narcissithstic | MENTAL LINK

Force willing. [Ren, regardless of the fact that it's a technical dismissal, sounds skeptical.]

Ideally, she'll see reason, surrender her useless agenda, and come to stand willingly alongside us.

[Alongside him.]

( Would you have? )

[ Probably not a question Bellamy wants answered, and yet. ]

( Her friends? )

[ Because Bellamy has no idea what the First Order might mean, but he knows the flash of faces he'd seen in his head had provoked affection. It's less about sides, more about what they'd meant to her. ]

He's fucking dumb, is what he is.

[ Stop pretending to be nice about it, damn, Ren. ]

He can try standing against me, see what happens.

Yes. [Not for her sake, or for his, but for his standing with Cathaway and all the favor he's lost— yes.]

She barely knew them. Liars, traitors and thieves, and because they showed her self-serving affection she's sworn herself to revenge.

Someday he might.

[Someday Steve might stand against everyone; Ren's been prepared for that eventuality for quite some time now, given the man's tireless need for heroics.

How inadequate he must feel without them.

A beat longer and Ren lifts his stare, expression left open:] Are you afraid she won't return to you?

[ Bellamy will take what he can get here. ]

( She knew them enough to want to avenge them. )

[ There's no high ground for Bellamy to judge Rey's choice in acquaintance. ]

( Can you stay clear of her? )

( How about you just worry about standing far, far away from her for now. )

[ Alongside seems like asking a lot, and he's not sure what Ren really means by that. Or what part seems unreasonable about you apparently killed her friends and now she's mad. It's hard to blame her for being angry. ]

She had nothing before them. It wasn't a difficult leap.

[But fine, he can let the subject lie.]

I can, I intend to— but if she chooses to continue hound me, I won't be cowed.

As I told her broodmate, I have no intention of chasing her down. [Not until she's more willing to listen, more removed from the deaths that haunt her, sparking a livid cruelty in her blood that borders on beautiful.]

Whether she'll do the same remains to be seen.

( I get it. Alright. )

[ he'll take what he can get. ]

( Thanks. )

[ He thinks. ]

[There's something different about the press of Ahsoka's thoughts. Cold, business-like, a sharp contrast to the compassion and understanding Kylo Ren might have become more familiar with.]

( I have done as I promised. )

(And I see she left you with something in return.)

[He'd have to be dead to both the Force and the symbiote not to feel her frigid rage, struggling to come to boil.]

( Knowledge that you should have given me yourself. )

[Maybe he feels how she wants to bear her teeth, the deep seated betrayal she feels, or maybe the sense of duty she owes all of those people that Ren and Hux had murdered over a political squabble.]

( You have something that doesn't belong to you. )

[Oh, how he feels it. A deeply embedded ember, scorching his lungs with every breath. It resonates there, within his mind, echoes something back across the chasm that separates them— her own voice, maybe.]

(It is mine by -right-.)

[Defensively, his teeth are bared - make no mistake.]

( You've done nothing to earn it! You've disgraced his memory with every command you've ever carried out. You defile yourself pretending you deserve it! )

[Ahsoka's fury is cool, a swift backhand and a firm spike of anger as she remembers taking his hand and forcing herself to keep from crying in front of him. How he'd coupled himself to kneel to keep up his charade.]

( You are a manipulator, and I trusted you. I will not make the same mistake twice. You will give that saber to me or I will take it from you. )

[Someone will try and stop her -- he will cry for help before she can get to him, so she is already moving. And he will feel her latch onto him, both through the Force and through the Nest, as she begins to follow him.]

( You can still make the right decision now, Kylo Ren. Spare your brood another mistake, and we can still end this peacefully. )

[His decision is instantaneous, masked only by willpower alone— though he imagines Ahsoka will trace him through the Force regardless— Anakin's saber clipped to his belt beneath a dark overcoat, his own saber in hand as he rushes for the door, cutting a swift path for a consciousness he's already well marked and committed to memory.

Insurance. A wellspring of it he'd hoped he wouldn't need to use.

But then, desperate times. No one in the Nest would tolerate him wounding a child they've come to know, to care for. This way, if nothing else, he might weather the storm long enough to seize her mind.

Or her sanity.]

[ Petre's eyes are fierce when he shoots a look up at Ren. There's no hate towards him, not necessarily - but the notion that Angel might not come back to him is enough to unleash a small part of his natural wrath. ]

I'm not afraid of anything.

[ It's not a lie - there's no long-term fear that settles in him for too long. His version is quick like wildfire, an instinct rather than a measure. ]

She's coming back.

[Ahsoka doesn't bother talking to Ren over the link for this, but she does use it to trace him once he is alone. No matter how much she hates both he and Hux for what the First Order has done, there's a more pressing topic at hand (one that requires closure), and she doesn't want to give him the opportunity to ignore her.

Asking General Hux had been an option, when he had forced his way into tending to her lightsaber burn, but -- well, if she knew one thing about Kylo Ren, is that he had always felt a connection with Anakin Skywalker, even if it wasn't mutual.

He is the only one she can get a proper answer from. So in good faith, she leaves the lightsaber behind when she approaches his quarters, one upper arm wrapped neatly in gauze and waits for him to acknowledge her while she guards his exit.]

(If you've come for the saber, I suggest rethinking your current strategy.)

[Guess who isn't opening the door, particularly not with the knowledge Ahsoka is lurking just outside.]

( I haven't. I'm unarmed. )

[Not that that means anything in terms of defending herself, as they both know. But it means enough otherwise.]

( I came to talk. )

[Is she lying? —No. If she were, he'd feel it, sense it.

However strange this turn of events might be, there's no immediate deception involved; Ren draws himself up, moving over to the door frame (bare feet scuffing over carpet, palms to the arch, the automated locking mechanism) and letting it shift back to leave them staring, unapologetically, at one another. Her wrapped wrist, his bruised throat.]

About what.

[Her brows knit when he appears in front of her, and something in the back of her mind tells her to turn back. She hadn't come here for confirmation -- she had come in hopes that he would refute what Mara Jade had tried to tell her.

But some part of her already knows the answer. She recognizes it then, staring quietly across the room, absorbing the strange silence of the Nest and the Force between them. She draws herself up, and finds her bravery amongst the humility she doesn't feel entirely.

He could choose to ignore her. He could be cruel, and confirm what she realizes might be one of her worst fears.]

About Darth Vader.

[Her age betrays itself then as she waits for Kylo Ren's reaction to the name, desperate for information contrary to the dawning truth she feels in her stomach. Had Anakin truly abandoned the Jedi after she had gone? Had he fallen to the Dark Side, ruled among the "Empire" that had taken the place of the Republic?]

Edited 2016-10-02 07:25 (UTC)

[He could withhold all of it, cut to the quick and leave her cold for all she dared to do to him. In truth, part of him craves it, as keenly as he'd wanted to do more to wound her, held back in the moment by sanity, by reason and the cool echo of Cathaway's steady voice.

In truth, he's just tired.

Between Anakin's death, Rey, General Hux and Ilde, Mara Jade and the weight of a mission looming just over his shoulders, the infighting has softened his bitter armor: he'd rather make peace, if only for a moment. One foot between the dark side and the light - would Snoke be delighted if he knew?

Ren withdraws. Slinks wearily over towards the couch and falls back into its rest, knuckles to his jawline, attention flicking straight ahead, into the middle distance.]

Who told you?

[His back turned on her, and her throat gets tight with anxiety. Somehow, it was worse than knowing, watching him withdraw from her like that. He knew -- the whole time Anakin had been with them, he had known and he had said nothing to either of them.

Well, of course he hadn't. He would have sounded like a madman, even with the Nest and the Force to confirm his altruism.

Her heart pounds through her head, loud and unforgiving, and she loses the point her eyes are fixed on. Everything blurs, and she momentarily disappears inside of the link, searching for something to hold onto that isn't herself. Her feet carry her of their own accord, inside the room, and at some point she waves the door shut behind her.

Its a brief lapse, and her eyes flutter back into focus, disbelieving stare finding some point far on the carpet to stare at. When she finds her voice, its not quite there.]

That woman -- [She reaches through the Nest again, a limb she had largely refused and ignored, embracing it when there is nothing else for her to hold onto in order to find the information she needs but had never been given.] -- Mara Jade.

[Of course. It stands to reason Mara, knowing nothing of the careful balance that had existed before her arrival, wouldn't think to keep the truth from Ahsoka Tano. She was inquisitive, hungry - thirsted for information in ways that Ren imagined served her well beneath the Emperor's rule.

And at Darth Vader's side.

Maybe he should be relieved. The penultimate remaining secret left between himself and the Nest, and it comes with an assurance that he, in spite of everything, acted as a buffer between their future and his own past. Not wholly selflessly (when was he ever so kind) but moreso than they'd previously imagined. Validation, however pale and sickly. A testament to everything.

He inhales once, thins his lips when he lifts his eyes to meet her stare.]

I follow in the footsteps of my grandfather. The man who changed the galaxy, reshaped it in ways no living creature will ever forget.

[A beat, and then, without hesitation:]

I follow in the footsteps of Darth Vader.

HATRED all will suffer for their crimes.	SERVICE within it, glory beyond measure.
CONTROL chaos brought to heel through pain.	FEAR failure, weakness, mediocrity...

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