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Kylo loved his job. He loved working with new people every morning; he traveled 80% of the time and loved exploring the new places his job took him to; he loved being a problem solver that saw the small details and how they could fit into his overall goals.
But most of all, he loved seeing the terrorized looks on the townspeople’s faces while he ran at them flapping his wings and honking.
Yes, it was a lovely morning in the village, and Kylo loved being a horrible goose.
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So today (a particularly rainy morning, perfect for mud-related crimes), who would he pay a visit to first? There was always Poe, the athlete whose cleats Kylo delighted in untying, or Holdo and Phasma, the rigid gardeners whose perfect rows of begonias would have been softened by the rainfall and poised to be trampled. Of course, he could always return to his favorite target: Hux. The—as Freud would say—anal retentive lawyer whose composure could be upended with one teeny, tiny push of a vase off a shelf. Since discovering a Freudian text in the local library’s trash, Kylo had delighted in using the thinker’s psychosexual terms, determined to continue the legacy of one of the most chaotic beings to have walked the Earth.
Through the clouds, the sun broke with a burst of heavenly angel song, shining down in a halo on a path Kylo had never tread before. What was this? A route that had not yet experienced the disorder and disarray that Kylo specialized in bringing to this sleepy village? It simply would not do.
Honk.
The game was afoot. A webbed foot.
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At the end of the path was a lovely stone cottage, with warm light spilling onto the back porch. Slate tiles on the roof, he noted. Very nice. They just didn’t make houses like they used to any more.
The owner had left the back gate unlocked, allowing him to push it open with ease and slip in. Most unwise, he thought, to not take adequate security measures when there was a mayhem-loving goose on the loose.
He started to survey the backyard and froze. Had… he already been here before? No, he would have remembered causing this scale of destruction. The yard was simply that messy.
Metal pieces littered the yard, fragments formed into different shapes and melded together. It wasn’t just metal; there were tools thrown every which way as well (speaking of which, was a power saw supposed to be left out in the rain? He didn’t think so, which was a shame, because seeing it was giving him all sorts of ideas for the mischief he could cause with such a weapon).
He shook his head. He had a job to do, regardless of whether it seemed someone had already beaten him to the punch. He would just have to get more creative in that case, and start by luring out the owner. He wasn’t worried about that part—he had more persistence than a used car salesman, so they always came out eventually.
“Hello there.”
Kylo jumped, waddling backwards and issuing a honk of warning. Who did this person think she was, sneaking up on him and addressing him with a warm, friendly voice, and—and—
The honk caught in his throat at the sight of the beautiful woman smiling down at him. Her eyes were so rich, kindness visible in their depths, and her skin was sun-kissed, freckles littering her face and her bare shoulders— shake it off, Kylo, he thought to himself, shake it off. He was a professional after all.
Honk.
To his displeasure, she didn’t seem even remotely startled by his abrupt battle cry. Instead, she smiled wider still, and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black goose before. It’s a very handsome color on you.”
... Honk?
She laughed, and the bell he so loved to steal from the castle replica had nothing on her ringing peals. “Yes, you. Now, I have to start work on my sculptures again, but you can stay, if you want.” And with that she settled onto a stool and began tinkering with the metal pieces there, turning her back on him.
Kylo was in shock. No one had ever treated him like this; all the villagers had known to flee in fear for years when they so much as heard feathers rustling. Yet here she sat without a care in the world, even turning her back on the havoc he could be wreaking. What did she not understand about the fact that he was a horrible goose. He would show her.
He marched right up to her sculpture and tore the metal piece she had just positioned off the figure.
The sunshine woman—no, he couldn’t go breaking character like that—the soon-to-be-victim tilted her head, examining him. “You’re right. That piece didn’t really fit there." She smiled at him again. “Thank you for the help. ...Hm, I really need a name for you. I think I’ll call you Ben.”
HONK What did she HONK know about his name, which HONK was most HONK certainly not HONK Ben. His name was Kylo, C – A – I – L – L – O – U. He honked again in case she somehow hadn’t gotten the message yet and grabbed the ribbon that held her hair in several small buns and yanked.
Her hair tumbled down around her face and she laughed again, tucking the strands behind her ears. “Sometimes I get so caught up in my housework that I forget to let my hair down, but I quite like it this way.” She paused, selecting another metal scrap from the pile at her feet. “You know—Finn has talked about you a lot. He says you’re Satan in goose form, but I think you’re just misunderstood.”
Kylo felt a lot of conflicting things at that moment:
- Deep satisfaction that he had so traumatized that jumpy security guard. Who couldn’t even guard against a goose? Pathetic.
- A strange sense of longing, one he had not felt in years, for… kindness? Friendship?
- Frustration that he had yet again been unsuccessful in inconveniencing this woman’s life.
- Sticky, because it was still quite muddy out.
And then she patted his head. Twice.
Kylo melted. It felt so good, like he was being seen not just as a horrible goose but as an individual, someone deserving of love and understanding and a friendly touch, which he had not felt in so long. Geese were social animals, but here he was, alone in the world and with nothing but enemies—until now. She was right, he was misunderstood. When he had first arrived at the village he had tried so hard, wanting to join in their games and help with their paintings and sit at their picnics, only to be shooed away every time he had tried. But here, he felt acceptance.
When she lifted her hand he immediately scooted closer and settled down at her side, pressed against the side of her thigh.
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After that, there was barely a day that went by that Kylo didn’t visit the sculptor’s house. Rey, he learned. He learned a great many things about her, from the way that Rey would just talk to him as she worked, twisting the metal this way or that or bringing the piece inside to her workshop for more refinement. The indoors had never been somewhere he was allowed freely before, so he quite enjoyed those little trips.
So he continued his daily errands, going here and there, but it was always coming back to Rey that he enjoyed the most.
The sculptures that she made were quite good too, he had to admit. Good enough that even if it hadn’t been Rey that had made them (but who else could have crafted something so beautiful and clever?) his innate goose instincts still wouldn’t have wanted to destroy something so artful. That made her periodic struggles to finish a piece all the more frustrating to him, and he helped out any way that he could, bringing metal pieces until she found just the right fit.
One day, he started bringing her flowers. One of each type that he could find, because he knew that Rey wasn’t the type to like neat rows and pristine gardens the way Phasma did, but he was sure she would appreciate the bright colors and variety of blooms that now decorated the slats of her fence.
For one of her biggest projects, it took weeks and weeks of puzzling and rebuilding before Kylo suddenly realized just what it needed. The next morning he honked bright and early at her front door, gleaming silver cylinder in beak. Her eyes had widened and she cheered with excitement when it fit perfectly in place, giving the sculpture that finishing touch it needed, and dropping a kiss to the top of his head. If she noticed that Hux’s sports car didn’t start the next morning, she didn’t comment.
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Two months later, he honked his arrival and she dropped to her knees as he ran through the gate, jumping into her arms. Her arms wrapped around him and she laughed, lifting him up into a tight hug. Snuggling into her shoulder, he knew this was true bliss.
“What’s this?”
Her brow was furrowed and she was starting at a dark patch on her arm. She dragged her fingers across it, holding it up towards her face to inspect the smear. “Hold on a second, I just need to try something.”
With that she was moving, Kylo wondering what on Earth she was planning on trying until he spotted the fish pond directly in her line of sight and he was protesting that no, he really did NOT want to go in the water right now in fact he quite Did Not Like the water, thank you very much and—
His insistent honks were drowned out by wave after wave of water as she dunked him amongst her koi, before pulling him back out with a gasp.
Kylo, dripping wet, and pure white.
“And here I thought that you were mottled black this entire time, when really you were just dirty.” She grinned, pulling him back in for another hug. “I knew you were always a good goose under your tough exterior.”
Oh. Well this was all right. If it made Rey happy, he could certainly endure a bath or two. She had already completely upended his life, making him happy to walk alongside her as she greeted her friends and to help them with whatever little tasks he could find. Rey was right—now, he really was a good goose.
“God, is that the mangy goose that’s always hanging around the village? Now that you’ve caught it, we can finally call animal control to get rid of the blasted thing.”
The nasally voice caused Rey to tense up, glaring daggers at the ginger man standing on the other side of her fence. “Actually, he’s quite well-behaved and he’s not going anywhere.”
Hux scoffed. “The village would be better off without the beast. I trust you’ll do the right thing.” He marched away, muttering under his breath the whole time.
Kylo narrowed his eyes, peering through the gaps in Rey’s arms. Staring at Hux’s retreating form, Kylo noted the black leather held in his hand. That was a new briefcase, and what a shame it would be if someone were to… say, spill motor oil on it.
Because for Hux, Kylo would always be a horrible goose.
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