They just gave me the worst possible job they could… doing the same thing over and over, knowing he'll just break it all again."
"Did they seriously just have you fixing things? Don't they have like… armies of mechanics of their own, brainwashed and obedient. What they needed you for?"
"You know I have weird responses to stressful situations. Something that can't be replicated, not by any amount of post-hypnotic suggestions, apparently. I guess it sounded like a good idea in theory…" I grinned despite myself. "I made them rethink that one, that's for sure."
"I still have hard time believing…" she shook her head.
"So do I. I know it happened. I've been there for the whole of it. But at the same time there's part of me that feels certain that it shouldn't have. Most of it is just so… unlikely," I gestured vaguely. She smiled and quickly raised her hand in front of her face to hide it from me. "And don't you dare to talk about the force looking out for me. Last time I checked it wasn't sentient."
"But how sure are we it doesn't have a sense of humor?"
"You know as well as I do that force only takes notice of people whose last name is Skywalker," I frowned. And tried to ignore the fact that of course there was a Skywalker involved in my personal drama. He was the very person who gave the order not to shoot me the first time I forgot myself and called Hux General Soulless to his face...
"Alright then. It's not important how you made it out alive as long as you did. And you were cutting it pretty close," said Freya, shaking her head. She could see the funny side now, but we both knew was worried for me every second of every day I spent among the worst sociopaths in the galaxy. It must have been the weeks without my cutting remarks allowing her to forget that they were actually my kind of crowd.
"How did I make it out alive, though…?" I wondered. That still bothered me.
Freya frowned at me. "Didn't you steal an escape pod?"
"Of course not. Why would I? I was off to meet the Emperor. The Supreme Leader," I translated, seeing her confused expression. "I know this is a terrible thing to admit, because I should have been trying to escape. I should have been doing that since day one. It would be a lot saner than what I was actually doing."
"Looking for some spectacular way to die?" guessed Freya. That clearly didn't surprise her.
"Yeah. And you don't get any more spectacular than meeting the supreme evil presence and calling him something rude to his messed up face. So yeah, I wasn't planning any daring escapes. Don't tell grandma," I added quickly, realizing what I just admitted.
"You forget, thorny. She met you. Pretty sure she knows."
I took another swallow of the hot chocolate and tried to force myself to stop wondering who I had to thank for being once again a free agent – free to wreak havoc on the galaxy in any way I chose rather than as the mere minor nuisance I was forced to be in order to survive. Because part of me really needed a culprit. I couldn't just blame it on the force.
"You would actually stay there if they let you, wouldn't you…?" asked Freya, in a tone that told me she already knew the answer.
"Of course. And it's not what you're thinking. Not that bonding-with-your-captors syndrome. It's not," I said, seeing her doubtful expression. "I wanted to stay because… well, it wasn't good for them. Me being right there in their midst and saying whatever I felt like saying – you know, while fixing things to remind them they needed me and shooting me for insubordination was still not a very good option. It was not good for their morale. Confused the hell out of them. And maybe they were some I was helping break out of the conditioning. I did it once already, back on Starkiller."
"That I have no trouble believing," she nodded to herself.
"I don't think it was all on me though. She was just… ready to be human again. For the last few moments she had left."
And just by saying it – saying it with that bitter-sweet smile the memory of Elsa always seemed to bring on my face – I once again summoned Freya-the-goddes-of-vengeance. "Right. Who do we blame for Stormtrooper conditioning and what are we going to do to him?"
"Well His Supreme Evilness for one. And Hux. Definitely him. You know he tried to have me conditioned back when I first arrived?" I laughed to myself. "Long story short, I'm pretty sure I broke the evil psychoanalyst they had evaluating me. I made a gingers-don't-have-souls joke, he laughed… something about the Stormtroopers that came take him after he did that made me think it might be a shooting offense…"
"So you naturally kept doing that."
"Naturally. What else do you do in an evil lair the size of a planet? Besides… it was the best way to fight them."
"So… this helped, right?" asked Freya after we sat there in there in silence for a while.
"It did," I admitted. "I mean I still have this bloody, beaten mental image of Kylo Ren haunting me and I still mourn a girl I knew for all of two hours and had to give a name so I have something to remember her by and…"
"So you're better," translated Freya.
"Yeah," I nodded, smiling down into my now empty cup. "A lot better."