Windows of the Soul
When Rey was ready to meet Kylo Ren for the last time, they all told her the same thing:
Kill him quickly.
Leia had said it, her eyes dry and her jaw tight as she looked up at Rey's face. If in the days leading up to this fateful day, the General had felt grief at the thought of her son's impending death, she had kept it carefully to herself. Her lone instruction was spoken coldly, sternly and if not for the connection she had to Rey in the Force, Rey would never have known how much the General's spirit was crying out in pain.
Kill him quickly.
Her fa- Luke Skywalker had said it. And his eyes didn't mask their grief, nor did his voice hide his sorrow. But he had said it all the same, an undercurrent of firmness in the same unhappy voice, as he stared hard at her with the same sorrowful eyes. Staring, watching really. But watching for what? For her resolve, or rather lack of it?
He had no idea who she was, did he? Rey thought and not for the first time.
Kill him quickly.
Poe might have said, if he was still alive. But Rey could almost hear his voice, his eyes shining with the glee of flight and fight, his voice merry and irrepressible, just the way it had sounded before Kylo Ren shot his fighter out of the sky.
Kill him quickly.
Finn told her that when they sat planning for that day. When he thought that it was a fight they would have taken on together. Not one she would have tricked and trapped him out of.
And now, Rey could still feel his fury through their Force bond as she looked down huddled, broken mess that was the once great Kylo Ren. She brandished the weapon in her hand, passed from Skywalker to Skywalker to her, as she prowled around the man she was about to destroy.
He glared at her, his eyes still their own colour – she had been told about the golden gaze of the Dark Side, as it peered through the souls of those it had completely consumed. But all the times she had met him, Kylo's eyes were dark brown.
Even in this, he had failed.
"Do it quickly," he said hoarsely.
Rey nodded grimly, adrenaline from the battle still coursing through her veins, even as the Force thrummed steadily all around her. She raised her weapon – and for a moment, time seemed to stand still.
Then she brought it down, aiming for his chest.
She remembered the way Finn had screamed when they had fought that first time in the snow, when Kylo had toyed with the younger, less experienced boy.
The imprint of Finn's scars seemed branded into her own calluses.
At the very last moment, the blade shifted and pierced through his shoulder.
Kylo Ren screamed.
It was not a stab to penetrate, or even amputate. But a stab to drill, to slowly, maliciously, drive through muscle and nerves, twisting the blade as she did so that she drew out pain, felt his aura rippling and shattering in the Force.
And Rey smiled.
She pulled out the blade before he could pass out, lifting it out of the way so she could kick the wound it made.
Kylo snarled, and he tried to grab her foot, trip her. She spun, and used the other foot to kick him in the face.
He rolled away, cradling his body in a foetal position. She wasn't sure but she could almost swear she heard him sob.
What mattered more though, was that she had clear view of his back. Slowly, lazily, almost gracefully, she twirled the blade so that it carved through an inch of skin, leaving a burning trail from nape to tail bone.
Now, she thought to herself, as the Force beat angrily, darkly around her, feeding off Kylo's screams, you have matching scars.
She didn't know how he could still move, but he did, pushing himself to all fours as he crawled away from her.
She followed, slowly, taking her time.
When he stopped moving, she kicked him.
He sprawled to his belly, with a muffled groan.
She prowled around the collapsed heap until her boots were inches from his face.
She used the tip of her boot to flip him to his back.
He groaned again, and she felt the pain he was trying to suppress quaking through the Force.
"What are you waiting for?" he said.
Rey knelt before him, and leaned close so that she could see his eyes.
His eyes were dark, rimmed with red, and filled with agony.
She smiled.
"I want to enjoy this."
It took an hour to kill Kylo Ren. Rey finally lit the bonfire that consumed the mess of shattered, burnt, mangled flesh and bone that Kylo Ren used to be.
She felt stronger now. Satisfied in a way that she hadn't realized she hadn't been until she finally was.
As she stepped into her vessel, she caught her reflexion on the shiny plasti-chrome, and her heart seemed to stop, and she looked away.
Kill him quickly.
She remembered Luke Skywalker's words, and the watchful hard gaze with which he had said it.
She knew now what he was watching for.
He had been wrong, she told herself, as with shaky hands she manipulated her controls. BB-8 blooped to her and she spoke reassuringly to the droid.
"My eyes? We need to get your ocular sensors fixed. There's nothing wrong with my eyes."
As the engine revved for lift off, she closed her eyes for a brief moment – of prayer? of resignation? – and felt the golden heat burn against her lids.