Kylo "Hunky" Ren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
narcissithstic) wrote2016-03-14 02:18 pm
narcissithstic) wrote2016-03-14 02:18 pm
MENTAL LINK | IC INBOX
HATRED all will suffer for their crimes. | SERVICE within it, glory beyond measure. |
CONTROL chaos brought to heel through pain. | FEAR failure, weakness, mediocrity... |
no subject
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.
no subject
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?]
no subject
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?
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
How many times had he convinced and taught her to do the same? She had momentarily abandoned her sense in an attempt to avenge his good name, as Anakin would have once done for her. This shadow, this Darth Vader, this monster that everyone seemed to speak of with reverence and fear, was what he would become.
The changes she had seen in him were the beginning. Fear and anger had triumphed over him -- for reasons she can't begin to map out. Padme, perhaps. Obi-Wan? Her own departure from the Order? Had Anakin turned to the Dark Side because he had nothing else?]
( What have I done? )
[It comes out without thinking, a mutter of utter disbelief. Whatever Anakin's reasons had been -- he'd needed her, more than she had ever realized. And she left him behind. The whole of the galaxy suffered for it.]
no subject
Don't.
[He'd seen Anakin Skywalker, when every layer of false loyalty peeled back to reveal his hateful, hungry heart - the man that choked him willfully over nothing more than bruises on his apprentice's throat. Bruises he wears yet again.
Perhaps the ghost of his grandfather yet lives through the Force after all.]
no subject
[She had to. They both knew that she had to leave, that she had no choice but to search for the truth of who she was and of what her place in the world was meant to be after her Jedi family had nearly sentenced her to death without blinking. She remembers Anakin's memory of her, spine quivering as she forced herself to continue walking even after she had left her padawan braid in his hand.
And thought he respected her decision, he--carried so much. He had become so walled off.
But Kylo Ren had given her the information she sought. She hadn't come to invite his pity, and she hadn't come to apologize. So she says nothing further beyond the confirmation of blame that she gives him.
It sickens her, chokes her into closing her eyes, to think that death may have been a kinder fate. She cannot scold Kylo Ren for his inclinations when she had trained under a man who would rise as a Sith Lord -- but she can thank the merciful Force that he would never become that vile monster here.]
Thank you. For the information.
[Hollow, as she forces her eyes open. A formality, rather than gratitude.]
no subject
Instead he tips his chin towards the seat across from him, expression equally as gaunt.]
Sit. [She's heard the worst, according to her mind, but Darth Vader's story doesn't end with his fall to the dark side of the Force: there are years of service, of triumph and strife, of failure, and a universe forever changed in the wake of his life— and death. Whatever she might think of his fate, it might help to know who he truly was. What he meant to the Empire and to those outside of it, how nearly twenty years after his defeat at the hands of his own self-proclaimed-Jedi son, his echoes were as moving as they were terrifying.
A hero, a monster, a legend. She could hear it all if she wanted. Untempered, this time.
The truth.]
no subject
Some piece of her still believes him, and still wants to believe in the idea of Anakin Skywalker, even after the Dark Side. But nothing Kylo Ren will tell her about the Empire will bring her comfort, not after hearing what Mara Jade had to say. She could never find relief in the knowledge that her master had escaped death in the form of becoming a terrorist. What brings him joy will only bring her sorrow.
But--everything had been an exercise in pursuing the truth of things. Maybe this was where she should start, in order to become more balanced herself. To fix what she was slowly destroying in the wake of loss.
The moment of hesitation hardens her before she moves to join him as asked. Expectant, she holds her hand out to him and glances upward. Regardless of his intentions, it was about time that she shared what she had kept so closely guarded -- why the Jedi Order had become so distrusting of her.
And why news of Anakin's descent so badly wounded her.]
Allow me, first.
[It was the closest thing to an apology that he would get from her.]
no subject
Recognizing it for what it is comes easily. A peace offering, a truce. Rare as it might be for him to be satisfied with anything less than an iron grip, Cathaway had been right— the Force had been right— they're one and the same. If anything is shared, it'll run in equal amounts between them.
Balance.
Ren tips his head in a silent nod, fingers inching upwards across his chin to cover his mouth as he listens. Watches.]
no subject
She's there on Shili at age three, surrounded by the people after having just rushed to see who had joined them on their remote world. A Kel'dor, Master Plo-Koon, reaches for her small hand to introduce himself, and her eyes light up with wonder. She is taken from them, and she's too young, too entrenched in the Force to feel fear when she is brought to Coruscant.
Too far, she realizes.
Back again, comes the day Master Yoda approaches her and singles her out among the other younglings. Today, the day she had longed after alone for fourteen years, was the day she would become a padawan to a Jedi knight. Her excitement is insatiable, infectious, enough that Master Yoda even manages a small chuckle when she nearly forgets to bow in thanks.
The memory moves.
The 501st Legion lines the landscape of Teth, hundreds in number and too disciplined to react to the argument happening behind them. One clone, a name -- Captain Rex, speaks up, inquiring after her presence. There's been a mix-up. The youngling isn't with me. Indignation rises within her. Stop calling me that! Their beginnings, ugly, snippy and aggressive, a game of back and forth, push and pull. A young hutt, a mysterious sith apprentice pursues them, they fell her and return the child. Triumph, warmth, belonging, an alliance is formed.
It moves again. This time, several sequences pass in quick succession.
They stand on a balcony, balanced and reckless, practicing Djem So above the bustle of Coruscant. Switch She fights, tooth and nail, against the Tardoshin hunters, desperately defending the younglings with her. She doesn't save them all, and she Force chokes one of the offenders. Covered in blood and dirt, they are evacuated. She returns to embrace an apologetic Anakin upon her escape. He begs forgiveness, and she smiles and dismisses his unnecessary apologies. Switch. Esponiage. Ahsoka and Anakin stand on the slave planet of Zygerria, play their roles, rescuing the togrutan people of Kiros from the clutches of the Confederacy. Obi-Wan is carried unconscious from the slave mines, and Ahsoka jumps down through the air to catch a falling togruta. Anakin scoops them up in his ship. Switch Ahsoka pulling Anakin out of a disabled starship, shortly before it tumbles to the abyss below.
Exciting memories. Happy things, frightening things, but all things that made them stronger. All things that made their Force-bond insurmountable. The Jedi warn them, tell them they are too reckless, scold them for ignoring orders to rescue as many people as their reach can find. Obi-Wan watches them, and Ahsoka can feel his simultaneous approval and disapproval all at once. He turns a blind eye to them.
They are winning the Clone Wars and, more importantly, they're winning over the Council. Slowly.
Switch. An explosion in the Jedi temple, the rush to find the culprit, dead bodies and empty hands.
The memory stops and lingers here, a clear connection to what she had desired to show him. The memory is dark, her heart beats fast in her ears, she kneels surrounded by bombs and clone troopers with her hands in the air, guns trained on her. It wasn't me! I didn't do it! Anakin looking on in shock and confusion, conflicted but bound by duty.
A hearing before the council comes. Master Yoda, Master Mace Windu, Master Obi-Wan, Master Plo-Koon and several others frown down and ask for an explanation she cannot provide. I'm not deceiving you. I have to assume Ventress is -- but I can't be sure. My sense is...clouded. They accuse her of accepting the dark side. Anakin's temper spirals out of control. You've already made your decision, haven't you? This meeting is just a formality! She is guilty, sentenced to a government trial with penalty of death sitting on her shoulders. Her padawan braid, tugged roughly from her headdress.
Hauled into isolation, Ahsoka sits and glares at a face that swims into focus -- a young Grand Moff Tarkin, sniffing and cornering her with fancy colloquiums, and evidence she has no way to refute in spite of her innocence. Anakin is nowhere to be found, she exists for days, kept separated except for meals. Her family in the Jedi, gone.
She escapes via a keycard, left by an unknown. It is another trap. She rounds the corner from her jail cell to a hallway full of beaten clones. They stirr slowly, and her panic rises again, chokes her, frightens her into sprinting into hiding as the alarm is sounded. The pursuit is immeasurable, the Republic Capital's clones continue to descend on her at Anakin's behest. Set weapons to stun, I want her alive! A long chase, she's cornered at the end of a tunnel, alone with Anakin. Listen. I would never let anyone hurt you Ahsoka -- never. But she won't take the fall for something she didn't do. She knows, with all of her being, that nobody will listen to her. They've decided her guilt. They need it, they can't consider an unknown would have infiltrated their Order with the intent of unraveling them.
The chase succeeds. She is thrown in jail once more, and death appears certain. Until the fire comes, breaks her free, and everything blurrs into darkness as the symbiote rescues her.
She sees Anakin for the first time on the Station. He embraces her again, but he is distant. Their bond has suffered, and he doesn't feel like the man she had known. When she asks after his struggle, he dismisses her, closes himself off.
Anakin falls into a coma. He awakens from a dream that Ahsoka doesn't quite understand, but one that hurts her all the same. He shakes and weeps in her arms, lost and spiraling into emotional despair. She embraces him, and they spend the next weeks refusing to let go of one another in the hanger bay. Anakin's fear of loss mounts. Ahsoka can sense it, realizes now that she had seen the signs all along.
They walk the streets of Concordia. The bomb goes off as their heads jerk upward too late. Anakin force pushes her away, and the harsh severing of his life sends fire through her blood. We'll go back together she had said. And then he was gone.
Her eyes open slowly. She feels the tears that want to come, from experiencing his loss again. But it had been necessary. They don't fall.]
I don't know what happened, but Anakin...told me that I was pardoned, and that I left the Order behind after. [She pauses.] And...that's still what I would have done, if they asked me to come back today.
[She instilled more of that fear of loss in him. It was impossible not to draw that connection.]
no subject
If they'd shared this sooner— well, nothing would have changed that mattered, he realizes. Anakin would still have died, and his own grief in the wake of that loss with closeness on the table or even the potential for it would have been increased tenfold: enough to shatter the Nest, or drown it in blood.
Strange, how he can sense her regret where it pools just under her skin, a cold contrast to the echo of his broodmate, his grandfather. Not through the Force (he's reached out to him after the bombing, begged and pleaded and spit curses in the hope that it might bring him even a fragment of that hewn phantom limb) but within himself, as though he already knows exactly what his grandfather would have said, or wanted.
Then again, drunk on someone else's memories, he might only be delusional.]
You weren't responsible for what he became, Ahsoka.
[Even she has to realize that, knowing even vaguely how far he'd fallen from grace— only to transcend it entirely, cutting the galaxy down to its core.]
no subject
[She'll never have that answer, she suspects, of what turned out to be the final straw that broke the bantha's back. One thing she does know is that Master Yoda had assigned her to Anakin for a reason.
She suspects that is why Luke Skywalker hides himself now, as Rey had told her -- because he felt responsible, as she did. She barely thinks it hard enough to be noticeable, instead sighing outward and refocusing on what purpose she had come for.
She is still unhappy with Ren for a lot of things, but he was still Anakin's grandson. She had to try.]
It doesn't matter now. [It does. It will always matter.] But I thought you should understand who he really was a little better.
no subject
Master and Padawan: if Luke Skwalker had adhered to that attentiveness, that earnest, permeating devotion, there would never have been need for Kylo Ren. Ben Solo would have lived - weaker, and unwanted by the rest of his bloodline, but...]
You say that as though all he's ever been was Anakin Skywalker.
no subject
[Anakin had only ever been Anakin to her -- and as far as she was concerned, Darth Vader was...someone else. Even if she had been one of the direct links to his birth, Anakin Skywalker had died when Darth Vader had risen. She imagined many others had felt the same, upon learning that truth--
Something in her sinks, something that makes her feel as if she might be abandoning Anakin's memory by saying such things, but she blinks past it as she stands and goes to take her leave.]
And now, you have something else to remember him by, as I do.
[He had offered her his memories of Darth Vader, but she doesn't want them. She could not allow herself to fall in that ditch, to believe that good in the galaxy no longer existed. She will not allow herself to be dragged under in such a way.]
no subject
But what he accomplished in his time was born from those meager beginnings, and he'd be a poor student at his forefather's feet if he didn't show her the beauty of it all.]
Wait— [He's on his heels in an instant, upright and demanding as ever; steeped in the expectation that she'll stop where he asks.]
We're not done yet, Ahsoka Tano.
no subject
But she is not that sort of person, and could never be even if she tried. She pauses only to give him a chance -- because everyone deserved at least that much.
But she will not give herself over to him, to be assaulted by the monster he'd fashioned himself after.]
no subject
It would be pointless to press her further; he knows it, understands it, but—]
Don't deny him just because you don't want to see it.
no subject
She knows. She doesn't need to see.]
That is where you are mistaken. It's not what he would have wanted.
[No summation of Anakin would have wanted his padawan to see him fall to the Dark Side, which would have left one alternative.
With a knot in her chest, she bows, and turns again.]
Good night, Kylo Ren. May the Force be with you.