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Life really wasn’t fair.
Like sure, she knew that already – but this really just drove home the point.
Ben- No.
His name was Kylo. Kylo Ren, because of course that’s the name he would choose to go with – playing the ‘villain’ and all. Honestly, that’s all she really knew about him; this alter-ego that they were all forced to take on. Rey wasn’t really certain if he was as prickly and abrasive as he came across in his real life – but she knew for a fact that it wasn’t fair that anyone looked that damn good while blocking a fight with way too much intensity.
Sure, she got it. This was a big deal to this town. It brought in revenue and joy and all that, but Rey wasn’t exactly certain how she was supposed to remain calmly unaffected while this solid mountain of a man was looking some kind of way, and making her wonder if he did everything with the same amount of intensity.
“Kira.” Rey nearly gave a start at the name she’d come up with a few weekends back when she had signed up for all of this.
It was Rose’s fault. Rose and her mortal enemy, the ginger-haired Irishman who apparently got under her skin last year, and who Rose (Rose – lovely, can-find-the-good-in-anyone, sunshine in human form Rose) had violently swore was the devil incarnate. Rey half wanted to meet the devil incarnate. She wanted to meet the man who caused such a reaction from her friend.
Rey was new in town and felt horribly out of place. Rose had been great about trying to get her to feel settled in, but she was used to being a nobody in the hustle of west London; now she stuck out in this small, tight-knit American town. Rose had insisted that Rey sign up with her, that it would make her feel more at home in this community, and that Rose needed Rey to prevent her from some sort of ‘violent’ attack on the Irishman.
Rey had not been fully unprepared for all of, well, this. Weekends spent training. Dialogue to remember. So many people noticing her.
Grabbing her practice sword and she pushed herself up to her full height, her eyes locked on his as she approached.
“Hiya.” She said with a bright smile and she was just met with that intense stare and a terse nod.
Oh goodie, he still didn’t like her – for some unknown reason. Honestly, she was a delight.
Rey bounced several times on the balls of her feet and then gave her body a loose shake out; noticing how his eyes never left her face, his jaw and lips moving in that odd way he seemed to do unconsciously.
“You ready to get your arse handed to you?” Rey quipped, her sword at the ready. She wanted to elicit some sort of reaction from this man.
“Because that’s how this scene has been blocked?” The low voice he spoke with caused an unwanted effect on her body, and she quickly shoved those ‘feelings’ down and squashed them. She was not going to go there.
“Smack talk isn’t meant to be logical.”
“You aren’t supposed to be talking at all, you are supposed to be focused on learning the moves so you don’t get yourself hurt.” He said as they circled one another before ending up where they and been standing originally only a step or two closer.
Stiff, he was so stiff.
Rey half wanted to keep poking the bear just to see if she could get him to react with any sort of emotion.
“Pretty sure I’m capable of managing both – aren't you?”
He just stared at her with that nearly expressionless look he wore like armor.
“Just focus on the learning the moves.”
Yep, he really had been casted well. That snarl was something special.
Pompous arse.
Unimpressed, she put on her game face - time to block out her big fight with their very own hot brooding villain.
-0-
It was absolute torture.
Sheer, unequivocal torture in the purest of forms for weeks.
Rey moved with such an innately graceful power that he actively had to remember to move through the choreographed steps and not spend all of their ‘fight’ watching her move.
Because that’s what every woman wanted, an oversized man gawking at them as they went about their lives. And because of his slight infatuation with the way she moved and with the ease she picked up the blocking and the gleam in her eyes when she started to pick up speed, the sweat the beaded at her brow, the way her full skirt danced about with her movements, the way she held nothing back – he might have been a bit short when talking to her.
Some would say rude.
They would not be wrong.
He wasn’t good with social interactions with people he knew for years and was ‘comfortable’ with – and he was his father’s son, which meant he had the talent of mucking up communicating.
So, how was he supposed to hold a conversation beyond their rehearsed lines, when he had to keep telling himself not to stare so intensely and creep her out.
It was impossible.
He somehow managed to get strong armed into the antagonist roll – much to Hux’s amusement – because he found it best to give into his mother’s wishes.
Renaissance Faire was more of a nod to the actual time period, but they clearly had taken their own liberties to entice people into the Faire. And by they, Ben meant his mother, who had been elected to lead the Faire this year and she was set on having a badass active heroine story line to go along with it all.
Rey, the woman who was unknowingly torturing him, had been landed the role as the sword wielding heroine because for some reason she’d had a background in it. Taken a ‘leisure course’ at a college – on sword fighting. And he was expected to keep his wits about him when it came to her.
Torture.
“It’s too bloody early to be up Rose.”
Ben turned at the sound of her voice, trying to make it a more causal action than it was. She was dressed up fully in her period dress, all light-neutral shades meant to contrast with his all black-garb; it was the first time he saw her in full costume and it was like a punch in the gut. It wasn’t anything grand. Hell, it was humble compared to most, but she looked - ethereal.
The only thing was missing to complete her outfit was the ‘sword of the chosen one’, I was in the tent waiting for their first ‘battle’. But she was stunning. He knew she was stunning; he’d seen her in the tight stretchy workout gear during their rehearsals, knew the lines of her – still, seeing her like this.
Torture.
He’d clearly done something horrible in a past life and the universe was making him suffer.
He was going to swing a sword at this girl and she was going to kick his ass and he was going to have to keep his wits about him.
“I brought you coffee. Just the way you like it – strong enough to put hair on your chest.” Rose smiled up at Rey, as Rey was fairly tall and Rose was rather short, dangling a large coffee before her.
“It’s too bloo-”
“And half a dozen donuts.” Rose held up a box, which presumably had said donuts.
There was a beat of silence.
“Do I have to share?”
“Nope.”
“I accept your bribe.”
Ben bit back a smile as he watched her snag both, and brought the coffee up to her lips.
“Good, I need you to run interference. I swear if he stops by my tent today before the caffeine has properly settled into my bloodstream – I'm going to bite him.” Rose said, and Ben wondered who could possibly illicit that sort of reaction in Rose. Who was by far the sweetest person he had ever met.
“Kinky.” Rey was carefully balancing her coffee as she dug in the box for a donut giving Rose only half of her attention. Then, it was as if she felt his gaze on her, she turned and found him.
A donut half sticking out of her mouth.
His damn heart went into overdrive.
He needed to stop staring.
Rey bit into the donut and narrowed her eyes at him, “Do you think we should add in me biting you into the final battle?”
“No.”
Rey turned back to Rose, “I’m going to bite him.”
Absolute. Torture.
-0-
He was going to kill her.
Like, he was going to be the cause of her actual death.
He was a nerd.
Like super nerd.
Rey had never met someone who seemed as genuinely interested in the most mundane things – and then got actual joy when you expressed even the slightest interest in it.
Ben had been going on about the history and art of calligraphy for what felt like an impressive solid chunk of time with such attention to detail a thoroughness that uni professors everywhere would weep at the perfection. He didn’t rush his speech, he pulled you by looking at you like you were by far the most important person to have every graced the planet, and spoke with such passion that she found herself asking questions just to keep him talking. Was this how he was in everything he found joy in – thorough, precise, passionate, a keen eye for detail? Because her mind kept bringing up thoughts as to how those traits could easily translate to other parts of his life. This was not the same man who she had been practicing with for weeks - because that guy was a stiff expressionless arse.
This man was anything but.
She was honestly trying to keep his gaze, but it just kept falling to his lips – which was only natural, seeing as they were at her eyeline and were rather intriguing. He could make them go hard, it’s what she’d grown accustomed to as he was the main villain and had embraced the role fully. But now was the first time she saw a hint of a smile and was able to properly admire how nice and soft they looked.
This had been the longest she’d had a conversation with the man. This was the first time she felt like she was really seeing Ben behind the Kylo mask – and he was cute. That was going to be her downfall – because she’d known he was hot, but she could shrug off hot-arsehole; him being a cute nerd was going to be a thing that played far too easily into a fantasy.
“Stop being cute. I need to get angry to do battle.”
He blinked slowly at her, as if he hadn’t registered her words. Probably because he had been focused on showing her on the different ways to write her name – she had been distracted at how small the quill looked in his hands, but now they both needed to snap out of it.
“Go do your thing – I need to think angry thoughts.”
“Taxes.”
“What?”
“I think of having to do taxes and it always puts me in the mindset for a fight.” He was fiddling with his sword – he movements seamless, like he had been born to brandish one.
“Taxes?” Rey grabbed her sword, admiring the weight in her hand. She felt powerful with it. Highly feminine in the dress they had laced her in and the sword oddly added to that.
The sword she had pulled from the stone earlier in the day.
This was nearly a theatre production. Only, it was happening over the course of five weekends.
“Yep.”
He was a hot-cute nerd, who was dressed like a dark prince from some long-a-go time, playing with a sword, telling her to think about taxes.
He was going to kill her. How was she supposed to fight this man when she kinda just wanted to climb him like a tree?
She’d been annoyed with his standoff stiff nature – and now she knew that he really like calligraphy. He was good at it. Discretely she snuck the paper he’d been demonstrating writing her name on and tucked it away in to the pouch at her hip.
He gave her an awkwardly terse nod and then exited the tent, doing that mouth thing that he did.
Rey needed to reassess what she thought about Ben Solo.
-0-
He could do this.
This is what he had been training for, he could do this.
“That belongs to me.” Ben all but growled, projecting his voice, using his own sword to point at the blade Rey clutched in her grip her eyes fierce on his own. Even after all these years, he always felt like an imposter when putting on the English accent that was required for all Faire workers, and even more so now. Rey must have been rolling her eyes at the lot of them putting on their best accent. Even Hux, who came with a proper Dublin accent put on the most aristocratic English accent he could muster.
Rey gave him an almost feral smile, “I believe it has chosen me – but come taketh it if you wish.” Her defensive stance was almost imperceptible in contrast to the way Ben stood, his wide stance and hulking form, he gave his sword a graceful twirl to the ready position. A beat passed, the murmur of the crowd. He was a large man and Rey was most decidedly not, but then they bother were in motion, sword raised.
She gave her all – her teeth bared as she pushed her strength behind her blows. Rey needed to, to show that she was a match for him in this fight. His movements were controlled and calculated, where she fought with a wild freedom that had memorized him. Ben vaguely could hear the crowd cheering on the battle, but his attention was on Rey, on their choreographed swings, on making certain that nothing went wrong on his end – that he didn’t accidently hurt her.
They moved through the steps, Rey coming at him with all she had, her teeth bared.
Feral.
Stunning.
He wanted to kiss her. She looked like she wanted to kill him, looked powerful – hell, she was powerful. With her dress and the sword and the fine hairs which framed her face, he wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and kiss her.
Shit. Just because a pretty girl listened to him intently babble on about calligraphy and didn’t roll her eyes didn’t mean she would welcome him being so forward.
Their swords clashed together and she put all her weight to hold him in place, “You need a teacher. I can show thee how to wield such power. You need me.” He nearly spat the words out at her.
Rey took that moment to ‘kick’ him in the stomach, with a last push of strength with her sword, to propel him back.
Gaining his balance, he looked up at her, his hair nearly obscuring his gaze and he began to circle her the way the planets do the sun, as though he was caught in her orbit. She was bright and brilliant.
“Kylo!” The name cut through the air like a whip.
His mother.
The Queen.
Hux joined the fray, pulling him back as he kept his gaze on Rey, even though his attention was split between her and his mother. His mother who was playing the Queen in all of this. The Queen who was Kylo’s mother as well.
“This is not over.”
“Nay, it tis not.”